There are not enough words to describe who Sandy Pearlman was, at least enough to paint his picture for our readers. All I’m trying to say is that, anyone who is involved with the vast field of rock knows Pearlman’s works and understands the “heavy” CV that accompanies his name. The Clash, Dream Syndicate, The Dictators (in which Mark “The Animal” Mendoza and Ross “the Boss” Friedman were sometime involved), Shakin’ Street (Ross the Boss was involved here, too). He was characterized as “Hunter Thompson of rock, a restless, tireless high intellect and vision producer “. At this point I should note that Pearlman signs the production processes of the first two (and actually better that everything else) albums of Pavlov’s Dog, the magnificent “Pampered Menial” and the very good “At the Sound of the Bell”, while he served as manager of many of the aforementioned bands, along with Black Sabbath, Aldo Nova and many others. Additionally, I should point out that he also held an important position at McGill University of Montreal in Canada, majoring in music theory, sound recording and music technology. Without knowing so far the aforementioned punk bands’ works, from what I’ve read cruising the internet, I think that the albums in which Pearlman participated are considered crucial for each band, paving a new way for it and guaranteeing quality, recognition and high artistic value (which for me is utterly important). Anyone who is familiar with these works can express their points in the comments section. However, in addition to all these productions, Sandy Pearlman was a musician, poet, lyricist, a general old-fashioned artist in the broadest sense. A group of musicians were gathered to turn a collection of his poems to music songs, under the generic name “Imaginos”. This group was named Soft White Underbelly (I truly cannot understand why they decided to use this particular name… ). Shortly later he changed it into Blue Oyster Cult and, with them, formed the sound, the lyrics, the music and the overall aesthetics of a band that stood out as no one else in the rock / hard rock / sometimes proto-heavy metal field. Pearlman collaborated with them on many of the classic albums of the band: Blue Oyster Cult, Tyranny and Mutation, Agents of Fortune, Spectres, The Revolution by Night (informally here he handled the mixing), Club Ninja, the live albums Some Enchanted Evening and On Your Feet, On Your Knees. I left on purpose the divine album “Imaginos” for the end, as that was when they formed in flesh and bone, mostly due to Albert Bouchard, who fought enough to gather all of the members and convince them to record Pearlman’s poetic ideas, since the band was in the trenches between corrosion and immortality. These ideas were directly referring to horror authors, such as H.P. Lovecraft, gothic literature and science fiction. The entire album, without a trace of exaggeration, is exceptional; from the beginning till the end, the listener becomes a partaker to this wonderful, mysterious and simultaneously accessible diversity of B.O.C., which serves the good musicianship (even the remake of “Astronomy” is wonderful in spite of the olders’ complains). It is at least amusing that, in occasional tributes made by reputable press, the 80s albums of B.O.C. are woefully ignored or, at best, there’s just an epidermal reference to the album’s singles, like Take me Away or Shooting Shark (both are amazing tracks, but the album called Revolution by Night has much more -and better-tracks to offer… Sandy Pearlman is essentially the mastermind of the sound and the direction followed by the band… A band that never resorted to musical extremes to convey easily the dark atmosphere of the lyrics (and this is one of their strong features), while the next moment they could play a cheerful song and make you jump or a nostalgic one… the ones you put in your car’s CD player and ride until your tires quit you. Those of you who haven’t sufficiently studied the works and days of Blue Oyster Cult, please do so soon. And, as you study, you will feel the distinctive touch of a man that had vision and direction, which created a really great band. Thank you for everything.
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