BUCK DHARMA

Blue Oyster Cult co-founder Donald Buck Dharma” Roeser revegls how the classic Reaper” riff come about ond the secret recipe to his beloved CheeseBerger guitar

- By Joe Bosso

THE NAMES ARE invariably lifted from album and song titles.

There's Agents of Fortune, Spectres, Secret Treaties and, of course, Dominance and Submission. They're just some of the various Blue Öyster Cult tribute acts floating around, and the very mention of their existence elicits a curious chuckle from BÖC's guitarist, singer and co-founder, Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser. "I'm not aware of these things at all," he says. "I'd be interested in seeing them. I find the whole thing rather surprising."

Roeser has, however, kept tabs on artists covering Blue Öyster Cult material, and he gives high marks to the late Lisa Marie Presley's take on "Burnin' for You" ("She slowed it down, and it was really nice"), as well as two versions of the band's signature song, "(Don't Fear) the Reaper." "Big Country did a cover that I thought was terrific. And Tom Rhodes did a really dark and compelling version of it for a video game. He didn't use the riff, but it still worked. I liked that one a lot."

Blue Öyster Cult is now a six-decade old operation. At first known as Soft White Underbelly, the group's five original members (Roeser, co-guitarist and singer Eric Bloom, keyboardist and guitarist Allen Lanier, bassist Joe Bouchard and his drummer brother, Albert) released a string of albums during the Seventies and Eighties that became classic-rock gems. The band’s manager and producer, Sandy Pearlman, envisioned them as “America’s answer to Black Sabbath,” and while the group certainly dished up their fair share of doomsday riffs and horror film imagery, they also incorporated elements of pop, blues, jazz and even blasts of protopunk into their songs (check out frenetic, piano-driven corker “Baby Ice Dog,” co-written by Lanier’s then girlfriend, Patti Smith, on 1973’s Tyranny and Mutation).