![]() ![]() As I was about to leave, head spinning, Donald said, “We really appreciate you being fans of the band and coming to our show. We stayed for maybe 10 minutes – other people were waiting to get into the trailer. This is Eric, this is Joe, this is Allen, this is Albert…” We talked about their music, equipment, what it was like to play New York. “Frank, Tim (my friend), let me introduce you. I was flipping out but Donald and Sandy immediately put me at ease. There were the other band members! Beautiful women! Hangers on! There was Joe Bouchard’s black, maple neck Precision Bass sitting on a stand. Then the surroundings started to sink in. He not only got the letter, he remembered who I was. Buck looked at me and said, “Hi! You’re Frank? Thanks for sending me that nice letter! This is my wife Sandy.” What if one of you, at age 18, met Paul McCartney, or Miles Davis, or Jascha Heifetz, or whoever your personal idol is? That was what meeting Buck Dharma was like for me. We walked in and standing right there was Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser, resplendent in the white suit with an attractive woman next to him. Let me go check.”Ī minute or so later he came back and said, “go ahead,” waving my friend and I back into the trailer. He might be expecting me.” To my amazement the guy sized me up and said, “Hold on. I sent Donald Roeser a letter and I want to see if he got it. “Who are you?” Mustering up all the chutzpah an awkward kid could, I replied, “My name is Frank Doris. Some practically pleaded – and were told by the guy to get lost. My expectations started sinking – as people got to the trailer entrance, an intimidating security guy would bark, “who are you?,” look at a list and then either let them in or not. I had no experience in this sort of thing. Let’s stand in the line…maybe we’ll get lucky and meet them. We thought, that must be where the band is. Wow!Īt the end of the show I noticed a line of people outside a trailer by the stage. And Buck’s playing was even better than on record. They looked great, lead singer/guitarist/man of mystery Eric Bloom in black wearing shades, Buck in a white suit playing a matching white Gibson SG guitar, a huge Cult symbol logo in back of the drums, walls of Marshall amps. I would get to see my favorite band live! They were fantastic. I was bouncing off the walls with anticipation. I didn’t even know if it was getting to the right person.Ī few months later Blue Öyster Cult was playing at the Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park, July 16, 1973. I told him how much I liked his playing and the band’s music. So…I wrote him a letter, on that lined paper that school kids use. I was a shy kid and thought, you didn’t just call Rock Stars up. And a phone number! Could that be the Donald Roeser? Not a common name…maybe I could just call him up and find out!īut I didn’t have the nerve. I took out the Suffolk County phone book and looked for their names Eric Bloom, Allen Lanier, Albert Bouchard, Joe Bouchard… Donald Roeser. Some months later, an article in Long Island newspaper Newsday profiled the band, and noted that the band members lived on Long Island. Photo by Wikimedia Commons/Eric Meola, Columbia Records. He was rocking but wasn’t playing the usual weedly-weedly rock guitar clichés of the day – it was a far more inventive and virtuosic style. The songs sounded like nothing I’d heard before, rocking hard but…different, with mysterious musical twists and turns and impenetrable yet evocative lyrics about motorcycle gangs, Canadian Mounties, silverfish imperatrix, cities on flame – all set to the beat of roaring guitars and Buck Dharma’s astounding lead playing. The review encouraged me to get the band’s eponymously titled debut album.īy the second song, “I’m on the Lamb but I Ain’t No Sheep,” I was completely stunned. In 1972 a review by Ed Ward in Creem raved about a new band called Blue Öyster Cult, and in particular, the talents of their lead guitarist, Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser. Every month, the magazines Creem and Circus came out and I devoured them, windows into that mythical rock and roll world I so much wanted to be a part of. When I was a teenager I wanted to be a rock star. ![]()
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