30–31.05.2026
Every year at this time, I have to pull out the old Blue Öyster Cult records and celebrate. Then Came The Last Days of May is the easily the most haunting song on probably the eeriest rock album ever made. BÖC’s portrayal of a true-life trio of young men who were shot in a drug deal gone bad out in the Arizona desert presages Breaking Bad by three and a half decades. The cautionary tale is the set piece around which the rest of the songs on the band’s eponymously-named album revolve—like planets around a cold, dead star.
The song chillingly relates the ride to pick up “the stuff,” as well as the anticipation the boys feel as they imagine spending the money they are about to make. Lead guitarist Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser paints a stark, yet bucolic scene—much like the band itself—heavy with understated menace.
Sky’s bright, the traffic light / Now and then a truck
And they hadn’t seen a cop around all day / (What luck)
When performing my favorite version of the tune (so far) on 1975’s live album, On Your Feet or On Your Knees, Buck drops the bit in parenthesis, leading one to wonder what would have happened if a cop had been around. Of course, as soon as the driver gets far enough out of town, the car pulls over and the trio is shot and left for dead.
It wasn’t until the car suddenly stopped / In the middle of a cold and barren plain
And the other guy turned and spilled / Three boys blood, did they know a trap had been laid?
I figure I must have been around 13 when I finally got around to buying the band’s first album. I had all ready memorized every note of 1978’s Some Enchanted Evening, and of course, 1976’s Agents of Fortune was an 8-track* that you had to have in the ’70s. It was the law. As beautifully odd and varied as that collection is, nothing prepared me for the rarefied atmosphere of the first three, what us fans refer to as the “black and white” albums.
Forsaking any pictures of the band, 1972’s Blue Öyster Cult, and Tyranny and Mutation from the next year, featured stark graphic illustrations by a mysterious artist listed only as “Gawlik” which only added to the group’s mystique. Secret Treaties from ’74 did have a pencil drawing of some cagey cretins who had apparently got their hands on a Messerschmitt Me 262.
Who knew where they got one of those nearly 20 years since the last one took to the air? If I had to guess, it was from the dude with the cape and the German Shepherds. Who later shot the dogs on the back cover? Are they in Argentina? What the hell is going on here?
Something about the stark, yet murky recording of the first few records fits the material so perfectly. Think of R.E.M.’s Murmur, if everything was easily decipherable, would it be half as fun? Something to think about as modern artists use Auto-Tune and AI to build perfect yet soulless music.
It’s pretty incredible that the band that fired up my young imagination are still out there doing it. They may have lost some members along the way, but the oyster boys can still deliver (hear them chatter on the tide).
This music always makes me think of the friends I’ve lost along the way and the great times we had listening to this uncanny band.
They’re OK the last days of May / I’ll be breathin’ dry air
I’m leaving soon / The others are already there (all there)
You wouldn’t be interested in coming along / Instead of staying here?
It’s said the West is nice this time of year ? That’s what they say
Román Leão 
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