If you are reading FRONT of HOUSE, there’s a pretty good chance that you — like me — take audio production pretty seriously. When no one cares about time alignment, we still delay the balcony fills to the main stacks. When no one cares about polar patterns, we’re moving the snare mic to reject the hi-hat. When people start to accept MP3s as an audio format, we yell and scream that such crappy sound is unacceptable.
Yet as much as we care about our craft there are times when our oh-so-important audio world comes to a screeching halt; times when there are things far more important than minutiae such as sound. This is one of those times. My friend and co-worker of many years, Allen Lanier, recently passed away as a result of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). I am very sad.
The Early Days
Allen — along with guitarist Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser, drummer Albert Bouchard, singer Les Braunstein and bassist Andrew Winters — was a founding member of Soft White Underbelly, circa 1967. When Braunstein left the group, Allen suggested singer-guitar player Eric Bloom to fill the vacancy. Shortly thereafter, Blue Öyster Cult signed with Columbia Records and turned out a series of classic recordings including “Cities On Flame With Rock and Roll,” “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” “Burnin’ for You” and one of my personal BÖC favorites, “Career of Evil.” Allen had a personal relationship with Patti Smith and contributed guitar and songwriting to songs on Smith’s 1975 release Horses (Smith penned lyrics to BÖC songs such as “Shooting Shark” and “Career of Evil”). In addition to performing on BÖC recordings, Allen penned songs for BÖC including “True Confessions” and “In Thee” — a song that was in our live set for many years.
Any of the national news posts can give you the history of Allen’s role in Blue Öyster Cult in more detail than I can here. But they won’t tell you anything about Allen Lanier the person — the kind and gentle soul who read voraciously and wished he had enough time on the road to find a place of solitude to drop a line and fish (in the late 90’s Allen, tour manager Art Ring, and myself actually packed a few rods and reels in the truck with our gear but never had the time to use them). I first met Allen when I subbed as a drum tech for the band back in 1993. As did the entire band, Allen made quite an impression on me. Here was a guy who played keys and guitar, and played both proficiently. His 88-key controller was scarred from cigarettes having been laid on the keys while he worked on a synth patch, and his Tele had burns on the headstock from squeezing the butt between the strings and the wood.
Lanier was one of the most well-read people I ever met. I think the only times I saw him without a book in hand was when he was holding his guitar. He could engage conversation in just about anything (except video games), and he reveled in telling me stories from “back in the day.” In 1995, I went with the ‘Cult to Europe, and we had a day off in Greece. A bunch of us went to visit the Acropolis and Parthenon. Allen was our tour guide, providing as much history of the place as you’d ever want to know: names, dates and even some of the construction details. When we returned to Greece in 2008, I went back to the Acropolis with some of the younger crew and wished Allen could be their tour guide as well, but by that time he had retired. He was always willing to share his knowledge and provide insight as to why he thought things were the way they were. He, Don and Eric could endlessly talk automobiles, the three of them rattling off specs from a ‘68 GTO faster than I could quote the frequency response of a Neumann microphone. Allen was also more than a bit stubborn, insisting that I fax itineraries to him well after I was sending them to everyone else via email(!). He could rock a piano like no one’s business, and the first time I heard him play a real B3 I wished we could carry one with us all the time.
The BÖC Family
The Blue Öyster Cult band and crew may not be related by blood or marriage, but we function (or maybe humorously dysfunction, as the case may be) as a family, sharing the common goal of creating something that reaches out to an audience. I’ve been honored with the position of FOH for Blue Öyster Cult for a long time now, and these are strong ties. We’re a close-knit operation, not a mega-tour with ten semi’s and a crew of 100. For better or worse, we all know each other very well (including our quirks), but everyone pulls more than their weight. And that extends to keeping each other sane. Believe me, we’re not hanging out in the back lounge of a bus during down time, and when the guys see smoke coming out of my ears while I mutter to myself (i.e., I’m ready to blow a gasket), they do their best to crack me up so that I can laugh instead of cry. That’s what really makes this work: we provide great support for each other and have a love for music. In spite of the stress, we manage to have a lot of laughs.
The gear and venues may change but touring probably hasn’t changed much since P.T. Barnum first took his circus on the road: endless load-ins, setups, load outs, etc. The travel always sucks, and I’m sure I’m not the only one whose suitcase never gets put into the attic when I’m home. But when you have a connection with your coworkers — your surrogate family — it comes across to an audience. and they perceive that that are witnessing something special. Part of that connection has been lost. Allen Lanier can never be replaced, but he can be honored and remembered with love.
