Stalk-Forrest Group

For a band that issued only one single, only pressed in a quantity of a few hundred, the Stalk-Forrest Group have a very confusing history, and are very well known by collectors. Much of this notoriety stems from the fact that the group evolved into Blue Oyster Cult shortly after the one Stalk-Forrest Group 45 was issued by Elektra. The Stalk-Forrest Group did manage to record an entire unreleased album for Elektra in 1970, in a much lighter and more psychedelic style than that for which Blue Oyster Cult became known. In the late '60s, the nucleus of the Long Island band that would become Blue Oyster Cult was playing under the name of Soft White Underbelly. With Les Braunstein as lead singer, they were signed by Elektra; Buck Dharma has recalled that Elektra exec Jac Holzman may have been looking for an East Coast Doors. An album was attempted, but eventually abandoned, in early 1969, and Braunstein was replaced by the band's equipment manager and sound man, Eric Bloom. Soft White Underbelly had been signed in large part because of Braunstein, and it took them a while to convince Elektra that they would be viable with the higher-voiced Bloom as lead singer. In early 1970, however, the band, now renamed the Stalk-Forrest Group, were able to record an album for Elektra in Los Angeles. Co-produced by Sandy Pearlman and Jay Lee, the group was under the impression that it would get released, but it never was. Material from the album circulated among collectors for a long time, and shows a band considerably different than Blue Oyster Cult. The songs were psychedelic and tuneful, somewhat in the manner of two other Elektra acts, Love and the Doors, although poppier than either of those two groups. The arrangements were full of high harmonies and fluid, accomplished...