Reaper is a beautifully textured rock song with hypnotic guitars, almost angelic (!) choruses, and one of the baddest, most hypnotic guitar riffs ever created. Pearlman used his influence to get SWU gigs opening for The Grateful Dead and Muddy Watters, and the band was on its way. The last piece was adding drummer Albert Bouchard’s brother Joe as bass player. As the band soldiered on their sound man, Eric Bloom, tried his hand at lead vocal for SWU and got the job. SWU was a riff oriented instrumental psychedelic rock band – instrumental because they didn’t have a lead singer. Pearlman decided on “Soft White Underbelly”(SWU), from Winston Churchill’s description of WWII Italy.

The first step was to give the band a name. They would be the mouthpiece for Imaginos, a science fiction fantasy world Pearlman had created. Pearlman offered Roeser, Bouchard, and Lanier paying gigs in exchange for influence over the band’s direction. He was a founding father of rock music criticism and a guiding light for the flagship magazine for this new genre, Crawdaddy. Pearlman, the student body president of Stony Brook College, had glitteringly subversive imaginings inhabiting his high IQ head. It may not have gone any farther without a catalyst, in the form of boy genius Sandy Pearlman. The boys played the local scene and bounced in and out of forgettable bands. Others joined the fun, including a film student named Alan Lanier. Donald Roeser and Albert Bouchard started jamming in an old house by Stony Brook College in upstate New York.

Dont fear the reaper lyrics