Nearly sixty years after a Stony Brook student named Sandy Pearlman first told him a story about a man called Imaginos, Albert Bouchard is still writing it. On Saturday, October 17, the Blue Öyster Cult co-founder brings the fourth chapter, Imaginos IV: Rhyme of the Star Clock, home to the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame in Stony Brook Village for its official release party.

A story that refused to end

Bouchard is the drummer behind "(Don't) Fear the Reaper," "Burnin' for You" and "Godzilla," and he was inducted into the hall with Blue Öyster Cult in 2008. Imaginos has been his longest project by far. Pearlman, the band's producer and lyricist, imagined it as an epic spanning centuries: a character whose actions bend the course of human history, from the early 1800s through world wars and into a future run by aliens, mutants and machines. The plan was three concept albums for Columbia Records. The first came out, the label lost interest, and the record was written off as an expensive failure.

Bouchard made Pearlman a promise at his hospital bedside in 2016 that he would finish the trilogy the way it was meant to be heard. He did, starting in 2020, and the re-recorded Imaginos reached the Billboard top 100. The other two parts followed. Then, in 2023, LIMEHOF co-founder Norm Prusslin turned up a cache of Pearlman's unpublished writing in his old East Setauket house just before it was sold. The pages filled in gaps in the story and included lyrics for songs that had never been written. Rhyme of the Star Clock is those songs, and a fifth installment is already planned.

What happens on the night

The evening opens with something no one else will see this year: the first third of a film Bouchard has built around the new songs, made with the help of AI. The full film goes up on YouTube before Christmas. After the screening, the Imaginos Band takes the stage with Bouchard on guitar, Cyzon Griffin on drums, David Hirschberg on bass and Mike Fornatale on guitar, playing the new album alongside Blue Öyster Cult classics. A meet and greet with photos and autographs follows the set.

"Four members, one stage, the album cover where it belongs," Bouchard said of the show, "lit, present, and performed."

Tickets and timing

Doors open at 7:30 p.m. and the show starts at 8 p.m. at 97 Main Street in Stony Brook Village. This one needs its own $25 concert ticket, sold on ThunderTix, and it covers the show only, not the museum exhibits. Tickets are nonrefundable.

There is a fitting circularity to the venue. Blue Öyster Cult grew out of the Stony Brook scene of the late 1960s, the same years Pearlman was spinning the first version of this tale. The story's newest chapter will be played a short walk from where it started.

LIMEHOF's Sunday afternoon concert series runs through the fall as well, with the Mountain Maidens on October 18 and Last Charge of the Light Horse on October 25, both free with museum admission. The full schedule is on the Long Island Wave calendar.

Photo: Albert Bouchard performing at LIMEHOF. Steve Leung, courtesy of LIMEHOF.