Alice Cooper

Veteran shock-rocker, one of many rockers to be the son of a clergyman. He showed up the peace & love hippy movement by creating a stage persona to embody the real nightmares of life, and how hard is the struggle with death.

In real life, he was beset by the demon drink, but eventually, with the love of a good woman, he fought it down, and took up golf instead. Whereas many acts with his longevity appear to be going through the nostalgia motions, Cooper continues to bring out new works that demonstrate that the world's demons are awfully persistent.

Of course, the scariest part about him for the media is that he's a clever guy (and evidently a nice one too). Here are some of his highlights:

School's Out

Welcome To My Nightmare

Poison

Hey, Stoopid

Feed My Frankenstein

 

Mark Lawson Talks To... Alice Cooper
He's got a book out (and an album, though it isn't mentioned). Cooper is one of rock's survivors (and another who by all accounts should be very dead by now). Of course, the real shock danger with guys like him is that they're smarticulate, and amusing company. As well as talented, natch.

Alice Cooper: Welcome to My Nightmare
From 1976, a joyous stage show from a true showman. Obviously showcasing his then-current album, but also including a few of his previous hits as well, and crowd comments of the adulatory variety.

Behind The Music - Alice Cooper
Could have sworn I've done this one... anyway, it's a steady reheat of the usual story, from 2010, how Alice accidentally became the face as well as the voice of American shock rock, and how the demon drink nearly got the better of him. His sobriety and fondness for golf really show how deep is his heart and mind. He has a strong family relationship, too. Oh, and some great songs.

Alice Cooper - Brutally Live
An hour & half concert from Jul 19, 2000, at the Hammersmith Apollo. Alice rattled through 22 numbers, many standards but several from his then-current 'Brutal Planet' album. He got 'beheaded' half-way through, which enabled him to change his clothes for the 2nd half. And a good time was had by all.

British Rock Symphony
A concert from 1999 in which folks like Roger Daltrey, Alice Cooper, Paul Young and Gary Brooker perform some great British rock/pop hits.

50 Years of Rock Excess - Amps, Whips and Rock N Roll
In fact, it was mainly about the heights of the 1970s', which is ground familiar enough for being well-trodden. But nice to see Alice Cooper, Bill Ward, Peter Noone and Josh Homme, not to mention an ageing-nicely Henry Rollins. That those days have gone seems intended to be a sadness, rather than just a change in times.

Great American Rock Anthems: Turn It Up to 11
An amusing hour celebrating the anthemic cheese - 'School's Out', 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', 'Paradise By The Dashboard Light', 'Don't Stop Believin'', 'Eye of the Tiger', 'I Want To Know What Love Is', 'Livin' On A Prayer' & so on. So the TH included Alice Cooper, Dave Grohl, Meat Loaf, Todd Rundgren, Neal Schon, Lou Gramm, Richie Sambora and many more. The refreshing moments came on the occasions when people referred to songs they didn't do (Alice Cooper, for instance, is a reliable stand-by for respecting other people's work). A fun hour.

In 2012, BBC4 showed a 3-part series "How The Brits Rocked America". In 2014, they repeated the formula with a tweak:
Born to Be Wild: The Golden Age of American Rock
So there was an hour on the 1960s, one on the 1970s, and the last on the 1980s. There was a plethora of talking heads, the great and the good, some of whom managed to feature in each edition (Alice Cooper, Tom Petty, er Slash). The message was that Rock was affected by the spirit of protest and political change in the 60s. Then in the 70s, things got quieter and melodic and grandiose. Then there was Hair Metal in the 80s, which was sexist good-time stuff, brutally mown down by grunge in its turn. The conclusion was that after grunge, rap took over the crown and has not been challenged by rock since. Whether that's a good thing is a debate for another day.

Alice Cooper's Hallowe'en Night of Fear
From London in 2011, an entertaining enough show, mixing up the running order, and a few nods to the audience - mixing School's Out with Another Brick in the Wall, and the encore of 'Elected', and bringing on the equally madcap Arthur Brown to perform his 1968 #1 'Fire'.

The Ronnie Wood Show: Alice Cooper
This was the 1st show in his 2012 telly version of his hit radio show, and the two old sweats shared stories and praise galore. Alice bigged up the Faces, Iggy Pop, Chuck Berry, the Stones song Brown Sugar, the British Invasion, the Who, the Beatles, the harmonies of the Everly Brothers, and other Stones quips.

The shock rocker has made a surprising return to the news this week:

Finding a lost Warhol piece

Shock rocker Alice Cooper has unearthed a potential masterpiece by his late pal Andy Warhol, which had been tucked away with touring equipment for more than 40 years.
A red "Little Electric Chair" silkscreen from Warhol's menacing 1960s Death and Disaster series was "rolled up in a tube" and sat among 1970s stage props in a storage locker.

There's a bit of luck.

And in a complete coincidence, Cooper has a new album, Paranormal, out this week too

Nicky Horne Presents... Alice Cooper
Shot back in mid-November, at the end of his UK tour, for which he received wild critical acclaim. It had been an experiment to use his old band line-up, and he was bemused by some of the feedback about how menacing the experience was, with his band playing slower and louder. Since the Alice character is supposed to be theatrically shocking, that was perhaps a touch which had been lost. He spoke about how when he was drinking heavily, the Alice character became a schlep, but now he has sobriety, it makes the character more arrogant, given a different spin on the material. He felt the other Hollywood Vampires who were his drinking buddies, fell into the trap of trying to live their image 24/7 - Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Harry Nilsson etc. He was glad to find a great manager who could share the band's vision, and Bob Ezrin who could bring the vision to the studio and beyond. Working on a new album project for release this year. Always a great interview.

Super Duper Alice Cooper
Steady enough effort using audio rather than too much in-vision chatter (except from archive). What came through was the schism caused when his band felt he was becoming too much the star, and wanted their solo chance. Of course, he then became an even bigger star. As well as covering his troubles with alcohol, which he often talks about now, it also spent time on his struggles with cocaine too, which he generally seems to make less of. Once he got clean, he found MTV was a boon to his stage presence.

Urban Myths: The Dali and the Cooper
A long weekend where Alice Cooper and his manager met Salvador Dali and his other half. There were running sub-texts about identity and art, keeping it real and keeping it anything but. Amusing in its way.

The Big Interview w/Dan Rather - Alice Cooper
A 2019 chat apparently, with Alice touring a show called "Old Black Eyes Is Back", planning for a new album, but with an interim EP about Detroit before then. He called him rock's first villain character, he talked of how he gave up alcohol and took up golf, how he'd had the same manager for 50+ years, and the same wife for 40+ years. How Frank Zappa signed them because they surprised him. How Groucho Marx and others raved about his band for being vaudeville. How Alice Cooper is just an act he puts on for the stage, and how the name was a made-up stereotypical granny name. He's always top value when given time to share, like here.

Rock N Roll Road-Trip w/Sammy Hagar - Supermensch
To Maui to the home of Shep Gordon, 47 years a manager of Alice Cooper. He started doing that after Jimi Hendrix recommended he become a manager. Mike Myers did a major documentary on Shep, and he himself wrote a book on himself. He did a tequila deal with Sammy. He spoke of how he envisions future projects. He likes Hawaii because it lowers his blood pressure. He loves to cook. Mick Fleetwood was among the guests at a party Shep was hosting. He also joined Sammy in a version of "Me and Bobby McGee" with a couple of others.

Counting Cars - Alice Cooper
The old survivor enlivened a somewhat humdrum series, bringing in an old Studebaker Valiant to be improved/restored. He mentioned preferring Hendrix to Cream, and knew Jimi as a fine blues player. Elvis Presley was a Cadillac man, who invited Alice over, where he met Liza Minnelli and Chubby Checker. His band started in 1964 in Arizona, and mentioned opening for big names including the Yardbirds (at a time when his band were Yardbirds homagists). Alice prefers Fords.

The Man Behind The Poster
An excellent biography of Drew Struzan, who started out doing album covers, and then really made a name on film posters. His cover for Alice's Welcome To My Nightmare became a useful calling card, and he would later do stuff for Back to the Future, the Indiana Jones films, some Star Wars stuff, and dozens more.

Live at Montreux - Alice Cooper
Held in July 2005, around the time of his Dirty Diamonds album, he and his band ran through a lengthy set of classics and maybe less familiar efforts. He encored on Poison, Wish I Was Born in Beverley Hills and Under My Wheels. A good show.

He's recently put out a new album Road, and a single White Line Frankenstein. He's also garnered some publicity for his views on typical American matters