Excellent job Bucky, but that is what I expect from your Massive dissertations. I know more about early Alice now than I did before, which is why I enjoy the historical info and the personal touch you give your threads.
Big thanks to your wife for helping you get this all done, I did warn her she would need "Keyboard Stamina" seeing I am familiar with your writing style.
Thanks again everyone & I appologize that things are going a bit slow due to a few minor post operation setbacks. The good news is I am done writing the next 4 Cooper albums but I have a doctor's apptmnt this morning & my sweet wife only had time to type up the Killer & School's out era. She has to take me to the doctor & then has to work until 8:30PM so the final installment of albums by the original band should be up by tomorrow morning(She's been great through all this).
Thanks again everyone & I appologize that things are going a bit slow due to a few minor post operation setbacks. The good news is I am done writing the next 4 Cooper albums but I have a doctor's apptmnt this morning & my sweet wife only had time to type up the Killer & School's out era. She has to take me to the doctor & then has to work until 8:30PM so the final installment of albums by the original band should be up by tomorrow morning(She's been great through all this).
Alice Cooper made their film debut in 1970 in the movie, ‘Diary of a Mad Housewife’ which starred Richard Benjamin. Their appearance lasted about five minutes as the band was playing at a party and towards the end they got pretty chaotic on stage as they ripped apart feather pillows and brought out a fire extinguisher. The strange thing was that the song the band was playing was “Ride With Me” which was a song that Steppenwolf recorded for their 1971 album ‘For Ladies Only’. Following the release of ‘Love it to Death’ the band appeared in a documentary film/movie called ‘The Medicine Ball Caravan’ and played “Black Juju” in the film. The soundtrack record featured the studio version with audience piped in.
With ‘Love it to Death’ gaining momentum due to the smash hit anthem ‘I’m Eighteen’ and the band’s notoriety, things were going well for Alice Cooper. The band was now a headlining act and the Alice Cooper stage execution premiered on this tour as Alice was put to death by electrocution in a homemade electric chair. Alice was also straight jacketed by a nurse who was played by Cindy Dunaway (later Smith after she married Neal). Cindy was the sister of Dennis, designed costumes for the band, and played other roles in the show over the years including a dancing tooth.
Warner Brothers Records took over Straight Records but with the success of ‘I’m Eighteen’ Alice Cooper still had a label and in the early fall the band went into the studio to record ‘Killer’.
Killer
Released: 1971 Label: Warner Brothers Records Song Titles: Under My Wheels / Be My Lover / Halo of Files / Desperado / You Drive Me Nervous / Yeah Yeah Yeah / Dead Babies / Killer
The album was originally to be titled ‘Killer-Convicted’ and the cover was to have a stack of newspapers in a bundle with the headline screaming the album title and underneath was to be a picture of Alice Cooper. Those plans fell through and they ended up using a photo of Neal Smith’s pet boa, Kachina. As a bonus, the album opened up and the cover folded out into a 1971 calendar with a huge photo of Alice hanging by a noose which was his new way of being executed on stage for the ‘Killer’ tour (for the next two years [’72 & ‘73] Warner Brothers updated the calendar when they shipped the records).
What can I say? This is my favorite Cooper album of all time. The first two tracks “Under My Wheels” and “Be My Lover” are not only great rock and roll songs but they are still regular concert staples and are still in regular rotation on most classic rock radio stations today. Both tunes were the only songs to be released as singles from the album and although neither fared as well as ‘I’m Eighteen’ on the charts the Alice Cooper machine was getting stronger than ever. “Halo of Flies” is a great near 10 minute progressive epic masterpiece which Alice has recently brought back to his live shows. “Halo of Flies” isn’t the only long epic masterpiece here as the title track which is the final track on the album is equal to the aforementioned tune, “Desperado” is a great tune that takes you back to those outlaw gunslinger days. I’ve always loved “You Drive Me Nervous” as Alice’s vocals and Neal’s drum sound really stand out. Alice’s screechy vocals are phenomenal on “Yeah Yeah Yeah’ and that brings us to “Dead Babies” which is a depressing tale of a neglected baby who gets into a bottle of aspirin when she is left unattended. Eventually this would lead to Alice’s stage act in which he chopped up baby dolls.
The ‘Killer’ tour was going great and during the tour the band was working non-stop writing new tunes on the road. The band’s work schedule was one of the main causes of their eventual break up, but at this time everything was well. “Long Way To Go” was played near the end of their set and during the instrumental break of the song they started to work in parts of what would become “School’s Out”. Once “School’s Out” was completed they added it to the set list after “Long Way to Go”.
School’s Out
Released: 1972 Label: Warner Brothers Records Song Titles: School’s Out / Luney Tune / Gutter Cat Vs. The Jets / Street Fight / Blue Turk / My Stars / Public Animal #9 / Alma Mater / Grand Finale
Another great album by th band and the only single which was released from the album was the title track which along with “I’m Eighteen” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy” are the three songs most associated with the name Alice Cooper. The album is filled with gems such as “Public Animal #9” which was used to open the Cooper shows on the coinciding tour. Alice is really into his character on this tune as he growls the chorus towards the end which leads to some high pitch screeching. “Luney Tune” is a cool dark tune about someone losing their sanity. Speaking of cool and dark nothing says this more than the Dennis Dunaway penned “Blue Turk” which is a cool jazz number matched with some dark lyrics, “Guttr Cats vs. the Jets” is straight out of West Side Story and was wrote for the Alice Cooper stage show. In concert Alice would take on Neal Smith in a street fight complete with a switchblade knife. “My Stars” is an awesome science fiction piece that includes the phrase “Klaatu barada Nikto” in the backing vocals. This was the phrase that prevented Gort from destroying the Earth in the original version of “The Day The Earth Stood Still”. “Alma Mater” is kind of a mellow funny tune which has the band revisiting their high school days telling tales of putting a snake down a girl’s dress. “The Grand Finale” ends the album and it’s an instrumental that revisits the album and it would fit in great at half time of any football game. The ‘School’s Out’ album cover folded into a school desk which once you opened the desktop there was your vinyl record…wrapped in paper panties. The panties were pulled from the shelves because they were…flammable!
Once again, the Cooper machine kept truckin’ on through with no break and the effects of that along with alcohol abuse began taking its toll, especially on lead guitarist, Glen Buxton, who was spiraling donward. The band was in the studio once again and were about to reach their peak in popularity with the release of their next album and arguably their best record…Billion Dollar Babies.
I would love if she joined but she's too much into Farmville & facebook!. She loves music but only really listening to it in fact she surprises a lot of people at work with her tastes but she's not really much on reading or finding out much about bands...besides, Flower, her favorite artist is Kim Mitchell!
They're not going a bit slow. They're not going slowly at all. There's no hurry. You have the whole month! Look at the way I stretched the Doors' discography out to fill the entire month of January.
So take your time. Like I say, you've got a whole month.
I would love if she joined but she's too much into Farmville & facebook!. She loves music but only really listening to it in fact she surprises a lot of people at work with her tastes but she's not really much on reading or finding out much about bands...besides, Flower, her favorite artist is Kim Mitchell!
Released: 1973 Label: Warner Brothers Records Song Titles: Hello Hooray / Raped and Freezing / Elected / Billion Dollar Babies / Unfinished Sweet / No More Mr. Nice Guy / Generation Landslide / Sick Things / Maryann / I Love The Dead
The album is a giant wallet that when it is opened you find a bunch of wallet sized photos of the band along with a giant billion dollar bill. Once again Alice Cooper gives the fans more treats with the album package but the real treat, are all the songs on the record. The opening track “Hello Hooray” was originally recorded by Judy Collins and served as the opening number for the Billion Dollar Babies tour in which as Alice would sing the line “God, I feel so strong…” fire was shot from his wrists as he raised them to the crowd. “Raped and Freezing” is a cool rocker which because of the title caused a few headaches as when promotional copies of the album were sent to radio stations, most station managers scratched the tune out of the cord so it couldn’t be played on the air. “Elected” was released as the first single from the album and a promo video for the song coincided starring Alice campaigning for office and has since been a popular concert tune.
The title track is probably my favorite Cooper tune ever as the drum roll through the song is one of the most popular beats of all time (right up there with Zep’s “Rock & Roll” and “Rock & Roll All Nite” by KISS). Alice’s vocals are incredible as is his scream. Another highlight for me besides the killer guitars is the whole vocal exchange between Alice & Donovan. The story goes that it was to be one big jam session in the studio with tons of partying going on with Donovan, Harry Nillson, Marc Bolan, Keith Moon, and Rick Grech and hopefully something huge would be recorded, but the partying was a bit too much and Donovan was the only one that contributed to the album on the title track.
“Unfinished Sweet” was another theatrical written piece which deals with a trip to the dentist where you can hear a dentist drill and what appear to be sounds of a tooth getting yanked out. In concert Alice is in the hands of a crazy dentist who was played by magician, Amazing Randi, who also developed the guillotine stage prop which was used during the morbid album closer, “I Love the Dead”. Randi also was the executioner during “I Love the Dead”. Once the crazy dentist completed his drilling, out would come that pesky dancing tooth played Cindy Smith. Alice would conquer all with a giant tube of toothpaste and giant toothbrush.
“No More Mr. Nice Guy” opens with a killer riff and actually this all time classic Cooper tune was sitting around since the ‘Killer’ recordings, but it wasn’t until ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ that the song “fit in” on an Alice Cooper record. “Generation Landslide” is another strong track both musically and lyrically as it mixes acoustic and electric guitars with harmonica with lyrics about alcohol, razor blades, poisons and needles. “Sick Things’, “MaryAnn” and “I Love the Dead” blend together as sort of a medley and the guitar solo on “Sick Things” is probably the last solo by Buxton in Cooper history…it’s also probably his only guitar work to make it onto the record as guitarist Mick Mashbir played on the entire record and also toured with the band playing in the background while Buxton appeared on stage. Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter were also brought in on a few tracks and rumor has it that Rick Derringer also contributed.
I highly recommend the 2001 Deluxe reissue of the album as it contains a second disc which is mostly made up of great sounding live tracks from the ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ tour. It also features a demo of “Generation Landslide” titled “Son of Billion Dollar Babies” and “Slick Black Limousine” which was originally from a flexidisc from the back of a magazine.
The band’s success was at its peak but more and more turmoil inside the band was taking place. The band felt that they were being pushed aside and Alice was presented as a lone figure. The tour was now being called the Billion Dollar Babies Holiday Tour and the band added tunes from their upcoming release, ‘Muscle of Love’ to their set. Before, at the end of the show as the band came out to take their final bow, a President Nixon look-alike would wander on stage and the band would mug him. This time around, Santa Claus would get the mugging.
Another gem which is worth getting is the movie, ‘Good to See You Again Alice Cooper’. The movie is now out on DVD and although the actual movie section is a bit hard to get through, the concert footage from the Billion Dollar Babies Tour is phenomenal and the best thing about the DVD is that if you wish you may just watch the 65 minute concert without the movie. The concert features all the stage props that I’ve mentioned from the tour.
Muscle of Love
Released: 1973
Label: Warner Brothers Records
Song Titles: Big Apple Dreamin’ (Hippo) / Never Been Sold Before / Hard Hearted Alice / Crazy Little Child / Working Up a Sweat / Muscle of Love / Man With the Golden Gun / Teenage Lament ’74 / Woman Machine
‘Muscle of Love’ was the final effort by Alice Cooper as a group and despite the turmoil, in my opinion; this is a great rock album and is under-rated. It’s full of rockers such as the title track which has an incredible riff and bouncy bass line running through it, “Never Been Sold Before” (my second favorite Cooper song which has another powerful riff in the same vein as “Day Tripper” or “Hair of the Dog”), “Working Up a Sweat” (another fun rocker with some cool harmonica), and “Woman Machine” (actually a reworking of an older tune that they used to play in their club days called “Man Machine”). The opening song, “Big Apple Dreamin’” is a cool NYC tune and speaking of coo…the jazzy “Crazy Little Child” (which deals with a 1920’s gangster robbery that had ended bad, is the king of cool. “Man with the Golden Gun” would have been perfect for the James Bond movies but unfortunately the producers went with Lulu’s recording. Liza Minelli sang on “Man with the Golden Gun” and also sang on the first single from the album “Teenage Lament ‘74” which also featured Ronnie Spector. “Hard Hearted Alice” takes you on a mellow dreamy journey until the instrumental section of the song kicks in and blows you away. Once again the packaging of the album is a bit of a bonus as it came in a cardboard carton that read “This carton contains one Alice Cooper Muscle of Love” and “Fragile” was stamped on it. On one side of the inner sleeve was a photo of the band dressed as sailors counting their cash outside a building called the Institute of Nude Wrestling. The other side of the sleeve showed the band bruised, bloodied, and beaten outside the building. The album also came with a book cover for a text book.
The band finished up their holiday tour and then played five final dates in South America in the spring of ’74. The band then finally took their break. Michael Bruce and Neal Smith each began working on their own solo albums and Alice felt that if the others could put out solo albums then so could he and he began working on his masterpiece, ‘ Welcome to My Nightmare’. Alice also contributed vocals on two tracks on a strange soundtrack which was supposed to become a stage production musical parody of Flash Gordon called “Flash Fearless vs. the Zorg Women Pts. 5 & 6”. Both Cooper tunes (“I’m Flash” and “Space Pirates”) also appear on Coop’s box set and are great tunes especially with Coop’s vocals sounding sharp as ever. “I’m Flash” also featured John Entwhistle and Bill Bruford while “Space Pirates” featured Entwhistle, Nicky Hopkins, Kenny Jones and Keith Moon.
Released: 1972 Label: Warner Brothers Records Song Titles: School’s Out / Luney Tune / Gutter Cat Vs. The Jets / Street Fight / Blue Turk / My Stars / Public Animal #9 / Alma Mater / Grand Finale
Another great album by th band and the only single which was released from the album was the title track which along with “I’m Eighteen” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy” are the three songs most associated with the name Alice Cooper. The album is filled with gems such as “Public Animal #9” which was used to open the Cooper shows on the coinciding tour. Alice is really into his character on this tune as he growls the chorus towards the end which leads to some high pitch screeching. “Luney Tune” is a cool dark tune about someone losing their sanity. Speaking of cool and dark nothing says this more than the Dennis Dunaway penned “Blue Turk” which is a cool jazz number matched with some dark lyrics, “Guttr Cats vs. the Jets” is straight out of West Side Story and was wrote for the Alice Cooper stage show. In concert Alice would take on Neal Smith in a street fight complete with a switchblade knife. “My Stars” is an awesome science fiction piece that includes the phrase “Klaatu barada Nikto” in the backing vocals. This was the phrase that prevented Gort from destroying the Earth in the original version of “The Day The Earth Stood Still”. “Alma Mater” is kind of a mellow funny tune which has the band revisiting their high school days telling tales of putting a snake down a girl’s dress. “The Grand Finale” ends the album and it’s an instrumental that revisits the album and it would fit in great at half time of any football game. The ‘School’s Out’ album cover folded into a school desk which once you opened the desktop there was your vinyl record…wrapped in paper panties. The panties were pulled from the shelves because they were…flammable!
Once again, the Cooper machine kept truckin’ on through with no break and the effects of that along with alcohol abuse began taking its toll, especially on lead guitarist, Glen Buxton, who was spiraling donward. The band was in the studio once again and were about to reach their peak in popularity with the release of their next album and arguably their best record…Billion Dollar Babies.
What little I do know about AC is from this album, like you said the main songs that are associated with him.
"Schools Out" is one of those songs that is a rite of passage song played at every graduation party. Alice Cooper had the insight to know he was writing a classic song based on one of the happiest moments in a teenagers life....getting out of school
This album, IMO, portrays Alice Cooper himself, a class cutting, rowdy, partying school boy. Great stuff !!
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