Alice Cooper: Classic or Dud??

"Halo Of Flies", to me, is the crowning achievement of the original Alice Cooper band, and it's probably the best track Alice Cooper was involved in overall. Amazing track.

That song definitely rules.

i can't stop listening to this super extendo gravedigging version of "is it my body"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRHFIVJtqpc

pls post more awesome live alice cooper youtubes here

that screenshot is him stripping down from his silver hooded jumpsuit to a pink leotard and black tights

you know what's weird is i love "billion dollar babies" but have never bothered listening to any of his other albums. i probably should.

this one is from the same session apparently -- he's still wearing the leotard, but now he has a red hood and a pitchfork

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klbJQrguTV8&feature=related

bodies need rest
we all need our rest

here comes the cake!

speaking of which...
(3:45 onwards)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA3qo5L1eLE

apparently detroit was full of snakes in 1986

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yZmOpafga0&feature=related

Glad this thread was revived since I keep forgetting to do it ever since I got a fantastic Alice comp last Saturday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO7-RLbpjHA&feature=fvsr

beheading a mannequin
(some good shots of pre-veneered teeth here, coincidentally)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWU7FxQIsoM

identity cris-es

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--0vdeoudq8&feature=related

bwaaaa was just gonna post the i love the dead video

the silver jumpsuits are killing me

where do i get five

xp - oops that was supposed to say crisis-es
but this is a good opportunity to note that monster dog was written and directed by claudio fragasso, the mad genius who brought us troll 2

i had a leotard/tights combo like that when i took ballet in gradeschool

it was the required uniform!

man, "Identity Crises" sounds like confused early eighties New Pop.

this one is great too
like if the lawrence welk show was for awesome people instead of old people
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaOV0XkXwvM&feature=related

want these

http://midnighttosix.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8345d478953ef01310f3e6354970c-800wihttp://midnighttosix.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8345d478953ef0120a8d7a680970b-800wi

ok these are so sick. love the guitar playing/sounds on these too.

What are those two things.

uh just for clarification my "these" was referring to the youtube videos, not to arby's things which i don't know about

The silver jump suits were made by Cyndi Smith, Neal's sister and Dennis Dunaway's wife.

A skilled designer, for sure!!

Alice Cooper is hosting Never Mind The Buzzcocks on BBC2 tonight at 10PM.

"What are those two things"

Following the link back, looks like a couple of boot DVDs, from a company specialising in such things:

http://midnighttosix.typepad.com/midnight_to_six_rare_vide/2010/03/alice-cooper-caught-in-a-dream-19691972.html

http://midnighttosix.typepad.com/midnight_to_six_rare_vide/2010/03/alice-cooper-is-it-my-body-19691972-volume-2.html

Have there been any plans to release remastered editions of the early material? I have Billion Dollar Babies as a deluxe 2cd but haven't come across the earlier 70s lps remastered since the late 80s/early 90s. Or at least not legit world catalogue. Have Flacs of some Japanese remasters but would love a decent cd of Love It To Death & Killer, possibly School's Out.
I know the first 2 of those are classic anyway.
I think the Straight lps were remastered a few years ago, possibly this side of the millenium.

Not been sure when he fell off/jumped the shark. But was pleasantly surprised by Killer which I listened to earlier. had mainly been looking out for a decent version of Love It To Death up til then.

I'd say welcome to my nightmare is the last you really need. a few decent singles after that but not many.

I really like Flush The Fashion, but I've never listened to anything from in between Welcome To My Nightmare and that one. Or anything after it really apart from Trash which was massive when I was at school.

xpost OTM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjrgZPhuL9o

Now I'm seriously torn as to whether I should fall asleep to Love It To Death or Wish You Were Here tonight... gah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=G-WZK4s0hbY

awesome

I may not see a better thing all week!

has anyone read "billion dollar baby," the bob greene book? it appears to be out of print

That was one of my favourite books about rock music. Such a blast. I read it from the library in the early '90s, and have never seen it since.

i see a couple of torrents of pdfs online so maybe i'll try that when i get home. chicago public library only has one copy and it's in reference (noncirculating).

haven't read the book but man do i love that song!

Dud.
― Omar, Wednesday, February 21, 2001 7:00 PM (12 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wtf

lol ilm 1.0

yeah i swear if you want corny smug opinions on classic rock bands go to any old thread on ilm

Great book. Really makes you appreciate how difficult those big tours must have been to pull off without cell phones, ATMs, etc.

Decided to bump this thread because I've been playing the shit out of his very underappreciated 1983 album DaDa a lot over the last couple of weeks or so and have been wondering to myself why this album hasn't gained the widespread acclaim it deserves in the years since it was released. I guess this album has always been something of a cult favourite within Cooper's own fanbase, but for me it's a record that definitely deserves to be seen as up there with classics such as Welcome To My Nightmare; in fact, DaDa features the same "creative" core as that record of Cooper, guitarist Dick Wagner and producer Bob Ezrin.

The circumstances surrounding the recording of DaDa are pretty well known at this point: it was the last album in Cooper's contract with Warner Brothers, who apparently weren't even expecting an album to be made (allegedly, they thought Cooper was just going to take the advance and not bother to make another record)... according to Dick Wagner (RIP), who probably had the most clearest memory of making the record, everyone involved with the record apparently knew going in that Warner Brothers weren't going to do much in terms of promoting the record, and as such took the opportunity to make something indulgent and without much care as to whether the album was going to sell or not.

The album was also made at a time when Cooper was at his worst in terms of alcohol and substance abuse; he had already been to rehab once for alcoholism, which inspired the From The Inside album. However, during the making of From The Inside, Bernie Taupin introduced Cooper to cocaine, and it was not long before Cooper fell off the wagon completely again. By the time of Zipper Catches Skin (the album preceding DaDa), Cooper was smoking crack. According to Dick Wagner, who was present during the sessions for Zipper Catches Skin, Cooper had a curtain behind his vocal mic in the studio which had a stool and crack pipe behind it, and Cooper and other members of the band would sneak behind the curtain and take hits. Because of these issues with alcohol and substance abuse, Cooper has absolutely no recollection at all of recording three albums: Special Forces, Zipper Catches Skin and DaDa.

Where Flush The Fashion, Special Forces and Zipper Catches Skin are an often fun and throwaway blend of then-contemporary new wave and hard rock, DaDa is a far, far, far more serious proposition. Sure, there's no shortage of humour on the record ('I Love America' certainly being one of the most wittiest tracks that Cooper had ever written), but there's something unsettling about much of what is here, whether obviously (as on the title track, which features what sounds like a talking doll saying "dada" over thudding percussion and twinkling keyboards, before introducing a conversation between a doctor and his senile patient) or un-obviously (the way that 'No Man's Land' sounds on the surface like it's a hard rock song about a girl whisking away a guy from his job for "a bit of fun", until you listen closely to the lyrics and realise that not only was his job playing Santa in a mall for the benefit of the kids there, but also he has a multiple personality disorder).

'Former Lee Warmer' and 'Scarlet and Sheba' are both, to me, absolutely Cooper classics, both of which could have fit in snugly on 1975's Welcome To My Nightmare and I wouldn't have batted an eyelid, 'Scarlet and Sheba' especially could have gone onto become a Cooper live favourite, but sadly has never been performed live (in fact, none of the album has)... and certainly there's some great production details here, especially in 'I Love America' with its gunshot noises during the "car sale" spiel and the cavalry noises during the middle section ("here they come!"..."there they go!")

DaDa is also home to one of Cooper's more autobiographical moments in the closing track, 'Pass The Gun Around', in which he directly addresses his drinking problem. In this song, he likens a bottle of vodka to a gun: "pass the gun around/give everyone a shot". Lyrics such as "I wake up watching cartoons, the television's on/there's a couple of party balloons and all my money's gone/she was just a reason to unwind/and actually the last thing I could find" and "I've had so many blackout nights before/I don't think I can take this anymore" definitely display an unhappy mind. The song, predictably, ends with a gunshot (which sounds immense on headphones) and a talking doll saying "dada" as in the opening track, utilising the same "cyclical" device that Ezrin used on Pink Floyd's The Wall. However, this is also quite fitting, as, in a sense it is the sound of Cooper "killing off" this particular era, before cleaning up his act for good and going onto greater commercial success with his subsequent flirtation with pop-metal. I do find it an incredible shame that Cooper never again made a record quite like this, although perhaps this has contributed to DaDa pretty much standing alone in his catalogue.

Also, in some ways it's a shame that Cooper himself doesn't remember a single thing about writing or recording this album, but perhaps that also works in the record's favour. The fact that he is unable to discuss the album from any angle has given the album a sense of mystery which to me (and perhaps others) is quite alluring. I don't think even Bob Ezrin has spoken about this album much, but given that he was a notorious substance abuser at the time, he probably doesn't recall much about the making of the record either.

And the cover artwork is probably the best artwork that has ever graced an Alice Cooper album... seriously!

For those that haven't heard this record and love Cooper's work from 1971-1975, I urge you to give this record a chance. But bear in mind, it's not hard rock, it's not new wave, it's... something else. Definitely a unique record in his discography and one well worth exploring.

Superb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QS7JxxbCOE

has anyone read "billion dollar baby," the bob greene book? it appears to be out of print

― congratulations (n/a), Friday, August 2, 2013 12:08 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ive always wished i could find a copy

I found a copy in a used book store once and got really excited until I saw how much they wanted for it.