Originally published at: Alice Cooper on The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder, 1981 | Boing Boing
…
Alice didn’t look too healthy here. From what I gather, he doesn’t remember the early 80s. Good that he quit alcohol a bit later.
4 Likes
Alice is back in Phoenix metro area, owns car dealerships now, not the old Alice we used to know.
2 Likes
I… was never a fan.
He seems like a good guy though.
4 Likes
I’m still annoyed that after so many seasons of Riverdale not once did Madchen Amick’s character, Alice Cooper, say “welcome to my nightmare” or even with the graduation episode say “school’s out forever”.
4 Likes
He was on The Muppet Show.
8 Likes
The make-up crew must have been beside themselves.
4 Likes
So you’re saying he doesn’t live here anymore?
8 Likes
6 Likes
Early Alice Cooper (when Alice Cooper was a group and not the man) made some of the greatest music of the 70s, from the early horrible/brilliant avant garde releases on Frank Zappa’s label (echoing Beefheart’s Magic Band & Barrett’s Floydisms) to the more mainstream 70srock’n’roll of Killer and Billion Dollar Babies. His early 80s blackout releases are a good time too, especially Dada and Zipper Catches Skin. But boy howdy he does not look good here.
3 Likes
Good Dobbs. I knew he was a trend follower from the hair metal days but I didn’t know he tried to pretend to be a punk. Sad.
4 Likes
Nothing says “punk” like gatekeeping.
I mean, I guess that’s actually true. Punks are pretty much the best at gatekeeping.
3 Likes
There was rock’n’roll, then there was folk rock, then Alice invented Metal, and a new world order.
owns car dealerships now,
Trading as Alice Couper?
3 Likes
If the original Alice Cooper Band wasn’t a punk band, then I don’t know what was. It seems to me that Alice (the man) saw 70s punk as both a return to his roots and a way forward. Unfortunately he tried to travel that new road with exactly the same people and in exactly the same vehicles he had been working for the last several years. None of them were able to get out of their own way for more than a song or two at a time. This left those records as a mishmash of “punky” bits that would not have been out of place on the first couple ACB records (Leather Boots), things Gary Numan would have erased (Clones), good ideas that failed (the cover of Seven & Seven Is), record company influence (all of Dada), and way too many rockin’ solos man.
4 Likes
My first thought watching the video was that he was channeling Rowland S. Howard from The Birthday Party. Did the wiki-dive on TBP and it turns out that in their original formation they covered some Alice Cooper songs. The early 80’s timestamp would suggest this isn’t such a long bow to draw given Rowland and Nick Cave would have surely been on Coopers radar.
The Birthday Party were considered post punk (if you could find a pigeon hole for them) and more relevant to Alice Cooper were big in the Goth scene.
1 Like
And the hair metal of the Poison album. He was told you let Desmond Child (hair metal hit maker from the 80’s) write this entire album, or you don’t keep your major label deal.
3 Likes
I always liked the Special Forces album - not so much the other albums around it, but I listen to Special Forces almost as much as the early 70’s band albums. I knew this was a bad time for him personally, but man this is not a healthy person, and he looks like how an educational film would present a dangerous punk as a warning to middle schoolers.
1 Like
He still puts on a great live show.
1 Like
