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We think of Alice Cooper now as some relic from the past still on the
treadmill of the rock circus. Back in the early seventies thought Alice was
lewd,
crude and most definitely shocking. I still my remember my dads distaste
at my sister's poster of him and horror (he was a schoolteacher) at Schools Out
and other records. Why's he called Alice ? was
parents most repeated question. Deliberately named with a feminine name Alice
set out to shock. Remember them on the Whistle Test. Extravagant make
up, torn leotard, high boots ,undone zip down to his bollocks.... singing songs
that ranged from death to rebellion...they weren't the Beatles and you
wouldn't bring him home to tea !
His shows featured guillotines, his pet boa
constrictor, decapitation and so on. The music was hard and abrasive and topped
off with that Alice growl. Drugs and drink as per usual took their toll
and the visuals became more extravagant as the music became worse before he was
revitalised in the mid eighties and accepted into rocks mainstream. Behind the facade Vincent tho was a golf loving man who liked hanging out with presidents
but don't let that cloud the fact that as Alice he was cool and as outrageous
and made Mr Manson seem like Def Leppard.
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Love It To Death album
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Songs to check out
Eighteen, Schools
Out, Elected, Under My Wheels...in
fact any early Alice up to about 1975.
Eater covered Eighteen renaming it 15 !!! and lets not
forget Mr Rotten's audition for the Pistols in Malcolm's shop miming to Schools
Out on the
jukebox...poor sod !!!!!! Notice also the similarity to the clothes and makeup
in the Clockwork Orange film .....Alice was ultraviolence.
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Alice as Droog |
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Audio Clips - Click
on song |
| Zigzag 1971 Interview
"Sixteen, seventeen and eighteen
year olds don't want to hear jazz . . . they want to hear rock. And they
want a sex image - an anti-heroic image. Our music is energy, high
energy . . . that's the main thing about it. That's what third
generation rock is . . . look at us, the MC5, and the Stooges - it's all
high energy music. When you leave the concert, you don't leave thinking
"wow, what a heavy guitar solo", you leave thinking
"whew!" You sweat a lot - and that's what rock is; rock should
be sweat. It should really be high energy electricity and sex music. ..'Eighteen'?
That song worked because people really liked it - they got into the
whole idea of being 18 . . . the frustrations. It's sort of like an
updated version of 'My Generation'. But a hit single is 'dangerous',
because we're drawing ten times as many people. And when all those kids
are coming to see us, then going 'Wow, I think I'll go home and put on
some of Mom's eye make-up ' . . . and their dad's a cop . . ."
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