1983, apr-may, CREEM CLOSE-UP, METAL MUSIC

April - May 1983

Creem Close-Up

Metal Music

This magazine is pretty beat but it included a lot 

of good metal bands.

Cover

Pg 14,

Rock N' Roll Heavy Heroes - From A To Z

Pg 23

1978, nov, CREEM, Stars Cars No. 43

November 1978

Creem

Pg 54, Stars Cars No. 43

Pg 64, Consumer Guide

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band review

1975, oct, CREEM, Reflections In A Cyclops Eye Or Alice Off The Road

October 1975

Creem

Pg 5, Content

Pg 15 - 16, Rock N' Roll News

This first news brief sounds like the

making of Kiss Destroyer album

Pg 36

Pg 50 - 51, 73

1973, sept, CREEM

September 1973

Creem

Alice Cooper appears in a number of articles in this issue

Pg 18

Pg 8, Letters

Pg 15, Rock N' Roll News

Pg 50

"Get On The High Foot....

While It Lasts"

Fashion article on foot wear

Alice Cooper is mentioned

on his thigh high leopard skin boots

Pg 51

Pg 79

Pg 80

2005, dec, MOJO, American Excess / '73 DVD review

December 2005

MOJO

This issue gives the history of Alice Cooper

from early days up to "Dirty Diamonds" release.

Last page is DVD review of

Good To See You Again, Alice Cooper

Pg 46

Pg 46 & 47 is a spread

I like how they used Alice's face as stars of

the American flag

Pg 47

Pg 48

Pg 49

Pg 50

Pg 52

Pg 54

This last page Dennis Dunaway gives his take on the break up 

Pg 146

Good To See You Again, Alice Cooper

DVD review

1982, Rock 'N' Roll Babylon by Gary Herman, softcover

I found this book at a local record shop.

This book is the size of a magazine 8.25x11 inches.

It covers rock n roll from Elvis Presley to The Sex Pistols.

A lot on The Rolling Stones group and certain individuals like Mick Jagger.

Includes two pics of Alice Cooper one is a 2 page spread the other is a full page.

The total text on Alice Cooper is about one and a half columns long.

1982

Rock 'N' Roll Babylon by Gary Herman

Cover (softcover)

Mick Jagger on cover

Pg 68 - 69

Page 70 - 71

Throughout, the seventies the idea of rock’ n’ roll

representing images from the sexual sub-culture held

sway. Former Zappa associate, Alice Cooper, built an

entire career on a couple of good hard-rock songs and

an act that even as early as 1971 he admitted was ‘60

per cent contrived’‚ Among Cooper’s contrivances

were the name itself (the band was all-male and Alice’s

real name is Vincent Furnier), whips, leather gear,

dolls that were mutilated in the course of the act, a

chicken that was, ‘killed’ during the show amid a flurry

of prepared feathers, a mock guillotining, even - at

one point‚ the bizarre apparition of Alice dressed in

his torn leotard and high boots brandishing a giant

toothbrush and chasing a scantily-dressed woman

disguised as a tube of toothpaste.

Alice, who had clearly made a study of his mentor,

Frank Zappa, was hugely successful and inspired

many a later punk rocker with his stage image of

decadence refined to complete negativity. Zappa may

have been a nihilist, but his sense of morality and

humour cannot be doubted. The Alice persona was no

more than a hollow shell which enabled the real Vin-

cent Furnier to indulge his favourite activities of golf

and drinking. This son of an Arizona preacher hit the

green with the likes of Jack Nicklaus and Bing Crosby

and hit the bottle with a will. In late 1977, he

committed himself to a sanatorium to dry out and later

recorded an album, From The Inside, based on his

experiences. ‘I was drinking two quarts of whisky a

day,’ said Alice after his three month treatment, ‘just

to keep going! I was living at 100 miles an hour with

alcohol for fuel.’ In two-and-a-half-years, said Alice,

he had never been sober. Even early on, the group used

to boast of spending $250,000 a year on booze and

Alice himself would regularly put away 40 cans of beer

in one day. ‘In the end,’ said Alice, ‘I was throwing up

blood.’ Alice’s sado-masochistic stage twilight stood

in evident contrast to Vincent Furnier’s more straight-

forward reality. After splitting with his lover, Cindy

Lang, Vince married Sherryl Goddard in 1976. ‘In two

years of marriage,’ he later said, ‘she never saw me

sober.’ After committing himself to the sanatorium,

Vince expected the worst. But Sherryl came through

with flying colours. She declared that she always

knew that her husband would straighten himself out

one day, and she damn well intended to stay with him!

Page 137

Often the mimicking can be dangerous - especially when the act mimicked makes 

use of potentially dangerous props. In June 1974, at the height of Alice Cooper’s 

mock-hanging act, a thirteen-year-old boy from Calgary, Canada, hung himself by 

the neck until he was dead at a copy-cat ‘hanging party. (Alice dropped the item from 

his act after this tragedy.)

Page 145

Alice Cooper even organized his own Alice lookalike competition 

(won by a Vietnam veteran on day release from a mental hospital).

Pg 103 with caption

Back Cover

2011, No Regrets, Ace Frehley autobiography, Alice mention

2011 (hardcover)

No Regrets, A Rock n' Roll Memoir

by Ace Frehley, Joe Layden and John Ostrosky

KISS's Ace Frehley autobiography gives a few nods to

Alice Cooper and even talks about producer Bob Ezrin.

The book had some photos but none w/ Alice.

I found this book in the over stocked section

of the book store it was around $6.

Ace is talking about doing a sequel.

Cover

Pg 74 - 75

By any reasonable standard, we were destitute. 

A few of us had part-time jobs - Paul and I drove cabs, Gene worked at a

magazine - but there was never much money. It didn’t seem to matter.

We all believed that soon enough we’ d be supporting ourselves solely as

musicians. We had good songs, solid musicianship, and confidence that

there was a market for theatrical rock. We wanted to take it further than

any of the acts that inspired and influenced us, like the Who, Hendrix,

the Move, Alice Cooper, and the New York Dolls.

The Dolls were a gender-bending, pre-punk group fronted by David

Johansen and Johnny Thunders. They wore high heels and makeup

and generally favored androgynous clothing. They influenced a lot

of other musicians on the New York scene, and they had an effect on

KISS, both musically and stylistically.

So did Alice, probably even to a greater degree, because Alice’s

sound was more polished and commercial, and his show revolved

around theatrics. Alice Cooper in the 1970’s brought blood and guts to

the stage, combining rock and performance art in a way that had never

been attempted. He wasn’t just a singer; he was a character in his own

band, and that character did crazy, repulsive things in the name of art.

Alice, like the Dolls, wore androgynous fashion, only with a sadomas-

ochistic flavor. He utilized guillotines and snakes and buckets of blood

in his shows. And people loved it.

Well, not all of the people, obviously. Conservative groups (and

more than a few parents) thought Alice was doing the devil’s work, cor-

rupting kids and peddling sex and violence. They hated him, a response

that predictably helped fuel sales of record albums and concert tickets.

Alice knew exactly what he was doing. He made melodic but hard

commercial rock, and he sold it with a grisly flourish (as well as a

wink and a nod, l might add, though not everyone noticed), promis-

ing to make every night Halloween. It was nothing short of brilliant.

He’s now one of the most recognizable icons in rock ‘n’ roll. (Little

did I know Alice and I would become good friends later on down the road.)

Pg 80

For all my disagreements with Gene over the years, I have to give

him credit for being a tireless worker and self-promoter. I never had all

that much interest in the financial side of the business; Gene was ob-

sessed with it. From the first time I met him, he seemed like a guy who

put as much value on the marketing and promotional end of KISS as

he did on the music we produced. Don’t get me wrong. Gene was a de-

cent songwriter and bass player, and I respected him on that level. But

it was clear to me that he considered the music to be only one piece of

the puzzle. I was like that, too, but to a much lesser degree. I saw Alice

Cooper wrap himself in boa constrictors and fake executions onstage,

and I thought, Wow, . . cool.

Gene saw the same thing and thought, How can we expand on that,

and how do we put together a business model to ensure its success?

Pg 143

Our next album, Destroyer, represented a departure for KISS, and

not merely because of the cocaine and Courvoisier on the mixing con-

sole. The producer on Destroyer was Bob Ezrin, a studio wizard best

known for his work with Alice Cooper, and a guy so widely acknowl-

edged as being a production genius that everyone was basically willing

to look the other way when it became apparent that he had a few vices

of his own.

That was one of the things that bothered me most about Paul and

Gene - they were very selective in their moral indignation. Bob was a

brilliant producer, so they gave him a free pass, much the same way

they did with Neil Bogart during the production of Dressed to Kill.

I think the word hypocritical might be apropos at this point.

I remember the very first time I tried coke. It was during the record-

ing of the Destroyer album, in December 1975. Watching Bob and oth-

ers partake of the glittery crystalline powder during the recording and

mixing process intrigued me and brought out my curiosity. I figured

that if a genius like Bob did it, and he was very successful at what he did,

then maybe it was the missing link I had been looking for in my life. 

Pg 148

Around the time we hooked up with Bob, he was among the hottest 

producers in the business, having worked with Dr. John, Alice Cooper, 

and Lou Reed. Going strictly by his reputation and resume, I was

looking forward to working with Bob, and while I think Destroyer is an

interesting and even innovative KISS record, the recording process isn’t

something I recall with great affection. Part of that is due to the fact that

sometimes I was intimidated by Bob, especially when I couldn’t come

up with a guitar-solo idea fast enough to suit his needs.

You have to understand where Bob was coming from. I had heard

that when he worked with Alice Cooper’s band he had brought in a ses-

sion guitar player to do a lot of the solos, and I got the feeling that there

was a chance he was going to follow the same plan with KISS if I didn’t

produce quickly enough. The pressure was on and with a hangover as

a frequent distraction, I hit a brick wall occasionally.

But part of it was also due to the fact that Bob wasn’t very patient

with me; I got the feeling that Paul and Gene might have told Bob

about my drinking problem, and he may have put me in the same cat-

egory as the guys in Alice’s band. The difference is that I had the chops;

those just needed to be finessed.

Bob was an interesting guy with a great mind for music and produc-

tion, but at times he had the demanding, volatile demeanor of a football

coach or drill instructor. I guess you’d say he was a high-strung artistic

type, which didn’t always mesh well with my laid-back personality.

Bob used to bring a whistle to the studio, and while cutting basic

tracks he really intimidated Peter by putting a small box over a micro-

phone and hitting it with a drumstick, as if Peter couldn’t keep proper

time! I really felt for Peter during those sessions. It was at times a very

demoralizing experience for all of us, and no matter what any of us said,

Bob’s word was the law.

Pg 155

I think we all kind of felt locked into our characters, like we couldn’t

break loose. The Spaceman was my deal with the devil. When you’re

generating hundreds of millions of dollars, your work tends to have an

impact on other people. Walking away is complicated and messy. The

thing is, for me it was never about the money. It was always about the

music. I really believed in theatrical rock; from the moment I saw Pete

Townshend smash that First guitar, I knew it was the right way to go.

But Townshend never put on makeup. Even Alice Cooper stopped well

short of what we were doing in KISS. We pushed the envelope so much

that in the beginning it seemed crazy.

Then it was accepted.

And finally it was expected.

Pg 186

I hung out with most of the celebrities and rock stars who walked

through the portals of Studio 54; I drank and did drugs with them.

Danced with Lindsay Wagner, hung out with Keith Richards, Alice

Cooper, Mick Jagger, and John Belushi, to mention just a few. I saw

the giant bags of money and people doing drugs and having sex in the

bathrooms and up in the balcony. For the right price you could have

just about anything you wanted, from drugs to flesh. At that point in

time Studio 54 sometimes felt like the center of the universe. 

Pg 198

The state troopers arrived just minutes later and I eagerly listened to

the conversation from under the sheets, while pretending to be asleep.

They were ready to take me away without discussion, and who could

blame them? There was furniture flying out of my room like missiles.

But Frankie, God rest his soul, handled the whole thing like a pro.

Frankie was a crazy fuck, and had seen it all and could bullshit with the

best of them. Frankie had also road-managed Alice Cooper before coming

on board with KISS, so he knew a little something about rock star excess.

Pg 128 - 129

From time to time, I rented out my studio to friends and other artists,

simply because it was there and it was such a terrific, state-of-the-art fa-

cility. A diverse group of artists passed through its doors: the 19605 folk-

singer Melanie; Neil Smith and Dennis Dunaway from Alice Cooper’s

original band; Rolling Stones producer Chris Kimsey; and the late Bob

Mayo from Peter Frampton’s band, to name just a few.

2011, The Doors FAQ, Alice Cooper mention

2011, paperback

THE DOORS FAQ

by Rich Weidman

Of course if you are going to do a book like this

you have to have someone check the facts.

I think Weidman did a good job on The Doors

but I found a few errors. One of course is stating that

Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen" is a cover by

Question Mark and the Mysterians as "8-Teen"

on pg 125 - 127.

Pg 65-66

Cheetah Club

Once known as the Aragon Ballroom (featuring Lawrence Welk and the “Champagne

Iusic Makers”), the Cheetah was a rock ‘n’ roll club located adjacent to Pacific Ocean Park at 

1 Navy Street on the Santa Monica Pier. According to Densmore, first the Doors

“played clubs, then second bill at small two-thousand-seat auditoriums like the Cheetah

. . . We were making the transition from dives to concerts.”

The Cheetah featured early performances by the Doors, Buffalo Springfield, the Seeds, the Mothers of

 Invention, Love, Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper. In Light My Fire, Manzarek described the Cheetah as 

“an insane psychedelic ballroom” that was “all wooden and warm

archaic . . . inside” like “something from the movie They Shoot Horses, Don’t They ?,

a Depression-era tale of marathon dancing.”

During a gig with Jefferson Airplane on April 9, 1967, at the Cheetah (the first time

received top billing over their San Francisco rivals),

Morrison unveiled his “tightrope walk,” balancing precariously on the edge of the stage eight feet off the ground while doing a shaman Indian dance. According to Manzarek, Morrison lost his balance and fell into the audience and “stage diving was born.”

One of the Alice Cooper Band’s early incarnations, the Nazz (not to be confused with the Todd Rundgren group), opened for the Doors at the Cheetah, The Cheetah closed in 1968, and the building was completely destroyed by fire in 1979. 

Pg 106  (Roadhouse Blues)

The opening lines for “Roadhouse Blues”- Keep your eyes on the road

your hands upon the wheel” - were Morrison’s instructions to Courson as she

sometimes took the wheel for the precarious drive along Topanga Canyon

Boulevard. The “King of Shock Rock” himself, Alice Cooper, an early drinking

buddy of Morrison’s, later claimed that he uttered the line “Woke up this morning

and got myself a beer” in a conversation with Morrison that eventually ended

up as a line in “Roadhouse Blues.” As with “Love Street,” “Roadhouse Blues”

ends on a tentative note: “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.”

Pg 125 - 127

Bands That Share the Bill with the Doors During the Early Years

In this section the author screws up Alice Cooper info in misleading the reader that “I’m Eighteen” 

was a cover song from Question Mark and the Mysterians as “8-Teen”

Alice Cooper

“Welcome to my nightmare. I think you’re gonna like it . . .” Before he became

the “Godfather of Shock Rock.” Alice Cooper (real name: Vincent Damon

Furnier) was just a struggling rock musician trying to hit the big time with

his band in Los Angeles. The son of a preacher, Furnier was born in Detroit,

Michigan, on February 4, 1948. The family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, when

Furnier, a severe asthmatic, was three years old. In 1965, Furnier and some of his

high school buddies on the track team formed a band called the Earwigs, mainly

performing covers of Beatles and Rolling Stones songs. The band changed their

name to the Spiders the following year, scored a local hit with “Don’t Blow Your

Mind,“ and eventually headed to Los Angeles in 1968, morphing first into the Nazz

and later Alice Cooper. The band featured Furnier (vocals/harmonica),

Glen Buxton (lead guitar), Michael Bruce (rhythm guitar/keyboards), Dennis

Dunaway (bass), and Neal Smith (drums). Furnier soon adopted the band’s name as his own.

The Doors were one of the first bands to befriend Alice Cooper and invited

them to the recording studio. According to Cooper, Morrison would arrive

at the studio and start taking any drugs that were available, pills or acid, and

washing it all down with shots of whisky. Needless to say, Morrison and Furnier

soon became drinking buddies and often hung out on the Santa Monica Peir

chugging beer after beer. The Alice Cooper Band opened for the Doors at the

Cheetah, which was located at the end of the pier, as “Light My Fire” skyrocketed

up the charts during the summer of 1967. According to Cooper, “The thing

about Jim was it was sometimes dangerous being around him because there was

no such thing as a dare. He would jump out of cars and roll down hills.” At a big

party for the Doors at 6000 Sunset Boulevard, Morrison’s “got a bottle of whiskey in each hand, 

on top of the building balancing like a high wire act. One gust of

wind and he is over. I’m sitting there going “How come no one is pulling him off

the ledge? It’s Jim Morrison!’ and they’re like “If he falls, he falls.”

During the late 1960s, the Alice Cooper Band earned a reputation as “the

worst band in Los Angeles.” They eventually signed with Frank Zappa’s Straight

Records label and released two albums: Pretties for You (which the Rolling Stone

Album Guide called “strictly inept psychedelia”) and Easy Action in 1970. On

September 13, 1969, the Alice Cooper Band turned in an infamous performance

at the Toronto Rock n’ Roll Revival festival. The Doors headlined the event,

which also featured the Plastic Ono Band, as well as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley,

Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Gene Vincent. During the Alice Cooper

Band’s set, someone threw a live chicken onstage. Unaware that the bird could

not fly. Cooper hurled the bird off the stage, and it was torn to pieces by the audience.

Unable to gain any momentum in Los Angeles, the Alice Cooper Band

decided to head to Detroit, where they received a somewhat better reception

and befriended local bands such as the Stooges and MC5. In 1971, the band

released Love It to Death, which featured the hit single “Eighteen”- an instant

teen anthem first recorded by Question Mark and the Mysterians as “8-Teen”

that reached No. 21 on the charts. By this time, the band started indulging in

rock theatrics and incorporating elaborate stage props into their live shows

that included black makeup, fake blood, guillotines and electric chairs. live boa

constrictors, and six-foot-long, inflatable phalluses. No strangers to excess, the

Alice Cooper Band bought a 42-room mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, and

boasted of spending $300,000 a year on booze. Cooper later remarked, “We were

the National Enquirer of rock ‘n’ roll.” Lovell to Death was followed by Killer (1971)

and School’s Out (1972), which reached No. 2 on the U.S charts, and Billion Dollar

Babies (l973), which reached No. 1. ln Cooper’s 1976 autobiography, Me, Alice:

TheAutnbiography of Alice Cooper, he wrote that the song “Desperado” on his Killer

album was a tribute to Morrison.

Cooper’s first solo effort, Welcome to My Nightmare (1975), featured narration

by Vincent Price and the ballad “Only Women Bleed.” Cooper provided the

song “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)” for the Friday the 13th, Part VI

soundrack. Trash (1989) boasted the hit single, “Poison,” which hit No. 7 on

the U.S. charts. Alice Cooper has influenced such performers as Kiss, Marilyn

Manson, and Rob Zombie, among others. He was selected for induction into the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2011 along with Tom Waits,

Dr. John, Neil Diamond, and Darlene Love.

Pg 158 - 159

Toronto Rock & Roll Revival Concert - September 13, 1969

This one-day, 13 1/2 hour festival was originally promoted as a tribute to ‘50’s

rockers, but tickets sold poorly, and the promoters added other groups such as

the Doors and the up-and-coming Alice Cooper Band. Even with the Doors as

headliners, only 800 tickets had been sold just a week before the concert. In

desperation, the promoters contacted john Lennon and asked him if he would

like to emcee the show. Surprisingly he offered to perform at the concert with

his newly formed Plastic Ono Band. With Lennon on the bill, ticket sales took

off, and the venue completely sold out its 22,000 seats.

It was Lennon’s first gig without the Beatles. The Plastic Ono Band consisted

of Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton on guitar, Klaus Voorman on bass. and Alan

White on drums. The band played “Blue Suede Shoes”‚ “Money‚“ “Cold Turkey,”

and “Give Peace a Chance.” Other performers included many of the Doors’

earliest musical influences such as Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, Bo Diddley

(who later would sing a cover of  “Love Her Madly” on the Doors tribute album

Stoned lmmaculate), Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Lord Sutch. During

Alice Cooper’s set, the shock rocker launched a live chicken into the audience

(he later confessed that he thought it could fly), and the poor bird was torn to

pieces by the crowd.

The Doors‚ set list included “When the Music’s Over,” “Break on Through,”

“Back Door Man,” “The Crystal Ship,” “Light My Fire,” and “The End.” During

“Back Door Man,” Morrison inserted a line from a new song, “Roadhouse Blues,”

that he was still working on: “Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon

wheel.” During the intro to “The End,” Morrison paid tribute to the other

performers, stating that it was “a great honor to perform on the same stage with

many illustrious musical geniuses.” An album of the performance, Live Peace

Toronto, was released by Apple Records on December 15, 1969.

The Toronto Rock & Roll Revival Concert was the only time the Doors

shared a bill with any of the Beatles. However. Morrison had met Lennon once

on September 23, 1968, when he stopped by Abbey Road Studios during

one of their recording sessions. The Beatles were working on “Happiness Is a

Warm Gun.” According to an unfounded rumor, Morrison sang a chorus on

one take. Lennon was murdered at the age of forty in 1980 on December 8

(coincidentally Morrison’s birthday; he would have been thirty-seven years old).

Pg 169

How Morrison’s Alcoholism Affected the Doors’ Performances and Studio Albums

People would tell Jim he should drink less and he’d take them out and get them drunk.

- Robby Krieger

Acidhead to Boozer

When Morrison first started writing lyrics during the summer of 1965, he had

dropped down to about 135 pounds, had basically stopped eating and was

dropping acid and smoking pot frequently. However, he changed very quickly,

according to Manzarek, from a “psychedelic pothead and acidhead” to “a closing

off of consciousness, and a favoring of pills, uppers and downers. and alcohol.”

Alice Cooper, who was one of Morrison’s early drinking buddies, described him

as one of the “most self-destructive” individuals he had ever met. According to

Danny Sugerman in Wonderland Avenue, “It almost appeared Jim was intentionally

trying to ruin everything he had worked so hard to establish - hellbent on

bringing the whole house down with him.”

Pg 241 

(Iggy Pop excerpt)

ln interview with Salli Stevenson that appeared in Circus magazine (Winter 1970),

Morrison was asked what he thought of groups likes the Stooges and

Alice Cooper and he answered, “I like people who shake other people up and

kind of make them uncomfortable. A young friend of mine [presumably Danny

Sugarman] thinks Iggy is great.” Music critic Lester Bangs of CREEM magazine

called Pop the “most intense performer” he had ever seen.