Alice Cooper: Detroit Stories

 A review of Detroit Stories that I wrote, in Swedish, for Rockbladet.se.

Alice Cooper - Detroit Stories at Rockbladet.se

The Steven Show

This is  a little something I wrote some time ago. Slightly frustrated by Alice not doing a nightmare show although such a show was more than hinted at in interviews I wrote a little script for an Alice Cooper's Steven Show. Unfortunately it's in Swedish but I'll try to get around to translating it.

Link to The Steven Show (PDF in Swedish)

Ryan, Orianthi and Chuck at Skogsröjet

Besides Alice and the band doing two fantastic shows in Gothenburg and at Skogsröjet I got a little lucky at Skogsröjet. Ryan Roxie were having a little meetup after his gig with Roxie 77 (which was a nice gig as well, inspired and happy band) and although we only got to meet Ryan and not the others in Roxie 77 Orianthi popped by and talked a little and did autographs and photos. Ryan seemed slightly stressed/confused but was nice as the other few times I've met him. Orianthi was nice to meet as well but she left soon.

Later I saw a familiar character walking across the plain between the stages and the merchant area and after a second or two I recognized the short statue and the tattoos (new haircut again confused me from behind) and realised it was Chuck Garric so I ended up having a short talk with him and helping him hand out some flyers for his new band Beastö Blancö. 

Both Roxie 77 and Beastö Blancö is worth giving a try. Beastö Blancö is much heavier rock though than Roxie 77. Both bands are available at Spotify (for Roxie 77 only their latest album) and Roxie 77 can be bought and downloaded from their BandCamp site while Beastö Blancö can be bought from for example iTunes (Beastö Blancö can be seen both with or without metal umlauts).

Alice Cooper live at Skogsröjet, Rejmyre 120810

When I watched this show I had already seen the fantastisc show at Liseberg two days earlier and by that I was slightly spoiled and probably can't compare them with full justice. The show at Skogsröjet was good though and really fun to watch. Acquaintances that didn't see the Gothenburg show thought it was very good. Part of the Liseberg show winning was the audience, no drunks and no fights. Alice and the band were really tagged here as well but I still liked the Gothenburg show best and felt they were having the most fun there. A little sad for the ones watching only the Skogsröjet gig was that the snake didn't show up during ''Is it my body'' which it did at the Gothenburg show.

Alice Cooper live at Liseberg, Gothenburg 120808

Before the consert in Gothenburg I was slightly discontented with the band playing the same set list as last year but removing old ''Clones'' which was appreciated last year. A good thing though was that they instead played ''Caffeine'' (from the latest album ''Welcome 2 my Nightmare'').

When the gig started my discontent was blown away though. Alice and the band (Ryan Roxie, Orianthi, Chuck Garric, Tommy Henriksen, Jonathan Mover) seemed so tagged and having so fun that it all made us extra happy as well. The set was really well done and with several smiles glittering now and then among the musicians throughout the gig and Orianthi and Ryan did a little back-to-back dance while playing during a part of ''Billion Dollar Baby''. Part of it was the audience, there were a lot of fans surrounding me and behaving civilized although being submerged into the music and the show.

When the ending came with the balloons, serpentines, ''School's Out'' mixed with ''Another Brick in the Wall'' and Elected it felt like there had never been so much confetti, serpentines and paper feathers ever at a Cooper consert. Alice always tell the press that ''he's in the best shape ever'' but this time it felt like it. It was a very happy ferret leaving Liseberg's main stage that night.

Steven's Story so Far

Okay, so I'm gonna try a little different approach to the story of Steven. Acutally I'm gonna place a song from the latest record, Welcome 2 my Nightmare, as the first event. My speculation here is that Steven and his mom gets mistreated by their father and this is what's described in When Hell Comes Home and that leads up to the boy, I assume Steven, shooting his father. It do fit in with the ballad Only Women Bleed who actually deals with mistreated women (by men). Steven shooting his own father might be the scaring episode of his life that the song Steven (from Welcome to my Nightmare) refers to but I don't think we're there yet since for example Escape implies some age, like 16 or soemthing since the main character obviously have some sort of stage career.

Next I think The Last Temptation takes place. Here Steven is something like twelve years old or so. Steven meets The Showman and gets challenged by him and Steven's friends to enter The Theatre of Real. The Showman tries to lure Steven into a contract by showing him troubles in grown-up life and offering forever childhood, for the small price of Steven's potential. Steven sees through him though and in the end burns down the Theatre of Real and escapes with the girl Mercy who in the end shows to not be real and disappears and leave Steven alone, abandoned.

Welcome to my Nightmare might actually take place several years later in Steven's life. The song Escape implies a certain age since the escape to the stage and the stage persona craves some sort of career and that a certain age. In the song Steven Steven remembers something horrifying that happend years ago. Someone died and Steven wants in certain moments flee to his childhood before this happened and in certain moments get forced back to reality and after the horrifying event. The someone might be Steven's father shot by Steven after mistreating Steven and his mother for some time (Only Women Bleed and When Hell Comes Home). Death of someone loved can be horrifying enough but having ones father make you hate him that much that you shoot him probably creates a lot of tension and a not totally sound personality. The temptation of escaping to childhood also is a little like the temptation that Steven might haven fallen for in The Last Temptation.  It is also plausible that When Hell Comes Home and the murdering of the father takes place after The Last Temptation since it hasn't to be about a really young boy although Welcome to my Nightmare gives that impression.

Wind-up Toy, a song from the album Hey Stoopid, places Steven in an asylum. It's hard to tell whether Steven's young or if his mind has snapped and he's escaping by becoming crazy and ''becoming young again''.

Along Came a Spider tells the story of a serial killer that in the end shows to have been in anasylum for 27 years and not bein able to have committed the crimes and leaving for the listener to think about whether everything just have taken place in his mind or if he in some way committed the crimes. My friend Bellis did his own take on this in a post on the blog here.

In Welcome 2 my Nightmare Steven is having his last nightmare. As it goes on it shows more and more of Steven actually dying and probably going to Hell.

Welcome 2 my Nightmare (WTMN part 2)

So Alice has released a Welcome to my Nightmare part 2, dubbed Welcome 2 my Nightmare. What's it about and where do we place it in the story of Steven?

The actual nightmare story is 14 songs with two bonus songs; Under the Bed och Flatline. The albums starts out with the song I Am Made of You. My first thought when I heard the song was that it was the nigtmare or The Nightmare Guide, like The Curator from Welcome to my Nightmare part 1, that sang to Steven and and explained that the nightmare and/or The Nightmare Guide was conjured up by Steven himself. It felt fitting since one might conclude that nightmares actually comes from inside one self rather than from some outside source. Alice himself has said that the song should be a little unclear. It should not be obvious whether for example he sings to the girl in his dreams or if he's singing to God or if he's singing to the audience that he's made up of them. The song tries to capture some near sleep confusion when things make sense and suddelny don't but then again make sense but maybe not when you wake up again. It might also repressent some sort of goodnight prayer from Steven when he falls to sleep.

The next song is Caffeine but I would like to place the bonus song Under the Bed herealthough one might argue that it doesn't really fit with this album but rather with the first Welcome to my Nightmare or Wind-up Toy. According to Alice they wrote this one before the concept of the album was really clear and later decided it didn't really fit and I can see why. In any case it's a I-know-that-it-will-be-terrible-to-go-to-sleep-and-I-got-terrible-things-under-my-bed-that-comes-forward-in-the-dark song. The song speaks about the things living under Steven's bed and who among other things ate his cat.

Caffeine is an up tempo straight forward song with some nice variations. Steven knows he can't go to sleep and takes refuge in lots and lots of caffeine and even amphetamine, anything to not go to sleep because that might mean the death to him or even most certainly means the death to him. It doesn't help though and at the end of the song he desperately calls for more and slow down and fall to sleep. Caffeine is followed up with a short transition song where Steven makes a last futile attempt to not fall to sleep, ended with a ''no'' and then the theme from part 1's Steven starts. Now we now it's to late, Steven has fallen to sleep and enters the nightmare via the instrumental ending of the song The Nightmare Returns.

The nightmare begins with Steven entering the Nightmare Express symbolized with the song Runaway Train. It's a song quite good capturing the feeling of a speeding train who eventually in the end speeds beyond control and crashes. Steven finds him chained to thirteen other men ''rotten to the core'' and to the floor in the train. He tries to argue that he's in somebody else's dream to which they just comment ''Brother so are we''. He then tries to argue that he's a big celebrity and presumably don't deserve the wrong dream but they answer him htt he's noone here, that he's in no demand here. This gives some echos of Dragontown's Disgraceland where the main character, presumably Elvis Presley, finds him self in the same situation of not being able to call upon his earthly celebrity and goes to Disgraceland, presumably Hell. It's reference to being a celebrity might also lend some credability to the connections between Steven and the stage persona Alice Cooper and the real person Alice Cooper/Vincent Furnier. In the comments in the Classic Rock theme magazine Alice himself is several times speaking of Alice participating in the nightmare as if he (stage Alice or real world Alice) and Steven were the same. In pre-release comments Alice has also talked abut Alice's nightmare and refferred to part 1 as Alice's earlier nightmare. The train crashes and Steven in some nightmarish logic survives and the next song starts. Surviving is a realtive expression though as the last lines of the song speaks about Steven's hurting body and sleeping in a graveyard on the wrong side of the dirt. In a grave?

Last man on Earth paints the picture of Steven being alone on Earth for some reason. A picture of the crashed train in the fan pack shows a picture where Earth seems destroyed by some catastrophe but on the other hand, as we shall see, maybe Steven isn't really on Earth. In a Tom Waits kind of song Steven finds himself all alone on Earth but as the song goes on he comes to like it since he never really liked the other guys and now he has everything for himself and can behave as he wants. We here also gets a glimpse of this being some state of eternity and as the song crescendos with Steven's ''It's all mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine!'' and ends we hear some applause wich of course is a little strange when you're all alone.

In The Congregation Steven/Alice is welcomed by The Nightmare Guide. The song is sung by Alice but the narration where The Guide actually speaks is done by Rob Zombie. Here we again are told that Steven died. The guide greets him as concludes that he, Steven, joined ''them'' when he died but he should not be afraid. According to the Guide Steven entertained himself to death and now is welcomed to ''The Congregation''. The Guide explains that he understand that Steven had other plans involving singing bluebirds ringing church bells but his application was denied but ''they'' in ''The Congregation'' love him anyway. Other ones here is ''the boys from Wall Street'', priests who has lost their holy status, telemarketers, lawyers, pimps and mimes. ''They'' hope he's gonna like but in the end he, Steven, is till gonna fry.

Now enters some strange and wonderful woman but with a less fantastic real herself underneath. Steven tries to run but is drawn to her and don't really try to escape, lured by for example her red lips, her blood red lips. She pushes him down on her burning bed and just to make everything totally clear tells him that if he would resist ''I'll bite your face off, little man''. I'll bite your face off is also what the song's named. In a comment Alice points her out as one of his guides in the nightmare.

The girl guide takes Steven to a disco, a nightmare to Alice/Steven, and there he finds a lot of zombies, maybe even only zombies. He mows them down with a machine gun but that doesn't matter, they just keep coming back. In this song, Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever, there's a small reference to maybe being in Hell. In comments in the Classic Rock themed magazine Alice says that in Alice's/Steven's mind he is trying to kill disco when he kills the zombies but the zombies/disco just keep coming back again.

In comments to the next song, Ghouls Gone Wild, Alice makes it clear that the party is in Hell. There's a lot of zombie girls there and Alice/Steven is after a while actually falling in love with one of them which leads up to the sweet ballad Something to Remember Me by. In the context it becomes some Alice Cooper weired humor instead of a normal love ballad. Alice/Steven is standing there in love with a zombie girl falling apart and he or the girl sings ''something to remember me by'' which is also the name of the song.

Now Steven enters a new part of the dream. It's not clear whether he actually experiences this himself or helplessly whatches it happen. In comments Alice has stated that it should be unclear as one of those parts of a dream where you don't really know if you're part of the dream or just a spectator. When Hell Comes Home is about a little child and his mother terrifyingly dominated and mistreated by his dad/her husband. ''When Hell comes home'' is the dad arriving at home with the boy's mother hiding and trying to cover her bruises for others and the boy himself futilely trying to hide from dad in his room. There's no escape though, his drunken dad comes clamping up the stairs and bangs on the kid's door. In the end the kid can't take it anymore and dad's in for a surprise. The kids gets gun, being America probably dad's own gun, and shoots dad between the eys and writes dad's last farewells in dad's own blood. Anything to make dad leave him and mom alone.

What Baby Wants is a duet between Alice and Ke$ha where Ke$ha plays the part of some devilish seducer bent on getting Steven by her strings. Alice/Steven tries to resist and calls up memories of other meetings with other deceptive or masquerading creatures (The Curator from part 1 and The Showman in The Last Temptation?). In the end falls into her web anyway.

Seducer: ''I'll make you sit, beg, roll over, play dead.''

Steven: ''I'm gonna be your little pet.''

Both: ''Cause what baby wants, baby gets.''

In the next song, I Gotta Get Out of Here, Steven summifies his nightmare so far and wants to get out of the nightmare and wake up again. he don't know why he has fallen from grace but he wants to wake up again. That's where a choire asks him what partof dead he don't get. Steven tries to argue that he only signed up for a nightmare, nothing else, that death is a little drastic, that he wasn't informed about this but in the end there's no help. He can't fight it. The bonus song Flatline from the vinyl version of the record contains the sound of a heart surveillence machine giving the warning signal  when the heart stops and someone says something dark and blurry. If one plays the record at 78 RPM the call is clear, ''Steeeeeeeeven''. Apparently Steven dies somewhere along the nightmare and goes to either Hell or Purgatory. The record ends with The Underture which is a instrumental piece themed on more or less well known parts of Welcome to my Nightmare 1 and 2.

Where to place it in the story of Steven has to be it's own post though.

It's not the games, movies or music...

I guess noone's surprised that Alice Cooper doesn't think that enterainment violence make people go out and kill each other. After all a he do entertainment violence and horror for a living, or well rather for a professsion I think, probably he has what money he needs for a living. But besides not thinking that he actually has written a song that speaks against that games, music videos and so on makes people go out and exercise violence in real life. The song I'm thinking of is Wicked Young Man, the whole uncut lyrics is printed at the end of the post.

The song is from the album Brutal Planet released in 2000 who goes into what's wrong with society (in the form of a dystopic close future society) as do the predecessor The Last Temptation (1994) and the following album Dragontown (2002). The Last Temptation is not placed in the future though but is rather some kind of now and here urban fantasy (especially witht he accompanying  comics album by Neil Gaiman and Alice Cooper) and Dragontown is ''the worst place on Brutal Planet'', maybe Hell.

The most obvious part of Wicked Young Man is the chorous, as should be?
''I am a vicious young man oh I am a wicked young man
It's not the games that I play the movies I see the music I dig
I'm just a wicked young man''

Clearly it's something inside the young man rather than the outer stimuli in form of games, movies or music that makes him do the bad things.

If one listens to the whole song, which has march feeling and often is accompanied with some marching by Alice when he on concerts take on the role of the wicked young man, there's some more things to think about. The first and second verse is much a description of the young man and his goals.

'Cold blue swastika tattooed on my skin
The ice in my veins the staples in my chin
I've got it carved in my forehead "Slave To My Sin"
Too violent for the brotherhood to ever take me in

Gonna write down my law in blood upon the street
To the cadence of a goose-step heavy metal beat
Wanna purify my race gonna turn up the heat
Just wanna make 'em die and make the job complete'

The third and fourth verse speaks about what this young man does and want to do.

''I like to run my body on heavy heavy fuel
I can punch through a wall I can kick like a mule
I got a pocketful of bullets and a blueprint of the school
I'm the devil's little soldier I'm the devil's little tool

I got every kind of chemical pumpin' through my head
I read Mein Kampf daily just to keep my hatred fed
I never ever sleep I just lay in my bed
Dreamin' of the day when everyone is dead''

It seems that he is doing the drugs hard and one can presume that they're playing their part in this man's wicked perception of the world. He also apparently is running quite high on the drugs since he seems to sleep very little and rather indulge in his own wicked ideas. The fourth verse has an interesting part ''I read Mein Kampf daily just to keep my hatred fed'' If games, movies and music don't turn you into a maniac why would litterature? Or is it the repeating reading of the same litterature that is taking it's toll and creeps into the mind and change the young man (or keep him crazy)? If that's so, does that count for any litterature reagardless whether it's ''good'' or ''bad''? Is often repeated readings of the same smaller amount of litterature making you lose your grip of reality (as the man is reading Mein Kampf daily)? Could there be too much even of good stuff?

One can also see something of the idea that the man is feeding and actively upholding his own view, he reads Mein Kampf daily to keep his hatred fed which goes well with that reapeted intake of smaller amounts of litterature or ideas could alienate you from reality.

--

The whole lyrics:
Cold blue swastika tattooed on my skin
The ice in my veins the staples in my chin
I've got it carved in my forehead "Slave To My Sin"
Too violent for the brotherhood to ever take me in

Gonna write down my law in blood upon the street
To the cadence of a goose-step heavy metal beat
Wanna purify my race gonna turn up the heat
Just wanna make 'em die and make the job complete

I am a vicious young man oh I am a wicked young man
It's not the games that I play the movies I see the music I dig
I'm just a wicked young man

I like to run my body on heavy heavy fuel
I can punch through a wall I can kick like a mule
I got a pocketful of bullets and a blueprint of the school
I'm the devil's little soldier I'm the devil's little tool

I am a vicious young man oh I am a wicked young man
It's not the games that I play the movies I see the music I dig
I'm just a wicked young man

I got every kind of chemical pumpin' through my head
I read Mein Kampf daily just to keep my hatred fed
I never ever sleep I just lay in my bed
Dreamin' of the day when everyone is dead

I am a vicious young man oh I am a wicked young man
It's not the games that I play the movies I see the music I dig
I'm just a wicked young man
I am a vicious young man oh I am a vicious young man
I am a vicious young man oh I am a wicked young man

Alice Cooper @ Gröna Lund 110704

This was one of the better Alice Cooper conserts I've been to. It was so full of joy and caught me from the beginning. The scene was hidden behind a big curtain with this tour's logo but i saw the top of the tower where Alice sang Vengeance is Mine last tour and I thought that we were going to see Alice sing Vengeance is Mine in his eight-arms jacket. Here they fooled me though.

The concert started with a recording of Vincent Price's monolouge from Welcome to my Nightmare and after he has put forward a slice of his own personal philosophy about mankind Alice states that these words are true if we don't pledge allegiance to The Black Widow. Here the curtain drops and reveals the band and Alice in his eight-arms jacket but of course they don't open with Vengeance is Mine but the most fitting Black Widow. From the beginning they catch and keeps me in their grip.

The tour is a kind of best of Alice Cooper tour and I wasn't really psyched about it but they did throw around the order of some songs and put in some unusual ones as Halo of Flies. Early in the concert they play Billion Dollar Babies and Under my Wheels. Songs that usually is played towards the end or even as encores. For me Under my Wheels is a song that really gets me going on concerts and putting it early really got me goining early. It's one of those really good rock 'n' f'n roll songs.

As the second song comes Brutal Planet, not heard since Brutal Planet/Descend into Dragontown I think. They follow up with I'm Eighteen, Under my Wheels and Billion Dollor Babies.Then comes No More Mr Nice Guy (with the gests at the right places as they should be) and Hey Stoopid all while the band seems to enjoy doing the show and runs around and plays and the songs aren't just played ''as they should be''. When they go into Is It my Body Alice comes out with a big snake around his neck and doesn't seem too bothered about that and the snake doesn't show any stage fright either.

Alice leaves back the snake and starts to conduct the band in the intro of Halo of Flies. During a longer instrumental part Chuck gets up on a piece of equippment in the front and shows of a little and also starts to engage certain parts the audience to shout at the right places when he stops playing. I have to say that Chuck Garric is both cool and a good show man, acts with the audience and give them attention. Most of the band also utilizes a board that goes out on the left side of the stage to show off for the audience there and to engage them too and not just the ones in the middle front.

After Halo of Flies Alice comes on stage in a jacket with the revealing words New Song on the back. They then go off in a song that has some similarities to some songs from Dirty Diamonds. When the audience not really catches on in the chorus Alice throws of the jacket and reveals a shirt with the chours and title printed on the back - I'll Bite your Face off. I liked it and guess it's from the album that's coming 16th september (Welcome to my Nightmare Part II).

Then another not too common song comes up, Muscle of Love followed by Only Women Bleed. After Only Women Bleed we get Cold Ethyl and the usual doll corpse. Then Alice gets donned in a lab coat and big red gloves and starts fingering at some tesla coil steam punk something in the background while a igoresque man is putting a second Alice in the machine. All while the band plays Feed my Frankenstein.

Out comes the biggest monster I've seen on an Alice Cooper Show, possible bigger than Eddie too, some kind of perverted Frankenstein-Cooper Monster and hunts Cooper off the stage. The monster stumbles around and gets chased off the stage by Chuck and the band breaks into a guitar adapted Clones (We're all), another surprise song. Suddenly the Alice in the Tesla Coil Steam Punk machine starts too move and sing Clones (We're All).

Then we get the mandatory Poison and that's well, it's mandatory I guess and it get's everyone going although it's not the most interesting of the songs. Then band then carries on into Wicked Young Man and here the rock reporter has hunted Alice once too much and gets impaled and dragged off the stage. The Wicked Young Man is quickly approached by two men who grabs him and drags him towards the guillotine that is rolled onto the stage to tunes from Killer. Alice gets beheaded and as the band plays I Love the Dead the executioner kisses with Alice's head and spills some blood in the the direction of the audience. He then gets chased away and Chuck leads the audience in the chorus of I Love the Dead. A song Chuck before and also this time sings with empathy calling on us sinners to sing it.

Alice then returns to finish the show off with School's Out. Now it's not any version of School's Out but they mix it with Another Brick in the Wall (Pink Floyd) and not only transfers into but weaves them together and jumps back and forth singing the chorus from Another Brick in the Wall but plays the bridges from School's out between the lines. Nice done.

We then call them back on stage and they perform Elected with lots of confetti and Alice in a mirror-like tuxedo and top hat. We also get an guest appearance from Ryan Roxie who lives in Stockholm nowadays. Since it's Foruth of July Ryan has dressed up in a shirt with a big american flag. Alice on the other hand has, under the tuxedo, blue and yellow clothes and waves a big swedish flag.

Alice then asks if we want one more and of course we want that and they play a cover, Jimi Hendrix's Fire. A song Alice has done a studio version of somewhere in the ninties or so. Aparrently it's also Steve Hunter's birthday. Then it's over and still a little high and very happy I slowly start to feel stuff like hunger and aching legs again.

''The Night Shift'' became ''Welcome to my Nightmare, Part II''

So the record The Night Shift about the mystic DJ instead became a follow-up of the famous Welcome to my Nightmare and called Welcome to my Nightmare, Part II. It also became about as late as the last record, approximately a year late but now it's scheduled for 16/9 2011. It will be sold via Classic Rock Magazine like Slash's latest album but I guess the content of the album will be available via CD and iTunes as usual a little later but without some extra stuff that comes with the magazine and record.


Alice has earlier said that he and Ezrin wanted to do a new Alice's Nightmare - what kind of nightmare would he have if he had it today? He has also said that they're trying to connect the two records and that we will find small musical themes from part one on part two.


illern (a) illertass.se

Alice Cooper DVD

Alice Cooper’s latest tour, Theatre of Death gets released as a DVD 28/9. The concert filmed for the DVD is from Hammersmith Apollo, London. I saw the concert in Gothenburg shortly before Christmas 2009 and liked it very much. Yummy!

The only bad thing is that they apparently missed something in the calendar, my birthday is 28th July, not september :-)

Setlist:

School's Out

Department Of Youth

I'm Eighteen

Wicked Young Man

Ballad Of Dwight Fry

Go To Hell

Guilty

Welcome To My Nightmare

Cold Ethyl

Poison

The Awakening

From The Inside

Nurse Rosetta.

Is It My Body

Be My Lover

Only Women Bleed - I Never Cry

Black Widow

Vengeance Is Mine

Devil's Food

Dirty Diamonds

Billion Dollar Babies

Killer

I Love The Dead

No More Mr. Nice Guy

Under My Wheels

School's Out

illern (a) illertass.se

Alice Cooper: The Night Shift

A new record is on the way from Alice. According to himself ten songs are written and recording more or less planned to June-July with release this autumn. It's also rumoured that Bob Ezrin is going to be involved in the record which will be called The Night Shift. The record is a new themed record about a radio show where Alice is DJ and every song on the album is a song by a fictive band (that is played on the radio show I suppose). Alice has said that there is something special about the DJ and that there's probably gonna be some sort of twist at the end of the record.

That sounds interesting but a whole half-year till autumn - if the record will arrive more in time than the last one :-)

illern (a) illertass.se

Alice & Reverend Smith

Alice Cooper is a christian or at least he says so. He never ventures into what kind of christian he is but has said it's a personal kind and that he goes to church and reads the bible.

For some reason this upsets some christians. Many of the critics say that his songs are satanic, even the songs of the three records that sometimes get labeled ''christian''; The Last Temptation, Brutal Planet and Dragontown. I don't understand because nowhere can I find any glorification of The Devil, The Devil sure is tempting the listener or some character in the songs but it's clear he's no nice guy and that you shouldn't do any deals with him. I guess that they think it's satanic to sing about Satan but isn't The Devil, in a little different shapes, a part of most christian mythologies? If you really, really believe in God and Jesus, shouldn't you also usually believe in this evil entity that tries to lure people to stray away from what's right or some kind of entity that tests God's ways by trying to find shortcomings in God's reasonings? Isn't that what you usually is supposed to? Or do most christians not believe in any of the different devil figures? 

If they do, what's the satanic in having a person singing about an entity that tries to lure people to stray away and that that's no good? Or does it get to complicated to understand when Alice weaves it into the hard life of youths in modern America or that Alice often plays several roles, both on records and on stage? Do they really listen or just condemn? On the other hand, one blog condemned all rock 'n' roll because the word in it self was no good (used to mean to have sex, any other meaning except a musical style I don't know of).

Of course it could be hard to accept a song like Cold Ethyl, which he still performs, that's actually about necrophilia but then you have to bear in mind that the song is part of the nightmares of the young Steven who gets trapped in a sequence of nightmares directed by the mysterious nightmare spirit who tries to get to Steven in some way. A song that have got some beating is Prince of Darkness but again I can't understand it, nowhere's any glorification of the evil ways. The song describes the situation, there's an former angel that fell from Heaven, shunned Earth and found his place in Hell and from there works against God and his ways.

Maybe it's satanic to do a live horror show just because it's fun and exciting but that's not the accusations I see. Alice himself has sometimes said that some people need to get a little distance and/or humor wich sounds a little like Pat Boone who did a jazz cover record of hard rock songs (In a Metal Mood with, among other songs No More Mr Nice Guy) and got heavily criticized for that and told the critics to go get some humor. I rather might have a problem with Alice being a christian but he doesn't seem to preach and don't let it get in the way of good music and a good show so if it makes him happy…

illern (a) illertass.se

By the way, Reverend Smith is the guy who punches Alice in the nose when he goes to church in the kind of self biographical song No More Mr Nice Guy.

Theatre of Death

The show started with a big curtain with a skull of Alice in top hat, syringes, snakes, spiders and other stuff. Then suddenly we saw Alice cast his great shadow on the curtain and it fell and showed us Alice and the band. 

We got some hits and teen angst. Then came Wicked Young Man with Alice militarily marching around in a military uniform hat
singing about a rather scary individual. It's not the games he play or the movies he see or the music he dig, he's just a wicked young
 man, a viscous young man. The kind you suspect to join an extremist group or blow up a school or maybe just shoot some people. Some references in the song are to school killings. He mpales some stooge with a microphone stand and then get caught by other strange individuals running up on the stage and put in a straight white or rather red, vest. Can't have that kind of people running around can we?

Now comes Ballad of Dwight Fry but instead of escaping the vest as usual he get moved to the guillotine that has appeared on the stage and get punished for his crimes. I didn't think of it first but there might some thought behind choosing two teen angst songs/anthems before following up with Wicked Young Man. Might be a transition of character here or reasons for the wicked young man.

Usually the guillotine rolls out and Alice reappears from somewhere else. This time he climbed out from behind the guillotine seemingly surprised that he was alive and
having his head where it was before the beheading. He stumbles
around confused and slowly closes in on the box in front of the guillotine and there finds his head and stares wonderingly at it. Then he decides to move on. Some strange stooges come and equip him with new clothes and we get Go to Hell. In studio and usually on concerts this was sung from the peoples point of view when they accuse Alice for his ''crimes'', with or without proof and wants him to Hell. Here we get Alice singing from his own point of view and no ''You <Alice> can go to Hell'' but ''I can got to Hell'' and ''I've gone to Hell'' in an outfit looking like some kind of voodoo doctor or maybe one of the voodoo spirits I can't remember the name of. Apparently Alice went to Hell when he was killed. We also got Guilty, this song also about the accusations Alice got from people in the old days (and maybe still?) although it's more tongue in cheek than Go to Hell.

Then it slows down a little and we get Welcome to my Nightmare. From somewhere appears strange ghost-ghoul-like individuals. At first they seem to just stumble around aimlessly but as the song proceeds they home in on Alice and forces him up on a stool where they seem to overwhelm him. Alice manages to throw them away and get free and gets hold of one of them that's dressed like a woman. He grips her and throw her away. He then fetches her and she's now switched for a doll and Alice sing Cold Ethyl, the necrophilia song, while abusing the doll (and dances with it). We now pass on to Poison and a nurse with quite a big syringe appears and with some help they kill Alice with an injection or if he's just drugged.

Alice wakes up singing The Awakening which concludes that he killed his wife (the woman in Cold Ethyl?) and that maybe he felt good about it or at least strong. This leads to the drunk Alice in an asylum and From the Inside from the record with the same name. The record was inspired by Alice's staying at a hospital to get out his rather deep alcoholism in the middle of the 70's. Here he met some rather strange char-acters that inspired him to most
of the songs on the record. Some songs was inspired by his own situation and his fear for returning back to a normal life as a sober man, scared for what had went on without him and if his wife and friends would like this new person he had become. From the Inside opens the record and describes how Alice get lost with hisdrinking friends and ends up on the inside of the institution. During Alice's excesses on stage a nurse is taking notes in the background.

Alice follows up with another song from the same record, Nurse Rozetta, about an inmate that's quite on to Nurse Rozetta who, both in the song and on the stage, teases the inmate Alice who now is strapped to a wheel chair in a white dress full of writings he probably have done during his time in the hospital (a little like in the video for Along Came a Spider). The hospital is called The Renfield Nelson Asylum, probably named from the Renfield character and his long time friend Neslon who passed away not long ago. Dedications can be done in many ways…

He gets out from the strapments and get on his feet singing I Love the Dead and then Is it my Body, a song about a guy wondering why the girl wants him. Is it for his body or maybe who he is. Will she take the time to get to know who he really is or just dump him when she gets tired of him? He sings the song to the nurse, still playing the inmate that's turned on by Nurse Rozetta, and Rozetta just laughs at him and taunts him. He then sings Be my Lover, another song about love and different points of view. The nurse still taunts him and starts to undress throwing her stockings at him. Now something pops in the inmate’s head and he stares confused at one of the stockings and puts it over his head and takes the other stocking in both his hands, stretching it between his hands and looks towards the nurse. Then he sneaks up behind her and strangles her.

With Rozetta lying in his lap he sings Only Women Bleeds, a song about a woman that all the time has do to the boring stuff at home, who has to give her man the sex he wants, who has to stay at home while he parties with the guys, smoke and drinks and sometimes slap her. Now it's once again enough and Alice gets
caught and forced to climb the gallows. Here he stands singing I Never Cry, another song about his alcoholism in the 70's until the nurse suddenly just kicks away what he stands on and he gets strangled in the hangman's loop and they take him away hanging in the gallows (dressed in the nurse's wig).

The material for the tour promised ''They keep killing him. He keeps coming back'' So he does now wheeled on stage in a tower where he can look down on everyone singing Vengeance is Mine from the album Along Came a Spider, also about an asylum case. He really lives out the character's ego and follows up with Dirty Diamonds and the usual ''diamond necklaces'' for the audience and then Billion Dollar Babies. He beheads a doll and goes on with the song Killer about, yes, a killer that somehow didn't start out by killing people but ended up that way. Alice once again get caught and put in an ''iron maiden'' and executed once again.

Of course that didn't stop him from returning in the same clothes but with bloody holes after the pikes to sing No More Mr Nice Guy and squeezing the last out of us in Under my Wheels, one of the best live songs. We get one encore, School's Out with Alice in full tails with top hat, all in shiny silver, almost like mirrors. Of course we also get the big balloons.

Full throttle, some ballads, a little story and a little spooky,
great show.

Alice @ Göteborg

Glad iller!

Dagen började bra med Ryan Roxie (tidigare i Alices band) och Anton Körberg från Roxie 77, Conny Bloom och Andy Christell från Electric Boys och Chuck Garric och Keri Kelli från Alices band på Musikbörsen. Trevliga killar allihop, avslappnat coola och vana, antar jag, vid fans som får dubbla talproblem av rockstjärnestrålningen och att engelska inte är deras modersmål. Keri tog det väldigt lugnt och uppmanade alla att ta flera kort så att det blev något och det är så sant, andra kortet blir ofta bättre än första. Inget snobberi så långt ögat nådde från någon av de närvarande.

Efter det blev det en snabb macka och ladda upp med vätska och börja köa vid Lisebergshallen. Lite lagom uppspelt, glad och pratig stämning i kön. Insläpp halv sju och första artisten halv åtta (även om Ryan var noga med att påpeka att alla skulle vara vid arenan tidigt för att de skulle spela vid sju).

Roxie 77 var bra som förband och trevliga att lyssna och se på. Ryan är utåtriktad och de andra verkade gilla att spela med honom. Electric boys var inte heller alls dumma även om Roxie 77 verkade ha större fanbas på plats. Conny berättade hur han och Andy träffades över Alice Cooper när Killer kom ut.

Så var det dags att hissa stora skynket för att dölja förberedelserna för Alice och för att ge honom möjligheten att kasta sin stora skugga på skynket när det var dags. Konserten öppnade med en halv School’s Out som gick över i Department of Youth. Skoj var att det ganska snart blev tydligt att det var en ganska beläst publik, åtminstone kring mig. Det sjöngs med i låtar även mellan refränger, så väl i nya som gamla låtar, och publiken hängde med i replikskiftena i slutet på Department of Youth. Department of Youth följdes upp med I’m Eighteen och Wicked Young Man vilket jag tycker var ett bra val från Brutal Planet-/Dragontownperioden. Det har spelats en hel del Gimmie tidigare men jag gillar Wicked Young Man mer och det har väldigt skön rytm.

Sedan blev det Ballad of Dwight Fry fast i en ‘’straight red vest’’ i stället för den vita han sjunger om. Här bar det av till giljotinen och ett par ‘’I gotta get out of here’’ innan bilan föll. Till min förvåning staplar Alice sedan ut från giljotinen, med huvudet i behåll, och ser allmänt förvirrad ut - som om han undrade hur han överlevde det där. Lite försiktigt söker han sig fram till lådan framför giljotinen och plockar lite tveksamt upp sitt eget huvud och stirrar på det. Så småningom kommer han dock över det, får en ny utstyrsel av de lite märkliga statisterna och släpper loss i Go to Hell. Till skillnad från originalet som sjungs från folkets vy, de som anklagar honom och vill skicka honom till Helvetet sjunger han i första person och om hur han hamnat i Helvetet. Även Guilty från samma skiva fick mycket medsjungande från publiken runt mig - härligt.

Welcome to my Nightmare innehöll lite bisarra dansare som så småningom konvergerade kring Alice och jagade upp honom på en pall och verkar nästan få överhanden innan han slår ut med armarna och får mardrömmen på flykten och vi får Cold Ethyl. Alice dansar omkring med och är allmänt taskig och hårdhänt mot dockan innan han i Poison fångas in igen och en sköterska dyker upp med den garanterat största giftspruta jag sett och tre personer hjälps åt att sätta sprutan i Alice och klämma i honom giftet.

Det är kul att se hur hela bandet är där och spelar med Alice. Det kunde vara så mycket mer Alice i centrum och de andra bara irrelevanta musiker som bistår med musikspelandet. Inte här, de är med och jagar bort skumma gestalter som försöker komma åt Alice och får sina stunder att glassa på scen. Ibland backar Alice även bak och låter de andra få sola sig. Keri är en väldigt extrovert gitarrist men förutom Alice själv är Chuck svår att slå i interagerande med publiken. Killen har en fantastisk förmåga att titta ut i publiken och få en att känna det som om han tittade på just en själv. Därtill gör han saker med och mot publiken lika mycket som han poserar själv vilket är väldigt. trevligt. Överhuvudtaget kändes det som om de hade kul på scen och klickade, nästan så det slog lite gnistor.

‘’They keep killing him and he keep coming back’’ utlovade turnématerialet och Alice vaknar från giftsprutan i The Awakening och börjar sjunga denna med en skum distortioneffekt som är rätt läcker. När The Awakening tonade ut fick min kropp fart på allvar när rytmerna av From the Inside gungade igång. De följde sedan upp med Nurse Rozetta från samma skiva nu med Alice i rullstol och hånad av den sexiga sköterskan han drömmer om. Tusan vad skön From the Inside var, jag fick vibbar av den lite modifierade varianten från The Strange Case of Alice Cooper. Alice tar sig upp ur rullstolen och sitt drogade? tillstånd och fortfarande i sjukhusdräkt frågar han sköterskan om Is It my Body? men hon bara skrattar åt honom. Is It my Body är en i mitt tycke en bra livelåt men slås av efterföljande Be my Lover. Vi kan väl konstatera att jag inte vill hamna på mentalsjukhus överhuvdtaget men allra minst på det sjukhus, The Renfield Nelson Asylum, där scen-Alice drivs till vansinne.

Till slut får Alice nog efter att sköterskan stått och klätt av sig och gjort skuggspel på ett skynke, hånat homom, retats med honom och kastat strumpor på honom och drar en strumpa över huvudet och tittar lite på en andra strumpa han håller i händerna och försvinner bakom skynket bakom ryggen på henne och stryper henne. Sedan sjunger han Only Women Bleed med sköterskan liggande i knäet. Ståendes i galgen sjunger han sedan I Never Cry, en mycket bra ballad. På det hela taget tycker jag han gör ett bra jobb. Däremot märks det ibland under showen att han inte riktigt fixar att sjunga en del av de äldre låtarna som skrevs för en annan röst, de äldsta är ju 30 år eller äldre. De nyare låtarna har dock inte det problemet. Ibland kan jag inte annat än oroa mig lite för hur länge till vi kommer få se Alice live, hur länge rösten pallar. Plötsligt överraskas jag igen när sköterskan plötsligt sparkar undan pallen för honom mitt i en strof och Alice är ute för räkning en tredje gång. Galgen med Alice rullas ut och bandet får show:a och sola sig under instrumentalversion av Black Widow.

‘’They keep killing him. He keep coming back.’’ Den här gången i ett stort torn där han kan se ned på alla. Lite distat börjar Alice ropa på vengeance och bandet drar i gång Vengeance is Mine. När Alice slår ut armarna har han fått lika många lemmar som en spindel, The Spider, seriemördaren han spelar på Along Came a Spider. Han lyckas verkligen med den överlägsna kaxighet som han beskrivit som ett karaktärsdrag hos The Spider från Along Came a Spider.

Efter detta får vi Devil’s Food och Dirty Diamond med sedvanligt halsbandutkastande. Ut har kommit en liten vagn med en massa rikedomar på vilka tronar en alicesminkad docka. Med en värja i högsta hugg med spetsade alicedollarsedlar sjunger Alice Billion Dollar Babies. Som en snärt på slutet hugger han plötsligt utan att titta huvudet av dockan med ett backhandslag. Sedan kommer en av mina livefavoriter, Killer. Otroligt sköna rytmer och sjungande och väsande av Alice. Alice hamnar i en låda med en massa spetsiga störar i, ett ställe hos trollkonstnärer oftast reserverat för unga damer. Med en smäll slår de genom hans kropp och blodet skvätter upp kring hans huvud och han rullas död ut, ännu en gång. Och ännu en gång kommer han tillbaka i en tröja med blodiga hål både fram och bak och släpper loss i No More Mr Nice Guy men inte förrän bandet fått lira och härja på scenen i en instrumentalversion av I Love the Dead, publiken ivrigt påhejad av Chuck Garric denna otroligt extroverta bassist. No More Mr nice Guy är kanske den tydligaste låten men en av de grejer jag gillar med Alice är att han är så uttrycksfull. I No More Mr Nice Guy klöser han sina ögon, hugger sig i benet, ritar ‘’the social circle’’ i luften och visar hur hans far måste gömma sig. För att inte tala om den snärtiga högern som Reverend Smith tydligen ger honom trots att han går till kyrkan inkognito.

Sedan kan live med Alice och hans band bara bli bättre på ett vis: Under my Wheels! Här blir även bandet presenterat (Damon Johnson, Chuck Garric, Jimmy DaGrasso och Keri Kelli) och Tiffany som spelat sköterskan får en lång presentation. Sig själv presenterar Alice med ett enkelt ‘’Me!’’ mimandes hängning, ‘’Me!’’ mimandes tvångströja och så vidare. Efter att ha släppt loss ordentligt går bandet ut och det blir mörkt - en liten stund. Ett extranummer får vi också; School’s Out i hel version och med Ryan Roxie som smyger upp bakom ryggen på Alice och knackar honom på axeln (samt, så klart, de obligatorisa jätteballongerna med konfetti i). Att Ryan hänger på på extranummerna i sverigespelningarna är skoj.

Jävlar vilken show! Vilket Band! Vilken musik! Wohoo!

illern (a) illertass.se