YOU’RE A RIOT, ALICE

One of the great things about heavy metal is that you can always count on it to get your parents really pissed off, no matter what.

Of course, any kind of music will drive them up the wall if you play it loud enough, but when you want fast results using the lowest amount of wattage possible, then heavy metal is your best bet.

Driving them up the wall by playing heavy metal is only half the fun, however. If you really want to get under their skin but good, what you need to do is latch onto someone so loud, twisted and crazy for outrage that they’ll make the news almost every day and strike a chord of loathing so deep in the hearts of your parents that even the mere mention of the monster’s name will cause them to cringe in disgust and heave your entire record collection into the trash compactor in a vain attempt to save your soul.

And nobody—but nobody—pissed off more parents in a shorter period of time for a longer period of time than Alice Cooper.

Still does, as a matter of fact, even though he hit his stride some 10 years ago. Y’see, in rock ’n’ roll, attitude is ninetenths of the law. And when it comes to heavy metal (like glitter rock), parents are hard to forgive and (especially) forget past transgressions.

Ten years ago, nobody had the balls to wear dresses, dye his hair blond, call himself Alice, perform every outrage in the book from chopping up baby dolls to running for president—and emerge as a real cool anti-hero to kids around the world.

Granted, something like Ozzy Osbourne may be better at grossing out more parents these days but, let’s face it, no parent is going to worry about his son or daughter chewing off an animal’s head—unless, of course the kid happens to be a charter member of the Charles Manson fan club.

On the other hand, kids emulated Alice dav in and day out—some of them actually going so far as actually stringing themselves up after seeing the 1971 Killer Tour of America (they probably would’ve guillotined themselves too, had they been able to obtain the necessary apparatus).

When they weren’t busy doing that, the kids were settling for more harmless pursuits such as wearing garish makeup and clothes, and playing some of the noisiest metal ever to grace the AM airwaves.

Noise was something that the original Alice Cooper group was real good at: so much so, in fact, that their first two albums were unanimously rejected by everyone as being too noisy. Which, of course, they were (ref: the group’s appearance 45 minutes into Diar\) Of A Mad Housewife).

But the best outrages were yet to come—and they did, like clockwork, with each new release: the “index finger” on the cover of Love It To Death; the infamous “hanging” calendar inside the Killer album; the flammable panties incident when School’s Out was released; the hassle with the U.S. Treasury over the Billion Dollar Babies inner sleeve; the Liza Minnelli backup singer publicity on Muscle Of Love...not to mention the Jack Benny “living legend” episode, the Salvador Dali dalliances and, last but not least, Alice’s invasion into millions of homes everywhere with his stints on the Hollywood Squares.

And when parents weren’t reading about him in the paper or seeing him on the tube, there was that incessant pounding coming from Junior’s bedroom: “Black Juju,” “Under My Wheels,” “You Drive Me Nervous,” “School’s Out,” “Elected,” lease breakers, the whole lot.

So what’s he done for us recently, you ask? A lot.

You can read what I had to say about his comeback album Flush The Fashion in the September 1980 issue of CREEM (page 56). Since then, Special Forces and Zipper Catches Flesh have carried on the tradition in fine style.

As for the outrage, Alice’s no-show at a recent Toronto stadium a while back caused a riot by his fans of such magnitude that the carnage not only made the front pages of the local papers, but of rock magazines everywhere. Then, almost as if to prove that he can still get away with anything, he showed up a few months later to play a show which had the local critics eating out of his hand.

So don’t tell me he’s washed up. He’s still around, and so are his landmark albums.

Ask for them by name and break a few leases.

Remember the Coop, huh?