A lot of our readers were very excited to hear about the recent announcement of Alice’s return visit to Australia, so to help you celebrate we’re going to have a look at some great early video footage, back when Alice Cooper really was a band. Yep, the classic line-up that featured on all albums up to and including Muscle of Love was a band. They were called Alice Cooper, and their singer was called Alice Cooper. After which Alice went solo. And we’re here to tell you that the original run of albums by the band includes one of the greatest four album runs of the ‘70s – Love It To Death, Killer, School’s Out and Billion Dollar Babies.
The original Alice Cooper group truly were a great rock band, and when you watch footage of this material, from around Love It To Death in particular, you can see what a unique and ground-breaking band they were too. On that note, Love It To Death, Killer and School’s Out together with their first two albums, are available super cheap in the Original Album Series 5CD set - worth checking out. Billion Dollar Babies is available together with Muscle of Love, Welcome to My Nightmare, Goes To Hell and the 1977 live release The Alice Cooper Show in the Original Album Series Vol.2 set.
Other news just in too – in addition to the Aussie tour – is the exciting announcement that the original band (minus guitarist Glen Buxton who died in 1997) will be coming together for a ‘mini-set’ during an Alice show in Nashville on May 14. The original members came together to write and record a number of songs on Alice’s next album, due out later this year, and they were first sited together back in October 2015 when they unexpectedly performed 8 songs together at a Dallas book signing for bassist Dennis Dunaway’s fabulous memoir Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs!: My Adventures in The Alice Cooper Group.
Anyway, check out this mindblowing footage from 1971 and 1972, and if you feel like more, try our I Like: Alice Cooper (the original band!) playlist on Spotify.
"I’m Eighteen" & "Black Juju" – stunning footage from Barry Richardson’s ‘free form’ rock TV show Turn On, out of Washington DC:
"Is It My Body" - silver leather and an extended freak out!
"The Ballad of Dwight Fry" - a brilliant song inspired by the actor who played the bug-eating character Renfield in the original 1931 Dracula film:
"Under My Wheels" - from German TV show Beat Club:
"School’s Out" – on Top Of The Pops, where they belonged!
- DL
