The one and only Michael Bruce will be Ryan Roxie’s guest on the first ‘In The Trenches’ episode of the new year. The show will air on January 5th at 5pm UK time/12pm EST via facebook and YouTube

‘A Paranormal Evening At The Paris Olympia’, the 2017 footage included in the forthcoming ‘Detroit Stories’ box set, appears to be airing on German TV’s 3Sat on New Years Eve
at 1AM local time. Unfortunately it’s likely to be geo-blocked outside Germany, but they do have a watchable trailer for the film on their site.

Nita Strauss was on ‘Rob’s School Of Music‘ discussing her solo material, Fitness and being on the road with the Alice Cooper band.

Calico Cooper turned up on Portland TV channel KATU2ABC chatting about Beasto Blanco and growing up with Alice as a father.

Alice, Slash and others turn up in a trailer for the forthcoming ‘Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp’ documentary ‘Rock Camp: The Movie’ which will receive a ‘virtual cinema’ release on January 15th before going to on demand from February 16th.

It’s been very quiet this past week with only a few small things to cover to stay up to date.

Good Records in Texas, the guys behind the ‘Live From The Astroturf’ reunion album, will be releasing a exclusive ""Spider Eyes Splatter vinyl" version of ‘Detroit Stories’ in February and it’s available to pre-order now. This version comes with an 12" x 12" silkscreened art print of the band at Pontiac Farm in 1971 (from the Dunaway’s archive) and Alice Cooper trading card.

The official Alice Cooper social media pages have also posted a photograph showing the contents of the ‘Detroit Stories’ box set which you can see below.

SkyArts in the UK (now also on Freeview) will be showing Alice’s appearance in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar‘ on Wednesday evening (23rd) at 9pm. As far as I know this will be the first time it has aired in the UK.

Ryan Roxie is now offering gift certificates for his ‘System-12 Guitar Method’, the perfect gift for your budding guitarist relation. All the info is here.

Dennis Dunaway’s ‘Cold Cold Coffin‘ has won yet another award. This time it’s won the ‘Best Music Video’ at the Shockfest Film Festival in Hollywood.

Today sees the release of the second single from ‘Detroit Stories’ and this time it’s ‘Our Love Will Change The World’, originally by Detroit band ‘Outrageous Cherry’. It’s streaming live in Europe now on Spotify and Youtube, but it could be delayed in your timezone if it isn’t yet midnight where you are. The official video can be seen below.

The Hollywood Vampires have announced an additional show date for their European tour next year. They play Romexpo in Bucharest, Romania on August 31st. Tickets go on sale Monday.

As mentioned a few weeks ago Alice was the first guest on a new webshow by Kesha (‘Welcome 2 My Nightmare’) and they have posted an 8 minute preview of the episode on YouTube. The full 30 minute podcast can be heard via various streaming sites found here.

Radio station WCSX interviewed Alice a few weeks ago and have posted video on YouTube. The ‘Halloween Special’ they keep referring to in the interview appears to just have been the Halloween episode of ‘Nights With Alice Cooper’.

SkyArts in the UK are currently running a show called ‘ICONS: Music Through The Lens’ and Alice pops up occasionally to comment.

The Sunday Times (UK) had a short article last Sunday with Alice talking cars which you can see here (subscription required).

Alice is also seen very briefly in the new Frank Zappa documentary by Alex Winters simply called ‘Zappa’. They show some photos, short clips from the Toronto ’69 film, and Alice talks about Frank for a few seconds. In all less then a minute. He pops up one more time later to comment about Zappa writing “hit” singles. Of course Alice Cooper isn’t a huge part of Zappa’s life and the film IS a pretty good overview of Zappa’s career with some interesting home movie footage. (thanks Jeff for info)

Alice Cooper has been announced as the headliner of the ‘Monsters Of Rock Cruise: Operation Monster Beach’ which is set to take place between May 26th and 31st 2021 in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Other bands scheduled to play include Winger, Beasto Blanco, John Corabi, Electric Boys and LA Guns among many others. Tickets for the shows go on sale on December 1st at 2pm eastern time. It’s safe to assume that this is all subject to the pandemic situation in May, and how safe you think it will be by then! For full info on the event check out monstersofrockcruise.com.

The early 70s movie ‘Diary Of A Mad Housewife’, which featured an early film appearance by the Alice Cooper band, is due to be officially released on DVD and Blu-Ray on December 15th. While there have been unofficial releases in the past (apparently taken from an old VHS copies) this seems to be the first proper release on DVD and Blu-Ray. It comes with a audio commentary track.

Ultimate Classic Rock has a short chat with Calico Cooper about the period of time she joined the ‘Brutal Planet’ show in 2000.

‘Rock Meets Classic’ have released footage of Alice and Tommy Henriksen performing ‘Bed Of Nails’ back in March, before the tour collapsed due to the pandemic.

Ryan Roxie was on ‘TalkCulture’ earlier today and you can watch the hour long show on YouTube.

Alice will be at guest on the first episode of pop star Kesha’s supernatural podcast ‘Kesha and the Creepies‘. Alice and Kesha first came together one ‘Welcome 2 My Nightmare’ and have appeared onstage together a couple of times. The podcast launches today via iHeartMedia.

Goodyear has partnered with Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Teen Centers for a live streamed concert tomorrow, November 21st, between 5pm and 9pm local time. For local bands will take part, and it’s always possible Alice will make a brief cameo appearance as well.
In other Solid Rock news the opening of the second teen center in Mesa, AZ has been delayed due to the pandemic and is now hoped to open in late January.

A few posts ago I mentioned that Alice shows up singing on a children’s record by ‘Splash & Boots’ called ‘Heart Parade’. Well now there’s an article in The Star explaining how it came about with quotes from Bob Ezrin.

‘Nights With Alice Cooper’ has a new video in which Alice chats to Jimi Hendrix producer Eddie Kramer and Hendrix bassist Billy Cox about the new Hendrix film "The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live In Maui" which is out soon.

The Marc Bolan tribute show which Dennis Dunaway took park in a couple of weeks ago will be repeated on November 29th at 8PM eastern time (1AM UK time) at iheart.com. Dennis chats about the legendary Morgan Studios jam session near the end of the show.

Rolling Stone gets Alice to name his top 10 albums of all time in a new video.

Local Spins recalls the night Alice Cooper played the Civic Centre in Holland, MI in 1972.

According to an article in the Worcester News UK Cooper fan Chris Sutton has a book about "Alice Cooper in the 70s" on the way via publisher ‘Sonic Bond‘. It’s due in March 2021 and seems to part of a series of books concentrating on bands at their peak in the 70s.

Since posting yesterday the official announcement of ‘Detroit Stories’ has appeared. Here’s what it says:

Named for the city that launched the original Alice Cooper group on the road to success, “Detroit Stories” follows last year’s “Breadcrumbs” EP as a modern-day homage to the toughest and craziest Rock n Roll scene there ever was.
In 1970, fledgling producer Bob Ezrin walked into a farmhouse on the outskirts of Detroit to work with the Alice Cooper band. Abandoning flower power Los Angeles, because they were the opposite of the hippie peace and love ideal, Alice had brought his decidedly darker gang back to his birthplace to the legendary rock scene that gave birth to hard rock, garage rock, soul, funk, punk…and more.
“Detroit Stories” will be available on CD, CD+DVD Digipak, CD Box Set (including CD, Blu-ray, T-shirt, face mask, torch light and 3 stickers), and 2LP Gatefold on earMUSIC.
The DVD and Blu-ray will show the incredible live performance “A Paranormal Evening At The Olympia Paris” for the first time on video.
"Detroit was Heavy Rock central then,” explains Alice, “You’d play the Eastown and it would be Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, the Stooges and the Who, for $4! The next weekend at the Grande it was MC5, Brownsville Station and Fleetwood Mac, or Savoy Brown or the Small Faces. You couldn’t be a soft-rock band or you’d get your ass kicked."
“Los Angeles had its sound with The Doors, Love and Buffalo Springfield,” he says, “San Francisco had the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. New York had The Rascals and The Velvet Underground. But Detroit was the birthplace of angry hard rock. After not fitting in anywhere in the US (musically or image wise) Detroit was the only place that recognized the Alice Cooper guitar driven, hard rock sound and our crazy stage show. Detroit was a haven for the outcasts. And when they found out I was born in East Detroit… we were home.”

Tomorrow (Friday) will see the release of the first single from the album. Called ‘Rock’n’Roll’ it’s a cover of an old Velvet Underground song that Lou Reed supposedly wrote in Detroit.

Needless to say the news of a new album has been covered by all the major outlets, all unavoidably repeating the same information. You can check out the following for the occasional unique quote. NME, Ultimate Classic Rock, Consequence of Sound, and Rolling Stone.

Alice is among the names announced for Joe Walsh’s virtual ‘VetsAid’ show on December 12th. The online event is the fourth ‘VetsAid’ but obviously the pandemic has prevented a proper live show. The bill includes a diverse list of artists and tickets to watch the stream are available now from vetsaid.org.

Rolling Stone have posted a long interview with guitar legend Steve Hunter which hits on all the major working relationships Steve’s had over the years including Alice Cooper and Lou Reed.

Beginning on November 29th Ryan Roxie officially launches his ‘System-12’ twelve week guitar challenge. ‘System-12’ is Roxie’s guitar tuition course which aims to get even novices playing real songs in a matter of days and includes videos, transcripts and live lessons from Ryan and his team. Get all the information of how to join here.

Ultimate Classic Rock speak to Calico Cooper about life on the road with her dad.

Nita Strauss has partnered with D’Addario strings to release the ‘Nita Strauss Guitar Maintenance Kit’ which includes the same products Nita uses to keep her guitars show ready. Included in the kit are a "string height gauge, flashlight, 9V battery, multi-tool, Eclipse tuner, hydrate fingerboard conditioner, XLR8 string cleaner and lubricant, fret polishing system, micro-fiber polishing cloth, pro-winder, travel case and instructional manual."

Legendary Cooper photographer Bob Gruen has a new book out called ‘Right Place, Right Time: The Life Of A Rock & Roll photographer" which is sure to contain some Cooper related anecdotes. It’s out now via Abrams Press.

Lots more ‘Detroit Stories’ info has been surfacing over the last 24 hours or so. AmazonUK and AmazonUS have now added pages for various editions of the new album to be released on February 26th. The first single will be ‘Rock’n’Roll’, a Velvet Underground cover, which will be released on Friday. There seem to be the following editions (so far and subject to change):

• A double album on red vinyl
• A double album on black vinyl
• A double album on purple vinyl (Townsend exclusive)
• A double album on blue vinyl (JPC exclusive)
• A double album on clear vinyl (500 copies)
• 1xCD edition
• 1xCD+1xDVD edition which adds the previously unreleased film from ‘A Paranormal Night At The Olympia, Paris’
• 1xCD+1xBlu-ray box set including t-shirt, face mask, torch light and 2 stickers. Blu-Ray is the previously unreleased film from ‘A Paranormal Night At The Olympia, Paris’

The main album track list is as follows:

1. Rock’n’Roll
2. Go Man Go (album version)
3. Our Love Will Change The World
4. Social Debris – A Neal Smith Song
5. $1000 High Heel Shoes
6. Hail Mary
7. Detroit City 2021 (Album Version)
8. Drunk And In Love
9. Independence Dave
10. I Hate You
11. Wonderful World
12. Sister Anne (Album Version) – MC5 song
13. Hanging On By A Thread (Don’t Give Up)
14. Shut Up An Rock
15. East Side Story (Album Version) – Bob Seger song

Strange things have been happening this week, and I’m not talking about the election. On November 1st Amazon.com posted a page for the forthcoming ‘Detroit Stories’ album (vinyl and CD) which included an album cover illustration. It also appeared to confirm they are aiming for a February release date, as mentioned by Alice in the recent AirB&B Halloween webcast. February 26th to be precise, although of course this could still change. The cover image featured the album title and the Alice splatter logo over a industrial scene, clouds filling the top half of the cover outlining the spider eye make up.
The following day the page was gone.
And in the last hour or so the official Alice facebook page has posted a short 15 second, silent video of clouds or smoke. Could this the start of the ‘Detroit Stories’ promotional campaign? Don’t forget the cool cryptic videos earMusic posted before ‘Paranormal’ was released. Could they be planning something similar for the new album?
Update: Today (sunday) they’ve just posted another cryptic silent clip, this time with the buildings in front of the clouds.

Dennis Dunaway is featured on ‘American Blues Scene‘ promoting last weeks ‘Love Potion #9’ single and his appearance tomorrow evening in a webcast talking about his career and book. More details about the webcast can be found here.

Alice has turned up on a new single by ‘Splash n’ Boots’, a childrens record by Canadians Nick Adams and Taes Leavitt. You can here the song ‘Heart Parade’ now on Spotify.

Alice has released a short "fact video" on ‘Elected’ which you can check out here.

NME have announced that Alice will take part in a forthcoming ‘Reunion’ video with the cast of ‘Waynes World’. No date is set for the event but previous reunions for the casts of ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘lord of the Rings’ have been popular. ‘Nights With Alice Cooper’ posted that Alice would be there.

Just in time for Halloween Alice has launched a new horror themed card game. From the press release:

“This is 2020, which means all things are upside down and backwards. You’re going to be staying home a lot, so why not play HorrorBox.  It’s something totally new, fun for everyone. I helped write a lot of the stuff in it.   You will become The Addams Family, if that’s a goal in your life.” -Alice Cooper

Just in time for Halloween, the Godfather of Shock Rock himself, Alice Cooper, has partnered with FITZ Games to launch ‘HorrorBox’, a first-of-its-kind, haunted comedy card game with a focus on all things horror. Co-written by a team of horror fanatics, with help from Alice himself, the game prompts players to select from question cards like “Pennywise tricked me by…..” and “The tenth circle of hell is for….” Entertaining answer cards such as “Setting up my haunted house as an Airbnb” provide countless pairings for endless laughter. To kick things up a notch, dare cards are sprinkled into the question cards, cueing players to “drink something that looks like blood” or “knock on your neighbors door and say you’re next.”

Alice has even posted a video launching the game which you can see here.
There’s a base game box available, and various expansion packs, or you can get everything in one big package. So far it seems this is only on sale in the US. but it’s likely somewhere over here will stock it soon and save us the likely horrific postage charges.

Also announced this week is a new talent show, with a difference. Alice will be one of the judges on this new talent show which will involve real musicians playing their own original songs! What a concept! The new show will be called ‘No Cover’ and Alice will judge along with Lzzy Hale and Gavin Rossdale (Bush). The show is being launched by ‘Hit Parader’ magazine and Sumerian Records (Nita’s record company) and will be filmed at the legendary Troubador club in West Hollywood in December (covid permitting). No info about when or where we’ll be able to watch it yet though. If you have a band you can apply to the show now via their website here.

““I can’t wait for No Cover,” says Alice Cooper.  “To me, a band really isn’t a band unless they are writing their own material, and if you know anything about me you know that I have a very high standard for not only the songs but also the performance. I’m looking for the band who has it all – the one who can not only write it and play it, but perform it and make me BELIEVE it.”

Alice’s Rock’n’Roll Fantasy Camp interview on November 28th will be gatecrashed by none other than Shep Gordon. Get these too together and you never know what will come up. Tickets are still available at Universe.com.

The last Record Store Day of 2020 has been and gone, and the long awaited ‘Live From The Apollo Theatre Glasgow, Feb 19, 1982’ live album is finally out (along with yet another version of ‘Dirty Diamonds). Sadly they haven’t put much effort into the sleeve, no gatefold with photos etc, but it’s still a terrific recording of a legendary show. A bit of advice: if you missed getting a copy at the weekend make sure you do a google search before paying inflated prices on eBay, as last time I looked there will still online stores with copies for normal price.

Alice’s appearance on AirB&B’s ‘Spooky time’ last week was actually a lot of fun, at least for the kids who joined in! Alice was in costume and make up as was Sheryl who popped in a few times as well. You can still watch the broadcast on YouTube.

And speaking of Sheryl Cooper, she was Ryan Roxie’s guest for ‘In The Trenches’ this week and this is one you don’t want to miss. Lots of chat about the 1975 tour, meeting Alice and falling for him, and daughter Calico dropped in as well. Definitely check this one out on YouTube. If you are waiting for Ryan’s interview with Michael Bruce which was announced a few weeks ago, it’s been delayed, but is still coming up. Keep an eye on Ryan’s social media channels for news of a new date.

And as I mentioned Calico, there’s a new interview with her in ‘French Fries’ magazine that you can read here. Calico, Chuck and Beasto Blanco will be on the haunted ship ‘Queen Mary’ on Halloween night for a ‘virtual haunt and music fest’ including a special performance by Beasto. Calico let slip on the ‘Trenches’ podcast that they’ll be playing a Motorhead cover, but with her singing it not Chuck! Should be interesting. You can get all the info about this special event and buy tickets to join in here.

Yahoo still seem to be getting content out of their interview with Alice from a couple of months ago. They’ve just put up an article with Alice talking about ‘The Muppet Show’ which you can check out here.

On October 30th there will be a special Halloween release of “Love Potion No. 9” by Fiona Silver which is of interest to us because it features Dennis Dunaway! The songs currently being played on Song being played on Sirius XM, WRAT New Jersey, CFMU Hamilton, Ontario, WJCU Cleveland, and more. No link for the video yet but it should appear on Fiona’s YouTube channel here.
Update: and now you can see it below

Also on October 30th – Signed copies of Blue Coupe’s ‘Eleven Even’ re-release will be available at participating independent record stores across the US with the option of hosting virtual in-store meet and greets with Blue Coupe. I originally announced that this was happening on Record Store day but I was mistaken, so check you local store tomorrow!

The ‘Daughters of Noise’ have released a new version of ‘Clones (We’re All)’ which isn’t half bad. Check it out here.

The legendary James Randi, better known to Alice Cooper fans as ‘The Amazing Randi’,
sadly passsed away yesterday from "age-related causes", He was 92. Randi was hired by the Coopers to design the special effects for the ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ tour, and joined the Alice Cooper group on both the ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ and ‘Billion Dollar Babies Holiday’ tours in 1973. He played the mad dentist during ‘Unfinished Sweet’ and the executioner during ‘I Love the Dead’, operating the original guillotine he built for the show.

Away from the Cooper world Randi was a scientific investigator who debunked paranormal and occult phenomena, going as far as offering a million dollars to anyone who could demonstrate paranormal abilities under scientific testing conditions. Over 1000 people have applied over the years but no one has ever managed to win the money. In 1996 he founded the James Randi Educational Foundation, a non-profit group that encouraged and educated the public and media on vetting unverified and outlandish claims, something much needed in this day and age. If you haven’t watched the James Randi biography film ‘An Honest Liar’ it’s highly recommended.

“I am so proud to say that for a brief time the greatest of them all, The Amazing Randi, was a part of our traveling troupe. He was our illusion guru and taught me everything I know about how magic could meet rock and roll. His genius helped the Billion Dollar Babies show become the spectacle no one had ever seen. He was rock and roll’s Gandalf.”
– Alice Cooper

Our condolences go to his family and friends.

Embed from Getty Images

Alice Cooper has released a new “campaign” video for the classic track, “Elected.” The new video features call-backs to the original 1972 music video, in which Alice Cooper first announced his “candidacy” and the formation of the ‘Wild Party’. There’s also a range of ‘Elected 2020’ merchandise available now.

In addition to Alice’s Fantasy Camp chat the legendary Shep Gordon is also holding a ‘Rock’n’Roll Fantasy Camp Masterclass’ on October 20th with a portion of the proceeds going to the ‘Maui Food Bank’. There’s only 25 places available to join in live, which have sold out, but you can still join the live stream for this special event and you can get tickets now here.

Alice has teamed up with Airbnb to offer a chance to spend a (virtual
) hour with Alice on October 21st and listen to him tell a spooky Halloween story. The event will last an hour with up to 10 families able to listen in to Alice reading the story in full costume. All money raised will go to ‘North Star Reach’, a camp that provides experiences for children with health challenges.

“Love a good scare?” says Cooper. “Me too. With Halloween all but cancelled, we’ll have to take our penchant for terror to the scariest place I know — the Internet. Join me for a spooky story session to celebrate the season. We’ll read about spiders and spirits, goblins and ghosts and monsters and mutants — all of my favorite things, really. And we’ll do it in full costume. It’ll be a scary good time. (And suitable for children ages 6+ with an appetite for fright.)”
“Let’s suit up and make this a spooky story time to remember.”

Tickets go on sale today and you can get more info here.

Alice will also be taking part in an online Q&A for the KLOS and the ‘Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp’ on November 1st. 25 rich people will be able to interact with Alice live during the interview but anyone can get a ticket to watch live. All the details are over at Universe.com.

Dennis Dunaway can be spotted around 25 minutes into this John Lennon tribute video marking his 80th birthday.
Dennis will also be taking part in a virtual chat with ‘Louder Than Words’ on November 8th which is open to fans to take part. This is a ticketed event and you can get tickets now via Eventbrite.

Beasto Blanco are taking part in another live streaming event. They will be playing as part of the ‘Virtual Haunt and Music Fest’ via ‘The Dark Zone’. This is a cool four day event that takes you aboard a virtual haunted ship and you can find all the details here.

The latest episodes of Ryan Roxie’s ‘In The Trenches’ podcasts have featured Joe Satriani and Desmond Child, and if you missed them you can catch up here.

Finally, you may have seen on the facebook page that Sickthing Paul Forsyth is trying to raise money to help a friend get a much needed new wheelchair, and to that end he is offering the very last unworn ‘Nation of Ovine’ t-shirt (size XL) via ebay. This is the last "sheep shirt" in this design ever, and all money raised will go towards a good cause. There’s just three days to go so check out the auction here, and the just giving page here for the full story.

It’s still pretty quite, but there is a little news to cover before it’s too out of date.

Alice has launched his own brand of hot sauce in the US via ‘United Sauces‘. There are three strengths – mild, medium and hot – and they go by the names ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’ (mild), ‘No More Mr Nice Guy’ (medium) and ‘Poison’ (hot). You can also buy a three pack with one of each but unfortunately they want a $36 to ship outside the USA, more then the cost of the sauce!! Is it even legal to ship hit sauce internationally? A shame as they look cool.

You know it’s close to Halloween when you can download your own official Alice Cooper pumpkin stencil. Check it out at AC.com. You have to fill out the AC mailing list form, but you should be on that already.

Cherry Red in the UK are reissuing the old Billion Dollar Babies ‘Battle Axe’ triple CD and apparently it’s semi-legitimate this time. From a quick look it seems to be exactly the same content as before (album, demos and live discs) but with new packaging so if you missed it the first time now’s your chance. It’s out November 27th and you can pre-order now.

Ryan Roxie’s guest on ‘In The Trenches’ tomorrow is none other then Joe Satriani! Check it out from 5pm UK time tomorrow here.

Alice tribute act ‘Billion Dollar Alice’ are hoping to go ahead with a Halloween party on October 30th at Stone Prior Covern, Bromsgrove in Worcestershire. Support comes from Damned tribute ‘Smash It Up’ and other acts and you can get more info at sonicrocksolstice.com. The club will have limited capacity due to social distancing measures, and it will entry by ticket only so get one in advance.

It’s been extremely quiet in Cooperland the last couple of weeks. Almost no news has come through, so I’m just going to cover the few things tha have to keep up today.

Alice listed his 20 top horror movies (again) for ‘Far Out’ magazine which you can see here.

Calico Cooper was on the ‘Chuck Shute Podcast’ and spent over an hour chatting away from her clothes closet. Well worth listing to here.

The ‘Six String Salute‘ benefit livestream with Tommy, Nita and Ryan was a little disappointing as they just showed (around 4 minutes in) the video of them playing their solos from ‘Black Widow’ which was online weeks ago. However you did get to see Damon Johnson and his band play a few songs which you can check out around 22 minutes into the show.

Speaking of Damon, he’s getting together with Richie Faulkner of Judas Priest to make a livestream tribute to his favourite band Thin Lizzy. It airs live on Friday (25th) at 7pm central time but you can listen any time after that. Tickets are available from Veeps for $10.

Ryan Roxie’s ‘In The Trenches’ podcast last week featured Sickthings Kai Ross-Best, Bill Crowe and Me! You can subject yourself to that here. He followed that up with an interview with Alice’s personal assistant Kyler Clark which you can check out here.
Lined up for future shows are guitar god Joe Satriani and Trash songwriter Desmond Child and Ryan is offering YOU the chance to join them on air to chat and ask your questions! It’s called the ‘In The Trenches Special Sauce’ and he’s the details from Ryan:

"We really hope you are enjoying the In-The-Trenches Podcast with Ryan Roxie. In all of our almost 50 episodes so far, we have brought to you many full-length insider interviews with today’s hardest working rock musicians and entertainers.
Now, we are ready to take In-The-Trenches to the next level, and we want YOU involved. We are planning a number of once-in-a-lifetime episode SPECIALS, interviewing some of the major names in rock n’ roll, and we want YOU TO BE IN THE SHOW. Here’s how it works:
In each SPECIAL episode we have a maximum of 3 ONSTAGE passes available, where you will be inside our virtual studio, ask our special guest your question face to face, and will be immortalized in direct conversation with them forever, for the world to see. So take a look at the names of our next special guests and recording times, and get your VIP ONSTAGE PASS now!
But there’s more good news! We are also inviting exactly 4 lucky souls to a private aftershow ‘fireside chat’ with Ryan Roxie and our special guest of the week. By securing your BACKSTAGE PASS now, you will hang out for 20 minutes after the show and make lifelong memories.”

You can sign up for you special pass now, if you’re quick, at RyanRoxie.com.

Lastly, check out this cool piano version of ‘Only Women Bleed’ by Daydreamer.

Alice’s appearance on the ‘Forbidden Planet 42’ livestream event last week can be seen now on YouTube. In it Alice remembers the signing session for ‘The Last Temptation’ with Neil Gaiman and seems to suggest he’s been talking to Gaiman about working together again! Amusingly he recalls the signing as like an early comic convention… I was there.. Few people knew it was happening (pre-internet it was only really advertised in store) and around 50 people really don’t make a convention!

The Disney Channel have revealed Alice will be back this October reprising his role as ‘Alistair Coop De Ville’ in a new episode of ‘Mickey Mouse Mixed Up Adventures’ airing in the US on October 2nd. The episode is called ‘The Mystery Of Hot Dog Lake’.

Hard Rock 80 has a new, long interview with Ryan Roxie, but it’s in French. You can use google to translate it here.

Ryan’s latest ‘In The Trenches’ interviews are up now featuring Orianthi, and Mike Fasano (Gilby Clark/Warrant). Next Tuesday it’s the turn of Chip Z’Nuff from Enuff Z’Nuff.

Calico Cooper is interviewed on ‘Talking Metal’ which you can watch here. As always Calico is a great interviewee and this is another one well worth watching.

Tommy Henriksen has posted a new AC/DC cover with Team SoloDallas. This time it’s ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ to celebrate the 40th anniversary of ‘Back In Black’.

Scream Factory will be releasing a huge box set of ‘Friday 13th’ movies on October 13th with a ton of bonus stuff. On the list are new exclusive interviews with Alice and the ‘He’s Back’ video.

It’s been a pretty quiet couple of weeks in Cooperland but in the last couple of days things have started to happen again.

Firstly the official Alice Cooper social media has put out the following statement in regards to a insert included in some German copies of the new ‘Don’t Give Up’ single. It goes as follows:

"A special news flash for everyone…. It has come to our attention that the German-released “Don’t Give Up” on vinyl by Alice Cooper had an unauthorized inserted message. Neither Alice, his management, nor the record label had any knowledge that the German distributor inserted an anti-covid statement using offensive language into the new vinyl release. Alice apologizes if you were offended as this does not reflect the personal lifestyle nor verbal language of Mr. Cooper [End Transmission]"

Speaking of ‘Don’t Give Up’ the single is currently #1 on the official UK vinyl single chart!

Don’t forget Alice is due to appear on the Forbidden Planet 42 online event this Saturday. You should be able to watch it live here.

Alice has released a promotional video for the special chocolate milk bottles now on sale around the Arizona area. Danzeisen Dairy now have presumably empty bottles on sale via their website for those outside the area. $10 from each sale will go to Alice’s Solid Rock Teen Center.

He’s also been talking to AZCentral about the milk project and confirmed that the Christmas Pudding show will go ahead this year in some form, although it’s unlikely to be the normal live show. This years ‘Proof is in the Pudding’ young band competition has also been postponed until February.

Ryan Roxie’s guest on ‘In The Trenches’ this week was ex-Cooper guitarist Orianthi talking about her time with Alice. You can check that out here. Next up is Warrant and Dad’s Porno Mag drummer Mike Fasano.

Nita Strauss was at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Saturday playing to an empty stadium during to mark L.A. Rams ‘first scrimmage’ at the new stadium. She played a bit of Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ to become the first musician to ever play in the new complex. You can see footage Nita posted via Blabbermouth.

On August 20th Shep Gordon took part in a ‘Pollstar Live Session’ which you can watch now on YouTube.

Damon Johnson was on the ‘Talking Metal’ podcast talking about his solo career and working with Alice. You can listen to that one here.

Chuck and Calico of Beasto Blanco appeared on ‘Coffee Talk with Stefan Adika’ promoting tonight’s ‘Freak Stream.’ You can watch the interview here starting at around 15 minutes. It’s not to late to grab your ‘Freak Stream’ tickets for tonight’s show here.

Alice alumni Kip Winger was Ryan Roxie’s guest on ‘In The Trenches’ this week for an entertaining chat about Kip’s career. Well worth checking out here. Next Tuesday Ryan’s guest will be Slash bassist Todd Kerns.

Alice appeared on the ‘Life Of Brian… Mannix that is’ podcast this week which you can check out here. He talks about ‘Detroit Stories’ and ‘Don’t Give Up’ which as of yesterday is out as a cool 7" picture disc.

Alice will also be making an appearance on the ‘Forbidden Planet 42’ online event celebrating 42 years of the legendary London comic store. The event features a who’s who of the comic and fantasy industry including Neil Gaiman (who worked on ‘The Last Temptation’), Michael Moorcock, Kevin Smith, Simon Pegg, Chris Claremont and many, many more. You’ll be able to watch the show here.

The Alice Cooper guitar trio, Ryan, Tommy and Nita, along with ex-Cooper Damon Johnson and many others, will be taking part in an online benefit show called ‘Six String Salute‘ for the ‘Crew Nation Relief Fund’ on September 17th. The event will be streamed live on Live Nation’s YouTube channel and ‘Live From Home‘ site.

The Mondance Jam festival, which Alice was due to play this year, has been rescheduled for July 22nd-24th next year and Alice is among the acts confirmed to appear. All tickets for this years festival will be valid for the new dates.

Beasto Blanco and the ‘Monsters Of Rock Cruise’ have teamed up to present ‘Freak Stream’, a pay per view event on August 15th featuring the band performing live. Tickets are just $10 in advance ($15 on the night) and are available now here. Once you have your ticket you will have access to the stream for a few days so plenty of time to check it out regardless of any time difference where you are.

Alice was on ‘Little Steven’s Roadshow’ last night talking ‘Detroit Stories’ with Little Steven and co-host Drew Carey. You can check it out on YouTube beginning about an hour into the show.

Lzzy Hale has reposted her interview Alice from a couple of months ago as part of her ‘Raise Your Horns’ livestream series which you can check out here.

Another lockdown interview I may have missed at the time is with Radio Freccia back in June and you can see that one here.

Nita Strauss can be seen performing Iron Maiden’s ‘Aces High’ as part of a new lockdown band called ‘The Wheelblocks’ with Chris Jerico (Fozzy), Phil Demmel (Vio-lence/Machinehead), Johnny Christ (Avenged Sevenfold) and Nita’s boyfriend Josh Villalta on drums. Check it out here.

Alice and the band appeared on the Wacken World Wide virtual festival yesterday with ‘at home’ performances of ‘School’s Out’ and ‘Don’t Give Up’. This was followed by highlights from the ‘Raise The Dead – Live From Wacken’ dvd. You can see what was broadcast via this post on facebook, while the Magenta360 site has the full Wacken 2013 show streaming if you don’t already own it.

Sheryl Cooper was interviewed on Arizona TV7 a few days before the birth little Desiree Diaz talking about being a grandmother again, lockdown, and being on the road with Alice.

‘Interviewing The Legends’ have a new interview with Neal Smith promoting his latest ‘Pop 85/95’ CD.

Ryan Roxie has launched a new Instagram Face Filter ‘Electric Guitar Quiz’ which you can find here on a mobile device. I don’t use Instagram, so all I can add is what Roxie says: "What ‘Guitar’ Are You? Ever wondered that exact question? Well…. now it can finally be answered by using Ryan Roxie’s newest Instagram FaceFilter  ‘Electric Guitar Quiz’. Roxie has collaborated with Beats AR to bring you the Rock’n’Roll Face Filter of all time… featuring some of the worlds most memorable and iconic Guitars! NOW it’s YOUR turn to find out exactly ‘which’ of these Electronic Beauties will be your ‘Axe of the day’…And because it’s nobody’s guess, try it as many times as you want until you get that ONE Guitar that screams… ‘THIS IS ME!’

Alice shows up briefly in a new documentary ‘House Of Cardin’, about the fashion legend Pierre Cardin.

This years Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany has obviously been cancelled, however they are mounting an online version with interviews and performances by many of the festival regulars and this includes Alice and the band. On Thursday there will be an interview with Alice, followed a little later by a special performance by the full band and some archive footage of previous Wacken shows. You can see the daily schedules at ‘Wacken-world-wide.com‘ where you will also be able to tune in. Ryan Roxie and Glen Sobel confirmed their participation during the latest ‘In The Trenches‘ podcast this evening saying they would be playing "a few songs" for the event.

Sheryl Cooper has just announced the arrival of their first granddaughter, named Desiree Diaz! Congratulations to Sonora Cooper and her husband Diego Diaz!

And speaking of ‘In The Trenches‘ Ryan also announced that his next guest will be Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick! This will air next Tuesday at 5PM UK time. Make sure you catch up with Roxie’s recent podcasts including chats with Glen Sobel and a return of Kane Roberts, both well worth watching.

In a tour update it seems as expected every show this year is now cancelled, with the exception of the Seattle show with is listed as ‘Postponed’ but expect that to go as well. I wouldn’t expect any new show announcements until things have calmed down significantly and it’s safe for them to go ahead without more cancellations.

Cleveland.com have a new interview with Alice talking as usual about the lockdown and the new album, ‘Detroit Stories’ which is now apparently 99% done.

It’s been a pretty quiet week in Cooperland but Alice turned up briefly on the Manchester Arena 25th Anniversary livestream. He talks about the playing in the UK and they then play a few clips of the Manchester show. You can see him around two hours six minutes into the show.

Various sites have been reporting that Alice is working with Desmond Child (Trash, Hey Stoopid) again after Desmond posted about it. It’s likely however that he is talking about Alice’s appearance on his forthcoming solo album which he first announced last year, rather then a new Alice Cooper album.

Calico Cooper was on the ‘What Does Joey Know‘ podcast last week amd it was a pretty entertaining chat with Calico talking about growing up in the Cooper house with Alice Cooper as her dad. Worth checking out.

Steve Hunter’s ‘Cafe la Rouge’ has a new six track EP out called ‘Covered In Love’. Recorded in Spain while on lockdown it also features legendary bassist Tony Levin and Steve’s wife Karen on vocals. Anything Steve does is worth checking out and you can hear samples and order a copy here. ‘Animal House Radio’ interviewed Steve and Karen Hunter about the new EP which you can watch on facebook.

Ryan Roxie’s next ‘In The Trenches’ on Tuesday sees the return of Kane Roberts for a second chat, while his newest show ‘The Roxie Review‘ had a surprise start when Alice and Sheryl happened to call just as they went live! It also saw a quick appearance by Eric Dover. Both have agreed to be on ‘In The Trenches’ sometime soon so watch out for that.

Alice has been hard on the lockdown interview trail in the last week. First was ‘Rock For Relief’ where he is interviewed by Cathouse legend Rikki Rachtman. Then Yahoo Sports talked to Alice about the ‘Flush The Fashion’ album and Q104.3 ‘Out Of The Box’ chatted about lockdown, ‘Detroit Stories’ and other stuff. He’s also been talking to Loudwire. Metal Hammer have published an interview from last year (?) which was in the print edition but possibly not online before. Also the Hawaii public radio interview mentioned a little while ago is now online to listen to.

More of the November rescheduled dates have now been cancelled (with one officially ‘postponed’ again). I would say the rest will be gone soon with a completely new set of shows next year. It’s a shame, but what can you do. Not only have they got to keep Alice, the band and the crew safe, but also the fans at the show. Better to be safe then sorry.

Alice is also now on ‘Cameo’, A site that allows you to pay for personal video messages from the star (or it seems almost anyone – there even seems to be a cat and a pig available!) of your choice. All the info is here including a few examples of what you get.

The Danzeisen Dairy in Phoenix. AZ is producing a special Alice Cooper chocolate milk bottle with all profits going to the Solid Rock Teen Center. The instant collectors items will be available in stores this fall. Hopefully they will announce some way of getting one for those of us outside the Arizona area.

Glen Sobel was interviewed by GalaxyCon which you can check out here. Glen talks about all sorts of things including his early career and of course Alice.

Ryan Roxie has annouced two live shows in Sweden. He will play "An Evening With Ryan Roxie’ shows on July 25th at the Garage Bar in Höganäs. and August 15th at Trollhättan’s Backstage Bar. The next ‘In The Trenches’ podcast will feature Sepultura guitarist Andreas Kisser on July 14th. Roxie also turned up on ‘The VoiceIt Show’ which you can check out here.

The 2020 Hollywood Vampires tour now has rescheduled dates as listed below. Tickets for previously postponed shows should be valid for these new dates. In the UK it seems Killing Joke will be replacing Primal Scream as the opening act.

5th August 2021 – Birmingham Arena, Birmingham, UK (w/ Killing Joke)
6th August 2021 – First Direct Arena, Leeds, UK (w/ Killing Joke)
7th August 2021 – SSE Hydro, Glasgow, UK (w/ Killing Joke)
9th August 2021 – The 02, London, UK (w/ Killing Joke)
12th August 2021 – Charlotta, Charlotta Valley, PL
14th August 2021 – Summer In The City, Mainz, DE
15th August 2021 – Olympiahalle, Munich, DE
18th August 2021 – Citadel Music Festival, Belin, DE
22nd August 2021 – Emsland Open Air, Lingen, DE
23rd August 2021 – Olympia, Paris, FR
25th August 2021 – Stadtpark, Hamburg, DE
26th August 2021 – Konig-Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen, DE
28th August 2021 – Riverside Open Air, Aarburg, CH
29th August 2021 – Clam Castle, Klam, AT
1st September 2021 – Armeets Arena, Sophia, BU
4th September 2021 – Lifepark Open Air, Istanbul, TR

In addition to these changes it appears the Alice Cooper shows in Thackerville, OK and Topeka, KS on October 30th and 31st respectively have now been cancelled according to the venue websites. Sadly it looks likely there will be more cancellations to come.
UPDATE: The Regina, Edmonton, Penticton, and Abbotsford shows are now also listed as cancelled on venue sites.

Ryan Roxie’s chat with legendary Elton John/Alice Cooper guitarist Davey Johnstone last night can now be seen on YouTube. If you missed the last few ‘In The Trenches’ broadcasts you can catch up at Roxie’s YouTube channel.

Shep Gordon will be taking part in a ‘Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp’ class on July 26th. As with Alice’s class this is is open just 25 people but is rather cheaper at $100 per person. Details here.

Something Else Reviews look back to the ‘Brutal Planet’ album here.

The European Hollywood Vampires tour has now been officially postponed. This is obviously not a surprise. Many of the shows were at festivals which had already been cancelled over the last couple of week, and both Alice and Glen Sobel had inferred the shows weren’t happening in recent interviews. The official statement is as follows: “Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our upcoming European 2020 Tour has been postponed. We will post detailed ticketing information and new replacement dates very soon! We are beyond disappointed but will see you all once we are able to safely rock again!”

On a brighter note, check out this new video of Tommy Henriksen singing AC/DC’s ‘Hell’s Bells’ from Lockdown!

The Michael Bruce Group have posted a lyric video for their debut single ‘Born Screamer’ which you can see here. The song is taken from their upcoming debut album and also features Neal Smith on drums!

Eddie Trunk’s ‘Virtual Invasion’ interview with Alice from last week is now available to listen online here. SiriusXM subscribers apparently can see video of the interview as well.

Hawaii Public Radio has a new Alice interview coming up and have posted a preview here. Unfortunately they don’t mention a date it will air, just that it will be available at the same link afterwards.

Other new Alice interviews this week include KZZK radio’s ‘Heather’s Chat‘, and Studio 10 in Australia.

‘Phoenix Home and Garden’ magazine this month has a great feature on the Cooper home with photos and descriptions. You can read the article here.

‘Sonic Perspectives‘ have a new interview with Neal Smith talking about his just released ‘Pop 85/95’ album, the reunion tour and recording new tracks with Alice.

The GalaxyCon Nita Strauss/Mick Foley interview can now be watched on YouTube and it’s a complete "lovefest", with Nita and Mick telling stories about working together and the wrestling/rock connections. Well worth checking out.

iHeartRadio has a very long interview with Bob Ezrin by author Bob Lefsetz. At well over 2 hours it covers many aspects of Bob’s career, including plenty of Alice mentions of course.

Blue Coupe’s Joe Bouchard has a new solo album out on July 31st called ‘Strange Legends’ which also features ‘Hey Stoopid’ album drummer Mickey Curry. Check out the first video for ‘Forget About Love’ here.

Another week under lockdown and again not a huge amount happening for obvious reasons. Looking at the Hollywood Vampires tour it appears many of these shows/festivals have now been cancelled (according to venue sites), which puts the rest of the tour in doubt. In interviews Alice is referring to the tour as cancelled, although some shows, including the UK ones, are still on sale. He also confirmed the Mexico shows in October aren’t now happening, and they have been removed from AC.com.
Check out new Alice interviews at France24 (states ALL shows have been cancelled), 109.2 The Hog (Hollywood Vampires tour cancelled) and Finland’s KaaosTV.

The Cooper family all show up in a video made by the Solid Rock Foundation. The clip features kids from the Teen Center performing a cover of U2’s ‘"40" with the Coopers – Alice, Sheryl, Calico, Dash and Sonora – all joining in on the chorus. Check it out here and if you like the video consider making a donation to Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock here.

Alice was also a guest on the Rhino Records podcast this week which you can listen and download here.

Chuck Garric appeared on Lzzy Hale’s ‘We Are Hear’ podcast this week where he and Lzzy spent around an hour chatting about Alice, Beasto, and all sorts of other things. Check it out here.

Nita Strauss will be appearing with wrestling star Mick Foley as part of an online streaming event by GalaxyCon on Monday 15th at 7PM ET. You will be able to watch it live here. Nita was also featured during an episode of ‘Mosh Talks With Beez’ which you can check out here.

Ryan Roxie’s ‘In The Trenches’ this week had a second chat with Michael Monroe and next up will be Roxie’s old bandmate Gilby Clarke of Guns’n’Roses which you will see here on Tuesday. Roxie will also being premiering his new video shortly for ‘Hearts In Trouble’ from his ‘Imagine Your Reality’ album which you can check out here.

Neal Smith has just released a new solo album! It’s called “POP 85/95” and consists of songs Neal wrote with guitaristJay Jesse Johnson after their band Deadringer (which also featured Dennis Dunaway) split up. You can order the new album now directly from Neal, however currently they won’t ship outside the USA. The full press release goes as follows:

Legendary Alice Cooper Group drummer Neal Smith will be releasing a new album in June, 2020. Neal’s new Retro Pop album is titled “POP 85/95” signifying the music style and time period in which Neal wrote these songs between 1985 and 1995.The songs and album concept are totally sexy and politically incorrect. Neal’s “POP 85/95” songs represent all aspects of relationships, falling in and out of love in a simpler bygone era before Coronavirus, politically correctness and the new world disorder.

With the onslaught of glam hair bands and heavily homogenized rock of the 1980’s, Neal Smith, Hall of Fame Drummer and founding member of the original Alice Cooper Group, was looking for a new direction for his songwriting. Inspired by another drummer, songwriter, singer Phil Collins, Neal turned from writing hard rock to a slicker, more pop rock songwriting style. In the late 1980’s he took four of his new songs into the studio and recorded them. One of the songs “Secret Eyes” helped land a recording deal with newly formed record company called Grudge Records. Along with Dennis Dunaway (Alice Cooper fame), Joe Bouchard (Blue Oyster Cult fame), Charlie Hune (Ted Nugent fame) and lead guitarist Jay Jesse Johnson (also known as “Triple J”), a new band called “Deadringer” was formed and signed by Grudge Records. Deadringer recorded an album in 1989 called “Electrocution Of The Heart” featuring the single “Secret Eyes.” The album and Deadringer were all short lived after Grudge Records quick demise. After Deadringer and well into the 1990’s, Neal continued writing songs with Jay Jesse Johnson (“Triple J”) in this pop rock style.

Decades later, well into the New Millennium, Neal was searching through his archives of music and found those songs that he composed and recorded with ‘Triple J” between the years of 1985 and 1995. Inspired by “Triple J’s” amazing lead guitar work, Neal polished the songs and brought them back to life with the help of two of his best friends, Peter Catucci (bass guitar of Killsmith) and Rick Tedesco (guitarist/engineer). Now, much to the excitement of his fans worldwide, Neal Smith’s “POP 85/95” is available digitally and on CD!

Hall of Fame Drummer/songwriter/singer Neal Smith on “POP 85/95” CD: "In the 80’s and 90’s Rap, Hip Hop, Pop and even Rock music was being recorded with synthesized programmed drums. I understood that this was a new wave of recording percussion. But what I did not like was many of the synthesized drum tracks were being programmed by engineers and musicians who were not even drummers. Disappointed and inspired by that fact, I began a new phase of songwriting by programming synthesized drums on my recordings. The last eight songs on my new CD “POP 85/95” is a collection of songs I wrote from that era featuring synth drums I programmed myself."

The London Film and Comic Con, which Alice was scheduled to appear at, has now been officially postponed until November 21st/22nd. While the promoters are still listing Alice as appearing "subject to contract" it seems very unlikely he could make the rescheduled dates as he already has shows announced in the US during the period.

Neal Smith and Michael Bruce were in Phoenix last month visiting the new Glen Buxton memorial mural and the project now has it’s own facebook page here.

Alice was due to be interviewed for ‘Eddie Trunks Virtual Invasion‘ yesterday but it appears it was postponed until a later date.

New Alice interviews have appeared at California Rocker, and KSHE 95.

519 Magazine has a new interview with Brother Latham and Calico Cooper of Beasto Blanco which you can read here.

Dennis Dunaway and Rockin’ Reggie have released a new song paying tribute to Detroit legend Suzi Quatro to mark her 70th birthday. The song is called ‘Motor City Bad Girl’ and be streamed below. Suzi, who has lived in the UK for many years but came out of the same Detroit scene as the Coopers, was a trailblazer for women in rock and is best known for a string of hit singles in the mid-seventies as well as regularly appearing on the classic sitcom ‘Happy Days’. She was also the opening act on the ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’ US tour. A new film biography called ‘Suzi Q‘ has been doing the rounds at film festivals for the last year or so and features Alice and manager Toby Mamis.

In other Dennis news, with the Sweden Rock Festival cancelled this year the organizers are going online and will be streaming concerts and interviews on radio channel Sveriges Radio P4 from this Friday with full concert recordings airing on Saturday including Blue Coupe’s epic show from last year which included guest Ryan Roxie. A detailed schedule is now available here.

This years Record Store Day has been split into three separate events due to the coronavirus pandemic. This means that the Alice Cooper live record from Glasgow in 1982 has been put back until October 24th. The other record store dates are August 29th and September 26th.

Last night Alice was interviewed by Lzzy Hale of Halestorm as
part of "We Are Here, On The Air’ which was raising money for the Musicares charity. The interview begins around one hour into the show which you can watch here.

He’s also been chatting to AZ Central about ‘Don’t Give Up’ and life under lockdown, Yahoo Entertainment, and Billboard. There’s also Australia’s "Footy Show" from March which I hadn’t noticed before.

Nita Strauss is interviewed on the ‘MetalSucks’ podcast which you can listen to here. This one starts around 30 minutes into the show.

Ryan Roxie’s guest on "in The Trenches’ this week was Guy Griffin from Quireboys which you can watch here.

Alice has been amusing himself with interviews over the last week including AXS.TV’s ‘At Home And Social With‘ show, the Don Jamieson (‘That Metal Show’) podcast, and a text interview for AZ Centralwith talk about ‘Detroit Stories’ and this years Christmas Pudding.

In case you couldn’t spot yourself in the ‘Don’t Give Up’ video AliceCooper.com has posted every photograph sent in, so you can have fun trying to spot yourself there now!

If you have missed any of the Alice Cooper ‘Vintage Vault’ podcasts you can listen to them all here. The latest has Alice talking to, and about, Johnny Depp.

Ryan Roxie has been busy online as usual with this week’s ‘In The Trenches‘ featuring The Lost Angels’ including Eric Dover and John Corabi, while the ‘Sunday Livestream Sunday‘ featured a guest appearance from Nita Strauss along with the usual fun and performances. Ryan is also the subject of an hour long interview at ‘9.42’ which you can listen to here.

‘What Difference Does It Make?" has a new interview with Glen Sobel. It’s part one of two so watch out for the second segment to be posted.

Damon and his bandmates Jarred Pope and Robbie Harrington will perform a livestream set from Nick Raskulinecz’s Rock Falcon Studio in Nashville, TN on Wednesday, May 27, 2020 at 8PM Eastern/7PM Central. The show will be a ticketed event through ‘VEEPS’, and tickets are limited. Damon says: “This will be a one of a kind event, featuring a performance of a brand new song from my upcoming album. We’re thrilled to perform again as a unit, while practicing safe distancing in these times of the pandemic.” Tickets are on sale now here.

Louder.com has posted a long article about the ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ album that originally appeared in Classic Rock back in 2004.

The new Alice Cooper single. ‘Don’t Give Up’, went live on streaming services at midnight and you should now be able to watch the official video above. The video was made in lockdown featuring photos sent in by fans to illustrate the lyrics to the songs and also features the current band! A limited edition vinyl picture disc will be released on August 14th and is now available to pre-order (click the earMusic link).
Tonight (Friday) at 6PM EST Alice and Dennis Dunaway will feature on SiriusFM channel ‘Ozzy’s Boneyard’ to premiere the song and talk to Keith Roth about what they have been up to the last few weeks. They will also play Blue Coupe’s ‘Hallow’s Grave’ (featuring Alice). The show should be repeated several times if you miss it. Outside the USA it *appears* you can listen online at https://player.siriusxm.com/ if you select to start free trial (no card details needed). Just do a search for ‘Ozzy’s Boneyard’. It’s unclear how long that ‘free trial’ lasts though.

Earlier this week Betty Wright, Soul and R&B singer, songwriter and background vocalist passed away. Betty dueted with Alice on ‘No Tricks’, the B-side to ‘How You Gonna See Me Now’ in 1978.

Phoenix New Times interviews Alice on how he and the family have been entertaining themselves in lockdown.

The last remaining April Alice Cooper shows now have new dates but The Grand Rapids show is now cancelled. The Milwaukee show is rescheduled for November 10th, Omaha will be November 13th, and finally Seattle will be on November 30th.

Ryan Roxie interviewed band mate Chuck Garric on ‘In The Trenches’ this week and you can watch the show now on YouTube. It’s a great interview with lots of stories about a young Chuck starting out in the music industry. A part 2 is promised.

Beast Blanco (Calico, Chuck and Chris) also show up on the ‘Tru Rock Revival Magazine’ podcast which you can watch on facebook here.

Monday May 18th would have been the day that Blue Coupe, with Tish and Snooky, would have been performing on the Silja Rock Cruise, but since that was cancelled they are releasing a ‘Stay Home Video’ of “Keep Rollin’ On”. It will debut on Monday at noon eastern time and will hopefully be on Spotify etc as well. Keep an eye on Facebook for links when it goes live.

There’s a new trailer video for the Suzi Quatro documentary ‘Suzi Q’ which features Alice. Suzi is of course an old friend from the Detroit days and the ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’ tour.

Nita Strauss talks to ‘Guitar World‘ about her new ‘Rock Guitar Fundamentals’ guitar course.

Glen Sobel and Orianthi appear in a new lockdown video for the Beatles ‘Let It Be’ to raise funds for the MusiCares Relief charity. The song features a huge list of musicians, way to long to list here.

Alice Cooper will be one of many acts to take part in this weekends ‘Lighthouse Live‘ streaming event. This is a 12 hour marathon livestream featuring dozens of Detroit related musicians aiming to raise money for homeless children, families and individuals in the south east of Michigan. You can tune in via YouTube or Facebook (links to be announced on their site) today between 2PM and 2AM local time with Alice set to show up around the 6PM mark (10PM UK time I think).

Beasto Blanco were livestreaming earlier this week, performing an excellent three song set for German media. Unfortunately the actual livestream was region locked, but it’s available now for everyone to see now at Magenta Musik. Well worth watching. Chuck Garric will also be the next guest on Ryan Roxie’s ‘From The Trenches‘ podcast this Tuesday at 5PM UK time.

The Cooper family also posted a truly brilliant lockdown video in place of the cancelled Alice Cooper 2020 golf tournament. You can also watch it below.

Alice himself has been talking to ‘American Songwriter‘ about his song writing influences.

Dennis Dunaway has posted the 4th and final part of his Manchester trip blogs which you can check out here. He will also be taking part in an interview with Alice for ‘Ozzy’s Boneyard’ on Sirius XM radio which should air on Friday May 15th to coincide with the release of the new Alice Cooper single ‘Don’t Give Up’.

Nita Strauss has been talking to Ultimate Guitar and Metal Injection about playing with Alice, the lockdown, and her forthcoming second solo album, which is set to feature a couple of guest vocalists. She’s hoping this will be released before the end of the year.

Alice Cooper.com has just announced that a new song, entitled ‘Don’t Give Up’, will be released on May 15th, and they want fans help in making a video to go with it! They’ve posted the lyrics to ‘Don’t Give Up’ and want photos or short video clips of YOU holding up a sign featuring one word from the lyrics. You can enter as many times as you wish for a chance to be seen in the official promotional video of the song. Full details and entry form are up on AC.com now so get going! Entries must be in by Monday.
Here’s Alice’s announcement in full:

“I know these times are hard, but there is hope and together we will win.
I wrote a new song, “DON’T GIVE UP” coming MAY 15 and I want ALL OF MY MINIONS to be a part of this special song! Share a photo or video of you holding a sign featuring A WORD FROM THE LYRICS to the song and you could be in the final video.
Preview the lyrics + submit your photo at www.AliceCooper.com

Dennis Dunaway emailed to let us know that Tommy Gwinn, an artist in Tempe, AZ, is painting a public mural as a memorial to musical artists who grow up in the Phoenix area and wants to include a portrait of Glen Buxton in the work. He is crowd funding to get this to happen and is already half way to his goal so lets get this done! You can pledge any amount and every bit will help to reach the target so Glen is permanently memorialized in his home town. You can help out here.

Dennis has also posted part three of his Manchester chronicles which you can check out here.

According to Ticketmaster the Grand Rapids show has now been cancelled.

Nita Strauss has launched a new online guitar course, ‘Rock Guitar Fundamentals’, at IWannaPlayGuitar.com. The course’s three modules cover complete beginners through to those wanting tips on how to play like Nita, and currently is on offer for half price!

Alice Cooper has posted a short video marking the 40th anniversary of the ‘Flush The Fashion’ which you can see here.

Ryan Roxie’s latest ‘In The trenches’ features and interview with himself! Check it out here. Next up Ryan will be interviewing Hanoi Rocks frontman and huge Alice fan Michael Munroe.

Alice pops up briefly in a new Winger video for ‘Better Days Coming’ which you can watch here. The video features a total of 24 guests including Alice, as well as Jeff Scott Soto, Alan Parsons, Klaus Meine, and dozens of Winger fans.

Over the last week many of the previously postponed shows have now received new dates either via AC.com, Ticketmaster or individual venue sites. As far as I have been able to put together the changes are as follows:

31st March – Fallsview Casino, Niagara Falls, ON – Postponed until November 6th
1st April – Memorial Centre, Peterborough, ON – Postponed until November 7th
5th April – Fox Arts Center, Appleton, WI – Postponed until November 11th
8th April – Adler Theatre, Davenport, IA – Postponed to November 14th
10th April – Alerus Center, Grand Forks, ND – Postponed until November 18th
11th April – Centennial Concert Hall, Winnipeg, MB – Postponed to November 19th
13th April – Conexus Arts Centre, Regina, SK – Postponed to November 21st
15th April – Jubilee Auditorium, Edmonton, AB – Postponed to November 23rd
16th April – CN Centre, Prince George, BC – Postponed until November 25th
18th April – Abbotsford Centre, Abbotsford, BC – Postponed to November 28th
19th April – S.O. Events Centre, Penticton, BC – Postponed to November 27th
5th June – Winstar World Casino, Thackerville, OK – Postponed until October 30th
6th June – Stormont Vail Events Center, Topeka, KS – Postponed until October 31st
17th June – Mohegan Sun Arena, Wilkes-Barre, PA – Postponed until January 24th 2021

Original tickets for all shows *should* be valid for the new dates. The April 22nd show in Portland is now marked as cancelled on the venue website, which leaves just four shows from the original schedule not either cancelled or having a new date: Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, Omaha, and Seattle. There’s no firm news on the Hollywood Vampires European shows yet, but the Lowlands Festival in August has been cancelled so that’s one show gone.

If you missed Ryan Roxie’s ‘In The Trenches’ chat with Kane Roberts you can watch it on YouTube, as well as another episode featuring Airboune’s Joel O’Keeffe which was recorded during the Australian shows in February. Ryan will be back again tomorrow for ‘Sunday Livestream Sunday’ at 5pm UK time.

Dennis Dunaway has posted the second part of his Manchester trip blog which you can read here. If you missed part on it’s here.

Nita Struass will be taking over the Ibanez Instagram channel on Monday posting videos, photos and anything else she can think off.

Ryan Roxie’s ‘Sunday Livestream Sunday’ yesterday featured something a little bit special, the debut of a new version of the Stooges classic ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ by ‘The Goon Squad’ which features Roxie, Chuck Garric, Tommy Henriksen and Glen Sobel. Recorded this week while everyone was in isolation the recording was made as a tribute to New York punk stylist Jimmy Webb who passed away on April 14th. Webb was best known for his work as a manager/buyer at the punk shop ‘Trash & Vaudeville’ and as the owner of the rock clothing shop ‘I Need More’ which was frequented by a long list of music legends in cluding Alice and the band. You can read more about Jimmy, including other tributes, at Billboard.

You can watch the full podcast video from yesterday here, while the Goon Squad video itself can be seen here. The song itself will be released shortly with profits going to a NY charity. Ryan’s next ‘In The Trenches’ interview will be with Kane Roberts and will air Tuesday evening.

Alice’s appearance on the livestremed Detroit Music Awards yesterday was short and sweet, and featured Alice presenting two awards including one to himself for the ‘Breadcrumbs EP’! You can watch teh full show here, with Alice showing up around 1 hour 17 minutes into it. They also show the lyric video for ‘Detroit City 2020’ which is also used over the end credits.

Ticketmaster have started to mark US shows during May/June as canceled. Not every show has so far been marked as canceled, but it’s probably safe to say the rest will follow soon (as of posting there’s seems to be only four shows not canceled). Two shows: Thackerville, OK and Topeka, KS, have been rescheduled for October 30th and 31st respectively.
Also, three of the postponed April shows are showing new rescheduled dates: Niagara Falls is now on November 6th, Appleton, WI is now November 11th and Grand Forks, ND is listed as November 18th. Expect more rescheduled dates soon.
Currently everything from July 13th onward is proceeding as planned, but of course this also could change at any time. In fact while writing this the July 15th Columbus show has also been marked as canceled by Tickemaster.
There WILL be an official announcement listing all the changes soon, but until then Ticketmaster or individual venues sites seem to be the best way to keep track of any show you have tickets for. If you have tickets for postponed shows, these should be valid for the rescheduled date. For canceled shows contact your point of sale for refund information, but please bare in mind venues and ticket sellers are currently swamped due to all the cancellations worldwide.

In other news, Alice Cooper and Joan Jett are among the names that will perform at “Cleveland Rocks: From Our Living Rooms”, a benefit concert airing on Fox 8 WJW this Wednesday, April 15 between 7-8pm local time. Unfortunately the station website is completely blocked to Europeans. What form Alice’s "performance" will take is yet to be determined.

Alice will also take part in the ‘29th Annual Detroit Music Awards‘ which take place on April 19th at 8PM local time. Original set to be held at The Fillmore’ theater, it will now be a live streamed event with Alice presenting an award in a specially filmed video segment. You should be able to tune in here.

Alice, Sheryl, and Dash Cooper, along with Nita Strauss, appeared on Dave Ellefson’s ‘Oh Say Can you Stream’ charity fundraiser the other night and you can watch it now on YouTube. They turn up around the 4 hour 30 minute mark in the 9+ hour broadcast.

Alice also turned up during the ‘Stars In The House‘ podcast based around the repeat of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ at the weekend. For most of the show he’s just there in a little box on the screen, but they do finally get around to talking to him around 38 minutes in.

Ryan Roxie is interviewed by Metal Talk about his new ‘System-12 Guitar Method’ project and other things. You can watch the interview here. Ryan’s ‘In The Trenches with’ podcast tonight will feature the legendary Michael Des Barres.

Nita Strauss is interviewed by ‘That Drummer Guy’ and you can listen to that interview here. Glen Sobel has been active as well streaming drum lessons and other things on his facebook page.

This weeks news is mostly streaming events, as there isn’t much else happening.

Alice, Sheryl and Dash Cooper, as well as Nita Strauss and many others, will be appearing during the ‘Oh Say Can you Stream’ charity fundraiser which is happening TODAY from 3PM CST (9pm UK time) on YouTube. The event is being put together by Megadeth’s Dave Ellefson and you can find more details and full cast list and timings here. Alice and co are due on between 8-9 CST (2AM UK).

Nita Strauss will be on ‘Sumerian Live‘ on April 15th at 2PM PDT (10pm UK) for a live Q&A session.

Alice has been talking to Forbes magazine about the current situation and his new podcast series. He also posted a short video message to the NWAC facebook page.

The last ‘In The Trenches With Ryan Roxie’ was excellent and featured Calico Cooper and Ryan chatting about Alice, Beasto and Calico’s own career. It’s probably the best one yet and well worth watching here. Next up for Roxie is his regular ‘Sunday Livestream Sunday’ at 5PM UK time. Keep up to date all the stuff Ryan is streaming via his Facebook page where he posts the links for each event.

Damon Johnson was also online a couple of days ago for an acoustic performance from his home.

For obvious reasons there isn’t a huge amount to report this week but there are a few things worth mentioning.

Spin Magazine has a new interview with Alice and Sheryl discussing the current closure of The Rock Teen Center due to Coronavirus.

Punk Globe has a new interview with Neal Smith telling stories about the original band and his solo albums.

ABC News has a short article on Dennis Dunaway with a couple of videos including the full Blue Coupe Pro-Filmed Sweden Rock show from last year.

NBC are to repeat last years ‘Jesus Christ Superstar Live’ on Sunday April 12th, although it’s unlikely anyone reading this hasn’t seen Alice’s turn as ‘King Herod’ by now.

Alice’s appearance at the Motor City Comic Con between May 15th and 17th has unsurprisingly been canceled. You can get information about refunds here.

Lastly, Zee Productions are releasing 500 piece jigsaws on April 4th featuring the cover art for ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’ and ‘Trash’. They look pretty cool and can be pre-ordered here.

Alice has been talking to Arizona Central this week and chats about how he and the family are dealing with the current virus situation. During the interview he also reveals the title of the next studio album. The new album is called ‘Detroit Stories’ and features songs about or inspired by the city. We already know that Michael, Neal and Dennis have recorded parts for the album, and from the ‘Breadcrumbs EP’ we know that it also features various Detroit musicians which he also confirms. No release date yet but it’s getting closer!

Ryan Roxie’s latest ‘From The Trenches’ podcast features a great interview with Dennis Dunaway which is well worth watching. Dennis tells lots of stories from the early days and talks bass for over an hour and you can watch it here. There promises to be a "part 2" in the future too!

During his short livestream show the other night Roxie also announced a new project called the ‘System-12 Guitar Method’. This is a "fresh new approach to learning guitar that differs substantially from the more ‘traditional’ methods that have been taught in the past. This new ‘system’ for learning guitar is easy to understand, filled with guitar ‘life-hacks’, and focuses on the most important techniques and theories to get one playing songs and riffs faster than any other learning method out there." You can learn more and get onboard early via this Kickstarter campaign page, where you can pledge as little as $10 for various perks.

Alice is also getting into podcasting with a new one called ‘Alice Cooper’s Vintage Vault‘. The podcast features Alice talking about a subject with clips from interviews conducted for the ‘Nights With Alice Cooper’ radio show over the past 16 years. The first show is all about Slash!

I didn’t think there was very much to report this week thanks to the current Coronavirus situation, but I seem to have found a fair amount including a few links to entertain you while we get through this mess.

Sadly Beasto Blanco have had to postpone the last few dates on their current tour. They hope to reschedule the dates later in the year.

Alice sent an email to Rolling Stone in which he confirmed he will be spending the enforced time off caused by the postponed shows to finish off the new Alice Cooper album. No more details yet of course, and just because it’s nearly finished doesn’t mean they will change any planned release schedule and put it out any earlier, but it’s good to know it’s getting closer. Read the full article here.

Blue Coupe have posted professionally filmed footage of their full Sweden Rock show from last year with guest Ryan Roxie. It’s great and you can watch here.

If you’re looking for something to kill a couple of hours Ryan Roxie has been busy making podcasts. In the first he sits down with bandmate Tommy Henriksen for an interesting chat about Tommy’s career including lots of AC info, and in the latest (today) he interviews Billy Idol/Atomic Playboys guitarist Steve Stevens. The Tommy podcast is already up on Roxie’s YouTube channel and the Steve Stevens one should be there soon as well.

Nita Strauss has been chatting to Kerrang! about working for Alice, and her solo career, which you can read here.
Nita is also taking part in a cool new project put together by Dave Ellefson of Megadeth, called ‘School’s Out!‘. The idea is to help entertain youngsters during the virus crisis by offering "free music lessons and one-on-one mentoring sessions via Skype from major artists to students stuck at home due to COVID-19 restrictions." It’s free, and students aged 18 and under can sign up to get a call. The list of artists also includes former Alice Cooper drummer Jimmy DeGrasso along with various other Megadeth related musicians and friends. Nice one Dave!

There’s a short interview with Dennis and Cindy Dunaway at the Manchester, UK ‘Astroturf’ showing last week. I couldn’t be there but it seems to have been a great success.

The Fire Fight Australia charity show has spawned a double album featuring performances from the concert. It’s out now, and features Alice and the band performing ‘School’s Out’ at the show.

The multitalented Eric Dover (‘Eyes Of Alice Cooper’ etc) has a new band called ‘The Lickerish Quartet’ which sees him hooking up again with a couple of his pre-Alice bandmates from Jellyfish. Their debut EP is out on May 15th and is called ‘Threesome Vol. 1’. They’ve also released a video for the lead track called ‘Lighthouse Spaceship’ which is pretty awesome and you can check it out in this article about the band from PopMatters.

Kerrang! magazine have an article ranking every Alice Cooper album from worst to best. Their order is a little odd to say the least but you can check it out here.

Go Tech Daily have a longish article about the ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’ album, however it’s obviously been google translated or something, as you get classic statements like "Bob had labored with us on every single album from ‘Adore It To Demise’ to ‘Billion Greenback Infants’" I must have missed those albums! Maybe worth a read just for a laugh.

Lastly for now the ‘Alice Cooper Solid Rock Teen Center’ is to broadcast a series of concerts on Facebook between March 23rd and 27th featuring different performers each day from the teen center, and "some other surprises". You never know who might show up at some point! Check it out via facebook.

From Alice Cooper:

“We are regretfully postponing our Spring 2020 headline North American tour from March 31 through April 22. The tour is being rescheduled for Fall 2020 and the new schedule will be announced as soon as possible.”

“Due to the current concerns regarding COVID-19, the health and safety of our fans, local venue staffs, as well as the health and safety of our band and crew, is of utmost priority. Information regarding previously purchased tickets and VIP packages will be available soon at alicecooper.com; it is recommended that those who have tickets should retain them, as they may be valid for the re-scheduled shows.”

“Let’s get through this together and resume rocking later in the year.”

In an update to the current situation on the ‘Rock Meets Classic’ tour, it appears the rest of the German tour has been officially postponed, although at this point it’s not clear if it will be possibly to reschedule the shows any time soon. While the official statement on the ‘Rock Meets Classic‘ site suggests the Frankfurt show is still on, Kyler Clark has posted this morning to say that Alice and the gang are already heading home to avoid getting caught in any possible travel ban, which could effect the next batch of shows in the US.

“We are on our way home after having the Rock Meets Classic Tour cancelled after the Berlin show. We will make it home today, arriving just before the European travel ban makes it much more difficult. For those folks wondering what will happen to our other tour dates – we are in the same boat. As soon as anything happens you will know at the same time we will. It is difficult to predict, but we hope all goes as planned. Get tested for the virus folks so you know you’re not spreading it to vulnerable people! Take the precautions that are recommended, just in case. Wash your filthy hands!”

Obviously this is an evolving situation so make sure you check with your venue before traveling to a show for the foreseeable future. Currently the US shows are still happening but that could change at any time.

Update: The ‘Rock Meets Classic’ tour has now officially been cancelled and will not be rescheduled. You can read the full statement from organiser Mat Sinner at Bravewords.

Alice Cooper has announced two more shows for this October in Mexico with Tesla opening. Tickets go on pre-sale tomorrow at 10AM. The dates are:

23rd October – Arena Monterrey, Monterrey, MX
25th October – Arena Ciudad De Mexico, Mexico City, MX

With the current Coronavirus situation Alice’s personal assistant Kyler Clark posted the following message for anyone going to the ‘Rock Meets Classics’ shows. It’s probably good advice for any shows for the foreseeable future:

“If you’re planning on going to Rock Meets Classic in Germany PLEASE make sure you confirm that the show you are attending is still going on! They have banned all shows over 1000 people in Bavaria as of TODAY, Show in Berlin tonight still a go but the whole situation is in flux and if you have plans to travel to any show you should make sure you have the latest information! I am not 100% positive which shows have been called off yet as it’s not fully announced or confirmed.”

Damon Johnson has started work on a new solo album, and he’s set up a Indiegogo site where you can pledge money towards the project with various incentives including a home concert or a day golfing with Damon!

Three new US shows have been announced for July. Support comes from Cory Marks and pre-sale tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10AM. The dates are:

July 13th – Altria Theater – Richmond, VA
July 14th – Mountain Health Arena – Huntington, WV
July 15th – Express Live! (Outdoors) – Columbus, OH

This years Record Store Day is on April 18th and will see the official release of ‘Live at the Apollo Theatre, Glasgow 1982’, a radio recording from the ‘Special Forces’ tour. Only three songs from this show have been officially released before on the ‘For Britain Only’ 12" single back in 1982. It will be a limited edition of 7000 2xLPs on black vinyl. You can see the cover below.

Blue Coupe’s appearance in the Silja Rock Cruise is the latest casualty of Coronavirus. The event has been canceled.

There are still a few tickets for the screening of ‘Live From The Astroturf, Alice Cooper’ in Manchester, UK on March 14th. Dennis and Cindy Dunaway will be there to answer questions and sign things.

Ryan Roxie interviews bandmate Nita Strauss in the latest edition of his ‘In The Trenches‘ podcast.

Meaww have a new interview with Calico Cooper talking about Beasto Blanco and working with her Dad.

Regular readers may remember the Main Man Records tribute to David Bowie ‘Hero’ from a few years ago. The album is the only place to find the Dennis Dunaway Project’s version of Bowie’s ‘Moonage Daydream’, which features guitarist Rick Tedesco playing Mick Ronson’s Les Paul used on the original recording. Main Man are reissuing the album on April 15th on white vinyl and you can pre-order a copy here.

The Lowertown Line has an interesting little video recalling the infamous 1978 tear gas incident at St Pauls Civic Center. Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner was there and shares his memories of the show.

If you’re watching the new Netflix series ‘Messiah’ watch out for a cameo appearance from The Amazing Randi!

The ‘Rock Meets Classic’ show in Zurich, CH has been postponed due to the current Coronavirus scares. A new date will be announced later. The official statement reads:

“Due to the decision of the Federal Council of 28.02.2020 in connection with COVID-19 (Coronavirus), events with over 1000 people are not allowed to take place until and on 15th March 2020. This is why the event “Rock Meets Classic 2020 | 06.03.2020, Zurich – Hallenstadion” is unfortunately postponed. We will try to announce catch up dates as soon as possible. Tickets already purchased remain valid for the new date. All events under 1000 people will take place at this stage according to planning.”

Michael Bruce has posted a teaser video featuring songs from his forthcoming ‘Michael Bruce Group’ album. The video includes clips of ‘Born Screamer’, ‘Famous Face’, and ‘Riding a Hurricane’, Full album details will presumably be released soon.

Glen Sobel will be sitting in with house band on ‘Late Night With Seth Myers‘ between March 2nd and 5th on NBC in the US.

If you missed Alice’s appearance on new Fox animated show ‘Duncanville’ you can see some of it here.

Dennis and Cindy Dunaway have confirmed they will be attending the Manchester, UK screening of ‘Live From The Astroturf, Alice Cooper’ on Saturday March 14th at the ‘Odeon, Great Northern’ where it will be shown as part of the Manchester Film Festival. They will take part in a Q&A session after the film with autograph and photo oportunities. You can still get a ticket for just £6.75 here.

‘From The Inside’ and ‘Flush The Fashion’ period Alice Cooper guitarist Davey Johnstone made a surprise appearance at the Auckland, New Zealand show a couple of days ago, the first time Davey has appeared on stage with Alice for decades! He was apparently at a loose end after his long time boss, Elton John, canceled shows due to illness, so joined the band for ‘School’s Out’. You can currently see footage of the show here.

There have been a few more reviews from the recent shows including ‘The Music‘, ‘Scenestr‘ and ‘Stuff‘

Midweek has a new interview with Shep Gordon although there isn’t any Alice Cooper content.

The Hollywood Vampires have added an extra show on September 13th at the Lifepark Open Air Venue in Istanbul, Turkey. Tickets can be purchased here.

Alice and the band stormed the ANZ Stadium ‘Fire Fight Australia’ stage earlier today for a short four song set featuring ‘Department Of Youth’, ‘I’m Eighteen’, ‘Poison’ and, of course, ‘School’s Out’ which included the ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ snippet. Even without a stage set and mostly prop-free the band still took the roof off, with Alice managing to go through a few costume changes including the white tailcoat with an Australian flag sewn on the back. During and after the performance both #AliceCooper and #HurricaneNita were apparently "trending" on twitter in Australia for a while, and there were nothing but positive reports in the mainstream media. I’m told there was also a very brief clip of Alice on the BBC news earlier today.

The Daily Mail (UK) strangely probably has the best text coverage with photos from the show, but currently you can watch the full performance on YouTube.

The previous evening ‘The Goon Squad’ (Chuck, Ryan, Glen and Tommy) played a small club show at Frankie’s Pizza in Sydney which included a surprise appearance by Rose Tattoo legend Angry Anderson for a cover of the Tatts "Rock And Roll Outlaw". So far I’ve only found a short 15 second clip showing Anderson with the band, but hopefully more footage will show up soon.
UPDATE: Frankies have posted video of the the full show on their facebook page!

In other news the New Zealand Herald has a story about Alice playing golf downunder, while ‘Heavy‘ and ‘Noise11‘ have reviews of the Melbourne show, and the Daily Mail (again!) have a review and excellent photos from the same show.

The latest issue of ‘Steel Notes Magazine’ has one feature on Dennis Dunaway’s ‘Cold Cold Coffin’ film, and another of frequent DD collaborates Tish And Snooky of ‘Manic Panic’ who are also on the cover. You can read the whole magazine here.

The Hollywood Vampires have announced that their Milan, Italy show has been switched from September 10th to September 9th due to "logistical difficulties of transporting our personnel and equipment through Europe". All tickets for the original date will of course be honoured.

Highlights from the Australian Fire Benefit concert WILL be shown in the UK by SKY ONE on Monday February 17th (the day after the show) between 8PM and 9.30PM. With only 90 minutes (including adverts) it seems unlikely we’ll get to see more then one or two Alice Cooper songs at most, but it’s likely the full Australian broadcast will turn up on YouTube pretty quickly.

Alice and the band are now in Australia of course, playing a short tour, so there are reviews and interviews to check out. The setlist is basically the same as last year, but with the addition of ‘Department Of Youth’ which was a big hit down under. The Rockpit has a review and photos from the Perth show, the Daily Mail (UK) also has photos. Stuff has a new interview with Alice, as does WSFM and TripleM.

Dennis Dunaway has posted a new blog entry covering the Christmas Pudding reunion show and recording a couple of tunes while in Phoenix for the next Alice Cooper album!

Alice seems to have got the cartoon bug recently. After ‘Mickey and The Roadster Racers’ and ‘Bubble Guppies’ there now comes ‘Duncanville‘, but this time he voices himself in episode two of this new Fox cartoon which will air in the US on February 23rd. The episode is entitled ‘Red Head Redemption’.

The Hollywood Vampires have been announced as playing the Lowlands Festival in
Biddinghuizen, The Netherlands. This is a three day festival between August 21st and 23rd of August (the band are already booked for the 23rd though, so presumably they will play either the 21st or 22nd). Tickets are on sale for the full weekend but apparently no day tickets will be available.

Beasto Blanco will be playing dates in the US during March. Opening acts will be ‘Dead Girls Academy’ and ‘Sin Shake Sin’. VIP Meet and Greet tickets are available now for the following shows:

March 9th – Kansas City, MO – The Riot Room
March 10th – St Peters. MO – Diamond Music Hall

March 11th – Moline, IL – Rascals Live
March 12th – West Dundee, IL – Rochaus
March 13th – Chesterfield, MI – Diesel
March 15th – Lakewood, OH – The Winchester
March 17th – Pittsburgh, PA – Crafthouse
March 18th – New York, NY – Knitting Factory
March 19th – Clifton, NJ – Dingbatz
March 20th – Glen Burnie, MD – La Fontaine Bleue

Neal Smith’s movie ‘Desolation Angeles/Rise of the BOAS’ is now available on Amazon in the USA and UK. If you have Amazon Prime it’s free to watch. The blurb goes "A group of freelance Mercenaries are hired by a Secret Government Agency to disrupt the relationship between the Russian Mob and Mexican Cartel! Things don’t go as planned for the Mercenaries and the Russians seek revenge! The results are Bloody and just!" Neal plays a "ruthless Russian mob boss’ and also provides the theme song ‘Desolation Angles". You can check out the music video of ‘Desolation Angels’ below.

Alice and Johnny Depp were at the MusiCares tribute to Aerosmith last week and you can watch fan filmed footage of them on stage with the band for ‘Train Kept A Rollin’ on YouTube or here. Orianthi was also there performing ‘Back In The Saddle’ with Sammy Hagar!

Radioplay.se has a short interview with Alice from September last year that I don’t think I’ve seen heard before. You can listen here.

‘Nightmare Returns’ bassist Kip Winger got on stage with Alice Cooper tribute band ‘Eyes Of Alice’ at the Rockpile in Toronto last week to perform ‘I’m Eighteen’ and you can check it out here.

Alice Cooper has been announced as a guest at this years ‘London Film And Comic Con‘ at the Olympia, London between July 24th and 26th. This is NOT a concert, but an autograph and photo appearance. Tickets for the convention are on sale now, but getting an autograph and/or photo will cost a LOT more on top of your admission price. Prices quoted are an eye-watering £65 for an autograph and $75 for a photo, or a "diamond pass" that gets you an autograph, photo and "gift" for £175. Alice will be there all three days and tickets are available now.

‘Live From The Astroturf, Alice Cooper’ is getting another UK showing at the ‘Manchester International Film Festival‘ which runs between March 7th and 15th. The film will be shown on Saturday March 14th at 7.45 at the Odeon, Great Northern.

Blue Coupe will be back in Europe for the Silja Rock Cruise from Stockholm to Helsinki on May 18th. Hopefully there will be more European shows announced soon.

Alice and Sheryl were at former elementary school Westwood High School in Mesa, AZ on Wednesday to announce that there will be a second ‘The Rock’ Teen center opening there this summer. ‘Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Teen Centers’ will fund the renovations and provide more than $100,000 worth of music, arts and dance programming to youth ages 12 to 20 and the local community.

The Goon Squad (the Alice Cooper band without Alice and Nita) will be playing an "After Show Party" at ‘Frankie’s Pizza by the Slice’ at 50 Hunter Street, Sydney, Australia on February 15th. This takes place after the proper Alice Cooper show at Quodos Bank Arena.

Blabbermouth have posted video of Nita Strauss at NAMM last weekend which you can check out here. Nita is currently working on her second solo album between AC tours.

Alice’s appearance on ‘Jonesy’s Jukebox’ this morning is likely to be posted on the radio stations site soon so keep an eye out here.

It’s been confirmed that the ‘Fight Fire Australia’ charity show in Sydney next month WILL be televised by the ‘Seven’ and ‘Foxtel’ channels in Australia. The full nine hour plus show will be shown along with backstage footage and interviews.

Alice Cooper has announced a new batch of shows for May/June in the USA. The dates are as follows and VIP tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10AM. Support will be Tesla and Lita Ford

30th May Paso Robles, CA – Vina Robles Amphitheatre
31st May Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl
3rd June Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom
5th June Thackerville, OK – Winstar World Casino
6th June Topeka, KS – Stormont Vail Events Center
7th June Maryland Heights, MO – Hollywood Casino Amphitheater
9th June Nashville, TN – Ascend Amphitheatre
10th June Huber Heights, OH – Rose Music Center
12th June Welsh, MN – Treasure Island Resort and Casino
13th June Rosemont, IL – Rosemont Theatre
14th June Cuyahoga Falls, OH – Blossom Music Center
16th June Boston, MA – Rockland Trust Bank Pavilion
17th June Wilkes-Barre Township, PA – Mohegan Sun Arena
19th June Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center
20th June Gilford, NH – Bank of NH Pavilion
21st June Hanover, MD – The Hall at Live! Casino and Hotel
23rd June Wantagh, NY – Northwell Heath at Jones Beach
25th June Philadelphia, PA – The Mann Center
26th June Burgettstown, PA – S&T Bank Music Park
27th June Clarkston, MI – DTE Energy Music Theatre

Alice will be a guest on Steve Jones (Sex Pistols) radio show ‘Jonesy’s Jukebox’ at the Viper Rooms in LA this Friday and you can win tickets to be there in person at 955klos.com.

He will also be at the ‘Motor City Comic Con‘ in Detroit between May 15th and 17th (all three days) for autographs and photos.

Nita, Chuck, Glen, and Michael Bruce, appear to have been at NAMM over the weekend. The easiest way to see what else they’ve been up to is check their facebook pages. Alice doesn’t appear to have been there this year.

Alice has been talking to the Australian press about the upcoming bush fire benefit, but sadly they won’t let you read it in Europe.

Dennis Dunaway’s ‘Cold Cold Coffin’ has won another award, this time for ‘Best Music Video’ at the Los Angeles Motion Picture Festival.

It has now been confirmed that Alice Cooper will appear at the upcoming ‘Fight Fire Australia’ benefit show at the ANZ Stadium in Sydney, Australia on February 16th along with Queen + Adam Lambert, Olivia Newton John, John Farnham, Icehouse and a host of other Australian stars. The show aims to raise substantial funds to combat the horrific fires currently sweeping the country. Alice’s participation is not big surprise, it’s been speculated ever since the show was announced because he’s already playing a show in Sydney the night before, as are Queen, who are playing the same venue and have presumably offered their stage and equipment for the event. The actual format for the show has yet to be announced, as has the question of whether the show will be televised either in Australia or elsewhere.

There’s also a new show announced for Niagara Falls, ON on March 31st at the Fallsview Casino Resort. Tickets go on sale this Friday.

Dennis Dunaway, who is currently recovering from a successful hernia operation, will be appearing at the Cutting Room in New York City on January 28th as part of the ‘Latest From Storytown‘ event which features musicians telling anecdotes from their career along with Guy Story and his band playing songs. Tickets are available now.

If you haven’t already had the chance you can now hear Dennis’ song ‘What Was Right For You’, as recorded by Mary Lamont, on Mary’s own radio show here. It’s the second song with Mary introducing it around 5 minutes into the show.

Alice and Sheryl’s youngest daughter Sonora Diaz has announced on Facebook that she is pregnant, so there will be another little Cooper grandchild in the coming months!

Rock Candy Magazine in the UK has four pages of Cooper content with superfan Michael Monroe (Hanoi Rocks) talking about his Alice influences. It’s out now with a Glenn Hughes cover.

SmartFem have an interview with Alice and Sheryl which I don`t think I’ve posted before. Tone Deaf also have a new interview with Alice promoting the Australian shows.

Nita Strauss has launched a new ‘Bodyshred’ challenge for those looking to get fitter. All the details can be found at NitaStraussbodyshred.com.

There’s a new advert on UK TV for ‘Funding Circle’ which features a baby singing along to ‘Zipper Catches Skin’ classic ‘I Am The Future’ with very strange results! You can watch it on YouTube.

The Hollywood Vampires have added a Paris show to their European tour. It’s at the L’Olympia on August 31st. VIP packages seem to go on sale tomorrow with normal tickets on sale on January 6th at 10AM.

The new issue of Classic Rock magazine in the UK has a four page article on the making of the ‘Easy Action’ album. Subscription copies have just arrived so it should be on the newsstands early next week.

Neal Smith will be one of the judges at a Battle Of The Bands on January 9th at Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix, AZ with all raised funds going to Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Teen Centers! Tickets are available here.

The ‘Part of the Machine: Rock & Pinball’ exhibit from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has left Cleveland and is now on show in the ‘Showcase Gallery’ at the Joseph Brant Museum in Burlington, ON and features the original electric chair prop.

With the holiday’s now over here’s a quick round up of news from the last couple of weeks.

A few reports are coming in from the New Year’s Eve bash in Maui. It appears that this year Alice and the family were joined by Chuck, Nita and Glen for the annual charity show which also featured Willie Nelson, Michael McDonald, Dave Mason, and Weird Al Yankovic. Chuck, Nita and Glen along with Thomas Conway, and Andres Romero appear to have made up the ‘house band’ for most of the guests. No mention of the exact set list yet but there is video (see below) of them playing ‘I’m Eighteen’ and going by a photo on Facebook it appears Calico Cooper joined Weird Al for song as well. Hopefully more info will come to liught in the next few days.

On January 4th Alice will make an appearance at the Willie K Bluesfest at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center along with Mick Fleetwood and Dave Mason among others. This is another Maui charity event that seems to have become an annual occurance.

According to a facebook post by the ‘Monsters Of Rock Cruise’, Alice Cooper will be a headliner on their 2021 event, which should give everyone interested enough time to save up for it!

Alice will be appearing at the ‘Texas Frightmare Weekend‘ between May 1st and 3rd at the Hyatt Regency DFW Airport in Dallas, TX. Tickets are on sale now.

Ultimate Classic Rock have posted an article about ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’ and the story behind it, while the Press and Sun Bulletin look back at the famously canceled 1973 Binghamton show.

BayRockNZ has a short audio interview with Alice promoting the upcoming New Zealand shows.