Month: May 2019

Bottlerock Happenings

Alice fails Rubber Chicken Record

When it was announced Alice would be a guest on the ‘Culinary Stage’ at the 2019 BottleRock in Napa Valley it seemed a little weird.. Well, it got weirder. He was there to take part in an attempt to beat the world record for throwing rubber chickens at the same time! Apparently a record of 1013 chickens already exists!! Sadly Coop didn’t succeed, as the Guinness Book Of Records official couldn’t confirm all the chickens did take flight at the same time.. Thankfully the Mercury News was on hand to file a report and has some video.

While at the BottleRock festival Alice joined Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters) and his covers band ‘Chevy Metal’ to perform ‘School’s Out’. You can see video on YouTube.

Two more shows appear to have been added to next years ‘Rock Meets Classics‘ tour. They are 15th March at the Donau-Arena in Regensburg, Germany and 21st March at the Saturn Arena in Ingolstadt, Germany. Tickets are already on sale. Alice will be accompanied on the tour by Tommy Henriksen, and the show also features Robin Zander of Cheap Trick and Danny Bowes & Luke Morley from Thunder!

Beasto Blanco’s new album ‘We Are’ is now out and everyone who pre-ordered should either have their copy (USA) or expect it to arrive imminently (everywhere else). It’s another blockbuster record from the band but has a slightly different feel to previous records. Maybe a little less full on, and a little more refined? Just go get a copy and judge for yourself.
My Global Mind has a review of the New Jersey show with some excellent photos.

Blue Coupe have added two more shows on Ohio following their appearance at this years Sweden Rocks festival (where they will be joined by special guest Ryan Roxie!). The new US dates are:
July 12th – Ottawa Tavern, Toledo, OH
July 13th – Rhythm and Brews, Wapakoneta, OH.
New Jersey Arts also has a new article about the band which you can check out here.

Ryan Roxie has posted a report and video from his recent appearance with the ‘Sunset Winos’, a covers band that also features ex-Coop bandmates Eric Dover, Teddy Zig Zag, and Jimmy Degrasso as well as old friend Stefan Adika with guest Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats.

Solid Rock have posted photos from this years golf event at surrealsister.com. There’s lots of photos to look through only some of which feature Alice, and a few also feature Neal Smith.

CBN News have an article focusing on Alice’s religious beliefs.

News Catch Up

News Catch Up

Shock Opera have posted video of the Q&A that followed the world premiere of ‘Live From The Astroturf, Alice Cooper’ in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago. The picture quality isn’t great, but you can follow what’s going on and hear what is being said, and how often do you get to see Alice, Neal, Dennis and Michael interviewed together!

AZCentral have a review of the recent Hollywood Vampires show in Phoenix.

Blue Coupe will be playing at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, OH on July 11th. Tickets are on sale now.

CBC in Canada have posted a long interview with producer Bob Ezrin talking about his career.

Nita Strauss can be heard on a new single by Duane Morano called ‘Manhattan Nights’ You can check out the video here.
Kerrang! has a new interview with Nita and she will also be a judge on the ‘Young Guitarist of the Year’ competition and Music Radar has all the details on how to enter.

Vampires Press and DD Update

The Hollywood Vampires are over half way through their short tour and various reviews and articles have started to appear. PE.com has a few words with Jo Perry, SF Weekly review the San Francisco show, although the reviewer clearly went to the show intending to trash it. They have some photos too. The Denver post have photos from the Denver show, as does Westword. 303Magazine review the Fillmore show and Glide Magazine have more photos.
UPDATE: Just after I posted this EarMusic released a new video for ‘The Boogieman Surprise‘. See below.

Dennis Dunaway has posted part 2 of his Astroturf Film Festival blog post which you can check out here. This one covers the Detroit festival.
Blue Coupe will be playing with Mott The Hoople’s Ian Hunter at The City Winery in New York City on May 31st. The event is already sold out but you can sign up for a waiting list in case any more tickets become available.
There’s also a new interview with Dennis at ‘The College Crowd Hates Me‘ which covers a lot of ground including the story behind ‘Black Juju’.
Finally for DD news the ‘Cold Cold Coffin’ mini-movie has been accepted into the ‘Indie Horror Film Festival‘ in Illinois and will be screened on July 13th. Dennis is hoping for other festival screenings to follow soon. For those who took part in the Pledge campaign to make the film, your pledge items have started to ship so watch your mail box!

Nita Strauss has released a new video for ‘Mariana Trench’ which features live and backstage footage from her last solo tour. You can check it out here. Nita also joined US band Evanescence on stage at the Epicenter Festival in North Carolina last week, footage of which you can see at Ultimate Guitar along with a few words from Nita.
Nita is out on her solo tour right now.

Vampires Tour Begins

Hollywood Vampires Launch short tour in Las Vegas.

Last night was the opening show on the Hollywood Vampire’s mini-tour at The Joint in Las Vegas. Not much information has surfaced just yet however it appears the set list was similar to last years shows but with several of that shows cover songs replaced by songs from the new album ‘Rise’. A short rehearsal video posted to social media did show a full set list sheet, however I don’t yet know if that was a final list used last night. Also on the Hollywood Vampires facebook page they posted a very short clip of a second song from the album.
Of course there’s been some interview action promoting the tour. Alice was on KTNV Channel 13 yesterday morning talking about the show, while AZCentral has an interview with Alice and Joe Perry talked to CV Weekly. More coverage will certainly follow.
UPDATE: Setlist confirmed with photos at Ultimate Classic Rock. Check out Alice playing guitar on ‘Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory’.

Nita Strauss has launched a new project called the ‘Body Shred Challenge’, a fitness challenge aimed at musicians and music fans. The promo blurb goes “Body Shred is a unique, 3 month fitness challenge that pairs a love of music with passion for getting healthier in your body and mind! Participants will have the chance to win prize packages valued at over $2,500 while becoming a part of a fun, supportive world wide community. Along with this challenge, participants will have access to an exclusive Facebook group for challenge members to inspire and encourage each other as well as Facebook Live workouts and Q&A with Nita and some surprise guests, and weekly challenge emails from Nita with recipes, workout ideas and more!”
You can find more details at NitaStrauss.com with links to join the challenge.

95.9 KRFF interviewed Chuck and Calico the other day after the Bismark show with Halestorm, and you can listen to the chat on Soundcloud now.
Calico was also on DV Radio’s ‘Contraband’ for an hour long interview and you can listen to that one here.

Backstage Auctions have announced their 2019 ‘Rock Gods And Metal Monsters’ auction and this year it features various Alice related lots which, for a change, are very affordable including tour posters and programmes. The auction runs from today until May 19th.

More Awards For Astroturf

‘Live From The Astroturf, Alice Cooper’ has won two more awards at the Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival. It’s won awards for ‘Documentary under 60 minutes’ and ‘Editing’. Congratulations to all involved.

The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland have announced an ‘Alice Cooper Fan Day‘ on July 14th. The Rock Hall will be airing special screenings of the 2011 Alice Cooper Induction ceremony footage in it’s Foster Theater. The raw footage features special performances and the induction speech given by Rob Zombie. There’s also unlimited free play on the Alice Cooper pinball machine in the ‘Part of The Machine: Rock & Pinball’ exhibit, and 10% off Alice Cooper related merchandise in their store.

AAA.com has a new interview with Alice about cars, but be warned their site is a little silly, as it demands your zip code and then takes you away from the page you want to actually read. If you enter ‘12345’ and then hit your ‘back’ button and intrupt the page loading, then you should be able to read it…

Audio Ink have a new interview with Chuck Garric and Calico Cooper about Beasto Blanco’s new album ‘We Are’ and the current tour.

TheSeeker.ca have a new interview with Damon Johnson including chat about his time with Alice. Damon is booked to play a solo show in London on August 6th at the 02 in Islington. Tickets are on sale now. Check out DamonJohnson.com for a full list of other shows Damon has coming up.

Alice and Neal Smith Perform Together

Alice Cooper and Neal Smith play charity golf Event.

AZCentral have posted a review of last weekends ‘Rock & Roll Golf Classic’ jam show which included Neal Smith joining Alice for a final ‘I’m Eighteen’ and ‘School’s Out’ at the Las Sendas Golf Club in Mesa, AZ. The show also included Robin Zander (Cheap Trick), Tommy Thayer (Kiss), Mickey Dolenz and Robby Krieger (The Doors) with whom Alice performed Doors classics ‘People Are Strange‘, ‘Break On Through‘ and ‘Light My Fire’.
Alice performed his own short set of course including ‘No More Mr Nice Guy’, ‘Be My Lover’, ‘Lost In America’ and ‘I’ll Bite Your Face Off’ as well as ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’ by Kiss before being joined by Neal for the finale.
All proceeds from the annual charity event go to ‘The Rock’.

‘Live From The Astroturf, Alice Cooper’ will be screened at the North East Mountain Film Festival which runs between June 14th and 16th in Dillard House, GA. Exact details of when the film will be shown should be announced soon.
In other Astroturf news Dennis Dunaway has posted a new blog recalling the events at the Phoenix Fim Festival.

‘The Well’ have posted part two of their Alice interview which you can listen to here.