New Monsters Cruise Announced

Alice Cooper has been announced as the headliner of the ‘Monsters Of Rock Cruise: Operation Monster Beach’

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.

Friday Update

Alice Cooper Appears On Kesha Podcast and other news

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.

Detroit Single Tomorrow

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.

Detroit News

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

Detroit Stories

Detroit Rumours

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.