More New Alice Cooper

Ex-Motorhead guitarist Phil Campbell has released a lyric video for ‘Swing It’ from his forthcoming solo album ‘Old Lions Still Roar’ which is out October 25th via Nuclear Blast. The song features vocals from Alice Cooper, and you can watch it below. The album also features appearances from Dee Snider, Mick Mars, Rob Halford and Joe Satriani

Flaunt.com have a new interview with Calico Cooper AND a new video from Beasto Blanco. The video is for ‘Solitary Rave’ which is taken from the bands latest album “We Are”.

Michael Bruce, Dennis and Cindy Dunaway and Chris Penn will all be in Los Angeles on October 14th for another screening of the ‘Live From The Astroturf, Alice Cooper’ and ‘Cold Cold Coffin’ films. It’s happening at the W Hotel Hollywood, 6250 Hollywood Boulevard, CA (across from Pantages Theater) and tickets are available here.

Sadly we’ve lost two more music legends this week. Firstly Eddie Money, most famous for the hit “Two Tickets To Paradise’, and who toured with Alice back in 1978. Alice Cooper posted the following:

“I first met Eddie when we did some shows together early in his career, and we’ve crossed paths many more times along the way,” he shared with Billboard. “He kept having huge hits, which was no surprise because he seemed to have a voice that was made for the radio. But of the things I can most relate to about Eddie is that like myself, Eddie had his struggles with addiction and he found his way out of it with the help of his family. Another thing about his family is that Eddie brought them all on the road with him. They all performed on stage with him in his band, and that’s the way my family works as well, we have that in common. Eddie Money is and always will be an American icon of Rock N Roll, and I love playing his music on my radio show every night. My condolences to his family and fans around the world.”

Secondly a few days ago saw the passing of The Cars’ Ric Ocasek and again here is Alice’s comment:

“We have lost another great in Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall Of Famer Ric Ocasek of The Cars. Ric and I actually used to be neighbors for a time when we lived in the Hollywood Hills. Ric had a very unique voice for rock ‘n’ roll, there was just nothing complicated about it and that really gave The Cars an edge on the radio. They spearheaded a simplistic new wave of minimalist rock alongside producer Roy Thomas Baker, much to the delight of car stereos and fans everywhere. Condolences to his family and many fans. We’ll miss ya man.”

Alice will be the featured guest at ‘NAIOP Arizona’s Signature Speaker Series’. The event is scheduled for Thursday, October 24th at the Tempe Center for the Arts, 700 W. Rio Salado Parkway, Tempe. Registration begins at 3 p.m. The event, ‘Alice Cooper “Unplugged’, a conversation moderated by Valley celebrity Mark Cordes, begins at 4:30 p.m. A networking reception begins at 5:30 p.m.

According to this press release Alice provides a voice during the new season (5) of Nickelodeon’s ‘Bubble Guppies’ which begins airing on September 27th in the USA. No information as to which specific episode he is in yet.

Paul Rodgers (of Bad Company and Free), Joe Bonamassa, and Judas Priest’s Rob Halford are the first names announced for this years Christmas Pudding show on December 14th. Tickets are expected to be on sale shortly.

MMH Radio have an article on the ’10 Underrated Alice Cooper Tracks’ which you can check out here. It includes some interesting deep cuts.

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.

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.

See Alice Cook.. Live!

Alice appears at Bottlerock

Alice will be a guest at the BottleRock festival in Napa Valley, CA which runs between May 24th and 26th. However he won’t be performing at the festival… rather, it appears he will be a guest on the ‘Culinary Stage’ which seems to be a bunch of chef’s and celebrities cooking while people watch… Limited tickets are available now.

Calico Cooper posted a message on facebook reporting that her stage baseball bat, ‘Suzanne’ was stolen at the Denver Beasto Blanco show on April 23rd. Here’s the full message. If you can help let her know.

Dear Denver-
We have a thief among us. Last night my bat was stolen from the show. We have a pretty good idea of the guy who took it, but we want to give them the chance to do the right thing before we take further action.
My bat “Suzanne” has been with Beasto since we started. It’s been the same Bat in all the videos, stage shows, and photos. It means a lot to me.
We all Make mistakes. We all drink a little too much and make a bad call, but here’s your chance to make it right before it gets worse. Please return the bat, no questions asked by us, to MUDHEN MERCH, 7190 W Sunset Blvd. #1093, Los Angeles, CA. 90046.
To the rest of the fans that came last night, thank you for an amazing show, for being a spectacular crowd, and if you see you know who with Suzanne, do what you need to do.

The new issue of Goldmine Magazine has a 6 page feature on Alice Cooper including interviews with Neal, Michael and Dennis separately answering the same questions including their thoughts on the original band split, the early days and the recent get togethers. It’s a good feature and worth checking out. It’s the June issue you want with ‘The Zombies’ on the cover (with Alice Cooper listed a the bottom).

Glen Sobel and the Goon Squad (Glen, Chuck, Tommy and Ryan) will play a ‘pre-show’ at Sub Alpine Club in Turtle Creek, PA on July 18th (the night before the Pittsburgh show). Tickets are on sale now from “Sub Alpine Club, Attic Records, Dave’s Music Mine, Record Connection (Niles, OH), Anthony Lamonde and the Borstal Boys and Lily V. Sixx” or by phone on 330-219-0016. ‘The Borstal Boys’ open and you can see the flyer below.

Dennis Dunaway will be a guest at the ‘School of Rock’ event at Full Moon Resort in Big Indian, NY (Nr. Woodstock) on July 3rd. Dennis will be speaking and sitting in with the young musicians during an Alice Cooper set. This looks like it’s a private event. Also, if you’re going to the Foxwoods Alice Cooper show on July 4th you might want to keep your eyes open for Dennis and Cindy!

When Blue Coupe play Sweden Rock on June 8th they will have a special guest sitting in… Ryan Roxie!

Geeks Of Doom have posted an article about Alice’s recent appearance at the Philly Comic-com with a few photos, and speaking of the recent comic convention appearances ‘Lucifer’ star Tom Ellis posted the photos of himself with Alice at FanX, stating “So it turns out @alicecooper is not only a lovely man he’s also a big #lucifan I am beyond happy.” There is also an article about the FanX appearance at the HeraldExtra, but they won’t let you read it if you live in Europe..

 

New Roxie Single

Ryan Roxie Releases New Single.

Ryan Roxie releases a new single today from his ‘Imagine Your Reality’ album. This time it’s ‘Look Me In The Eye’ and you can check out the video below. Roxie is currently in the road in the US as part of the ‘Planet Axe’ tour.

With the ‘Live From The Astroturf’ movie hitting the Detroit Film Festival this week there’s more press to promote it including articles in Detroit Free Press and Music Radar.

Alice was in Phoenix on Wednesday (10th) at the ground breaking ceremony for a new ‘White Castle’ restaurant and was briefly interviewed by a local news channel KGUN. The restaurant chain has a “Hall Of Fame” and Alice was inducted a few years ago. In is honour the new outlet will have an ‘Alice Cooper Corner’ where a photo of Alice will be hung.

Beasto Blanco will release a new promo video for ‘The Seeker’ on Monday. It’s the opening track of their new album ‘We Are’ and the promo was directed by Calico Cooper herself! There’s a short preview on her Facebook page.

Talkhouse has an interview with Chainsaw Kittens frontman Tyson Meade talking about the influence Alice Cooper and ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ has had on his life and career.

Beasto Blanco Album Details

Beasto Blanco release new album details

Rat Pak Records have released full details of the new Beasto Blanco album “We Are” which will be released on May 24th. The full press release is as follows:

Beasto Blanco, the band comprised of Chuck Garric (long time Alice Cooper bassist) on guitars and vocals, Calico Cooper on vocals, Brother Latham on guitars, Jan LeGrow on bass and Sean Sellers on drums, will release their 3rd studio album We Are’ on May 24, 2019 via Rat Pak Records.  ‘We Are’ is the follow up album to their highly successful 2016 self-titled sophomore release ‘Beasto Blanco’. Produced by Ryan Greene, the new album is available for pre-order in various bundle configurations at: www.ratpakrecords.com/BeastoBlanco.
Regarding the new album Chuck Garric comments, “We spent a lot of time channeling, dissecting and arranging the songs from our new album. The idea was, “Let’s make ‘our’ record – not necessarily what’s popular now or what we think other people will like. We said, let’s make a record for us and our fans. Our fans are loyal and our sound is our sound.”
Guitarist Brother Latham adds “We Are” is a novel record for us.  It shows maturity in the band, without surrendering our reckless abandon and love of rock n’ roll!”
Calico Cooper adds, “This record has teeth. It’s got a bite to it that I love. It’s message is from the people we see around us every day, it’s heartbeat is so loud. It says We are strong. We are indestructible. We are here. We Are!”
The track listing for ‘We Are’ is as follows:
01 The Seeker, 02 Solitary Rave, 03 Ready To Go, 04 Down, 05 Perception Of Me, 06 Let’s Rip, 07 Half Life, 08 We Got This, 09 Follow The Bleed, 10 I See You In It, 11 Halcyon (Bonus-track CD & Download versions).

AZCentral has a long article about the premiere screening of the ‘Live From The Astroturf’ film tonight at the Phoenix Film Festival. Expect some special guests at the screening!
UPDATE: All four surviving members of the original Alice Cooper line up – Alice, Neal, Michael, and Dennis – where at the premiere.

Ryan Roxie could be a guest on the ‘Electric Crush’ radio show on April 9th between 7pm and 9pm. You can listen in to the show here.

While we’re still awaiting any details about either Hollywood Vampires albums set for release this year, you can now welcome fellow vampires to your home with HV doormats!

Shep Gordon is interviewed on ‘Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast’. which you can listen to here.

More Beasto Blanco US Shows

Beasto Blanco add US headline Shows.

Beasto Blanco, with Chuck Garric and Calico Cooper, have announced headline shows around their previously announced Halestorm support slot dates. These shows will promote their new album, which going from the adverts looks to be called “We Are”, and one would assume it will be released around the same time. You can see the full list of shows in the image below.
Calico will also be a guest on ‘The Jimmy Star Show’ Wednesday on W4CY Radio between 3pm and 5pm. It looks like you can listen in here.

Beasto Blanco 2019

Nita Strauss has also added more dates to her tour. The new dates are as follows:
May 18th – Annapolis , MD at Ram’s Head On Stage
May 30th – Grand Rapids MI at The Stache at the Intersection
June 7th – Harrisburg, PA at Harrisburg Arts
June 9th – Rochester NY at Montage Music Hall
June 11th – Richmond VA at Canal Club
June 12th – Atlanta GA at Smith’s Olde Bar
June 13th – Nashville TN at The Basement
June 14th – Memphis TN at Rockhouse Live
June 15th – New Orleans LA at The Parish at The House of Blues
June 17th – Baton Rouge LA at Varsity Theater
June 19th – Austin TX at Come and Take It Live
June 20th – Dallas TX at Trees
June 21st – San Antonio TX at The Rock Box
June 22nd – Houston TX at Warehouse Live (w/ Static-X and DevilDriver)

Alice was out and about in Detroit last week, taking a break from recording new material! Detroit News snapped a pic of him having dinner with Bob Ezrin and Mark Farmer of Grand Funk Railroad, so presumably add his name to the guest list on the next album!

On Saturday Alice and Dash Cooper were at the Arizona Coyotes Ice Hockey match and “dropped the puck” at the start of the game. You can see footage here.

Solid Rock have announced more details about this years “Alice Cooper’s Annual Rock & Roll Fundraising Bash” which takes place on April 27th before the annual golf tournament. Guests this year include Neal Smith, Robin Zander (Cheap Trick), Tommy Thayer (Kiss), Mickey Dolenz (The Monkees), Robby Kreiger (The Doors), Danny Seraphone (Chicago) and Jonathan Cain (Journey).

The Independent has an article/list of their 10 best Alice songs, which you can check out here.

Catching Up

Alice speaks to Billboard about new albums/tour

Firstly, apologies for the site issues the last few days. There was a problem with the host server which I’m told should hopefully be fixed now. As a result I didn’t want to do updates in case they were simply lost, so here’s a catch up on what’s come through in the last week:

Six new shows have just been announced for the USA preceding the Halestorm co-headline dates. They are:
July 4th – Foxwoods, Mashantucket, CT
July 6th – Express Live!, Columbus, OH
July 7th – Peoria Civic Center, Peoria, IL
July 9th – Five Flags Center, Dubuque, IA
July 10th – The Sylvee, Madison, WI
July 11th – Honeywell Center, Wabash, IN
Tickets go on sale Friday but VIP Pre-sales begin tomorrow at AC.com.

Billboard has a new interview with Alice talking about his plans for this year including the tour, the forthcoming new solo album, and the new Hollywood Vampires releases.
Talking of the new tour Alice says “It’s going to be a brand-new show, an entirely new production – all new staging, all new props and everything. It’s taking a lot of the stuff we know we have to do and a lot of the stuff people are not going to be expecting. ”
As to the new solo album, he’s considering releasing an EP of four new songs in time for the tour, with the full new album to follow in 2020.
“There’s a certain Detroit sound we’re looking for [for the new songs]. It’s indefinable. There’s a certain amount of R&B in it. There’s a certain amount of Motown in it. But then you add the guitars and you add the attitude and it turns into Detroit rock. I feel like if we mine around with all Detroit players, we’re gonna find that sound.” He also mentions guest appearances by fellow Detroit natives Suzi Quatro and Bob Seger. “I can tell you Seger and I will be working on something on this new album. I talked to him and he said, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s be fun,’ and I said, ‘OK, let’s do it.’ So that’s going to happen in the future.” The original band are also set to contribute material, presumably in a similar way to the previous two albums. You can read the whole interview here.

Alice will be appearing at the ‘FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention‘ between April 19th and 20th at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, UT. This is a signing and Q&A session, not a show.

The ‘Live From The Astroturf’ film will be shown at a couple more film festivals in addition to the Phoenix premiere on April 5th. It will be shown at Freep Film Festival in Detroit, MI between April 10th and 14th, and the Dallas, TX International Film Festival between April 11th and 18th.

TruRockRevival have a cool interview with Beasto Blanco co-founder/guitarist Chris Latham. They previously interviewed Chuck and Calico which you can see here.

Keri Kelli’s ‘A New Revenge’ have released another new video, this time for ‘Never Let You Go’ which you can see here. It’s taken from their debut album ‘ Enemies & Lovers’ which is released March 29th on Golden Robot Records. ‘A New Revenge’ features Keri with Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens (Judas Priest) on vocals, James Kottak (Scorpions, Kingdom Come) on drums and Rudy Sarzo (Ozzy, Whitesnake etc) on bass.