#DamonJohnson – SickthingsUK

Podcasts

New Alice Cooper related podcasts

Ryan Roxie has just released a new version of the Slade classic ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ and you can check out the video now featuring a ton of very familiar faces!

Neal Smith will be the guest on Ryan Roxie’s ‘In The Trenches’ podcast on Friday at 5pm UK/12PM EST
. You can find it and all the other ‘In The Trenches’ episodes on YouTube.

Nita Strauss was a guest on the ‘Mistress Carrie‘ podcast recently and revealed her forthcoming second solo album will be split between half vocal and half instrumental tracks with some big names guesting on songs. The album is due in the new year.

Steve Hunter is the guest on the T-Bone’s Prime Cuts’ podcast which you can find here.

Damon Johnson is holding his 2nd annual ‘Holiday Hangout’ acoustic livestream on December 23rd and you can get more info and a ticket now here. Damon will be playing songs and telling stories from the past year including tales from his trip with Lynyrd Skynyrd.
UPDATE: The show will also feature special messages from Alice Cooper and Skynyrd’s Ricky Medlocke.

Alice for Graspop

Alice Cooper has been confirmed as playing at next years Graspop Metal Meeting in Dessel, Belgium on June 19th. Tickets for the festival appear to go on sale later this month.

October 1st was proclaimed ‘Alice Cooper Day’ by Major Tom Barrett in Milwaukee, the day Alice played at the BMO Harris Pavillion. The Major tweeted “The Godfather of shock rock and stage theatrics, Alice Cooper has entertained countless Milwaukee fans since his first Wisconsin show in 1973. I welcome him back to the “good land” today by proclaiming October 1 as “Alice Cooper Day” throughout the City of Milwaukee.”

The Financial Times has a lengthy new interview with Alice which you can see here.

Detroit News has an article about the new ‘Alice Cooper Court’ in the city which you can read here.

I think I mentioned a few weeks back that ex-Cooper guitarist Damon Johnson is currently out on the road with Lynyrd Skynyrd standing in for Gary Rossington while he recovers from recent health issues. Damon will also be playing an acoustic opening set at some of these shows before his new band The Get Ready open a few more shows in November. Then in late November Damon and The Get Ready will be in the UK opening for Buckcherry on their UK tour, as well as headlining a show in Glasgow on December 9th. You can find all the details here.

GRASPOP

New Shows

Alice Cooper announces two new shows

Some tour news this week. The Farmingville, NY show set for September 22nd has been cancelled, and replaced by a show in Utica, NY at ‘The Stanley‘ on the same day. Tickets for the new show went on public sale today.

Additionally Alice has been announced as headlining the ‘Rock The Ring‘ festival in Hinwil, Switzerland on June 18th next year. This is the second European festival to be announced for next June so expect more shows to follow.

Damon Johnson’s new band ‘The Get Ready’ have a series of shows coming up from July 24th in Richmond, IN. including a run of UK shows with Buckcherry at the end of the year. Check out all the dates here. The bands album ‘Battle Lessons’ is out now.

Catch Up

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.

‘Don’t Give Up’ at #1

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.

This Weeks Happenings

This Weeks Alice Cooper Happenings

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.

Weekly Update

Weekly Alice Cooper Update

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.

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.

Grammy’s and BAFTA’s

Its been very quiet on the news front for the last couple of the weeks. This could be because Alice has been holed up in the studio as shown by a photo of him with Tommy and Chuck posted by Kyler Clark. Is this the new Alice Cooper album, or maybe guesting on a Beasto Blanco track. Time will tell.
With the start of awards season he’s been out and about this weekend, firstly at Clive Davis’s celebrity Pre-Grammy bash on Saturday (February 9th), and then I assumed he would be at the Grammy’s ceremony itself at the Staples Center in Los Angeles yesterday, where Jesus Christ Superstar was up for an award, but lost.
According to a tweet from UK broadcaster/comedian and AC fan Danny Baker he was also at the BAFTA awards ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall last night in London and sat next to Alice! This is weird as there are pictures of Alice with Steven Tyler at Tyler’s Janie’s Fund Benefit at Raleigh Studios in Los Angeles last night. It seem far more likely Alice was in Los Angeles then London, so quite what Baker was talking about I’m not sure. It’s not like he wouldn’t know who he was talking to.

Back in December Alice featured on ‘Top 2000 A Gogo’ in the Netherlands talking about ‘Elected’, but the video was geo-locked, preventing most people seeing it. Now it’s up on YouTube and you can see it here. (Thanks Jos)

Keri Kelli has a new band, although it’s really an old band with a new name. He’s launched ‘A New Revenge’ along with Tim ‘Ripper’ Owen’s (Judas Priest), Rudy Sarzo (Ozzy, Whitesnake) and James Kottak (Scorpions, Kingdom Come) and they have an album out on March 25th called ‘Enemies and Lovers’. The band have been playing shows for a few years now under various names, normally playing classic rock covers, but now it’s a proper band playing their own material. You can see a video for the catchy first single ‘The Way’ here which actually features ex Ozzy bassist Phil Soussan standing in for an unavailable Sarzo.

Damon Johnson has released a video for ‘Shivering Shivering’, the lead single from his ‘Memoirs Of An Uprising’ solo album which is released on March 8th via Double Dragon Records. Damon recently spoke to ‘The Classic Metal Show’ about leaving Black Star Riders and heading out on his own which you can read here.

Lastly don’t forget Ryan Roxie’s UK shows are less than two weeks away! With the Nantwich charity show postponed you only have two chances to catch Roxie playing classic solo songs as well as a few Cooper surprises. Don`t miss it! He plays Bedford Esquires on February 22nd and Birmingham ‘The Asylum’ the following night.