#NealSmith – SickthingsUK

New Nita Strauss Album Released Today

New Nita Strauss Album ‘The Call Of The Void’ Released Today

The new Nita Strauss album ‘The Call of the Void’ is out today and there’s a new animated video for ‘Digital Bullets’ featuring Chris Motionless from Motionless in White who opened for Alice a few years ago. You can check out the video here or below. Nita will be live on ‘Rock Feed’ on Sunday at 9.30pm which you’ll find here.

The Northern Echo has a review of Wednesday’s Scarborough Hollywood Vampires show.

The ‘Talk Louder Podcast’ has a long interview with Neal Smith promoting his new ‘Killsmith Goes West’ album. Check it out here.

Lastly, just a note to say that I know the Twitter feed on the news page is currently broken. For some reason Twitter have disabled/broken their own embed code, so there isn’t much I can do. Hopefully they will fix it but with the mess Twitter is in at the moment who knows. If it isn’t fixed after a while I’ll search for some alternative.

More US Dates Added

Alice Cooper adds five shows in August

Alice Cooper has announced five more headline shows in August with tickets going on sale tomorrow. The new shows are:

August 6th – 1st Summit Arena at Cambria County War Memorial, Johnstown, PA, Johnstown, PA
August 15th – Juanita K Hammons Hall, Springfield, MO
August 19th – Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center, Midland, TX
August 20th – The Buddy Holly Hall at Helen DeVitt Jones Theater, Lubbock, TX
August 22nd – Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, San Antonio, TX

The Hollywood Vampires show at Hellfest almost didn’t go ahead after their equipment was stuck in traffic at the French border. Luckily thanks to Kiss and their crew, who were also at the festival, they managed to put together enough gear for them to play the show.

Dennis Dunaway will be appearing on ‘Voodoo Radio’ tomorrow at 7pm UK time. Anyone can listen in to this via the stations website here.

There’s a new 90 minute interview with Chuck Garric thanks to the ‘Mama Tried Show & Flat Out Friday’ Youtube channel which you can check out here.

Hollywood Soapbox has a short interview with Neal Smith talking about his latest solo album ‘Killsmith Goes West’.

Nita Strauss jumped up on stage with Demi Lovato again the other night, on a night off during her current tour, to guest on ‘Heart Attack’. Blabbermouth have videos.

Nita Strauss Album Details and Ryan Roxie Events

Nita Strauss Album Details and other news.

Nita Strauss has officially announced the title of her forthcoming second solo album ‘The Call Of The Void’. The album will be released through Sumerian Records on July 7th and the latest single ‘The Golden Trail’ featuring Anders Fridén if In Flames can be seen here.. You can pre-order now through AmazonUK and AmazonUS on vinyl, CD and streaming.
Nita has been talking to Soundsphere and Kerrang! about the album, working with Alice and more.

Ryan Roxie will have a busy week in Fort Wayne, IN in July when he has two solo events taking place.
The first is on July 27th when he will be hosting a ‘Master Class’ evening including a 2 hour chat and Q&A, talking about his career, somgwriting, touring and anything else that comes to mind. Tickets for this exclusive event are $100 and available here.

Secondly Sweetwater Studios will be holding a 2-day ‘recording workshop’ with Roxie on July 28th-29th. This is a more technical two-day class with day one titled ‘The Basics of Tracking a Session’, and day 2 ‘Mixing to Yield Professional Sounding Results’, and during that time Roxie will actually be recording a new solo single! Places for this event are extremely limited and can be booked here.
If anyone on here is going to attend, email PerfectWave@USA.com letting them know you’re from SickthingsUK so they will "add on some special benefits" for you!

Rhino have posted a new track from the forthcoming ‘Killer’ deluxe edition. This one is ‘You Drive Me Nervous‘ record at the Mar Y Solo festival in 1972.

The Hollywood Vampires have released yet another clip from the forthcoming ‘Live In Rio’. This time it’s their version of Hendrix’s ‘Manic Depression’ which you can see here. ‘Live In Rio’ is due June 2nd from earMusic.

Dennis Dunaway and Michael Bruce have been interviewed for a new article about ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ in the June issue of ‘Vintage Guitar‘ which should be on the news shelves soon. The issue you want has Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton on the cover.

The Rock Pit has a review and photos of the Mystic Lake Theatre show last week which you can read here. Smile Politely has a review and photos of the Champaign show.

Neal Smith has been talking to the Akron Beacon Journal about his life and career here.

Classic Rock/Louder have posted a long article about the early days of Alice Cooper (possibly reposted from a earlier magazine article) with quotes from Dennis Dunaway.

Hollywood Vampires Release My Generation Clip

The Hollywood Vampires have released a new live video of ‘My Generation’

The Hollywood Vampires have released another clip from the forthcoming ‘Live In Rio’ album/film. This time it’s their cover of The Who’s ‘My Generation’ which you can check out here or below.

With the start of the new tour rapidly approaching Ryan Roxie is again offering his "All Excess Pass" for the whole 2023 schedule. Buying a pass gives you access to all sorts of offstage videos, Q&A’s, contests and post show livestreams and can be purchased here.

Neal Smith was on the ‘Interviewing the Legends’ podcast last week promoting his new solo album ‘Killsmith Goes West’. You can check out the 46 minute show here.

You can also see video from Dennis Dunaway’s VersoFest Q&A at Westport Library here.

Hollywood Vampires Release Live Rio Clip

The Hollywood Vampires have released a clip for ‘I’ve Got A Line On You’ from the forthcoming ‘Live In Rio’ album/film. You can check out here or below.

Alice was interviewed for 96.1 KLPX this week promoting the Coopstock event in Phoenix tomorrow which you can listen to here.

Nita Strauss was on the ‘Appetite for Distortion’ podcast this week talking about her new single ‘Winner Takes All’ which features Alice on vocals. Check it out here.

Dennis Dunaway could be heard on radio WPKN’s ‘Rock Therapy’ earlier this week. You can listen in from around 62 minutes here.

Neal Smith has released two tracks from his new Killsmith album ‘Killsmith Goes West’ which you can find on his YouTube channel.

Designer Ernie Cefalu has released an interesting video interview talking about creating the classic ‘Old School’ box set a few years ago, which you can check out here.

Neal Smith To Release New Album

Neal Smith is releasing a new Killsmith album next month called “Killsmith Goes West”. The album will include 10 new songs and Neal will be launching the album via a live appearance on TalkShop.live on March 2nd at 7PM ET (Midnight UK Time). You can pre-order signed copies of the CD now via Talkshop.live.

In addition to Blue Coupe’s show at the Westport library on March 10th Dennis Dunaway will be returning there on April 2nd for a book signing featuring the famed ‘Snakes Museum of Rare Alice Cooper Artifacts’ and a screening of ‘Live From The Astroturf’. You can get all the details here.

There’s another new book on Alice Cooper coming out on March 28th. This one is Sickthing Chris Sutton’s sequel to his “Alice Cooper in the 1970s” and is called “Alice Cooper in the 1980s.” As the title suggests, this book will concentrate on Alice’s career between ‘Flush The Fashion’ in 1980 and the mega-hit album ‘Trash’ in 1989, a period often given little if any space in other AC books. Chris has interviewed many of the key players from the period including Mike Pinera, Jan Uvena, John Nitzinger, Graham Shaw, Ken Mary, Kip Winger, Kane Roberts, John McCurry and Al Pitrelli so there promises to be lots of new stories to enjoy. You can pre-order the book now via AmazonUK and AmazonUS

Crossbone Skully Launched

Crossbone Skully Launch

Today was the official launch of Tommy Henriksen’s ‘Crossbone Skully‘ project and this evening Tommy was ‘In The Trenches‘ with Ryan Roxie spilling the beans on the concept behind the record/film/comic and it’s special guests which include fellow Vampires Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and Joe Perry, along with appearances by Sheryl Cooper, Nikki Sixx, Chris Wyse and many more! The first single ‘Evil World Machine‘ is available now on all good streaming service so go check it out!

The Arizona Desert Sun has a report from last weekends ‘Rock The Plaza’ event which featured Alice along with Orianthi, Teddy Zig Zag, Eric Singer, Paul Rodgers, and Josh Homme amongst others. The event raised $200,00 for ‘Save The Plaza’.

Neal Smith is reissuing the first two Killsmith albums ‘Sexual Savior’ and ‘Killsmith Two’ and will be appearing on Talk Shop Live on November 23rd during which signed copies of both CDs will be available.

The current issue of UK horror magazine ‘The Darkside’ has a Alice on the cover and a feature inside. You can order a copy here.

If you are into baseball cards there’s a new one to search out. You can find it in random packs of ‘Topps 2022 Allen & Ginter‘ cards in the US and features art of Alice about the throw a baseball.

Youtube houses a wealth of rare material but one new video worth highlighting is 13 minutes of silent super8 footage filmed at the Toronto show on December 14th 1973, What makes this footage so special is this was the show the band were forced to play without the legendary ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ stage show, which didn’t arrive at the venue on time due to adverse weather conditions. As mentioned in Bob Greene’s ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ book, the band had to scramble around to decorated the stage with Xmas decorations and change the show at the last minute, which makes this footage truly unique, especially as it includes Greene himself, as Santa, being beaten up at the end of the show! Definitely worth a look.

Dave Libbert, Alice Cooper tour manager in the 70s is featured in two new interviews promoting his recent book ‘Rock And Roll Warrior’. The first is live tonight at 10PM PST on KFI-AM. This is apparently NOT archived so you can only hear it live. The second is an interview with All Music Live which you can check out on YouTube.

Today is Astroturf Day

‘Alice Cooper, Live From The Astroturf’ Released

Today sees the official EarMusic release of the ‘Alice Cooper, Live From The Astroturf’ movie and associated vinyl/CD. To mark the event there is a new official video for ‘Under My wheels’ which you can see below.
The Dallas Morning News has a new article telling the story of the album

Blue Coupe’s postponed show in Hamilton, Canada has now been rescheduled for October 28th and tickets are available now.

US Tour Roundup

New Show in Nevada and Tour News

A new show has been added to the October tour in the US. Alice Cooper will play the Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, NV on October 8th.

‘Creeper‘ have been announced as the opening act on next months UK tour with The Cult. They’re a goth/punk/emo band from Southampton who have been building a substantial following over the last few years.

Alice has been talking to Planet Rock about the forthcoming UK tour, promising to do "something a little different" for the dates. "We’re gonna do something a little different (on the UK tour). Every night we’re gonna be doing different songs – at least two or three different songs. If you see the show in Birmingham, the next night you’ll see two or three different songs in the show." Whether these songs will be the same old warhorses they’ve played endlessly (‘Lost In America’ again anyone?) or something more interesting only time will tell.

There’s also a new interview from the Yorkshire Post which you can check out here.

The last few nights of the US tour saw a few unusual events. Tommy missed three shows, presumably due to illness (I’ve not seen the reason posted) but was back for the final Greek Theater show, and Nita Strauss has been seriously in the wars, after "…struggling with a bit of knee pain on and off the past couple weeks, it all finally came to a screeching halt on stage last night [April 22) when I stepped off the castle stairs and my right knee went POP! Definitely some of the most overwhelming pain I’ve ever had in my life." She managed to finish the show with her knee heavily strapped up before heading for the ER for tests. Nita soldiered on to finish out the US dates and has since had more treatment and been cleared to play her scheduled solo dates over the next few weeks, although you probably won’t been seeing her tearing around the stage quite as much as usual for a few weeks!

Music Connection has a long review of the final LA show the other night including so great photos.

‘No Cover’ episode 3 is now up on YouTube as four more hopefuls play for Alice and the other judges for a chance at the top prize.

The Akron Beacon has a cool new interview with Neal Smith, talking about his childhood growing up in Akron, OH.

German tour posters are advertising the release of a ‘Live EP” version of ‘Live From The Astroturf’, the recording of the original band’s 2015 reunion at Good Records in Dallas, TX, which is to be released on August 26th. No more details as yet.

Alice has been signed up to be a character in HypGames‘ ‘Ultimate Golf’ at some point in the future. The mobile golf simulator is available to download now but it’s unclear when Alice will make an appearance.

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.