More Nita Strauss Shows

New Nita Strauss Shows

Nita Strauss has announced a series of new shows for the new year. They are:

January 7th – Baton Rouge, LA, Chelsea’s Live
January 8th – Memphis, TN, Growlers
January 10th – Des Moines, IA, Woolys
January 12th – Iowa City, IA, Wildwood Saloon
January 13th – St Peters, MO, Diamond Music Club
January 14th – Westland, MI, Token Lounge
January 15th – Harrisburg, PA, HMAC
January 17th – Asheville, NC, The Grey Eagle
January 18th – Louisville, KY, Diamond Concert Hall
January 19th – Nashville, TN, The Basement East
January 21st – Shreveport, LA, Bear’s
January 22nd-27th – Shiprocked Cruise

AZ Central has a long article about Alice Cooper marking 50 years since ‘Killer’ was released with quotes from the whole band, Shep Gordon and Bob Ezrin.

Ryan Roxie has recorded a new version of Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ with various guest musicians to rise money for charity. He’s asking for fans to record a clip of themselves singing along to the old classic to be used in a promotional video for the song. You can find out all the information here.

Back On The Road

Alice Cooper back on Tour

Well, the US tour is up and running and already Alice and the band seem to be firing on all cylinders. As expected this is the same basic stage show as two years ago before the pandemic cut the touring short, but there are three new songs from ‘Detroit Stories’ slotted in during the first half of the set. Lots of videos have appeared on YouTube already of course. The tour is under very strict covid rules with regular testing, masks and distancing (no guest passes/Meet and Greets’s etc) while offstage so we can only hope they continue to stay safe and well for the full tour.

Away from the tour the Detroit street that is being named after Alice has been finalised as “Alice Cooper Court” at Eloise Asylum (30712 Michigan Avenue) in Westland, Michigan. The official unveiling will take place on Thursday September 23rd at 2pm and will be hosted by WCSX DJ Big Jim O’Brien. The ceremony will also feature an appearance by tribute act ‘The Nightmare’.
For anyone is interested you can find out more about the Eloise Asylum on Wikipedia. It certainly seems an apt location for Alice Cooper Court!

Alice’s appearance at the London Film and Comic Con in November has unsurprisingly been cancelled (again). However it seems that currently no refunds are being offered as they are trying to re-book Alice for a later date.

Alice and Rock & Brews restaurants have launched a ‘Poison Burger’ which features Alice’s branded ‘Poison Reaper’ hot sauce. Alice has recorded a short promo for the burger and you can see that, and see if there is a Rock & Brews Burger joint near you (US only), on AC.com.

Atlantic City Weekly has a new interview with Alice, but it’s blocked outside of the US. Luckily AC.com have you covered for this as well so you can read it here.

Chuck Garric posted a short video to facebook, saying he’s just finished recording Alice’s vocal for a new Desmond Child (Trash/Hey Stoopid etc) song while on the road. This could be for Child’s solo album which Child first talked about a long time ago, or maybe it’s for something different! Chuck, of course, is an experienced recording engineer, and records the Alice’s chat for the ‘Nights With Alice Cooper’ radio show while they’re out on tour.

‘Brutal Planet’ is being released again on double vinyl by eONE, mastered at 45rpm for the first time. It’s due out on November 26th as part of the Black Friday Record Store Day and comes on “color in color” vinyl.

Ryan Roxie sat down ‘In The Trenches‘ with Ex-Coop Eric Dover for a long chat last week which you can check out here. He also posted a ‘Tour Kick Off‘ episode with several clips from the pre-tour rehearsals. Next up on Friday at 5pm (UK) Ryan will be chatting to Glen Hughes and Doug Aldrich of The Dead Daisies.

Lastly Wes Payton has a book out which features a rock star character which, as a fan, he naturally based on Uncle Alice. It’s called ‘House Painter Pirate Hunter’ and you can find out more on AmazonUS or AmazonUK. In the UK it’s free if you have KindleUnlimited.

More European Shows Added

Alice Cooper announced more European Shows

AC.com has now listed more shows in mainland Europe for next year. The full list of shows now runs:

4th June – Atlas Rock, Gävle, SE
6th June – KB Hallen, Copenhagen, DK
7th June – Spektrum, Oslo, NO
13th June – Compensa Hall, Vilnius, LT

15th June – Charlotta Festival, Dolina Charlotty, PL
17th June – Stadhalle, Zwickau, DE
18th June – Rock The Ring, Hinwil, CH
21st June – Mitsubishi Halle, Dusseldorf, DE
22nd June – Jahrunderthalle, Frankfurt, DE
24th June – Hellfest, Clisson, FR
25th June – Retro C Trop, Tilloloy, FR
28th June – Stadhalle, Vienna, AT
29th June – Summer Festival, Milan, IT

UK Tour Announced

Alice Cooper announced UK 2022 Tour

Alice Cooper and The Cult have announced co-headline UK arena tour for May/June 2022. The dates are as follows:
May 23rd 2022 – Swansea Arena
May 25th 2022 – London The O2
May 27th 2022 – Manchester AO Arena
May 28th 2022 – Glasgow The SSE Hydro
May 30th 2022 – Birmingham Resorts World Arena
June 1st 2022 – Leeds First Direct Arena
Tickets go on sale on Friday September 17th with the usual presales before.

Also announced is an Itallian show in Milan for June 29th at the Ippodromo Snai San Siro as part of the Milano Summer Festival, and a show in Norway on June 7th at the Spektrum.

UPDATE: And now another show, this time the Legends of Rock festival in Strzelinko. Poland on June 15th with Michael Monroe

Detroit Signing

Alice Cooper announces Detroit Signing

Alice Cooper is set to be signing copies of ‘Detroit Stories’ on September 23rd at Rock City Music in Livonia, MI between 4.30 and 6.30 local time. To attend you have to buy a ticket for $25, but this does includes a copy of ‘Detroit Stories’ on either CD/DVD or vinyl. Only copies of the new album will be signed, and there will be no posed photos. All attendees will need proof of vaccination or a negative covid test. Get all there details here.

Word is getting out that ALL VIP meet and greet packages for the upcoming US tour have apparently been cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic. If you haven’t received an email yet be patient, you’ll likely be contacted closer to your show. Fans are being offered three options: 1. A partial refund, but you still get the VIP bag and contents, 2. a partial refund down to just the price of your ticket, or 3. a full refund. The first option seems to be the default unless you contact them and request one of the others.
This shouldn’t really come as any great surprise, as currently numerous US tours are being cancelled or postponed on a daily basis, as members of either bands or crews are testing positive after a few shows. Currently it seems the Cooper shows are still on, but make sure you continue to keep an eye on venue sites as obviously this could change.

Alice posted a short statement and video a couple of days ago, commenting of the sad death of legendary Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts:

“We have lost one of rock and roll’s true gentlemen. Charlie Watts kept the beat for the world’s greatest rock band for over 50 years. I consider him the greatest pocket drummer of all time. Every time I would go backstage to see The Rolling Stones, Charlie was the first to greet me. He will be sorely missed and impossible to replace but I’ve no doubt The Stones will go on. My message to Charlie? Rest In Beat!”
– Alice Cooper

According to Rolling Stone Alice will be taking part in Audible’s new ‘Words + Music’ storytelling series. The AC edition will be released on October 7th and entitled: ‘Who I Really Am: The Diary of a Hollywood Vampire‘, “where he’ll not only share tales from his lengthy career, but ‘introduce’ fans to the person that created and crafted the Alice Cooper persona.”

Ryan Roxie is interviewed by ‘Slasher Pepper’ in a new video posted to YouTube.

US TV This Week

Alice Cooper on US TV This Week

Alice Cooper will be the subject of ‘Breaking The Band’ on ‘Reelz’ TV Channel in the US this Sunday (Aug 22nd) at 9PM EST. It looks like it will be a basic documentary with various ‘talking heads’ discussing AC history, although going by the trailer it looks like it will concentrate on Alice alone and not the band. You can see the trailer here.

In other US TV news Alice will be back on ‘Counting Cars’ as the new season began this week. You may remember at the end of the last season Alice appeared and brought one of his cars to the custom car garage for work. This new episode will show the results. The new season starts on August 25th and it would make sense for this first episode to conclude the AC story. You can see a trailer for this here.

Alice appears on the front cover of the latest Sept/Oct issue of UK mag ‘Sorted’ with a 6 page article inside which is manly about golf and religion.

Ryan Roxie makes an appearance on the new single by Swedish band ‘Fans Of The Dark’
called ‘Escape From Hell’. You can find the song here.
There’s also a a new MetalSludge interview with Roxie available here.

The Rock, Mesa Grand Opening

Alice Cooper to perform at The Rock Mesa Opening

Alice Cooper will be performing at the Grand Opening of the new ‘Solid Rock’ Teen Center in Mesa, AZ on September 3rd, backed by the ‘Solid Rock Band’. The event runs from 5.30pm-8pm local time, when visitors will also be able to tour the new center. This is the second teen center set up by Alice and Sheryl Cooper’s Solid Rock charity, the first being in Phoenix.

Alice’s set from Wacken a few years ago will be shown as part of the W.O.A. BBQ today at around 6PM UK time. Presumably this will be a version of the ‘Raise The Dead: Live From Wacken’ film.

Ryan Roxie’s next guest on ‘In The Trenches’ will be his old stage buddy Keri Kelli, who is now playing with Nightranger. Listen in on Tuesday at 5pm UK time.

Alice was at the ‘Day of the Dead’ event in Indianapolis last week for signings, photos, and a Q&A which you can now watch on YouTube.

August 27th sees the release of ‘The Official Alice Cooper Colouring Book’ by Eyesore Merchandising. "Featuring iconic artwork from classic albums and other instantly recognizable images, all printed on high quality paper, in a square format, fully endorsed and officially licenced, these killer designs have the potential for hours of satisfying colouring in." It’s available to pre-order now.

New Swedish Festival Date

Alice Cooper plays Atlas Rock

Another festival date seems to have been announced for next year. Alice will be headlining the ‘Atlas Rock‘ festival in Sweden on June 4th. Tickets go on sale Monday. So far he seems to be the only act announced for the festival.

Dennis Dunaway plays on a new single by TBelly called ‘I Never Want To See Me Again’ which is now available via Bandcamp. There’s also a cool video for the song which you can see below.

CBC in Canada have a new interview with Alice, talking about ‘Detroit Stories’ and the early Detroit scene.

Alice seems to have filmed a new commercial for ‘Progressive Insurance’ recently with Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield. The commercial is part of the ‘At Home With Baker Mayfield’ series of adverts and presumably will turn up on Youtube when it is aired.

Beasto Blanco are releasing their recent ‘Freakstream’ webcast on Blu-Ray in mid-August. This version of the film will feature footage not included on the original streaming version of the show, and initial copies will be signed by the band. Be warned however that if you are ordering from the UK shipping and customs charges are likely to cost as much as the disc itself!

Ryan Roxie was interviewed on the ‘2020’d’ podcast a couple of days ago and you can check it out here.

Catching Up

Alice Cooper plays Suns Halftime Show

It’s still very quiet in Cooperland but here’s a few things to cover before they become too out of date.

Alice turned up, backed by Dash and CO-OP, to performed the half-time show at the Phoenix Suns basketball match last week and you can see footage here or below. They played ‘No More Mr Nice Guy’ and ‘School’s Out.’

KillerWatt recently had a chat with Neal Smith which you can listen to here.

SockShop have announced Alice Cooper themed underwear and socks in two box gift sets. There’s four sock designed and two underwear designs. Get yours here!

Recent episodes of Ryan Roxie’s ‘In The Trenches’ podcast have featured Conny Bloom of Electric Boys and the legendary Steve Hunter. Keep up to date on Roxie’s official YouTube channel here.

Catching Up

Catching up with AC news

Maybe it’s just me, but since the announcement of the US tour for September it’s seems to have been pretty quiet on the Cooper front, but here’s what has come in since then:

Alice and Sheryl Cooper will be appearing on Facebook Live with AC tribute band ‘Almost Cooper‘ on June 12th at 7om CST (1AM UK time). Almost Cooper seem to do quite a bit to raise money for Alice’s Solid Rock and seem to have a pretty accurate stage show. Check out the clips here.

Alice was at Bernie Taupin’s 71st birthday bash on May 23rd in Los Angeles along with Bernie’s long time writing partner Sir Elton John, and they took the chance to recreate a famous photograph taken at Bernie’s 21st birthday bash, with ‘Will & Grace’ actor Eric McCormack standing in for the deceased Paul Lynde. You check out the pic on instagram.

June 9th sees the release of ‘Permanent Damage: Memoirs Of An Outrageous Girl’ by former GTO ‘Miss Mercy’ Fontenot, and to launch the book Alice took part in a livestream on June 2nd with co-author Lyndsey Parker, Pamela Des Barres and Alice! You can watch the 45 minute show here. The book features several Alice Cooper stories and is likely well worth checking out if you are interested in the ’69/’70 LA scene.

On May 26th Alice joined guitarist Joe Bonamassa for a great hour long interview on Joe’s ‘Live from Nerdville’ video podcast which you can check out on YouTube here.

The full version of Alice’s interview on BBC6 Music’s ‘Liz Kershaw’s Legends in Their Own Lunchtime’ can be heard on YouTube here.

May 26th saw Alice show up briefly at the ‘White Castle 100th birthday bash’ livestream (around 55 minutes in) which you can see here.

There’s a new video interview with Neal Smith courtesy of North Wales Drum Promotions up now on YouTube.

To mark his 77th episode of ‘In The Trenches’, Ryan Roxie was himself interviewed for nearly 2 hours by Dave ‘The Rat’ Rattenbury and you can check that out now. Other recent interviews include Blaze Bayley and ex-Alice drummer Tommy Clufetos and you can check them all out on Ryan’s Youtube channel.