Tag: #RyanRoxie

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.

Halloween Tales

Alice has teamed up with Airbnb to offer a chance to spend a (virtual
) hour with Alice on October 21st and listen to him tell a spooky Halloween story. The event will last an hour with up to 10 families able to listen in to Alice reading the story in full costume. All money raised will go to ‘North Star Reach’, a camp that provides experiences for children with health challenges.

“Love a good scare?” says Cooper. “Me too. With Halloween all but cancelled, we’ll have to take our penchant for terror to the scariest place I know — the Internet. Join me for a spooky story session to celebrate the season. We’ll read about spiders and spirits, goblins and ghosts and monsters and mutants — all of my favorite things, really. And we’ll do it in full costume. It’ll be a scary good time. (And suitable for children ages 6+ with an appetite for fright.)”
“Let’s suit up and make this a spooky story time to remember.”

Tickets go on sale today and you can get more info here.

Alice will also be taking part in an online Q&A for the KLOS and the ‘Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp’ on November 1st. 25 rich people will be able to interact with Alice live during the interview but anyone can get a ticket to watch live. All the details are over at Universe.com.

Dennis Dunaway can be spotted around 25 minutes into this John Lennon tribute video marking his 80th birthday.
Dennis will also be taking part in a virtual chat with ‘Louder Than Words’ on November 8th which is open to fans to take part. This is a ticketed event and you can get tickets now via Eventbrite.

Beasto Blanco are taking part in another live streaming event. They will be playing as part of the ‘Virtual Haunt and Music Fest’ via ‘The Dark Zone’. This is a cool four day event that takes you aboard a virtual haunted ship and you can find all the details here.

The latest episodes of Ryan Roxie’s ‘In The Trenches’ podcasts have featured Joe Satriani and Desmond Child, and if you missed them you can catch up here.

Finally, you may have seen on the facebook page that Sickthing Paul Forsyth is trying to raise money to help a friend get a much needed new wheelchair, and to that end he is offering the very last unworn ‘Nation of Ovine’ t-shirt (size XL) via ebay. This is the last "sheep shirt" in this design ever, and all money raised will go towards a good cause. There’s just three days to go so check out the auction here, and the just giving page here for the full story.

It’s Hot Tonight

Alice Cooper releases his own branded Hoot Sauce

It’s still pretty quite, but there is a little news to cover before it’s too out of date.

Alice has launched his own brand of hot sauce in the US via ‘United Sauces‘. There are three strengths – mild, medium and hot – and they go by the names ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’ (mild), ‘No More Mr Nice Guy’ (medium) and ‘Poison’ (hot). You can also buy a three pack with one of each but unfortunately they want a $36 to ship outside the USA, more then the cost of the sauce!! Is it even legal to ship hit sauce internationally? A shame as they look cool.

You know it’s close to Halloween when you can download your own official Alice Cooper pumpkin stencil. Check it out at AC.com. You have to fill out the AC mailing list form, but you should be on that already.

Cherry Red in the UK are reissuing the old Billion Dollar Babies ‘Battle Axe’ triple CD and apparently it’s semi-legitimate this time. From a quick look it seems to be exactly the same content as before (album, demos and live discs) but with new packaging so if you missed it the first time now’s your chance. It’s out November 27th and you can pre-order now.

Ryan Roxie’s guest on ‘In The Trenches’ tomorrow is none other then Joe Satriani! Check it out from 5pm UK time tomorrow here.

Alice tribute act ‘Billion Dollar Alice’ are hoping to go ahead with a Halloween party on October 30th at Stone Prior Covern, Bromsgrove in Worcestershire. Support comes from Damned tribute ‘Smash It Up’ and other acts and you can get more info at sonicrocksolstice.com. The club will have limited capacity due to social distancing measures, and it will entry by ticket only so get one in advance.

Alice Cooper Hot Sauce

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.

Friday Update

Alice’s appearance on the ‘Forbidden Planet 42’ livestream event last week can be seen now on YouTube. In it Alice remembers the signing session for ‘The Last Temptation’ with Neil Gaiman and seems to suggest he’s been talking to Gaiman about working together again! Amusingly he recalls the signing as like an early comic convention… I was there.. Few people knew it was happening (pre-internet it was only really advertised in store) and around 50 people really don’t make a convention!

The Disney Channel have revealed Alice will be back this October reprising his role as ‘Alistair Coop De Ville’ in a new episode of ‘Mickey Mouse Mixed Up Adventures’ airing in the US on October 2nd. The episode is called ‘The Mystery Of Hot Dog Lake’.

Hard Rock 80 has a new, long interview with Ryan Roxie, but it’s in French. You can use google to translate it here.

Ryan’s latest ‘In The Trenches’ interviews are up now featuring Orianthi, and Mike Fasano (Gilby Clark/Warrant). Next Tuesday it’s the turn of Chip Z’Nuff from Enuff Z’Nuff.

Calico Cooper is interviewed on ‘Talking Metal’ which you can watch here. As always Calico is a great interviewee and this is another one well worth watching.

Tommy Henriksen has posted a new AC/DC cover with Team SoloDallas. This time it’s ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ to celebrate the 40th anniversary of ‘Back In Black’.

Scream Factory will be releasing a huge box set of ‘Friday 13th’ movies on October 13th with a ton of bonus stuff. On the list are new exclusive interviews with Alice and the ‘He’s Back’ video.

‘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 Online Action

This Weeks Alice Cooper related Podcasts

Chuck and Calico of Beasto Blanco appeared on ‘Coffee Talk with Stefan Adika’ promoting tonight’s ‘Freak Stream.’ You can watch the interview here starting at around 15 minutes. It’s not to late to grab your ‘Freak Stream’ tickets for tonight’s show here.

Alice alumni Kip Winger was Ryan Roxie’s guest on ‘In The Trenches’ this week for an entertaining chat about Kip’s career. Well worth checking out here. Next Tuesday Ryan’s guest will be Slash bassist Todd Kerns.

Alice appeared on the ‘Life Of Brian… Mannix that is’ podcast this week which you can check out here. He talks about ‘Detroit Stories’ and ‘Don’t Give Up’ which as of yesterday is out as a cool 7" picture disc.

Alice will also be making an appearance on the ‘Forbidden Planet 42’ online event celebrating 42 years of the legendary London comic store. The event features a who’s who of the comic and fantasy industry including Neil Gaiman (who worked on ‘The Last Temptation’), Michael Moorcock, Kevin Smith, Simon Pegg, Chris Claremont and many, many more. You’ll be able to watch the show here.

The Alice Cooper guitar trio, Ryan, Tommy and Nita, along with ex-Cooper Damon Johnson and many others, will be taking part in an online benefit show called ‘Six String Salute‘ for the ‘Crew Nation Relief Fund’ on September 17th. The event will be streamed live on Live Nation’s YouTube channel and ‘Live From Home‘ site.

The Mondance Jam festival, which Alice was due to play this year, has been rescheduled for July 22nd-24th next year and Alice is among the acts confirmed to appear. All tickets for this years festival will be valid for the new dates.

Wacken Streaming

Wacken World Wide performance streaming

Alice and the band appeared on the Wacken World Wide virtual festival yesterday with ‘at home’ performances of ‘School’s Out’ and ‘Don’t Give Up’. This was followed by highlights from the ‘Raise The Dead – Live From Wacken’ dvd. You can see what was broadcast via this post on facebook, while the Magenta360 site has the full Wacken 2013 show streaming if you don’t already own it.

Sheryl Cooper was interviewed on Arizona TV7 a few days before the birth little Desiree Diaz talking about being a grandmother again, lockdown, and being on the road with Alice.

‘Interviewing The Legends’ have a new interview with Neal Smith promoting his latest ‘Pop 85/95’ CD.

Ryan Roxie has launched a new Instagram Face Filter ‘Electric Guitar Quiz’ which you can find here on a mobile device. I don’t use Instagram, so all I can add is what Roxie says: "What ‘Guitar’ Are You? Ever wondered that exact question? Well…. now it can finally be answered by using Ryan Roxie’s newest Instagram FaceFilter  ‘Electric Guitar Quiz’. Roxie has collaborated with Beats AR to bring you the Rock’n’Roll Face Filter of all time… featuring some of the worlds most memorable and iconic Guitars! NOW it’s YOUR turn to find out exactly ‘which’ of these Electronic Beauties will be your ‘Axe of the day’…And because it’s nobody’s guess, try it as many times as you want until you get that ONE Guitar that screams… ‘THIS IS ME!’

Alice shows up briefly in a new documentary ‘House Of Cardin’, about the fashion legend Pierre Cardin.

Wacken World Wide

Alice Cooper and Band to appear on Wacken World Wide Virtual Concert

This years Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany has obviously been cancelled, however they are mounting an online version with interviews and performances by many of the festival regulars and this includes Alice and the band. On Thursday there will be an interview with Alice, followed a little later by a special performance by the full band and some archive footage of previous Wacken shows. You can see the daily schedules at ‘Wacken-world-wide.com‘ where you will also be able to tune in. Ryan Roxie and Glen Sobel confirmed their participation during the latest ‘In The Trenches‘ podcast this evening saying they would be playing "a few songs" for the event.

Sheryl Cooper has just announced the arrival of their first granddaughter, named Desiree Diaz! Congratulations to Sonora Cooper and her husband Diego Diaz!

And speaking of ‘In The Trenches‘ Ryan also announced that his next guest will be Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick! This will air next Tuesday at 5PM UK time. Make sure you catch up with Roxie’s recent podcasts including chats with Glen Sobel and a return of Kane Roberts, both well worth watching.

In a tour update it seems as expected every show this year is now cancelled, with the exception of the Seattle show with is listed as ‘Postponed’ but expect that to go as well. I wouldn’t expect any new show announcements until things have calmed down significantly and it’s safe for them to go ahead without more cancellations.

Cleveland.com have a new interview with Alice talking as usual about the lockdown and the new album, ‘Detroit Stories’ which is now apparently 99% done.

This Week

Weekly News

It’s been a pretty quiet week in Cooperland but Alice turned up briefly on the Manchester Arena 25th Anniversary livestream. He talks about the playing in the UK and they then play a few clips of the Manchester show. You can see him around two hours six minutes into the show.

Various sites have been reporting that Alice is working with Desmond Child (Trash, Hey Stoopid) again after Desmond posted about it. It’s likely however that he is talking about Alice’s appearance on his forthcoming solo album which he first announced last year, rather then a new Alice Cooper album.

Calico Cooper was on the ‘What Does Joey Know‘ podcast last week amd it was a pretty entertaining chat with Calico talking about growing up in the Cooper house with Alice Cooper as her dad. Worth checking out.

Steve Hunter’s ‘Cafe la Rouge’ has a new six track EP out called ‘Covered In Love’. Recorded in Spain while on lockdown it also features legendary bassist Tony Levin and Steve’s wife Karen on vocals. Anything Steve does is worth checking out and you can hear samples and order a copy here. ‘Animal House Radio’ interviewed Steve and Karen Hunter about the new EP which you can watch on facebook.

Ryan Roxie’s next ‘In The Trenches’ on Tuesday sees the return of Kane Roberts for a second chat, while his newest show ‘The Roxie Review‘ had a surprise start when Alice and Sheryl happened to call just as they went live! It also saw a quick appearance by Eric Dover. Both have agreed to be on ‘In The Trenches’ sometime soon so watch out for that.