| Alice Cooper I saw Alice Cooper live at Sheffield Arena on Tues 26th November 2002 my friend worked at the box office and I got a free ticket. I only knew the singles. I remember being full of flu. Alice was very good and it was a strong setlist playing all the favourites. The show was a bit tacky but enjoyable and I got to see Alice beheaded (I love decapitation in my rock shows). My mate was at the front giving Alice the wank gesture. Not because he disliked him but this was his sense of humour. I checked the setlist on t’net and they played shitloads. Hey Stoopid (intro) 1.Sex Death and Money / Brutal Planet / Dragontown 2.Sanctuary 3.I’m Eighteen 4.Welcome to My Nightmare 5.Go to Hell 6.Billion Dollar Babies 7.Feed My Frankenstein 8.Wicked Young Man 9.Nurse Rozetta 10.Dead Babies 11.Steven 12.Ballad of Dwight Fry 13.Killer 14.I Love the Dead 15.Black Widow Jam 16.No More Mr. Nice Guy 17.Is It My Body 18.Fantasy Man 19.Trash 20.Lost in America (with ‘God Save The Queen’ Coda) 21.Only Women Bleed 22.Poison 23.Under My Wheels 24.School’s Out 25.Elected 26.Cold Ethyl 27.Department of Youth 28.Sex Death and Money (Reprise) Despite being ill and my unfamiliarity with the songs I enjoyed this gig thoroughly. |
I like Thunder they have a classic rock sound best exemplified on “Love walked in”.
1.Welcome to the party
2.Low life in high places
3.Higher ground
4.Backstreet symphony
5.Love walked in
6.Dirty love
Alice Cooper pioneered a grandly theatrical brand of hard rock that was designed to shock. Drawing equally from horror movies, vaudeville, and garage rock, the group created a stage show that featured electric chairs, guillotines, fake blood and boa constrictors. He continues to tour regularly, performing shows worldwide with the dark and horror-themed theatrics that he’s best known for.
With a schedule that includes six months each year on the road, Alice Cooper brings his own brand of rock psycho-drama to fans both old and new, enjoying it as much as the audience does. Known as the architect of shock-rock, Cooper (in both the original Alice Cooper band and as a solo artist) has rattled the cages and undermined the authority of generations of guardians of the status quo, continuing to surprise fans and exude danger at every turn, like a great horror movie, even in an era where CNN can present real life shocking images.
Cooper was born in Detroit Michigan, and moved to Phoenix with his family. The Alice Cooper band formed while they were all in high school in Phoenix, and was discovered in 1969 by Frank Zappa in Los Angeles, where he signed them to his record label. Their collaboration with young record producer Bob Ezrin led to the break-through third album “Love It to Death” which hit the charts in 1971, followed by “Killer,” “School’s Out,” ”Billion Dollar Babies,” and “Muscle of Love.” Each new album release was accompanied by a bigger and more elaborate touring stage show. 1974 saw the release of a “Greatest Hits” album, and then Cooper, in 1975, released his first solo album, “Welcome to My Nightmare” in 1975, accompanied by the legendary groundbreaking theatrical Welcome to My Nightmare concert tour.
Associated with that album and tour was the ground-breaking network TV special Alice Cooper: The Nightmare. Other film and television appearances include The Muppet Show, Mae West’s last film Sextette, Roadie, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearst Club Band and appearances on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson and Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow Show. The original band also made an appearance in the movie Diary of a Mad Housewife in 1979, filmed the full-length feature film Good To See You Again Alice Cooper, and Alice appeared in a 1972 episode of The Snoop Sisters.
Alice’s solo career skyrocketed in the late 1970’s, with a succession of hit singles, including “You & Me,” and classic albums, including “Lace And Whiskey” and “From The Inside,” and bigger and even more elaborate concert tours.
In the ‘80’s Cooper explored different sounds, highlighted by the new wavish album “Flush The Fashion,” the heavy metal “Constrictor” and “Raise Your Fist And Yell,” and then 1989’s melodic hard rock album “Trash,” which featured the massive hit single “Poison” and became his biggest selling album and single worldwide. During this period Alice also appeared in the horror films Monster Dog and John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, and recorded songs for the soundtracks to Roadie, Class of 1984, Friday the 13 Part VI: Jason Lives and Wes Craven’s Shocker.
Cooper’s most memorable movie appearance was as himself in Wayne’s World in 1991. He also played (fittingly) Freddy Krueger’s wicked step-father in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, and appeared on Gene Wilder’s TV series Something Wilder as well as on That ‘70’s Show. The 90’s also saw the release of the albums “Hey Stoopid,” “The Last Temptation,” and “Fistful of Alice,” a live album. https://alicecooper.com/about/
Thunder are an English hard rock band from London.
Decided to draw this in a comic book style as Alice Cooper has had a comic drawn about himself.
I used Gelsinki ink and lowered opacity for shade but kept it simple. I really like how this came out.
‘Pretties For You’, the first album to be released under the name Alice Cooper, bares little relationship to the bands more famous works. It’s a product of it’s time (the late 60s) and a little all over the place, but it reflects what the band sounded like at this point, especially as it was basically recorded live!
The Cover
Brian Nelson, June 1995/January 1996:
“Yes, It was Ed Beardsley – no, he was not a shop teacher. The painting was something that Zappa had — there are some pictures of his home where you can see the original painting in his house. It was pre-existing – not done for the cover. Originally, they attempted to use the Dali painting “Geopoliticus’ Child” but were unable to secure the rights. There was a small brown sticker that covered the girl’s undies on some of the early copies of ‘Pretties For You’.
Back in 2003 I managed to contact Prof. Edward Beardsley about his painting and here is what he had to say:
“Yes, I am the same person who did the painting used on the Alice Cooper album, ‘Pretties for You’. Actually, that was the title of the painting, which Frank Zappa then used for the album. Frank, a friend of mine, was visiting my studio one day, bought two paintings he wanted to used for album covers, one for Alice Cooper, another for the Mothers of Invention. The two paintings purchased: ‘Pretties for You’ and ‘The Four Apostles’ both ended up in Frank’s home, ‘Pretties For You’ in the main living room, and ‘Apostles’ in the downstairs music studio. Who knows what happened to them after Frank’s death. I’m still in touch with his brother, Bobby, but not his wife or kids.
The idea behind the painting are the dreams and regrets of old men on the occasion of their death. It was inspired by the funeral of an Italian movie director who died in ’68 or ’69. There was a photo layout in Life magazine, I think it was, detailing the funeral. They had photos of the old director, and I liked his look, especially his hat. I tried to imagine his thoughts at his own funeral. Death is the fate of us all, of course, and I suppose the moment defines us as human beings… given the reality, however absurd it may seem to us, that we are born only to die.”
When the album was originally released there were issues around the fact the painting featured a woman showing off her underwear. Due to this some copies were “censored” by simply putting a brown sticker over the offending undies! Later copies reverted to the uncensored version.
Rusty'sArtWerk 