THE EYES OF ALICE COOPER
ALICE COOPER is nothing if not adaptable. I'll admit that I didn't know much about Alice Cooper until I hit middle school, and Alice had done the theme for
Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives. He had also been featured in
The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years, quite possibly the BEST hard rock documentary EVER created. Being the meathead that I was back then, I was instantly hooked, and immediately sought out everything I could find on Alice. Immediately I learned that Cooper is like a rock music chameleon. He started out writing WHO-esque rock riffs with songs like "Schools Out" and "Eighteen". When glam rock hit its stride in the 80s, he cranked out hooky, thrashy, hard rock with Kip Winger and Kane Roberts in the 1980s. He's collaborated with virtuosos like STEVE VAI, JOE SATRIANI, as well as seasoned pros like Michael Anthony of VAN HALEN and Nikki Sixx. During the 90s when grunge and industrial-spiked rock took over, he broke out with the concept album,
The Last Temptation, and then kicked it up a notch with
Brutal Planet and
Dragontown. Now that stripping down is back in fashion, Alice has morphed his sound once again, and gone back to his garage band roots with
The Eyes Of Alice Cooper
As we've
mentioned before, the disc was recorded in a minimalist garage-like studio setting, and all instruments were done at the same time with very little multi-tracking. Also, each guitar player was given only one extra track for overdubs. A few keyboard, synth and horn touches were added to some cuts as needed. Bob Ezrin, who has collaborated with Alice many times in the past, also helped out on the back end. Once again, Cooper enlisted the help of veteran rock players to perform and write on this disc. All songs were co-written by Alice with guitarists Eric Dover and Ryan Roxie. Also featured on the disc are Eric Singer on drums, Chuck Garric on Bass, and Teddy "ZigZag" Andreadis on Keyboards.
Some of the stronger tracks on the disc are "Novocaine" "What Do You Want From Me?", and "Detroit City". It's a disc full of straight-forward hooky rock, and not too many gimmicks. The true mark of a rock veteran like Alice Cooper.
