Sunday, February 22, 2015

Alice Cooper: The Original Freak


I'm not sure when the first time I heard the name Alice Cooper. I seem to have been born knowing his name and band. What I do remember from the first times that I heard Alice's music was when I was a young man in the housing projects. The teenagers would play his newly released LP named Billion Dollar Babies and play it loud. It would echo off the brick and mortar. If you like rock music this album is part of the foundation to hard rock as you know it today. If you’re a musician trying to find the roots of hard rock this album is among the best and a must hear that dates pre 1980’s. I was taught by the old man that you need to learn the blues to play rock and roll and learn the blues I did. At the age of 13-15 I would take the bus to Harvard Square in Cambridge MA to a record store named: Mystery Train to find these blues artist that the old man told me I needed to know before I learned about rock and roll. At times this is referred to as an apprentice as Paul Stanley talks about in this Observer interview. Some of the blues musician I would buy albums of were Johnny Winter, BB King, John Lee Hooker, Al Kooper and James Montgomery just to name a few.I use to see James Montgomery play at a blues joint called Harpers Ferry located in the Allston-Brighton area of Boston MA which was heavily populated with night clubs. That is as far back I went with blues, blues music dates way before those dudes with the exception of John Lee Hooker. When I was done with the albums I would bring them back for an exchange for more albums as I studied blues. This is true with hard rock and one of the artist you need to look up, if your researching hard rock, is Alice Cooper. Alice by the way was a good friend of Jim Morrison and in one of the Doors songs, Roadhouse Blues Jim sings a verse famous: "woke up this morning and got myself a beer" that was Alice talking to Jim one day, Jim put it in a song, double cool.
Back when Alice started out painting his face with black eyeliner you were considered a freak by older people of the day and also today, so, Alice is the original freak and he has influenced countless freaks and he is still rocking today. If your going to paint your face with eye liner or mascara or what ever its called be prepared to be referred to and looked at as a freak. Lets have a look at some of the world renowned freaks. By the way some of these musicians I am a big fan of such as Rob Zombie, Rob is bit of a death hair freak. Second freak on the list is Marilyn Manson a suit and tie freak, personally never heard his music but he sells out shows so hats off. I need to also mention Slip Knot who are a whole band of freaks, I seen these freaks playing on the Boston Common by accident one day in 2002 and later found out that the band was paying back taxes by having the free show on the common and other cities. Willie Nelson I seen also doing the same thing: paying back taxes. This was part of the President Bush administration that if entertainers couldn't pay back taxes they had to play for free and this would pay the owed taxes, cool. There's not much cool about the old man Bush but that was cool they could have put them in prison.
I hold Alice Cooper personally responsible for being the original freak. Alice Cooper's radio show is as cool as cool goes,check it out soon. At times Alice rambles on about incoherent topics but he makes a lot of sense to me and an absolute f#@k'ing riot and on one occasion I had to pull over while listening in my car so not to cause an accident. What he was talking about made no sense but was complete?! Check out his show: Nights with Alice. Alice Cooper the original Freak and original hard rockers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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