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Susan Foreman 29th December 2017 05:40 PM

An old review from the controversial 'Live In The Flesh' tour promoting the 'Raise Your Fist And Yell' album, 1987 at the Sam Houston Coliseum in Texas

30 years ago: The case of the missing parrot, Alice Cooper, retirement at AT&T - Houston Chronicle

NOTE - The paper got the date wrong. The concert was on December 5th, 1987, so the publication date must have been later than that!

"Alice Cooper brought gore and more to the faithful at the Sam Houston Coliseum. There were plenty of bizarre and rather disturbing sights to behold, but perhaps the most humorous occurred after the concert, as Marty Racine wrote in the paper's Dec. 3 editions.

Women got stabbed and strangled. Human skeletons, dead babies and a giant black widow spider littered the stage. We bore witness to the beheaded and the bedeviled, the hunted and the haunted.

All the while, Alice the Malice Cooper sang the Executioner's Song to the delight of 3,000 rock 'n' ghoul fans at the Coliseum Saturday night.

It was an amusing night of horror, but the humorous part was in leaving the Coliseum, when the crazed fans, whooping and hollering like a college football team flashing from the tunnel before a big game, walked into a simultaneous exodus from the adjoining Music Hall, where the civilized set had attended the Houston Barbershop Singers' "The Magic of Christmas". From their perspective, it must have looked like the inmates had taken over the asylum.

The glory of life and the gory of death, only a city block apart.

Talk about cultural diversity.

Alice the Malice's show would have played well on Halloween. Not stumped, however, he ordered up a full moon for his Houston stop on the "Raise Your Fist and Yell" tour. Outside, the mist crept before the big moon, turning the night sinister.

Inside the Big Barn on Bagby, the booming sound of heavy metal running amok clattered and clanged against the rafters. Rock 'n' roll ambiance to the contrary, the Coliseum is an abysmal place to hear a concert, just a wretched acoustical nightmare. The bass drum rumbled in one direction, the lead guitar went zooming off in another, and the conductor of this runaway freight, Alice the Malice himself, was left to corral the sound with all the vocalizing and theatrics he could muster.

Or was it the Coliseum's fault? It could be that Cooper's band, under cover of theatrics, has simply come to be unconcerned with tight musicianship. It only matters if the drum roll coincides with Alice's long walk up to the hangman's noose - not whether it's part of a cohesive, rhythmic whole. I thought the "music" Saturday was quite inferior to Cooper's last concert here, about a year ago at the Music Hall.

The "Raise Your Fist And Yell" anthem, expressed in the new song " Freedom", is not a bad retort to those in our society who would deny the citizens rock 'n' roll based on a few objectionable lyrics and subject matter. It's defiant in the best rock tradition.

So what Vincent Furnier - Alice the Malice's real name - has done is to go completely in the opposite direction. You don't like violence?

Well, take "this!" says the one who in his other life is a family man back home in Phoenix.

Bravo to the one who can reduce such ugliness to theater. But as the theater unfolded Saturday, somewhere between Alice's ripping the legs off the big spider and slitting the throat of a comely woman, the red spewing forth, I had to admit: Boy, do we live in sick times or what? I find it alternately amusing and disturbing.

I mean, what comes first, the insight or reality? Apart from Alice's own hanging toward the end of the show, women are "the" targets of violence in this presentation. Remember, as Cooper himself has sung, only women bleed. In this scenario they are little more than harlots deserving of their fate. Is this another way of condoning such behavior or a way of revealing its sickness?

Or have we come to the point where we just accept it?

The massacre onstage - a beheading, a hanging, stabbings, dismemberments - combined with giant, scorching floodlights turned on the audience and the rumbling decibels overhead added up to pure sensory overload, pure nastiness. The sooner you get numbed to the effects, the better. I mean, there's nothing fine, elegant or classy about it. We're talking ugly.

His brain securely fastened in his biceps, Kane Roberts, the muscle-bound guitarist who's embarking on a solo career as well, put the macho back into rock in its most caricaturized form, standing there blazing up the frets lickity-split and brandishing his instrument like a machine gun. Power - power through might, kind of like Rambo rocking out over the killing field.

Roberts did peel off one semi-interesting solo on "School's Out".

It didn't connect with anything, of course, but, as in most heavy metal, it added up to a sonic blast of technical wizardry, where the ethics of speed and noise prevail. Drummer Ken Mary unleashed a savage drum solo during the same song, heavy on the bass, which oozed out uncontrollably.

The band exited for a short break following "School's Out" and returned for an encore of "Freedom". By now the crowd, only half of capacity, was standing, raising fists and yelling. I'm not quite sure what they were yelling about, what the message was. I think the secret is locked in the adolescent male hormone.

Following this monstrosity I hastened over to the Ale House, presenting its final night of music after nearly four years of support for local bands. The place was packed. Houston heavy metal champs XOX was the headliner, and I walked into their first song, " Stand Up And Shout".

Or was it "Stand Up, Raise Your Fist and Yell and then Shout"?

Whatever. Remember, it's your freedom, and heavy metal is fighting for your right to address the issues of the day with nonsense."

Susan Foreman 4th January 2018 08:53 PM

It's like a music version of a Monopoly game board!


Susan Foreman 6th January 2018 10:41 AM

Latest news bites round-up:

Alice is currently in Hawaii, and is due to make a guest appearance with 'Willie K and Friends' at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center along with other guests including Michael McDonald and Pat Simmons from the Doobie Brothers


Alice is due to be a special guest at all three days of the Steel City Comic Con in Pennsylvania between the 13th - 15th April, 2018

The Daily Stoic has an interview with Nita where she talks about 'Stoicism, Humility and Why Ego Kills Talent'


The Inquisitr has an article about The Hollywood Vampires. This also features full footage of the bands show during the 2017 Rock In Rio festival

It's been reported that Rhino records are going to be reissuing limited edition vinyl versions of the 'Easy Action'. 'Killer' and 'Welcome To My Nightmare' LPs. 'Easy Action' will be on gold vinyl, 'Killer' on "translucent red vinyl with swirls" and 'Welcome To My Nightmare' will be on purple vinyl

Susan Foreman 12th January 2018 04:42 PM

January 1969 - The Whisky-A-Go-Go, California

Led Zeppelin, with support from Alice Cooper


Susan Foreman 19th January 2018 08:08 PM

Probably just about to pull a switchblade from his pocket and mug her!


Demdike@Cult Labs 19th January 2018 08:11 PM

Ha'ha! Cool!

Whens that from?

Susan Foreman 20th January 2018 05:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs (Post 563398)
Ha'ha! Cool!

Whens that from?

I don't know, but she's probably the same age as him!

When I saw it, I thought of the airplane incident as told by Alice: "One of the best things that ever happened to us was getting banned in England on our very first tour. They hadn't even seen us and they banned us. One the flight over I sat next to an old woman, probably eighty-five years old. She says to me, "I've been traveling from Beirut. I want to go to sleep. Please don't wake me when the food comes." I said OK.

We land in London and I go to wake her up. She doesn't wake up. She's dead. Died in her sleep. I get off the plane, they pull the body out, and the people say, "We understand that lady died sitting next to you."

I said, "Yes," and they go, "Wow," and start checking for holes in her throat
"

Susan Foreman 22nd January 2018 07:31 PM

Alice and Groucho - early 70's


Susan Foreman 25th January 2018 12:54 PM

March 6th 1971: Virginia Theatre, Alexandria, Virginia. The band played two evening shows, but during the day the venue was a cinema, with three showings of the Hammer film 'When Dinosaurs Ruled The World'


The review of the show, altho there is no mention about whether Alice and the band spent the afternoon watching dinosaurs and Victoria Vetri!


Actor Lawson J. Deming played Sir Graves Ghastly, mentioned in the last paragraph. He was the host of a television show which was broadcast for fifteen seasons on Saturday afternoons in Detroit, from 1967 to 1982 that played horror films


Susan Foreman 26th January 2018 02:22 PM

Alice Cooper guitarist Nita Strauss named first ever female Ibanez Signature artist | Planet Rock



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