Dick Wagner “rock star serial killer"

[Mr. Skull]

http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news ... ck-wagner/

[patrick]

well, i must admit some of the stage tricks like they appear in the strange case of alice cooper, or the dancing bottles behind Alice at the time of From the Inside, kind of suprised me:that was not what i expected to see when i first heard the music... As if Alice wasn't taken it seriously.. The way Nurse Rosetta is brought nowadays is better imo..
And in the recent tours, or even from the Nightmare Returns on , we saw no more chickens, or ballet dancing nurses, that kind of stuff. Sure, the giant needle in Poison is still cartoonesk, but it's different..
only my opinion, of course...

[ReGorLaTroy]

http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news ... ck-wagner/

Wow, no disrespect to Dick Wagner, but the tone of this little article sure paints him as a bit bitter and even a bit full of himself.

That being said, there is no denying his incredible talent and contribution(s) to Alice's music.

Thanks for the link Mr. Skull.

[Devon]

To be fair, this kind of sounds like it's not fully fleshed out in the interview. A year or two ago he gave an interview talking about the Tonight Show w/ Carson appearance in which Shep or someone decided to have Alice do "Lace & Whiskey" with the chickens when originally he and Alice were going to do an acoustic performance. He thought the acoustic stuff was going to be classy and then the chicken idea for the appearance came up and he wasn't happy with the higher ups at all over that (if I'm remembering correctly.) It seems that Wagner's comment is maybe underlined by disagreements with management at that time, and maybe specifically the Lace & Whiskey stage antics.

[Shoesalesman]

*Some* of Alice's stuff past AND present is indeed juvenile and silly. That's what makes it so great. Over the top, not taken too seriously, cartoonish... that sums up Alice right there, to a degree, no?

[ReGorLaTroy]

*Some* of Alice's stuff past AND present is indeed juvenile and silly. That's what makes it so great. Over the top, not taken too seriously, cartoonish... that sums up Alice right there, to a degree, no?

Agreed...Great Post!

[revinkevin]

It was indeed juvenile and silly. And not very rock n roll. I remember watching that appearance on the Johnny Carson show back in the day and just cringing.

[Gunner]

I can sympathise with Wagner; it must have been like playing with Big Bird (Sesame Street) running around the stage! Very silly.

Also, one DOES get the impression that Cooper, Ezrin and Gordon treated this all very much as ruthless business - particularly in the 70s.

[old school vet]

Bet he didn't think it was silly on pay day!

[tuneylune]

It was indeed juvenile and silly. And not very rock n roll. I remember watching that appearance on the Johnny Carson show back in the day and just cringing.

I saw this also and it was pretty cheesy, but liked the fact I got to see "Lace and Whiskey" performed, even if it was Carson's band playing.
Dick was coming off as kind of testy-maybe bad memories or the sad reality that he now looks like Bobby "The Brain" Heenan!

[ElectedPlus]

Reminds me of a good part of Alice's induction speech :

"I wish I could tell you that being in the hall now that we'll never embarrass you ... but I really can't make that promise ... I mean after all we are Alice Cooper, it's what we do"