Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Alice Cooper co-founder and Hall Of Fame inductee Dennis Dunaway answers your questions!

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Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by livinluvin72 » Sat Apr 24, 2021 3:39 am

Being an Alice Cooper fan in the early 70s was not always easy. In his book, Mike Bruce talked about how the band attracted its fair share of bent arrows. Bob Greene mentioned in his book that some of the fans he saw at the shows seemed to be brain damaged.
In junior high school, a really cute girl got my phone number somehow and called me at home. We talked awhile and then I decided to play her some music on the phone. I didn’t play her Fleetwood Mac or even Aerosmith; I played her Sick Things!
What was I thinking?
Then I heard like a beeping mellotron on Sick Things that I never heard before.
It was the phone.
She hung up!
The next day at school she said someone needed her so she had to go but she never talked to me again, that is until 30 years later at a high school reunion and we were fine but…
I grew up in a very small town that was very conservative. When kids talked about their favorite bands and I’d mention Alice Cooper they would look at me like, “How can you like that freak? He’s just a degenerate.”
As time passed, the same people who ridiculed me about liking Alice Cooper began to see that Alice was an ok guy and not really a freak so they approached me and would tell me how they liked WTMN or Only Women Bleed.
So, Mike Bruce was right about how all the negativity and Alice’s demented on stage character in the early days might not always be a good thing but looking back, it was great theatre!
I’m proud to be a fan of the original band and the original dark shows. I’d say honestly that I’m part cool and part bent arrow and that’s the way I like it like in the song I’m 18 and I like it!
It was like you told Bob Greene; it was just like putting on scary mask for fun.
It was almost metaphysical and cathartic to watch.
Alice was making a mockery of shame.
He committed crimes and was punished for them but then he is reborn!
And yes, there were also hot chicks at the shows too. Those perhaps who were a little more open minded than the small-town folk I grew up with.
Alice and Mike were both turning the corner about the same time. Alice had to change his image for his own sanity.
It’s too bad Mike and Alice didn’t change together.

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by Public Animal #9 » Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:46 am

Here is a funny tale of being an Alice Cooper Group fan in 1973. I had a T-shirt of Alice Hanging from Killer. I wore it to school in Grade 6 or so and the teacher saw me and went nuts. She said Alice was a sick homosexual and an animal killer and what would make me wear or like such a thing and she sent me home. She called my parents and asked if there were issues or problems at home and if I was mentally unstable....(well yes I am lol). My Mom knew the score and knew Alice Cooper was an act, a theater band and she blasted the teacher for making horrific assumptions. I got switched to another class (advanced) and the teacher in that class was cool and understood and let us play the Schools Out album for music class. This was in Canada btw.
The Alice Cooper Group (original) was everything to me growing up and inspired me to become a muscian on my own many years later.

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by livinluvin72 » Sat Apr 24, 2021 3:00 pm

Wow! A t-shirt like that in sixth grade? Were we crazy?
I also became a musician because of AC. I performed my first gig at age 15 at a 1st period school assembly near the last day of school in front of 700 or so students and faculty in 1975. For this gig I played no instruments. I was purely the lead vocalist so I could do theatrics. We had spotlights and I sang Desperado and 18, sang as I’m 15, using the Alice make up. Our guitar player sang Jumping Jack Flash while I simulated a street fight with our stage hand ala Gutter Cat vs the Jets. We decapitated a mannequin with a machete and we used a snake from our science class during the song 18/15.
A machete, to school?!! Yea, the dad of a guy in the band had one from some war where he had to cut through heavy underbrush. You could never bring something like that to school now but this was the innocent 70s.
We played 20 minutes and got a great reaction; some were stunned, others loved it. I was popular for those last few days of 9th grade.
Later I found out that one of the teachers wasn’t too happy about the show. He told every class after that 1st period show that what they just witnessed was 20 minutes of Satan. To counter act the evil he talked for 20 minutes about Jesus and hell fire at each of his classes that day.
Some of the kids told me about this and said it was horrible having to hear that guy preach to them trying to save their souls. His daughter came up to me and said to me “Don’t worry about it. That’s just the way my Dad is. You’re show was great!”
After the show, the principal called me into his office. To get on the assembly agenda I told him I was going to do a magic show with music. He told me to sit down. He said, “There may be a place for the likes of Alice Cooper in the entertainment world but I don’t think it’s appropriate for 12- to 15-year-old kids”. I’m thinking, “Gee that’s his core audience?” He banned me from ever playing at that school again. That was fine. The school was eventually closed down due to lack of junior high school aged kids in the town.
A couple of years later, a class mate and fellow football team mate came up to me at a bank and kind of fell into me grabbing me. He told me he had smoked some weed that fateful day before 1st period and he said the show was incredible!
I became a minor legend in that town as people I didn’t even know asked me about it. I asked how they heard about it and they said kids who saw it told them about it.
Some kids started following me around after that the next year, eventually they would become band mates. We got another singer and I became the guitar player and we did Zeppelin, Aerosmith and the odd AC song. I still play the odd gig here and there with friends.

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by Si » Sat Apr 24, 2021 4:25 pm

livinluvin72 wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 3:00 pm
After the show, the principal called me into his office. To get on the assembly agenda I told him I was going to do a magic show with music. He told me to sit down.
This reminds me of a show I did as part of a pick up band at school. We also did the assembly, AND said we were going to do something else, but played 3 or 4 originals (very basic joke songs) that a couple of six-formers had written (we were just their backing band really, being the only band in the school that could really do it.). Only song I remember was called "Walking to my Bureau (ie desk)". We did it as we were sick of the boring assemblies we had to sit through each day.

We ALSO got called into the headmasters office for a telling off, but it was worth it and in the end I think we got away with it, but the six-formers (who to be fair really were behind it) got a detention or something which they probably never went to haha

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by Dreary » Sat Apr 24, 2021 5:00 pm

Public Animal #9 wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:46 am
Here is a funny tale of being an Alice Cooper Group fan in 1973. I had a T-shirt of Alice Hanging from Killer. I wore it to school in Grade 6 or so and the teacher saw me and went nuts. She said Alice was a sick homosexual and an animal killer and what would make me wear or like such a thing and she sent me home. She called my parents and asked if there were issues or problems at home and if I was mentally unstable....(well yes I am lol). My Mom knew the score and knew Alice Cooper was an act, a theater band and she blasted the teacher for making horrific assumptions. I got switched to another class (advanced) and the teacher in that class was cool and understood and let us play the Schools Out album for music class. This was in Canada btw.
The Alice Cooper Group (original) was everything to me growing up and inspired me to become a muscian on my own many years later.
It was similar in the 50's when parents branded Elvis, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis as bad influences on kids. "The Devil's Music" was a commonly used term. So, of course, it made us love that music even more. It sounded great and it didn't make us want to do evil things. But because parents were the consumers of products, advertisers would be compelled to pull their ads from radio stations that played that music, so many stations would play a homogenized cover of a hit rather than the version we wanted to hear. Very few artists like Fats Domino and Chuck Berry were deemed to be safe enough to get airplay. Then the Beatles came along and got the same bad wrap, that is until the Rolling Stones showed up. All of this was lived through, and taken into account by Neal, Michael, Alice, Glen, and I. It was our template for what we wanted to do as the Alice Cooper group.

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by tuneylune » Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:48 am

livinluvin72 wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 3:39 am
Being an Alice Cooper fan in the early 70s was not always easy. In his book, Mike Bruce talked about how the band attracted its fair share of bent arrows. Bob Greene mentioned in his book that some of the fans he saw at the shows seemed to be brain damaged.
In junior high school, a really cute girl got my phone number somehow and called me at home. We talked awhile and then I decided to play her some music on the phone. I didn’t play her Fleetwood Mac or even Aerosmith; I played her Sick Things!
What was I thinking?
Then I heard like a beeping mellotron on Sick Things that I never heard before.
It was the phone.
She hung up!
The next day at school she said someone needed her so she had to go but she never talked to me again, that is until 30 years later at a high school reunion and we were fine but…
I grew up in a very small town that was very conservative. When kids talked about their favorite bands and I’d mention Alice Cooper they would look at me like, “How can you like that freak? He’s just a degenerate.”
As time passed, the same people who ridiculed me about liking Alice Cooper began to see that Alice was an ok guy and not really a freak so they approached me and would tell me how they liked WTMN or Only Women Bleed.
So, Mike Bruce was right about how all the negativity and Alice’s demented on stage character in the early days might not always be a good thing but looking back, it was great theatre!
I’m proud to be a fan of the original band and the original dark shows. I’d say honestly that I’m part cool and part bent arrow and that’s the way I like it like in the song I’m 18 and I like it!
It was like you told Bob Greene; it was just like putting on scary mask for fun.
It was almost metaphysical and cathartic to watch.

Alice was making a mockery of shame.
He committed crimes and was punished for them but then he is reborn!
And yes, there were also hot chicks at the shows too. Those perhaps who were a little more open minded than the small-town folk I grew up with.
Alice and Mike were both turning the corner about the same time. Alice had to change his image for his own sanity.
It’s too bad Mike and Alice didn’t change together.
Good story here...I was also asked why I liked the "Weird Guy" as well. And usually I would show the back album cover of KILLER and say "I really like THEM", that it just wasn't all Alice.
My Mom HATED Alice back when and I had to tread lightly at times, especially when I brought KILLER home. She changed her mind after "Only Women Bleed", would sit and listen to the albums and even bought Me SCHOOL'S OUT and BILLION DOLLAR BABIES the same day :rock: ! She also pointed out the WEST SIDE STORY cues from "Grand Finale" and "Gutter Cats VS The Jets".
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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by Dreary » Tue Apr 27, 2021 4:43 pm

tuneylune wrote:
Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:48 am
livinluvin72 wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 3:39 am
Being an Alice Cooper fan in the early 70s was not always easy. In his book, Mike Bruce talked about how the band attracted its fair share of bent arrows. Bob Greene mentioned in his book that some of the fans he saw at the shows seemed to be brain damaged.
In junior high school, a really cute girl got my phone number somehow and called me at home. We talked awhile and then I decided to play her some music on the phone. I didn’t play her Fleetwood Mac or even Aerosmith; I played her Sick Things!
What was I thinking?
Then I heard like a beeping mellotron on Sick Things that I never heard before.
It was the phone.
She hung up!
The next day at school she said someone needed her so she had to go but she never talked to me again, that is until 30 years later at a high school reunion and we were fine but…
I grew up in a very small town that was very conservative. When kids talked about their favorite bands and I’d mention Alice Cooper they would look at me like, “How can you like that freak? He’s just a degenerate.”
As time passed, the same people who ridiculed me about liking Alice Cooper began to see that Alice was an ok guy and not really a freak so they approached me and would tell me how they liked WTMN or Only Women Bleed.
So, Mike Bruce was right about how all the negativity and Alice’s demented on stage character in the early days might not always be a good thing but looking back, it was great theatre!
I’m proud to be a fan of the original band and the original dark shows. I’d say honestly that I’m part cool and part bent arrow and that’s the way I like it like in the song I’m 18 and I like it!
It was like you told Bob Greene; it was just like putting on scary mask for fun.
It was almost metaphysical and cathartic to watch.

Alice was making a mockery of shame.
He committed crimes and was punished for them but then he is reborn!
And yes, there were also hot chicks at the shows too. Those perhaps who were a little more open minded than the small-town folk I grew up with.
Alice and Mike were both turning the corner about the same time. Alice had to change his image for his own sanity.
It’s too bad Mike and Alice didn’t change together.
Good story here...I was also asked why I liked the "Weird Guy" as well. And usually I would show the back album cover of KILLER and say "I really like THEM", that it just wasn't all Alice.
My Mom HATED Alice back when and I had to tread lightly at times, especially when I brought KILLER home. She changed her mind after "Only Women Bleed", would sit and listen to the albums and even bought Me SCHOOL'S OUT and BILLION DOLLAR BABIES the same day :rock: ! She also pointed out the WEST SIDE STORY cues from "Grand Finale" and "Gutter Cats VS The Jets".
I've probably heard a thousand stories like yours. If you wore an Alice Cooper t-shirt, or if you were holding an Alice Cooper album, or even if you just mentioned that you liked the band, you were ridiculed. Our fans are the best. Being Alice Cooper, we always looked the part, and had to deal with physical threats. What did our fans have in common with the band? We all knew it was worth it. The band was about being a social outcast - social debris.

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by pitkin88 » Tue Apr 27, 2021 9:32 pm

Growing up there was a lot of competition between Bowie and Alice Cooper fans. It didn't seem like you could like both. It was one or the other.

I was so known as an Alice Cooper fan in Huyton, Liverpool that people would knock on my door to sell Alice stuff. I bought Pretties and Easy Action from one kid and Paracidal Slumbers from another. I paid no more than two pounds fifty for each one.

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by Dreary » Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:06 pm

pitkin88 wrote:
Tue Apr 27, 2021 9:32 pm
Growing up there was a lot of competition between Bowie and Alice Cooper fans. It didn't seem like you could like both. It was one or the other.

I was so known as an Alice Cooper fan in Huyton, Liverpool that people would knock on my door to sell Alice stuff. I bought Pretties and Easy Action from one kid and Paracidal Slumbers from another. I paid no more than two pounds fifty for each one.
Trevor Bolder said in an interview that David made the band attend our show at the Rainbow in London to prove that you could glam out and still look tough. Somewhere else, I heard that Bowie said something like, but we won't do it cheesy like they're doing it. Personally, I liked our tattered unwashed look because it showed that any kid could be like us.
As for competition between the two bands, we felt like we had worked hard to invent our way of doing things, but we borrowed from our influences as well.
They put on a good show with good music, so, of course I liked it.

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by Daggers & Contracts » Wed Apr 28, 2021 11:11 pm

Dreary wrote:
Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:06 pm
pitkin88 wrote:
Tue Apr 27, 2021 9:32 pm
Growing up there was a lot of competition between Bowie and Alice Cooper fans. It didn't seem like you could like both. It was one or the other.

I was so known as an Alice Cooper fan in Huyton, Liverpool that people would knock on my door to sell Alice stuff. I bought Pretties and Easy Action from one kid and Paracidal Slumbers from another. I paid no more than two pounds fifty for each one.
Trevor Bolder said in an interview that David made the band attend our show at the Rainbow in London to prove that you could glam out and still look tough. Somewhere else, I heard that Bowie said something like, but we won't do it cheesy like they're doing it. Personally, I liked our tattered unwashed look because it showed that any kid could be like us.
As for competition between the two bands, we felt like we had worked hard to invent our way of doing things, but we borrowed from our influences as well.
They put on a good show with good music, so, of course I liked it.
Don't forget the Cheech & Chong took on the moniker
"Alice Bowie" for their single "Earache My Eye" off of their 'Wedding Album"!
Also, included in their movie 'Up In Smoke"
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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by del » Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:57 am

My bedroom looked onto the main road with a T- junction right in front of my house. In late ‘72 I had a full wall of group and Alice posters that faced out of my window onto the street At night I positioned table lamps so they lit up the wall from below and in winter, with the curtains open and the poor street lighting outside you could see the largest poster of Alice’s face shining out from 200yds along the road. It was brilliant and became an instant talking point locally.

Local kids were positive. Nobody really liked Alice and most were more into T.Rex or Slade with only a few Bowie or hard rock fans. It was cool to them though as they saw it was winding up the adults. My parents had several complaints, mainly lame ones about me distracting drivers but some about me trying to publicise evil and trying to lure their daughters into the house! One woman in particular caught my mum in a shop one day and screamed at her for her irresponsible behaviour. I was told to stop but didn’t until the day a few weeks later when the police turned up having been told the house was a brothel and when the window was lit up we were open for business.

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by padre_sliprat » Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:56 pm

del wrote:
Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:57 am
My bedroom looked onto the main road with a T- junction right in front of my house. In late ‘72 I had a full wall of group and Alice posters that faced out of my window onto the street At night I positioned table lamps so they lit up the wall from below and in winter, with the curtains open and the poor street lighting outside you could see the largest poster of Alice’s face shining out from 200yds along the road. It was brilliant and became an instant talking point locally.

Local kids were positive. Nobody really liked Alice and most were more into T.Rex or Slade with only a few Bowie or hard rock fans. It was cool to them though as they saw it was winding up the adults. My parents had several complaints, mainly lame ones about me distracting drivers but some about me trying to publicise evil and trying to lure their daughters into the house! One woman in particular caught my mum in a shop one day and screamed at her for her irresponsible behaviour. I was told to stop but didn’t until the day a few weeks later when the police turned up having been told the house was a brothel and when the window was lit up we were open for business.
It's a business doing pleasure with you. :D
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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by Dreary » Thu Apr 29, 2021 3:54 pm

padre_sliprat wrote:
Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:56 pm
del wrote:
Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:57 am
My bedroom looked onto the main road with a T- junction right in front of my house. In late ‘72 I had a full wall of group and Alice posters that faced out of my window onto the street At night I positioned table lamps so they lit up the wall from below and in winter, with the curtains open and the poor street lighting outside you could see the largest poster of Alice’s face shining out from 200yds along the road. It was brilliant and became an instant talking point locally.

Local kids were positive. Nobody really liked Alice and most were more into T.Rex or Slade with only a few Bowie or hard rock fans. It was cool to them though as they saw it was winding up the adults. My parents had several complaints, mainly lame ones about me distracting drivers but some about me trying to publicise evil and trying to lure their daughters into the house! One woman in particular caught my mum in a shop one day and screamed at her for her irresponsible behaviour. I was told to stop but didn’t until the day a few weeks later when the police turned up having been told the house was a brothel and when the window was lit up we were open for business.
It's a business doing pleasure with you. :D
A brothel?!?! I'm sure a brothel would have better ways to advertise. I bet it was an eye-catcher!

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by patrick » Fri Apr 30, 2021 5:15 pm

Perhaps one of the big differences between fandom now and then is the internet.
(We didn't have video's,didn't see you on tv or so , only magazines carefully searched through to find anything to inform us on whatever may have happened and no way to "control" things on being truth or not.)
Dennis, was there any way of contact between you guys and the fans at that time ?
you really wouldn't understand..

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by Dreary » Fri Apr 30, 2021 9:52 pm

patrick wrote:
Fri Apr 30, 2021 5:15 pm
Perhaps one of the big differences between fandom now and then is the internet.
(We didn't have video's,didn't see you on tv or so , only magazines carefully searched through to find anything to inform us on whatever may have happened and no way to "control" things on being truth or not.)
Dennis, was there any way of contact between you guys and the fans at that time ?
Some fans did track me down during those years.But it wasn't easy.
I went into seclusion writing songs mostly. Or playing music with Neal. I rarely went to clubs. And if I did, I hung out in the darkest corner of the room. I had Cindy so it was far from all gloomy. We would party with Neal and Glen, and musician friends like Joe Bouchard and Donald Roeser. People like Todd Rundgren and Bebe Buell, and Mick Rock would show up.
But overall, I had a rough decade of disillusionment that very well may have driven me to health issues. Being American, I desperately needed Health Insurance, and therefore I needed to get a straight job. Try applying for a job when the only thing in your resumé is musician, let alone a member of Alice Cooper.
I finally talked my way into a job at a local chain of video stores (back when video was king) with the requirement that the job came with health insurance. My boss was an ex-Marine, a former cop, and the head detective for the arson squad. He was big and burley, tough as nails, and always right in your face. The ongoing tension was even harder on my health, but I couldn't quit because, at that point, I had been diagnosed with Crohn's Disease, and at that time, insurance companies weren't required to insure people with pre-existing conditions. So I desperately had to keep that job, which I managed to do for a dozen years. At that point, video was losing ground to new technology. And luckily, the law finally changed forcing Health Insurance companies to have to accept people with pre-existing conditions.
That's when Cindy and I opened our own store.
I could go on and on, and already have to the point that I'm positive that you regret ever having wondered what I was up to.
Thanks for being interested. I appreciate it.

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by livinluvin72 » Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:54 pm

Dreary wrote:
Fri Apr 30, 2021 9:52 pm
patrick wrote:
Fri Apr 30, 2021 5:15 pm
Perhaps one of the big differences between fandom now and then is the internet.
(We didn't have video's,didn't see you on tv or so , only magazines carefully searched through to find anything to inform us on whatever may have happened and no way to "control" things on being truth or not.)
Dennis, was there any way of contact between you guys and the fans at that time ?
Some fans did track me down during those years.But it wasn't easy.
I went into seclusion writing songs mostly. Or playing music with Neal. I rarely went to clubs. And if I did, I hung out in the darkest corner of the room. I had Cindy so it was far from all gloomy. We would party with Neal and Glen, and musician friends like Joe Bouchard and Donald Roeser. People like Todd Rundgren and Bebe Buell, and Mick Rock would show up.
But overall, I had a rough decade of disillusionment that very well may have driven me to health issues. Being American, I desperately needed Health Insurance, and therefore I needed to get a straight job. Try applying for a job when the only thing in your resumé is musician, let alone a member of Alice Cooper.
I finally talked my way into a job at a local chain of video stores (back when video was king) with the requirement that the job came with health insurance. My boss was an ex-Marine, a former cop, and the head detective for the arson squad. He was big and burley, tough as nails, and always right in your face. The ongoing tension was even harder on my health, but I couldn't quit because, at that point, I had been diagnosed with Crohn's Disease, and at that time, insurance companies weren't required to insure people with pre-existing conditions. So I desperately had to keep that job, which I managed to do for a dozen years. At that point, video was losing ground to new technology. And luckily, the law finally changed forcing Health Insurance companies to have to accept people with pre-existing conditions.
That's when Cindy and I opened our own store.
I could go on and on, and already have to the point that I'm positive that you regret ever having wondered what I was up to.
Thanks for being interested. I appreciate it.
Wow!
That's an incredible story!
I remember seeing a movie in the 80s with a character in a big mansion with a beautiful woman and he reminded me of Michael Bruce with long dark hair and kind of burly and I thought, "Maybe that's how Michael is living now" Billion Dollar Babies and all but then I heard you were working in or running a video store and that Glen was working in a computer factory or aerospace factory.
Geesh, what was that store owner's problem?
How hard can it be to work in a video store?
Here's your Ghostbusters video, due back in 7 days and please rewind.
Why would he have to be in any anybody's face?
Anyway you have an incredible woman!
She stuck by you even after you were no longer at the top.
I think that's a better story than being in Alice Cooper.

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by pitkin88 » Sat May 01, 2021 6:23 am

Health care in this Country is a nightmare and the fact we don't have Universal healthcare when we have seen what a pandemic can do is just staggering.

Please correct me if I am wrong but didn't the band have a company set up for salary, royalties etc that would have had healthcare for you guys? I understand after solo Alice that there would be some split in the company but couldn't health care have continued when band revenue ( royalties ) was still coming in?guys

I'm pretty sure that I first heard about Crohns was hearing you had it. A certain someone and someone else could have helped out with either $ or a benefit show. God knows we have enough pudding! It also grated on me that someone could pay $26,000 to repair and O on a Hollywood sign when the person who helped build his company was sick!

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by Dreary » Sat May 01, 2021 4:10 pm

pitkin88 wrote:
Sat May 01, 2021 6:23 am
Health care in this Country is a nightmare and the fact we don't have Universal healthcare when we have seen what a pandemic can do is just staggering.

Please correct me if I am wrong but didn't the band have a company set up for salary, royalties etc that would have had healthcare for you guys? I understand after solo Alice that there would be some split in the company but couldn't health care have continued when band revenue ( royalties ) was still coming in?guys

I'm pretty sure that I first heard about Crohns was hearing you had it. A certain someone and someone else could have helped out with either $ or a benefit show. God knows we have enough pudding! It also grated on me that someone could pay $26,000 to repair and O on a Hollywood sign when the person who helped build his company was sick!
Per union requirements, Warner Bros. paid into the AFTRA on our behalf. I'm collecting retirement funds through them now. The band knew about their retirement plan all along. What we didn't know, until after my surgery, and after Glen passed away, is that Warner Bros. were also paying in for Health Benefits. Like many musicians, we didn't know AFTRA provided Health Care. Joe and Albert Bouchard heard about it and told me to look into it. Neal and I found out that AFTRA was applying the incoming funds to Alice Cooper as a person, and not dividing it as a band. And in order to straighten it out, we would have to supply proof of our royalty percentages for all of the missing years. There was a guy at AFTRA who was working very hard to straighten it out, but he died before it was settled and then we couldn't find anyone to continue his work. We did, however, get good Health Care through AFTRA for decades up until recently.

pitkin88
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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by pitkin88 » Sat May 01, 2021 5:13 pm

I can't even imagine how frustrating this must have been Dennis!

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Re: Being An Alice Cooper Fan in the Early 70s

Post by steven_crayn » Sun May 02, 2021 4:31 am

People who weren’t there can’t imagine how big Alice Cooper was in Britain in 72/73. I remember at school the local vicar who was quite trendy, saying in morning assembly that he had been listening to the Billion Dollar Babies album and referenced ‘I Love the Dead’, saying that even God loved Alice Cooper. I thought good on you vicar as we went into ‘All things Bright and Beautiful’.
Lead guitar on Social Debris. Album on iTunes, Amazon & Spotify, title track featured on TV

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