The Alice Cooper Show 1977

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The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by pitkin88 » Sun Jan 10, 2021 10:57 pm

An album that not many, including Alice, like. It looks like it was put together and released very quickly with very little promotion.

I know it was touted as being recorded over two nights but I seem to remember reading it was actually recorded at the rehearsals with no audience. Am I remembering correctly?

Does Wagner mention anything about the show in his book? I believe Mr Barlow has it.

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by jacknifejohnny » Mon Jan 11, 2021 3:15 am

Can remember bein’ gutted when I got this release. All the big boys were putting out double live albums when this was released. Wasn’t impressed at all at the time but played it a couple weeks back and thoroughly enjoyed it.

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by tuneylune » Tue Jan 12, 2021 9:52 am

I had high hopes for this when I got it-liked all the pictures and figured a live album would make up for the last couple of releases. Also wondered why it wasn't a Double one myself.
Very disappointed after listening back in 1977 and it hasn't aged well at all.
No doubt, a rough time for Him personally and professionally.
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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by pitkin88 » Tue Jan 12, 2021 10:19 am

tuneylune wrote:
Tue Jan 12, 2021 9:52 am
I had high hopes for this when I got it-liked all the pictures and figured a live album would make up for the last couple of releases. Also wondered why it wasn't a Double one myself.
Very disappointed after listening back in 1977 and it hasn't aged well at all.
No doubt, a rough time for Him personally and professionally.

A double would have been commercial suicide. I think this reached 131 in the charts.

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by padre_sliprat » Tue Jan 12, 2021 7:55 pm

I bought it the day it was released and have loved it since. Saw the tour in spring and this record has the same sound and feel (even though a few band members had been swapped out).
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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by Saint&Sinner » Tue Jan 12, 2021 10:23 pm

I really hate this live album, the band (for the most part) are on fire and i love the whole wish you were here part but alice sounds terrible. The mix has no power and alices voice lacks any punch at all. Very limp.
I have been puzzled with his choices of live albums, until his last couple that is; like fistful (a decent show but hardly the top tier line up) and the no more mr nice guy shows (that whole line up just didnt gel for me at all)

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by mestreech » Wed Jan 13, 2021 2:35 am

I never liked the album. No power and you can hear Alice at his worst and at the verge of a breakdown. It's a live greatest hits but not the quality and the power of the songs.
The band was good but their was no chemistry.
Warner should have put out a live double album right after the B$B/Muscle tour, that would have been a huge hit.
Very bad timing for this album.

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by Logan » Wed Jan 13, 2021 2:55 am

padre_sliprat wrote:
Tue Jan 12, 2021 7:55 pm
I bought it the day it was released and have loved it since. Saw the tour in spring and this record has the same sound and feel (even though a few band members had been swapped out).
Have to agree! Same here I loved it when it was released and still do. I think Wagner & Hunter do amazing guitar work on "I'm Eighteen". Just like what they did on Lou Reed's live album. I know Alice wasn't crazy about it because he was in a bad place at that time. But great band that made those classic songs their own. I only wish it was a double album. Many bands put out double Live LPs matter of fact Alice never even put out a double studio LP.

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by pitkin88 » Wed Jan 13, 2021 3:08 am

Does anyone know if this was in fact a quasi live album or was I just imagining that?

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by Babysquid » Wed Jan 13, 2021 8:07 am

pitkin88 wrote:
Wed Jan 13, 2021 3:08 am
Does anyone know if this was in fact a quasi live album or was I just imagining that?
I’m not sure , someone recently mentioned it on the SF forum, but again they were asking if it was true or not. I’ve just scanned through Dick Wagner’s book again and the only mention about the album I could find was that he played on it and it was recorded live at the Aladdin hotel. However there could be more references to it.

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by Toronto Bob » Tue Jan 19, 2021 7:55 am

I agree with much that has been posted here. I love 70's double live albums. So many great ones released in that decade. But this AC offering was anemic. I was disappointed when I first heard it. Many of the songs were truncated, sounded like they were rushed through. The recording often lacked power and considering this was Alice's first official live album with 3 solo records and 7 group albums under his belt - it should have been a tour de force. Nope, a single slab of half-hearted run throughs. Having said that, the Wagner/Hunter sound great on 18 and Alice sounds wonderfully creepy on I Love the Dead. Poor timing in Alice's career for a live album - agree with mestreech, a live album from the B$B/MoL tours would have been cool. With deluxe over the top 70's style packaging - it could have been legend.

Maybe if TACS was a limited Japan only release, I would look at it as being a bit special, as is - I think of it as one of the 70's worst live albums by a major artist. Down there with Dep Purple's "Last Concert in Japan" and Black Sabbath's "Live at Last" technically an 80's live album but with recordings made in the 70's

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by mr.barlow » Fri Jan 22, 2021 3:35 pm

I never really cared much for live albums with a few exceptions, but this live album is one of the worst.
I don't recall Wagner talking about it in his book but I will give it another look. I can understand why he chose not to talk about it as I'm sure it was pushed out by WB with little input by anyone else.

the band is great, Alice is awful and the mix is awful as well. If I remember right the album was heavily overdubbed, mainly on Alice's vocals.

Looking back now i wonder if this was a quick release to try and satisfy the Alice fans?after the misfire of Escargot. Also it could have been a contract requirement for a live released. A lot of time live releases are used to take the place of a required album release. This is done sometimes when a band or artist are having creative or other problems. While other times they are rushed when a band or artist is red hot and at their peak.

This was not the case for Alice at that time and I agree the right time to release a live album would have been right after B$B. Also, this could have bought some time and the band could have taken a well needed break. It may have made the difference.

at any rate.....we all got lucky that FTI came next. If he didn't get himself together it could have bern over right there.

The weird thing is that drunk Alice was a sloppy mess yet coked up Alice was brilliant. Compare the SF shows to the 1977 shows. Alice Cocaine ...namely SF era...was more vicious and scary that the classic Alice.

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by Dannorama » Fri Jan 22, 2021 7:39 pm

This record has always made me sad. I was 14 when I got it as a surprise Christmas gift. I had never seen it before that moment. I will always love the cover because of how it exploded in the light. However, it soon began to remind me of the Gong Show. (I began listening to it repeatedly, which may have fed that impression.) Eventually, I wound up destroying the record in an oven experiment - it became an interesting dish on my dresser for a while.

I've never bought it again, which is a rarity for me and my on-going Alice collection. Occasionally, I have revisited this album, but I can't listen to it. I will stick around long enough to remind myself that my first impression was correct. At first it was because I never have enjoyed the music. It sounds mundane to me. These days, I understand where he was emotionally during that time in '77, and I have a newer sensitivity towards the album. I still don't like it, but suddenly, I don't like WB either. They squeezed too hard, and nearly broke him.
Last edited by Dannorama on Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by pitkin88 » Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:28 pm

Dannorama wrote:
Fri Jan 22, 2021 7:39 pm
This record has always made me sad. I was 14 when I got it as a surprise Christmas gift. I had never seen it before that moment. I will always love the cover because of how it exploded in the light. However, it soon began to remind me of the Gong Show. (I began listening to it repeatedly, which may have fed that impression.) Eventually, I wound up destroying the record in an oven experiment - it became an interesting dish on my dresser for a while.

I've never bought it again, which is a rarity for me and my on-going Alice collection. Occasionally, I have revisited this album, but I can't listen to it. I will stick around long enough to remind myself that my first impression was correct. At first it was because I never have enjoyed the music. It sounds mundane to me. These days, I understand where he was emotionally during that time in'77, and I have a newer sensitivity towards the album. I still don't like it, but suddenly, I don't like WB either. They squeezed too hard, and nearly broke him.

It's not like WB made him a drunk. Money had to be made though it wasn't much in this case.
It's just a shoddy release from sleeve to record. The playing is way to slick and glossy and Alice is just a tired mess.
One more dad rock mess after this and then it was white powder fury!

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by Dannorama » Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:40 pm

pitkin88 wrote:
Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:28 pm
Dannorama wrote:
Fri Jan 22, 2021 7:39 pm
This record has always made me sad. I was 14 when I got it as a surprise Christmas gift. I had never seen it before that moment. I will always love the cover because of how it exploded in the light. However, it soon began to remind me of the Gong Show. (I began listening to it repeatedly, which may have fed that impression.) Eventually, I wound up destroying the record in an oven experiment - it became an interesting dish on my dresser for a while.

I've never bought it again, which is a rarity for me and my on-going Alice collection. Occasionally, I have revisited this album, but I can't listen to it. I will stick around long enough to remind myself that my first impression was correct. At first it was because I never have enjoyed the music. It sounds mundane to me. These days, I understand where he was emotionally during that time in'77, and I have a newer sensitivity towards the album. I still don't like it, but suddenly, I don't like WB either. They squeezed too hard, and nearly broke him.

It's not like WB made him a drunk. Money had to be made though it wasn't much in this case.
It's just a shoddy release from sleeve to record. The playing is way to slick and glossy and Alice is just a tired mess.
One more dad rock mess after this and then it was white powder fury!
I never intimated that WB was responsible for his disease. However, they most certainly treated him like a cash-cow. I know - contracts, signatures, agreements, etc... He knew what they wanted out of him. The fact is that those were defining times, now spoken of in terms like "never again," and "bad mistakes." Alice was, once again, a fair example in the evolving world of artists vs. record companies.
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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by revinkevin » Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:50 pm

Can’t add much more than already said. Still IMO that version of 18 is outstanding. Blistering leads.

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by Ted Sallis » Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:22 pm

Toronto Bob wrote:
Tue Jan 19, 2021 7:55 am
...as is - I think of it as one of the 70's worst live albums by a major artist. Down there with Deep Purple's "Last Concert in Japan" and Black Sabbath's "Live at Last" technically an 80's live album but with recordings made in the 70's
I haven't heard Last Concert in Japan so I won't comment on that but I would consider Live at Last - although not originally a Group-sanctioned release - to be considerably superior to Alice's mid to late 70's live album. LAL was recorded in early 1973 near/at the tail end of Sabbath's tour in support of their Vol.4 album and though I've never considered it to be perfect, it was made in their prime period in the 70's and contains solid live versions of some of their great songs from that decade.

Alice's live album was recorded and released several years after what I consider his prime period in the 70's had ended and therefore contains several inferior songs from his solo career. In addition, he recorded the album with a band which (unlike LAL) hadn't written or played on the original studio versions of all of the songs - in particular, the ACG songs. So in my view, Alice's live album from the 70's can't compare to Sabbath's.

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by cooperrocks » Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:33 pm

I never disliked that album, I just didn't think it had much edge. And I knew a few people who were into let's say KISS Alive (I was never a big KISS fan myself) and others that became fans of a band because of a live album. I know of a person or two whose first exposure to Alice was the Alice Cooper Show album and they just didn't think it rocked that much. One of those cases where the album cover looked tougher than the sound of the album. So they missed a lot of years of really knowing Alice's music, then some said years later when Alice came back with Constrictor and Raise Your Fist and Yell they liked those albums and started checking out the earlier stuff and realized they really really liked all or most of it.

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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by Dannorama » Tue Jan 26, 2021 2:11 pm

A really big part of my problem with this album (and the whole Nightmare tour) is the drum sound. Anemic is the word I'd use. The drums sound weak, poorly tuned, and poorly miked. The snare sounds like wet newspaper, and Whitey sounds like he's barely trying. What's he playing with? Pencils? Even as a kid, this registered with me.
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Re: The Alice Cooper Show 1977

Post by patrick » Thu Jan 28, 2021 8:20 am

guess the Alice Cooper Show 77 must be the one LP I did not duplicate on cd when it came available. Always thought that the Saginaw bootleg( :x ) could have been a better choice for a first live lp
you really wouldn't understand..

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