The latest recipient of the coveted (albeit belated) Bacardi Show Birthday greeting is good ol' Vincent Furnier, AKA Alice Cooper.
When I was a teenager, I worshipped the Alice Cooper Group. There was just something about their combination of horror movie cliches, social satire, weird humor, orchestral bombast (courtesy of that bombasticator par excellance Bob Ezrin) and plain ol' rock n' roll that captivated me. The Alice Cooper Group in all their glory was a hell of a thing. Sadly, I never got to see the Group perform live, I had to settle for an amazing episode of ABC's "In Concert" show in 1973 (I did see Alice, but in 1975 on his first solo tour. I was somewhat let down). Hell, I even did my Research Methods term paper in my Senior year in high school on the history of the Alice Cooper band. Got an A- on it, too. After the band broke up in 1974, Alice went on as a solo act, and few people noticed...but not me.
Cooper was occasionally interesting after that, but soon devolved into self-parody, in a way making him a parody of a parody, which isn't much at all in my book. He dabbled in new wave synth-rock (Flush The Fashion, actually a not-bad album) and eventually re-connected with Ezrin and made an interesting album in the mid 80s which absolutely nobody heard and even less cared about. Hey! That might be a future column! Anyway, he's had his up and downs, battled alcoholism, resurrected his career at least twice and now is perceived as something of an elder statesman in the Metal crowd. So here's to ya, Alice. I miss your band.
