Alice Cooper’s latest solo release, Welcome 2 My Nightmare, is getting a lot of attention currently, due in large part to the fact that original Alice Cooper Band members, Neal Smith, Dennis Dunaway and Michael Bruce collaborated with Alice on three of the album’s songs. Neal Smith’s writing contribution, “I’ll Bite Your Face Off” is the first single and here’s the video, embedded below for your enjoyment. While this video is a live shoot from Alice’s ongoing tour, the audio track is from the studio recording and features Neal on drums, Dennis on bass and Michael on guitar. In case you’re curious and do not yet own the album, the other two tracks on which original band members collaborated/play are “Runaway Train” (co-written by Dennis) and “When Hell Comes Home” (co-written by Michael Bruce).
I can’t believe I managed to miss this news. I was just on the phone with my friend Neal Smith (2011 R&R Hall of Fame Inductee with the band called Alice Cooper) and he sort of casually mentioned to me, “You know that Jack Richardson passed away a couple of weeks ago, right?” Seriously, I had no idea. Richardson was a studio legend best known for producing over fifteen albums for The Guess Who, but he’s also responsible for sending a young Bob Ezrin to New York to produce Alice Cooper (the band)‘s breakthrough album, Love it to Death (1971). He went on to produce John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy and Alanis Morrisette’s phenomenally successful debut, Jagged Little Pill among many other best selling albums. Jack was considered to be a “Drummer’s Dream Producer” and during the time I wrote for Modern Drummer I interviewed many players who sang Jack’s praises. Jack Richardson is also the father of noted music producer Garth Richardson, who actually mixed the sound for the reunited Alice Cooper Band when they performed at Revolver Magazine’s Golden Gods Awards in Los Angeles last month. Richardson was 81 years old when he passed away on May 13, 2011 after years of declining health. You can read more about the life and career of Jack Richardson at This Link.
On This Date, March 24th in 1973: The Band Called Alice Cooper’s sixth studio album, Billion Dollar Babies (released 2/25/73) entered the U.K. album chart at Number One. The album hit #1 in the US a few weeks later, on April 21st.
On This Date in 1964: The Whisky a Go Go club opened on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, CA. The Whisky was a launching pad for such acts as The Doors and Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. It’s also the club where Led Zeppelin performed their first US shows, supported by a then unknown band called Alice Cooper. Bands I can remember seeing at The Whisky include The Plasmatics and Nina Hagen. There are likely many others, but those memories aren’t really available to me anymore.
Former Guitarist for the band called Alice Cooper, Glen Buxton, was born on this day, November 10, in 1947. What a shame that Glen isn’t alive to see the entire original band (not justAlice, thank God) inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame later this year.
