On This Date in 1970: Jimi Hendrix died in his girlfriend’s apartment in London. After taking nine sleeping pills (prescribed to his girlfriend) that he washed down with red wine, Hendrix suffocated in his sleep when he choked on his own vomit. He was 27 years old. Twenty-seven years old!Jimi Hendrix’s death is one of the biggest tragedies in rock music history, especially because it was so completely avoidable. I mean, forget about the idiocy of chasing downers with wine – who the hell takes NINE sleeping pills unless he wants to commit suicide? WTF? I don’t get it. What a fucking waste. My friend Neal, who used to play drums in the band Alice Cooper, saw The Jimi Hendrix Experience perform many times back in the sixties – once in a bowling alley (not kidding). Neal and other guys in Alice Cooper also hung out and partied with Jimi, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell in an Arizona hotel room. If you want to read those stories, you can buy our book when it is eventually published and becomes a massive best-seller. Rest in Peace, Jimi!
On This Date in 1969: The Band called Alice Cooper appeared at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Festival held at Varsity Stadium. Other acts on the bill included John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band (with Eric Clapton), Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, The Doors and Gene Vincent – with Alice Cooper members Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith, Michael Bruce and Glen Buxton serving as Vincent’s backing band. Continue reading Alice Cooper Band’s Fabled “Chicken Incident” Turns 40!→
On This Date, August 12th in 1972: The band called Alice Cooper (Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith, Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce and Vincent Furnier) reached the top of the U.K. singles chart with “School’s Out,” which spent three weeks on top. It was the band’s only number one single in the U.K.
I remember hearing Alice Cooper (the band)’s “Muscle of Love” back in the day and just grooving on it’s crazy riffs, being completely sexually naive and honestly not thinking much about what the hell Alice was singing about. The hilarious thing is that these days I’m extremely close friends with the Alice Cooper band’s drummer, Neal Smith, and he has assured me that when Alice sings “Holy Muscle of Love/Must be a gift from above,” he’s definitely singing about having a boner. Weee!!! Neal has given me a lot of juicy inside dope on the band, but you will have to wait for our book to salivate over it. Happy Valloween everyone. Play safe and don’t forget to protect your heart!!!
Alice Cooperwas originally a band consisting of Vincent Furnier on vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and drummer Neal Smith. The original Alice Cooper band broke into the international music mainstream with 1971’s monster hit “I’m Eighteen” from the album Love it to Death, which was followed by the even bigger single “School’s Out” in 1972. The band reached their commercial peak with the 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies.
Furnier’s solo career as Alice Cooper, adopting the band’s nameas his own name, began with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare. The man formerly known as Vincent Furnier turns 61 years old today!
