Welcome to My Nightmare: The Alice Cooper Story
by Dave Thompson Publisher: Omnibus Press (13 Jun 2012)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1780382324
ISBN-13: 978-1780382326
Blondie: Parallel Lives by Dick Porter and Kris Needs
Language English
ISBN-10: 1780381298
ISBN-13: 978-1780381299
Those jolly nice people at Omnibus Books have started sending me all sorts of things to review. I have been an avid reader of rock music biographies ever since I discovered the cut and paste works of George Tremlett back in the mid-1970s; I have read hundreds if not thousands and reviewed dozens of them. However, until now, most of the books I have read or books I have reviewed have something in common; they have all been about bands or artists that particularly interested me. Now, for the first time, I am being confronted with well-written and well-presented books, some of which are about bands that don’t really interest me at all. However, reading and commenting on them is an interesting intellectual exercise.
The two artists I am dealing with today are both artists whom I vaguely like, and indeed have vaguely liked since the 1970s. I remember the frisson of horrified delight which accompanied Alice Cooper’s advent in the UK with `Schools Out` in the summer of 1972.
I remember how all the dashing young punks in my social peer group had the hots for Debbie Harry and how `Sunday Girl` and `Heart of Glass` were the soundtrack of much of 1979.
But I don’t think I’ve ever consciously gone out and bought a brand new record of either of them. I had a copy of 'Billion Dollar Babies' that came from a car boot sale, and my ex-wife had a copy of 'Parallel Lines'.
But both of these acts have something more important in common than the fact that I never actually bought one of their records. But when I say something in common, I actually mean something almost diametrically opposite in their history. Blondie started off as the alter-ego of Deborah Harry who constructed a post-modern alternative identity based around a Warholesque version of the famous newspaper strip cartoon. It was only later on that the name became used for the whole group rather than just for its eponymous peroxide-bleached singer.
On the other hand a garage band from Phoenix, Arizona called The Nazz (after a song by The Yardbirds, and – I believe – Lord Buckley’s name for our Lord and Saviour) moved to Los Angeles, hooked up with Frank Zappa, and – claiming to be channelling the name of a long-dead witch – changed THEIR name to ‘Alice Cooper’. It was only some years later that Vincent Furnier the singer adopted the name for himself, and eventually sacked the band.
But the two bands have something else in common, and here, my current occupation as scribbler to the stars of Gonzo Multimedia, also gets dragged into the equation. Because the thing that they have in common is a man who has recently signed with Gonzo, and with whom I am working quite closely; Michael des Barres.
Michael was once (and for a couple of days last month, was again) the lead singer with a gloriously trashy glam band called Silverhead, and the bass player from Silverhead was another Englishman called Nigel Harrison, and he took over the post as bass player in Blondie from somebody else I know.
It’s always strange when you read a biography of people that you vaguely know.
Okay, most of the people in this very workmanlike biography of Blondie wouldn’t know me from Adam (okay they probably would, Adam is the naked one with the fig leaf). However, I do vaguely know Gary Lachman, who played in Blondie for many years under the nom de guerre of Gary Valentine, and now writes on esoterica for Fortean Times amongst other things.
During several of my recent conversations with Michael des Barres he had waxed lyrical over the drumming prowess of Clem Burke and it has to be said that Michael not only went to school with Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience he knows his drumming. He likens Burke to the late, great Keith Moon, as do the authors of this book. I have to admit that this is something that wouldn’t have occurred to me listening to the record, but I trust Michael’s judgement implicitly.
But what has Michael des Barres got to do with Alice Cooper? Well it’s actually his ex-wife, and close friend, Miss Pamela of the GTOs. She was apparently the person who first introduced the Alice Cooper band to her label boss, Frank Zappa, and if it hadn’t been for her, none of this would have happened, because Zappa was the only record company mogul in Los Angeles, perverse enough to sign a band that everybody else hated and wouldn’t have touched with a proverbial bargepole. Michael and Pamela are responsible for so many of the little synergies throughout rock ‘n’ roll of the last 30 or 40 years, and I confidently expect to find a whole string more of them over the next few months.
But what about the books? Are they any good? The answer is yes of course they are. They are both perfectly competently written, edited and spell-checked, and designed. Of the two, the Alice Cooper one I found more entertaining and engaging, possibly because it was more emotive about a time of my life that was quite special to me. Whereas I was desperately miserable and drunk throughout much of the late 70s and early 80s, and it is not a time that I particularly want to re-visit in literary form. I also preferred the Alice Cooper book because – frankly – I like more of his songs, whereas ‘One Thing or Another’, ‘Heart of Glass’, and ‘Sunday Girl’ great songs as they are, don’t really have enough impetus to propel me through a 300-page manuscript.
However both books suffer from what is a common syndrome throughout rock music publishing; the early days of the band when they are struggling artists in New York City, or drunken acolytes of Frank Zappa causing outrage in Los Angeles are perforce far more interesting than the later days. I have always thought that the sign of the best rock music biographies are when they find something interesting to say about the latter days of the artists concerned rather than just their formative years.
Okay Chris Stein became seriously ill, and Alice took up golf, but the latter day albums are treated far more cursorily than the ones released during their heyday. I think that this is a pity, and wish that it could have been otherwise.
Both artists end up going full circle and reforming to some approximation of their original line-up. As far as the Alice Cooper band reunion was concerned, this was particularly welcome, but the descriptions of both artistes and their most recent output have inspired me to check out their most recent recordings, which can only be a good thing. So yes, I guess you can say that both these biographies are a success!
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