Alice Cooper

 Today in 1973 Alice Cooper released the album Muscle of Love

Detroit, Michigan, Rock, hard rock, heavy metal, shock rock, glam metal

Status:Active

Years active 1963–present

Alice Cooper is without a doubt one of the most influential showmen in the history of hard rock. Enough cannot be said about the man -- suffice to say that virtually every band who has ever adopted a horror/theatrical approach, from Marilyn Manson to King Diamond to too many others to mention, they all ultimately are influenced by Alice Cooper. The band formed in Arizona in the late sixties, fronted by one Vincent Furnier, who had already started cultivating his controversial stage persona though he hadn't yet changed his name. They went through several names, among them the Earwigs, the Spiders, and the Nazz, before finally settling on Alice Cooper. While the exact origin of the name Alice Cooper is debatable (there seem to be numerous explanations), it's clear that the band adopted the name before Furnier did, instead of the other way around as one might expect. Finally properly christened, the band rose to worldwide stardom in a few short years, thanks to memorable anthems such as "I'm Eighteen", "Under My Wheels", "Billion Dollar Babies", and of course the anthem to end all anthems, "School's Out", combined with a highly controversial and unpredictable stage show. By 1973, though, the rest of the band had had enough, and thus Alice Cooper the band became Alice Cooper the solo artist, and his larger-than-life persona continued to grow.

Though still eminently recognizeable, by the mid-80's Alice's popularity had dwindled somewhat, with his albums being less memorable (does anyone remember anything about releases such as Dada or Zipper Catches Skin?), though his stage show still went down a storm. His recording output waned in the 90's, not unexpectedly, but just when one might have forgotten what he could do, along came 2000's Brutal Planet, a surprisingly heavy effort that showed Alice successfully combining his classic style with a modern approach. Since then he's gone back to his roots, as his last two albums (The Eyes Of Alice Cooper and Dirty Diamonds) are clearly based in 70's rock. Nowadays he's less the outrageous personality though he's still in the public eye (among other things, he's well documented as a more than competant golfer). His legacy in the rock world is quite secure.

Warner Bros.

Alice Cooper – vocals

Glen Buxton (R.I.P. 1997)– lead guitar

Michael Bruce – rhythm guitar

Dennis Dunaway – bass guitar

Neal Smith – drums

Mick Mashbir – guitar

Dick Wagner – guitar

Bob Dolin – keyboards

Stanley Behrens - "Harmonica on "Working Up A Sweat" no credit was given on the album.

1. Big Apple Dreamin' (Hippo) (5:10)

2. Never Been Sold Before (4:28)

3. Hard Hearted Alice (4:53)

4. Crazy Little Child (5:03)

5. Working Up a Sweat (3:32)

6. Muscle of Love (3:45)

7. Man With the Golden Gun (4:12)

8. Teenage Lament '74 (3:53)

9. Woman Machine (4:32)

Total Time: 39:31

Recorded 1973 at Sunset Sound, Hollywood; Record Plant, New York and The Cooper Mansion, Greenwich, Connecticut

Muscle of Love is the seventh studio album by Alice Cooper, released in 1973. It is the final studio album recorded by the original Alice Cooper band.

Cooper stated in an interview at the time of recording that the album marked a return to a basic rock sound. "It's not complicated in any sense and there’s not a lot of theatricality on it. It's very basic rock & roll throughout." Cooper further explained, "Billion Dollar Babies was a studio effort all the way. So was School's Out. It was just so clean that after a few times of hearing it myself, it had no mystery to it. I really wanted this one to have more guts to it. More balls."

Muscle of Love is the first Alice Cooper album without Bob Ezrin as producer since the pre-stardom Easy Action. The explanation given at the time was that Ezrin was recovering from illness.However, bassist Dennis Dunaway revealed in a 2011 interview that the band split with the producer during an acrimonious rehearsal in which guitarist Michael Bruce stood up to Ezrin and refused to change the arrangement of "Woman Machine". Jack Richardson and Jack Douglas stepped in to share co-production duties.

Dunaway recalled the album sessions as being very difficult. "The problems on that album were that we could tell that everything was being pulled out from underneath us. As hard as we tried to get it back to where it once was, we had that sinking feeling going on. We wanted to rekindle what the band was about but there was just too much exhaustion by then

Punk Flashback

 Todays Punk Flashback Stage B

Stage B were formed by Dessie Potter and Colin Fletcher after the demise of the punk band the Batteries, the band had played one gig, subjecting the audience to their versions of various punk classics and split up after the gig which had been given some bad reviews. They were now more influenced by the likes of the early Adam and the Ants and Siouxsie and the Banshees than three chord punk. The name Stage B was taken from the stage signs that were clearly visible each week when bands played live on the tv rock show the Old Grey Whistle Test .

New members were brought in Owen Howell replacing Karl Scott on drums and Charlie Reily was now lead vocals replacing original singer John Perfect a Sid Vicious lookalike and an occasional dj in the back room of the Harp bar, and the founding members Dessie Potter (guitar) and Colin Fletcher (bass) completed the line up. The music they now played had a new atmospheric swirling darker sound . They had a different look and sound to most of the other Belfast bands involved in the punk scene. They were offered studio time by Outlet records in the summer of 79 and they recorded a 4 track demo featuring the tracks the Viper , Numbers, Lizzie Borden and Self Portrait minus Colin who was in London at the time. Their one and only single Recall to life / Light On The Hillside was recorded later in 79 .

A support slot to Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Cure on their first N.I. visit 5.9. 79 at the Ulster hall on the Join Hands tour was cancelled due to various Banshee members / equipment problems which meant the gig was going to start late if at all , I remember standing about outside the venue for hours with a lot of angry punks , in the end I got pissed off and went home and needless to say the gig went ahead with a makeshift Banshees performance later on . An industrial strike at the BBC also scuppered their TV debut on the local music show Green Rock . Colin Fletcher left the band in 1980 which had also seen the release of the debut single on the Shock Rock label. A number of temporary bassists were recruited to fill in , including Greg Cowan from the Outcasts for at least one gig at the Harp that I was at . They eventually supported the Banshees on their next visit to the Ulster hall 16 / 10 / 80 on the Kaleidoscope tour and they also played a couple of times on different tours as support to Toyah one of which 8 / 4 / 81 was filmed by the BBC . The band folded a while later .

Anyone who witnessed the band live especially the opening number Darkness on which Dessie took the lead vocals, if you could call them that and I use the term vocals loosely, as he just screamed and howled to the stark musical backdrop, twisting and contorting himself into all sorts of shapes and prowling around the stage as flashing strobe lights slowed his movements left you in no doubt that this was no ordinary punk band. My own personal favourite song of theirs, Open Up, was never recorded. Someone got Charlie to dedicate it to me from the stage at the Future Legend gig and I had a tape of it for a long time but it has disappeared over the years like a lot of other bits. So if you've got any copies out there in cyber world of their gigs let me know.

Hardcore Flashback

 Todays Hardcore Flashback Crucial Unit

Crucial Unit were a hardcore/thrash band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. They were influenced by bands like Hellnation, Dropdead, Charles Bronson, D.R.I., Minor Threat, Iron Maiden and Cryptic Slaughter

Crucial Unit have appeared on numerous punk compilations including Hope Records' "Go Down Fighting Come Up Smiling" CD, XMike FitzgeraldX Records' "Death To Hardcore Death To Reagan" LP and Six Weeks Records' "Super Sabado" LP.

Classic Flashback

 Todays Classic Flashback Screaming Lord Sutch

David Edward Sutch (10 November 1940 – 16 June 1999), also known as "Screaming Lord Sutch", "3rd Earl of Harrow", or simply "Lord Sutch", was a musician from the United Kingdom. He was the founder of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party and served as its leader from 1983 to 1999, during which time he stood in numerous parliamentary elections.

Screaming Lord Sutch was born in North London. His father, a war reserve policeman, was killed in an accident when his son was 10 months old. His mother - to whom he was devoted - was a fan of Dickens; she christened him David after David Copperfield. For most of the next fifteen years they shared a flat and poverty in what he called a dead-end street in Kilburn, while she worked as a cleaner and shop assistant. Entertainment was Saturday morning pictures and the Metropolitan Music Hall, Edgeware Road. In 1956, after David had left school, they moved to South Harrow, where he became a window cleaner.

It was the birth of British rock music; a time when the young and desperate could pursue a new escape route. What he called his 'wild man of Borneo look' got Screaming Lord Sutch a spot singing at the Two I's coffee bar in Soho. His style evolved, or lurched, out of that slurry of music hall (he was a Max Miller fan), horror movies, Grand Guignol, pulp comics, slapstick and transatlantic pop. Thus did the black American rhythm & blues singer Screaming Jay Hawkins provide a name, and the basis of an act.

In 1961 he was spotted by the curious and doomed independent record producer Joe Meek. "I was doing the horror", said Sutch, "screaming and yelling. I had 18 inches of hair and I was running around in buffalo horns and my auntie's leopardskin coat. The scout said 'You've got a different approach. You want to make a record?'". Screaming Lord Sutch made records, and recorded with a clutch of (later) distinguished British rock musicians. The early subject matter focused on disembowelment and graveyards - on one occasion Meek posed Screaming Lord Sutch as Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel at night. Both men, observed Sutch, were intrigued by horror films. But he had no real hits. Indeed, by 1963 his career had been swamped by the Mersey boom.

It was then that he went to Stratford, campaigning for commercial radio, votes at 18, abolition of dog licences and his share of the spotlight, with the mix of native wit and puerility that marked his aimless - or dadaist - media courtship. The live act around Europe, and playing small halls and pubs, provided an income.

His last political hurrah was in the 1995 Littleborough and Saddleworth byelection (the OMRLP didn't have the money to run in the last European elections). But more than finances, it was perhaps the times that had finally run out.

R.I.P.

 13 Years Ago Today We Lost Kevin Dubrow

Kevin Mark Dubrow (October 29, 1955 − ≈ November 19, 2007) was an American heavy metal singer, best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Quiet Riot from 1975 until 1987, and again from 1990 until his death in 2007.

R.I.P.

 17 Years Ago Today We Lost Greg Ridley

Alfred Gregory "Greg" Ridley (23 October 1947 – 19 November 2003) was an English rock bassist and a founding member of Humble Pie.

Ridley was born in Carlisle, Cumberland, England. Early in his career he played under the name Dino as guitarist for "Dino & the Danubes" before joining bands such as the Ramrods. Ridley and Mike Harrison formed The V.I.P.'s in 1963, playing blues based music. The band added guitarist Luther Grosvenor and organist/pianist Keith Emerson, who stayed for a brief period of time before leaving and forming The Nice. After they changed their name to Art and published an album Supernatural Fairy Tales, and then to Spooky Tooth[2] in 1968. Spooky Tooth signed to Island and recorded two albums It's All About (1968) and Spooky Two (1969).

In January 1969 Ridley was approached by Steve Marriott from the Small Faces - who was forming a new band, called Humble Pie. The line up also included guitarist Peter Frampton from The Herd and drummer Jerry Shirley. Humble Pie's first album As Safe As Yesterday Is was released and a second album Town and Country was also released in the same year. A contract with A&M Records and a re-working of their sound into a harder brand of music, coupled with extensive touring of United States followed. A double album Performance Rockin' the Fillmore, featuring a now historic recording of a raw performance of rare quality, catapulted Humble Pie into rock history. Ridley's powerful bass playing anchored the band's performance and was at the centre of their sound. Together, Ridley and drummer Jerry Shirley comprised one of the most respected rhythm sections in Rock music during this period. Although Ridley rarely sang lead vocals, his deep baritone was frequently used to provide contrast with the higher tenors of Marriott and Frampton. Ridley made several songwriting contributions, including "Sucking on the Sweet Vine" on Humble Pie, "The Light of Love" on Town and Country, and "Big George" on Rock On.

This incarnation of Humble Pie continued until 1975 and Ridley left the music business, after finishing an unreleased album with Marriott and abortive attempts with bands such as Mike Patto and Ollie Halsall's band Boxer. Ridley moved to Gloucestershire and lived in a stone cottage in the Forest of Dean with his girlfriend. He found the peace and quiet of country life a pleasant and refreshing change to touring and recording. He became involved in the antique furniture business and throughout the 80's he was a low-key antique trader and he stripped pine furniture for other traders as a business.

On 14 April 2001 he appeared with Jerry Shirley, Peter Frampton and Clem Clempson, billed as a one off Humble Pie re-union, at a Steve Marriott Tribute Concert.[4] Earlier that year, he had also become involved with a Humble Pie project initiated by Jerry Shirley's reactivation of the group. and the enlisting of another former Humble Pie guitarist and vocalist Bobby Tench. This resulted in the album Back on Track, released by Sanctuary in 2002 and a short tour of Germany with Company of Snakes during the early part of 2003. The project was cut short when Ridley became ill.

On 19 November 2003, Ridley died in Alicante, Spain, of pneumonia and resulting complications. He was 56. His funeral was paid for by a concert organised by harmonica player Dave Hunt.

Happy Birthday

 Happy Birthday Matthew Brunson

Matthew Moses Brunson (born November 19, 1981) is the lead guitarist for sludge metal band Crowbar, replacing Steve Gibb, and bass player for Kingdom of Sorrow. He is from Metairie in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana and formerly played guitar in Shedding Old Skin. He attended East Jefferson High School in Metairie