There aren’t many relevant rock icons yet. The Rolling Stones are a prime example of rock survivors. Alice Cooper’s longevity is another tough success story driven by excess. In 1964, 16-year-old Vincent Damon Furnier and his high school athletic teammates won first place in the annual talent competition. Putting on wigs and matching costumes, they imitated the Beatles; Calling their band the Earwigs, they performed a few Beatles songs in parodies about their membership on the track team.

Spurred on by this positive attention, they bought instruments from the local pawnshop, learned to play and wrote a few songs, becoming local sensations, The Spiders. Lots of teenagers have done the same too. Starting groups anywhere in Anytown, United States. But most of them didn’t have gadgets. Even at the very start of a career spanning more than half a century, the young pre-Alice saw the theatrical aspects of rock ‘n’ roll. The Spiders always flaunted a giant spider web backdrop during their shows. This set them apart from other local groups. The Spiders changed their name while making regular road trips in the mid-1960s playing concerts in LA. The band’s short-lived name Nazz was dropped after it was discovered that Todd Rundgren was already using it.

Enter Alice Cooper. A sure title for a group whose stage presence evolved into an extravagant vaudevillian sideshow show with prop skeletons and stage blood. Did he get Alice Cooper’s name from a character in Mayberry RFD? The Alice Cooper who replaced Aunt Bea? Probably. Did he tell Dinah Shore this fact in an interview on his TV show? May be. What’s in a name anyway? In this case, more than he had expected.

The use of elaborate stage props like an electric chair, a guillotine, bloodied dismembered dolls and mannequins, mock swordplay, boa constrictors, scantily clad women disguised as sexy nurses, and ominous lyrical content to them. have given a label. The birth of shock rock. He’s cornered the spooky camp art-rock market by taking full advantage of Hollywood horror genres combined with S&M makeup, bondage-style showmanship. Alice Cooper quickly became a household name that parents and Christians alike could hate. Ironic, given that his father was a devout evangelical pastor.

Music mogul Shep Gordon saw Alice Cooper’s raw potential, even after seeing the boys at an unsuccessful debut gig on the first night, they gutted the house after two songs in their set at the Cheetah Club in Venice Beach . It was Lenny Bruce’s birthday party. The Doors were also playing that night. An audition was arranged with Frank Zappa, whose new label, Straight, was looking for weird bands to sign. They were told to arrive at seven o’clock. Instead, they showed up at seven in the morning. Zappa liked their goodwill. Among those notable acts were Tim Buckley, Captain Beefheart and the all-girl group GTO (Girls Together Outrageously), who were credited with dressing Alice Cooper’s new band in “glam rock” makeup fashion. The straight records then joined the Bizarre label. Zappa used it to promote his band, the Mothers of Invention, by signing bands like Wild Man Fischer, LennyBruce, and virtually unknown folk artist Sandy Hurvitz, known as Uncle Meat.

Pioneer shock Screamin ‘Jay Hawkins could claim a true origin in macabre musical theater. He practically invented the category. His career took off in 1956 with “I Put A Spell On You”, released on the Okeh label. His act was for him to walk on stage inside a coffin, suddenly jump to perform, wearing a long Dracula cape on the ground, screaming, waving a long voodoo stick and holding a flaming skull named after Henry. Whether or not that inspired Alice Cooper and similar acts like The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, who wore a horned crown of scorching metal, it’s best to be left to rock historians to debate.

It’s all good schtick any way you cut it. Heavy Metal, Goth, Punk and Psychobilly ramifications tie together a subgenre that Alice Cooper helped to make famous, even as a cult. There was no shortage of cornball antics. During a Black Sabbath concert, Ozzy Osbourne bit the head of a bat. Alice also allegedly bit the head of a chicken. It didn’t happen, but it was not uncommon at the time. He liked to pull the heads of dolls. Raw meat, plastic insects, rubber chickens, pieces of dolls, feathers, balloons, confetti and other strange objects were thrown onto the stage by fans and groups hungry for bad publicity.

All kidding aside, it’s done in the name of artistic freedom and healthy fun. Dirty acts, overbidding and surpassing your peers are part of the rock’n’roll etiquette course. Every conceivable debauchery and deviant sexual act has passed through the gauntlet. Decadence is the obvious choice for any good rock ‘n’ roll band worth their weight in ticket sales. I saw Alice Cooper in concert in the early 1970s, when her performance was deemed risky. Compared to today’s standard fare, it was tame. So what’s the big new stuff, live snuff concerts, pop star performances?

Alice starred in The Muppet Show. His evil appearance served as the cartoon theme for the series, which featured him as a devil’s agent. And speaking of Satan, maybe Mr. Cooper sold his soul for fortune and fame at the crossroads of Hollywood and Vine. He has established long-standing personal and professional friendships with surrealist artist Salvador Dali and horror film master Vincent Price. Devil worship, rock ‘n’ roll and surreal horror go hand in hand. As if that weren’t enough, he’s now on a world tour planning concerts with his second band, the Hollywood Vampires, whose members include Johnny Depp and guitarist Joe Perry of Arrowsmith. Welcome to 74-year-old Alice Cooper’s nightmare. Golf with a disgraced former president, have Dick Van Dyke as AA godfather, and become a born again Christian. Alice Cooper is 18 forever and he knows what he wants. He said, “We were in the fun, sex, death and money when everyone was in peace and love. We wanted to see what was to come. It turned out we were the ones. next and we have driven a stake into the heart of the generation of love. ”