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Alice's Gangland Hit

Author: Viola James

Sunset Boulevard has seen every variety of madness in the last decade, so a promotional stunt for Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits at the huge Tower Records Store on the strip challenged the most sensationalistic minds at Alice's Alive Enterprises to come up with something special.

It came to pass, late one afternoon recently, as a funeral procession in the gangland style of the thirties pulled up in front of LA's vinyl super­market. In order were three long black hearses and two long black limousines, out of which stepped six suave young men dressed to kill... literally. The "hit men" pulled two caskets out of the heatses and solemnly marched them into the record store, followed at a respectful distance by a bleating mourner, carrying the head of Alice Cooper. Though the head was just the stage prop used by AC on the "Billion Dollar Babies" tour, reports have it that the scene induced a number of passersby into fits of uncontrollable expectoration, followed closely by spasms of frantic record buying. Doctors, consulted by concerned citizens groups, are waiting till the release, early this fall, of the movie "Good To See You Again, Alice Cooper," before making a final diagnosis.

Alice, meanwhile, has inspired gossip in music biz circles with a frenetic round of commuting between recording studios in Toronto and hushed conference rooms in Tinseltown. For what? The world will simply have to wait to find out...

Record Lovers Guide

A up-to-date guide for the ravenous record buyer

Author: Ed Naha

Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits
(Warners)
Rating: one mouth

At the most, Alice has had four top thirty singles, and the idea of con­structing an entire album out of four hits strikes me as being a little ludi­crous. Oh well, it's here, and the non­hit hits are palatable enough. The real stars of the show, however, are the guys at Pacific Eye and Ear who came up with a cover drawing that's more interesting than the sounds it houses. Great bit of nostalgia for the old folks.

Our Back Pages

Author: Robert Alexander

Bob Ezrin, the prodigy who has produced four Gold Alice Cooper albums in the past few years, has formed his own label, Migration Records. As opposed to his concept album works with folks like Alice and Lou Reed, Ezrin is aiming Migration product at the singles market via AM radio. Migration's first artist is Gary Bonner who with Alan Gordon wrote the Turtle's hits "Happy Together" and "She'd Rather Be With Me."