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Coopermania in Australia

"I'm not talking to anyone or making a move until I receive advice from my lawyer, Frank Sinatra."

So said a dead-pan Alice Cooper after finishing a highly successful Australian tour which included a SRO audience of 40,000 in Sydney, the largest concert crowd in that country's history. He was kept uner arrest for two hours in a hotel room as the result of a dispute with a local promoter.

The promotion firm, H.G.M. Attractions, contended it paid the star $59,632 in 1975 for a tour he did not make.

According to Shep Gordon, Cooper's personal manager, an agreement was made whereby Cooper was to receive two payments from the promoter prior to departing the United States. The first payment, the sum of $59,632, was made. At that time Mr. Gordon send the star's expensive, and immense, sound equipment ahead to Australia. The agreed upon second payment never arrived and Cooper did not leave the United States on the grounds the agreement had not been fulfilled. At considerable effort and expense, arrangements were made by Gordon and Cooper to have the sound equipment returned.

The current sellout tour was conducted without incident until Cooper's house arrest. In order to extricate himself the star had to post $59,632, the sum in contention. If a judge decides in Cooper's favor, the money will be returned.

Cooper closed his comments with, "It seems every performer who does well, who plays to capacity in Australia, suddenly finds he can't get out of the country. I've heard of captive audiences before but this is the first time I ever heard of captive entertainers."

Speaking of captive performers, a disc jockey in Australia was helf up at his radio station and forced to play 90 minutes of Alice Cooper records on the air. D.J. Gary Watling, of Toowoomba, Australia, says he answered a knock on the door of the station only to be confronted by a masked gunman armed with a pistol.

And get ready for Alice Cooper's first U.S. appearance in two years. To be held Sunday, June 19 at Anaheim Stadium, Anaheim, California, it also features Kinks, The Tubes, Nazareth, Sha Na Na, and guest hosts Flo & Eddie.