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'I Used to Be Very Good With a Whip'

Six HOOKA staffers joined a relatively small — for Ft. Worth's Will Rogers Coliseum — crowd of very enthusiastic rock and blues fans gathered to hear Brownsville Station, Alice Cooper, and John Mayall.

B.S. quaked the crowd into a maniacal frenzy with loud, hard, screaming warm-up rock. Then came Alice Cooper.

Wearing a sheer, skin-tight black jump suit with a silver zipper extending from the base of his throat under and around to the tip of his spine, knee-high black boots, and, occasionally, a reddish brown metal-studded, thick leather belt, Alice and his skin-tight silver lame band of Third Generation Rockers opened with Rolf Harris' old "Sun Rise" from their new "Love it to Death" album and climaxed a little more than an hour later in a pyrotechnic feather and foam hard on rock super audial and visual orgasm.

The theatric trip Alice laid on the audience meanwhile featured a duet with a boa-constrictor; a maniacal scene in which Alice, fitted with a straight jacket, writhes free while madly screaming, "I want to get out of here" from "The Ballad of Dwight Fry" an electric chair scene complete with fire and multi-colored smoke; a dummy which he stabs to death and much, much more — all fantastically staged and presented in the thick of the hardest rock we've heard in a long time.

To attempt to describe further the man or the performance would be foolhardy — suffice it to say that Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger could both learn a great deal from Alice Cooper, thespian sorcerer, witch and super drag queen. After the concert we found Alice, his "friend from back home," and several members of the band in the bar of the Midtown Holiday Inn.

The jukebox was blaring mostly over thirties crap, and only a few snatches of the conversation taped in the bar are audible. Alice was talking about his hit single, "Only 18."

Alice: This song worked because people really liked it. They got into the whole idea of "18" — the frustrations. It's like "My Generation," you know, it's sort of like the updated version of that.

(The jukebox takes over and we pick up Alice Cooper again as he is leading our whole troop back upstairs for the "interview.")

Alice: (Be-bopping along)... alive, take five with our jive ‐ who wrote that? (then, as we walk along the hallway towards the elevator, a car load of yahooing persons passed by on the highway.)

I'd like to see you come over here and say that, buddies, Alice says in a thick John Wayne imitation accent, "You know, you've caused a lot of trouble here today..."

HOOKA: Where's your snake?

Alice: In my pants. That's where I keep him... Naw, it's not in my pants at all. She's sleeping right now. She's very emotional.

HOOKA: What kind of snake...

Alice: It's a boa. She's so nice. (then returning to the John Wayne voice, and now walking along with his hands poised as if ready to grab two guns at his hips — and still holding on to his Budweiser...) You're from Texas, right? We have to walk out like John Wayne... Alright. I'm gonna take that hill. Single handed. I'm gonna go out and kill a grizzly bear, then I'm gonna kiss a pretty woman...

Either that or I'm gonna kiss grizzly bear and fight a pretty woman. (Then quietly with out the bravado) No, I'd never do that.

(Alice knocks at the door, then as it opens from within there is a general turmoil of pseudo-Spanish invectives among the members of the band gathered there watching an old viking flick on the color TV. Alice rushes in and jumps on top of the lead guitarist stretched out on the bed.) Oh, I want to fuck you with my body.

He/She: (responding in false to) ah, ha, ha, ooh, ooh, hoooh! (Then switching to a more natural male voice he explains the movie to Alice.) It's a good flick, Richard Widmark, and Russ Tamblyn...

Alice: Russ Tamblyn? How'd he get in that movie?

Guitarist: And a neegrow.. gimmie that microphone...

Alice: And don't swallow the microphone like you always do.

Guitarist: Oh, the shape of it (the mike) drives me crazy... Look, I think Russ Tamblyn is going to fight this Afro-American... (to Alice) what's the matter, did they kick you out of the bar?

Alice: (referring again to the flick) there should be a penis on top of that helmet.

Guitarist: ...and big balls on the side... (after much confusion as everyone in the room, four members of the band, seven of us, and Alice yells and hollers like kids at a Saturday matinee.) Oh! This is how they kill 'em. He slides down a razor blade — "the mare of steel" they call it.

Alice: Richard Widmark, he is cool.

Guitarist: (Sidney Poitier is cast as one of the bad guys) ...Little Richard's in this. Yeah, Little Richard

Alice: I thought it was Chuck Berry...

Guitarist: Well, what's the difference.

Alice: Does he have to fight the Negro?

Guitarist: He already did. (After a lot more mostly incomprehensible flick banter.)

HOOKA: How would you explain your theater — or is it all for real?

Alice: It's definitely theater. Just by it's being there it's theater. It's Third Generation Rock Theater — Shock Rock. Which is very valid...

Sixteen, seventeen and eighteen year olds don't want to hear jazz; they want to hear some rock. And they want a sex image — an anti-heroic image. Our music is energy, high energy. That's the main thing about it. That's what Third Generation Rock is. Look at us, the Stooges, and the MC5 — it's all high energy music. When you leave the theater, you don't leave, "Wow! Heavy guitar solo." You leave the theater with "Phew!"

You sweat a lot. And that's what rock is. Rock should be sweat. It should really be high energy electricity and sex music. It doesn't hit you in the brain, it hits you in the, you know, the dick. It hits you where it feels the best.

And it feels best in the lower areas of your abdomen.

HOOKA: We get a lot of feedback from Women's Lib...

Alice: Yeah, I know. I did a whole trip with that. We got picketted in New York and everything. Women's Lib hates us.

Girl: Yeah, they say rock, but when they get it on, man, they get it on.

Alice: They think rock lyrics are discriminating against women... Well, they did an interview with me, you know, with me and Barbra Streisand. Can you believe this combination?

HOOKA: Yeah.

Alice: I said I think women should be used as sex objects. I think that's what they're best at. Very honestly, I said I don't think it's any insult because that's what their main purpose in life is — is being sex objects, I mean what's wrong with that. They can still run a corporation and be a sex object.

HOOKA: They could run a corporation through being a sex object.

Alice: True. Exactly right. But there aren't very many Barbra Streisands or Barbara Stanwycks.

Girl: And there's no more Alice Coopers. There's nobody like him.

Alice: I think women's liberation is pretty much a combination of horny dykes. Which is cool; I like horny dykes. There's nothing wrong with that.

HOOKA: The Guess Who were here recently. They were off on a similar trip...

Alice: Yeah, their singles are very valid, but it's not very blatant. Like our trip is very blatant. It's like it's not that subtle. It's like hitting somebody in the face with a snow shovel.

HOOKA: How about the Doors? Theirs is pretty high energy music...

Alice: Well, the Doors sort of took it to a point, but they didn't go the next step which is props. Morrison is a better actor than he is a singer. And he's a fantastic actor — and he's a fantastic singer, that's the thing, on stage he really knows how to relate to an audience. (Alice pauses, engrossed in the movie again) Oh! What were we talking about?

HOOKA: The Doors.

Alice: The Doors — probably the best musical group in America, I think, the most productive. Them and the Beach Boys really. (much laughter) No, really. Really. After "Smiley, Smile" they got into such an incredible sound. Brian Wilson is like Burt Bacharach, you know. They both use the same methods for producing albums. You know, Burt Bacharach is quite a freak. He really is.

HOOKA: He's writing classical music...

Alice: That's it. In the seventies I think you're going to find out that in the sixties and seventies the only people writing classical music are the Beatles and Burt Bacharach. And may Laura Nyro.

HOOKA: Why do you use all the props?

Alice: To create tension in the audience. They're contrived, but they're perfectly contrived. They're like abstractly, surrealistically contrived. There's no real reason; you know, for the electric chair in that song. There's no real reason for the feathers at the end, except for the tension of the orgasm. Everybody can relate — they can relax at the end. After all that tension, they go, "Ahhhhhh Finally!"

HOOKA: You should've seen one security police craning to see all that.

Alice: Last night, in Oklahoma City, we had two security police. They were the best actors we've ever seen. I had them come out and after I stabbed the dummy to death, they came out and grabbed me by the arm — like real police, you know — and threw me in the electric chair, put that thing down on my head, and he says: "FRY!" That was perfect. And afterwards, when we went backstage, they were laughing their asses off. They were great.

HOOKA: We heard you had a little trouble with obscenity...

Alice: Really. They wouldn't let me say "horny... We had to put up a $2500 bond because they said we couldn't use any obscenity. I told them that we usually don't use any obscenity verbally on stage. I was wearing the jump suit and they said, "well, you can't strip out of your jump suit." Alright I said. Then they said, "You can't say 'Horny.'"

Horny? That's not even a bad word, you know? So that night after we put up $2500 bond, John Mayall comes out and says, "Hey, what's wrong with these fucking micro phones?" He can say "Fucking microphones" and I can't say horny?

HOOKA: Who do you aim your concerts at?

Alice: We're approaching the sixteen year olds. They're our most important audience. Just because they're at the impressionable age. (The television gets very loud at this point and drowns out everything). We make fun of it. But you have to satisfy yourself too. We’re very much into black humor. Subtly. We collect articles from the newspapers.

One real good one — just to show you what the humor is — a lady called a fire engine 'cause she had a kitten caught up in a tree. The old kitten and fire department thing. So they rescued the kitten and got it down. Yeah, good. And after all that, the fire engine backed up and ran over the kitten. Which was perfect. That's where the humor lies in the group.

HOOKA: How do you get the theater you do across on the LP?

Alice: That's a hard market to run with. We didn't accomplish that on the first two albums at all. In both of them we tried to project the theatries, but it didn't work. But on this one, "Love It to Death" I think we've created a feeling — you know, on "Black Ju-Ju", "Dwight Fry" and "Second Coming", think we've created theater. On record. And that hasn't been done for a long time.

HOOKA: Then you think that the West Coast audiences are a little jaded?

Alice: Well, no. You can go to any audience — you can still go to L .A , and get the same reaction we got tonight. It just depends on what you give them to react to. Like if they are tired, they need some adrenalin, right?

HOOKA: Don't you think those types of audiences are better for the sophisticated type of things you do? Audiences around here seem to dig the rawer forms of humor.

Alice: Mmmm. Yeah, I never expect anyone to get all the subtleties. Projecting Third Generation Rock, we're mostly just doing humor for ourselves — just to keep ourselves interested in it. We don't really expect too many people to get all the humor involved. The people who do get it are more sophisticated. But that's not the main point. The main point is music and the sex drive idea.

For example, they used to throw jelly-beans at the Beatles. They throw bras at us. With phone numbers. That means we're winning — only 36 and above — no, we get some training bras every once in a while. We put them on backwards; they fit our shoulder blades real good. We get underwear, you know. We just scrape the stains out and smoke them.

HOOKA: Are you planning on going on with concerts indefinitely or are you going on to something more?

Alice: We're planning on doing Broadway. With a rock music background. A really sex derived thing. Because people are more involved in sex, death and money. That's the whole basis for theater, for music, for anything. That's what's commercial. Look at anything that sells and that's it. Sex, Death and Money.

Hooka: Like Gore Vidal is sweeping it under the...

Alice: No I like Gore Vidal. I like Kurt Vonnegut. They're almost pop art.

HOOKA: Do you think you put out a commercial sound?

Alice: Yes, we do. We honestly do. We've sold 200, 000 albums — that's commercial. You sell that many albums and that many singles and that's commercial. Which is one of those things that's not commercial, but it is. What can you do when Alice Cooper comes out with a commercial single? That's "dangerous" because we're drawing ten times as many people. We're now drawing ten times as many people as we used to. And when all those kids are coming, then going "Wow! I think I'll go home and put on some of Mom's eye makeup'"... you know, and Dad's a cop...

HOOKA: How graphic a sex trip will your Broadway thing be?

Alice: It's not going to be pornographic, but it'll be, like, tasteful sex. I love skin flicks — that's it. They're raw, pure sex.

HOOKA: Women's lib doesn't see the difference between sexist and sexy...

Alice: Women's lib takes everything a little bit too seriously. None of this is serious at all, Rock music is just plain sexy.

HOOKA: What is your sign?

Alice: I'm a double seconal. With a rising sign in Librium... No, I am an Aquarian — if that means anything. Standing ovation. I know a lot of Aquarians I hate — like I want to ax.

HOOKA: Does anybody in particular get you off?

Alice: No, just television

Girl: He just happened, man.

Alice: Television, Budweiser, and Screw magazine, and masturbation.

Girl: Alice, some of these people are with a paper...

Alice: I know, that's why I said that.

HOOKA: Can we get back to...

Alice: Back to masturbation? Salvador Dali still masterbates, you know.

HOOKA: With fur lined gloves ... Do you think you'll ever play in the smaller places like clubs — so everybody can see what you're doing?

Alice: We did that for about six years — four years with the theatrics. No, we'll go into nothing but theater after this. Broadway, too.

HOOKA: Do you use the same props every time? The whip...

Alice: Tonight was the first time we've used the whip. It was like a total experiment tonight. (to band member) Did I get you?

Band: Yeah, but it didn't hurt me.

Girl: That's mean.

Alice: I used to be very good with a whip, though. I used to be able to do the thing with the long cigarette. That was back in the good old days.

(During a short lull in the interview and conversation, Alice lifts up the girl's dress as if to view her crotch — she is wearing slacks, however)

Girl: Do you mind?

Alice: No, I don't mind at all. Do you mind? (She seemed to)

HOOKA: You got pretty Satanic during the concert. Is any of that real?

Alice: A lot of people think we are very evil. But that's not really very true. Well, we look evil.

HOOKA: Don't you push that image?

Alice: Not really. No. It's more of a — a lot of people see the self-destruction trip. I can't see that. I think we come out very black humorish. I have to say that, but we're not involved in the devil at all. He's just sort of there all the time anyway. He's always on the other line.

HOOKA: Do you get strange things in the mail?

Alice: Costume jewelry. I really like costume jewelry. I love it. Things like that are fantastic. It's so cheap. I really like gaudy, awful things. Things that nobody would really wear.

HOOKA: What do you do to keep the snake from freaking out?

Alice: They're very gentle. They can't hear. And they're very, very sexy. They're sexy as hell. No. She's a ham, she knows she's on stage, she gets down like this, and looks around at the audience — I know she's a lesbian. She's like "Oh awww, buy a girl a drink, sailor?" Boa Constrictors are lovers; they really are verry, verry sexy.

HOOKA: You were talking about the Texas liquor laws downstairs. What do you think of them?

Alice: Are you kidding. Whoever thought up the Texas liquor laws... is nuts. They're incredible. You have to bring your own bottle in, and then you pay them fifty cents to mix it?

HOOKA: Do you have a supply of pillows for that ending?

Alice: No, we stole it from the Holiday Inn. That'll get us busted for sure. We have to buy them because usually they' re foam rubber.

HOOKA: Feathers are better.

Alice: Oh yes of course. Feathers really create an orgasm. Foam doesn't do anything. It just falls.

Girl: You don't give up at all. How long are you going to be interviewing him?

Alice: We used to be a tag team. I used to be one of those big dykes who (Alice gestures a body block and does some explosion sound effects.) You know, being on a roller derby team, you get close.

HOOKA: What kind of groupie scene do you get?

Girl: I'm not a groupie! I'm friends from back home.

Alice: What's wrong with groupies?

Girl: I'm fantastic, but I'm not a groupie.

Alice: We get a lot of fourteen year old boys. But we don't... you know, they just show up. I just think it's funny that they do.

(Once again the television drew everyone's attention away with a "hire the handicapped" ad featuring wheel-chaired basketball players. Alice called that "really black humor," the midnight news came on and the interview disintegrated totally.)

photos by J. R. Compton

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So I'll Just Play Along With You

"I'm running through the world with a gun in my back. Trying to catch a ride in a Cadillac. Though I was living but you can't really tell. I'm trying to get away from the success mill.

"You know I need a nice boat, I need a plane. I need a butler and a trip to Spain. I need everything the world owes me. I tell it to myself and I agree.

I'm caught in a dream; so what? You don't know what I'm going through. I'm right in between. So I'll just play along with your... What I thought was heaven turned out to be hell.

When you see me with a smile on my face you'll know I'm a mental case. I'm caught in a dream. So what. I don't know what I'm going through. I'm caught in between. So I'll just play along with you."

And then. "Lines form on my face and hands. Lines form from the ups and downs. I'm in the middle without any plans. I'm eighteen. I don't know what I want. I've got to get out of this place. I'll go running in outer space. I've got a baby's mind and an old man's heart. Took me years to get this far... We've still got a long way to go. We all got a long way to go..."

You might call Alice Cooper and his band's LOVE IT TO DEATH a third generation rock opera. A pure musical where all the drama is rock — Sex, Death and Money rock by the Everyman drag chorus.

Alice told us that his first two albums didn't work theatrically, but this, he thought did — he cited especially "Black Ju-Ju" and "The Ballad of Dwight Fry" — real spinetinglers in a black humor surrealist piece for old Broadway. 'Fry' brings it all together. "I made friends with a lot of people in the Danger Zone. See my lonely life unfold; I see it everyday... Sleeping doesn't come very easy in a straight white vest." In concert Alice is now struggling fanatically with the straight-jacket raving, "... she's only four years old...

"...when I've gone insane... I want to get out of here. I want to get out of here. I-I want to get out of here. You've got to let me out of here. You got to le me out. Let me out. Let me out, out, out, out.

See My lonely mind explode — blow up in my face. "Let me alone; I didn't want to be. Don't touch me..."

On broadway or on tour with their Third Generation Rock theater, Alice Cooper is a star ascendant with six years' back dues. Love it to Death. (Warner Bros. 1883)