By
Chad Smart
@chadsmart & @my123cents on Twitter
Back in 1986, I had an after
school paper route. I would get home from school, grab the bundle of papers, go
inside and roll them up getting them ready for delivery. While I prepared the
papers, I would have the TV on usually with M TV playing in the background. This
was back when M TV actually showed music videos during the day. I don’t remember
the exact day, I’m guessing it was sometime in September or October, that M TV introduced me to a musical icon who would become one of my favorite artists and
whose albums I continue to buy and concerts I still attend to this day.
That fateful afternoon as I
sat in front of the television rolling newspaper and video came on that was
theme song for ‘Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives.” Being a huge Friday
the 13th fan at the time, I was in entranced by this song I had
never heard. The song was ‘He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)’ by Alice
Cooper. I did not know of Alice’s history so I wasn’t aware he was the original
shock rocker. All I knew was this was one of the greatest songs I’d ever heard
and I needed to hear more.
Within the month I had
joined the Columbia Records tape of the month club (there’s a blast from the
past) and one of my introductory selections was the Constrictor cassette that
included ‘He’s Back.’ I think that
cassette lived in my Walkman for the next few months.
Over the next two years, I
started learning more about Alice Cooper and getting into his back catalog of
music. His albums, ‘Love it to Death,’ ‘Welcome to My Nightmare,’ ‘Goes to
Hell’ and ‘From the Inside’ still hold up really well 35 years later. Wow!
Until I wrote that, I hadn’t really thought about how old those albums are.
As a horror movie fan, one
of the appeals of Alice Cooper was his stage show. The first concert of his I
saw on video was The Nightmare Returns Tour. This was the tour in support of
‘Constrictor.” Watching the various characters (including Jason Vorhees) roam
the stage and seeing Alice shove a microphone stand through the stomach of an
unsuspecting cameraman who got too close to the singer was something I had
never seen before. If I wasn’t hooked by the music before, the show captivated
my attention.
Another event that helped solidify
my fandom of Alice was Wrestlemania 3. I had been watching wrestling for about
four years at this time and had watched the first Wrestlemania live on
closed-circuit television. While most wrestling fans were excited for the Hulk
Hogan vs. Andre the Giant main event, I was excited for an undercard match. The
Honky Tonk Man was going up against Jake “The Snake" Roberts. To offset the
distraction of Honky’s manager Jimmy Hart at ringside, Jake had Alice Cooper as
his corner man. The pairing made sense. Wrestlemania 3 was being held in
Detroit, Alice’s hometown. Jake was known for bringing a python to the ring
with him and Alice was famous for bringing a snake out on stage during his
shows.
Over the past 27 years, I’ve
had the opportunity to see Alice in concert eight times in four different
states. The most interesting show was the show last year. During the last third
of the show, actor Johnny Depp joined the band on stage and played guitar. Over
the course of these shows, I’ve seen Alice electrocuted, bound by a straight
jacket and decapitated only to rise from the dead and try to rally the audience
to vote for Alice in the next election while former “Presidents” dance on
stage.
If you’ve never seen an
Alice Cooper performance, I highly recommend you check some out on YouTube, or
if he’s playing near you go to the show.
Unlike a lot of today’s artists who use shock as a way to distract from
the music, Alice’s shows using theatrics to enhance the song and tell a story.
I’m still waiting for the Alice Cooper play to hit Broadway.
