OK, he’s still a nice guy, but the title just proved too darn tempting to not use it. It just so happens that in the past he was a super nice guy, who willingly signed autographs and posed for pictures for free, at least when my friend Bob met him at a golf tournament a decade ago. Now he’s charging an arm and a leg (and might even use them in his next concert, covered in blood) for the same thing. But Alice Cooper, despite the fact that he nearly drained me of 100 bucks, is still a very nice and cordial guy, who was a pleasure to meet at the Chiller Theatre Show in Parsippany, New Jersey, on April 28, 2012.
His legacy is so vast in the music industry that I scarcely need to go into it. But I will say to those naysayers who avoided heavy metal and hard rock at all costs, that Alice Cooper and his band actually showed up in the Billboard charts throughout the 1970’s with songs that today are largely forgotten: You and Me, Only Women, and How You Gonna See Me Now are prime examples.
Gradually he drifted from rock to hard rock and then became a natural to ride the wave into the heavy metal scene of the late 1980’s, complete with gory, bloody stage shows, and songs about death, murder, and other such delights. I recall listening to the cassette tape of his album Raise Your Fist and Yell repeatedly during my winter trip to Florida during my sophomore year.
Since he had been to Chiller before, his line wasn’t as atrocious as it could have been. Signatures were $40, but if you didn’t think to bring anything with you to sign, the photos were $5 extra. This does make sense, but I’m not generally used to it. He was behind a table with a handler on each side, so getting a good photo with him would be impossible. I decided for the start to go ahead and reserve a photo session with him for $50 and not stress out about it.
He was exceptionally pleasant, very kind and receptive to the fans (I heard him sharing tales of how long he had been sober with the fan in front of me), and accommodating to inscribing the photos however you desired. I chose to have him add “Welcome to my nightmare.” And there was no problem in snapping photos of him while he signed.
Retrieving my photo
While I got my autograph, Peter took my photo op pass and went and waited in line. This way we were able to get Alice Cooper out of the way right off the bat and then fry the other fish at Chiller. He was posing in all sorts of manners with the other fans, strangling them and what-not, but he intuitively knew that I wanted a nice photo, and that’s what I got. After seeing my shirt, he commented that he lived Hostess Cupcakes, and that before he became on of the billion-dollar babies, he and his band often survived on them.
Celebrity encounters of the Spring 2012 Chiller Theatre show will continue…
Great post. Alice is the man! 🙂
Aaron
June 7th, 2012
Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors. The French missionaries and explorers were coming here as early as the late 1600s to trade with the Native Americans.
[In fact, isn’t “Milwaukee” an Indian name?]
Yes, Pete, it is. Actually, it’s pronounced “mill-e-wah-que” which is Algonquin for “the good land.”
Chris
June 8th, 2012
Fascinating Chris, thank you. I haven’t visited Milwaukee in years, but now I’d like to again.
In the meantime, maybe Brad will go there and I can travel there vicariously through the Terrible Cat…
Peter
June 9th, 2012
Google eventually helped me make sense of this. Turns out Chris hadn’t been eating toadstools in the Fugate’s backyard as I originally suspected.
Brad
June 9th, 2012
Google and I always make sense.
Chris
June 10th, 2012
I don’t use Google for general search anymore – too many security issues. I prefer DuckDuckGo.com
Peter
June 10th, 2012
He played at the Fraze last summer and is there again this year.
Darlene
June 10th, 2012