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Alice Cooper. The original monster of rock, who brought the music he made to life on stage. Make-up, blood, murders, straight-jackets, guillotines....he did it all first! Indeed, the guillotine remains the most infamous part of his show, as he's decapitated before his dismembered head is tossed around the stage like a ball.

My favourite part of the Cooper show, though, has always been the straight-jacket. Strapped into it, Alice sings 'The Ballad of Dwight Fry', rocking backwards and forwards in his restraining outfit. During the Theatre of Death tour, he was also hung in the straight-jacket! Now THAT must have been tricky to put together.

Anyhow, here are two videos of Alice (one from his alcoholic days, where he was unpredictable and dangerous on stage, and one from one of his more recent shows) performing '...Dwight Fry' in all its' insane glory. 

The Pain I Feel Makes Me Love You Even More (You Be The Rose, I'll Be The Shade) - A Poem

Sprawled out in the sun

Like a pretty little coffin

(With dainty purple roses

Painted on the sides),

You wait for me to dig a hole

Six foot deep and six foot wide,

Where we can lie forever -

As the rest of the world goes by.

But my fingers can't grace

Your furnished, well-kept surface -

Death just out of reach,

My willing burial denied.

I ache from trying to touch you -

A futile attempt at an impossible connection.

And yet somewhere in this shade of grey,

Must lurk an answer to my pain.

Indeed, I shan't rest until I've stolen

All the colour from your eyes,

Like you stole the love from my heart.

I can't let you go alone -

To lie, solitary, my Purple Rose,

Without this Black Shade to veil you.

And I can't let you make me cry,

Because beneath my make-up

Is nothing, nothing at all.

There's only one way

To drive this Shadow from my soul -

Me and you together,

Buried, and whole.

© Copyright Cory Eadson, 2012 

Alice Cooper: 'Welcome 2 My Nightmare' - A Review

I was lucky enough, last year, to get the special fan-pack edition of this album, complete with album, magazine, mask, make-up, and a poster with MY name on it (due to pre-order special). And do you know what? It's brilliant. Here's why....

'Welcome 2 My Nightmare' is an excercise in nostalgia, and yet, despite being a sequel and homage to the classic 'Welcome To My Nightmare' album, it feels completely fresh, exciting, and different.

Opening with the chilling ballad 'I Am Made Of You', the album draws the listener in through atmosphere and suspense rather than an in-your-face explosion. It's very subtle, lyrically almost like a goodnight prayer, before the real nightmare begins...

The hard rock truly kicks in with track 2, 'Caffeine', co-written with Buckcherry guitarist Keith Nelson. A hyperactive song about Alice being too afraid to sleep, 'Caffeine' is full of twisting riffs and blistering solos. It's catchy as Hell, and rather funny too...

Original Alice Cooper band members Neal Smith, Dennis Dunway and Michael Bruce have also contributed to a few songs on this album, the first example being the track 'Runaway Train'. The lyrics deal with Alice entering this train and riding deeper into this nightmarish world he so fears, before the train crashes! Perhaps due to the fact that the original band members feature on this song, 'Runaway Train' is very straight-up hard rock. All riffs and solos, with a simple, driving beat. Great stuff!

One of the many things this album does so well is provide variety. Amongst the hard'n' heavy tracks like 'The Congregation', which features a nice cameo from Rob Zombie, or 'When Hell Comes Home', which is doomy and heavy as Hell, is 'Last Man On Earth'. In the song, Alice thinks he's literally the last man on earth, and he is loving every second of it! What makes the track so unique is the music - very New Orleans Jazz. No guitars or drums here! It's a very unusual sound for Alice, and it's all the better for it. Catchy and brilliantly snarled through by Alice, this stands out as a personal favourite.

'I'll Bite Your Face Off' is the obvious hit single of the album, again featuring Dunway, Neal and Bruce on the instruments. Catchy riffage, pounding drums, and a beautiful piano interlude, not to mention a truly vicious chorus, this is a masterclass in classic rock, and sounds both fresh and old-school simultaneously.

'Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever' is my favourite song off the album, and also boasts the best title! Essentially about Alice carrying out his revenge on disco music, this tune is ironically a heavy metal disco song! Former Marilyn Manson and current Rob Zombie guitarist John 5 unleashes a blistering guitar solo towards the end of the song, guaranteed to get heads banging everywhere!

And from disco metal to surfer metal! 'Ghoul's Gone Wild' is heavy beach rock with a ghoulish twist - a song about zombified dead girls! This is a great, upbeat tune about dead girls falling apart (!), and Alice falling in love with one of them, and leads nicely into this album's main ballad, 'Something to Remember Me By'. A haunting love song that Alice is singing to a piece of leftover dead girl, it was actually written in 1973, but dug out for this album because it fitted the concept.

'What Baby Wants' is the most perverse track on 'Nightmare 2...'. Alice doing a duet with sexy young cool thing Ke$ha, and singing into a vocoder, is just wrong on every level. And that is why it works so much. It's so Alice Cooper because it shouldn't work, and yet it does. Ke$ha clearly relishes playing the Devil on this song, too. Very enjoyable!

The final track proper of the album (aside the bonus tracks and 'The Underture' - a glorious instrumental medley of songs from both 'Nightmare...' albums), 'I Gotta Get Outta Here', essentially draws everything to a close. Every previous song is referenced, and it's a superb summary of the album as a whole. The final bombshell, the last big revaltion about the whole nightmare, is both hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

Bonus Track 'Under The Bed' is a straight-up spooky rock song, with chilling lyrics and heavy guitars bringing the nightmares to life. 'Poison Live At Download 2011' is a nice slice of Alice Cooper live, offering a brief insight into his live shows.

'Welcome 2 My Nightmare' is a massively varied, hugely enjoyable album that will appeal to rockers and metalheads of all ages. Alice, his bandmembers and special guests all put in top-notch performances in their respective fields, and they all prove there's still life in the old ghoul yet. A modern classic!

  Track Listing:

1. I Am Made of You

2. Caffeine

3. The Nightmare Returns

4. A Runaway Train

5. Last Man on Earth

6. The Congregation

7. I’ll Bite Your Face Off

8. Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever

9. Ghouls Gone Wild

10. Something To Remember

11. When Hell Comes Home

12. What Baby Wants

13. I Gotta Get Outta Here

14. The Underture

A Cry For Help - A Poem

Talk minus action

Always equals nothing.

Save your words for Hell,

Where they might lose their sting.

Is Love so hard to feel,

Or is it just like Hate?

Are they both the same,

Drawn to us by Fate?

I think I'm in trouble,

Trying to work this out.

Spinning me, perplexed -

What's it all about?

Can I live without you

Beside me all the way?

Or will the colour you gave me

Turn a shade of grey?

I don't know what to do,

Don't know how to cope.

I'm riding a wave of confusion,

Lost, and without hope.

No way back from this,

I am a slave to myself.

Resigned to fading away...

Yes, save your words for Hell...

Copyright Cory Eadson 2012

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Megadeth. Created and formed by Dave Mustaine solely as a force to out-shred, out-speed, and out-do Metallica in every way. Did they succeed? I'm not the one to say. Both bands are great, although Megadeth never lost their metal edge. 

Indeed, in 1990, Megadeth dropped the epic 'Rust In Peace' album on us, an LP so fast and layered, it quickly cemented its' reputation as a modern classic. A year later, Metallica released 'The Black Album', also rightly seen as a legendary album. However, the key difference between the two is that Metallica moved away from their thrashy sound to give us more commercial, catchy tunes. Enter Sandman, Of Wolf and Man, and Sad But True are all brilliant songs, but not as adventurous or as technical as those on earlier releases. 'The Black Album' also has the song Nothing Else Matters - an overlong, boring ballad. Yes, I did just say that.

'Rust In Peace', on the other hand, is a complex, speeding, raging assault that utilises all of Megadeth's strengths and takes them to the next level. The standout song for me on 'Rust In Peace' is the immortal Tornado of Souls. The track, about breaking up with a lover, has all the raw power a thrash tune needs, but with a tight and focussed sound that quite simply kicks ass. But amid the frenzied riffage, screaming vocals of Mr. Mustaine, and the pounding drums, is the Marty Friedman guitar solo. The only way I can describe it is 'orgasmic'. It even knocked Mustaine for six when he first heard it.

So here it is, a live version of a classic track. If you don't like this song, you have to ask yourself, do you really like heavy metal?

A Coffin Couldn't Hold Me - A Poem

Struck down before my prime,

Dragged out from the shadows.

Bound in chains of silver

And hung at the gallows.

They said that went I died

Rivers ran red with blood,

And mighty forests burned -

Flames devouring the wood.

 Buried, six-feet under,

Inside a nameless tomb,

Waiting for salvation

To free me from this doom.

It came in virgin form,

A girl of sixteen years.

She opened up my grave

Unleashing one so feared.

The chains of silver break,

My fangs, they seize her neck.

I drink her gushing blood -

It runs down my bare chest.

Then I gaze up at the moon,

The only friend I have.

Always there to watch me,

To guide me on my path.

So I run through the night,

Naked, bloodstained, raging.

Searching, stalking, hunting

Those who tried to stop me.

The fools should have realised -

They should have come to see -

That there's not a coffin,

Out there that could hold me...

© Copyright Cory Eadson, 2012

Blood and Bone China: Chapter 4 - 'The Devil in the Potteries', and Chapter 5 - 'There's No Such Thing As Vampires'

Chapter 4 - 'The Devil in the Potteries'

Chapter 4 of this epic saga picks up right where the last episode left off, and sees our unlikely heroes entering a beautiful, yet rather sinister-looking, Gothic mansion. The scale of the episode is superb, and the set design very Hammer Horror. I was drooling with nostalgic glee at the gorgeous, wooden library! Director Chris Stone also gives us a nice slice of melodramatic choir music to ramp up the tension and the atmosphere.

The tension throughout the Chapter is gently undercut with moments of humour, mostly centered around the awkwardness of Miles' character. When he first meets the gentlemen, I was inclined to laugh, but also cringe at the potential danger he had put himself in. Moments like this work beautifully, as acting, set design, music, direction, production, and scripting all come together and work in unison. And speaking of the script, how about "Creatures that wear the skin of the DEAD!" for a line?

In this Chapter, too, we also get to meet Linus Hemlock properly. It's a wonderfully arch performance by David Lemberg, who chews up and spits out the scenes he's in with twisted glee.Lemberg is clearly having a ball here, and there is no doubt that he is the major villain. His baiting of Newlyn is brilliant and frightening, setting up a trap that mr Howell walks right into!

Rachel Shenton is fantastic, yet again. As well as showing us her inquisitive side, she also reveals her great comic timing, during the rather naughty sequence with Lady Victoria (the ever-beautiful Lara De-Leuw).

The cliffhanger to Chapter 4 is the best yet. You know what's going to happen, you've seen it a thousand times, and yet it's constructed so brilliantly, edited so tightly, that director Chris Stone squeezes out every ounce of atmosphere that he possibly can. 

Chapter 4 has everything. Gothic setting, insane Vampire girls, heaving busoms, lesbian undertones, a truly wicked villain, and great comic timing. Try watching it without a big grin on your face, it's pretty much impossible!

Chapter 5 - 'There's No Such Thing as Vampires'

Taking it's title from the previous installment's gut-wrenching cliffhanger, Chapter 5 ramps things up a notch. Shorter (about half the length) than part 4, the sole purpose of 5 is to progress the story as quickly as possible, with compromising on anything.

In quick sucession, we get a resolution to the cliffhanger (a bit of an easy way out, but there's a very good reason for that!), another bit of sexual tension between Victoria and Anna, Anna finding herself a marked woman, and Newlyn coming face to face with that which he does not believe in.

Lare De-Leuw steals this short Chapter, looking more beautiful and sumptuous with every scene she appears in, and her taunting of Anna and Newlyn is utterly wicked. This contrasts nicely with Newlyn's disbelieving reaction: Pathetically waving his stick at her. 

The cliffhanger is another 'how's he gonna get out of this one?', scary, tense, and full of Lady Victoria's heaving cleavage.

A short but sweet episode, breathlessly exciting and supremely sexy. Which also rather nicely sums up the whole series, actually....

Watch Chapter 4
Watch Chapter 5

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