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creatures surround him, place him in a wooden
coffin, but suddenly, to our surprise, he bursts
out, runs through the screen, and lands on
stage, while the dancing spacemen remain in
the film. Soon, the aliens locate Cooper, and one
by one they smoothly jump from their places on film to the
stage. Before “Escape” concludes, Cooper and his pursuing
predators jump back into the film and onto the stage once
more, and the spacemen seize Cooper on stage. They carry
him off into the screen, where, on film, we see him taken over
the horizon, probably to his death. It is a scene that demands
perfect timing and careful choreography.
The performance on the Welcome to My Nightmare DVD
was filmed at London’s Wembley Arena in 1975. Sadly, even
though the original film was restored and its sound remixed,
the DVD still looks and sounds like a grainy B movie. It lacks
resolution, sharpness, and even cohesive audio. The sound
fades in and out, obnoxiously, as does the loudness of partic-
ular instruments. That Cooper was an alcoholic, and drunk at
Wembley (as he himself has said), doesn’t help either. He spo-
radically undershoots high notes and garbles lyrics, turning in
a below-average vocal performance.
If the quality of DVD is poor, why bother with it? Well, it’s
just too much fun to pass up. And despite its flaws, it comes
with an exclusive and highly informative 25-minute interview
in which Cooper explains his musical influences, supersti-
tions, and film heroes (Bette Davis, James Bond), as well as
the reasons why a male rock singer would invent a character
named Alice Cooper, and play that role onstage. There is
also an alternate version of Nightmare with a running
commentary by Cooper himself; as we watch, it seems
as though Cooper sits beside us while he describes the
film. He even mocks himself at times, saying that if he
could do Nightmare today, alcohol free, his vocals
would be better. Besides, Nightmare is a starting point
for those interested in the development of exotic fanta-
sy at rock concerts. And, I confess, the crude look of the
film gives Nightmare a certain cult-like feel. To put the
options on this DVD in context, I’d watch them in the
following order: The Cooper interview, Nightmare by
itself, and finally the version with Cooper’s commentary.
I can’t resist mentioning The Life and Crimes of
Alice Cooper [75680], Rhino’s new four-CD box set,
which makes a wonderful supplement to the Nightmare DVD.
The CDs arrange Cooper’s 32 years of music in chronological
order. If we listen in sequential fashion, we trace Cooper’s
rise, pinnacle, fall, and slight rebound. Discs one and two,
which span a period of 11 years (from 1966 to 1976), are
essential, and document Cooper’s most creative work.
From 1976 to 1985, Cooper battled drinking, spent time in
treatment, and recorded several forgettable concept albums
with which only he seemed to relate. Having lost most of his
original band to solo careers, Cooper chose to work with ses-
sion players rather than assemble a new group. In what may
have been an effort to lure the public, whose tastes lay with
disco at the time, Cooper embraced a disco-like sound, and
layers of excessive keyboards supersede his usual shrill, edge-
slicing guitars. He also drops his familiar diabolical snarl in
favor of a warm purr, a transformation that strips his music of
its adventurous edge. The team who assembled the box set
seem to recognize this; they included just 12 songs from the
six albums (all of them out of print in the US) that Cooper
released during these years,.
After alienating many of his fans, Cooper enjoyed a come-
back with 1989’s slick, hook-heavy Trash (which profited
from the last stages of the late Eighties hard-rock boom),
before sinking to an all-time low with 1991’s moronic Hey
Stoopid. Once fantastically original, Cooper’s lyrics and music
now became pathetic clichés. Several tracks on his later
albums, including songs from Trash and 1994’s The Last
Temptation, remarkably reveal Cooper to be a proficient
mainstream pop writer, a facet that, thankfully for his hard-
core fans, didn’t surface in his earlier works. The main reason
you’d buy this box is for the first two CDs and the compre-
hensive booklet inside.
I’m compelled to close with a wonderful quote from an
affectionate essay, specifically written for the box set by none
other than John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols
fame): “There’s originality and then there’s always ten cheap
versions, and it’s a shame that it’s those versions people pay
attention to. They don’t want to find out the history of how
things emerged, and that’s too bad, because without any his-
torical perspective, nothing can make any sense…I love orig-
inality, and there’s nothing like Alice Cooper…before or since,
really. Alice Cooper…whatta man.” Indeed.
Radiohead: Meeting People Is Easy. Grant Gee (director).
Capitol. $19.99 (DVD; VHS).
The title is a sarcastic jab at music
journalists, hangers-on, and over-
zealous fans. The film, subtitled
“A Movie About Radiohead,” is a
chronological documentary that
traces the group’s 1997-98 tour
from its beginning to its conclu-
sion. M e e t i n g does not glorify
Radiohead’s live performances (as
R.E.M.’s Roadshow does) or rock
star lifestyles (like Marilyn Man-
son’s Dead to the World). Nope,
this is exactly the opposite – if
there ever was any true-to-life film
made about the emptiness of
being a successful rock band, this is it.
Meeting is made from what seems to be a callous and
uninviting point of view. After watching it, we sense that
Radiohead was uncomfortable with its new fame after releas-
ing OK Computer, an album that not only won a Best Alter-
native Record Grammy in 1997, but also received critical
acclaim all over the world, landing on nearly every critic’s top
ten list. The film gives us a first-hand look at life through the
band’s eyes. We are placed in hotel rooms where our privacy
is invaded, swept onstage where no matter what we do, the
audience still wants more, and dumped in the band’s
car/bus/train/Lear jet (the film’s point seems to be that, it’s all
the same after a while), where everything is uncontrollably
moving around us. All these frantic experiences, and more,
constantly accompany Radiohead on their tour.
P e r s o n a l l y, I find it difficult to empathize with rock stars,
but M e e t i n g confronts my beliefs that famous rock celebri-
ties are luckier than everyday people. I lost count of the crit-
ics hounding the band, the profusion of printed record