Vince! Dead Babies?

It was May 13th, 1973. We had just got out of high school the year before... well my wife to be just got out of high school. I had quit HS and was playing rock n' roll! We were concert goers! The year before we had gone to see Alice Cooper at the San Diego Sports Arena. We were back and we followed the group to their hotel that night after the concert. The year before they played with Captain Beyond, one of the best concerts I ever went to. This year they played with Flo and Eddie, formerly of The Turtles fame.

Alice introduced his new show - guillotine and new boaconstricter. I think most people under state the effect that Alice Cooper had on the rock scene and rock music. After all, Rock n' Roll is half music and half show! Behind the silliness of his show, was some great musicianship. Alice is an incredibly talented musician. His melodies and songs are advanced as any in the field. The show was a blast! One tune after the next - better than the opera!

After the show we went to their hotel to do a little party-ing with the guys. It was awesome. They were all normal fellas and very cool. There was no pretension and no looking down their nose at us. They invited us in to Alice's room and we sat around and talked. What do you talk about? I don't even recall! I was so stoked at just being able to hang out with them. They were of course exhausted, but still we had a great time.

As for their music. I've kind of lost track over the years. But I still crank up the old stuff now and then. I still get a kick! from "Love It To Death", to "Killer", to "School's Out" to "Billion Dollar Babies", these are my favorite! I have to laugh even now when I think of Donovan singing on Billion Dollar Babies! What a hoot!But still great music! (That's my wife behind Michael Bruce!)

And if known for nothing else, Alice Cooper was the first group to wear dresses! When I first saw that first album with them all dressed up, I thought, "What? A bunch of faggots?" I have no idea what their gender preference is or was, and I really don't care. They blew apart all of the fears! And created greater fears for parents than any other group did. Who cared if Black Sabbath made your kids worship the devil, when Alice was getting them to wear dresses!!!! And not only dresses, but some of the scariest makeup ever. Boy George? Marilyn Manson? They're nobodies! The original was Alice Cooper! And unlike those two losers, his music was... IS awesome! Thanx Vince!

The Great King

My gut was shook by Black Sabbath, but then I bought an unknown album called In The Court of The Crimson King and my head went spinnin'! It was moving, but at the same time filled my thoughts with ideas I had never had. It was a whole new experience for my musical palette.

In the mid sixties a couple of brothers named Giles, were looking for a keyboardist that also could sing lead. They found a wizard named Fripp, that couldn't really sing, but played the guitar like no one ever since has heard. His riffs became tangled webs of sensations weaving in and out of emotional highs and lows, and everywhereinbetween. Soon there after Fripp called in his old friend Greg Lake who replaced one of the Giles brothers on bass and became the lead singer. Not long after an ugly covered album with a big blue and red faced troll screaming at you was released.

"The Court" had many redeeming qualities, probably the greatest of all times was 21 First Century Schizoid Man. What a song. Full of expression and feelings, horns and guitars wailed out the feelings of people caught in the struggles of a new world. In a fewminutes all of my anger was expressed in perfect harmonies and screaming cackling. Incredible! But it didn't stop there. Fripp introduced a new instrument to the genre, something called a Mellotron. It made the sounds of singing angels! Not really. But it did strings like no other instrument had so far. I've never seen one up close, but I've heard that it has a tape recorded of every instrument. Keyboards would not be seen the same anymore in rock.

The band changed over the years (see Wikipedia for more info), except for one constant maestro - Robert Fripp, the genius of the new age. As musicians came and went, swirling around the trunk of a mighty tree, masterpieces of musical life were spewed out across the branches. I have been in heaven ever since hearing that first playing of 21st Century Schizoid Man.

Lark's Tongues in Aspic was one of my favorites. But to limit my love of King Crimson to a several albums would be to go without desert after a thanksgiving dinner. I simply love it all. However weird, however strange. I can't really pin it down. As corny as it sounds, it speaks to me.

Beethoven was just clowning around compared to King Crimson. It's a devil of a group.

Thanks Bob!