GOOD RECORDS TO RELEASE TWO SONG DOCUMENT
ALICE COOPER LIVE FROM THE ASTROTURF
OF HISTORIC ALICE COOPER REUNION
FOR BLACK FRIDAY RECORD STORE DAY 2016
RECORD STORE DAY PREMIERES BAND REUNION PERFORMANCE OF
“IS IT MY BODY” VIDEOTAPED AT GOOD RECORDS IN DALLAS, OCTOBER 2015
LIMITED 2-SONG 7” CHRONICLES FULL 2015 PERFORMANCE FROM
GOOD RECORDS EXCLUSIVE TO STORES
Dallas, TX: Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times At Ridgemont High saved Brooke Shields from drowning then blew the reward money to hire Van Halen to play his birthday party. That is Spicoli’s claim to fame amongst his surfer buddies and crowning achievement post high school.
Chris Penn has had a similar trajectory amongst Alice Cooper fans and record store owners alike. A lifelong superfan of Alice Cooper since discovering Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits in his father’s LPs, Chris never got to see the original Alice Cooper lineup which disbanded in 1974. (He was three years old at the time.) Chris has been a record store customer since 1980 and working at and ultimately owning a record store since 1993. He has followed the solo Alice Cooper and the original members careers all along.
Chris learned of Dennis Dunaway, the original bassist/songwriter, writing a book (Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs!) about his adventures around the formation, success, and breakup of the Alice Cooper group. Chris contacted Dennis prior to its release and ultimately for 2 years or so before Dennis’ appearance at Good Records came to fruition. It finally came time after such persistence (and Dennis’ researching that Chris wasn’t a total fruitcake.) Dennis agreed to come to Dallas to do a Q+A/book signing. Dennis had a window of time and allowed Chris Penn to pick a date of his choice in that timeframe. Chris chose October 6, 2015. The significance of that date was a day off in Dallas for Alice Cooper who was out on tour with Motley Crue. Alice Cooper was playing Hidalgo, TX the day before and Chris knew Alice would have to come to Dallas for his day off since a lot more golf courses exist in the DFW area.
After securing the date, Dennis assisted Chris in getting Michael Bruce original guitarist/songwriter and Neal Smith original drummer/songwriter on board with the event. After having commitments from 3 of the 4 surviving members the stars seemed to be aligning perfectly. Chris contacted Toby Mamis co-manager of Alice Cooper and Kyler Clark, Alice’s assistant about the idea of Alice joining in the Q+A portion. They didn’t want to take away the spotlight from Dennis’ book. Dennis also brought it up to the AC camp as well. The idea of Dennis, Michael, and Neal playing arose along the way. Dennis and Chris mentioned it to Toby and Kyler. They thought it would be perfect to have Alice surprise the crowd after the Q+A and signing were complete and join the live set.
Chris and the store went all out. Cutting a hole in the store’s office wall to create a portal for Alice to enter the store without anyone being the wiser, recovering the stage in pink astorturf, bringing in pro audio and video equipment to document the event, decorating the whole store with billboards of all the original band’s albums, balloons & panties to throw on the crowd during School’s out, the whole nine yards. They brought arena rock to a record store for one night.
It went off without a hitch. The band played brilliantly and had Cheshire cat smiles the whole set which wind up being their longest set since their last ever show in Brazil in 1974. Chris decided to Periscope the event right before it started (a new platform the time) and it spread like wildfire. Chris knew he had helped play a part in something magical but had no idea how significant until the fan videos and news of the event went viral. (See brief rundown of press.)
Michael Kurtz, founder of Record Store Day, contacted Chris Penn if the event’s audio had been captured. Luckily Chris Penn had the foresight to get David Wilson local sound engineer to multi-track record it. Michael and Chris contacted Shep Gordon Alice’s lifelong manager and of Supermensch fame about releasing some of the songs from the night. Shep shared the tracks with Bob Ezrin (producer of Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, KISS). Bob was floored about the quality of the audio and the band’s performance. He chose the songs, “I’m Eighteen,” (video of the performance premiered with Rolling Stone this October 19) and “Is It My Body,” whose Good Records performance video premieres exclusively TODAY with recordstoreday.com as the two tunes to run with.
This made Chris Penn’s OCD very happy. Those were the A and B side of a single Alice Cooper released in 1970 prior to the “Love It To Death” full length coming out. Bob Ezrin mixed the tracks along with Justin Cortelyou with no overdubs. Penn enlisted Joe LaPorta to master the recordings. At the time he couldn’t stop listening to David Bowie’s Blackstar which Joe had mastered.
Chris Penn and Good Records have spared no expense with the packaging enlisting Gotta Groove Records, Imprint Indie Printing, and Ross Ellis to bring “Live From The Astoturf, Alice Cooper” to life in grand fashion. The 7” is a 45rpm big hole colored vinyl, shrinkwrapped gatefold foil board jacket w/ hype sticker, metallic ink stamped numbered, 6 bonus 5"x7" double sided art prints, printed inner sleeve, double sided credits insert DETAIL OF COLOR VARIANTS (1150 white, 1150 pink, 100 black, and 100 split color pink/white with autographed art prints by the 4 surviving original members).” It has exquisite attention to detail paying homage to the original single as well as LITD.
Chris Penn’s feet haven’t touched the ground since October 6, 2015 . He not only had his favorite group reunite and play his record store but has the opportunity to release music from his favorite band. Let’s hope he doesn’t hit his head too hard with his Vans to make sure this isn’t a dream.
“Live From The Astroturf, Alice Cooper” will be available at your favorite independent record stores on Black Friday Record Store Day November 25, 2016.
"There are no accidents. We were playing a show in Dallas and had a night off the same night Dennis, Neal and Mike were doing a signing down the street. The guys were doing a small show to promote Dennis' new book. Of course, I was going to be there! We are all still close and I want to play with the original guys any chance I get!"
-Alice Cooper
“Us getting back on stage and playing those songs, it’s like riding a bicycle.” “At Good Records… That was us before the Alice character took over… It’s hard to overlook how good the songs are.” "Alice walked out and everybody was blown away. We just had a blast!"
~Dennis Dunaway
“It was terrifying and at the same time it was exciting!”
~Michael Bruce
"My excitement is just being with Dennis, Mike and Alice.”
~Neal Smith
"Alice’s unannounced walk on took the roof off the building, and our brains.”
~Unsuspecting Attendee
PRESS COVERAGE ON THE NIGHT:
https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/surprise-alice-cooper-reunion
http://www.guidelive.com/music/2015/10/03/alice-cooper-superfan-hosts-dallas-reunion
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/alice-cooper-band-reunion-photos/
http://loudwire.com/original-alice-cooper-lineup-reunites-surprise-show/
http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/10/alice-cooper-band-reunion/
For any press inquiries, please contact Perry Serpa at Vicious Kid PR. Email: perry@viciouskidpr.com; phone: 917 660-4137
-- ** PLEASE NOTE THE NEW EMAIL ADDRESS! ** Perry Serpa Vicious Kid PR perry@viciouskidpr.com 917 660-4137Alice Cooper/Live From The Astroturf * Cornerstone (film) * David Berkeley * Doug Hream Blunt * Helmet * JD Werner * Railroad Earth * Record Store Day * Red Love * Smart Studios Story (film) * Ten Bands One Cause * The Polyphonic Spree