The Illustrated Collector's Guide To Alice Cooper

At last it's here! Following the 'Alice Cooper Box Set' Method of being released... The long awaited arrival of Dale Sherman's book, 'The Illustrated Guide to Alice Cooper' has finally happened.

But was it worth the wait? Let's look at it sensibly... no, on second thoughts why pay someone to review it when I can review it myself? :-)

I have been lucky enough to take a sneak preview at the book, although it was in PC form and without the colour pictures, and I can make the following observations....

You must have this book! If you've got as far as reading this part of the review then obviously you have an interest in Alice Cooper - if that's the case, then this book is for you.

The book is 320 pages thick and has over 250 photographs, including 20 of Alice live on stage. 16 Pages are in full colour. The contents range from a brief story of how Alice came to be - or one of the many stories at least! It then takes you on a trip through Aliceland and covers, year by year, the story of Alice Cooper.

Starting at the beginning, always a good place to start, it takes you through the Spiders, Earwigs and Nazz era, and on to the commencement of the Alice Cooper Group, 'Pretties For You', 'Easy Action' and his bond with Frank Zappa.

The first section of the book covers the period of Alice and his band through to the release of 'Muscle of Love', in 1974, and the 'sad' demise of the Alice Cooper group... or was it sad? The group may have went it's seperate ways but Alice still continues to provide excellent music and stage shows some 25 years later!

All the record releases are catalogued here, not from the US, not from the UK, but from all over the world - if you thought you had all of Alice Cooper's material - think again! If you look at the singles section of this site you'll see over 60 different single covers, this is only the tip of the iceberg, as this book proves. The book lists all the concerts, tells of the strange occurances and even whether there is a known bootleg of the concert.

The next section covers a welcome period of Alice's shock theatrical domination, covering the years from the classic 'Welcome to my Nightmare' album through to the insane 'From the Inside'.

The following section covers the stage in Alice's career that you either love or hate! Personally I love it and think, for me, this was Alice at his best! 'Flush The Fashion', 'Special Forces', 'Zipper Catches Skin' and 'Dada', all true classics in my book, all covered in this book!

But Alice had fell out of favour with a few of his fans, those 'hard and fast' fans that thought he'd gone soft! He needed to come back in style, big time. That he did, once again he was a 'real' household name, and with the release of Constrictor, Alice was thrust into the face of people all over the world once more! Money could be made from Alice - the mere mention of his name started the tills buzzing! Could this be why an entire section of the book covers one album? One concert! The Toronto 1969 Concert! Released some 50+ times and still counting!

The book continues with 'Constrictor' and 'Raise Your Fist', through 'Trash' and 'The Last Temptation'. Mentions are even made of the box set. So basically this is the Alice Cooper Bible.

So get out to your local book store and get your orders in. The catalogue number, ISBN, is 1-896522-46-7. Priced at a very reasonable $17.95 in the US, $21.95 in Canada and £11.95 here in the UK.

Davie Damnation !