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Rock by Alice a new scene

Author: Preston Reese

Alice is good-time gal — kind of sleazy, with holes in her stockings and an arrogant charm that is beauty itself — and about all the class she'll ever need.

Alice is full of surprises, she's a man, the 23-year-old body-stocking-clad son of a Midwest minister; a band of five musicians; and a unique anti-approach to rock music.

Produced by Concert Associates, the group which appeared in "Diary of a Mad Housewife," played to a crowd of 3,400 Sunday at Long Beach Auditorium.

The Straight recording artists' hour and a half drew 50 percent from their three albums: "Pretties For You"; "Easy Action"; and their latest, "Love It to Death." The other half of the set didn't have that much to do with music — it was a visual assault — spontaneous and planned freak-outs.

The band, known for their gotta-have-a-gimmick theatrics, once performed a concert in women's clothes. At another show, live chickens were tossed into the audience — the list goes on and on. Strangely enough, it's not offensive. It's a change of pace from serious rock devotees, it's fun to watch and it's more than the money's worth.

Black Oak Arkansas, which looked tame compared to Alice's group, just came on stage and made rowdy rock.

The eight-year-old band, composed of lead singer Jim Mangum; drummer Wayne Evans; Pat Daugherty; rhythm guitar Rickey Lee Reynolds; lead guitarist Stanley Knight and Harvey Jett, has a tight style influenced by rock and roll of the 1950's.

Alice Cooper doesn't seem to like it but they take their music pretty seriously. The five musicians live together on a farm in Detroit where the group's guitarist-pianist-organist Michael Bruce composes with lyricist Alice, (also lead-singer and harmonica-player) songs novel enough to spart a new world of music.

Cooper calls it "third generation rock — the basics of rock projecting it toward the brain and the abdomen as well — rock is sexual," he said.

The group does, if anything, project. Flooding the eyes and ears with excellently engineered barrages of sound which range from Chuck Berry songs to Voodoo-influenced melodies like their "Black Juju."

Alice Cooper members attended college together in Arizona, where as theatre arts majors, began the aspect of visual rock.

"Black Juju," which sounds like a tighter version of Dr. John and Night Tripper's bayou-music, is performed with the enlistment of an audience member dressed as a police man.

Half way through the song, Cooper, armed with a trident, stabs a drummer to shreds, and is taken by the "policeman" to an electric chair on stage, which lights up during a hammed-up death scene.

Cooper finished the piece in a frenzied up-tempo at center stage forefront where smoke bombs are ignited and bags of chicken feathers are blown into the audience.