{"id":2728,"date":"2010-05-05T11:42:24","date_gmt":"2010-05-05T15:42:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-05-05T12:06:48","modified_gmt":"2010-05-05T12:06:48","slug":"mystery-date-revealed-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/mystery-date-revealed-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery Date Revealed: Alice Cooper"},"content":{"rendered":"

AKO6zKPfb8A]
\nSo your Mystery Date<\/a> was “Shoe Salesman,” off the second Alice Cooper<\/strong> album, 1970’s Easy Action<\/em>. As I figured, a few of our more rockin’ Townsmen knew this song right off the bat. Meanwhile, a number of you worked hard to get your heads around this awkward, highly unexpected (considering the artist) take on mid-period Beatles-style song structure. <\/p>\n

According to Wikipedia’s entry on this album<\/a>, the guitarists were NOT Hunter and Wagner, later of Lou Reed<\/strong>‘s Rock ‘n Roll Animal<\/em> fame, but what do I know (and what does Wikipedia know, for that matter)? I thought the Townsman who guessed that there was a Lou Reed tie-in was onto something. At least that mis-clue probably helped the smartest man in the room, bobbybittman, hone in on his eventual correct, offlist guess.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, the producer of this album was David Briggs<\/strong>, from Neil Young’s camp, so Mad Props!<\/em> to the Townsperson who suggested the track sounded a bit like Neil Young. Neil Smith, the drummer from Alice Cooper, had this to say about Briggs:<\/p>\n

David hated our music and us. I recall the term that he used, referring to our music, was “Psychedelic Shit.” I think Easy Action<\/em> sounded too dry, more like a TV or radio commercial and he did not help with song arrangement or positive input in any way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whatever. Although not a masterpiece by any means, I thought this song sounded better than all the popular shit I’ve ever heard by Cooper beside “School’s Out.” I downloaded a couple of other tracks from this album and plan on checking out some more of the really early stuff, just in case it’s half decent. Growing up, Cooper always bugged me as being one of rock’s most fraudulant ka-raaay-zeeeee!<\/em> artists<\/a>. In recent years, however, whenever I see him interviewed I respect his self-awareness and obvious sanity. More power to him for making a career for himself with very little musical talent!<\/p>\n

Here are two more tracks from the album Easy Action<\/em>. Enjoy.<\/p>\n

Alice Cooper, “Return of the Spiders”<\/a><\/p>\n

Alice Cooper, “Below Your Means”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AKO6zKPfb8A] So your Mystery Date was “Shoe Salesman,” off the second Alice Cooper album, 1970’s Easy Action. As I figured, a few of our more rockin’ Townsmen knew this song right off the bat. Meanwhile, a number of you worked hard to get your heads around this awkward, highly unexpected (considering the artist) take on […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[2],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}