Page 43 - Classic Rock (February 2020)

Dennis Dunaway and his
wife (the group’s costume
designer and Neal Smith’s
sister) Cindy in 1971.

we’d win anyone over, but with him it wasn’t
working. He didn’t like us.”
Openly referring to the band’s music as
‘psychedelic garbage’ didn’t exactly endear Briggs
to his charges as the fraught sessions continued.
But out of the desperation came a fair few
moments of inspiration. Following the
quintessentially Alice snarl and swagger of Mr.
& Misdemeanor, Easy Action continues with the
relatively restrained Shoe Salesman (Les Paul fan
Glen Buxton demonstrating his jazz chords as
producer Briggs carries the tune on piano).
While gestating Easy Action’s material, few
outside influences penetrated the quintet’s 24/7
songwriting mind-set other than (LA
contemporaries) The Doors, radically
experimental modern classicist Karlheinz Making (and eating)
Stockhausen, and Pink Floyd (who’d been the headlines: Alice Cooper
Coopers’ house guests during the West Coast leg at the Cincinnati Pop
of their debut US tour. Deep thinker Dunaway Festival, June 13, 1970.
thought he’d found a kindred spirit in Syd Barrett
as the taciturn Floyd wunderkind sat patiently,
appearing to be hanging on his every word, until
realising he just happened to be sitting in Syd’s field “We used to shop in the women’s section of the
of vision while he gazed into space). thrift stores back in Phoenix. That was our look.”
Another enduring influence that united the
entire band was Leonard Bernstein, especially his Dennis Dunaway
music for the musical West Side Story. Easy Action
took its title from the musical’s Cool, and third track a prototype for the freezer compartment Soon after Easy Action’s complete failure to set
Still No Air (originally written for Pretties For You) necrophilia of solo Alice’s ’75 Welcome To My the charts alight, the Coopers (who had so far also
incorporates a snippet from The Jet Song (which the Nightmare favourite Cold Ethyl, but rather for the survived rolling their van over three times on the
band returned to again for both Gutter Cat vs The Jets suspended animation of Dunaway’s recent mini- LA freeway – with them, all their equipment and
and Grand Finale on 1972’s School’s Out album). movie Cold, Cold Coffin). The McCartney-esque a washing machine in the back – as well as
Vinyl side one concludes with Below Your Means, Beautiful Flyaway, featuring rhythm guitarist ingesting copious hallucinogens, and a rather
an extensive composition with a similar Michael Bruce on lead vocal, acts as a calm-before- unfortunate on-stage incident with one of Glen
complexity to (’71 Alice album) Killer’s Halo Of Flies: the-storm prelude to epic set-piece closer Lay Down Buxton’s stunt chickens) decamped from LA to
veering off in surprising directions, its intrinsic And Die, Goodbye. Detroit with, according to Dunaway, “our tails
theatricality is more musical theatre than prog). The band were still intent on writing material for between our legs”. “There were rumours our
Shoe Salesman’s B-side, Return Of The Spiders, Alice’s dark character to inhabit when they played management had bounced too many cheques,
opens side two. Dunaway’s unmistakable bubbling live (they finally perfected the process with there were threats and there were crazy people.”
Hofner bass (on loan from The Cowsills) locks into Dunaway’s Black Juju on 1971’s Love It To Death) and But they were always welcome on the road.
Neal Smith’s rolling Wipeout drums (the classic LD&DG, with its extended opening instrumental Ultimately settling in the Motor City, the band
Surfaris instrumental was the first thing Smith section and abstract central sound collage, was an continued writing, building on Pretties For You and
played with the band) on a brooding intro that early attempt to provide an appropriate soundtrack Easy Action’s learning process, cross-fertilising
bursts into Alice’s opening ‘Stop, look and listen’ lyric to accompany Alice doing “creepy things” on stage. with The Stooges and MC5 and gigging hard.
which, according to Dunaway, was “aimed at those Easy Action was released in March 1970 to largely “We’d play Toledo and they’d try to kill us, we’d
people who, when we did a gig, lined up at the exits savage, baffled reviews. It came in a scarlet sleeve play Saugatuck and they’d try to kill us. We were
to get out as fast as they could”. adorned with a shot of the band photographed used to the cowboys in Phoenix. But this? This
Laughing At Me – based on a germ of an idea later from behind (Neal Smith’s idea; unsurprisingly, was tyre irons.”
Two years later, Alice Cooper were the most-
GETTY x2 used to infinitely greater effect on the Killer album’s considering he had the most significant length of notorious, highest-grossing band on the planet.
hair to show off).
Desperado – is followed by Refrigerator Heaven (not
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