You’re A Notch And I’m A Legend

Told her that I came from Detroit City 
And I played guitar in a long haired rock and roll band 
She asked me why the singer's name was Alice 
I said 'listen baby, you really wouldn't understand'

This is a seriously good LP, Alice Cooper* at their absolute, umm, killer best. Killer is a near perfect synthesis of garage rock, ambition and progressive rockin’.

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A friend of my dad’s leant me Alice Cooper Greatest Hits, the one with the gangster sleeve when I was about 16 and I flipped my lid. I hoovered up Love It To Death first and then a month later, bowled over by the LP cover and the fact there was a track called ‘Dead Babies’ on it, I plucked this little beauty off the rack in Backstreets Records in Carmarthen in ’89.

Killer really delivers; 8 tracks in 36 minutes, two of those clocking in at 7 minutes plus, the other 6 revving on past you and burning some serious rubber on Detroit wheels. The band are absolutely smoking on this album, Vincent^ sings his cruel black heart out and when you factor in Bob Ezrin in full-on unbeatable beast mode, you have a serious LP in your hands.

Just lie down and let it drive on over you.

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Today’s favourite Alice Cooper track is ‘Under My Wheels’ a wonderful, gutsy sex-n-cars-n-rock-n-roll thriller Killer. It’s just so damnably great, but what elevates it above 30,000,000 other rockers is twofold, the brass stabs and trimmings** that drive this beastie and Mr Furnier’s squeal-piggy-squeal psycho grunting of the word ‘wheels’ at the very end of the track. Without any exaggeration at all I’ve played this track just shy of 493,121 times this week. True story.

To dive from that into the frankly awesome sleazy bump and grind of ‘Be My Lover’ is masterful. The sly, snide reference to Alice in the lyrics and the slightly predatory tone of it all is great, especially when the band dial it up for a big cabaret finish at the end.

Which is when Killer gets even better. The band’s progressive tendencies get a full workout on the secret agents and associated daftness that is the genius ‘Halo Of Flies’. It’s a perfectly paced narrative suite, that the band and Mr Furnier vamp up and camp up into something really rather outstanding. Surely it is the only song I can think of where the line ‘I put a timebomb in your submarine’ is not a leering come on?

‘Desperado’ rounds off a perfect first side, again with with real cinematic dramatic flair. I am not convinced that it was the tribute to Jim Morrison that the singer later claimed, I am more convinced by it being a badass cowboy fantasy. I love how he uses his voice here and Bob Ezrin’s string arrangements are rather beautiful set against that roughness.

My shots are deadly
And when it's done
You're as stiff as my smoking barrel
You're as dead as a desert night
You're a notch
And I'm a legend

Killer racks up the rock again on ‘You Drive Me Nervous’, which has some real mean, manic intent about it and a perfect guitar sound. When I form my mod Alice Cooper covers band, I will definitely cover this one^*. ‘Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’ is a funny creature, never my favourite track but a really good one nonetheless, Mr F’s harmonica stylings are something to behold (behear?).

Then we get to the sicko strut of ‘Dead Babies’. My friend at school Peter John and I were obsessed with this cut. I make no aspersions as to his character, but for me it was all about the chance to bellow ‘Dead babies!’ along with the chorus at full volume and then, self-righteously point out that it was a song about child neglect if I was ever challenged; which I never was, sadly. It never convinced me as any sort of morality tale, despite its decidedly fabfourillous stylings. It only got supplanted as my favourite AC track when I discovered the last track of their next LP …

Then onto more wholesome ground with, oh, an almost 7-minute epic about a condemned killer, culminating in his loud execution. This one’s all about the build up where the band play it cool and, mostly, restrained, in a Doors-meets-musical-theatre stylee. I have a real thing for the lines ‘Nothing came easy, nothing came free/ And nothing came at all until they came after me’, which is the sort of teenage sophistication that I still gets me off. Musically I don’t think the AC band got any better than this.

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For a while now I have thought it was sad that Alice Cooper’s back catalogue has never had the loving care and treatment that a thousand lesser bands have. My copy of Killer is a basic no-frills, not-a-great-pressing late 80’s repress, this and the LPs either side of it are absolute pillars of the temple of rock – why no lovingly-curated box sets with essays, contemporary live recordings, demos etc? possibly due to appalling murky record deals signed whilst on the sauce, or too trashy an aesthetic for these straitened times? this album should not be a hidden gem, that’s just neglect. Don’t take my word for it John Lydon has called Killer the best hard rock LP ever made (or words to that affect).

Regardless, Killer is every bit as much a treat now as it was 33 years ago when I bought it. The energy, theatricality and ambition of it married to, umm, killer execution and production elevates it to incredible levels. The fact that you can sense that the band are always stretching their developing talents to reach the ambitious highs of the likes of ‘Halo Of Flies’ gives this album a wonderful unique tension; records always do when talent butts up against ambition like this.

All I will say is that if you don’t own it by now, treat yourself to this glowing nugget of negativity today. Trust me, I’m a desperado.

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The cover still thrills me, it’s not so much the snake as the awesomely menacing writing, much imitated by me on school desks in 1989-90.

1136 Down.

^he didn’t change his name to Alice Cooper until after the band split in April ’74.

*band version, not old chap in leather.

**uncredited, of course. What is it with early 70’s bands refusing to credit musicians?^^ as is Rick Derringer who added guitar to ‘Under My Wheels’ and ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah’, that man played on every single LP back then.

^^hell the boa constrictor on the cover, quite rightly, gets his name in the credits!

^*Alice Scooter, natch.