RockDocs: Super Duper Alice Cooper

There has already been an “official” Alice Cooper documentary. It’s called Prime Cuts, and was released on VHS in the early 90s. However, although it was labelled a documentary, it wasn’t really. It was basically akin to an ITV clip show, except it didn't have pointless talking heads from people on other ITV shows.

So, now we have this - Super Duper Alice Cooper, from the people who brought you such acclaimed films as Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage, Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey and the excellent TV documentary series Metal Evolution.



I attended the “one night only” cinema screening of the film last night. So I haven’t had long to digest it yet, but here we go anyway…

First of all, I do take slight issue with the press release which proclaims this to be the first ever “doc opera”, due to the presentation style which is actually just a re-imagining of the 2009 film American: The Bill Hicks Story. But with a more prominent soundtrack. I guess I can’t blame them for hyping it a little, but on the other hand I can and will. It is a cool style, though, and it does manage to keep an air of mystery about the Alice Cooper mythos, despite being told everything as we go along. Rather than having the usual talking head inserts, the whole film is told with a mixture of animation, clips, photographs, and some parts are illustrated with old horror movies.

Unlike Prime Cuts, the focus here is very much on story rather than music. It chronicles less of Alice’s career, but more of his life. His formative years are told pretty well, but perhaps goes on a little long. As a narrative, it really takes off when The Spiders (as the band were then called) go to LA. That’s where they meet Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa etc. It’s also where they finally adopt the Alice Cooper persona and start writing in that style. Badly.

But, as a band, things don’t take off until they go back to Detroit. The creators of shock rock, they’re the most hated band in LA. The hippies of the flower power generation didn’t like a scary bunch of motherfuckers interrupting their acid trip. But in Detroit they find a home with The Stooges and the MC5 as their contemporaries. From here, they go from success to success, doing something nobody had ever seen before. But then the wheels come off as the Alice Cooper band are shoved aside for the Alice Cooper character.

The difference between Alice Cooper and his creator, Vincent Furnier, is referenced throughout with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde being used as a motif. Footage from a silent movie adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde is played often, the metaphor presumably being that the potion Vincent Furnier drank to become Alice Cooper was alcohol. The concept works, especially given the macabre imagery Coop has used throughout his career. They all fit the classic Alice Cooper iconography and tell you about the genesis of the character without having to explain in to you like you‘re a total bonehead (they leave that type of thing to ITV, thank you very much).

As the film continues - and the original band breaks up - less emphasis is put on Alice’s career and more on his deepening substance abuse. At first, his only vice is alcohol. He is treated for that in a mental institution (why not?). When he gets out, he decided to replace alcohol with cocaine (why not?). Then, he starts freebasing (why not?).

Now, I have read many interviews with Cooper and watched quite a few documentaries and TV pieces on him, and I never recall this information being used before. In fact, from what I have seen Alice has implied over the years that the only vice he ever indulged in was alcohol. In fact, the only time I recall it even been suggested in passing was a brief line in the Motley Crue book The Dirt. So, this was kind of new information for me. And I do consider myself a fan of Coop’s, so I found it weirdly refreshing, and it especially explains his gaunt appearance at the time, and preferable to hearing him re-count the infamous chicken story for the forty four billionth time.

Oh, yes…we do get it, by the way. This is the story Alice tells on every single talk show he is ever on. I am SICK TO SHITE of this story. I knew it would be in there. But after the screening of the film, there was a Q&A with him…and he told the fucking story AGAIN. I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

If you don’t know the story, here it is being told to that great rock n roller, Bill Oddie...



The film ends with his (sober) comeback in the late 80s. Although it may seem like an odd cut off point, the film wouldn’t have really worked going beyond that. It was probably the last truly commercially successful period in his career and ends the film on a high note. As interested as I, as a fan, may be in latter day albums like Brutal Planet and The Eyes of Alice Cooper, they don’t really fit in with the story that has been told.

As with most rockumentaries, there is barely a critical word uttered. I guess that’s to be expected, but it wouldn’t have gone amiss when discussing the early 1980s, when Alice was making albums that he claims he was too wasted to have any recollection of recording. Rather than admit that he made some under par records, they simply gloss over it. Which is a shame, because he was scary as fuck in that period;



The only major criticism I have as a fan is that there isn’t much discussing Cooper’s music. Although his influence has perhaps been more visual than musical, this means the strength and eclecticism of his back catalogue is often forgotten. Bob Dylan agrees (he told Rolling Stone in the late 70s that Cooper is “an overlooked songwriter”). The film sort of inaccurately reinforces that, spending a lot more time focusing on the stage antics than the band probably did.

Out of the peers and famous fans interviewed, there isn’t really anyone surprising and nearly all from hard rock/punk (Iggy Pop and Dee Snider show up, and John Lydon predictably comes across as an utter twat. Again. Can‘t stand that tosser). If you’re going to reinforce the influence of the stage act, why not mention the influence he had upon other genres? Adam Ant? Boy George? Lady Ga Ga? All confessed fans and admirers and not hard rock acts. Hell, Michael Jackson stole so many aspects of Coop’s stage act that he should really be called out for it. A pre-Ziggy Stardust David Bowie was supposedly at Alice’s first UK shows. That’s huge. And Penn Jilette (of magicians Penn & Teller) claims that he counts Alice Cooper as the first “magic” show he ever saw that he actually enjoyed. I really think they missed a trick there.

Also - as an atheist - I find it difficult to swallow Alice’s “God saved me/it was a miracle” schtick when talking about his alcohol/cocaine recovery (if it was a miracle, why did you fall into cocaine abuse when you recovered from your alcoholism? Answer that one, Coop).

However, all in all, it is an interesting and fun watch. It does show where Alice went right where other similar artists didn’t; the satire, the smart humour and willingness to change with the times is the thing that bands that followed in a similar fashion, such as KISS or Marylin Manson, were greatly missing. The Alice Cooper show was as funny as it was scary, and that is made abundantly clear. Overall, it does it’s job - I went home and listened to Billion Dollar Babies.

RockDocs: Color Me Obsessed - A Film About The Replacements

The notion of making a documentary on a band without using any of their music, footage, album covers or even pictures seems ludicrous. But, then, The Replacements were a ludicrous band. Their mystique has maintained in all this time, stories continue to circulate in an “I was there when…” fashion. They were the best band in the world. They were the worst band in the world. You either got it, or you didn’t. So why spoil it now?



The opening credits reveal that this “a potentially true story”, and proceeds in a ramshackle way. The only remotely musical thing that you hear is feedback. But it works. The Replacements, and front man/chief songwriter Paul Westerberg in particular, are notoriously difficult in allowing their music to be used on any old shit. Thus, it is unclear whether the film was designed in this way, or if rights to the band’s catalogue were impossible to secure. Director Gorman Bechard insists it was designed this way. But it is typical of The Replacements that a documentary on them would not feature them at all.

This is the ultimate band of misfits (except maybe The Misfits). A “fuck you” attitude to everybody. They were one of only five bands banned from Saturday Night Live, and the only one banned for their backstage antics (given that this is a show built by out-of-control addicts, that’s quite an achievement). It wasn’t unheard of for them to end shows by literally physically fighting on stage. They had songs as painful and beautiful as Here Comes a Regular and Unsatisfied, with songs like Gary’s Got a Boner and Dope Smoking Moron providing ample juxtaposition. Their first major music video for the MTV generation featured just four straight minutes of a close-up of a speaker, with each and every video from that album being exactly the same (although, one of them was in colour). And that’s just what happened publicly.

Their spectre looms large throughout, as fans - both famous and not (including, bizarrely, Norm from Cheers)- spin stories. They almost become mythical, as fables and Chinese whispers (is that racist? I don’t know) come thick and fast; Tommy Stinson dropped out of high school by going into the headmasters office and blasting the Stink track Fuck School from a cassette player. Bob Stinson once played an entire show in a bin, which fell over during a guitar solo. They once played a sober show of all their own material that was technically very good, and it was considered one of their worst shows. Are these stories true? “Potentially”.

And all of those stories are great. They really are. They’re entertaining and funny and shocking and all the rest of it. But, the heart and soul of the movie comes from the personal experiences of the fans. The most emotional point comes from a group of fans discussing the impact the band’s songs had on their lives as teenagers. Teenagers who didn’t fit in, teenagers who were outcasts. Westerberg’s constant lyrical tightrope walk between the pain that one can feel in those situations, and the humour he can’t help but bring to the party, struck a chord with everyone who “got” The Replacements. Unsatisfied from Let It Be (yes, they had the balls to call an album Let It Be) is referenced as one of their finest, and the lyrics to that one seem particularly apt to someone of that age;

Look me in the eye
Then tell me that I’m satisfied
Was you satisfied?

Before reaching a jaded age of kids, a mortgage and responsibility, that’s a question of most people’s minds. Add that to Westerberg’s delivery of sheer pain, which makes Mick Jagger sound positively satisfied.



Something else that strikes you is the differing opinions of everybody interviewed; The Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon says that everything you love about alternative bands today is in “an album called Tim”. Somebody else thinks Tim sucks. Some say they lost it after Bob Stinson was fired, others say their first without him, Pleased To Meet Me, was their best album. Some hate that they added horns to Can’t Hardly Wait, others are offended that people didn’t know enough about rock ‘n’ roll to not expect horns on Can’t Hardly Wait. It all adds to the interest in a band who don’t care…but they kind of do care…but, fuck it, they don’t care.

The film stretches their formation, as a band formed solely to keep troubled kid Tommy out of trouble, to their onstage break up in Chicago in 1991, where towards the end of the gig, one by one, The Replacements were “replaced” by their roadies, told entirely through the eyes of fans and is possibly the best illustration of the band I have ever come across, including their records (which don’t prepare you for their shambolically brilliant live shows.

The one negative I would say is that the ending goes on a bit. As summaries and conclusions go, I think 15 minutes or so is a little too long.

If you know nothing about The ‘Mats, this may sometimes be difficult to follow. For example, discussing the front covers to Let It Be and Tim without seeing them renders the discussion moot to many. However, even for those people, the passion of those interviewed is often a heartwarming, particularly if there’s ever a band you have loved like a friend or family member. And if you don’t know much about them and you see the film…hey, you might be inspired to go check them out. If you love The ‘Mats, you’ll be digging out Hootenanny immediately after.

It's difficult to make a documentary on a band without using their music without it coming across as something from the Bio channel or E! But Bechard has pulled it off.