15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Whatever happened to......, June 27, 2001
This review is from: No More Mr Nice Guy: The Inside Story of the Alice Cooper Group (Paperback)
Michael Bruce was the meat and potatoes of the Alice Cooper Group. He penned all of the classic Cooper hits, I'm Eighteen, Be My Lover, No More Mr. Nice Guy, to name a few. Then the group broke up, Alice was onstage with dancing spiders and Michael Bruce, Glen Buxton, Neal Smith and Dennis Dunaway faded into obscurity. I read the first edition of this book in 1997 and was surprised and amused by Michael's tales of starvation and stardom. This book has it all, from the group's days as the Spiders, the ACG's rise to the top in '73, to the group's attempt to reclaim their fame without Alice. Michael reveals what he's been up to for the past 25 years and what the other band members have done with their lives. The updated version of NMMNG contains information about the ACG mini-reunions, Glen Buxton's death and Michael's latest musical accomplishments. If you ever wondered what happened to this Billion Dollar Baby, you gotta have this book!
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31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Better Songwriter Than Memoirist - But The Story's Good, September 16, 2001
This review is from: No More Mr Nice Guy: The Inside Story of the Alice Cooper Group (Paperback)
Maybe Michael Bruce should have hired a ghost writer. But don't hold it against him. Until a better writer happens along, this will probably have to be the definitive account of Alice Cooper's early life---as in, when the name indicated a band first and foremost, even if the lead singer decided to adopt the name as his own stage name, too---if only because it comes from the man who was probably the real most valuable player in the band.
Though they began as a gang of rabble-and-rollers who also had a sense of the absurd which veered between the surreal and the downright insane (you have to hear their very first album, the Frank Zappa-produced "Pretties For You," to understand), it didn't take long before Alice Cooper began shaping into a slashing band with hooks to burn---the maturity which began on their second album ("Easy Action") and all but exploded on their third ("Love It To Death"). They may have been a rather watered-down and cartooned-up version of the Stooges' genuine teenage-wasteland angst, but there was no escaping the quick grip of songs like "Eighteen," "Under My Wheels," "Be My Lover," "Caught In A Dream," "School's Out," "You Drive Me Nervous," "Dead Babies," "Gutter Cat Vs. The Jets," "No More Mr. Nice Guy," and "Billion Dollar Baby." And it was predominantly Michael Bruce---who was actually the better musician between the band's two guitarists, though fellow guitarist Glen Buxton usually earned the raves for the spiky lead guitar work even when he didn't play it (which, beginning with the impossibly best-selling "Billion Dollar Babies," was damn near all the time; the stories abounded about the band using unseen guitarists to cover for Buxton while Bruce actually switched between lead and rhythm guitar onstage)---who provided the hooks and the overall balanced structure that made the songs workable even without the stage act whose shock value, in hindsight, wore off into self-parody rather quickly.
It probably should have surprised no one that the overworked Alice Cooper five delivered something less than their front line with 1974's "Muscle of Love." But what happened next proves somewhat tawdry---announcing a temporary hiatus for the band, on the pretext of regrouping and refreshing, Cooper the singer cut a well-received solo album ("Welcome To My Nightmare") with most of the band he swiped from Lou Reed (the famed "Rock and Roll Animal" group, spearhead by twin guitar slingers Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner)...and then some solo concerts with a few new variations on his old stage tricks...then another solo album...a few hit singles (especially 1977's surprisingly masterful and haunting ballad, "You And Me")...another couple of solo albums, including a live album at least a third of which was stuff from the old band. Meanwhile, the old band twisted in the wind and figured out the hard way that Alice Cooper the singer had no intention of ever reuniting Alice Cooper the band. (Almost a year and a half later, while Cooper was riding his slowly swelling solo success, the band gave interviews in which they assured one and all that yes, they were only on temporary vacation and they were just waiting for Alice to pass the word it was time to rock again.)
The band was fool enough to try it on their own for awhile (minus Buxton, apparently), changing the name to Billion Dollar Babies, and cutting an album which had plenty missing beginning with the foolishness of their new name. From there, they drifted apart to various ventures none of which came even close to their old glory, and practically the whole world forgot Alice Cooper was born as a band.
As all but the musical director of that band, Bruce has all the reason in the world to be bitter over their shabby treatment. He may not be David Niven as a show business memoirist, but given his limitations as a prose writer he's telling a story fans of the 1970s (remember: Alice Cooper the band was the hottest act in American show business from 1971-73) and of Alice Cooper will want to know, and if you get past his stylistic flaws as a writer you'll be surprised at how well he keeps the bitterness down to a dull roar and still has a stubborn pride (as he should) in what he did accomplish.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is the real Alice Cooper !, January 3, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: No More Mr Nice Guy: The Inside Story of the Alice Cooper Group (Paperback)
The Alice Cooper you see today is not the same Alice Cooper that roamed the earth from 1971-1973. The Alice Cooper of the early 70's was a fearsome T-Rex which ravaged the souls of their young fans like myself. I was 12 years old when I saw them perform on ABC's In Concert in 1972. The sound of this band live was truly mind bending and permanently damaging. Alice Cooper was Mike Bruce-guitar-song writer, Neal Smith-drums, Dennis Dunaway-bass, Glen Buxton-guitar, Shep Gordon-manager, Bob Ezrin-producer and Alice Cooper aka Vincent Furnier-lead vocals. This book, written by one of the founding members of the group shows another point of view not commonly heard about those early years and how the original group finally broke apart. This book is probably just for fans of Alice Cooper past and present. I don't imagine the general public has much interest in this but for fans I think it might be interesting to know what Alice Cooper really was back then. They were a force to be reckoned with and I believe it was the overall synergy, the whole being greater than the parts that makes something happen but the parts begin to think they're greater than the whole and they lose it. To me, Alice Cooper was over for me when the original band split. I moved on to other bands like Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Aerosmith. This is a refreshing perspective on what was and what is now. I liked it, although it seems too short. I read it in 2 days, would've read it in one if I had more time but I still enjoyed it. If your an AC fan I think you'll like it too.
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