Alice Cooper - Live At The Whisky A-Go-Go 1969 (1992) {Japan 1st Press}

1969 was the year that Alice Cooper released their first album, Pretties For You. It was a strange album for the time, and is still quite strange by today's standards. Amidst gems that really showed what was to come from the group, such as "sing low, sweet cheerio", "fields of regret", and "changing arranging", were strange tidbit ideas of songs clocking in at 2 minutes or less, featuring odd vocal stylings, unexpected and frequent tempo changes and start-stop rhythms. This live album, recorded at the record's release party is a great window into the band's workings at the time. The quality far surpasses that of the much easier to find toronto rock'n'roll revival set from the same time period, and features a much more diverse setlist. Songs like "Levity Ball", "Sing Low, Sweet Cheerio",and "Nobody Likes Me" are performed exceptionally well here, but the bands more experimental tracks ("10 minutes before the worm", "bb on mars") prove very difficult to perform live and the performances of these tracks presented here are not without their share of obvious flaws. This record's most redeeming quality is the guitar playing of a young Glen Buxton. I dont care what anyone else says, this album represents Glen in his prime. His lines are often improvised here, and creatively played. He traces scales in flat-out unconventional ways and weaves in and out of the music with perfect finesse. Later in the band's career Glen's playing would suffer due to health problems and alcoholism, but Live at the Whiskey 1969 shows how truly remarkable of a musician he was, maybe not in his technicality, but in the creative construction and unconventional style of his playing.

If you are a fan of Alice Cooper's first album "Pretties For You" you will love this. It consists of live versions of songs from that album plus a live version of "Nobody Likes Me", a song from the same period that has turned up in demo form on the "Old School" and "Life And Crimes..." box sets. The sound quality of the recording is great and highlights the band in all their early glory. In 1969 Alice Cooper was of course a band (not just a singer) and they hadn't yet met producer Bob Ezrin who transformed them into the Alice Cooper most people will know better - "I'm Eighteen", "School's Out", "Elected" and so on. Fans of the Ezrin-produced Alice Cooper group and of the singer's later solo work ("Welcome To My Nightmare", "Poison" and so on) should tread warily as this early music is very different - psychedelic and more than a little odd. Check out some YouTube examples before purchase! For those of us who love "Pretties For You" and "Easy Action" it is an essential purchase. As I mentioned before the sound quality of this early live recording is great! My only wish is that there were more of it - it clocks in at under 27 minutes.

This is a great live recording. The sound quality is excellent and the band is in top form. The lyrics to Fields of Regret are completely different than the studio release of Easy Action. The Alice Cooper Group were way out there musically as well as visually. Can you imagine seeing them in 1969? Who could have come close to that ? Grateful Dead in 68? Frank Zappa? The arrangements are very complicated with off timings and 3/4 time signatures. At first listen, they don't sound like they have any talent, but they sure know what they are doing I think you should get this.