V.I.P. part 2

So, after the show, we had to wait by the backstage door and then we all trooped downstairs to the canteen. There was only 9 of us, so I was hopeful that we'd get a longish time with Alice.................Andy and Toby kept us amused with tales of the venue history and how it was once used to sell slaves at auction......there was apparently an underground passage leading to the hall from the docks so that the slaves could get there unobserved by Joe Public.............


Karen Ann Hunter (she is so lovely) gave out the bags with T shirts and set lists etc and, thenAlice appeared with KC (his PA) and sat at the adjacent table. 'I know you all personally he said - I think we'd all done VIP at least once before.
We all went over and sat with him in turn while he signed all our stuff, and KC took all the pictures. Alice was in great form and spoke to all of us, joking and laughing and being his usual charming self!









When my turn came I took over a huge pile of stuff for him to sign and gave KC my camera. Alice signed all my ancient LP covers, after asking me my name. When I said 'Penny', he said 'ah, Penelope.......and kept repeating it 'Penelope, Penelope, Penelope - only British girls can be called Penelope, it's the perfect British name' - and one I have always detested up til now, but I may have to change my mind because the way he said it made me weak at the knees...............why why WHY didn't I record it?
He was very interested in my scrapbook, picked it up and said ' What is this we have here?' and looked at every page!!! KC said 'Thank you., it's very kind of you to give it to us' so I almost handed it over there and then.........And then they offered me a job on their team........................................ oh wait , hang on........... no, that last part was just my daydream.............sigh......











Anyway, I managed to not to give it to him, by hauling out the pic I'd drawn and said 'well, actually, I did this for you', At this point Alice grabbed it and said 'This is how I see me now'!!!!!! He said it made him look like a movie star, and that Sheryl had fallen in love with his eyes, (haven't we all!) but just had to put up with the rest of him...........









He signed my captured dollar bill, CD, Yearbook (from the boxset), my jacket and of course, my scrapbook. He opened it and said ' you have pictures I don't have!! This must've taken you ages, all of 2-3 hours!! And as he looked through it, he read out several bits - 'All American college boy behind the transvestite juvenile delinquent alter-ego' ..........'Well, thanks very much, Nick Kent' and then said, 'Did you know my first album review of Pretties For You said it was a tragic waste of plastic'.....

He stopped on a page of Glen Buxton pictures and remenisced ' Ah GB! Glen Buxton.... , he was my best friend you know, and we were drinking buddies'.......and I said 'it's a shame he didn't give it up when you did'........
I asked him whether we would ever get to see him play in the UK with Mike, Neal and Dennis, but something sidetracked him so I never got an answer to that....
Then I got him to sign my jacket - he put 'Alice Cooper was here' I am so proud of it, that I have worn it everywhere since....
He told us that he and Bob had a lot of fun making W2MN, he was very 'happy with it' and would be doing I Am Made Of You on his next show - (think he meant next tour)









I love this picture - at this point he was stroking my hair and saying, 'There there, the men in white coats will be along to get you soon...'

All in all we had about an hour with him, which flew by of course, and I am now saving madly for VIP next year. It seems to more you see of him, the more you want.......What a lovely lovely guy he is, - Love Him To Death..
Next stop - Birmingham, the BFI, Ally Pally and Never Mind The Buzzcocks.....

Oh No!!!!!

Terrible news - my scrapbook is full up. Not exactly finished, there's still a lot of scribbling to be done, but all the pages are covered in pics and ink and stuff, and the front cover is done.....what on earth am I going to do now? (in between washing/housework/cooking/ shopping/going to work/ironing ......) (Actually that last one is a LIE, I never do ironing if it can possibly be avoided, lol)
Well, obviously, I went straight out and bought another book and I will probably stick the covers together somehow to make one huge mega scrapbook. If this carries on, eventually it will be as wide as my hymnbook.....but I am having such fun doing it, there's no way I'm ready to stop now. And anyway, he'll be touring again soon(ish) so there'll be lots more photos to put in. Especially if I get my way and go to at least three concerts. .....(haven't told hubby that one yet, I think he might come to one with me, but will prob'ly think I'm bats cos I want to go again and again, lol.) I need to be nearer the front this time - that probably means standing in a queue for several hours, but it'll be worth it as I need to catch some freebie dollar bills and 'Dirty Diamonds' when he throws 'em out. I believe he even gives out some of his other props sometimes, like the canes he's always twirling, but I'll settle for a Billion Dollar Note - lets face it, no Alice scrapbook would be complete without one.


Some early group pictures - I think the one of the left was when they were still the Spiders or maybe it was the Nazz, and it was before they got into make up and girls clothes.... (anything to shock people.)

These are great pictures of Alice with snake (Kachina? Or maybe it was Eva Marie Snake...or Yvonne.....or Julius Squeezer..?) anyway, they were taken by David Bailey in about 1971. Alice lost a few snakes while on tour - Kachina disappeared one night and they had to leave without her. Eventually they got a call from one Charlie White, country singer, who found a snake in his hotel room, hiding in the bed springs. Nice.

The pythons had to be fed several rats before they went on stage so they would be sleepy and not strangle Alice during the show.

These pages have some of my all time favourite Alice pics - I had a few of these on my bedroom wall and spent entire evenings just staring at them. Obviously I couldn't've got a lot of homework in those days.

Thought I'd better put some photos of my hymbook in - dunno whether it'll last another 30 years, so I wanted to have a record of it. Also on these pages are a couple of pics of yours truly, in my favourite dressing up outfit. I actually used to go out looking like this quite a lot, on the Tube up to Harrow tech for the Friday night gigs. It helped that I was thin enough to wear a leotard! These were taken in my friends bedroom where I had to change , because I don't think my mother would've let me out of the house looking like Alice., she never could understand my obsession, bless her.

Tribute page to some of the 32 albums Alice has released over the years. I had a big problem with this page in that when I'd finished it, I realised that it was upside down - oh well, never mind, I never really liked perfection anyway.

Still deliberating on whether to take the ten year old to a concert or not. I can just imagine being in the middle of Billion Dollar Babies or Schools Out (heaven forbid!)when she decides A) it's too loud, B) she can't see and can I lift her up (whose gonna lift me up?) Or C) she wants the loo/a drink/food, and I have no way of explaining to her that, while she normally comes first in pretty much everything, I'm afraid that Alice is more important right now, so she'll have to find some one else amongst the heaving crowd of scarily made up weirdos to take her (what a terrible mother I am)....................... no, it's no good, she'll have to wait a few more years. Although he has just celebrated his 63rd birthday, I hope for her sake he's not planning to retire soon........ I think we're safe for a while - he's always said he won't give up whilst Mick Jagger is still touring., so I won't panic til Mick hangs up his mike.

This is the front cover. I love this pic of the group - I think it came on the front of the music score for Schools Out, and although I bought it, I've never been able to play a note. I just had to have ANYTHING with Alice on it in those days. And I always wanted a T shirt with Bitch Bitch Bitch on it......never did get one :))

I have millions of old press cutting in the hymnbook, but they're kind of difficult to read, so I was very happy to find these copies online - it's nice to be able to read them again.

I could go on and on, but if you've made it this far, you deserve a medal. Thanks for looking xx

My first altered book

Since Hallowe'en, I have been immersing myself in all things Alice Cooper - looking at old drawings I did when I was 14, showing the kids vinyl (can we get a turntable, mum?), telling them how we swapped pictures at school, and also watching every Youtube video from the seventies I can find - this includes finally catching up with many events I read about but never saw, not having the internet in 1972, such as the The Chicken Incident, (contrary to rumour he didn't bite its head off and he really did think it would fly when he threw it back in to the audience), and Alice getting hanged onstage (Mum refused point blank to let me go to that concert, I cried for hours.)

Never did finish this pic - I was too afraid of getting the faces wrong and spoiling it, which is a joke really, when you look at all the stains on it, lol...


When I first saw an altered book about 6 years ago , I thought 'Aha, been there, done that' - because all those pictures of Alice I collected at school were stuck into my school hymnbook (to relieve the boredom of morning assembly). Then there was the Music Press - Melody Maker, NME, Sounds and Record Mirror (I think there was another one but it's name escapes me) Nearly every week during 1972 -1976 ish there was a review either of a concert Alice did, or a new album like Billion Dollar Babies, (I still have the banknote), and Schools Out (mine still has the paper knickers and is now signed *huge cheesy grin*,). And I cut out each and every review and stuck them into my hymnbook.

After not very long obviously, it became rather large and unwieldy, so I had to aquire another one for School Assembly purposes(I am really sorry to the poor first-year girl whose book I, er, borrowed, hope you didn't get into too much trouble).




















Half a mile of sellotape and a few years later, I had a book about 10 times fatter than it was designed to be, and it had to have it's own special box for transportation .......and I took it everywhere with me, parties, friends houses, and later on the pub. I think I was always hoping that I'd bump into him one day and be able to show it to him. The fact that he was Amercian and hardly likely to turn up in the Swan at Ruislip didn't seem to matter somehow.







Now, if only I could've found the wretched thing before Hallowe'en, I could've taken it with me and presented Alice with proof of my utter devotion for all those teenage years. But no, it got 'put away' somewhere during various house movings , and I couldn't find it in time, grrrrrrr.
EVENTUALLY I discovered it hidden in the loft, and it was with great excitement that I dragged it out from behind the box of 20 year old bank statements (WTF am I keeping them for?).

I opened the lid - and there it was in all its yellowed and faded glory. I eased it out of the box, and it promptly fell apart - selloptape does not last 35+ years. However, after some quick repairs and another mile of sellotape it can now stand up to gentle exercise, so I've been reading some of the reviews (including the spoof "Alice Cooper accidentally killed on stage when guillotine trick went wrong'), and looking at all the pictures (or what's left of them anyway) - and it is delightfully transporting me back to my little bedroom, where the walls and ceiling were completely plastered with pictures, photos, and anything else to do with Alice Cooper. Sigh.....I don't know why I wallow in nostalgia so much, but it makes me feel so...................well, tbh I'm not sure what it makes me feel, but I like it anyway :)))).............younger I suppose,lol.

So I think it's time I made another Alice book to celebrate actually meeting the guy at last - and this time it will be a lot more colourful and will possibly include the odd stamp.

Talking of Seventies videos this is a cracker....



Here's hoping that I will get to meet him again before we both drop dead - I think I'll need a suitcase next time to carry all the things I want him to sign.....