This is not breaking news or anything, but Alice Cooper was once in a 60s garage punk band. In fact, most of original Alice Cooper band were. They were called The Spiders and they kicked ass. Now, aside from their name, there was nothing too spooky about the band, but Alice is the king of Halloween and one of my favorites ever and I love 60s garage rock—so a chance to combine the two is one I’m going to take.
If you’ve got The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper box set, you’ve got three of their tunes. “Don’t Blow Your Mind”, “Hitchhike” and “Why Don’t You Love Me”. According to Wikipedia, “Why Don’t You Love Me” and “Hitchhike”, both covers (the latter was also covered by the Rolling Stones), were on a self-released single from 1965.
The “Don’t Blow Your Mind” single was released in 1996, and it came with “No Price Tag” as the B-side (for some reason “No Price Tag” was not included on the box set…it is, however, available on the killer garage punk compilation Back from the Grave volume 7!).
In 1998, Sundazed released a 7” that included “Why Don’t You Love Me”, Hitchhike”, “Don’t Blow Your Mind” and an instrumental version of “Why Don’t You Love Me”. Again, “No Price Tag” is excluded for some reason?
By 1967, the pounding, stomping and snarling of the 65/66 punk scene had all but ended. Everyone from The Stones to The Who to The kinks were morphing into the acid-fueled flower power psychedelia of the late 60s, and The Spiders were no different. They changed their name briefly to The Nazz (not to be confused with Todd Rundgren’s band of the same name) and cut one single before changing their name again to Alice Cooper and recording the fuzzed out psyche trip that is Pretties For You.
The four tracks above are not specifically spooky or Halloween-y, but they are raw and primal and punk rock. Maybe save them for 12:01 am on November 1st, and throw them on the smash all your jack o’ lanterns to.
(pic via the excellent unofficial Alice Cooper website Sick Things UK: http://www.sickthingsuk.co.uk/)
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