Hollywood Vampires- Hollywood Vampires (2015)

Hollywood Vampires- Hollywood Vampires (2015)

By: Ghost Writer

My first rock concert ever was when Alice Cooper came to Monterrey in 1980, I wasn't even 5 at the time but my father took me with him, it was an unusual rock concert celebrated at daylight because the then repressive authorities in Mexico feared that the night may favor disturbances or riots, I can’t remember it too clearly, but I can´t forget this guy that I saw in The Muppet Show dancing on a stage with a constrictor boa in his neck, Alice Cooper was not definite at his all-time best, but he was fighting to get back, and that’s a permanent story with Alice, a superb singer, songwriter and performer who can´t never be counted out, no matter what happens, always coming back to haunt or nightmares, this shock rock legend might not be seen these days with the same mix of  terror and awe like in the old days, as he is no longer close to controversy, and he even might be seen more like a conservative (a declared Republican), golf playing, rock celebrity, once a powerful rocker, but now a part of a boring rock elite who now make boring senseless records like Along Came a Spider, that betrays his late revival within the Hard Rock world with hit records like multi-platinum Trash or the ambitious strong showing of Welcome 2 My Nightmare.

But before you think that Alice would be lending his vocals to a new version of Elected along morons like Donald Trump, Cooper still has honorable friends who look like have been able to get Cooper back on track and into making good music again, so let's give the Cooper a new chance by listening to his latest crazy project with "guitarist" Johnny Depp, yes, the Edward Scissorhands guy, Tim Burton alter ego who supposedly plays guitar here, Depp might be a good actor, but I can't tell if he is a good musician, but one thing I can tell you is that along Cooper, Depp has good rock n roll friends and together they throw awesome rock n roll parties, the last of them called Hollywood Vampires, and while we wait impatiently to Cooper returns with his former partners of the 70s, when there was a band called Alice Cooper, HV is a good beginning.

Featuring a powerful Christopher Lee intro, followed quickly by original tune Raise the Dead, the Hollywood Vampires debut recording is surely a great warm up for Alice Cooper before an announced return to his shock rock roots, the presence of Depp might not be felt in a notorious way having met the Coop during Tim Burton's Dark Shadows filming, Hollywood Vampires is the perfect excuse for Cooper to get along some heavy weights of rock music, including Brian Johnson, Perry Farrell, Zac Starkey, Joe Perry, Robby Krieger and Sir Paul McCartney.

Hollywood Vampires is quite a nice rock n roll experience, there's a powerful Led Zeppelin cover of Whole Lotta Love featuring the amazing vocals of AC/DC's ex front man Brian Johnson, a man whose voice sounds so mind blowing liberated from the Young brothers realm, with a vocal range as explosive as the original Robert Plant performance, and you have to thank Cooper for the recovery of a first grade psychedelic classic named I Got a Line on You originally by the great little known band called Spirit, and then comes a homage to one of Cooper's legendary drinking buddies, Jim Morrison, with the enormous aid of the legendary original keyboardist of the band.

What Hollywood Vampires comes to prove is how wonderful Cooper (whose Cold Turkey is covered latter here) still is as rock singer, coming as an ultra-bizarre, zombie version of John Lennon to on One/Jump Into the Fire, an original by the great Harry Nilsson, coincidentally a great buddy of Lennon.

The biggest presence on the record is surely that of Sir Paul McCartney, who brings an enormously joyous versions of his classic Come and Get It, a song he gave to another legendary band by the name Badfinger, here performed by Paul in a truly wild manner, followed by a stupendous cover of Jeepster, with the Coop again sounding wonderful here, reminding us that despite the years, Cooper hasn’t forget his rock n roll roots, at a time when his decadent act was clashing in Detroit with other outrageous rock acts like Kiss, yes, Cooper was the antithesis of glam, and a very decadent one, with its first notorious records tutored by none other than the great Frank Zappa.

The record ends with Cooper's classic School's Out (without the Muppets, of course) but featuring part of the original 70s band, signaling the return of a monster adding Johnson's sinister vocals and even daring to pay homage to megalomaniac producer Bob Erin (who produces the record, by the way…) by deviating into a crazed Another Brick in the Wall high octane cover that prove that Alice Cooper is still the dark creatures who gets inside our dreams in order to turn them into really cool rock n roll nightmares, yes, he is back and about to make another big comeback yet, I guess is an ever going process with Cooper.