I'm going to spend the first part of this review talking about a different LP. In 1975 Alice released his 'Welcome to My Nightmare' album, followed by a promotional world tour. Well, I say world tour. What actually happened was after touring MOST of the world, the Australian Labour and Immigration Minister banned Alice from bringing the show to Australia and so the New Zealand leg was also put on hold.
It wasn't until 16 months later on 14th March 1977 that Alice set foot on an Australian stage (Perth) to begin the Oceania part of the long awaited tour and it was 4th April '77 - the very last performance of 'Welcome To My Nightmare' at Western Springs in Auckland when I finally got to see men dressed as giant spiders climbing an enormous web, dancers in a graveyard projected onto a screen that then split and allowed the live figures onto the stage and Alice singing that he was 'No More Mr. Nice Guy', there were 'Billion Dollar Babies' and 'Only Women Bleed'. Songs from the named 'Welcome .. ' album as well as back catalogue stuff.
OK, that's the backstory. 4th April 1977, I saw Alice live in concert. 29th April 1977, Alice released this album 'Lace and Whiskey'.
I must have still been buzzing from the concert, I went out and bought the album unheard.
I bet you've all got one. You know what I mean. An album, or a tape or a CD that you bought, listened to once and then apart from when you redecorated or moved house, it never left the shelf again. This is one of those albums.
Seemingly trying to create a new persona and theme, for this album Alice became Maurice Escargot, some sort of 40's or 50's fictional private investigator. The album cover shows a cheap crime novel called 'Lace and Whiskey' with reviewer comments and a photo of the author on the back along with props to reinforce the impression - a handgun, bullets, whiskey bottle. The record inner sleeve is a full photo of Alice in character. The whole problem is, despite all these images and sets creating the illusion, the music doesn't carry it through.
There was even a tour to promote the album called "King of the Silver Screen" named after one of the tracks, but it only ran in the US and Canada in the summer of '77 and '78 and by the second year it was renamed "School’s Out for Summer". Of the 19 songs in the setlist, only 4 came from this album.
There were two songs released as singles from the album. 'You and Me', which got to #9 in the Billboard Hot 100, was a soft rock ballad and '(No More) Love At Your Convenience' was disco-pop - keep in mind this is Alice Cooper we're talking about - but that second single did nothing, everywhere. There were a couple more slow numbers, some solid rock and then there was the only cover, 'Ubangi Stomp'. This is a rockabilly song written by Charles Underwood and first released in 1956. Do you want the Bob Dylan connection? The original is included on "Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, Volume 3", a compilation album of songs from Bob's Sirius XM radio show.
It's not all doom and gloom. For the sake of this review after 40+ years I had another listen. IMHO this album fails on a number of levels. It promotes to be a themed entity but has no theme, the songs are unrelated and have no flow or structure and the style isn't constant. However, taken individually there are some listenable tracks.
"Road Rats', a song about the band roadies, has some gutsy playing and full-bellied noise. 'It's Hot Tonight' and the title track 'Lace and Whiskey' feel like standard Alice. With additional people like Bob Ezrin on keyboards, Jim Gordon on drums (ex Derek and the Dominoes, he unfortunately had mental problems and killed his mother in 1983) and one of the world's best bassists Tony Levin, the album stands up on a technical level, but you have to pick and choose the ones worth listening to.
Vincent Damon Furnier, you've done better work than this.
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