Me, Alice: The Autobiography of Alice Cooper

Shep had a surprise waiting in New York, although I can tell you we weren’t happy about it. His name was Billy. Billy was another in a series of road managers that Shep seemed to find for us under rocks, or in brothels, or in Billy’s case, fresh out of military prison. He was waiting for Shep in the busy lobby of the Allison Hotel in Greenwich Village, grinning and sweating as he pumped our arms up and down.

Billy’s job, by its very nature, was only for losers. Road managers were unpaid, overworked dolts who got nothing out of the job except room and board. There was always the promise of Easy Street when things got good, but who would have put their future in our hands? S o we were mothered and corralled by an astounding collection of ex-junkies, junkies, ex-prizefighters and loafers.

Billy had been arrested in the marines for stealing a radio, I believe. I don’t remember the details except that Shep picked him up on his way out of military prison on the occasion of his dishonourable discharge. Billy took the job, in part, because he didn’t think handling a rock group would be much different than handling a bunch of guys in the marines. Boy, was he wrong.

I made it up to the hotel room first and took choice of the beds, a matter of great importance and dispute between us. When I saw the room, an oilcloth and wallpapered cubicle, I knew I would get the crabs. I was waiting for my roommates, Neal and Glen, when I met the first of the drag queens.

I had been courted by drag queens before in LA, but in New York they latch on to us like we were the Welcome Wagon from Max Factor. It was almost as if some sort of alarm system was set off in transvestite bars all over the city, sending them swishing up to the Allison where they lined the hallways and lobbies for three days.

When I heard the knock I thought it was Glen and Neal. I never expected to see a transvestite outside the door. I think I screamed a little, like aargh! I even tried to slam the door in his face, but he stuck his foot in the doorjamb and said, “Oh, baby, have I been waiting for you!”

The elevator hall opened across the hall and Neal and Glen got out. Neal had a girl with big tits on his arm.

“Alice found a girlfriend already,” he said.

“Alice!” the drag queen repeated blissfully. “Alice. I love it, love it, love it to death. Where’d you get a name like Alice?”

We all walked into the room together and the drag queen started a monologue about New York when Glen howled, “Where’s my guitar? Where’s my guitar?” He tossed suitcases aside, looked under the bed and in the bathroom. He ran out into the hallway banging on doors, screaming for Billy to come help him. Billy ran out into the hall in his underwear with a girl in bra and panties trailing him.

“Where’s my guitar?” Glen screamed. “My thousand-dollar Les Paul is missing. My pink Les Paul! I gave it to you fifteen minutes ago!”

“Well,” Billy asked him, blinking, “was it on the elevator with the other stuff?” There was no consoling Glen. He ran up and down all the floors of the hotel knocking on doors and cursing. He ranted and screamed and fired Billy, which Billy paid no attention to.

The next day, in order to play the Felt Forum, Glen had to rent a guitar, and he said it knocked his performance off. Not that anyone would have noticed. The crowd at the Forum acted as if nobody was on the stage. They didn’t seem to mind us very much, and that was encouraging. I’d call it “silent fascination.” When it was over there was light applause, but at least no booing.

The gig we really cared about in New York was at Steve Paul’s Scene. Like the Hullabaloo Club in Los Angeles, the Scene attracted a music business crowd, and that was important to us, but more important than that, the Scene attracted the media. Like Max’s Kansas City after it, it was the headquarters for pop culture and the avant-garde in New York. Steve Paul’s own reputation as a trend-setter had made the club into the enormous power it was, and Paul was hardly twenty-three at the time.

The Scene was ominous physically, a murky little club where instead of suntans and surfers, like we were used to in LA, we found greenish complexions and ageing hipsters hiding behind sunglasses. The audience at the Scene was like the audience at the Felt Forum grown up. They were immovably blase. The ice melting in their glasses was the only indication they had body temperature.

We got on stage and made our noise and beat each other up and turned on a fire extinguisher and they didn’t raise an eyebrow. These people had lived through Warhol and Lou Reed and Theater of the Ridiculous for centuries. Alice Cooper? Thirteenth-century witch? Go home, little boys.