Is There A Frank Zappa Fan In The House That Can Answer This Question?

[Intelsucks]

I remember hearing a very long time ago that Frank Zappa "discovered" Alice Cooper and helped him get his start. I was a huge Alice Cooper fan back in my teenage years... I still am kind of... I pull out the earlier stuff every once in a while.

The first two or three Alice Cooper albums were originally released on a label called "Straight Records", then later Warner Brothers Records picked him up.

Does anyone know the affiliation between Frank Zappa and Straight Records, if there is any at all? Also, I think Alice Cooper was from Detroit, MI... Was Zappa from there as well? How did they cross paths?

Sure, I could Google it and probably find out what I want to know, but it's more fun to talk about it. I do not own even one Frank Zappa record... Let the floggings begin... :spank:

[flamingyouth]

1. My favorite Alice Cooper record on Straight

is "Pretties For You." To be honest, I love all the Alice Cooper stuff with the original band, before theatrics got the best of him.

AFAIK, Alice isn't from Detroit, but they moved there for a while in the late '60s. My husband knows all about this stuff; I will ask him when he gets back home. I think Alice (nee Vince Furnier) is originally from Arizona.

On edit: Alice was born in Detroit, but moved to Arizona at a young age. (I just looked that up on the IMDB.)

[Intelsucks]

2. I'm kind of partial to "Easy Action" myself

Eaaaasy action... got a rocket in your pocket!

[flamingyouth]

5. I like that too

But Pretties For You is just so weird; it's very 1969. And their outfits on the back are hilarious beyond words.

[Intelsucks]

10. I had to hunt at record conventions to find those records.

I ended up with two copies of each. One a little scratched... then found a better copy later of each one. It's no fun anymore after you find them. The thrill of the hunt is gone.

[mitchum]

9. I love the painting on the cover of "Pretties For You"...

also just like the general fucked up sound of the record. Check out Lee Harvey Oswald Band's "In Prison" for a 90s record which always puts me in mind of "Pretties For You"

[Intelsucks]

11. I don't know all of the specifics, but if you find a copy with a sticker

covering the panties of the girl lifting up her skirt, it's worth quite a bit of money. I think they even used different colored stickers on different pressings. Record collecting fascinates me to no end. They always throw in little twists to force you to hunt something down.

Collecting CD's is just so :boring:

[Character Assassin]

3. Check out this link for the contract itself

http://www.alicecooper.co.uk/main%20areas/contract.htm

[Intelsucks]

7. damn, sometimes the internet is TOO good!

Thanks for the link!:thumbsup:

[mac56]

4. Zappa and his bizness manager Herb Cohen

started two labels at once in the late 60s: Bizarre and Straight. Both were distributed by WEA. Alice Cooper and others (GTOs, Captain Beefheart) was signed by the two labels. Later in the early 70s they added the DiscReet label, also distributed by WEA. Eventually, Zappa and Cohen had a parting of the ways.

[mitchum]

6. I believe that Straight? Bizarre was a boutique label that Warner

provided for Zappa. Also inluded Wildman Fischer and the GTOs. Zappa was impressed by Alice Cooper's ability to clear a room. Furnier said that Zappa actually provided very little production assistance on the records.

[Intelsucks]

18. His ability to clear a room? Meaning the music was bizarre?

:shrug:

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. Yes, there IS a Frank Zappa fan in the house!

We actually have ourselves scheduled so that there is never a moment when a Zappa fan isn't available and on-call. That's our gift to you, the questioning masses.

Sadly, though, I have little info on Cooper/Zappa. If memory serves, they met in LA in the fantastic 60s time of experimentalism. I don't know the specifics, but I believe that Zappa that Cooper was great after seeing him, and helped him get his first recording contract. Possibly Frank recorded Cooper himself, but I don't know.

I don't want to say anything else, since I'm probably already in the domain of the wrong.

[Intelsucks]

12. So if I wanted to explore Zappa's catalog, where should I start?

Other than "watching where the Huskies go, and not eating that yellow snow", I really don't know too much. The Austin Record Convention is coming up in a couple of months... Maybe I'll buy 20 of his records?

[teach1st]

15. Why, Zappa.com, of course!

http://www.zappa.com/bandwidth-select.shtml

I'm an old guy and so am partial to his early work - pre-Apostrophe.

[Rabrrrrrr]

16. 20?

I'd start with at least 40 albums to get a feel for his music. :-)

Some of his "You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore" CD sets have music from his whole career, so pick up a few of them and on one disc you travel through 30 years of Zappa's music. That's a good starting point.

Or, if you want a real legitimate sort of experience, start with Freak Out, his first album, and yuo'll be experiencing Zappa just as the world did, from the beginning.

And to hear one of his bands at the real peak of their skill, and some of my fave Zappa music, get the You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore vol. that's called "The Helsinki Concert" - I think it's Vol. 2, might Vol. 3. That one is just one concert, straight through, with what I think was Zappa's best line-up.

And for hilarious and accurate political nastiness, get "Broadway The Hard Way", a collection of tunes he did, some new stuff and old stuff with the words changed, from his '88 tour, and it's all bitingly satiric. I especially like "Jesus Thinks You're A Jerk" and "Any Kind of Pain" (about women who blidnly follow whatever madison avenue tells them to look like).

And of course, you have to have at least one of his orchestral CDs - I'd suggest Zappa and the LSO Vol. I, but really, any of them would be fine. Or Yellow Shark.

And . . well, there are so many, really. Just go grab a few - whatever you grab will be good. It's all excellent, and all very different.

[Intelsucks]

17. Thanks, I'll be on the hunt.

Artists with that much material scare me because I tend to be somewhat of a completist when it comes to accumulating vinyl records.
:crazy:

[teach1st]

14. I don't think Zappa produced the first Album

Zappa was supposed to produce the first AC album, but couldn't. I think it was produced by Mother Ian Underwood.

Edit: Forgot a great Zappa discography:

http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/zappa/albums/

[utopian]

13. Alice Cooper was part of the LA scene

Along with the Doors, the Mothers, and tons of other bands of the time. Their drag show weirdness attracted Zappa, who wanted to record them. From what I understand, their relationship wasn't exactly harmonious. One story relates the AC band showing up to Zappa's home studio in Laurel Canyon early one morning "ready to make a record" or somesuch. Zappa met them buck naked, fresh out of bed, and he wasn't too happy, being a musician and all.

There's an Alice autobiography called "I Alice" that relates his side of the story. I think it's out of print, but some fan web sites have downloadable copies.