fartzarellah's Full Review: Pretties For You by Alice Cooper
In 1969, Alice Cooper had not yet become a household name. There was no black make-up, no hit songs, no big time producer. On Pretties For You what we get instead is a band of five young long hairs heavily influenced by Syd Barret era Pink Floyd, Zappa, the Beatles, and horror movie soundtracks, writing and playing highly original (if for some unlistenable) little tunes.
Several of the tracks are under two minutes long and more like abstract paintings (or road runner cartoon shorts) than "songs". Odd stops and starts, bizarre lyrics, strange chewing sounds, out of tune guitar bends, and wailing harmonica solos fill the disc from start to finish. Frank Zappa (who signed the band and was originally supposed to produce the album) said he wanted the finished product to sound like listening to a garage band turned up to ten as you zoom past them going 100 miles per hour. I've never done that, but I imagine it would sound a bit like this.
Tracks:
1. Titanic Overture
2. Ten minutes Before the Worm
3. Swing Low, Sweet Cheerio
4. Today Mueller
5. Living
6. Fields of Regret
7. No Longer Umpire
8. Levity Ball
9. B.B. On Mars
10. Reflected
11. Apple Bush
12. Earwigs to Eternity
13. Changing, Arranging
Quick overview of the tracks (if you don't want to go through them all, check out "Ten minutes" and "Levity Ball" for representative songs):
TITANIC OVERTURE
An instrumental featuring Michael Bruce playing a scary, otherwordly theme on a farfisa organ, which gives way to a depressing piano lick that fades out after about 5 seconds. An ominous, fitting beginning.
TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE WORM
It sounds as if some rodent has broken into the kitchen and started munching away on my bowl of captain crunch at the beginning, then Glen Buxton slides around on his guitar, Neil Smith hits his cymbals randomly, and Dennis Dunaway mumbles incoherently on his bass guitar for 20 seconds before the band plays in unison on a loud scary chord for five or six bars.
Then we hear Alice sing, with not a bit of harshness to his voice, a happy little melody with stream of consciousness lyrics and harmonized by one of the other band members. Does an unexpected tonal shift, they all sing falsetto "ahhs", do a neat little trick where they first say "Think I will enjoy the view", then shorten it to "oy the view" (sounds like "I love you") and end the song singing "everything is standing still", dropping "still" down in pitch several times to mimic an album slowing down (something they did again more effectively at the end of the song School's Out) All of this happens in about a minute twenty.
Ok, just levity ball so I don't end up writing all day.
LEVITY BALL
The band claims this song was inspired by the scene in the horror flick Carnival of Souls where zombies stiffly waltz to carousel music. It was recorded live at the Cheetah Club in LA on what seems to be a very cheap tape recorder, adding to it's mysterious quality. This is an excellent live performance in terms of dynamic shifts.
The imaginative, descriptive lyrics are about an acid trip or something along those lines. First verse:
I got my invitation
to the annual levity ball
saying the location was
within the mirrored hall
walking to my room I found that
I had nothing to find
I got to choose my evening wear and
left my clothes behind
The music for the verses compliment the lyrics with a hippyish,frightening vibe. The middle section is genuinely eerire with all members of the band literally trying to wail like ghosts, a harmonica used in a very strange way, (evoking nothing of Muddy Waters or Neil Young) and all of the instruments sliding down the neck starting at various spots while the drums grow increasingly frantic. Sounds quite a bit like a part from "Astronomy Domine", but that's ok, works well here.
More stuff happens. Ahem. The last thing I will say is that when the verse returns, you can hear what seems to be the other side of the CD playing backwards. First time I heard it, I thought God was trying to tell me something.
Sorry I went on so long, but this music is so very odd that its hard to relate it to any thing else most of the time, only a full blown description can, well, describe it.
Some Cons
Sloppiness, Glen Buxton solos way too often, some of the arrangements aren't thought out too well in terms of clashing dissonances they probably didn't want there, and the different singers can't agree on the lyrics in a couple of cases. By the last song, you're definitely ready for it to be over.
Some More Pros
This CD includes an early version of their later hit Elected in the song Reflected. I Can't decide which I like better.
Another plus is that there is none of the self parody we find on Later coop recordings; nothing glitzy or "I like it because it's supposed to be campy" which only goes so far.
Also, one of the most insane groovy guitar solos ever in Fields of Regret. Buxton did not seem to know what a scale is, which is a good thing here.
If you're a big fan of Cooper's late 80's early 90's stuff, There's probably not much to like on this disc. For me, Pretties is one of those rare records that sound like nothing else in the world. If the price is daunting, you can find a few of these songs on Live At The Whiskey A-Go-Go 1969. You can read my review of that CD at
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