|
"After Michael Bruce's (In My Own Way), Alice's (Welcome To My Nightmare) and my (Platinum God) solo projects the ACG was to reform and do a new album. Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway and I got together in Connecticut and started writing new songs for a new ACG album, but it was never to happen. So we stayed together called ourselves "The Billion Dollar Babies", got a record deal and recorded "Battle Axe". We were professional and the band was very up and energetic for recording and touring. "Billion $ Babies/Battle Axe" went on tour, but we were having problems with management, and shortly thereafter we broke up. As far as the B$B/Battle Axe show, to my knowledge there is no video of that great show."
(Neal Smith, November 1999)
The BDB's did do some touring in support of 'Battle Axe' but it was limited to small venues in the North East [about four shows]. Let's keep in mind that as much as we all love those guys - that album BOMBED. They did do a kind of theatrical show - at the end the two guitarists did a gladiator thing that was reminiscent of the movie "Rollerblade" and the stage was kind of a boxing ring motiff - Nothing that came even remotely close to Alice's productions.
(Renfield, June 1995)
"There was also a screenplay written in 1977 for "Battle Axe". It was written by Leo Fenn (look him up in your Cooper research materials!). I don't know how many people ever knew that the concept was given a screenplay treatment, but I found this buried pretty deep. It may be the only one. It's about 21 pages bound in a blue folder. Leo Fenn was a member of the Cooper team back during the 'Love It To Death' days, booking, and reportedly doing his utmost to get the albums played on the radio. He's also Sherilyn Fenn's daddy if any of you know who she is.
(Jeff Jatras, March 2000)
From The Sickboard:
This is too weird! I was just "surfin'" along and stumbled upon this discussion. I am glad to see that Michael Bruce is still in action! And in DALLAS yet, where I am. Get this -- believe it or not, in the late 80s I directed a Michael Bruce music video, which actually aired here and there -- the song, "TOO YOUNG," I guess from his first attempt at an album after breaking up with Alice Cooper? I'm not even sure. It was a situation where Bruce had done this album but couldn't appear in the video because of health problems. The producer dude needed somebody to make a video of the projected "hit," "TOO YOUNG" (which is very much like "I'M 18") but on NO BUDGET and WITHOUT MICHAEL BRUCE. For $5,000, my pals and I managed to make a... video... can't call it a GREAT video... that told a story about a young girl sneaking out at night and trying to act like she was old enough to drink. Or something like that. The producer made us attach this perverted ending wherein the young girl had a car wreck and died... WHO CAN EXPLAIN RECORD PRODUCER TYPES??!?!?
We mainly just tried to have lots of images of a cute gal partying and imagining ghostly rock stars serenading her and her parents smashing Michael Bruce records and throwing them into the fireplace -- real generic stuff I guess. Considering the budget, it's technically a pretty professional looking video. Conceptually, it's a lame attempt to make a video for a rock star without ever showing the rock
star... go figure.
The "TOO YOUNG" video was produced by the company "TELEMUSIC" which was then run by a guy named Bob Stevens. Bob hired me to direct and/or edit and/or animate these various odball music video jobs. The fanciest one we were involved with was DEVO's "R.U. EXPERIENCED."
"TOO YOUNG" was the lowest budgeted of them.
(Rev. Ivan Stang, February 1998)
"I'm good friends with Mike Marconi; he lives in my town. He once told me that much of the reason why B$B failed was due to pressure from Shep Gordon, Alice's manager. He threatened both the band and their record label, Polydor, with all kinds of lawsuits if they continued as "Billion Dollar Babies". So the band had a new album out and no way to promote it... and they called it quits shortly thereafter. They did have an interesting stage show set up, though... for the "Battle Axe" song, they had a gladiator theme, with two dueling, robot-like characters (Mike Marconi and Mike Bruce in Power-Ranger suits!) and wielding axe-shaped guitars. Mike Bruce and Dennis Dunaway kept the suits; the axe/guitars were bought back by their builder. Oddly enough, Mike Marconi never had a copy of the B$B "Battle Axe" album; I made him a tape copy of mine (he autographed the cover for me!)."
(unknown, June 2001).
|
Записанный этим составом диск "Battle Axe" вышел в апреле 1977 года и по музыке мало чем отличался от ранних работ Купера. Это был тяжёлый и скоростной флэш-рок с вопящим вокалом, хаотичными риффами и долбящей ритм-секцией. Но вокалист Майкл Брюс, сочинявший лучшие хиты для Купера, на этот раз явно переборщил, и его мрачный, сардонический сюрреализм отпугнул подростковую аудиторию, хотя все стандартные образы были почерпнуты им из типично рок-н-ролльной мифологии. Примерно третью часть альбома занимает весьма невразумительная концептуальная композиция, названная обозревателями "истеричной гитарно-синтезаторной мелодрамой". С другой стороны, группа явно пыталась достичь коммерческого успеха такими пснями, как "Shine Your Love" и "Dance Me", но это только усилило дисбаланс. Пластинка продавалась из рук вон плохо, и "Billion Dollar Babies" попытались начать сначала, изменив название на "Flying Tigers", но вскоре окончательно рассыпались.
