Easy Action

This article is about the album by Alice Cooper. For the Swedish band, see Easy Action (band). For their album, see Easy Action (Easy Action album). For the American band, see John Brannon.

Easy Action
Studio album by
Alice Cooper
ReleasedMarch 27, 1970 (1970-03-27)
RecordedNovember–December 1969
StudioSunwest Studios, Hollywood[1]
Genre
Length34:13
LabelStraight
ProducerDavid Briggs
Alice Cooper chronology
Pretties for You
(1969) 		Easy Action
(1970) 		Love It to Death
(1971)

Easy Action is the second studio album by the American rock band Alice Cooper, released by Straight Records in March 1970. The title comes from a line from one of the band's favorite films, the musical West Side Story. As with Pretties for You, the band's debut from the previous year, Easy Action was neither a commercial nor critical success. Singles include "Shoe Salesman" and "Return of the Spiders".

Drummer Neal Smith later said of the record producer David Briggs, "David hated our music and us. I recall the term that he used, referring to our music, was 'Psychedelic Shit'. I think Easy Action sounded too dry, more like a TV or radio commercial and he did not help with song arrangement or positive input in any way."[7] None of Easy Action’s songs have ever been performed live by Cooper since the tour in support of their third album Love It to Death;[8] in fact, only "Return of the Spiders" was performed on the tour for that album.

A small number of early U.S. copies were pressed on the blue Bizarre Records label. These copies carry the same catalog number WS-1845 and album cover as the regular Straight Records release.

Though perhaps seen as being an overlooked work in terms of later releases, Easy Action tracks "Mr. & Misdemeanor" and "Refrigerator Heaven" were both later included in the well-received compilation album The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper. "Refrigerator Heaven" was also included in the Warner Bros. compilation album Zapped, which showcased acts signed or produced by Frank Zappa. The closing track "Lay Down And Die, Goodbye", which was originally written and recorded as a single B-side by the band when it was called Nazz, begins with a sample of Tom Smothers saying "You are the only censor; if you don't like what I'm saying, you have a choice: you can turn me off". This is followed by an instrumental jam and finishes with the chorus from the demo. The last part of the song is listed on the Science Fiction album as "I've Written Home to Mother", while the instrumental jam section is listed as "For Alice" or "An Instrumental".

  1. ^ Eric Tessier. CAMION BLANC: ALICE COOPER Le parrain du Shock Rock. CAMION BLANC. p. 57. ISBN 978-2-35779-309-5.
  2. ^ Peter Buckley, The Rough Guide to Rock, Rough Guides, 2003, p. 224 ISBN 1-84353-105-4
  3. ^ a b Doyle Greene (February 17, 2016). Rock, Counterculture and the Avant-Garde, 1966-1970: How the Beatles, Frank Zappa and the Velvet Underground Defined an Era. McFarland. p. 125. ISBN 978-1-4766-2403-7.
  4. ^ Peter Buckley (2003). The Rough Guide to Rock. Rough Guides. p. 1777. ISBN 978-1-85828-457-6.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference AMG was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cope, Julian (2012). Copendium: An Expedition into the Rock 'n' Roll Underworld. London: Fsber & Faber. pp. 91–92. ISBN 978-0-571 27034-7. As a rock'n'roll group, Alice Cooper were always so much more than those first two horrible/brilliant LPs – and even they were genuine experimental rock of the Frankenstein kind. That is, they fell on their face at least seventy percent of the time, but struggled ever upward towards some Doorsian light at the end of the tunnel.
  7. ^ "Neal Smith Rock". www.nealsmith.com. Archived from the original on August 3, 2004. Retrieved January 14, 2022.
  8. ^ Alice Cooper Tour Archive