Marshall Of Rock

A new trailer for Tim Burton's 'Dark Shadows' movie adaptation of the 1960's gothic soap opera is now online. Check out the one and only Alice Cooper appearing as himself playing at a party at the Maine mansion of lead character Barnabas Collins, portrayed by Johnny Depp.

The film is set in the early 1970's, and the trailer features music from Curtis Mayfield, the Carpenters, T. Rex, Barry White and Cooper. When seeing the Carpenters performing on TV, Collins asks "What sorcery is this? Reveal yourself tiny songstress!" and when confronted with a performance by Alice Cooper, he comments, “ugliest woman I’ve ever seen." Alice is at the tail end of the clip, performing "No More Mr. Nice Guy" at the bash. 'Dark Shadows' opens in theaters on May 11.

Last Saturday (Mar. 17) Alice recieved an honorary doctorate in front of 600 grads from the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles. He delivered a great speech, imparting many words of wisdom?: "First of all, the fact that I am here as your keynote speaker raises a lot of red flags. It show’s an obvious lack of judgment on your part." He also told the graduates that mediocrity is their greatest enemy, so if they’re going to be in the industry, be fearless. "If you succeed, you become a genius,” he said. "If you fail, you become an idiot. You can always start again."

Cooper also shared an anecdote about the King of Rock and Roll himself:
"Elvis said to me, ‘Hey, man, yer that cat with the makeup and the snakes. That’s cool, man. I dig that’ … So there I was with a loaded snub nose Smith and Wesson 38 aimed at Elvis Presley. The little devil on my shoulder said, 'Kill him.' The angel the other shoulder said, 'No, just wound him...'

Shout! Factory have set a May 22nd release date for the DVD version of "The Strange Case of Alice Cooper."
The film was originally released on VHS and hasn't officially been available for 30 years. Amazon had these details: The Strange Case Of Alice Cooper is more than a concert film. It is the warped tale of one man's descent into madness, a theatrical rock 'n' roll spectacle that could only emerge from the twisted imagination of Alice Cooper.

Filmed during a stop on the Madhouse Rock Tour in 1979, Strange Case was inspired by Alice's stay in a New York sanitarium and the people he encountered there. Vincent Price introduces the proceedings as ghoulish doctors and transvestite nurses cross paths with dancing bottles of alcohol. All the while, Alice performs songs off his album From The Inside, as well as many of his most well-known and best-loved hits.

[Setlist]
From The Inside
Serious
Nurse Rozetta
The Quiet Room
I Never Cry
Devil's Food
Welcome To My Nightmare
Billion Dollar Babies
Only Women Bleed
No More Mr. Nice Guy
I'm Eighteen
The Black Widow
Wish I Was Born In Beverly Hills
Ballad Of Dwight Fry
Go To Hell
How You Gonna See Me Now
Inmates (We're All Crazy)
School's Out

Alice Cooper will play himself in a small cameo role in the new Tim Burton movie reboot of the classic TV show "Dark Shadows." Johnny Depp stars as vampire Barnabas Collins, along with Chloe Moretz, Eva Green, Gulliver McGrath, Bella Heathcote, Ray Shirley, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Dark Shadows will open on May 11, 2012.

The film is set back in 1972 and its been reported that Depp's Collins character will hire Cooper to play a private ball at his seaside home in Maine. Perfect casting, and I can wait to see the results!

Alice has appeared in other horror films, including "Nightmare On Elm Street: Freddy’s Dead" and "Prince Of Darkness." Here's a shot of the cast from a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly: