Easy Action

Easy Action
Studio album by Alice Cooper
Released	March 27, 1970 (1970-03-27)
Recorded	November - December, 1969
Studio	Sunwest Studios, Hollywood[1]
Genre	Psychedelic rock [2][3] hard rock[3] acid rock[4] garage rock[5] experimental rock[6]
Length	34:13
Label	Straight
Producer	David 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

album as "I've Written Home to Mother", while the instrumental jam section is listed as "For Alice" or "An Instrumental".

Production

Cooper and Dunaway were fond of the musical film West Side Story, and quotes from the film appear in the song "Still No Air" ("got a rocket in your pocket", "when you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way); another quote gives the album its title.^[9]

Release and reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Christgau's Record Guide	C[10]

The album appeared in 1970 with a cover on which the band poses turned away from the camera, their uncovered backs exposed except where covered with their long hair. A radio commercial that accompanied the album's release touted the band as "unisex, raw, together, and violent—just like you, fellow American".^[9]

The staff of

The music showed little of the hard rock the band became famous for; the songs on its first two albums are more reminiscent of the pop-rock and psychedelia of bands such as mid-1960s the Who and Jefferson Airplane. They failed to find an audience and sold poorly. The group moved to the Detroit area (Pontiac, Mich.), and with the next album, Love It to Death, producer Bob Ezrin had them strip down their sound and simplify the songwriting; the album and its first single, "I'm Eighteen", were the first in a string of big successes.^[13]

Legacy

AllMusic's Joe Viglione feels that the album "might be the perfect picture of an evolving Alice Cooper Group". And that it "gives evidence that Cooper has more of a voice than he got credit for". He concludes by saying: "That this band could run the gamut from [Frank] Zappa to [David] Bowie, and perhaps inspired both, makes Easy Action a good study and entertaining record."^[5]

Track listing

All tracks are written by

Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith

Side one

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Mr. & Misdemeanor"	3:05
2.	"Shoe Salesman"	2:38
3.	"Still No Air"	2:32
4.	"Below Your Means"	6:41

Side two

No.	Title	Length
5.	"Return of the Spiders"	4:33
6.	"Laughing at Me"	2:12
7.	"Refrigerator Heaven"	1:54
8.	"Beautiful Flyaway"	3:02
9.	"Lay Down and Die, Goodbye"	7:36

Personnel

Alice Cooper band

• vocals
• Glen Buxton – lead guitar
• lead vocals
  on "Beautiful Flyaway" and "Below Your Means"
• backing vocals
• backing vocals

with:

• David Briggs – piano on "Shoe Salesman"

External links

• Easy Action at MusicBrainz (list of releases)

References

1. ISBN 978-2-35779-309-5
   .
2. ISBN 1-84353-105-4
3. ^
   ISBN 978-1-4766-2403-7
   .
4. ISBN 978-1-85828-457-6
   .
5. ^
   AllMusic
   . Retrieved July 6, 2011.
6. 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 3 August 2004. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
8. ^ Alice Cooper Tour Archive
9. ^ ^{a b} Reynolds 2016, p. 112.
10. ISBN 089919026X
    . Retrieved February 23, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
11. ^ Rolling Stone staff (April 16, 1970). "Easy Action by Alice Cooper". Rolling Stone. Wenner Media. Retrieved July 6, 2011.
12. ^ Christgau, Robert. "Consumer Guide Reviews: Alice Cooper". The Village Voice. Robertchristgau.com. Retrieved July 6, 2011.
13. ^ Reynolds 2016, p. 113.

Works cited

• ISBN 978-0-7432-0169-8
  .
• MacDonald, Bruno (2003). Buckley, Peter (ed.). The Rough Guide to Rock. Rough Guides. pp. 224–225.
  ISBN 978-1-85828-457-6
  .
• Hoffmann, Frank (2004). "Cooper, Alice (4 Feb 1948–)". In Hoffmann, Frank (ed.). Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound.
  ISBN 978-1-135-94950-1
  .
• Konow, David (2009). Bang Your Head: The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal.
  ISBN 978-0-307-56560-0
  .
• Miles, Barry (2014). Frank Zappa.
  ISBN 978-1-78239-678-9
  .
• Reynolds, Simon (2016). Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, from the Seventies to the Twenty-First Century.
  ISBN 978-0-571-30173-7
  .