A tome, not a tomb, filled with relics, revenants, remnants first acquired in the hot fleeting minutes of teen fandom and then added to and curated in the cool age of later years. It’s an extraordinary assemblage that Dave Twist first amassed for himself and then shared on his ever wonderful Instagram page [HERE].

When the platform messed with his layout grids he went back to a print culture, which is how these images are best consumed. We should be thankful to Meta (and for not much else) that Dave turned away from the screen and back to paper and paste

Others might have a larger collection of third-generation rock n’ roll ephemera than Dave Twist, but I doubt they could pull it together to tell quite such an aesthetically compelling story. Tumbling out of the plan chest, portfolio, attic and basement, Dave Twist puts his heart and soul on open display in Glitter and Glue, a gallery of splendid delights.

The book acts like a tripwire that causes you to fall over memories of things owned, lost, gifted and stolen. Surprisingly, nostalgia doesn’t feel part of the equation. What pours out is rather a sense of awe at the sheer creative achievements of musicians, designers and everyone else involved in the glorious conspiracy to attract the eye of the ever fickle teenage consumer.

So much of the memorabilia of the prepunk era, Alice, Roxy, Slade, SAHB, I just let go, but as I moved out of my teens I held fast to records bought on the day of release, the Pistols, Damned and Clash and all the post-Dr. Feelgood bands I still love, the Count Bishops, 101’ers, Gorillas, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Lew Lewis. They are still with me and still played. Meanwhile, I’ve restocked the lost records from 1972–76 and added those I could not then afford or had no awareness of, the Streak, the Jook and all the rest. But when I flick through this book it is Alice Cooper that has me pause the longest. For a hot moment he really was what mattered the most in my fevered teen brain and when you see what Dave Twist has amassed you’ll know why he had that effect.

You got to ask how many unique pressings of the Heartbreakers LAMF do you need? Dave has six and I hope the answer he’d give is ‘one more’. A completed collection is a dead collection. What’s on display here is an archive, a map of times past, but one that still connects. Its vitality can’t be ignored or its impact go unrecognised.

This is not a horde to be locked away and guarded but a trove spilling out its treasure for all to admire. Dave Twist gets my vote for curator of the year, what an achievement, what a gift he has given to us.

It’s a beautifully produced book and has been printed in very limited numbers so grab one quick [HERE]

Before Alice Cooper became the big thing and media darlings with ‘School’s Out’ their core appeal in Britain was to freaks and rockers. What you have here is a few choice cuts from before the deluge that mostly focus on the underground press, Frendz and IT in particular. Here’s what Mick Farren and Nick Kent, among others, had to say about the band who ‘act as a mirror – people see themselves through us’.

Alice Cooper’s CBS distributed Straight label UK releases

‘a rock and roll band made up of mean Hollywood drag queens who disembowl chickens and beat each other on stage, and are really the kind of band that I’d like to play in’ – Mick Farren

Greg Shaw thinks it is all about the Stooges, he wouldn’t be the last

You wanna know all about third generation rock n roll then look no further . . . . Alice with Steve Mann in Frendz

. . . some more third generation proselytising with Jamie Mandelkau in IT

“Got me so hot I could scream . . .”

‘Alice Cooper are supreme pooff rock . . .’ Mick Farren at his most lazy, touting the consensus.

John Peel, Singles: *Disc and Music Echo* (March 25, 1972)

‘This really is an odd group to come to terms with . . .’ – John Peel

All change and mind the gap: ‘The sight of rocking hordes of 12+ boppers at Alice Cooper’s Wembley concert would seem to prove that his efforts in the direction of bizzaro teen appeal are paying dividends’. – Mick Farren

Below, Myles Palmer, on the eve of the Wembley concert, gives a perfect summation of where things then stood . . . a worthy quote line in every paragraph, but the conclusion will do: ‘As music it’s not half bad, as showbiz it’s riveting and as trash it is absolutely incomparable’.

Dave “Boss” Goodman arrives late to the party . . . While Nick Kent gets the scoop on the Coop after Wembley (July 1972):

While America sinks in a mass debauch of drugs, sex andviolence, the Coopers just keep on getting bigger and bigger. They are the first of the third-generation rock bands to really make it big, while others like Lou Reed and the Velvets and the Stooges were perhaps too wild and dangerous to catch on The Coopers act, while it is extremely entertaining, is in reality not half as powerful as some would have us imagine.