Si litvinoff with warhol paintings images

During the 1970s, as rock journalism transitioned into a serious endeavor, there were three magazines which covered the nascent rock scene: Rolling Stone, Creem, and Circus. Rolling Stone was the gold standard. But, at least for a short period, Creem and Circus were players.

Shep Gordon had learned of an issue of Circus that featured a cover story titled, “Alice Cooper Beats the Devil,” which allegedly includeda photograph of the red Little Electric Chair. I hoped it would verify that Alice owned his Warhol at least since the mid-1970s. Fortunately, I was able to find a copy on eBay. The story was chock full of bizarre pictures, including one of live tarantulas crawling all over a screaming Alice. But I failed to spot an illustration of the Warhol. Then I came to the sentence, “In Coop’s living room, next to a poster of Alice waving something bloody (the only artifact in his house of his stage show) hangs an Andy Warhol print of a solitary electric chair.” Bingo.

Still, I wanted further verification. Using his rock world connections, Shep Gordon discovered that the article’s author, Steve Rubenstein, currently worked at my hometown newspaper, The San Francisco Chronicle. I gave him a call and asked if he remembered conducting the interview with Alice. He hesitated before responding, “I remember meeting Alice — who was very nice — but I have no idea what was hanging on his walls.”

“You’re sure you don’t recall seeing a Warhol?” I asked, leading the witness.

“No — I don’t remember seeing it. That was over forty years ago!”

I slumped in my chair but then perked up when Steve added, “But I can tell you this — if I wrote it, then it’s true!”

I began to think about Alice Cooper. My thoughts drifted back to 1972, when Alice received the Little Electric Chair as a gift. At the time, I was a junior in high school living in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio — and Alice Cooper was already an international superstar. I’m Eighteen, School’s Out, and No More Mr. Nice Guy topped the charts. It had already been two years since the Beatles disbanded. The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin were at the peak of their popularity. Yet, a softer sound led by Crosby Stills & Nash, the Eagles, and James Taylor was being ushered in. And then there was Alice.

Alice Cooper’s reputation was as much about shocking the audience as the music itself. However, the more successful Alice became, the less outrageous he seemed. After a while, he almost felt mainstream. Parents no longer loathed him. Still, his fans continued to demand his unique brand of theatrics. What they got were wild costumes, ghoulish makeup, live boa constrictors… and an electric chair. When Alice began to use a fake electric chair as a stage prop — and proceeded to “electrocute” himself during the show — few made the connection between him and Andy Warhol.

By 1972, Alice’s savvy management team, led by Shep Gordon, had broken his act into the big leagues. Though the rock industry was far from the corporate titan it would become, the money was pouring in. When Alice’s girlfriend Cindy Lang approached Shep for a $2,500 loan, to buy him a birthday present, he was more than comfortable granting it. At the time, Warhol’s Factory was undergoing profound changes. Only four years earlier, he had been shot by a deranged groupie named Valerie Solanas, and came perilously close to dying. The sad thing was that his work, which had been something akin to genius, would never be the same. Andy Warhol lost his edge. With only a couple of fleeting exceptions — the Maos (1972-73) and the Fright Wig Self-Portraits (1986) — the spark was gone.