E-Mail This Article to a Friend Sleazy does it Alice Cooper Eyes his rivals BY KEN MCINTYRE

Alice Cooper, the clown prince of shock and roll, is one sick puppy. And I don’t mean in the public-enemy-#1 way your mama warned you about (though he did cut off his own daughter’s head, on a nightly basis, on his last tour), but rather in the snot-rocket-and-Nyquil-buzz kinda way. He’s got the boogie-woogie flu, and as he croaks his witty, grand declarations over a crackling phone line from his hotel room in Chicago, on a tour that will bring him to Lowell this Saturday, he punctuates his sentences with sneezes and coughing fits. But hey, what’s some pussy flu bug to the guy who invented (to hear him tell it) . . . well, everything in rock and roll, anyway?

"Alice Cooper invented the theatrical thing," says Santa Claus-with-a-boa-constrictor, with no trace of modesty whatsoever. "Alice started the goth thing, Alice started the glam thing. We were glam before Bowie was, even. If you ask the Sex Pistols, they’ll tell you that we started them, too."

Well, all right. Despite the phlegm balls he keeps hocking up, Alice is in a fine mood — which probably has something to do with The Eyes of Alice Cooper (Eagle Records), his latest album. Although it’s far from sounding like the garage-rock revival bands who inspired it, it’s the most authentically rock-and-roll record he’s done since 1974’s Muscle of Love, and vintage Cooper fans are taking notice. The snarly opener, "What Do You Want from Me," sounds like Buckcherry bashing through a Billion Dollar Babies outtake. And "Detroit City," despite sounding like an unholy cross between Marilyn Manson and Andrew Lloyd Webber, name-checks his much-vaunted Motor City brothers-in-rock ("Me and Iggy, gigging with Ziggy, and kicking with the MC5") while featuring a lashing of stun-fuzz guitar from legendary MC5 ax man Wayne Kramer.

Alice recalls the impromptu reunion with a chuckle. "Keep in mind, I haven’t seen Wayne in 25 years. We were recording demos for this record with [former Guns N’ Roses guitarist] Gilby Clarke, and Gilby says, ‘Hey, I got a surprise for you tomorrow.’ So the next day this guy walks in, and I thought it was Peter Frampton. He had short blond hair and glasses and a sweater. He sits down and we talk for a while, and finally he says, ‘I’m Wayne Kramer,’ and I say, ‘No, you’re Wayne Kramer’s accountant.’ "

Yep, ol’ hard-hearted Alice is back. He thinks the Darkness are hysterical ("C’mon, nobody sees this is White Lion?"), and he thinks the riff to the White Stripes’ "7 Nation Army" is "as good as ‘My Sharona.’ " Okay, so the guy plays golf and prays too much, but he knows his rock and roll. He’s even been paying attention to his many bastard offspring. "Turbonegro are a band that should never be seen. They play some great rock, but somebody should talk to these guys and say, ‘Fellas, you look like you just stepped out of a costume shop and only had $100 to spend.’ "

And as for shock rock’s darkest sons, the Norwegian black-metal bands like Mayhem and Darkthrone, who were responsible for a rash of church burnings, suicides, and murders in the mid ’90s? Well, Alice just thinks they’re funny. "They’re like from another planet, and they came down and found my stuff and thought, ‘Well, this must be the hat I wear. This must be the make-up I’m supposed to put on.’ Obviously, they got it all wrong."

Sure, Alice Cooper may have accidentally murdered a chicken or two, but he never burned down any churches. "No," he quips, "and we never ate our bass player. Not yet, anyway."

Alice Cooper plays Lowell Memorial Auditorium, 50 East Merrimack Street in Lowell, this Saturday, October 25, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $31 and $41; call (978) 454-2299.