1976… it was the year I started collecting records. Vinyl records, that is. I was obsessed! I bought at least one each week depending on how consistently starved I was willing to be during school lunch breaks. Yes, I had to save the money using my allowance. There’s no way I could’ve convinced my parents to buy me all these records from artists I’m just now beginning to discover (… thanks to Creem and Circus!). And with outrageous cover art and titles such as Welcome To My Nightmare, Destroyer, Sabotage and Cat Scratch Fever… uhh, you kiddin’ me? Forget about it!

Alice Cooper’s 1975 release, Welcome To My Nightmare, was one of the very first albums I’ve acquired. Though ironically, it wasn’t because of Alice (of whom I am now a lifelong fan of), rock music or even the cool sleeve that I bought it for. It was because I’ve already heard it at my friend, Buddy’s house (… or he may have loaned me the album, I forget.). And being the huge horror genre aficionado that I was (and still am, in fact), I was tantalized beyond words upon hearing Vincent Price’s unmistakable voice that was used to bridge the songs Devil’s Food and The Black Widow into one macabre epic. As if an angel whispered in my ear telling me how much I needed to get my own copy of the album, like yesterday.

If you’re a horror buff yourself, how can you not be enchanted by Vince’s monologue as a demented curator/host of an arachnid museum? From one display to the next, he educates his unsuspecting guests on the finer attributes of his priced collection. At the climaxing end, when his voice starts to rise to a crescendo, you can almost smell the chilling scent of his coat in the air as he reveals his true sentiments towards his beloved eight-legged pet. Or could it be, his master?

What a classic! Oh by the way, did you know he’s a gourmet cook too? Cool! That actually just increased the creep factor a couple notches, for me!

After all these years, I can’t believe I can still recite the whole thing word for word! Along with the appropriate facial expressions, of course.