Music Review: Alice Cooper – Welcome 2 My Nightmare (2011)

Supposedly the sequel to the classic, Welcome 2 My Nightmare has quite a few good songs. Starting the album with I Am Made Of You, Alice Cooper sounds like the prince of darkness, following it up with Caffeine – a song that makes it clear where Dave Mustaine gets his singing style from, and the songs that follow are poetic rock n’ roll. A Runaway Train sounds like Bob Dylan in a hair metal band, and Last Man On Earth is pure Tom Waits stuff. The original Welcome To My Nightmare line-up is playing on this one, and they’re a backbone strong enough to let Alice be as silly as he wants. Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever and Ghouls Gone Wild – hilarious and ridiculous, and What Baby Wants – a duet with Ke$ha on which Alice sings like he’s auditioning for Black Eyed Peas. Wait, he’s experimenting. Then you listen to a ballad like Something To Remember Me By and fun country music like I Gotta Get Outta Here and wonder how Alice Cooper can be effortlessly classy on some songs. Alice Cooper‘s bringing ‘shock rock’ back even if it’s more glam than shock, I’ll Bite Your Face Off being the best example. Welcome 2 My Nightmare is as frightening as the guy on its album cover, but so much fun to listen to!

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Beer Snobbery 2

The next best thing about learning to appreciate good beer is that one is forced to cut down on drinking; it’s next to impossible to even consider settling for Foster’s or Carlsberg. The lack of great brews from our country is felt only when one sees beyond the Kingfisher bottle. Of course, the rest of the world is equally guilty of making bad beer, and some of it is terrible and undrinkable. But our nation has only one beer worth drinking – in a market full of lagers, the drink that stands apart is the delightful London Pilsner. The joke here is that even Vijay Mallya doesn’t know how good LP is, which is why it is a lot cheaper than United Breweries’ flagship beer Kingfisher Premium.

So many people have been complaining about how expensive alcohol has become. Not that it was inexpensive before, but the prices have shot up like crazy and everybody is feeling the pinch this time. With the prices rising this way and ours being a drinking nation, you’d think we’d have some ales or stouts, but there isn’t even a decent lager around.

One of these days I might be able to stop kicking myself for drinking Kingfisher Mild all these years; it’s been what, 14-15 years since I started drinking? And in between bottles of London Pilsner Mild and pitchers of Kingfisher Draught (from the tap, not the canned stuff), I’ll pay through my nose for imported beer – thrice the price for half as much.

The good news is, when the truly worthy beers become available at all the wine shops, their prices will go down, and liquor stores like Living Liquidz and Juben Wines that stock the fancy stuff will get even more fancy beers from outside India. No idea how fatboy slim Mallya will handle real beers going mainstream but let him lose a few kilos over it.

Beer Review: Bombay

Not one to bother with ‘strong beer’, but one wouldn’t miss a chance to taste a brew called “Bombay”. Despite having tried the terrible drink called “Bombay Pilsner” years ago, there is always hope when one hears of a beer called “Bombay”, strong or not. That hope is crushed as the first sip of “Bombay” presents itself as pathetically sweet as every other Indian strong beer one has made the mistake of trying. Then is when you forget about the IPL match you’re watching, and call for a bottle of trusted mild beer to wash away the bad taste, and wonder where the Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena are when they’re really needed. Aamchi Mumbai just this once, excuse the flash.