OT: Michael Bruce, original Alice Cooper guitarist, slammed by former manager
Tattoo Vampire
interesting. Guitarist Michael Bruce has run a website, michaelbruce.com,
for several years. This morning I browsed to his site for the first time in
months to see it's apparently been taken over by his disgruntled former
manager/business partner, Dan Tuttle.
Tuttle tears into Michael like a pit bull, accusing him of everything from
being a dopehead who steals from his friends, to being a shyster who
created a phony "lost" Nazz (the band's name before becoming Alice Cooper)
single and tried to sell copies to fans.
A few excerpts from the site:
As for me I got a lot of money invested in him; I didn't count on getting
all of that initial investment back; I didn't think that would be possible.
I wanted to help him out and get him back on the road and at least
eventually make enough money off of that to make things turn around and
make a profit. The website was not making any money either. When I started
the website there were a lot of orders that got mailed to Michael. He kept
the money, but never sent out the stuff they paid for. By the time I found
that out, some of the stuff was months old; I had to use my own money to
package and ship it out and a lot of time went to e-mailing people about it
just to get everybody happy and keep the website from looking like a
rip-off. I even found out about people that paid for stuff, BEFORE I took
over being Michael's manager, that never got their products and I had to
take care of those and pay for it out of my own pocket, too.
-------------------
Some time after Michael arrived in Houston, I came across some record
sleeves that seemed very strange to me. They looked like an early Alice
Cooper record sleeve, but I'd never seen anything like it before. There
were no records in them though, just the sleeves, and even these hadn't been
folded and glued yet and I asked Michael about what these strange sleeves
were.
Michael explained to me that this was just an "idea" that he had that had
never taken off. He said he had some old recordings that he intended to
make records of and sell them for 100.00 each. I didn't know for sure, it
struck me likely that Michael did not own the rights to sell any recording
of all five members of the NAZZ or Alice Cooper without their agreement or
with Warner Bros or at least Alive Enterprises and he admitted that he did
not but said that was not the point. He said that the fans deserved to
hear the music. I asked him why if that was the case he felt that they
deserved the privilage at $100.00 each instead of some reasonable price.
Michael explained that he had intended to advertise them as originals from
the 1960's and I replied that he couldn't do that because it would be a
criminal fraud! Also, it seemed excessively greedy to charge $100.00 for a
record would cost only a few bucks at most to make. I didn't think anyone
would pay that much just for a few old songs unless they were under the
mistaken belief that these were rare collectors items from the 1960's, in
which case that would be a fraud since they were not. I told Michael that
such a scheme could land him in jail and while I was his manager he really
couldn't do anything like this. Michael said that it didn't really matter
because the project had never really taken off and that in fact the record
was never made and therefore "everything is ok". He then dropped the bomb
again as he showed me a stack of letters from irate fans threatening him
with mail and wire fraud if they did not either send their record or refund
their money. Shocked, I asked him what this was all about? Michael told
me that it was true that he hadn't made the the record (which I later found
out was a lie also) but that his plans had backfired it was to first
advertise the 45 as a rare original, THEN collect the money, THEN use the
money to make the record. "Some plan!" I thought as I read some of the
stacked letters threatening Michael with jail. So, it was worse than I
even thought. According to Michael, he had advertised the record as a rare
original for 100.00 each, but he didn't have anything to send and in fact
as he spent the money he was sent he never did make the records or send
them to the people whose letters I was reading. Although I'd already
prepared myself to help Michael with some of his legal problems, his felony
convictions, his royalty situations, and other problems that needed me, and
while I was committed to helping Michael with his personal and business
situations while I was managing him from March 1997 to whenever, I was at a
complete loss here. I certainly was NOT going to start coughing up 100.00
a pop to swindled fans who had been ripped off by Michael prior to me ever
meeting him. So this is what I told Michael. And I explained to him that
he should seriously hope that no one really presses charges because it sure
looked like he could be in serious trouble if anyone forced the issue. I
also told him that on top of everything else, this "management thing" was
starting to get old. I advised him seriously to think about such dubiously
fraudulent "plans" in the future because "we" (meaning "me") just don't
work like this. Michael explained that since he never made the record
anyway, and didn't have the money to send back there was really nothing
left to do. Michael took the stack of letters and that was the last I saw
of them and hoped to hear about this issue. I was wrong.
---------------
There's plenty more to read on the site. Michael Bruce now has a new site at
www.michaelbruce.net. I haven't looked around to see if anything is said
about the claims his former manager and some of his ex-friends are making.
--
Every time I make ends meet someone moves the ends
TokenBlackGuy
<sit...@this.machine> wrote:
>Tuttle tears into Michael like a pit bull, accusing him of everything from
>being a dopehead who steals from his friends, to being a shyster who
>created a phony "lost" Nazz (the band's name before becoming Alice Cooper)
>single and tried to sell copies to fans.
Just curious: Does this Nazz have anything to do with Rundgren's old
band? I'm guessing, "no."
Sue Na Me
> On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 01:06:24 -0500, Tattoo Vampire <sit...@this.machine> wrote:
>
>
> What kind of a business man "invests" in Michael Bruce? Yesterday's rock stars
> can't generate money never mind one who's been out of the spotlight since Nixon
> was President. I've got to seriously question the pettiness of this whole thing.
>
>
> db
> --
>
> "If You Think I Don't Like Her, Smell My Finger.
> If You Did, Why'd You Bring Her" - DPM
>
> The Many
> The Once Proud
> The KISS Marines
>
> Remember it's never to late to serve! Fight The AXIS OF SHEEPLE!
Sounds right. Bruce used to crash on my friends couch awhile back. You
wouldn't recognize him.
Sue Na Me
No, it's one of the names Cooper's band used before Zappa took Over.
Another was The Spiders.
Tattoo Vampire
> No, it's one of the names Cooper's band used before Zappa took Over.
> Another was The Spiders.
And the Earwigs.
They had started calling themselves Alice Cooper before meeting Zappa.
Tattoo Vampire
> story about the fake record is pretty bad. Still, this manager guy's
> take on things might be stilted beyond credibility. What does Bruce
> say about it?
There's nothing on his current site about it. I subscribed to the "official
Michael Bruce newsletter" a long time ago but haven't received one in
months. He's a hard guy to follow since his site has moved so often. For a
while he was operating a site with the domain michaelbruceofalicecooper.com.
It seems to be up for sale now. Then his current one, michaelbruce.net,
popped up.
While the newsletter was active, the guy running it had a temporary Michael
Bruce site up under a subdomain. He and Bruce basically slammed the
ex-manager as a liar and vengeful former employee.
* *
i actually met michael bruce at a KISS expo in 2001...he was kool....he
didn't have a silver marker and needed one to sign something for a
fan...i had one on me...he was charging $5 bucks an autograph, but since
i let him use the marker, he said he'd give me as many autographs i
wanted for free.. i only took two cuase i only brought one cd with me
and bought his book....so i don't think he'd be the type to rip poeple
off..
i don't think with all the copyright/bootleg stuff the law enforces that
an experienced musician
like michael bruce would be that stupid to sell fake "old
records"...and i've been on his site and NEVER saw an ad for these
$100.00 45s...
Tattoo Vampire
> i don't think with all the copyright/bootleg stuff the law enforces that
> an experienced musician
> like michael bruce would be that stupid to sell fake "old
> records"...and i've been on his site and NEVER saw an ad for these
> $100.00 45s...
Apparently the record scheme was concocted before he had a website. I get
the impression that Michael conceived of the bogus 45s in 1997 or so, long
before the domain michaelbruce.com was registered.
It seems that the recordings were actual audio of old Spiders/Nazz tunes,
things Bruce didn't own the rights to. I recall a big drama on one of the
Alice mailing lists and on Michael's own list about his being accused of
stealing certain audio tapes from the owner. So, the recordings would have
been genuine, but not vintage-era platters.
* *
released are featred on the alice cooper box set? there are a few
spiders/nazz tracks on t...