A New Doc Looks Back on the Dream-Come-True Alice Cooper Reunion At a Dallas Record Shop

This coming Saturday, Aug. 27, the Kessler Theater and Good Records are throwing a worldwide release party for the documentary film (and soundtrack album) Live from the Astroturf. You might think it’s a sports film, but it's actually based on the true tale of a simple Dallas shopkeeper chasing a dream as big as Texas.

The story begins, as they so often do, with an ordinary man caught up in events much larger than himself. As in most good stories, you don’t always know how things will end, but you do know that everything will spiral out of control along the way. This could be Klaus Kinski slowly sinking into madness looking for El Dorado in Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, The Wrath of God. Or Walter White’s good intentions and bad decisions in Breaking Bad. Or it could even be the story of Christ as told through Brian in the Life of Brian.

In a press synopsis that would've been turned down as a concept by even the most coked-out Hollywood TV producer, the film is described as, “An independent record store owner and life-long Alice Cooper superfan convinces the original lineup of his favorite band to reunite at his store over 40 years after they parted ways.”

Really, you can’t make this stuff up. We're not kidding. This is a true story, and if you were living in Dallas before the stupid pandemic struck you probably remember that it actually happened in 2015 when record store owner Chris Penn got the original members of Alice Cooper to play at Good Records.

In true “events spiraling out of control” fashion, the documentary grew organically from capturing a simple book signing by former Alice Cooper bandmates into a hard-to-keep secret eight-song set with their former frontman. On Saturday, many of the key players from that day will reassemble. One of them is Penn, in the role of middle-aged everyman turned into unlikely hero with a dream, along with well-known director and film editor Steven Gaddis, who turned the whole pile of footage into a coherent story.

Journalist Robert Wilonsky, who filled a similar role at the original Good Records event, will moderate a Q&A session after the presentation of the film.

The rest of the evening will be a musical salute to Alice Cooper from an assembly of Dallas talent, including the Mumbles, Tripping Daisy, Sub-Sahara and others. A short Tripping Daisy reunion might be worth the admission price all on its own. And if “worldwide release” sounds a little pretentious to you, maybe you don’t know the back story.

The all-ages album release party, including the screening and concert, will start at 6 p.m. at the Kessler Theater, 1230 W. Davis St. Tickets are $20.