Concert #108

Kiss/The Dead Girls (Thursday, December 10, 2009--Sprint Center) Ticket price: $27.50

“Kiss The Dead Girls?”  Ewwww…

Thirty years, two months and ten days after I attended my first Kiss concert (on the Dynasty tour), I attended my 16th Kiss concert on Thursday night at the Sprint Center, a mere four blocks east on 13th Street from where I saw the band that first time at Municipal Auditorium.  I’ve had more than one friend question my motives for seeing the band so many times (you know who you are, Tom, John and Dr. S!), and my response would be to quote Lynyrd Skynyrd:  “I’ve tried everything in my life—the things I like, I try ‘em twice!”  More succinctly, in one of his more lucid commentaries, K.C. Star music critic Timothy Finn noted in his review of this concert:

“About 10,000 fans came to the Sprint Center on Thursday night for Kiss Alive 35, the latest name for the band's never-ending tour.  It's safe to say that more than half the fans in the place had seen the band at least once; some of us were seeing Kiss for the fourth time in 10 years or so.  But at some point repetition becomes something more rewarding, like ritual or tradition; that's why some of us still watch A Christmas Story three times a year, every year.  Likewise, a Kiss concert is all about knowing exactly what you're going to get and enjoying it anyway.”

And when you factor in the strife I experienced the previous night when some douche-bag broke into my car during my ever-so-brief library stop and stole my tote bag that contained my checkbook, along with a project I’d been working on and numerous personal items that were totally worthless to everyone but myself, a Kiss concert really hit the spot.  After 24 hours of stressing out and feeling pissed-off, there was nothing like a Kiss show to “get me back on my feet again,” as “Cold Gin” goes.  This was also my first big indoor arena concert in quite a while—the previous ten concerts I had attended were either outdoors or in small venues—and it was refreshing to see that "Arena Love" (a phrase coined by music critic Robert Duncan) was alive and well and living at the Sprint Center!

Even though you pretty much know what to expect at a Kiss gig, you have to give the band credit for adding some new twists and keeping the show fresh.  This time ‘round, they employed a much more open stage and jettisoned the superfluous staircases that once flanked the drums.  A huge video screen stretched nearly the entire width of the stage, and numerous other video squares featuring other visual effects dotted the rest of the set.  With the main video screen being so huge, it displaced the trademark light-up Kiss logos on-high, which they reduced to a larger single logo relocated to stage level below Eric Singer’s drums, which created a rather neat background effect on the video screen whenever the guys stood in front of it at center stage.  In addition to elevating up and down, Singer’s drum riser also rotated 360º during his solo, as did the mini-stage Paul Stanley “flies” out to during “Love Gun”.  They also added a dash of color to the pyro, with the rising flames behind the stage tinged in red, green and orange, in addition to the natural yellow/gold hues.  The costumes are all-new this time as well, with each one being a bit of an amalgam of all the previous stage outfits worn by the original four Kiss members over the years, and in a bit of a throwback, Paul Stanley switched back to his Flying V guitars from the early days in place of his shattered-mirror models of recent years.

The set list was heavily-weighted toward the early days as well, and only included two ‘80s songs (“I Love It Loud” and “Lick It Up”) and two from the new album Sonic Boom, “Modern Day Delilah” and “Say Yeah”—the two I liked the least, naturally, although “Say Yeah” sounded better live than on the CD, mostly because it was punctuated with lots of boom-booms.  Everything else they played was of ’70s vintage, as they kicked things off with the opening combo from Alive!, “Deuce” and “Strutter”.  To my delight, the Hotter Than Hell album got a pretty fair shake this go-round, including three of my all-time Kiss faves, “Let Me Go, Rock ’N’ Roll”, “Parasite”, and (for the first time in the 16 Kiss shows I’ve attended) the title track.  In a minor surprise, Gene and Paul turned the microphone over to guitarist Tommy Thayer on Ace Frehley’s “Shock Me”—nice to see they haven’t blown Ace off altogether.  Of course, there was no hope in hell they’d honor Peter Criss by doing “Beth”, but that’s another can of worms.  In another slight format change, the set ended kinda early with “Black Diamond” and “Rock And Roll All Nite”, the latter of which included a white confetti storm that made the stage eerily resemble my back yard at the moment.  An extended encore ensued that featured "Shout It Out Loud", "Lick It Up" (which lurched briefly into the middle section of The Who's “Won’t Get Fooled Again”), “Love Gun” and “Detroit Rock City”, which makes almost as dandy a concert closer as it does an opener.

Paul Stanley’s between-song patter can be alternately predictable and extremely entertaining.  While I could’ve done without his routine half-singing/half-speaking plea to not drink and drive prior to "Cold Gin" and his plug urging those who hadn't already done so to buy Sonic Boom at Walmart ("Hell, I'm not proud", he proclaimed), I loved his prescient commentary about politically-motivated Rock musicians:  “If you came here tonight to hear some Rock band tell you how to save the world from Global Warming, two things—You're out of your damn mind and you came to the wrong place!  They're just a Rock band, anyway...”  So there—take that Sting, Bono, Don Henley, et al.  Paul accurately pointed out that there’s nothing wrong with trying to save the world, but we ain’t gonna accomplish it all in one night anyway, thus he brightly suggested, “Let‘s take tonight off…”  I don't attend concerts to hear political folderol anyway—I want to be Rocked!

This was also my first Sprint Center concert, and in a touch of irony, I took in the show from the arena’s uppermost back row, just as my friend Tom and I did at our first Kiss concert in 1979 at Municipal—although then it wasn't by choice.  My assigned seat this time was in the second row of the upper deck, toward the back of the arena, but I decided to stake out my own space in a sparsely-filled section near the edge of stage right (Gene Simmons’ side) in the back row, and it was quite a view, in spite of the severe angle.  No sooner had I sat down, then did this elderly four-foot-nothing usher woman come up to me and try to check my ticket.  I shit you not, this gal stood eye-level with my chest—yeah, I can just see her trying to break up a brawl in the stands!  Anyway, when she saw I was downgrading my seat location, she left me alone.  Up until now, I had not heard a lot of good things about our fancy new arena’s acoustics, but I thought the sound was outstanding throughout this show.  I understood every word Paul Stanley spoke between songs, and the guitars sounded crisp and clear.  The bass could’ve been a bit louder and the overall volume could’ve been bumped up a skosh, but I was quite pleased with the audio in the building—a major upgrade over Kemper Arena.  I never thought I'd say this, but I did miss one aspect of the Kemper Corral—the parking!  It took me forever and a day to escape the bowels of the Power & Light District parking garage I paid ten bucks to park my car in, whereas the gravel Kemper lots were usually a snap to get out of.  Oh well, at least no one stole anything out of my vehicle here...

Opening the night's festivities were a local band called the Dead Girls, who won some radio station contest to open the show in place of the originally-slated Chuck Berry—er uh—Buckcherry.  While neither deceased nor female, the Dead Girls weren’t terribly impressive—just another bland slacker group.  In the classic penthouse-to-outhouse scenario, they followed this triumphant gig the next night at a hole-in-the-wall toilet of a place called the Brick.

When I last did a Kiss concert in Ames, Iowa in 2000 on the “Farewell” Tour, I truly thought it was indeed my final Kiss show.  As the '00s progressed, I bristled at the fact that Frehley and Criss were no longer with the band, and I refused to attend subsequent K.C. Kiss concerts because they seemed more like a Kiss tribute band than the real deal.  But as with Michael Corleone, just when I thought I was out, Kiss pulled me back in!  In retrospect, maybe it’s just as well Ace and Peter did leave—neither of their hearts have been in this thing for a long time anyway.  Meanwhile, it’s amazing that at their advance ages, Simmons (60) and Stanley (who turns 58 next month) can still perform at such a high level, and Kiss is a much tighter unit on-stage with the more youthful Thayer and Singer rejuvenating the band in place of Frehley and Criss.  Even after 30 years and 16 concerts, this never gets old!  I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Kiss show #17 is in the offing somewhere down the road…

SET LIST:  Deuce/Strutter/Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll/Hotter Than Hell/Shock Me/Calling Dr. Love/Modern Day Delilah/Cold Gin/Parasite/Say Yeah/100,000 Years/I Love It Loud/Black Diamond/Rock And Roll All Nite  ENCORE:  Shout It Out Loud/Lick It Up/Love Gun/Detroit Rock City

My Life In The Kiss Cult, Part C, Section 4

Before I finish the countdown, a little housecleaning first:

—A belated Happy Blogiversary to me, as Da Comet turned three on Sunday.  Hope it’s been as fun for you to read as it’s been for me to write.  Muchos gracias to all my faithful followers and readers.  Unlike other bloggers, I have no intention of cutting back on this activity or dropping it altogether—it’ll take a lot more than Facebook to kill this blog!

—I forgot to mention in the Revenge review in Section 3 that Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley decided to let bygones be bygones and throw Vinnie Vincent a bone or two (since his solo career didn’t pan out quite so well) by collaborating on a few tunes for the album, including “Unholy” and “I Just Wanna”.  Alas, being the megalomaniac that young Vincenzo is, he took the words to “War Machine” to heart (“Gonna bite the hand that feeds me”)and sued the other two again for this, that and the other.  Ol’ Ankh Head is a VERY talented songwriter, but he’s stepped on his own dick (while wearing spiked golf shoes) more than anyone in Rock history this side of maybe Axl Rose.

—Creatures Of The Night was noteworthy for being the first Kiss album to include printed lyrics to all the songs contained within.  Destroyer did indeed have the lyrics to “Detroit Rock City” in it, but I guess they figured we were on own for deciphering the rest of the album’s words.  Now I remember why I bought all the Kiss sheet music books back in the day (never mind that I can’t read sheet music to save my soul)—they had all the lyrics in them!  COTN was also the final Kiss album released under the Casablanca imprint, as the once-mighty Casablanca Record & Filmworks empire was on its last legs by 1982, and put to bed for good with the untimely passing of founder and president Neil Bogart, who sadly died of cancer that year.  Here’s lookin’ at you, Neil…

—Here’s a little countdown within a countdown:

TOP 10 KISS ALBUM COVERS OF ALL-TIME:
10) Kiss
9) Hot In The Shade
8) Alive!
7) All four solo albums
6) Dressed To Kill
5) Hotter Than Hell
4) Creatures Of The Night (original cool make-up cover)
3) Love Gun
2) Rock And Roll Over
1) Destroyer

AND THE BOTTOM FIVE:
5) Creatures Of The Night (unnecessary bogus non-make-up cover w/Bruce Kulick on it)
4) Animalize
3) Revenge
2) Asylum
1) Dynasty

Alright, enough B.S.—I now give you the Final Four:

4) Rock And Roll Over (1976)  A review I read at the time (in Creem I want to say) said something to the effect of “This album can cut it without the make-up, which is something I’m sure they’re just itching to try!”  That’s a pretty accurate statement, too, as RARO was one of the most consistent and hardest-rocking Kiss albums ever.  With producer Eddie Kramer back at the helm, Kiss hired out the Nanuet Star Theater in downstate New York—a theater-in-the-round type place—instead of a proper recording studio in an effort to re-create their live sound without a live audience, and it worked, for the most part.  If only those first three albums had been recorded in this manner, but that’s another story.  All ten tracks are quite good here, although for whatever reason, none of them were penned by one Paul Daniel Frehley* for the second straight album.  No matter, this one cooks from start-to-finish.  Rock was Paul Stanley’s finest hour, to date, with his classic “I Want You” kicking off the proceedings.  Track two, the vastly underrated “Take Me”, was even better, as was the album’s closer, “Makin’ Love”.  Only problem is those songs never came off well live because of the high backing vocals on “Take Me” and the echo effect on “Makin’ Love”, so in a way, Kiss got a little too cute here, but we’ll take it anyway.  G. Simmons brought another strong batch of tunes with him this time, especially “Ladies Room”, “See You In Your Dreams” and the hit single, “Calling Dr. Love”, which remains firmly ensconced in the Kiss live set to this day.  And for the first time since Hotter Than Hell, Peter Criss gets two lead vocals on a Kiss record, having earned his stripes, so to speak, with the unprecedented success of “Beth” earlier in the year.  Pete does his best Rod Stewart impression on Stanley’s “Hard Luck Woman” and his best Joe Tex impression on his own composition “Baby Driver”.  “Mr. Speed” and “Love ‘Em And Leave ‘Em” didn’t suck, either.  Rock And Roll Over was a very solid effort that came along while Kiss was still on the upswing at the end of the Bicentennial, and it’s a classic.  Second-coolest album cover in Kisstory, too—I recall many’s the hour I spent in Junior High tracing that cover in pencil, then coloring it in and affixing it to my various school books.

*=I’ve also seen Ace’s middle name listed as David in some sources, but haven’t confirmed which one is correct yet.

3) Ace Frehley (1978)  This album would’ve done Gomer Pyle proud:  “Surprahz! Surprahz! Surprahz!”  Seemingly everyone—including his own bandmates—were convinced that Brother Frehley’s solo album would be a pile of steaming yak excrement, but boy, did Planet Jendell’s favorite son prove them wrong!  Unquestionably the best of the four solo albums—this dude had been holding out on us all that time leading up to it, because we finally got to see what the Space Ace was capable of when properly motivated and/or allowed free reign.  Great songs, sizzling solos, crunchy riffs and even some fairly decent vocals (Ace’s weakest link) all added up to an excellent record.  Lots of good stuff to chew on here, like “Rip It Out”, “Speedin’ Back To My Baby”, “Ozone” and “What’s On Your Mind?”.  Ace picks up where he left off in “Cold Gin” about his preoccupation with getting fucked-up on tunes like “Wiped-Out” and “Snow Blind” (not to be confused with the Styx song of the same name) and closes the album with “Fractured Mirror”, the first of a series of “Fractured” instrumentals featured on his future solo efforts.  Ironically, what was probably the weakest track on the ’78 album, Ace’s remake of Russ Ballard’s “New York Groove”, wound up charting the highest of all singles from the solo albums (reaching #14 in Billboard).  So much for all of Gene’s delusions of grandeur in having all those hit singles, hmmm?  Gold Star for Mr. Frehley this time.  Pity he hasn’t come close to equaling this album since…

2) Destroyer (1976)  It’s amazing to think back now how Kiss’ supreme recorded achievement (in the studio) faced a very severe backlash upon its release in the spring of ’76 from both critics and fans alike.  I loved it from the get-go, but many fans were initially repulsed by the slick sound and special effects found on Destroyer, not to mention not one, but TWO ballads!  And then there was the scathing review by critic Robert Duncan in Circus magazine, where he pretty much ripped the album to shreds, then suffered some backlash himself from those Kiss fans who'd seen the light and realized what a gem of an album we had on our hands.  Duncan later praised the band no-end in the biography book he penned and reaped profits from about a year later—douche-bag!  In case you haven't noticed, I loathe music critics in general, but I digress.  Producer Bob Ezrin certainly took this band by the balls and showed them how to really make a record, to the point of alienating Ace Frehley (already an alien anyway).  I have to admit that even I recoiled a bit when I first heard “Beth”, but that one didn’t throw me half as much as hearing my new idol at the time, the great Demon himself, singing a wimpy ballad like “Great Expectations”, which made me do the Tim Allen caveman “HUH?!?” thing upon first listen.  I warmed up to “GE” over the years, and it was a mere blip on the radar in comparison to the rest of the album, which was absolutely stellar.  “Detroit Rock City” is far and away my favorite lead-off track on ANY album, and my favorite Kiss song, period.  I just love the way it shoots out of the gate and keeps you glued to your seat throughout even though the lyric invites its listeners to leave their seats.  "DRC" also includes one of my all-time favorite guitar solos.  I always assumed it was Gene Simmons doing his Kent Brockman/Tom Tucker impersonation delivering the evening news in the bit leading up to the intro, but I later read that it was Mr. Ezrin doing the honors.  A bitchin’ car crash ensues at the end and Ace’s long sustained note leads right into the sequel, “King Of The Nighttime World”, another classic.  Most people (me included) assumed that Gene Simmons wrote “God of Thunder”, being’s how he sang it and how it makes him sound all high and mighty, but Mr. Stanley Harvey Eisen authored this one, and was kinda peeved at first when Ezrin gave it to Simmons, but the Starchild realized eventually that it was the right move.  Paul sounded so much better anyway on Side 2’s opening track, the majestic-sounding “Flaming Youth”, which is an underrated Kiss classic, even though it has a calliope in it.  Gene’s “Sweet Pain”—also quite underrated—is another fave of mine, as he sounds eerily close to Cheech & Chong’s Alice Bowie character in places.  And then comes my #3 favorite Kiss song of all-time (“Deuce” is—fittingly—#2), “Shout It Out Loud”.  Featuring some Spector-esque Wall of Sound sound, "SIOL" is 2:45 of pure bliss, complete with excellent call-and-response vocals (a technique I really like), and I’ve always thought “Shout” was a far superior anthem to “Rock And Roll All Nite”.  Stanley closes this qualified masterpiece with “Do You Love Me?”, a song that gets better and better as the years go on.  What I’ve never understood is why Ezrin chose to lop off the nifty coda to the song that you hear in live concert versions of "DYLM" in favor of that lame coda loop of Paul exclaiming “…looks like we got ourselves a Rock ‘N’ Roll party!” ad nauseam.  Still, there’s no question that this was Kiss’ finest hour in the studio—I’d put Destroyer up against Zeppelin's or Aerosmith's best any day!

1) Alive! (1975)  Well, what other album were you expecting to land here?  I spent practically the entire summer of ’76 listening to this behemoth front and back.  Since I’ve already praised it profusely on this blog, I hereby direct you to my Best Live Albums post from earlier this year—Alive! finished # 1 there too.  Yes, I know it’s not all live, but it ain’t like Kiss is the only band who’s doctored up their live records—Cheap Trick, W.A.S.P., et al, atten-SHUN!  No one seems to have a problem when a woman wears hair extensions and has breast implants and a facelift—none of that stops you from looking at her, right?—therefore, even though I know Alive! has been tweaked here and there, it doesn’t stop me from enjoying it today.  It’s one of my top three albums of all-time, period, along with Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and The Who’s Who’s Next.

Coming soon to a blog near you: My all-time favorite Who album countdown—even though I think I just gave away what #1 is!

I got to laugh, 'cuz I know I'm gonna blog! Why?!?

Then again, why not?!?

A DECADE OF DECAY
Seems like it was just yesterday that we were partying like it was 1999 and fretting about Y2K, but Time magazine ran a nice feature this week in which they accurately deemed the ‘00s the “Decade From Hell”, and it suddenly hit me that this current decade is rapidly hurtling to a close—and not a minute too soon.  It amazes me how, the older I get, time seems to pass by so much faster now—to me, the ‘90s came and went in a flash too, while the ‘70s and ‘80s seemed to last forever.  The Time piece (timepiece?) paints a pretty bleak picture of the last ten years for all of us, what with 9/11, Dubya/Cheney, Katrina, the economic meltdown, steroids in sports, fall of the automakers, et al (and I would add to that list “Reality” TV, the decline of the music and radio industries, Lindsay Lohan, the advent of college football's BCS system, Paris Hilton, the rise of Fox News Channel—these and many many more), but the article also gives hope that things like this are cyclical and that better times lie ahead for all.

I hope they’re right, because this decade has been equally wretched for me personally as well, and a huge disappointment considering how the ‘90s ended for me with such promise.  At the end of ’99, I was 35 and in reasonably good physical condition.  Also at the time, I was involved in the best (albeit most unorthodox) relationship with a woman I’ve ever had, I was well on my way to getting out of credit card debt and I still had a social life and was able to hang out with friends on a regular basis.  Flash ahead ten years—I’m now 45 and rapidly turning into a jaded, bitter old fuck.  I haven’t even kissed a woman on the lips since December, ’99, I’m back in debt even worse than before, I'm heavier than ever before, my once-brilliant eyesight has deteriorated considerably and my flatlining social life makes me want to book passage on the next ferry to the Land of Misfit Toys.  Most of my personal crap is self-inflicted, no question, and like in the old Who song, “I’m just tryin’ to fight my way out of this dream.”  Then again, I seem to function better in decades with odd numbers in the tens place—the ‘90s were much happier for me personally, and I’m a child of the ‘70s—so maybe things will start to turn around four weeks from now.  I sure hope so, because 20 years from now, I don’t want to wind up being one of these old farts I always see sitting around at McDonald’s every morning drinking coffee whose daily highlight is bemoaning how his life went wrong over his Egg McMuffin.  Like Edgar Winter's "Free Ride" goes, “We (I) gotta do better, it’s time we (I) begin…”

“THEY SAID HE WAS RUTHLESS, THEY SAID HE WAS CRUDE…”
…and that’s why Kansas University football coach Mark Mangino is now unemployed.  Once a media darling and hero for resurrecting KU’s moribund football program, the Bambino fell and fell hard once all the allegations of player abuse were hurled at him since their seven-game losing streak began in October, culminating with the defeat at the hands of my Mizzou Tigers last Saturday.  Damn shame, too—it’s been fun seeing KU be a perennial winner for a change on the gridiron these last few years instead of just on the basketball court.  And even though Mangino “had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude”, one wonders if he’d still have a job if Kansas won just two or three of those seven games—it’s amazing how winning can keep dirt under the rug.  So long, Bambino…

WHAT A PUTTS!
Didn’t anyone ever explain to Tiger Woods that you’re only supposed to play one hole at a time?  It figures, just when I was starting to like the guy, he reveals himself to be just another zillionaire douche who lets his little head do the thinking.  And what a stupid way for one’s peccadilloes to be uncovered—by wiping out a fire hydrant near one’s own driveway!  I happen to have a fire hydrant right smack dab in my front yard, but even in my most harried states, I’ve always managed to avoid hitting hit the bloody thing with my motor vehicle.  Then again, all this media fuss over Tiger this week is so unwarranted.  I mean, what’s he done wrong, really?  Same thing millions of other men are doing in this country at this very moment—he cheated on his wife.  With great regularity, apparently.  Certainly no worse than dog fighting or Ponzi schemes or just being Ryan Seacrest.  Then again, I cite the old axiom—why go out for hamburger when you have Porterhouse at home?  Cry me a freakin’ river, Tiger…

ERIC WOOLFSON, 1945-2009
Alan Parsons Project lead singer/keyboardist Eric Woolfson died of cancer on Tuesday at age 64.  While far from my favorite band in the world, APP certainly had their moments, and I really liked Woolfson’s vocals on “Eye In The Sky” and especially on “Don’t Answer Me”.  Cool video on that one too.

BOB KEANE, 1922-2009
The man who founded Del-Fi Records and discovered singer Ritchie Valens, Bob Keane, also passed away last weekend.  Keane was portrayed admirably in the biopic 1987 film La Bamba by actor Joe Pantoliano, although the real Bob Keane had a lot more hair than Joe does...

AARON SCHROEDER, 1926-2009
You probably don't know the name, but you probably know of his work.  He famously wrote several big hits for Elvis, including "Good Luck Charm", "It's Now Or Never" and my personal Presley fave, "A Big Hunk O' Love".  And more importantly, Schroeder composed the "Scooby-Doo" theme.  Rest in peace, Aaron, you done good.

PUT THE TEAR DUCTS ON SIMMER, LADIES!
Could someone please tell me why all of Oprah Winfrey’s fans are supposedly “in mourning” ever since she announced she’ll be ending her daytime yapfest in 2011?  First off, that’s two years from now, and second off, she’s starting her own cable network—all Oprah, all the time!—and will be even more omnipresent than she ever was.  Even though the biggest problem will be finding home TV screens large enough to fit Oprah’s ever-expanding head into, I don’t see where this is cause to make your mascara run, girls…

SHAZBOT! INDEED
I love comedian Robin Williams to death, and I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I dearly wish he’d cease making comedy movies, especially for Disney!  His latest venture—Old Dogs with John Travolta—had already been raped and pillaged by the critics, and if Williams isn’t careful, he’s going to wind up being the next Dean Jones.  It’s a strange paradox that such a gifted and funny comedian consistently makes such lame comedy movies—only World According To Garp and Good Morning, Vietnam were good comedy film vehicles for him—while he’s far better-suited for dramatic roles like in Awakenings, Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society and even the creepy One-Hour Photo.

FROM THE "I WISH I’D WRITTEN THAT" BUREAU:
Time to let other people have the floor in a little sampling of letters-to-the-editor that I enjoyed this week:

Regarding the Fort Hood tragedy:
“I found it interesting that your cover photo of Nidal Malik Hasan, who apparently killed in the name of God, labels him a possible terrorist.  In verbatim, Scott Roeder, who also killed in the name of God, is called the 'accused shooter'  What’s the difference between them, again?  I am less concerned about the thousand or so radical Muslims who are highly monitored, than I am about the million or so unguarded radical 'Christians' whose hatred is fanned daily by the rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.”—David Berry, Raton, NM (in Time magazine)

“I don’t know what roles Muslims should play in our military, but perhaps counseling veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan should not be one of them.  Fair or not, I would not have wanted to talk to an Army psychiatrist of Vietnamese descent when I came home from Vietnam in 1970.”—Bruce W. Rider, Capt., USAF (ret.), Grapevine, TX (in Time)

“The long list of red flags you listed should have alerted anyone with a modicum of common sense.  Yet instead of being proactive, everybody chose political correctness.”—Raoul Carubelli, Oklahoma City (in Time)

Regarding Sarah Palin:
“The staying power of Sarah Palin mystifies me.  Maybe it’s because I’m an independent voter that I don’t understand the amazing attraction to the Republican Party of a thoughtless, divisive, poorly trained public servant who abandoned her state job for the cash.  Never mind, I just answered my own question…Remember, it’s party first, nation second.”—Jeff Gadt, Overland Park, KS (in the Kansas City Star)

“Thanks to the doe-in-the-headlights public, she is a multimillionaire.  She is cashing in on her celebrity.  She will not have to run for any public office or work a 9-to-5 job another day in her life.  She knows she has no chance to be president of the United States because she isn’t qualified.  Wake up, people.  We are being hookwinked.”—David Howard, Raymore, MO (in the Kansas City Star)

PUT A SOCK IN IT
I saw Cindy Sheehan going at it again with some military guy on TV the other day.  At the risk of sounding like Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly and their ilk, is anyone else besides me growing weary of Sheehan’s anti-war protests?  While I totally agree with her sentiments, it’s so obvious she’s become addicted to the limelight and notoriety afforded her by the media, and she’s really damning her own cause by making an ass out of herself.  Hate to sound so cynical, but I just don’t see how going around hollering into a bullhorn is going to stop the war anyway.  It’s certainly not going to bring her dead son back, either.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SONGWRITING
“War Pigs”—BLACK SABBATH (1970) “Generals gathered in the masses/Just like witches at Black Masses…”

“All The Way”—KISS (1974) “You've got a lot to say, every night and every sunny day/It’s the same thing you’ve been sayin’ to me every day...I'm so finally glad to hear you stop for a day."

Uhhh, when creating a rhyming scheme, it goes totally against protocol to use the SAME word!

READY FREDDIE!
Last night, I re-watched the 1992 Freddie Mercury Wembley Stadium AIDS benefit concert DVD for the first time in ages.  I’d almost forgotten what a truly superb show this was, featuring an all-star lineup that included Robert Plant, David Bowie, Elton John, Annie Lennox, Slash and Axl from Guns ‘N’ Roses, Roger Daltrey, Nuno Bettancourt and Gary Cherone from Extreme, Lisa Stansfield, Joe Elliott from Def Leppard, George Michael, Mott The Hoople’s Ian Hunter, Liza Minnelli, Paul Young and even Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath, all augmenting the surviving members of Queen, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon.  There wasn’t a bad number in the entire set, which is astounding when you consider all the different musical stylists Queen had to adapt to in just three weeks of rehearsal time.  Stansfield was a total hoot doing “I Want To Break Free”, mimicking Mercury dressing in drag with big exaggerated curlers in her hair (although dressed far more stylishly than Fred) and vacuuming as he did in the video of the same song, and I was stunned at how Pat Benatar-like Liza appeared here while singing “We Are The Champions”—I’m talking 1981-82 heyday Pat Benatar here!  Elton also looked quite slim and trim during this time, which coincided with his early ‘90s career resurgence with the excellent The One album.  Curiously, though, Axl Rose sported some white shorts that were way tighter than anything Mercury ever wore.  Hmmmmm, you don’t suppose Axl is...—I’m just sayin’!  Another facet of Queen concerts that’s fun to watch is the audience.  Queen easily had the best sing-along crowds in Rock history, not to mention their uncanny ability to clap in unison during songs like “Radio Ga-Ga”.  Anyway, it was a terrific concert—well worth a look (or re-look) on DVD if you get the chance.  Just tell ‘em Early Cuyler sent you…

THIS IS ONLY A TEST…
I bought a new smoke alarm last weekend to replace the aging one that came with my house when I took possession of it 14 years ago.  While cooking dinner later that night, I discovered it works just fine!

December 3, 1979

Today is a sad anniversary—it was thirty years ago tonight that the Cincinnati Who concert tragedy happened.  Apart from the 2003 Station Nightclub fire in Rhode Island involving the band Great White in which 100 people perished, it was probably the darkest day in Rock music history.  For you younger folks who might not remember, 11 concert-goers were trampled to death and hundreds of others were injured during an unfortunate (and totally inexcusable) stampede outside Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum arena.  This was a “festival seating” event—i.e., sit wherever you want—and an estimated 8,000 fans had queued up in the plaza area outside the venue in this photo late in the afternoon waiting for the doors to open, and there were only about 25 policemen on hand to keep order.  Around 6:30, when people heard loud music coming from inside—presumably the sound check—they incorrectly thought the show had already begun and they started to push forward.  Building officials only opened two (or perhaps four) of the sixteen entry doors to the arena, and in the enormous crush of fans trying to get in, many people simply couldn’t breathe.  In the ensuing melee, many fans wound up trampling others who’d fallen and were unable to regain their footing.  To make matters worse, inside the building, the turnstile Gestapo insisted on seeing everyone’s ticket first before allowing entry, which only exacerbated the bottleneck outside.

Per my usual, I was tuned into “Monday Night Football” that night, as the Raiders and Saints battled in the Superdome when Frank Gifford and Howard Cosell first broke the news of the nightmare to the nation during the second half.  Eerily enough, a year and five nights later, ol’ Howie would again inform America of yet another Rock ’N’ Roll tragedy on December 8, 1980.  My first reaction to the Who tragedy was “Why on earth did they even go on with the concert?”, but I later learned that the band themselves weren't informed of what took place until after they came off-stage from their encore.  Shutting down the show actually was contemplated, but Who manager Bill Curbishley wisely cautioned the fire marshals if they pulled the plug, they would chance a riot and further chaos inside the arena, plus the show itself bought them some time to clear the outer plaza of the victims and debris left behind, so they carried on with the concert.  Once the band was notified, they were obviously devastated.  Roger Daltrey was beside himself and talked of ending the tour right then and there, but the tour did resume the next night at The Aud in Buffalo under very heavy security.  From the stage, Roger spoke to the crowd:  “You all heard what happened yesterday…there’s nothing we can do…we feel totally shattered…but life goes on.  We all lost a lot of family yesterday.  This show’s for them.”

In the aftermath, there was a lot of predictable over-reaction by city officials in other municipalities in the form of over-zealous security at arenas and outright bans on Rock concerts in some places.  Here in K.C., we were subjected to the endless “Could it happen here?” queries by our illustrious local TV news hacks.  In Cincinnati itself, festival seating was banned in the wake of the Who tragedy, and it would be several months before Riverfront Coliseum hosted another Rock concert—Z.Z. Top in the spring of ‘80, with all reserved seating—and ALL the doors to the place were open that night.  But interestingly enough, when one Bruce Springsteen played the same venue 23 years later in 2002, The Boss was granted an exemption from the festival seating ban.  Fortunately, that show came off without a hitch.  Curiously, U2 was denied a similar request the year before.  Also in the aftermath, TV’s “WKRP In Cincinnati” built an episode around the Who concert that was alternately funny and poignant.  Johnny Fever and Venus Flytrap were giving tickets away on the air to the concert, and later found themselves doing some soul-searching about having possibly sent some of their own listeners to their demise.  As with the aforementioned city officials, the station itself over-reacted by threatening to dump Rock 'N' Roll and switch back to elevator music.  Weird Al Yankovic also rather tastelessly threw in the line "I haven't been in a crowd like this since I went to see The Who" in his 1980 parody, "Another One Rides The Bus".  I'm loathe to admit that I found it wickedly and perversely funny at the time.  Now, not so much.

Cincinnati also had a profound effect on The Who's guilt-ridden Pete Townshend, who descended into drug and alcohol abuse even further than what he was already into before the tragedy, and nearly OD'd not quite a year later on heroin and who knows what else.  Thankfully, Pete didn't join Keith Moon at that Great Who Gig in the sky and got his life back together a couple years later.  Even though they were advised not to, Daltrey, Townshend and the late John Entwistle later wrote letters to the bereaved expressing their sorrow over what had happened, even though they weren’t directly at fault (I blame the boobs who ran the arena for it).  And though I’m sure they’d have been welcomed back anytime, The Who haven’t set foot in Cincinnati since that terrible night—the closest they’ve ventured to the Queen City for a concert appearance since then was nearby Dayton in 1996.

I've attended 107 concerts in the last 30 years (with #108, Kiss, coming up this week), and I've never witnessed anything even remotely close to what happened at Riverfront Coliseum in terms of mass confusion, chaos or violence.  I do remember an Ozzy Osbourne show in '84 at Municipal Auditorium where we were crammed into the foyer area waiting for the main arena doors to open with people chanting "1-2-3-4, open up the fucking door!" until someone else shouted out "Remember The Who!" and everyone kinda chilled out after that.  Ironically, the next concert I attended after the Cincinnati debacle was (who else?) The Who, at Kemper Arena in April, 1980.  Cincinnati was still in the back of everyone's minds that night, but it was a great show that came off without incident, and any time I find myself amidst a large gathering of people, I'm still reminded of Cincinnati.  When I attended a Reds game at adjacent Great American Ballpark in 2005, Alice Cooper and Cheap Trick were playing at the Coliseum (now U.S. Bank Arena, or whatever it's called this week), and I made it a point to walk past those arena doors they didn't open on December 3, 1979 and think of those 11 people.  Just a sad, sad night for Rock 'N' Roll.  Even sadder, there's no memorial marker anywhere on the site in remembrance of those who died that night.

ADDENDUM:  The Cincinnati Enquirer ran a feature on the tragedy this week and a candlelight vigil was also held tonight on the concourse by the arena to mark the anniversary.

My Life In The Kiss Cult, Part C, Section 3

Just 10 more spots to reach the top!—-C. Kasem

10) Creatures of The Night (1982)  If a band makes a triumphant comeback in the woods and no one hears it, is it truly a comeback?  Not too many folks noticed at the time that Kiss had returned to their down-and-dirty heavy metal style in late 1982 after spending the better part of five years in the Rock wilderness making solo albums and lightweight Pop/Rock albums and a weird concept album.  Even I had all but written the band off at this point, having turned my attention to other hard Rock acts like Ozzy Osbourne, Rush, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Scorpions, et al, so I was quite pleased to hear that Kiss had re-grown its collective scrotum.  The title track charges right out of the gate to open the record with some thunder in Eric Carr’s drums that let everyone know they were done fucking around.  While not a success, sales-wise, COTN was a solid return to form in spite of the inner turmoil caused by Ace Frehley’s departure and the reluctant 11th-hour inclusion of Vinnie Vincent in his place.  Even though Frehley’s mug graces the final make-up era album jacket (one of the cooler ones in Kisstory, by the way, right up there with Destroyer and Love Gun), he didn’t play a note on the record, near as anyone can tell, and the lead guitar parts were performed by any number of people, including Vincent and future Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick.  Even with the lack of an actual solo during its lead break, “I Love It Loud” wound up being the album’s centerpiece and one of the first Kiss videos to break through on the fledgling MTV thing.  Paul’s “Keep Me Comin’” and “Danger” were a welcome return to the old Kiss groove, and while his almost-mournful “I Still Love You” was a bit of a departure, it wound up being a surprisingly durable concert favorite over the years.  The rest of Gene’s cuts were quite sturdy as well.  “Rock ‘N’ Roll Hell” (co-written by Bryan Adams) is the cautionary tale of a veteran Rocker whose star is fading, while “Killer” lives up to its name and the closing track “War Machine” may well have been the best song on the record.  It took about ten years for Creatures to be recognized for the true behemoth it was, and even though the make-up thing had run its course by that time, it certainly saved this band from the Rock ‘N’ Roll scrap heap.

My grade:  B

9) Revenge (1992)  What do comedian Bill Cosby and Kiss have in common?  They both have albums entitled Revenge.  And both were quite good, too.  Work had already begun on the Kiss Revenge when drummer Eric Carr was stricken with a rare form of heart cancer in 1991, so the band decided to bring in Eric Singer on a temporary basis in the hope that Carr would eventually recover, but sadly, he didn’t, rest his soul.  Young master Singer, the first-ever blonde member of Kiss, was every bit as capable on the skins, having previously worked with the likes of Alice Cooper, The Cult, Jake E. Lee’s Badlands and Black Sabbath (check the boy out on Eternal Idol if you get a chance), as well as Paul Stanley on his 1989 solo club tour.  Also returning to the fold fully-motivated was our favorite fire-breathing Demon, Gene Simmons, who had the Riot Act read to him by Paul Stanley about all his extracurricular activities that were affecting the quality of the band’s work more or less ever since they took off the make-up in 1983.  The result was an excellent in-your-face balls-to-the-wall record, and easily the heaviest Kiss album since 1982’s Creatures Of The Night.  And in a “He’s baaaaaack” sort of maneuver, Simmons even sang lead on the opening track (“Unholy”) for the first time ever on a Kiss studio album, which heretofore had been strictly Paul Stanley’s realm.  Gene was certifiably born-again hard on Revenge, contributing his strongest tracks in years, especially “Unholy”, “Spit”, “Domino”, and my personal favorite, “Thou Shalt Not”, a not-so-subtle middle finger up the ass of sanctimonious religious zealots everywhere:  “Kindly reconsider the sins of your past/I said ‘Mister, you can kindly kiss my ass!’”.  Stanley’s songs didn’t suck here, either, including titty-bar tribute “Take It Off” and his nifty piece of verbal sleight-of-hand (sleight-of mouth?), “I Just Wanna (FUH-get you!)”.  A couple tracks fall flat for me like Paul’s “Heart Of Chrome” and Gene’s “Paralyzed”, as well as the remake of Argent’s “God Gave Rock ‘N’ Roll To You II”, which for some reason, I’ve never much cared for, even though it was a fair-sized hit.  Revenge also contains a final tribute to their fallen comrade on “Carr Jam 1981”, which features a rare studio drum solo in the middle of a track Eric co-wrote that was in the works during the time of Music From The Elder, which eventually morphed into the Frehley’s Comet tune “Breakout” in 1987.  Damn good album, Revenge is, so why in blue blazes didn’t Kiss stick to this winning formula instead of lurching into the the major brain fart that was Carnival Of Souls?

My grade:  B+

8) Asylum (1985)  It pisses me off no end whenever Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley do retrospectives on the band’s history how they sometimes try to act like the ‘80s never happened and tend to dismiss the music they made during the non-make-up era.  Unlike some fans, I generally don’t favor only the original foursome over other Kiss lineups, and I would even counter that a lot of Kiss’ ‘80s output holds up better than some of their ‘70s stuff does.  Asylum, one of my favorite Kiss albums and easily their most underrated, is a good example.  While it only yielded one hit, “Tears Are Falling”, the rest of the album consistently rocked out and even Simmons was a little more attentive this time than he was on Animalize from the previous year.  Gene was full of his usual lascivious macho bravado lyrics throughout on tracks like “Any Way You Slice It” (“You know you ain’t your mother’s little daughter anymore…”), “Secretly Cruel” (“She was all over me like a cheap suit…”) and “Love’s A Deadly Weapon” (“…and murder’s on my mind…”).  Paul Stanley opens the record with the triumphant “King Of The Mountain”, which dove-tailed nicely for me as a celebratory tune when the Royals won the World Serious just weeks after Asylum came out in ’85.  Stanley’s “Who Wants To Be Lonely” seemed tailor-made to be an MTV hit, but never quite made it, for whatever reason.  His other two cuts (“I’m Alive” and “Radar For Love”) were fairly average, but he made up for them with “Tears” and my favorite track on (and video from) the album, the closer “UH! All Night”. I think we all know what “UH!” means!  Asylum was Bruce Kulick’s first credited work with Kiss (having already played on various tracks on Animalize and Creatures Of The Night), and he made the best of what little room Gene and Paul gave him to flex his muscles, especially on “Deadly Weapon” and “Any Way You Slice It”.  Asylum doesn’t even rate that highly with the band members, but I’ve always really liked it, hence its Top 10 finish here, and I’d take it any day over the (somewhat) overrated Animalize, too.

My grade:  B+

7) Kiss (1974)  Oh, what might’ve been!  If the legendary Eddie Kramer had been available at the time to produce the first Kiss album, we might be talking about this record in the same vein as other classic debut records like Van Halen, Boston, Guns ‘N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction and the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Are You Experienced?.  While the material here is first-rate—seven out of the ten tracks made it to Alive! in '75, and all seven remain Kiss concert staples to this day—the piss-poor recording by producers Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise all but sucked the life right out of the songs here.  Even though they’re a little ragged in places, I don’t see why Kiss didn’t just use the demos for “Strutter”, “Firehouse”, “100,000 Years”, etc., (which you can hear on the Kiss box set) instead—they sounded so much fresher and energetic than the draggy neutered recordings here.  “Cold Gin” sounds particularly slow, compared with how it’s played live, and “Deuce” just doesn’t have that extra kick you hear in concert.  Of those tracks, “Nothin’ To Lose” sounds fairly good in its studio incarnation, complete with piano on the backing track and Peter Criss yowling away during the choruses, and the deliberate slow-down at the end of “Black Diamond” to close out the album is kinda cool, otherwise, those “Magnificent Seven” tracks came across so much better on Alive!.  Meanwhile, the other three songs all have interesting stories behind them. “Kissin’ Time” wasn’t even part of the original album upon its release, but Casablanca Records boss man, the late Neil Bogart, could never pass up a great gimmick when it stared him in the face, so he enlisted the band to cover Bobby Rydell’s 1959 hit (with re-worked lyrics to include cities that were Kiss concert strongholds at the time) to coincide with a kissing contest to draw attention to the band.  If you happen to own a pressing of Kiss without “Kissin’ Time” on it, it’s worth some money—there aren’t very many copies in captivity, evidently.  “Love Theme From Kiss”—the first-ever Kiss instrumental—was originally known as “Acrobat”, which was part of the pre-historic Kiss live act that morphed into another section called “Much Too Young”.  Other than “All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose” from Lick It Up, “Love Theme” is the only Kiss song credited to all four members who were with the band at the time.  “Let Me Know” was originally called “Sunday Driver”, and it features the nifty jam section romp at the end that was later transplanted to the end of “She” and stretched out in concert to allow Ace Frehley to show off a little.

My grade:  B+ for the material, D+ for the recording thereof

6) Paul Stanley (1978)  As one might have expected, Paul’s solo album sounded the most like a regular Kiss album, since he does the majority of the singing and songwriting.  What one might not have expected was how much the Starchild had matured as a vocalist.  Even though he’s a naturally-gifted singer, it took Paul a few years to truly find his vocal range and really learn how to properly sing, and this album was proof that he’d come a long way since “Strutter” and “100,000 Years”.  The album opens with Stanley’s trademark slow/soft beginning followed by loud/hard finish on “Tonight You Belong To Me” (shades of “Black Diamond” and “I Want You” before it), and keeps the groove going with “Move On”.  If you want to see something funny, watch him try to do this one live on the concert video from the Dynasty tour—Paul gets so wrapped up in dancing and jumping around that he forgets to inhale and loses his breath halfway through the second verse!  “Wouldn’t You Like To Know Me?” is another fine track, in spite of the asinine line that goes, “You got the key, but babe, I locked the gate.”  Uhhh, dude, the fact remains that your girl STILL HAS THE KEY!  Unless she’s a total airhead and can’t figure out how to work the lock—oh, never mind!  Working with erstwhile Kansas producer Jeff Glixman, Paul deviated from the Kiss playbook in a couple places here, like on “Take Me Away (Together As One)”, “Ain’t Quite Right” and the Barry Manilow-esque “Hold Me, Touch Me”, but not to the album’s detriment.  Other standout tracks include “It’s Alright”, “Love In Chains” and the natural closer, “Goodbye”.  Overall, a sterling effort by Mistah Stanley.

My grade:  B+

5) Lick It Up (1983)  I personally think Kiss waited one album too long to ditch the make-up and the platform boots.  They should’ve left them in the ‘70s where they belonged, but the band certainly benefitted from the bounce they got from exposing themselves (facially, anyway) on Lick It Up.  If you need proof that Kiss was just as good without the war paint, after seeing the “Lick It Up” video on MTV, a guy I worked with at the time said to me, “Man, I really liked the song, but didn’t have a clue who they were until Gene stuck his tongue out!”  Thanks in part to the curiosity factor, LIU outsold Creatures Of The Night by leaps and bounds, even though the quality of the two was comparable and in spite of Vinnie Vincent’s unimaginative guitar work throughout.  Fortunately, Vincenzo wasn’t a total liability, as his songwriting skills were far superior to his one-dimensional guitar playing, and he contributed mightily to the excellent mix of songs here—VV co-wrote the title track and eight out of the ten tunes, overall.  Even though Gene Simmons wound up like a fish out of water and eventually lost his way without his Demon persona make-up, he had some killer tunes and did some of his best singing on this album.  “Fits Like A Glove” and “Young And Wasted” are two of my all-time favorite Kiss tunes ever (regardless of era) and I loved the fuck-you attitude of his “Dance All Over Your Face”.  “Not For The Innocent” and “And On The 8th Day” didn’t suck either.  Paul Stanley scored a slam dunk with the title track, but had a bit of an airball by trying to be Gaspasser Flash by doing a little Rappin’ on “All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose”—don’t quit yer day job, there, Starchild!  However, if you can get past the Rappin’, the rest of the song ain’t bad.  He makes up for it, though, on “Exciter”, “A Million To One” and especially “Gimme More”.  As for Lick It Up as a whole:  No make-up?  No problem!

My grade:  A-minus

And now I'm going to be a douche like Casey Kasem and make you wait for the rest of the countdown—mostly because I haven't written the rest of it, yet!

My Life In The Kiss Cult, Part C, Section 2

On with the countdown...

20) Hot In The Shade (1989)  I really liked this album when it first came out, but it hasn’t aged very well over the last 20 years as I’ve noted the throw-away quality of some tracks, particularly Gene’s offerings.  This coincides with the continuation of Simmons’ late ‘80s “Gone Hollywood” period, when he was off acting in movies and TV shows (to varying degrees of success), managing/producing other bands (Giuffria, EZO, Keel, et al) and schmoozing with all type of celebrity vermin, with his participation in the band he co-founded being more of a hobby to the Demon rather than a serious pursuit.  Thus, Paul Stanley was carrying the band on his back, and he was understandably pissed at Gene, and finally let him know it not long after the Hot In The Shade tour ended in 1990.  Accordingly, the Demon gave us several forgettable tracks like “Prisoner Of Love”, “Boomerang”, "Love's A Slap In The Face", “Somewhere Between Heaven And Hell” and “The Street Giveth And The Street Taketh Away”, with only “Betrayed” and maybe “Cadillac Dreams” being truly worth writing home about.  Stanley’s tunes were the strongest, as usual, especially “Rise To It”, “Read My Body” and “Silver Spoon”, along with the album’s two big hits, “Forever” (co-written by that Michael Bolton scalawag) and “Hide Your Heart”.  The latter tune, co- written by Stanley, Desmond Child and Holly Knight, was a cautionary tale about the emerging street gang culture, featuring Dino, who was “king of the streets”.  Funny, I always thought Dino was Fred Flintstone’s pet, but I digress.  Anyway, 1989 was a banner year for “Hide Your Heart”, as no less than three versions of the song came out that summer/fall—one by Kiss, one by Southern Rockers Molly Hatchet (on the last really good album they ever made), and another by some dude named Ace Frehley.  Of the three, the Kiss version was probably the best.  HITS was also noteworthy for being drummer Eric Carr’s unexpected swan song.  Thankfully, before he left us, he was finally able to sing one of his own compositions on a Kiss record, “Little Caesar”, which was re-worked from a tune originally called “Ain’t That Peculiar” and re-titled as Eric’s nickname.  Would love to have heard this little dude sing some more—he sounded great doing Gene’s “Young And Wasted” and singing Peter Criss’ part from “Black Diamond” in concert, as well.  This was also the longest Kiss studio album, to date—15 tracks and nearly an hour’s worth of music—but as I often declare, bigger ain’t necessarily better.

My grade:  C

19) MTV Unplugged (1996)  I’m on record as hating the whole “Unplugged” phenomenon on MTV.  I thought it was gimmicky then, and I still feel that way.  To me, acoustic guitar is the equivalent of black-and-white TV, whereas electric guitar equals color TV to me.  True, there are some classic moments in Rock when acoustic guitar never sounded sweeter—the intro to George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord”, The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” and the Moody Blues’ “Question”, just to name three—but in general, as John Hiatt once sang, “…I wanna hear a Telecaster through a Vibrolux turned up to ten.”  All that being said, I actually did rather enjoy the Kiss installment of MTV Unplugged for two reasons:  1) it was kinda fun to hear how some of the old classics evolved from their acoustic beginnings, and most importantly, 2) it led to the Kiss reunion that put a screeching halt to the nightmarish grunge detour Kiss took on Carnival Of Souls.  The highlights for me on Unplugged weren’t so much the big hits like “Rock And Roll All Nite” as were the more obscure classics they dusted off and played like “Comin’ Home” from Hotter Than Hell and "Plaster Caster" from Love Gun and even more recent stuff like “Domino” from Revenge.  I do have issues with them changing the line “She’s got me by the balls” from the latter to “She’s got to have it all” just to protect the virgin ears of any precocious MTV viewers who might have tuned in.  Then again, MTV are the same people who banned Van Halen’s “Pretty Woman” video because it featured a guy in drag, yet it was perfectly okey-dokey to air Boy George/ Culture Club videos ad nauseam, but I digress.  Anyway, it was also refreshing to finally hear Peter Criss sing “Beth” with live musical accompaniment instead of a taped backing track, and the combined forces of Criss/Frehley/Stanley/Simmons with Eric Singer and Bruce Kulick performing “Nothin’ To Lose” and “Rock And Roll All Nite” made for a nice finale.  Not unlike Kiss Symphony, Unplugged isn't something I’d want to listen to all the time, but it’s fun to give it an occasional spin.

My grade:  C

18) Alive II (1977)  Since Alive! was such a monumental live recording, when I learned that Kiss was making a sequel late in the summer of ’77, I couldn’t wait for Alive II to come out, to the point where it was the first Kiss album I bought the day it hit store shelves.  Make that the nanosecond it hit those shelves.  I anxiously camped out after school in front of the old No Records store in Raytown on a cold and grey November afternoon (in the ghetto?) until the hippie chick clerk arrived with their shipment of new records.  Not sure why I was that antsy about getting it—I’d already listened to Alive II in its entirety a few days before when I stayed up late (on a school night) to hear it on the “Midnight Album Hour” on the old KY-102, back in the days when spinning albums from start-to-finish on Album Rock stations was routine instead of heresy like it is today.  Oh well, by this time, I was well within the clutches of KissMania and I just HAD to have Alive II ASAP.  And it sure hit the spot—for a while anyway.  I loved it as much as Alive! at first, but as time wore on, I began to realize it wasn’t nearly as good as its predecessor.  When I listened to it more objectively over time, I noticed how Alive II didn’t really “take you there” the same way the first live record did (regardless of how much it was touched-up).  The crowd noise was way over-amped and sounded really fake in places, too—Kiss audiences are loud, yes, but not shrieky like BeatleMania crowds.  And the musicianship is pretty mediocre throughout, as well.  Knowing now what I didn’t know then, I personally think Kiss should’ve used the audio from the April 2, 1977 Tokyo Budokan concert that’s featured on the Kissology DVDs instead—the band was much tighter and the sound was far superior than the L.A. Forum shows from which Alive II was culled.  However, Alive II did have a major saving grace—Side 4—comprised of five all-new studio cuts, all of which were quite good, especially Paul Stanley’s “All-American Man”, Gene Simmons’ “Larger Than Life” and Ace Frehley’s “Rocket Ride”, and their remake of the Dave Clark 5’s “Any Way You Want It” was a hoot.  In some more revisionist hindsight, I still opine that Kiss might’ve been better served to add another live side to Alive II with tracks that didn’t make the original cut (like “Take Me” and “Do You Love Me”) and even re-visit a few songs from Alive! (like “Strutter” or “Firehouse”), then record another four or five new songs to combine with the five from Side 4 and put out a full-fledged Kiss studio album that would have nicely filled the interim between Alive II and the solo albums in ’78.

My grade:  C overall, with a straight B for Side 4

17) Alive III (1993)  In spite of the passing of drummer Eric Carr in 1991, Kiss rebounded nicely with their strongest album in years in 1992 with Revenge, and the ensuing tour in support of it with Eric Singer on the skins was shaping up to be a great one until it was truncated about halfway through by poor ticket sales.  Alive III decently documents where the band was at during this time, as their set list included a nice mix of old (“Deuce”, “Detroit Rock City”), newer (“Creatures Of The Night”, “I Still Love You”, “Lick It Up”) and newest (“I Just Wanna”, “Domino”, “Unholy”).  It was also fun to hear 1992 Kiss doing 1974’s “Watchin’ You” and sounding great on it.  In fact, if you can find a copy of the bootleg Unchained & Unmasked with the entire Jersey Meadowlands concert from September of ’92, although the sound’s a bit muddy in places, it’s well worth a listen for other old classics like “Parasite”, “I Want You” and “Hotter Than Hell”.  Getting back to Alive III, on this tour, Kiss (for some strange reason) chose to perform the Rock ‘N’ Roll national anthem, “Rock And Roll All Nite” in the middle of the show rather than in its customary closer spot, but in its place, they played a brief rendition of the real national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”, instead.  Not the greatest live album in the world, but not a bad one, and an upgrade over the second one.

My grade:  C+

16) Dressed To Kill (1975)  Dressed To Kill was a bit of a rush-job, since the only way Kiss could make any money during this period was by playing the concerts which they were now headlining, so they ducked into the studio briefly to whip this one out between gigs in the winter of ’75.  Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart produced this one himself, which may partly explain why DTK had far better sound than the first two Kiss albums.  Of the original three LPs, it probably had the weakest material, overall, as the band had exhausted their stash of good songs on the first two albums and didn’t have proper time to come up with new stuff before heading into the studio.  There were still a few gems, though, namely “Room Service”, “C’Mon And Love Me” (which was a minor radio hit), “She” and “Love Her All I Can”, the latter two of which Gene and Paul resurrected from their pre-Kiss Wicked Lester days.  One of Kiss’ more underrated cuts and a big favorite of mine, the original “Love Her All I Can” sounded almost Jethro Tull-like with a flute solo (perish the thought of Ian Anderson in Kiss makeup!), while the Kiss version is stronger and punchier.  Dressed also included “Rock Bottom”, featuring Ace’s 12-string acoustic intro, which is one of the prettier pieces of music you’ll hear on a Kiss record—too bad the rest of the song doesn’t really go anywhere.  And of course, DTK contains the original studio version of Rock’s national anthem, “Rock And Roll All Nite”.  A landmark song, and a defining moment in Kisstory, to be sure, but to be honest, I much prefer its infinitely superior live version on Alive!.  Overall, Dressed To Kill most certainly would’ve been better if they’d had more time to put it together, but under the circumstances, they did the best they could.

My grade:  C+

15) Animalize (1984)  Animalize was certainly one of Kiss’ most successful LPs during the non-make-up years, but I disagree with the popular view amongst Kiss fans who regard it as one of the best things they put out in the ‘80s.  I’ve always thought that album was overrated because it’s only half-good—Paul Stanley’s half, that is.  Gene Simmons basically phoned in his half while he was off in La-La Land terrorizing Tom Selleck and knifing Kirstie Alley in the back while playing the bad guy in the film Runaway.  In fact, Animalize could almost pass for a Paul Stanley solo album sprinkled with a few guest appearances by Simmons, as the Starchild pretty much ran the whole show himself by producing the album and even playing bass on some tracks in Gene’s place (as did Jean Beauvoir, the black dude with the mohawk from the band King’s X).  Nonetheless, PS had some killer cuts on this record, namely the sizzling “I’ve Had Enough (Into The Fire)”, “Under The Gun” and “Get All You Can Take”, along with the two MTV hits, “Heaven’s On Fire” and the Bon Jovi-ish “Thrills In The Night”.  Gene’s tracks, on the other hand, were all pretty much forgettable, especially “Lonely Is The Hunter”, “Murder In High Heels” and “While The City Sleeps”.  Only “Burn Bitch Burn” was halfway decent, (saved only by its strong riff) with silly lyrics that sure didn’t cut the cheese—lame lines like “the heels are stacked against you” and “I’m gonna put my log in your fireplace”, etc.  The Demon’s ship had clearly run aground by this time—it was clear that his competing agendas were a major detriment to Kiss—and since he was so distracted, this would’ve been a golden opportunity to let “Little Caesar” (Eric Carr) sing on a track or two, but noooooooo!  Animalize was also late guitarist Mark St. John’s proverbial “cup of coffee” with the band, and even though he was sidelined later by his bout with Reiter’s Syndrome, he may not have lasted long with Kiss anyway.  He clashed musically with Stanley and Simmons almost from the get-go, and was even supplanted by his eventual permanent replacement, Bruce Kulick, on two of the tracks here.  Lame cover jacket too (both front and back), but thankfully, Paul Stanley came through and saved this album from being a total reversal of the momentum created by Creatures Of The Night and Lick It Up.

My grade:  C+

14) Sonic Boom (2009)  Following the band’s longest stretch between studio albums ever (11 years), I was quite skeptical that Kiss could still bring it in 2009, but damned if they didn’t on Sonic Boom.  The jury’s still out as to the overall impact of Sonic Boom on the Kiss catalogue, but I was pleasantly surprised at how rejuvenated the band sounds and quite pleased with the quality of songwriting here, which was a major upgrade over 1998’s Psycho Circus.  I also like how Simmons and Stanley are collaborating on some songs again, and how this album sounds a lot more like a cohesive group effort, the likes of which we haven’t heard from Kiss since 1992’s Revenge.  The best tracks include “Never Enough”, “Hot And Cold”, “Stand” and “All For The Glory”, the latter of which features drummer Eric Singer on lead vocals.  Democracy reigns on Sonic Boom, as even guitarist Tommy Thayer gets to sing lead on “When Lightning Strikes”. All that’s really lacking are really good opening and closing tracks, as “Modern Day Delilah” and “Say Yeah” are rather mediocre, respectively, in those roles.  But, what’s in between is pretty good stuff—let’s hope we don’t have to wait 11 more years for the next one…

My grade:  B-minus

13) Crazy Nights (1987)  In spite of the title, a lot of Kiss fans weren’t crazy about Crazy Nights and even I didn’t much care for it—at first.  But as time wore on, this record really grew on me, and there’s some pretty good stuff here, if you can get past the somewhat watered-down ’80s sheen applied to it by producer Ron Nevison.  In fact, I rather liked the slickness and bigness of Crazy Nights, which sounded similar to Nevison’s previous high-profile projects, like Jefferson Starship's early '80s output, Ozzy Osbourne’s The Ultimate Sin in ‘86 and the self-titled major comeback album by Heart in ‘85.  Oddly enough, some of Paul Stanley’s tunes fell flat this time, like “Crazy Crazy Nights”, “Bang Bang You” and “When Your Walls Come Down”, but he made up for those with some outstanding vocals on “I’ll Fight Hell To Hold You”, “Turn On The Night”, “Reason To Live” and “My Way” (no, not the Sinatra/Elvis song).  Da boy musta been wearing tight pants in the studio, because I’d never heard him sing that high before—or since!  Gene Simmons contributed a couple of underrated tracks as well, “Hell Or High Water”, “Good Girl Gone Bad” and the musical romp, “No, No, No”, the latter of which finally gave Bruce Kulick a chance to show off a little on lead guitar.  Unfortunately, as good as the album was, the accompanying tour was quite possibly the worst in Kisstory, with the band playing short 75-minute sets as if they were double-parked outside the arena every night.  Still, I like Crazy Nights, and every time I hear this album, it takes me back to the late ‘80s when I was 23 and working in radio and life was good—“for a limited time” (as the Rush song goes)…

My grade:  B-minus

12) Hotter Than Hell (1974)  It’s just a cryin’ shame that the first two Kiss albums sounded so amateurish because the hacks producing them (Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise) wouldn’t know good sound if it bit them in the ass.  Like the first album, HTH had great songs on it, but I would like this album so much better if it didn’t sound like it was recorded in a mop bucket!  Some people even go as far to say that HTH was the world’s first Grunge album, but I think they’re reaching a little.  True, it did have a heavier sound than the first record, but that had more to do with the way Kerner and Wise slowed the pitch down on some songs (like the title track and “Parasite”) to the point where they just plod along instead of sounding bright and snappy like they do on Alive!.  And I’d really like to know whose bright idea it was to chop “Let Me Go, Rock ‘N’ Roll” in half! The original demo for the song (found on the Kiss box set) contains the sloppy, yet spirited extended jam (which is the best part of the song, IMHO) just as they play it live in concert, but the Hotter Than Hell version got castrated into a two-minute single instead before the jam even starts—Wrong!  Wrong!  Wrong!  A couple of songs on Hotter never really have registered with me—namely “Got To Choose” and “Goin’ Blind”—but Ace’s “Parasite” is one of my all-time Kiss faves, as is the title track, and I also really liked the under-the-radar stuff like “Comin’ Home”, “All The Way” and “Watchin’ You”.  Good album that might have been a classic if it only had been recorded properly.  It coulda been a contender...

My grade:  B-minus for the material, D+ for the sound quality

11) Love Gun (1977)  This one kinda snuck up on me—I wasn’t even aware it was due out when I saw it on display at the mall during the Major League Baseball All-Star Break in ’77.  Love Gun basically was extra innings from where Rock And Roll Over left off in late ’76, and almost sounds in places like it might’ve been recorded during the same sessions.  Sticking with the baseball motif, Paul Stanley—easily the finest lead-off hitter in the Kiss line-up—opened Side 1 with a solid line drive triple into the gap with “I Stole Your Love” and Side 2 with a grand slam on the title track.  Meanwhile, first baseman Gene Simmons batted clean-up and drove in a few runs with a couple underrated classics of his own, namely “Got Love For Sale” (which even features the line “'cross your home plate”) and “Plaster Caster”, and he even scored a bloop-hit Top 40 single with “Christine Sixteen”.  Designated hitter Ace Frehley nailed his third home run as a member of Kiss—“Parasite” and “Cold Gin” being the first two—by singing lead for the first time on “Shock Me”, while Catman shortstop Peter Criss tripped over his own tail rounding first base and got picked off on the rather lame “Hooligan”.  “I got a ’35 Chevy on a ’55 frame…”—what the hell does that mean?  Definitely not a vehicle I’d care to ride in!  For those of you scoring at home, the rest of Love Gun included an infield single (“Almost Human”), one error (“Tomorrow And Tonight”) and only one strikeout (“Then She Kissed Me”) en route to the Kiss victory.  Little did we know then that this would be the last time the original foursome were cooperating in the dugout/recording studio.  Too bad Kiss never covered “Take Me Out To The Ballgame”, huh?

My grade:  B

My Life In The Kiss Cult, Part C, Section 1

PART C:  THE ALBUMS

A couple years ago, I ranked my 20 favorite Kiss songs of all-time, and now it’s high time I rank their albums.  For the purposes of this countdown, I am ranking all Kiss studio albums (including the four solo albums from 1978), live albums and compilations that featured new material.  Technically, 1978’s Double Platinum included new recordings like “Strutter ‘78”, but I discount it because the new recordings were just remakes of their older songs.  And I should point out with the exception of #31, I don’t totally dislike any of the albums on this list—other than #31, they all have something to offer, even if it’s only one or two good tracks.

Cue Casey Kasem:  “On with the countdown…”

31) Carnival of Souls (1997)  In the words of the Wayans Bros.' “Men on Film”:  “HATED it!”  Of everything Kiss has ever released, Carnival of Souls is far and away the one album I had the most negative reaction to, and is the only one I have ever truly wanted my money back for.  I heard the taster track “Jungle” on the radio in advance, and was hardly impressed with it, but I gave my favorite band of all-time the benefit of the doubt and later bought COS anyway.  Alarm bells should’ve gone off in my head when the gnarly dude at Streetside Records proclaimed to me, “Oh, dude, they sound like Soundgarden now!”  COS was basically Gene Simmons’ brainchild, and Paul Stanley was actually opposed to doing this type of album to begin with, later admitting in retrospect, “It was a labored attempt at something that I think was a big misstep,” giving it “Two stars.”  I wouldn’t even give Souls a two-bit moon rock!  You’d think Simmons and Stanley would’ve learned from the folly that was Music From The Elder 13 years before that trying to impress the critics is always an exercise in futility, and as with Elder, they had no business making this record.  Kiss is a good-time Rock ‘N’ Roll band, not some dark, depressing, aimless moody group of disenfranchised slackers bedecked in flannel shirts and tuques.  If this was the permanent direction this band was headed in during the mid-‘90s, then the reunion with Peter Criss and Ace Frehley didn’t come a minute too soon.  Worst…Kiss…album…ever!

My grade:  F-minus. Hell, I give this pile of iguana excrement a G!

30) Smashes Thrashes And Hits (1988)  With a lame title like that, this thing was doomed from the start.  I have never understood how if Kiss (or any other band, for that matter) is so proud of their previous musical output, then why do they feel the need to re-record/re-mix/re-dub some of their songs on a greatest hits package.  I hated the way they butchered up “Love Gun” on here (the original track is a killer, so why screw with it?), not to mention the way they stabbed Peter Criss in the back by having the late Eric Carr lay down his own vocal on PC’s signature song, “Beth”.  I don’t fault young master Carr here at all—he was desperate to get a lead vocal on a Kiss record, and even he had misgivings about doing “Beth”—but Gene and Paul totally crossed the line on this one and this is when I finally took notice of how petty these two can sometimes be.  Of the two new tracks on Smashes, “Let’s Put The X In Sex” was pretty weak, although it got a lot of spins on MTV, but I did kinda like “(You Make Me) Rock Hard”.  Unless you just have to have everything Kiss ever made, STAH is expendable.

My grade:  D-minus, both for the content and the title.

29) You Wanted The Best, You've Got The Best!! (1996)  I hesitated on whether to include this one or not, because it’s kind of a rip-off in a way, released as a stop-gap to capitalize on the momentum brought on by the 1996 Reunion Tour, since Kiss had no new material to put out.  Comprised of actual cuts from and unreleased tracks that were recorded for Alive! and Alive II, YWTBYGTB holds my interest if only for the tracks that failed to make the cut on the first two live albums, namely “Let Me Know”, “Two Timer”, “Take Me” and “Room Service”, even though it’s pretty obvious the vocals were re-dubbed on those songs and the crowd noise was excessively amped-up.  There’s also a ten-minute band interview with Jay Leno that almost sounded sincere at the time, but given all the rancor that’s occurred in Kiss the camp since then, it sounds like a load of spin-doctor hooey today.

My grade:  D-minus

28) Peter Criss (1978)  It’s no big secret that George Peter John Criscoula was never totally into the style of music that Kiss played.  You might say the Catman sold out musically by joining the band (in exchange for fame and fortune), as he was more into soul and R&B and Sinatra and such.  Pete also saw himself as more a crooner instead of a Rock singer on his solo album, which lagged way behind all three of his bandmates in terms of records sales and wasn’t well-received by Kiss fans in general.  I think the biggest reason for this is pretty simple—it didn’t rock out enough!  The material on it wasn’t all that wretched, but Peter kept trying to duplicate the phenomenal yet fluky success of “Beth” with way too many ballads.  What few upbeat songs he did on here came across sounding like a poor man’s Eddie Money record, with the best tracks being “Hooked On Rock ‘N’ Roll” and a remake of Bobby Lewis “Tossin’ And Turnin”.  Criss staunchly defends his Kiss solo album to this day, but I only found it mildly entertaining, at best.  I get the impression that once he got that album out, he thought he’d morph into Rod Stewart and have a great solo career.  Didn’t quite work that way...

My grade:  D-minus.

27) Killers (1982)  The early ‘80s were a confusing time for Kiss and their fans.  Criss was replaced by Carr, then Ace Frehley left, but didn’t really leave right away, as he still appeared in videos and on album covers, and any number of lead guitarists made ghost appearances in his place on early ‘80s Kiss releases.  Following the Elder debacle, Gene and Paul wisely decided that Kiss needed to return to what they do best—straight-ahead hard Rock—even though the group was in a state of flux at the time.  Instead of a full-fledged new album, they took baby steps and recorded four new songs with Bob Kulick (Bruce’s bro) on lead guitar (even though Frehley appears on the cover again) as part of another best-of record, which initially was only available in Europe.  My CD copy even has the German Kiss logo on it with the “SS” altered so as not to remind folks of the Holocaust.  While the new tunes (“I’m A Legend Tonight”, “Down On Your Knees”, “Nowhere To Run” and “Partners In Crime”)—all sung by Stanley—were hardly earth-shattering, they were certainly a step in the right direction.  Of the four, only “Partners” truly fell flat with me here.  The best-of portion of the album was fairly predictable and not terribly concise.

My grade:  D for the overall album, C-minus for the new songs.

26) Dynasty (1979)  Dynasty was a victim of high-expectations, coming two years after the last full-length Kiss longplayer (when was the last time you heard or used that term?), Love Gun.  Though not outwardly-apparent to fans, the band was coming apart at the seams by then, to the point where Peter Criss had to be replaced by future David Letterman band drummer Anton Fig for the sessions.  Ace Frehley, whose confidence and stature were greatly bolstered by the unexpected success of his solo record, also felt like he was on a leash during this time, and was no doubt frustrated that he couldn’t flex his muscles more.  Even though some of the material on Dynasty was quite good, this album just didn’t feel like a group effort to me.  In a similar dynamic to the Beatles’ White Album, it was more like each band member acted as a session player for the others.  Ace turned in a nice cover of the Rolling Stones’ “2000 Man” and his closing track, “Save Your Love” was probably the edgiest tune here, while Paul’s “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” and “Sure Know Something” have both aged remarkably well in the last 30 years.  Simmons was strangely subdued on Dynasty and didn’t even sing on Side 1 (back when albums had sides, remember kids?) and only contributed two fairly average songs overall (“Charisma” and “X-Ray Eyes”).  They also threw the Cat a bone by doing Peter’s “Dirty Livin’”, which might well be the lamest song Criss ever recorded on a Kiss album.  It also didn’t help that they brought in Vini Poncia to produce.  Vincenzo did a nice job working with Ringo Starr, et al, and managed to somehow salvage Peter’s solo album, but his Pop music leanings didn’t serve Kiss all that well.  Even the cover photo seemed unimaginative, considering the killer album jackets that preceded it, namely Destroyer, Love Gun and Rock And Roll Over, et al.

My grade:  D-plus.

25) Gene Simmons (1978)  Our favorite Demon will never get it through his thick skull that bigger isn’t necessarily better, and he proved that on his solo record, which was easily the most unfocused of the four.  Gene decided to show off his star power by bringing in as many guest musicians as he could—Bob Seger, Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Janis Ian (?!?), Skunk Baxter from the Doobie Bros., Donna Summer (?!?), Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, among others, and of course Cher (?!?), whom he was dating at the time.  Hell, for all we know, Simmons might’ve brought in the Kingston Trio, Liberace and Dr. Johnny Fever’s fictitious Hallelujah Tabernacle Choir, if he had the chance!  The result was a strange, inconsistent mish-mash of an album that left most Kiss fans scratching their heads, especially over the closing track where Gene warbles Jiminy Cricket’s “When You Wish Upon A Star”.  My initial reaction was something like, “This was the same guy who wrote ‘I’m 93, you’re 16’ and ‘Get up, and get your grandma outta here!’?!?”  To be fair, Simmons actually wrote some pretty decent songs here, like “Man of 1,000 Faces”, “See You Tonite” and “Radioactive”, and he even showed us an impressive vocal range we’d not heard from him before.  However, as with Peter’s album, the big stumbling block was that Gene didn’t rock out enough and I think if he’d just added a bit more edge to those three songs and the rest of the record, it would’ve been better received.  Instead he waited until the next-to-last track, “See You In Your Dreams” (with Nielsen on lead guitar) to finally put the hammer down, and even that was a remake of a two-year-old Kiss song, the original of which I much prefer over Gene's version.

My grade:  D-plus.

24) Unmasked (1980)  Considered by many to be the wimpiest Kiss album of all-time, I hold Unmasked in slightly higher regard than that.  The songs herein aren’t bad at all, in reality—it was just the execution of them that was lacking.  Even though he appears on the album jacket, Peter Criss was all but out of the band by this time, replaced again by Anton Fig in the studio.  And once again, Vini Poncia produced, and given his Pop tendencies that I mentioned earlier, he rendered Kiss to be very watered-down on Unmasked, to the point where they sounded more like Toto or an edgy Pablo Cruise.  Paul’s ballad “Shandi” wound up being the Starchild’s “Beth”, so to speak, yielding a huge fluke hit (overseas, anyway), and “What Makes The World Go ‘Round” had single written all over it too.  Ace Frehley contributed three decent (if not spectacular) tracks, “Two Sides Of The Coin”, “Talk To Me” and the goofy “Torpedo Girl”, but they paled in comparison to the material on his solo album.  And like on Dynasty, Simmons was fairly subdued again, sounding almost Billy Joel-like on “She’s So European”, but I rather liked “Naked City” and his closing track “You’re All That I Want”.  All in all, Unmasked was a really good album.  It just wasn’t a really good Kiss album…

My grade:  C-minus.

23) Psycho Circus (1998)  As was the case with Dynasty, this was hardly a group effort at all, contrary to what we were led to believe at the time.  This was an original-foursome Kiss album in name only, and what could’ve been one of the greatest comeback albums of all-time wound up being a disappointing and (at times) half-baked effort from what used to be the Hottest Band In The World.  Apart from Frehley’s “Into The Void”, Paul Stanley’s tunes were the only ones worthy of mention, especially the title track, “Raise Your Glasses” and “I Pledge Allegiance To The State Of Rock ‘N’ Roll.”  In a half-hearted attempt to create a “group” feel, the song “You Wanted The Best” featured all four band members trading vocal lines, but it came off seeming hollow and contrived.  Gene Simmons’ cuts on Psycho Circus were the most disappointing of all, with a couple of them seeming like they weren’t totally fleshed-out, especially the closing track, “Journey of 1,000 Years” that intoned “Can you feel it coming?” and sounded like it was building up to something climactic, only to peter out in midstream.  Overall, Circus was truly a case of what might have been…

My grade:  C-minus

22) Music From The Elder (1981)  Late 1981 was certainly a different world from the days of “Parasite”, “Black Diamond” and “C’Mon And Love Me”, as Kiss set about to win music critics over with a concept album whose concept even the band themselves didn’t fully understand—shades of Pete Townshend’s ever-elusive Lifehouse project with The Who.  Originally conceived by Simmons and further proliferated by producer Bob Ezrin, The Elder was ostensibly going to be the soundtrack to a Lord Of The Rings/Harry Potter-ish movie that was never made.  Newly-initiated drummer Eric Carr (rest his soul) must’ve wondered what on earth he’d gotten himself into what with this weird album in the works and Ace Frehley quickly fading to the background in Kiss.  Space Ace was so disenchanted with the project that he pretty much phoned his parts in, and only contributed one song to the album, the so-so “Dark Light”.  Even Carr was excused for one track, “I”, in favor of a session drummer because he struggled with the time signature on it, yet Eric was able to play it perfectly fine live on ABC’s “Fridays” show some months later.  They did the same thing with Peter Criss on Dynasty—he was deemed unfit to play on the record, yet he could tour and play the same songs live with no problem—I’ve never understood all that.  Anyway, in spite of Paul Stanley singing about a “child in a sun dress” and other fantasy-world frou-frou, I have a soft spot in my heart for Elder because Kiss was showing signs of breaking out of their wimpy malaise with harder-hitting tracks like “The Oath”, “Escape From The Island” and “I”, and at the end of the latter song, Gene even proclaims “I wanna Rock and Roll all night…”—a good omen for the future.  Music From The Elder nearly killed this band and was probably its worst failure, but it was a brilliant failure, all the same.  And naturally, the critics liked it.  Of course they would…

My grade:  C-minus

21) Kiss Symphony-Alive IV (2003)  Kiss took an odd little side trip (both musically and geographically) in early ’03 when they headed to the Land of Foster’s, and rounded up the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for a night of high-brow Kiss music.  Alive IV marked the recorded debut of Tommy Thayer in place of the Space Ace, and the ever-so-brief return and (as it turned out) the final appearance of Peter Criss as a member of Kiss.  The first segment of the show was just the band itself rocking out, followed by an “unplugged” set, of sorts, augmented by the Melbourne Symphony Ensemble, during which Criss crooned “Beth” with real string accompaniment instead of the usual studio backing track.  Paul Stanley performed “Sure Know Something” and “Shandi”, the latter of which was a huge hit in Oz back in 1980, and Gene even dug up “Goin’ Blind” for the brief middle set.  Then they finished off the show with the full-blown Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (all wearing Kiss make-up) and while I usually prefer my Kiss music straight, it was a nifty little diversion to hear horns and strings and such backing up tunes like “Detroit Rock City” and “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”.  The DVD is even more fun because you can watch these Classically-trained musicians having fun playing Rock ‘N’ Roll, all the while sporting Kiss make-up.  I was personally rather smitten by the Concertmaster violinist chick just to Peter Criss’ right who actually managed to look cute in Gene’s make-up!  As is the case with Halloween, though, Symphony was great fun for one night, but I’m glad Kiss didn’t try to do like the Moody Blues and tote an entire philharmonic around on tour with them.

My grade: C

Twenty more Kiss LPs still to come—keep your feet on the ground and keep reachin' for cigars...