Previous Reading: 

Record Store Tales #600:  The Vault
Disk 1 Review
Disk 2 Review
Disk 3 Review
Disk 4 Review
Disk 5 Review
Disk 6 Review
Disk 7 Review

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onto Sonic Boom and some other albums.  For those keeping score at home, this CD contains tracks 106-120 in the Vault box set.

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GENE SIMMONS – The Vault – Disk 8 (2018 Rhino)

“We Rocked It All Night” is an autobiographical song written for the Sonic Boom album.  Though modern sounding, it also has a throwback vibe.  It would have fit well on Sonic Boom and you could make an argument for its inclusion.  It has a cool old-time rock and roll vibe while remaining modern Kiss.  Gene can’t help referencing back to “Rock and Roll all Nite” in the lyrics, and it’s alright by me.  4/5

“She’s Rotten to the Core” is a Gene Simmons / Bruce Kulick composition not to be confused with “Rotten to the Core”.  They are two different songs.  It can get very confusing going through these demos!  Gene likes to re-use titles and lyrics.  This also has a vintage Kiss sound to it.  Catchy chorus, circa Rock and Roll Over.   “She’s rotten to the core, and I don’t care!”  Really good tune that would have worked well on a number of Kiss albums.  4/5

“S&M Love” is the same musical idea as “Sweet & Dirty Love”, recorded with Tommy Thayer.  These originate with an old Gene song called “Jelly Roll”.  This version of the song has lots of tasty slide guitar action and sounds pretty much ready for an album.  It’s better than the version on Asshole.  It’s more rock and roll.  4/5

“Sweet & Dirty Love #2” with Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer is a dirtier demo of the same song.  It’s a lot rougher sonically but with just as much slide.  Good, fast & heavy.  Too much it doesn’t sound as good.  3.5/5

“Jelly Roll” is the original idea.  You can hear the riff there, and suddenly a younger Gene Simmons is singing the same melody that we just heard.  There’s a certain AC/DC vibe here without the slide guitar.  Perhaps it was too fast and straight-ahead for Kiss, who knows?  A song like this easily could have been on Love Gun.  3.5/5

In this Vault, we often hear later versions before we hear the originals.  “Just Gimme Love #2” is a Thayer & Singer update of a song we’ll hear later on.  It has a cool “Kickstart My Heart” beat and tempo.  Lo and behold, this song later became “You Wanted the Best” on Psycho-Circus.  The chorus is different, and maybe a little more Kiss-like.  Thayer’s solo is in the Ace ballpark.  Regardless, it’s not quite the song that the final version would be, though it’s pretty good.  3.5/5

“You Wanted the Best” is of course the re-written version considered for Psycho-Circus.  Gene explains in the liner notes that Ace and Peter were largely absent from the sessions not because they were underskilled as we were told before.  Now Gene says it’s because the two wanted to renegotiate their contracts last minute, so they were forced to start working with Thayer on the album.  This song was intended to be sung by all four members and ultimately that’s exactly what happened when Ace and Peter “came to their senses”.   There are some cool lines here that didn’t make it into the final version here such as “Yeah, we’re back baby!”  3.5/5

“Just Gimme Love #1” is now, finally the original 1970s version of everything we’ve just heard.  It is from the same recording session that yielded “Love Is Blind” and other songs.  It’s kind of crazy how Gene wrote this music for his band and they didn’t get around to it for 20 years.  This original idea is less breakneck and more in the vibe of old school Kiss, but the chorus doesn’t have the right vibe yet.  It’s a little clunky, but Kiss obviously would have made more more their style.  Since the idea here is a little more primitive, the rating is lower.  3/5

You gotta love Gene’s titles sometimes.  “Hit the Ground (Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is)” is a Singer / Thayer demo with improvised lyrics just to get the musical idea down.  It originally came to Gene while in a car so he sang into into a cell phone to record it.  There’s something cool here, but it’s just a fragment of a song, not a complete idea.  2.5/5

Pete Townsend inspired the big chords on “Who Said So”.  It definitely sounds like a Who outtake, and Eric Singer sounds like he’s going for a Keith Moon vibe on some of his fills.  Tommy Thayer is on guitar as Gene counts out the sections to the band.  “Bridge, two, four!”  They are literally hashing out the song live in the studio.  There could have been something here.  As it is, it’s just the basis of an idea.  2.5/5

“Bad Bad Lovin'” is crazy.  We already heard another version of “Bad Bad Lovin'” that became “Dr. Love” on Disk 4.  Now Gene revisits the idea in 1978 and sounds more like Alice Cooper or Lou Reed in a sing-talk voice.  There’s a saxophone.  This is cool.  Some of the words later became “Good Girl Gone Bad” on Crazy Nights, but largely this sounds like “Charisma” on Dynasty.  Gene doesn’t say so, but this can be considered a prototype for “Charisma”.  4.5/5

Jumping ahead to Revenge, “I’m Paralyzed” eventually ended up on that album.  Bob Ezrin has a writing credit and joins on the chorus.  It’s a very cool demo, but the chorus is not the final one.  It doesn’t quite fit, but of course they would fix that later.  Drums are programmed and Gene played the guitar with a coin a-la Brian May, to a get a certain chug chug sound.  Not bad stuff.  3/5

“Chrome Heart” is a Bruce Kulick / Gene Simmons demo from a post-Crazy Nights era where Kiss needed to rock a little more.  This song smokes!  Bruce Kulick always brings a certain level of quality.  This is better than most of Gene’s songs that made it onto Hot in the Shade.  How do songs like this get lost?   Yet another song that should have been released on an album.  It does sound like some parts turned up elsewhere.  4/5

Gene really likes these big Mountain chords that inspired “Goin’ Blind”.  “‘Til the End of Time” is a similar idea, mostly instrumental with Gene scatting improvised lyrics.  There was potential here to create a similar slow, determined and emotional song of heavy construction.  3.5/5

This disc closes on a pretty clean demo of “Thou Shalt Not” from the Revenge album.  All the music is there, but none of the lyrics aside from the title.  There are empty spots that Gene intended to fill with words.  It’s kind of funny to hear that.  Good idea with a final song that was album-worthy.  3/5

Average score by song:   3.46/5 stars

 

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Disk 8 Track length and songwriters (from Wikipedia)

1. We Rocked It All Night (3:25) Simmons
2. She’s Rotten to the Core (3:33) Simmons / Kulick
3. S&M Love (2:40) Simmons
4. Sweet & Dirty Love #2 (3:24) Simmons
5. Jelly Roll (1:54) Simmons
6. Just Gimme Love #2 (3:40) Simmons
7. You Wanted the Best (3:41) Simmons
8. Just Gimme Love #1 (3:34) Simmons
9. Hit the Ground (2:10) Simmons
10. Who Said So (1:55) Simmons
11. Bad Bad Lovin’ (3:15) Simmons
12. I’m Paralyzed (3:40) Simmons / Ezrin
13. Chrome Heart (3:36) Simmons / Kulick
14. Till the End of Time (3:15) Simmons
15. Thou Shalt Not (3:07) Simmons / Damon