VHS Archives

#951: Set Your VCR, It’s 1986 and KISS Meets The Phantom Is On Tonight!

Special thanks to Jennifer Ladano for telling me to write this story down!

RECORD STORE TALES #951: Set Your VCR!
It’s 1986 and KISS Meets The Phantom Is On Tonight!

When thinking back about my earliest rock and roll discoveries, it’s important to recall the order in which I got the albums, or first heard the tunes.  It seems like I had always known “Rock N’ Roll all Nite”, but since my first Kiss albums were Alive! and Hotter Than Hell, those were the songs I knew best.  And I barely knew them!  I got my first Kiss in September of ’85.  But I was learning slowly.  Eventually I’d get Asylum, and gradually tape Kiss albums from my neighbour George.

Something else happened that exposed me to Kiss in a new way, that I sometimes forget about.  It was the first time I saw Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.

Everybody knew about Kiss Meets the Phantom, but few of us were old enough to have seen it.  When it showed up in the TV guide one week, on some Buffalo station, it seemed like every kid with access to a VCR set it to record.  It was being shown at something like 1:00 in the morning on a Sunday.

Upon waking, I got my sister up early and we raced downstairs to watch.  We did not have time to watch the whole thing that morning.  It was winter, possibly the tail end of Christmas holidays, and we were off to the lake for one day.  We watched some, went to the lake, had lunch at the Embassy, and came home to finish the movie.

I noticed there were far more ads to fast forward through on late night TV than during the day!


Actual ads from the actual tape of the actual night.

My sister recalls liking Kiss Meets the Phantom; my memories are quite different.  I was bored to tears any time Kiss wasn’t on screen, and you had to wait through, like, an hour (with ads) for Kiss to arrive at the bloody park!  I didn’t know who this Anthony Zerbe fellow was, but at age 13 I considered him possibly the worst actor I had ever seen.

It was my first time seeing Peter Criss on video and not just still photos, and I was surprised at his voice.  I told everyone, “Peter Criss sounds like Aquaman.”  I had the show right, but the character wrong.  Michael Bell did the voice of Peter Criss in Kiss Meets the Phantom, and Wonder Twin Zan in the cartoon Superfriends.  Legend has it that this was because Peter didn’t show up to loop his lines in post-production.  Whatever the case, it led to a different urban legends:  that Peter Criss had given up rock and roll, and taken up a lucrative career as a cartoon voice actor!

I thought Gene’s distorted voice was tiresome after a while, and Paul seemed the coolest.  My sister liked that Kiss were like superheroes with powers.  On the other hand, I didn’t like that.  If Paul Stanley couldn’t shoot a laser beam out of his eye in real life, I didn’t understand why he would in this movie.  They were still Kiss, still playing the same Kiss songs, but also super-powered.  My rigid brain couldn’t reconcile the two.

As for the music, the movie contains several songs that I heard for the very first time that day.  “Beth” (acoustic, no less), “Shout It Out Loud”, “God of Thunder” and “I Stole Your Love”.  (“Rip and Destroy” doesn’t count.)  Now, because I didn’t know these songs, and there were no captions, I had to guess at the titles.  “Shout It Out Loud” was the easy one.  But these were the live versions taken from Alive II, fast and reckless.  Not to mention we were hearing it on a TV with mono speaker; state of the art for the time, but not for proper music listening.  So that’s why, for that day at least, I thought “God of Thunder” was “Not a Doctor”, and “I Stole Your Love” was something that sounded like “I Ho-Jo-Ho”.

The process of discovering Kiss was so memorable because it’s so fun.  The superhero character aspect appealed to my sister and there’s no denying that it had something to do with why I loved Kiss too.  But hearing the songs and albums for the first time can only happen once.  And I can clearly remember a tinge of sadness when I finally acquired Rock and Roll Over, the last original Kiss album I needed to finish my collection.  I was starkly aware that I was having this experience for the last time:  hearing a classic Kiss album, guessing who was singing the songs by the title alone, and discovering hidden favourites.  As I learned when Crazy Nights came out, hearing a new Kiss album was simply not the same as discovering the classics!

Kiss Meets the Phantom was a struggle to sit through then, but fortunately I saw it at an age when Kiss still seemed larger than life.  Objectively, it is a pretty terrible film, best enjoyed as a trainwreck.  The best parts are the concert scenes, which was the closest I got to seeing Kiss live at age 13.  It was my first exposure to some really important songs even if I wondered why Gene was singing about being “Not a Doctor”!

VHS Archives #109: Rik Emmett – The Axemen Cometh (1988)

Another true treasure from the VHS Archives.  When the Pepsi Power Hour ran this guitar-centric special in early 1988, my best friend Bob and I watched it religiously.  We drank up, though didn’t fully understand, every word from Rik Emmett.  The former Triumph guitarist was (and is) one of our favourites.  His knowledge is encyclopedic.  Laurie quizzes Rik on a number of the top rated electric guitar players of the time.

Rik demonstrates his favourite passages, and discusses with host Laurie Brown the following axemen in order:

  • Tony Iommi
  • Jimmy Page
  • Joe Satriani
  • Steve Vai
  • Kirk Hammett
  • Jimi Hendrix
  • Angus Young
  • Eddie Van Halen
  • Yngwie J. Malmsteen
  • and, of course, Rik Emmett

Other topics to stay tuned for in this wide-ranging discussion:

  • Lefties (like Rik)
  • The 1988 Zeppelin reunion (Atlantic 40th Anniversary)
  • Two-handed tapping
  • A bold and accurate prediction about Steve Vai
  • The brown sound
  • Dwiddly-dwiddly
  • His “signatures”
  • Good “hair production”

VHS Archives #108: Brighton Rock on the Power Hour ’89

Gerry McGhee and Stevie Skreebs of Brighton Rock dropped by the Power Hour with Michael Williams in early ’89 to showcase their new music video, “Hangin’ High N’ Dry”.  World premiere!   The brand new album Take A Deep Breath was in stores and the band were on tour.  The affable group were questioned about such topics as:

  • Playing football with Steve Harris
  • Recording Take A Deep Breath with Jack Richardson
  • Lightening up or getting the sound they wanted?
  • Brighton Rock double live?
  • Why Stevie scratched the big VH logo on the hood of his first car25
  • Cool “Outlaw” T-shirt giveaway
  • The Boston Bruins
  • “Live” vs “studio” videos
  • The unreleased X-rated version of “Hangin’ High N’ Dry”

 

VHS Archives #107: Lee Aaron – August ’91 on the Power Hour

August 1991:  MuchMusic’s Angela Dorhmann visited Lee Aaron at Sounds Interchange for the Power Hour, to debut Lee’s new video “Sex With Love”.  Much also speaks with director Don Allan about the clip.

Topics discussed with the charismatic Lee Aaron that day:

  • Lee’s philosophy with making records
  • The “Metal Queen stigma”
  • The new album Some Girls Do
  • Pee Wee Herman
  • What “Sex With Love” means

 

VHS Archives #106: On the Tour Bus with Varga (1994 Power 30)

Varga were on the cutting edge of combining heavy metal music with the burgeoning industrial scene. Teresa Roncon of the Power 30 caught up with the band in Buffalo, on their bus. Looks like there was a bit of a party going on, but in the back of the bus was a makeshift recording studio where the guys were assembling ideas for album #2.  “Heavy and exploratory” was the promise!

Meet Varga & Ugly Kid Joe’s manager Dennis, and find out just how to get on a tour bus. A little bit of live footage is within, and the always likeable guys request a few tunes.

VHS Archives #105: The Sandbox Wake (1999)

MuchMusic ran this Sandbox special shortly after the band announced their sad demise at the end of the 1990s.  Since every cloud has its silver lining, we can be glad that guitarist Mike Smith found greater success as Bubbles from the Trailer Park Boys.  This collection of interviews and live clips was run on the MuchEast program as “The Sandbox Wake”.

This memorial covers the band’s early days, writing terrible songs, improving, eventually getting signed and then onwards to the second LP.  The clips cover 1995-1997.  Graceland, The Junos, the East Coast Music Awards, concert footage…it’s here in this motherlode of Sandbox on MuchEast.

 

Sandbox:  Jason Archibald, Mike Smith, Paul Murray, Scott MacFarlane, Troy Shanks.

VHS Archives #104: MuchMusic ads for the Pepsi Power Hour, Springsteen, Michael Jackson, U2 and GN’R

Here’s a grab bag of ads from MuchMusic from 1988 and 1992. They are:

  • A bumper for the Pepsi Power Hour (Molten Mondays!) featuring Metal Tim (the blonde guy).
  • Bruce Springsteen’s “only televised concert ever”!
  • Guns N’ Roses Live at the Ritz on the Miller Big Ticket, a legendary concert.
  • Michael Jackson’s Dangerous tour
  • U2’s Zoo TV tour.

A fun little collection of ads that bring back the memories.

VHS Archives #103: Paul Stanley of KISS with Slaughter & Dan Gallagher (in full Gene makeup)

“In case you tuned in, we’re here with Gene Simmons right now.”

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Deke’s favourite video. The legendary Dan Gallagher put on some Kiss makeup to talk to Paul Stanley. It was such a party that Slaughter dropped in too! It was the infamous gig opening for Whitesnake, and you can get a sense of Paul’s anger that Kiss were not allowed to do their full stage show. David Coverdale’s ego is alluded to.

Best quotes:

“If I was gonna paint the Sistine Chapel, I’d do it with a roller. I’m not a fine artist folks!”

“Everything we did was always in addition to what the music was doing. We never did it in place of the music.”

“Whenever people put out sequels to movies, they’re usually not as good as the original.  Alive II was pretty much as good as Alive I.  When gotta make sure Alive III isn’t…Jaws 3D or something.”

“Michael [Bolton] used to have the mic in his hand and strut around…he’s a rocker!”

When Mark Slaughter and Dana Strum show up, it becomes a bit of a party.

 

NOTE:  There are a couple audio glitches here that I didn’t notice until too late.

VHS Archives #102: Rob Halford Interview ’91 (The day of his last gig with Priest before quitting!)

19 August, 1991.  Operation Rock and Roll, featuring Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Metal Church and Dangerous Toys rolled into Toronto.  The last show of the tour.  Unfortunately the day lives on in infamy.  It was the day Rob Halford hit his head (right on the bridge of the nose) on the drum riser, knocking him out cold!  Priest performed “Hell Bent for Leather” as an instrumental while Rob lay unseen in a cloud of artificial fog!  On top of that, and unbeknownst at the time, it was Priest’s very last gig with the Metal God for a decade.

This pre-accident Pepsi Power Hour interview by Michael Williams is interesting because Rob discusses their forthcoming compilation Metal Works a full two years before it was out.  At that point the plan was to try and write a couple new songs for the compilation, and then go back into the studio to record a brand new Priest album some time in 1992.  Needless to say, that did not work out!  As the last show of the Painkiller tour, this day was actually the last time Rob even saw his bandmates until they reconciled!

VHS Archives #101: The Wisdom of Michael Schenker (1987)

‘Twas the Pepsi Power Hour in 1987, and Erica Ehm asked Michael Schenker a question about fast guitar players.  In just a minute and 15 seconds, he responded with a remarkable amount of wisdom.  From MuchMusic.