Stepping out of continuity: Part 5 of my series of Kiss reviews, this time on the BRAND NEW SINGLE, leading up to the release of Monster!
Yes, I know I forgot part 3. It’s coming. I just forgot to publish Dressed To Kill!
KISS – “Hell or Hallelujah” single (download only, 2012)
If you’re still hung up on Ace and Peter not being in the band anymore, just go away. Get over it. This sounds like Kiss. Pure and simple Kiss. Like the 70’s crossed with the speed of the 80’s. Picture a song like “Take Me” with the velocity of “Under The Gun”.
Sticking to the seldom-broken formula of having a Paul song be the first single, “Hell or Hallelujah” kicks ass from start to finish. I can’t say I prefer it to the first single from the previous album, “Modern Day Delilah”, but it’s certainly heavier. I love the sound of Gene and Paul singing together. The riff is retro-Kiss, and Paul is singing great.
Tommy Thayer shines, with a guitar solo that is less Ace and more Tommy. Rather than rip off a bunch of Ace licks like he did last time, this solo reminds me more of something like Bob Kulick would have done back in the day. Still Ace-like enough in general sound, but with much more dexterity. Having said that I don’t think it strays too far from the classic Kiss sound, and it’s about time Tommy got to really show off his chops.
Clocking in at 4:06, and selling for $1.29 on iTunes, I can’t wait for a better sounding format. The CD has to sound better than this!
Part 4 of my series of Kiss reviews, leading up to the release of Monster!
KISS – Alive! (1975)
For the record I would recommend the Alive Box over this, simply because you get the first 3 Alives in one set with extra material. Buut we’ll get there evenually.
Kiss Alive!…what can you say? Greatest live album of all time? Not really live? Who cares! It sounds amazing and 35 years later people are still buying it. The same cannot be said of many live albums from the era. Live At Last by Black Sabbath was recorded around this time, nobody buys that record now. It’s one of a handful of classics. Frampton Comes Alive, and Live & Dangerous (Thin Lizzy) are up there with it.
Is it live? Sort of. Paul’s guitar playing and singing was not up to snuff for the live album that producer Eddie Kramer wanted to make (too much jumping around) so a lot of it was done in the studio. Can you tell? Absolutely not. You can’t tell at all.
The sound: Epic, loud, superior in every way to the studio albums. The songs: Played faster, more intense, solos are crazier and longer. Paul’s stage raps became popular because of Kiss Alive! Now everybody knows the rap about “a taste of alcohol” (“Cold Gin”), and the big middle section to “100,000 Years”.
You can’t fault one single song inclusion on Kiss Alive!, and indeed this version of “Rock And Roll All Nite” has become more well known than the original. Sure, there are other great Kiss songs that didn’t make it here, but when a live album becomes too long it also becomes harder to listen to.
This (or the Alive Box) should be your first Kiss purchase if you’ve never bought one before.
Part 2 of my series of Kiss reviews, leading up to the release of Monster!
KISS – Hotter Than Hell (1974)
Hotter Than Hell was my first Kiss album. I had it on a scratched up piece of vinyl that I don’t have anymore. Because of the condition of the record and my turntable at the time, I had no idea just how bad Hotter Than Hell sounds. And it does sound bad. Kids these days, used to ProTools and gloss, are gonna find it unlistenable.
Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise produced once again, two guys who didn’t know how to achieve the heavy rock that Kiss wanted, but tried anyway. The result is a murky impenetrable sound with drums that sound like Peter’s banging away on wooden blocks. The cymbals are nearly impossible to hear. Yet this white noise serves only to make the album heavier and darker to these nostalgic ears.
“Got To Choose” kicks off the album, a Kiss classic. I remember playing it to my 8th grade class much to the teacher’s dismay. Gene and Paul sing harmonies together, but this is a Paul song. The acoustic version from MTV Unplugged is also quite excellent. “Parasite” follows, an Ace song that Gene sings and one of the fastest tunes Kiss were to do in the early days. The Alive! version is more fully realized. A ballad of sorts, “Goin’ Blind” follows. This is a Gene song from his pre-Kiss days, previously known as “Little Lady” and co-written by his Wicked Lester bandmate Steve Coronel. This version doesn’t do it justice, but lines like “I’m 93, you’re 16” hint at territory that Gene would revisit later in other songs. The title track, “Hotter Than Hell” is a Paul song and one of the best on the album if not in Kisstory. The riff and coda are both so memorable. (I miss the days when Kiss used to tack on these extra riffs as codas, they were always so heavy and cool.) Side 1 ends with “Let Me Go, Rock And Roll”, a fast rock n’ roll Chuck Berry guitar number which I always found comical due to Gene high voice at the beginning. The Alive! version has become a classic today.
Side 2 begins with a “lost” album cut called “All The Way”. It’s not played live often but it has one of my favourite choruses. You just can’t get the melody out of your head. Plus it has cowbell! “Watchin’ You”, a Sabbathy Gene song, follows. This song was even revisited for Kiss Alive III in a funkier guise. “Mainline” is a Paul song, sung by Peter Criss. It’s a little more rock n’ roll again, but with that great chrous melody. “Comin’ Home” is another Paul song that ended up on MTV Unplugged. Strange how many of these songs sounded great acoustically! It was always an album favourite of mine with great lyrics. The album ends with the dirgey “Strange Ways”, an Ace Frehley written song, but sung by Peter Criss. This is probably the only song on the album I don’t like very much, even though it is so heavy and Sabbathy.
Rumour has it that Peter recorded a lengthy drum solo, and demanded that it be included in the song, or he was going to quit the band. (This is according to Gene Simmons.) The solo was not included, and Peter stayed.
Given the upcoming deluxe remixed edition of Destroyer coming this year (remixed by Ezrin!), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hold hope for a remix of Hotter Than Hell. Maybe, though, it should never be remixed. Maybe the shite sound is part of the charm?
If that sound issue doesn’t bother you, then delve in and discover a true Kiss classic. Just look at how many songs keep popping up on setlists to this day. That’s the sign of a classic album.
I never was the traveling kind, so when I had to spend a weekend working Niagara Falls, I wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect. I warmed up to the idea after I met Mike and Greg, the new owners of our latest franchise.
I packed the Deep Purple box set in the car, a box of pepperettes, and hit the highway. I arrived at the store on a bitter cold Saturday morning, and we worked the day away. It was a tiring day, as we bought and shelved a lot of merchandise that day. We were constantly pricing discs.
The best thing about Niagara was the co-owner Mike. He was a funny guy. Great stories. Massive Kiss fan. Great stories about meeting Gene and being promised all sorts of things on the forthcoming Kiss box set. Mike also played bass. He was a long, long time Record Store Guy.
Mike was in this insane punk band called The Legendary Klopeks. He wore a blonde pigtail wig and went by the name of Lemon Kurri Klopek. The lead singer, Josh, was Sweet Pepper Klopek. He is quite legendary today as an extreme…well I dunno what you call it but he bleeds a lot and he wrestles and he is a Guiness’ Book record holder for something that nobody should really do.
Their lyrics were hilarious. Take, for example, “Ric Flair”:
I wanna (something something?)
I wanna do a “woo” (“WOOO!”)
I wanna be like Ric
’cause he’s so fucking cool
I want a son
who doesn’t suck
That’s the only thing that’s wrong with Ric
So who gives a fuck?
He’s the king, the king of the ring,
He’ll fuck you up just like it ain’t no thing.
Every song on the sophomore album Straight To Hell ends with the words, “Fuck you!” Even the short ones, like “Where’s My Soup?” The lyrics to “Where’s My Soup?” are as follows:
Where’s my soup?
Fuck you!
The other owner, Greg, did merch for Blue Rodeo and in fact when he said this, I realized I’d seen him at the last Blue Rodeo gig that I attended. I bought a shirt from him!
Because of the Legendary Klopeks, Niagara had a bit of, I don’t know how to put this…an entourage, maybe? All interesting characters. The most interesting was Gary James Dean. Otherwise known as The Deaner.
The less said about the Deaner, the better. But I will say this. He liked to tell people that he masturbated with his Justin Timberlake doll. And he phoned about 25 times a day. Not even exaggerating about that.
Anyway, Niagara was a fun store to work in. They always played good music, and they had great stories. Today Mike tours with Steve Earle, doing his merch, and I am insanely happy for him and jealous at the same time. He’ll post a picture on Facebook like, “Me and Steve eating sushi.” Stuff like that.
The best score that I got from that store was actually a gift from Mike. It was the Bruce Dickinson CD single for “All The Young Dudes”, the Mott the Hoople cover. (B-sides: the acoustic “Darkness Be My Friend”, and the AC/DC cover “Sin City”.)
I’ll always remember good times in the Falls: Rock n’ Roll, the Klopeks, sushi, and the Deaner!
I’m going to publish reviews of every Kiss album, including compilations, gearing up for the 2012 release of Monster!
KISS – Kiss (1974)
KISStory began in 1973 when Ace Frehley joined Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, and Gene Simmons. The band rose from the ashes of Wicked Lester, a 5-piece band featuring Stanley and Simmons who cut a record for Epic. The record was never released but some of the material here originated in the Wicked Lester days.
Produced by Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise (as was the next album, Hotter Than Hell), Kiss lacks that “oomph” of guitar that the band would become noted for later on. Most songs, even powerful fast ones like “Deuce”, rely on rock-and roll-guitars with a little more jangle to them. The tempos are often a bit slower than the versions the band would play (see: Alive!) but the spirit is there in this basic rock recording.
The first song, “Strutter” introduced Kiss to the record-buying public. Everybody knows “Strutter”, just as strong today as in 1974. “Nothin’ To Lose” is next, one of my all time favourite Kiss songs and is sung by Gene, Paul and the catman himself Peter Criss. It’s a rock-and-roll song made special by the three vocalists, a gimmick which I wish Kiss would have used more often. “Firehouse” follows this, complete with sirens, and is quite a bit slower than live versions and plods a bit. Ace’s song “Cold Gin” is next, sung by Simmons, a man who never gets drunk which always struck me as an odd pairing. It’s another classic, again a bit slower than live versions but with that great riff intact. Side 1 ends with one of Paul’s earliest songs “Let Me Know”. It was previously known as “Sunday Driver”, which features in the first line of the song: “Let me be your Sunday driver, let me be your Monday man.” Gene sings the verses and Paul sings the bridge. It features a coda that Kiss often played live attached to other, later songs such as “She” or “Watchin’ You”.
Side 2 began (on reissue versions) with the cover tune “Kissin’ Time”. This song was released as a single first, and added to the album later. It’s nothing special even though it does again feature all three singers. (Frehley would not sing a lead until Love Gun.) “Deuce”, which should have kicked off side two, is a song everybody knows. It is Gene’s signature song, a tune which Ace played as a solo artist as well, simply because he loves the song. This version is almost asgood as the Alive! version. Next, “Love Theme From Kiss”; a meandering instrumental. It was once called “Acrobat” and featured a second part known in fan circles as “You’re Much Too Young”. That part was chopped before the studio version was recorded, and later became the main riff to “Detroit Rock City”. “100,000 Years” begins with a trademark Gene Simmons bass slide, and then goes into that great groove with Paul taking the lead vocal. This is as grooviest as Kiss ever get, although again the Alive!version is superior. The album ends with the first Kiss epic, “Black Diamond”. It starts with a mellow acoustic opening, Paul’s smooth vocal, and “ooh ooh” backgrounds. Then there’s a countdown, Paul yells “Hit it!” and the whole band kicks in. Peter sings the rest of the song. It is an absolute classic and one of Kiss’s very best.
On the album cover: You’ll notice some rare things. Ace has silver in his hair, and Peter’s makeup is completely different. The reason given is that Peter had a professional do his makeup for the cover whereas the rest of the guys did their own. I’m not sure why Ace’s hair is silver but I’m sure it was impractical. If it wasn’t for these oddities, I think this cover image would be more iconic in Kisstory, because it is otherwise very cool. They were going for that iconic Meet the Beatles type of simple image, and they came close to nailing it.
The first three Kiss albums share a common “rock-and-roll” sound with less distortion and more jangly guitars. Most fans consider the Alive! versions to be superior. I would tend to agree. Still, this was the start: it’s remarkable just how many of these songs would become Kiss classics and would be played live through the years. In fact by my counting there are no less than 8 out of 10 songs here that are bonafide classics in Kisstory.
This was an idea that came from Kevin. For a while there, he was making a new mix CD every month, made up of the best stuff he was listening to in the last 30 days or so. The idea was, you’d have a neat chronicle of your most impactful listening experiences. And a good mix CD in general.
Knowing that I was into making mix discs, Kevin passed this concept down to me. I held it faithfully for three months. Then it became every other month…every six months…when I felt like it…etc.
But, the end result is, I do have a chronicle of whatever period I’m capturing on those discs.
And I called them Integrity Mix.
For example, I have one here that was made in October of 2004. It has goofy stuff (William Shatner). It has stuff that reminded me of friends (“Mr. Bad Guy” by Freddie Mercury) and enemies (“Asshole” by Gene Simmons).
But there’s also a subtle common thread in some of the songs. This was during a long stint in Oakville. I was sinking pretty low at that time. I was spending 2 1/2 hours commuting every day, minimum. I was working long hours and I wasn’t eating right. I was stressed beyond my limit. But mostly I was lonely and homesick a lot of that time.
So you see songs with titles like “Wish I Could Be There”, “Comin’ Home”, “We Stand Alone”, “To Be Alive Again”, “By the Grace of God” and “The Battle Rages On”. The sounds are equally melancholy: “Loosen My Strings” by Deep Purple is an example, but it doesn’t get any sadder sounding than “This is the Day” by Captain Beefheart. The mix disc from the following month, November, got even darker.
On the other hand, I have the mix CD from the month Jen and I got married. It has tunes on it by Kiss (“And Then She Kissed Me”), The Darkness (“I Believe in a Thing Called Love”), the Beatles (“Here Comes the Sun”), and Zappa (“Peaches en Regalia”) which to me reflect a much more positive state of mind!
It’s cool that I have those discs, and they are always a great listen no matter what state of mind you’re in. Think about it: It’s the best of the best of the best shit you were listening to for any given month of your life. I don’t get embarassed by what I was listening to 10 years ago, and we always have a blast playing these in the car.
I’m going to take you back in time a bit. Back to a time before the record store….
I remember back to the 80’s and early 90’s when MuchMusic was king. Back when there was no Jersey Shore and they played actual music videos. There was no internet at that time, so you had to go to the store to buy your music (more often than not, on cassette). To hear new bands, you watched videos on Much and listened to the radio. There was no YouTube.
There was this frickin’ awesome show on Much back in the day — you remember it. It was originally only on once a week (Thursdays at 4 if I recall) and was hosted by one John “J.D.” Roberts. Yeah, the CNN guy. After he left, the hosting slot rotated between Michael Williams, Steve Anthony, Erica Ehm and Laurie Brown and then finally the late Dan Gallagher. Despite his long hair, Dan didn’t know a lot about metal — he didn’t know how to pronounce “Anthrax” and had never heard of Ratt. But that show was by far the best way to hear new metal back in the day.
That show was THE POWER HOUR.
It was so popular that they eventually had two a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4, which was awesome for me since by 1989 I was working every Thursday at Zehrs. I could still catch one a week, usually.
I remember tuning in, VCR at the ready to check out all the new videos and catch onto the newest bands. There was this band called Leatherwolf that I found via Hit Parader magazine and first heard on the Power Hour. I loved that band. There was another band called Sword from Montreal. Psycho Circus. Faith No More. Skid Row. Armored Saint. Testament. You could always count on the Power Hour to have Helix on. That show rocked.
They had some of the best interviews as well. Usually they’d have someone come in and co-host for an hour. They had everybody from Gene Simmons to Brian Vollmer to Lemmy. In depth stuff too, at times.
Then in 1990 something else cool happened. I discovered a magazine called M.E.A.T (the periods were for no reason at all, just to look cool like W.A.S.P. but eventually they decided it stood for “Metal Events Around Toronto”). M.E.A.T was awesome because it was monthly, free, and had in depth articles clearly written by knowledgable fans. There was no magazine with that kind of deep coverage. Even Slash loved M.E.A.T, at a time when Guns hated rock magazines! I loved M.E.A.T so much I eventually sent them $10 to subscribe to a free magazine. I did this on a yearly basis.
I discovered a whole bunch of great bands via that magazine. I Mother Earth, Slash Puppet, Russian Blue, Jesus Christ, not to mention they were way ahead of the curve on alternative. They had a Nirvana concert review back in 1989. They got behind Soundgarden way before they were cool. And you could count on them hanging onto the oldies. They’d put an indi band from Toronto on the cover one month, and put Black Sabbath on the cover the next month. Next issue they’d have an in-depth interview with Kim Mitchell. They’d talk about bands that nobody else did.
Their CD reviews were my bible! My music hunting was probably 90% based on their reviews, especially since by then the Power Hour had changed into the 5 day weekly Power 30 hosted by Teresa Roncon, and sucked. The started playing too much thrash and grunge and never gave the old bands a shot anymore.
Things have changed so much now. I never get into new bands anymore, back then I used to just eat them up. I guess new bands just don’t interest me anymore. I like my old time rock and roll. I did buy the new Sheepdogs, twice. The last new band I got totally and 100% excited about was The Darkness, and that was, what…2003?
Yet I can’t get into these new metal bands. The music sounds so sterile to my aging ears. The rock has lost its balls. The album I have been most excited about in 2012 was the new Van Halen — a band that is approaching 40 years old. But my God does it rock. Kiss and Black Sabbath both have new records coming out, and I’m excited about them, but I could two shits about the new Nickelback.
In a lot of ways, it’s a better time for music now. With eBay and Amazon I’ve managed to fill nearly every gap in my music collection. There are some bands that I now have complete sets of, and others that I am achingly close. I’m missing 4 Maiden EP’s and 1 Deep Purple import, for example. Back in the 80’s you didn’t have access to this. You didn’t even have access to an accurate and complete discography. It wasn’t until the internet that this kind of information was even available.
Aside from that, today kind of sucks for music. Sure, it’s easier to find new bands now, but we did OK in the 80’s. M.E.A.T turned me on to lots of bands, and they were always giving away sampler cassettes. Much played all the new videos by all the metal bands at least once, basically. You had to work a little harder, but we only appreciated the music more. It wasn’t disposable.
And there were a lot more new bands around that just plain rocked!
This unfortunately titled album is easily the worst music that Gene has ever put his name on, and that’s saying something. Sprinkled within are some good ideas hither and yon, but by and large this is pretty much shite.
Have you seen the album cover? Am I the only one who thinks that Gene bears an unsightly resemblance to Danny DeVito’s character from Big Fish?
If Asshole wasn’t choked down in production, it might have had a couple listenable songs. “Sweet & Dirty Love” would be a killer opener. I believe this one is a Kiss reject. It sounds like it probably was, being one of the few rock songs on the album. “Firestarter” is a horrible, horrible cover, and the unfortunate first single. I have no idea why Gene thought it was a good idea to cover a Prodigy song, but this is also the same guy who covered “When You Wish Upon A Star”. Dave Navarro — lead guitar. (Who cares?)
“Weapons Of Mass Destruction” and “Waiting For The Morning Light” are both Kiss rejects. “Morning Light” as a ballad rejected from the Revenge album, co-written by Bob Dylan. (Not the lyrics though.) It’s nothing special, and that’s why it didn’t make the Revenge album, I guess.
“Beautiful” is non-descript and not memorable in any way. The title track “Asshole” is a catchy song, albeit a total novelty that only makes my road CDs today because it is somewhat funny. It’s a cover too, by the way. (“Bucket full of pee”? Seriously? That’s a lyric?)
Bob Kulick (longtime Kiss collaborator since the early days) co-wrote “Now That You’re Gone”, another song that fails to stick in the memory. I couldn’t even tell you how it goes anymore. Better is “Whatever Turns You On”, with its catchy sing-along chorus. Unfortunately, this pop song sounds like…God, like Sugar Ray or somebody from the 90’s that we’d rather forget.
“Dog”, co-written by somebody named Bag (a Simmons Records protege I think) is another unremarkable track. I couldn’t hum it for you if you held a knife to my neck. “Black Tongue”, however is remarkable. It is remarkable because it is, somehow, a lost Frank Zappa tape that Gene resurrected and wrote a song around. That’s Frank on guitar. The Zappa family sang on it. Now, I have no idea what the hell Gene had to do with Frank Zappa. I really know of no history there. They are diametrically opposed musically. I love Frank. It’s great that Gene found a way to get some Frank music out there, but weird that it’s in such a contrived manner. Frank’s guitar is, of course, like butter.
“Carnival Of Souls” is another Kiss reject. It was written I believe for Revenge, considered as a bonus track for Alive III, rejected for the Carnival Of Souls album (though it lent its name to it) and rejected again for Psycho Circus. Four times rejected: Gene, take the hint! It’s because the song kinda sucks! Its chorus jars awkwardly against the rest of the song, sounding like a different animal completely.
“If I Had A Gun” is another novelty song, but probably the best song on the whole album. It’s catchy, it’s fun, but again it sounds like some 90’s band that we’d all rather forget. Len, maybe. Name a band, fill in the blank, I’m sure you can figure out a band that this sounds like. “1,000 Dreams” is this album’s “When You Wish Upon A Star”, just pure drivel, garbage, not worth playing.
And that’s the album. There’s also a clean version with no swearing, but what’s the point?
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