Finding myself in a record store with a coupon felt a lot
like it used to feel when my grandparents gave me a small paper bag, said “take
what you want” and let me loose in their general store. Under such conditions,
I acquired my very first Kiss record. As it was only four dollars, and someone
else’s four dollars to boot, I figured “why not?”.
Yet for all that, it’s catchy as hell. The secret weapon
here is of course Ace Frehely, who, if no Blackmore or Iommi, manages to infuse
even the lamest choruses with flare and groove.
I confess, I’ve always liked Paul Stanley’s singing, and ringmaster Gene
Simmons keeps it all anchored together. The formula works. I suspect Master
Simmons realized early on that whatever else he had planned for this
mega-venture called Kiss, the whole project would be dead in the water if they
couldn’t write songs people wanted to hear.
I was particularly interested in the production by Eddie
Kramer. It’s bass heavy, and muffled. It sounds like the band is performing in
your living room, and I can’t help picturing them recording in a studio with a
shag carpet. Now, I have no idea if Record Plant Studios actually has shag
carpet in their recording rooms, but that’s what it feels like. There is
something there absorbing the echoes. Compare that with the approach that would
become fashionable in the eighties, when every band on the planet, Kiss
included, apparently lost their bass player and took to recording in a tin-can[2].
For me, it’s all very evocative of an era – the Seventies –
which I directly experienced, but got all its detritus growing up. Re-runs,
film strips, fashions and furniture my folks hadn’t gotten rid of, movies that
were still pretty recent and songs that weren’t yet that old. It takes
no great leap of the imagination to place my pre-adolescence a little bit
earlier than it actually happened. (Okay, a full decade earlier, but bear with
me).
Picture if you will, a nerdy teenager in the Seventies,
living in a room stacked high with comic books and Kenner
action figures, and recent memories of Hannah Barbara. Chemicals are raging
inside, but you’re not sure where they fit in your current world. You find four
spandex-clad masked superheroes singing what you’re thinking, and BOOM –
lifelong Kiss fan is born.
(Why mention Hannah Barbara? Evocative of the era. And those
cartoons were no-less fantastical than the Don Juan world of Kiss. It’s
entirely appropriate that Hanna Barbara produced Kiss meet the Phantom in
the Park; it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Kiss coexists in the same world
as Scooby-Doo).
Of course, this little counter-factual thought experiment
only goes so far. I actually was a nerdy teenager in a room full of
comic books and Kenner action figures,
with recent memories of Hannah Barbara, and Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons
and every other badge of nerd-dom imaginable, and I never got into Kiss. I was
fascinated by their imagery, but was deeply disappointed to hear how much they
sounded like frat-boys. I mean, how could you dress like a demon and never sing
about demons? Where were the swords? The Space-ships? The Conan-themed concept
albums? Maybe it was the Catholic
abstinence-only education, but I was weary of anything overtly sexual back then,
and couldn’t relate to party-bands (mainly ‘cause I didn’t get invited to those
kind of parties). Hormones could be channelled into pulp fiction and dime
novels, but rarely openly confronted or declared. More importantly, the music itself, mid-paced
rock songs, seemed kind of well, sedate to a kid who’d already
discovered Black Sabbath. (And Rush ruined just about every other band).
But. . .remember, we’re evoking the era. The year is 1976,
and Rock and Roll Over is Kiss’s fifth studio album. Heavy Metal is a very new, loosely defined thing with only a few practitioners (and more than a few who no longer fit the bill today). There is no thrash
Metal, no symphonic Power Metal, no Death Metal, Bay Area and Gothenburg are just points on a map, and Norway
exports nothing but peat moss. The world has yet to discover Sad Wings of
Destiny, or 2112[3]. Heck, Star Wars hasn’t even come out
yet! We are not yet spoiled by the embarrassment of sonic riches yet to come,
and the pickings are slim. Into this world parachutes Kiss. . .
Consider
also, that Kiss were never about the records. Picture if you will, the live
show, all explosions and spotlights, a choreographed spectacle which no one
else at the time was doing, at least on nothing near the same scale. I can’t
help but admire anyone who takes theatre seriously. I’ve been to hundreds of
shows and am constantly dismayed by how many “performers” can’t respect the
science of the stage – looking bored, showing up drunk, opening with slow
songs, mumbling to the crowd. . . While the punks may bristle at the blatant
capitalism of it all, there comes with it both professionalism and
craftsmanship – ticket buying fans are guaranteed to get what they pay for. Compare
this with the contempt artistes like Zepplin or G’n’R often showed to common
folk who actually had to work for a living. . .
Back to our fifteen year old. Martin Popoff formulated it
thus: kid is enraptured by Kiss show, picks up guitar, learns a few Kiss songs,
finds they’re not that hard and soon surpasses Frehely. By the time he’s twenty
five, he’s guitar wizard in his own right, has his own band, and BOOM: the year
is 1986, and there are Metal bands everywhere.
Everyone from Anthrax to Zombie cite Kiss as an influence.
It’s not really there in the songs – would you have guessed Thomas Quorthon was
a huge Kiss fan? (Or Garth Brooks for that matter?). But the performance
aesthetic – knees bent, shoulder width apart, rictus-grin, tongue like thrust out like a whale-harpoon, chrome, steel
and leather[4] - that’s all Kiss[5]. That, and the lust for glory, to stand on
stage and command an audience. More inspiration than influence, their impact
has been huge. They’re not really a band, but an idealization of what a band
should be like.
Besides, how could anyone not like “Rock and Roll all Nite”?
[1] I swear “Love ‘em, Leave
‘em” sounds a lot like “Normal People”, which is probably the very last thing
this band would ever sing about.
[2] Judas Priest were the
worst offenders. Ian Hill was still in the band pics but you’d be hard-pressed
to hear him anywhwere.
[3] Alright, released the same
year, but the first real statements by either outfit. Consider the era Up
Until Then.
[4] Priest played their part
here.
[5] Though Gene Simmons did not
invent the Malocchio.
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