Letters from the KISS Army
By Mr. Moderator on Feb 15, 2007
Townspeople of a certain age were queried on their KISS memories. Let's begin by calling roll.
ROLL CALL!
Randy: I can't stand KISS. Or their army. In fact, it wouldn't bother me a bit if all our troops were pulled out of Iraq and replaced by the KISS Army. Kill two birds with one stone.
Chickenfrank: KISS Army deserter.
JimmyMac: I'm not a KISS Army vet per se. However, I was an avid KISS fan and am somewhat versed in their history. I also have a modest repository of memorabilia that surfaced during my recent move. Metaphorically speaking I guess I had musical "flat feet" and never was drafted. (I never dressed up like KISS and didn't attend a concert until my 30s. By that point, they had already become a lampoon of themselves. Two 50-ish Jewish men lumbering around the stage in fancy dress desperately in need of a schvitz by mid-set.)
Rich: I wanted to join, but I failed the physical. Had to become a Ted Nugent Weekend Warrior instead.
Chris: Officially? No. I was a diehard fan; they were my first concert (AC/DC opened). I have all the vinyl, but I never enlisted. I have painted my face before, actually with two of my brothers and a bandmate for the reunion tour in '96. I was Ace, if you're wondering.
Al: I never joined either. I was one of those kids that members of the KISS Army liked to beat up.
General Slocum: The KISS Army, as far as I can remember, first came to us via an insert to the album Rock and Roll Over, which was the album that burst my bubble, and confirmed for me that the direction they were going on Destroyer was only going to continue, and worse. And in the mid-70s, most of us were at least hippie enough to resent anything that so smacked of little-league fascism as to be called an "army." For their first 4 records (up to Alive) they were one of my fave bands. Those albums still have a simple idiocy which appeals to me. We went last summer to a church fair up here, and there was a kid running one of the toddler rides, and while John was on the ride, we complemented his KISS Army tattoo. He said he had just gotten it. I said they were my first concert, and he said "me, too!" I said, mine was 32 years ago, and I saw them when Dressed to Kill was out. His eyes got big, with a combination reverence, and what may have been fear of diseases to which modern humans may no longer have antibodies. It was a perspective-stretching excercise for us both. But, no, I never joined up.
Dean: I never joined and will confess to never owning or liking KISS. Good for a laugh but nothing more...
A good friend in high school was an uber fan (and almost certainly an Army recruit), but I didn't join him. He did however introduce me to prog-rock and we both attended my first rock concert - ELP at the Spectrum.
So, my question to you KISS fans - Is Paul Stanley gay? Not that there is anything wrong with that. But I have seriously wondered.
Follow up:
Art: My cousin, who is 10 years older than I am, looked like John Bonham and was a Zeppelin fan. He was also a huge influence on me circa 1975-1982 (until i heard Black Flag). He thought KISS were "gay." That was "kids stuff" to him. I adopted his attitude.
The reason I bring it up is because maybe it's useful to remember the whole "Zep vs KISS" thing that was happening at the time. There was either an issue of Creem or Circus that was devoted to it. The dividing line was clear. It was a serious rift in heavy rock culture. Brother against brother. Some people are still fighting that war, you know...
COMING HOME
Rich: I don't really know if there is a modern parallel (bands of their stature wouldn't crank albums out so fast these days), but it was astounding how quickly Kiss went from being the band everyone loved in 6th Grade to being the band no one admitted to ever liking in
7th Grade. All of us with our stoner training wheels on, quickly moved to serious rock, like The Nuge and Aerosmith. Future pencil pushers and science geeks moved on to Rush and the like. In
hindsight, always trust your preteen instincts. "Free for All"
notwithstanding, the Motor City Madman was a Chevy Cavalier. No amount of listening to "Back in the Saddle" can wash the taste of all the prom dreck that Steven Tyler and Co. have produced, lo these last 15 years. Rush...I won't even... Thank god for the advent of cable tv and the nonstop airing of Rock 'n Roll High School on Showtime in 9th Grade.
General Slocum's comments aside, I liked most of the stuff up to Alive II. They then seemed to jump on the same train that took Cheap Trick to suckville. But, for a few years they put out some records that have held up pretty well.
Randy: As far as rock & roll's armed forces go, Ginger Baker's Air Force was a far more effective military machine for cranking out cool, quality music.
Chris: I was never officially a member but I was a big fan for about 2 years (76-77). I had all their albums up to Alive 2. They were my first concert (I had an earlier ticket to see Skynyrd but the plane crashed). AC/DC opened. Tickets were $7. I couldn't believe what I was seeing onstage.
About 6 months after the show, I lost interest in them. It happened pretty quickly. They just seemed really uncool all of a sudden. I moved onto Aerosmith and then the Velvet Underground.
For a long time thereafter, I tried to reject my own past, sort of like those vets from a different army who threw their medals over the White House fence in the early '70s. But The Replacements' cover of "Black Diamond" made me have a rethink.
In '96, two of my brothers and a buddy of mine painted our faces (I was Ace), for their first reunion tour. Not one thing changed in 19 years. It was stupid and fun and kind of comforting.
So sure, their songs manage to somehow be both simplistic (read: retarded) and bombastic. Their lyrics are both juvenile and - well, they're just plain juvenile. The marketing is crass, the pose is ridiculous, and the less said about that codpiece the better. And don?t get me started on the production or the playing. But come on, they're frigging KISS. They?re the perfect combination of lowest-common-denominator rock and all star wrestling melodrama. Does every movie have to be Citizen Kane? Isn't there room for Shakes the Clown, too?
By the way, I love their Rod Stewart knock-off, "Hard Luck Woman". Heresy to most, I'm sure, but there it is!
Charlie: I got nothin'. As long as this stays an imagined event, I'll think about Gene Simmons doing some bassneck rocket launching into buck privates. Ech, maybe I won't. Calling followers an army is almost as retarded as that band was/is.
Rodney: Paul Stanley? Gay? The guy’s seen more women’s asses that toilet seat at Sisters.
JimmyMac: I'll build on 3 themes that have emerged: 1) Is Paul Gay?, 2) KISS was not good/they weren't good after album X, and 3) An "Army"? - What a silly idea.
1) I could reference Paul's effeminate dancing in the "Tears Are Falling" video and concede defeat but there's still an argument in there somewhere. In his recent book, Gene Simmons recalls an early show where the A&R guy in the crowd didn't offer them a deal because he thought Paul was "too gay," thus proving that this is truly an age-old question. I always read the confident swagger and sultry tenor of Paul on the live albums as the epitome of hetero male bravado. It wasn't until I saw them on a reunion tour that a realized what a prancing, posturing fancy lad he was. Whereas Rob Halford and Michael Stipe have come forward in mid-life and said "Geez, I was prancing around in S&M gear/a dress onstage, are you people that stupid that I actually have to tell you I'm gay," Paul has never had such a mid-life admission. He actually married recently. He's certainly compensated over the years by waking up with 10 naked women named Carol in his bed in a home video ("I guess you could say I went Caroling last night:)" and claiming that he only wore that cheapest, gaudiest lipstick that an actual woman would never wear. Modern-day little Stanley Eisen is beginning to resemble grandma yetta from The Nanny and would probably go unnoticed at a Palm Beach ladies auxilliary lunch with all of his plastic surgery, make-up, black curly wig and flowing, satin clothes. Verdict: Total fem-bot (in period-appropriate epithet) but he's still one of the top chick magnet rock gods in my book.
2) I was introduced to KISS via Destroyer about the time it was competing with the theme from Rocky I. I always saw the records up to Alive II as a coherent body of their best work. You had the transitional records like Destroyer and Unmasked that segued to their later work in the '80s that was really no different than the rest of the commercial glam-dross coming out of LA at the time. Were they ever good? Compared to live footage of their NYC kindred spirts the New York Dolls and Sid-era Sex Pistols, they don't seem to have been any worse. I certainly look back and smirk at how trite some of it sounds. I was crushed to learn recently that Kiss Alive was largely overdubbed in the studio because the live show was so bad. Verdict: They hit the nail on the head - rock and roll is a burlesque of teen angst, it's sloppy and funny, larger than life, has no rules and shouldn't take itself too seriously. Thanks for reminding us and laying the groundwork for the future greatest lyricysts in rock to form their own bands.
3) I'm surprised because there doesn't seem to be anyone who was actually in this KISS Army. I think an Army is an over-the-top, brass-balls metaphor for an organized group of devotees who will dutifully follow orders ("Get them hands in the air, buy our records, etc). I don't know if the KISS Phalanx would have been the same. The bottom line is that it was probably nothing more than a glorified snail-mailing list. The army clearly lacked the organized zeitgeist of a modern fan club like the Juggalos of the Insane Clown Posse. (Check out their credo online - kinda creepy compared to a femmy guy in high heels singing trite rhymes to an out of tune guitar.) In retrospect I don't think I missed anything by not being able to participate in an online discussion of Paul's lipstick or what Gene uses for fake blood (although I'm pretty sure my screen name would have been ColdGin65).
hrrundivbakshi: I'll share: living in Central America during my prime KISS years, I so wanted to join this mysterious KISS Army of which the albums spoke - but the best I could do was wear a sky-blue t-shirt with a sparkly, frankly cheesey vinyl iron-on of the band in Hotter-than-Hell-era garb. I wore that damn t-shirt out, let me tell you. My proudest moment was when a particularly devout Christian dude at my missionary-heavy school, upon seeing my sparkly, vaguely rebellious t-shirt, disgustedly said: "I think KISS is what the name sounds like, spelled backwards: SSIK!" Even as a 12-year-old, I knew that was one hell of a stupid thing to say.
I posit that the cut-off point KISS album for each and every one of us who ever liked them is the one that came out after we were making the transition from child to teen. I mean, I dunno how old you guys are, but the albums that came out when I was 12-13 - Rock and Roll Over and Love Gun - kick major ass and are measurably better than their first three. I thought the little bit of studio gloss served their Rock well. Funny how Destroyer always seemed gay to me and my friends - though "King Of the Night-time World" is still on my list of "must cover it before I die" songs.
General Slocum: Well, I was a late bloomer, I suppose. But even at the re-teen age of 45, I posit that the albums from Destroyer to Love Gun were in fact crappier and crappier. And the first three are still their best. The stupid, rough, pig-ignorant production helped prevent them from seeming so gay right away. And if the first live album was dubbed? That only drives the point home! They overdubbed the whole thing and that is what they ended up with?! Wow. they did indeed speak to my inner pubescence when I saw them on Mike Douglas. I immediately asked for tickets for my 13th birthday to see them at The Tower. First concert, first major pot smoking, first seeing my parents when high at my uncle's house near the Tower to get a ride home. Anyhow, they rocked. I was so ready to see things blow up. And their suckiness was only really sad when they did things like the extended drum solo (ouch!) which shouldn't be done by anyone but the most amazing soloists in the first place. But I can say they were not noticeably out of tune. And Chickenrank, please send me a list of bands you should have been pummelled for liking when you were 12 so we can get this going! Village People, indeed! "Strange Ways" by the dubiously talented Mr. Frehley still sounds heavier than anything played by the later metal (or "alloy") bands in the '80s. Anyone who never heard anything that wasn't played at a school dance needs to do just a little research before soapboxing. Kids today...
35 comments
But I think my favorite KISS disc is a CDR I obtained recently that is made up of nothing but Paul Stanley's over-the-top stage announcements. Incredibly funny stuff.
Cheers, Michael
I still hate KISS though.
Just curious.
And hrrundivbakshi, who's boiling down argument to something as simple as "KISS SUXX!" That would be no fun. They do, but that's no way to re-examine this cultural landmark.
I will say that the New York Dolls were cooler than KISS, but the emphasis is on "were." I saw some televised performance by their reconstituted lineup last week, and it was not a pretty sight. The music wasn't terrible, but between scraggly David Johanssen in a tank top and wearing some bizarre apron and Syl Sylvain looking like a cross between Willie DeVille and Little Steve, I was overwhelmed by Bad Look.
1. Johnny Thunders
2. Better sense of humor
3. The Dolls took Rock forward, building off the Stones' primo early 70s records. Whereas KISS seems to be the unholy crossing of Metal and K-Tell.
4. The Dolls had a sense of subtlety: They could "play" the glam-rock role, without living it. That is, they didn't have to go to as theatrical extremes as KISS.
5. KISS never wrote as good a troop-rallying song as "Personality Crisis."
I was responding to Jimmy Mac's brief comparison (in "Letters from the KISS Army") of KISS to the New York Dolls and Sid-era Sex Pistols.
See, here's the deal. It came to me in a flash as I was experiencing some free-floating piss-off at the snobbishness of the "unholy" comment (as if rock and roll was ever meant to be "holy"). KISS had nothing to do with the Dolls, or any of that crap. What KISS was, was... well, they were the Monkees.
That's right, people. KISS = Monkees. I'm sure this gives AndyR all kinds of major acid reflux, but the fact is that both bands rode the same plastic Hot Wheels track to megastardom: it was all about manufactured Look; catchy pop songs that spoke to the Kidz (and I do mean "kidz") of their day; a level of parental hostility-inducing rebellion that was appropriately calibrated for maximum sales, rather than any kind of real societal impact; questionable "musicality" (not that anyone cared, or should have cared)... the list goes on and on.
THE POINT IS: both the Monkees and KISS are worth listening to, for mainly the same reason: fairly well constructed songs that get our toes a-tappin' and/or our fists a pumpin'. Period. In the same way that only an idiot or a mildly crazy person would yearn to actually live in a group house with a wacky bunch of buds who push each other through the streets in a bed on wheels, we are all entitled -- perhaps obligated, as seekers of the truth -- to laugh derisively at the idiocy of the whole KISS show-and-tell. But we *should* continue to enjoy their music, as it's largely well written and, well, 'cause it makes us happy.
I have spoken. So let it be written, so let it be done.
THE POINT IS: both the Monkees and KISS are worth listening to, for mainly the same reason: fairly well constructed songs that get our toes a-tappin' and/or our fists a pumpin'. Period.
All fine except for one thing: much of KISS' music BLOWS! (Much of The Monkees' music does too, but their then-current-day knockoffs were at least knockoffs of songs I liked - what is KISS knocking off - Alice Cooper? He/They often SUCKED worse than KISS. I can't believe I spent an entire day yesterday poking at Bon Scott when singers as horrible as Gene Simmons and Alice Cooper were left untouched. But I digress, parenthetically.)
But we *should* continue to enjoy their music, as it's largely well written and, well, 'cause it makes us happy.
Watch it, man, don't have your paraplegic near-sex with a Vietnamese whore cry just yet.
the Monkees and KISS are worth listening to, for mainly the same reason: fairly well constructed songs that get our toes a-tappin' and/or our fists a pumpin'.
To compare the songwriting of KISS to that of The Monkees is a large affront to some of the best pop songwriters of their time, Boyce/Hart, Diamond, King...
Aside from R&R All Night, Hotter Than Hell and Beth, I can't hum a single other KISS tune yet can hum every song on The Monkees Greatest Hits and Head albums.
KISS was all about theatrics and pissing off your parents which is all good if you're 13 (time to forgive your bro Mr. Moderator) but if you're still holding on to that by the time your 18, or 45, then something is terribly, terribly wrong.
To compare the songwriting of KISS to that of The Monkees is a large affront to some of the best pop songwriters of their time, Boyce/Hart, Diamond, King...
I say:
WTF does *that* mean?! Oh, wait, I know what it means: it means you've decided to remember the Monkees catalog in its entirety as a collection of about 30 Great Songs. Dude: they *did* in fact record around 30 Great Songs -- and a bunch of just okay numbers as well. But those songwriters you're hoisting onto that pedestal also wrote some king-size turds for the Monkees. More importantly: most of the Monkees output pretty much sucked!
I can't argue with your assertion that you can't remember more than three KISS songs; that's your problem, not mine. (But... aaargh! Come on, man -- Detroit Rock City? Calling Dr. Love? Gimme a break!) However, to suggest that the Monkees songwriters should be offended by my comparing their output to KISS' is just comic-books-in-myylar-bags silly.
BTW- My Silver Surfer #3 is in a mylar bag and it was offended by that.
-db
np - Tommy Roe - ITS NOW WINTER TIME
The Dolls had a sense of subtlety: They could "play" the glam-rock role, without living it. That is, they didn't have to go to as theatrical extremes as KISS.
I suggest:
Only if OD'ing is considered a viable choice and not the final punch line of theatricality. Has anybody heard David "Bosko" Johansen's satellite radio show? (Why 'Bosko'? I'm not sure. It's 5 a.m. and it just came to me. I think his post Dolls and 'Hot Hot Hot' character look like the cartoon 'Bosko.') Yikes.
So I think Fritz is on the way wrong track, here, trying to defend KISS by changing it into something better crafted and of higher quality. Picture Mike Nesmith doing that Fresh Air interview! Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons are train wrecks I *can* manage to look away from. Horribly overcompensating, thrashing around in built-up layers of schtick, hype, and irony, then pausing to wonder whether irony is the right word, or whether this is where you use the other word... what is it? (Well, *Paul* doesn't pause to wonder. He only pauses for A TASTE UH AL-CUH-HOWL!) Anyhow, when they started out, the makeup was very junior-high play level, Simmons had only recently stopped being a teacher, the whole thing had that loose, unsure, ridiculous feel that is long since impossible for them to grasp. Ah, youth!
"Is this what comic book dudes went through before comic books became hip: preteen love, late-teen/young adult shame, eventual renewal of love? Is KISS actually more like Mad Magazine than any other band in history?"
I dunno, man. I was never ashamed of my love of Mad magazine.
BigSteve, Geo, and others who may have come of age during the age of The Monkees: were The Monkees ever a dividing line of tastes for preteens and early teens the way KISS was for our generation?
I was 13 when the show first came on (fall 66) and had just turned 15 when it went off (spring 68). I was a fan and bought the records, but I remember some disillusionment with the second season. I think maybe when they first started we still had one pop music culture, AM radio- and TV-based, and everybody liked and listened more or less the same thing.
By the time the Monkees went off the air, 'underground' FM radio was a part of my life (it had actually gone on the air here in New Orleans in 66), and the music audience had started to split. I was well on my way to the Dylan/Dead/Band thing that would dominate my later high school years. I would only return to an appreciation of the Monkees' intermittent greatness when 'pop music' as a concept was rediscovered in the mid-70s.
Speaking of bands actually being other bands, I must share one of the funnier/stupider young teen music rumors that me and my friends all believed for a while: that Van Halen were actually KISS without the makeup. It was so obvious, from the backstory (Gene "discovered" Van Halen in a bar in California... yeah, *right*) to the revealing photos on the inner sleeve of VH's first album. I mean, look at that picture of Michael Anthony scowling with demonic intensity! And you can't tell me that happy-go-lucky photo of "Alex Van Halen" doesn't capture the essence of the Cat Man! Now, "Eddie," he's, uh, Paul Stanley 'cause of the hair... though it's funny that Paul didn't play lead guitar in KISS... hm... I guess -- I guess that leaves Ace. Ace is, uh, this David Lee Roth guy, I guess. Funny how he must have a completely secret life/talent set... you know, to be the lead singer and everything. Still, he's a *rock star*, so, you know, anything is possible. Right?
This fantasy lasted about three days before we moved on to the next bizarro adolescent conspiracy theory.
When I said KISS were an "unholy" crossing of metal and K-Tell, I didn't mean it in a bad way. If anything, KISS should get credit for pushing the limits of taste (like K-Tell) with reckless abandon. And I think it would have been a lot more fun watching metal go in the direction they were taking it.
The point is they never let any of this get in the way of making lots of money. In this regard, they were, to some degree, like the Monkees. But even as contrived as the Monkees were they came up with some clever ideas for turning it against itself, the movie/record Head, which I really dig. In contrast, KISS played their schtick as long as they, reasonably, could.
I am well aware that "death sells" (to quote Spinal Tap's Ian Faith). At the same time, there is a tragedy to people like Johnny Thunders that should not be associated with the mindless posturing of a Gene Simmons or Paul Stanley.
But even as contrived as the Monkees were they came up with some clever ideas for turning it against itself, the movie/record Head, which I really dig. In contrast, KISS played their schtick as long as they, reasonably, could.
I say:
That's certainly true, and I'm with you on the coolness/relevance/importance of trying the Head thing. I suppose the relativist in me admires KISS for pushing the "give the people what they want" envelope, too. Though now that I think about it, I don't really know why. Again, the bottom line for me is that KISS wrote some damn catchy hard-rockin' pop songs, and I still enjoy listening to them -- though I admit the NostalgoTron 2000 starts peaking whenever I do, which is a bit of a warning sign for me.
The Dolls had a sense of subtlety: They could "play" the glam-rock role, without living it. That is, they didn't have to go to as theatrical extremes as KISS.
Yet, Dr. John:
...there is a tragedy to people like Johnny Thunders that should not be associated with the mindless posturing of a Gene Simmons or Paul Stanley.
I would say that the oft unused, actual defining character of a tragedy is that that which is high be brought low. Pretending to be low to mask relative actual lowness until discovering a spot still lower, i.e. death, constitutes, possibly vaudeville, but not tragedy. In either case the entire junkie trajectory is almost impossible to separate from theatricality, IMO. In which case, the Dolls seemed to be unable to "play" the Glam role, without accidentally living it (so to speak.)
Kiss were actually less manufactured, a homegrown concept cooked up by the band that like the Monkees before them ruled the pre-teen rock roost. But Kiss had nothing going on. They sucked. The extent of their interest was focused like a laser beam on milking that demographic and being more and more Kiss. The Monkees weren't great because they were a manuafactured money making machine that gave pre-teens what they wanted; they were good because the folks involved were too clever to play it consistently straight. They wanted to sell AND have their fun. Gene Simmons was in charge of Kiss. Other than his ability to sell that steaming turd of a group, does he really have anything to offer. Not hardly.
The difference I think is that the uncoolness with KISS continued with and thru maturity while true music fans revisited The Monkees and discovered that indeed there were some great pop songs there. (Maybe not 30 but a helluva lot more than KISS with not a single KISS tune measuring up to any of them.) Second-tier, perhaps but some really good, memorable pop-songs written by some quality talent. This is why Fritz, I do believe that Boyce/Hart, Neil Diamond and Michael Nesmith himself would indeed be insulted by the KISS comparison.
A comparison to The Archies might be more apropos but dare I say that Sugar, Sugar outweighs anything that KISS put out? Yes I do.
Kiss were actually less manufactured, a homegrown concept cooked up by the band that like the Monkees before them ruled the pre-teen rock roost. But Kiss had nothing going on. They sucked. The extent of their interest was focused like a laser beam on milking that demographic and being more and more Kiss.
Substitute "RTH" for KISS and me for Gene Simmons and I fear you've described my world.
General, the idea of tragedy you're using is the classical Greek meaning. I think one of the great innovations on this was to make the tragic character not of the patrician class, for example Death of a Salesman.
At any rate, I would define one form of tragedy as wasted human potential. And that to me is the case of Johnny Thunders.
I'm still not sure, moreover, about the connection you're making between junkies and being theatrical, other than it is a prominent artistic theme that does, inevitably, border on cliche.
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