I Love KISS!

[Presto-digitation]

QUOTE (MMCXII @ Dec 1 2011, 06:00 AM)

Anyone who thinks you can't out grow a band needs to talk to someone who listens to top 40. What's considered 'good' changes daily with these people!

Like I said, I outgrew Rush once I got a girlfriend, stopped playing D&D, and gave up on drinking Dr. Pepper and eating Funyons in my mom's basement.

[Presto-digitation]

QUOTE (treeduck @ Dec 1 2011, 02:55 AM)

Hey wait a minute, everyone likes to talk about the 5th Beatle, usually George Martin, but what about the 5th KISS member??? Bob Kulick! He auditioned for the band in 1973 before Ace Frehley, he played on KISS ALIVE II on the studio side on three songs, played on Paul's 1978 solo album, all the new songs on Killers and also played on Creatures of the Night! Surely Bob is the fifth member of KISS?

I'd say it was Sean Delaney myself.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Delaney_(musician)

[JohnnyBlaze]

QUOTE (metaldad @ Dec 1 2011, 12:46 AM)

QUOTE (Presto-digitation @ Nov 30 2011, 08:23 AM) QUOTE (MMCXII @ Nov 29 2011, 11:26 PM) I hate KISS......! they used to be my favorite band but I grew out of it. I was 9. I don't grow out of music I like.   You sound like a guy I went to high school with. In 1984 we were both big Maiden fans and picked up Powerslave and loved it. Bonded over music. A few years later I bumped into him and it was around the time of another Maiden record and since I had that memory I asked him if he'd picked it up and his reply was "nah, man, I grew out of that metal stuff."   Lame and pretentious. I agree. How the Fu*k do you out grow music ? You out grow skateboarding and collecting comics and baseball cards. Music ? You were never a fan in the first place I don't know about that. In 1982 I was 10 years old and my top 3 bands were: 1) Rush 2) Journey 3) Hall & Oates   I was a big fan of all of them. I've got a few Journey albums but only listen to a couple of the pre-Escape ones once every blue moon. Hall & Oates...I either outgrew them or their music didn't age well OR a combination of both.

[rushgoober]

[EmotionDetector]

QUOTE (rushgoober @ Dec 1 2011, 12:09 PM)

I think in this instance them moving out of their comfort zone and trying something fairly radically different really worked in their favor. It's far more musically adventurous and ambitious than a lot of their more traditional Kiss sounding material. Of course sometimes they got a little TOO ambitious and some songs are weaker, but mostly it really works.

Yeah, that's the thing though. They knew that their fan base might not react to the change in a positive way, and they were clearly right.

 

I actually remember reading something in the 'Contents Under Pressure' book, where the boys were discussing their early touring with KISS.

 

I believe it was Alex that mentioned how him, Ged, Gene, and Paul would hang out in the hotel room and jam. He actually mentioned that Paul and Gene would play these songs for them that sounded really great, and how he mentioned that they need to record those. But Gene and Paul said that they couldn't record them because they "aren't KISS-type songs".

 

Sad really...but I guess that's how it goes.

 

[Presto-digitation]

[treeduck]

QUOTE (EmotionDetector @ Dec 1 2011, 11:48 AM)

QUOTE (rushgoober @ Dec 1 2011, 12:09 PM) I think in this instance them moving out of their comfort zone and trying something fairly radically different really worked in their favor.  It's far more musically adventurous and ambitious than a lot of their more traditional Kiss sounding material.  Of course sometimes they got a little TOO ambitious and some songs are weaker, but mostly it really works. Yeah, that's the thing though. They knew that their fan base might not react to the change in a positive way, and they were clearly right.   I actually remember reading something in the 'Contents Under Pressure' book, where the boys were discussing their early touring with KISS.   I believe it was Alex that mentioned how him, Ged, Gene, and Paul would hang out in the hotel room and jam. He actually mentioned that Paul and Gene would play these songs for them that sounded really great, and how he mentioned that they need to record those. But Gene and Paul said that they couldn't record them because they "aren't KISS-type songs".   Sad really...but I guess that's how it goes. I think they should have released The Elder alongside another more traditional KISS album to temper the "blow" to diehard fans, like a double release. I mean they released albums at a furious pace in the 70s anyway.

[Presto-digitation]

This was my Elder review:

 

I have mixed feelings about this album. On one hand the band is way over their heads and out of their element here. Pink Floyd or Queen they're not. On the other, the songs aren't half bad on their own...some being downright excellent in places. But overall, even the most ardent Kiss diehard has to confess that The Elder was a misdirected and ill-timed effort by Kiss to "legitimize" themselves, while at the same time exploring a little bit of Gene-driven fantasy. What it may have in ambition in some of its bits and pieces, it lacks entirely in conceptual cohesiveness....which isn't a compliment when you're creating a concept album. It also helps to actually (or at least eventually) create a film around the story for which you've written the soundtrack. Music from....what?!?!

 

Oops.

 

Still there are moments to appreciate here, especially on Gene Simmons' songs. Tunes like the haunting and atmsopheric Only You (a holdover from the pre-Kiss days with different lyrics), Under The Rose, and the incredibly poignant A World Without Heroes (lyrics by Lou Reed) are fine efforts on their own, regardless of the band's inability to thread the big picture fantasy needle. Paul Stanley has his moments as well, such as on the anthemic The Oath, which, lyrics aside, probably sounds the most like Kiss. On The Oath we get a good (double-kick) sense of the heaviness Kiss newcomer Eric Carr would bring to the band in the years to come. While many fans disagree, I even enjoy Paul's successful falsetto-fest Just A Boy.

 

Only clunkers Mr. Blackwell (just plain odd) and the overly-ambitious and terribly flowery Tony Powers cover Odyssey fall flat, the latter featuring a valiant-but-laughable vocal effort by Paul...clearly in training for his Phantom Of The Opera lead as early as 1981 from the sounds of things. Ace Frehley almost begrudgingly shows up on two songs (plays leads on a couple more), the enjoyable-though-phoned-in Dark Light and the fun but out-of-place instrumental dubiously called Escape From The Island; a title more than not befitting Frehley's desires at this point in the game.

 

The problem here isn't the music or the melodies, many of which are very mature and complex efforts by Kiss standards...thanks in large part to the return of producer, maestro Bob Ezrin (The Wall) for the first time since the Destroyer album. Most of the shlock lies in the lyrics and the band's almost Spinal Tap-ish efforts to tell the tale of a boy hero growing up, becoming a man...yada, yada; in other words, all that homo-erotic shit no one needs to hear Paul Stanley, of all people, croon about.

 

In the end maybe Paul Stanley sums it up best. To paraphrase, it's not that The Elder isn't a good album, it's just not a very good Kiss album. And while I'm not necessarily of the belief that Kiss only stick to suck-me/f*ck me songs, it's pretty easy to realize the band bit off more than they could chew here. It's a bit like the sonic equivalent of watching their television movie-of-the-week from 1978, Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park...during which you both enjoy the cheesy goodness, all while slinking under your seat beneath the weight of it all. In few ways was the PROJECT Music From "The Elder" a success (a total flop, commercially), but there's no denying that despite the failed concept, many good songs came out of this project.

 

Thankfully a much-appreciated return to form was an album away. Strange, too, to consider that in just over two years, Kiss had released the incredibly poppy Unmasked, a heroic coming-of-age fantasy concept album in The Elder, and arguably their heaviest (metal) album in Creatures Of The Night. The band was in the midst of a pretty awful identity crisis as the 1970s disappeared in the rearview...and The Elder was Act II.

 

Grade: C+ all things considered...bordering on B- when you just forget the whole concept and simply take them as individual songs

 

Production: The production's a little muddy for my liking and not quite as crisp as Destroyer, but all the Ezrin-isms are here: rich instrumentation, overlayed strings, horns, Gregorian monks, choirs, bickering dialogue between council elders, and just about everything else you could imagine. Of course Ezrin also admits to being coked out of his flippin' mind while making the album too...

 

Cover: Well, appreciate for one moment that it's one of the few Kiss covers that doesn't feature the band...(although that is Paul Stanley's hand). Outside that it's a bit odd, but it seems to fit the projected theme of the album. The vinyl version features a fecking annoying-ass clear plastic album sleeve that always crumpled and made it difficult to return the vinyl to the jacket. Overall I like the cover.

 

Reflections: I remember buying this album the day it came out. Strangely I wasn't confused by the concept or the curveball Kiss was throwing here. To me, at age 12, it was just another new Kiss album. True that it was different, just as soon as the needle hit the first groove...but I didn't hold that against the band. I was naive and eager, so I didn't much mind. I still don't, though it's the not the success I once believed it to be in my pre-teens either. On a comical note, I called my local record store and bugged the shit out of them about the album before finally making my way down there later that day; what did the cover look like? Had you guys listened to it? What did you think? Their reply: "Well, it'different."

 

[RUSHHEAD666]

QUOTE (Presto-digitation @ Dec 1 2011, 10:40 AM)

This was my Elder review: I have mixed feelings about this album. On one hand the band is way over their heads and out of their element here. Pink Floyd or Queen they're not. On the other, the songs aren't half bad on their own...some being downright excellent in places. But overall, even the most ardent Kiss diehard has to confess that The Elder was a misdirected and ill-timed effort by Kiss to "legitimize" themselves, while at the same time exploring a little bit of Gene-driven fantasy. What it may have in ambition in some of its bits and pieces, it lacks entirely in conceptual cohesiveness....which isn't a compliment when you're creating a concept album. It also helps to actually (or at least eventually) create a film around the story for which you've written the soundtrack. Music from....what?!?! Oops. Still there are moments to appreciate here, especially on Gene Simmons' songs. Tunes like the haunting and atmsopheric Only You (a holdover from the pre-Kiss days with different lyrics), Under The Rose, and the incredibly poignant A World Without Heroes (lyrics by Lou Reed) are fine efforts on their own, regardless of the band's inability to thread the big picture fantasy needle. Paul Stanley has his moments as well, such as on the anthemic The Oath, which, lyrics aside, probably sounds the most like Kiss. On The Oath we get a good (double-kick) sense of the heaviness Kiss newcomer Eric Carr would bring to the band in the years to come. While many fans disagree, I even enjoy Paul's successful falsetto-fest Just A Boy. Only clunkers Mr. Blackwell (just plain odd) and the overly-ambitious and terribly flowery Tony Powers cover Odyssey fall flat, the latter featuring a valiant-but-laughable vocal effort by Paul...clearly in training for his Phantom Of The Opera lead as early as 1981 from the sounds of things. Ace Frehley almost begrudgingly shows up on two songs (plays leads on a couple more), the enjoyable-though-phoned-in Dark Light and the fun but out-of-place instrumental dubiously called Escape From The Island; a title more than not befitting Frehley's desires at this point in the game. The problem here isn't the music or the melodies, many of which are very mature and complex efforts by Kiss standards...thanks in large part to the return of producer, maestro Bob Ezrin (The Wall) for the first time since the Destroyer album. Most of the shlock lies in the lyrics and the band's almost Spinal Tap-ish efforts to tell the tale of a boy hero growing up, becoming a man...yada, yada; in other words, all that homo-erotic shit no one needs to hear Paul Stanley, of all people, croon about. In the end maybe Paul Stanley sums it up best. To paraphrase, it's not that The Elder isn't a good album, it's just not a very good Kiss album. And while I'm not necessarily of the belief that Kiss only stick to suck-me/f*ck me songs, it's pretty easy to realize the band bit off more than they could chew here. It's a bit like the sonic equivalent of watching their television movie-of-the-week from 1978, Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park...during which you both enjoy the cheesy goodness, all while slinking under your seat beneath the weight of it all. In few ways was the PROJECT Music From "The Elder" a success (a total flop, commercially), but there's no denying that despite the failed concept, many good songs came out of this project. Thankfully a much-appreciated return to form was an album away. Strange, too, to consider that in just over two years, Kiss had released the incredibly poppy Unmasked, a heroic coming-of-age fantasy concept album in The Elder, and arguably their heaviest (metal) album in Creatures Of The Night. The band was in the midst of a pretty awful identity crisis as the 1970s disappeared in the rearview...and The Elder was Act II. Grade: C+ all things considered...bordering on B- when you just forget the whole concept and simply take them as individual songs Production: The production's a little muddy for my liking and not quite as crisp as Destroyer, but all the Ezrin-isms are here: rich instrumentation, overlayed strings, horns, Gregorian monks, choirs, bickering dialogue between council elders, and just about everything else you could imagine. Of course Ezrin also admits to being coked out of his flippin' mind while making the album too... Cover: Well, appreciate for one moment that it's one of the few Kiss covers that doesn't feature the band...(although that is Paul Stanley's hand). Outside that it's a bit odd, but it seems to fit the projected theme of the album. The vinyl version features a fecking annoying-ass clear plastic album sleeve that always crumpled and made it difficult to return the vinyl to the jacket. Overall I like the cover. Reflections: I remember buying this album the day it came out. Strangely I wasn't confused by the concept or the curveball Kiss was throwing here. To me, at age 12, it was just another new Kiss album. True that it was different, just as soon as the needle hit the first groove...but I didn't hold that against the band. I was naive and eager, so I didn't much mind. I still don't, though it's the not the success I once believed it to be in my pre-teens either. On a comical note, I called my local record store and bugged the shit out of them about the album before finally making my way down there later that day; what did the cover look like? Had you guys listened to it? What did you think? Their reply: "Well, it'different."

Great review Presto, but man I just listened to this album tonight.

It's possibly the most underrated album of all time!!

 

I personally don't hear any clunkers on this album. I think it's a PLASTERCASTERMASTERPIECE!!!!

 

Paul's voice is amazing on this record.

Also once again Ace steals the show with "Dark Light." What a great fukkin' song.

 

I wonder if Ace plays that song on his solo tours. I would love to see the Space Ace!!!

 

"The Elder" is a "Black Diamond" in the rough!!

 

 

It's the Ace Of Spades for me.

 

Love,

 

LEMMY

[Presto-digitation]

That's either the most sincere or sarcastic piece ever penned.

[Presto-digitation]

Goddamn computer dbl post @$!%! Edited December 2, 2011 by Presto-digitation

[Presto-digitation]

GRRRR Edited December 2, 2011 by Presto-digitation

[Perchance to Dream]

QUOTE (the masked drummer @ Nov 28 2011, 03:25 PM)

I read Ace's autobiography and it was pretty good. He's great these days and is supposedly getting rave show reviews. I could deal with eric karr, hell, he was underrated as a drummer. And Eric Singer is badass. However, without ace it's just not the real deal.

I just finished reading his book the other day. Very interesting read. It was nice to finally hear the other side of the story.

 

Although Gene literally saved Ace's life on two occasions, he really treated Ace poorly and was a total asshole. What else is new?

[rushgoober]

QUOTE (Perchance to Dream @ Dec 30 2011, 05:49 PM)

QUOTE (the masked drummer @ Nov 28 2011, 03:25 PM) I read Ace's autobiography and it was pretty good. He's great these days and is supposedly getting rave show reviews.  I could deal with eric karr, hell, he was underrated as a drummer. And Eric Singer is badass. However, without ace it's just not the real deal. I just finished reading his book the other day. Very interesting read. It was nice to finally hear the other side of the story.   Although Gene literally saved Ace's life on two occasions, he really treated Ace poorly and was a total asshole. What else is new? I'm curious about this book, but I don't know if I'd want to read it. Is it just really depressing, or is there a positive spin on it as well???

[RUSHHEAD666]

[Perchance to Dream]

[Perchance to Dream]

[ghostworks]

QUOTE (rushgoober @ Nov 19 2011, 11:25 AM)

I just have to get it out there. I love Kiss!

(this is precisely why your criticism of VT is easily dismissed)

 

PARTY EVERY DAY, BRA!!!

[The Cat 3]

[laughedatbytime]

[The Cat 3]

QUOTE (rushgoober @ Nov 19 2011, 11:25 AM)

I just have to get it out there. I love Kiss!

I'm with you...although they have popped on and off my radar screen over the years.

 

I bought Destroyer when it came out when I was 13 and saw them live on "The Spirit of '76 Tour" and was never the same.

 

The first 6 studio albums, the first 2 live albums and 4 "solo" records were monumental for me.

 

Have really been digging into them again lately.

 

Very excited to hear that Destroyer is getting the Deluxe treatment in 2012 as per Gene.

[Perchance to Dream]

Edited December 31, 2011 by Perchance to Dream

[rushgoober]

[Perchance to Dream]

[RUSHHEAD666]