My brother, a couple of years younger than I, was into heavier music quite a bit earlier than I was, and Gene Simmons was the reason he started playing bass. I resisted a lot of bands that he was into purely because he was a proselytizer to the nth degree, and I was too busy listening to Remain in Light and Blue and Song Cycle to bother with his metal gods.

Later, of course, I came around and got into Maiden, Priest, UFO, Scorpions, etc., and I've often wondered how different my life would have been had I done so earlier and started hanging out in the quad with the girls wearing those T-shirts and spandex pants.

KISS, however, is crap.

The very first band I ever heard was KISS. They were my first experience with rock music. I was a child no more than four-years-old losing my shit over the spectacle. They were otherworldly and alarming. I expressly remember my mom driving me to school during the Halloween season, pulling into the parking lot, and seeing Paul Stanley talking to my first grade teacher, Mrs. Geary. In actuality it was an older kid, an eighth-grader named Gabriel Anthony née Gonzalez dressed as Paul Stanley but my child-brain couldn't wrap my head around it. I got scared, faked a tummy ache, and made my mom drive me home. Semi-related: later, Gabriel Anthony became the drummer for Tyrant's Reign who I would argue was the southeast side's first metal band. Still repping Year of the Tyrants. Chicago metal history, but I digress.

The first album my parents bought for me was Alive II. I had taken to music at a very early age and my folks encouraged it. In between piano lessons KISS was my band. I stared at the gatefold picture for minutes at a time, the image becoming seared in my mind. I would sketch that image on all flyleafs of any book in our home, but it was more than their image that appealed to me. Alive II has front-to-back bangers - a veritable riff factory. As a kid I would watch the record spin as it was held in place by a 70's turntable spindle and getting lost in all of those riffs: "I Stole Your Love," "Shock Me," "Detroit Rock City," "I Want You," "King of the Nighttime World," the fuck outta here, people! Classic, dope shit. And the ballads, "Hard Luck Woman" and "Beth" would send me. Obsessed. I had the KISS Destroyer puzzle and On Tour board game. Alas, I didn't own any of the dolls and I wasn't a part of the KISS Army. Go figure.

KISS's Asylum tour in 1986 was my first arena rock show. W.A.S.P. was on support and they ripped. Their self-titled debut kicks all sorts of ass, but again I digress. KISS wasn't in make-up, unfortunately, but getting to see the giant logo with all of the chasing and flashing lights was a dream. I met Eric Carr sometime later at a NAMM convention...super sweet guy R.I.P. I stepped off the KISS boat after Asylum, because Crazy Nights was a buncha bullshit. Besides, I was knee-deep into 70's Alice Cooper by that point. I don't give a shit about modern KISS shenanigans but from Dressed to Kill to Love Gun I was all about it. Quality started to dip afterwards, but I cut 'em some slack because they were my introduction to rock music.

Fun fact! Bill Aucoin, manager of KISS, was gay. His partner, Sean Delaney, helped to design and choreograph KISS's shows, and he also was in a disco project called the Skatt Bros. They had an underground S&M disco anthem titled "Walk the Night" that found a new life in the 21st Century thanks to its inclusion in M3GAN. QOTSA also used "Walk the Night" as their walk-on music for a tour. My stars, will wonders ever cease?
Christmas 1978 with mom while playing with my Stretch Monster. KISS's On Tour board game rests on the couch. The Stretch Armstrong site has the original Monster going anywhere from $1,800 to $2,500. No idea how much KISS On Tour will fetch you.

I can get into the first couple albums, there are some solid riffs and if you ignore the Beths or Christine Sixtines they're not bad. Everything post-Ace is hot trash though.

As a little kid in the 70s, I loved them. I played the shit out of Alive I and II, staring at the gatefolds and imagining a World of Rock. I was Ace two halloweens in a row.

And then they put out whatever record had "I was made for loving you" on it and young me was like yep, done with these guys.

Once a month or so we go over to my sister in law's and play cards. We listen to some satellite radio something or other, and literally every damn time some song comes on that no one knows, but it sounds like a particularly inept bar band from northern Montana recording in a closet....that song turns out to be a KISS song. Every damn time.

Peter Criss is by far the wussiest rock drummer ever. I would say his arms looked like a grandmother's, even in his "prime", but that would be insulting to grandmas worldwide. My massage therapist is a grandma and she could kick his ass.

Who remembers Frehley's Comet? Circa 1987, some high school buds and I went to see them. They trudge through a set of plod rock clunkers. It's time for Ace's big guitar solo. He meanders through a bunch of cliche boomer pentatonic licks, some smoke bombs go off, then for the big finale, he waddles up to the mic, starts doing some super rudimentary, not very fast two hand tapping and croaks "I STILL GOT IT!". High school buds and I look at each other and without a word we all turn and head for the exit.

CRAP but I bet the shows in 1977 were pretty fun.

You can watch videos of Ace's recent performances and they're fucking awful. He apparently doesn't rehearse so he fucks up all his own songs.

I was never a big fan, but they would occasionally hit on something good.

I don't remember where or when I heard this story, and it may or may not be true, but....Ace is in a studio somewhere, sometime in his post-KISS life. He's in a booth with his trusty Les Paul and a Marshall, about to record a solo. As was usually the case, he's pretty wasted.

Engineer says "can you just play a bit so I can check the level" Ace plays a bit, everything's fine.

They roll, Ace starts to play the solo and there's this insane high pitched shrieking coming through the mic. Engineer's like WTF?, stops the tape, checks everything at the board, asks Ace to play a bit again, it's all fine. They roll. Insane high pitched shrieking. WTF! Engineer goes out into the booth, has Ace play, it's fine. Poor engineer cannot figure out what the problem is.

This goes on for awhile until eventually it clicks: Ace is deaf, he has the (open backed) headphones CRANKED to 147db, he's hunched over in classic guitar player fashion, and on the nod, so his head is right down by the pickups. Which of course are picking up the headphone bleed and helpfully sending it to the really loud amplifier a few feet away, simultaneously making Ace deafer and inducing the engineer to consider a career in real estate.

I don’t own any Kiss records anymore and don’t regret it. I’m largely not a fan. Their bad material is distinctively bad.

But I can’t convince myself to click “crap” here. They were so beautifully dumb and sludgy, and while they influenced many, many terrible bands, they also influenced many great ones. They were your favorite drummer’s first favorite band.

Also: “. . . and make sure that chicken’s juicy!”

It's amazing that a band with such a crappy drummer was so revered by drummers. Peter Criss was apparently trained by Gene Krupa.

Krev wrote: Wed Aug 14, 2024 11:59 am It's amazing that a band with such a crappy drummer was so revered by drummers. Peter Criss was apparently trained by Gene Krupa.

Oh, totally. But if you listen to The Trap Set podcast, drummer after drummer cites KISS (though maybe not Peter Criss specifically) as their reason for learning drums.

Can't think of a worse band on nearly every level. That is a feat in an of itself!

Crap.