At secondary school, a good friend of mine was a die-hard Kiss fan and introduced me to their music. Initially, it wasn’t my cup of tea, but C was very persuasive in trying to convince me how good they were. C had an elder brother who was a big rock music fan, so we often dared to raid his record collection, even though the consequences could be quite painful – a physical pummelling perhaps, but certainly some wrath…B was a unique character who used to hide away in his room so much that he didn’t even go out to the toilet, preferring to store jars of urine on a shelf in his lair, giving it the look of some kind of madman’s laboratory…He was also in with one of the local biker gangs, and not someone to mess with. So, alongside the likes of Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Rainbow and Led Zeppelin, we used to listen to Kiss at high volume in C’s bedroom, much to his mum and dad’s chagrin…I became so taken with the music of the platform-heeled rock gods that I even purchased a Kiss patch and sewed it on to the back of a cheap denim jacket that I wore at the time, not a recognisable brand I seem to recall, and some time before I eventually purchased the ‘cooler’ and more sought-after Wrangler and Levi versions… A family had also moved to Aberdeen from the exotic environs of Canada during those years, and their sons brought with them their rock music collections, including such luminaries as Aerosmith, Angel and…Kiss! Another endorsement and more listening in a different bedroom…
Essential Kiss listening at the time was their first live double LP ‘Alive!’ and their follow-up double – three sides live and one side studio recordings – ‘Alive II’. These two albums represented the two phases of the band up to that point – The years 1974 and 75, with tracks from their albums ‘Kiss’, ‘Hotter Than Hell’ and ‘Dressed To Kill’, and their 1976/77 period, with songs from the ‘Destroyer’, ‘Rock And Roll Over’ and ‘Love Gun’ records. Reflecting on it now, this output was all crammed into a very short space of time. When I started secondary school in 1977, Kiss had just released ‘Love Gun’, the follow-up to the hugely successful Bob Ezrin-produced ‘Destroyer’ and would release ‘Alive II’ later that year – They were at their peak of world domination. Solo albums by all four members followed the year, before the original band started to disintegrate and ‘Dynasty’ came out, to accusations of Kiss having ‘gone disco’, principally because of the beat of the main single from that album, ‘I Was Made For Loving You’.
Twenty years have passed and it’s 25th March 1999…I’m at Wembley Stadium in London, England and hell hasn’t so much frozen over as burst back into flames – the original Kiss line-up are back together again, complete with make-up, for their ‘Psycho Circus’ tour…A third of the songs in the set are from the ‘Alive!’ era: ‘Deuce’, ‘Firehouse’, ‘Let Me Go, Rock ‘n’ Roll’, ‘100,000 Years’, ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’ and encore/show closer ‘Black Diamond’. The men on stage are Chaim Witz from Israel, Stanley Bert Eisen from north Manhattan, Peter Criscuola from Brooklyn and Paul David Frehley from The Bronx. As Kiss, they are Gene Simmons, ‘The Demon’, Paul Stanley, ‘The Starchild’, Peter Criss, ‘The Catman’ and Ace Frehley, ‘The Spaceman’.
The Demon and The Catman
New York City, 1972…Gradually, through fate’s twists and turns and ‘Sliding Doors’ moments, the members that were to become Kiss came together. Gene put together a band after being offered a record deal on the strength of songs he’d written with Brooke Ostrander, a keyboard player and music teacher from New Jersey. Originally called Rainbow, they changed the name to Wicked Lester. After Epic decided not to release their album, a recording they both hated in any case, Gene and Paul decided to break up Wicked Lester and form a new group. After the duo unsuccessfully explored upstate New York for a lead guitar player they’d heard about, they checked out the wanted ads and found a drummer. Says Gene “The first thing I saw was an ad in ‘Rolling Stone’ – ‘Drummer, 11 years experience, willing to do anything’ – I called him up. That drummer was Peter.” [1.] Peter Criss says the ad had ‘twelve simple words’ – ‘EXPD. ROCK & roll drummer looking for orig. grp. doing soft & hard music.’ Paul Stanley recalls the two of the questions that they asked Peter: “Would you do anything to make it?” and “Would you wear a dress?” – Peter’s answer to both was “Yeah”. [2.] The audition, at Jimi Hendrix’ ‘Electric Lady’ studio went well and a follow-up session sealed the deal…
The trio eventually placed a newspaper ad for a lead guitar player, Paul Stanley saying “I had never envisioned the band as a power-trio anyway – I never wanted to try to sustain the band on my guitar alone…And besides, I wanted to swing my arm and pose and leave the acrobatic playing to somebody else.” [2.] The ad in the ‘Village Voice’ stated ‘Guitar player wanted with flash and balls’. As Ace describes:
“At the time I was just breaking out of one band, and I was in limbo. I was looking for another group. That’s why I answered the ad. And I remember it like it was yesterday, ‘cause I had this gut reaction. When I saw that this group was looking for a guitar player, I knew it was going to be special.” [1.]
Paul describes the magic of the moment, during a day of auditions:
“Eventually we plugged in with him, and almost from the minute we started playing, something happened that took us to a completely different place. The combination of the four of us was so much bigger than anything we’d done with the other guitar players. We weren’t the greatest musicians, but the chemical reaction of the four of us was potent.” [2.]
“This is it.
This is lethal.
This is the goods.” [2.]
The Starchild and The Spaceman
Kiss’ image set the band apart from other rock outfits. Although influenced by the New York Dolls, Slade and Alice Cooper, their persona was their own, inspired as much by comic-books as glam and theatrical rock. Later, they would have their own comic strip. Paul Stanley describes making costumes himself out of ‘metallic black satin’, buying dog collars from pet stores and scouring S&M boutiques for a darker, blacker look. Wearing make-up soon followed on from the clothes fashions, as Paul Stanley recounts:
“Somehow, wearing white face paint went hand-in-hand with our new outfits. Together in our loft on 23rd Street, we all sat around looking at a mirror on the back of the door. We had no idea how to apply makeup. It was as if we were possessed, just smearing makeup on, wiping it off, trying different things…I also intended to be the frontman of the band, the focal point onstage. No longer would I be the awkward kid, the outcast, I would be ‘the Starchild’…It was eye-opening to watch the other guys come up with concepts that suited their personalities. Ace’s design was ethereal, spacey…He often joked about coming from a planet called Jendal…Peter’s makeup was…direct, not abstract. He felt that over the course of his life he’d gotten lucky during a few close calls,and thus had nine lives…The Catman suited him…Gene’s makeup was arguably the strongest of all, It was symmetrical and demonic…It was a striking image, and then when he stuck out his tongue – it just made sense. The Demon.” [2.]
As Gene Simmons says, Kiss were a ‘New York band with New York attitudes’…The first Kiss album was recorded in September 1973 at Bell Sound Studios in NYC, ‘Hotter Than Hell’ and ‘Dressed To Kill’ followed in 1974 and 1975, the former a ‘fish out of water’ recorded in California, because producers Kenny Kerner and Ritchie Wise had relocated there, and the latter at Electric Ladyland Studios back in NYC in 1975. All band members give detailed accounts of the birth of the band, struggling to make ends meet in the ‘Big Apple’. There was always a split in terms of the backgrounds of the characters, as Gene Simmons recounts: “Pretty early on, Paul and I were aware that we had just met two types of people that we had never been around before. They drank and they were attracted to violence…” [3.] Generally against chemical enhancement of their bodies, Simmons and Stanley would clash many times with party animals Criss and Frehley over the band’s career…
Robert V. Conte’s CD liner notes explain the recording of the ‘Alive!’ album:
“For Kiss’ upcoming sold-out concert at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan on March 27, 1975, the band hired engineer Eddie Kramer (who, coincidentally, produced Kiss’ five-song demo featuring classic tunes ‘Strutter’, ‘Watchin’ You’ and ‘Cold Gin’) to tape the entire show. 12,000 Kiss fans were exposed to rip-roarin’, concrete crackin’ versions of ‘Deuce’, ‘Got To Choose’, ‘C’mon And Love Me’, ‘Let Me Go Rock ‘n’ Roll’ and ‘100,000 Years’ – versions that added an additional power – an additional fury – not prevalent on studio renditions of the same tracks. Kramer subsequently recorded shows at Wildwood, New Jersey; Davenport, Iowa; and Cleveland, Ohio; before he mixed the album at New York’s Electric Lady Studios. Kiss’ live show was now documented forever, and on September 10, 1975, ‘Alive!’, ‘the new double LP from the demons of rock that customers are screaming for’, as record-store ads and radio spots boasted, was released and made Kiss a household name.” [6.]
In the biography ‘Kiss – Behind The Mask’, three out of four band members give ‘Alive!’ five stars…
Gene Simmons: “Four stars. We were all so innocent in those days. Everything that happened was just bigger than life. We knew something was going on. We were selling out concerts. We couldn’t find groups to play with. We were thrown off an Argent tour, a Savoy Brown tour. Black Sabbath threw us off their tour. It was a live-or-die situation for Casablanca…We just decided that we were gonna do a live album and we were gonna make it a double live album. I think that record sonically is what the band is all about.” [1.]
Paul Stanley: “’Alive!’ gets double five stars! I think it was important because we wanted to put out a souvenir, almost like when you go to the circus…It was an album that put us in a position to headline…The great thing about ‘Alive!’ is that it was a recording that featured and paid tribute to the audience as much as the band.” [1.]
Peter Criss: “I give the album five stars. I loved it. It was exciting. We were finally doing a live album…”
Ace Frehley: “’Alive!’ is a five…If that album bombed we would have been dropped from the label. But I knew the record was gonna be great because I believe the only way to capture KISS is with a live record…I thought I played better live because the audience inspired me.” [1.]
With every live album, particularly those that sound good and are successful come the accusations of too many studio overdubs and ‘tinkering’ with the original recordings. Peter Criss some clean regarding ‘Alive!’:
“We had to touch things up. A lot of people do that. A lot of things were touched up; a lot of vocals, harmonies, guitar parts, bass parts, definitely drum parts. Just little parts because when you play live you play faster because your adrenaline is pumped up. I worked with a click track in the studio, but you can’t onstage and I’m so geared up that I’m a little quicker.” [1.]
Paul Stanley concurs, stating in his autobiography that “We wanted to re-create that experience of our show – whatever needed to be done, we did it” [2.], but is candid about keeping it as raw as possible: “Every album gets patched up a bit for all kinds of reasons…It’s by no means perfect. When I listen to it now, I know I could have fixed up the vocals and really done a much better job on the songs. But I think it’s as honest as it needs to be…If we wanted a really flawless record, we would have doctored it up, but it’s as close to live as it needs to be. I have no qualms about that.” [1.]
and Ace Frehley is characteristically vague:
“Some of it was [re-recorded in the studio]. I don’t really remember to what extent but some of the stuff just had to be fixed.” [1.]
Producer Eddie Kramer has a slightly different recollection of the process:
“As far as I’m concerned a lot more was re-recorded than what they remember. Quite frankly some of the songs we stripped back and just left the drums and re-recorded the bass, and Paul’s rhythm guitar. Ace’s guitar generally speaking was not too bad but even then we had to replace some stuff. Quite a few vocals. You know, with all that jumping around, it was impossible to get an accurate performance. The re-recording was done at Electric Lady…You do what you do to make the record sound great. It enhanced their performances. I don’t think that we were cheating. What we were doing was just fixing up a very, very tough live performance where the artists were not totally in control.” [1.]
Ace backs up Kramer’s account in his memoir ‘No Regrets’ and Paul Stanley is clear in his book ‘Face The Music’ that Kramer was the man for the job:
“We couldn’t have picked a better person to do ‘KISS Alive!’ than Eddie Kramer. His brilliance in the studio and his innovations in enhancing the recordings were not only ground-shaking, but groundbreaking. He had different audience sounds on tape loops that were sometimes twenty feet long, held taut on mic stands set up in the studio…” [2]
So, what we have is a ‘live set’ put together from recordings of a few concerts, but mainly from the Cobo Hall in Detroit, partly re-recorded and enhanced at Electric Lady studios in New York City by the band and master rock producer Eddie Kramer…and it sounds great!! For an album that represents the early years of the hungry, lean, dynamic, original Kiss line-up on their way to world domination, look no further!
Part of the charm of the original Kiss line-up is the vocal contribution from all four members, particularly the raspy, soulful voice of Peter Criss, who on ‘Alive!’ shares vocals with Simmons on ‘Nothin’ To Lose’ and delivers the lead vocal on the brilliant ‘Black Diamond’. For me, ‘Black Diamond’ steals the show, with the whole band on top form. It’s a great song, written by Paul Stanley around a title suggested by Simmons, in A minor, so with some pathos in the intro picking and Paul Stanley singing the song’s beginning ‘out on the streets for a living’, but rifftastic when Criss decrees ‘hit it!’ and then it really rocks, Criss’ gravely tones to the fore with the others providing harmony and Ace’s guitar soaring over the rhythm. Check out their version on the Midnight Special show during the 1975 ‘Hotter Than Hell’ tour for another great live performance of this tune.
Other highlights for me on this record are the riff-powered ‘Firehouse’, the good time rock’n’rolling of ‘Nothin’ To Lose’ (Simmons paeon to anal sex), Frehley’s frenetic, metallic ‘Parasite’ (with Gene Simmons on vocals), ‘100,000 Years’ (complete with Peter Criss’ drum solo) and ‘Rock Bottom’, the mellow guitar piece by Ace introducing the full-on rock-out with Paul Stanley giving it all on vocals. But make no mistake, the whole package is great high-energy rock, from the hyperbolic introduction by roadie J.R. Smalling “You wanted the best and you got it, the hottest band in the land…Kiss!”, the opening of ‘Deuce’ to the end of ‘Let Me Go, Rock’n’Roll’ and the cannons signalling the end of the show.
Kiss live albums are a good chance for fans to actually hear the music, as the volume at the concerts presents a barrier to this, literally a wall of sound. The reunion gig at Wembley Arena in 1999 is possibly the loudest concert that I have ever been to (including Motorhead!) – sooo loud you could hardly make out the songs when they started…Kiss have always had a reputation for turning it up to 11, long before Spinal Tap came on the scene (!!), as Paul Stanley testifies to:
“KISS is loud, but that’s part of what makes us larger than life. The band makes its own rules. We play louder than any band because that is the decibel level we believe is right for our music. When we first played in Japan in 1977, health officials measured the decibel level to make sure we weren’t going to damage anyone’s ears. The decibel level was 136, the Concorde is 100.” [1.]
Footage from over the years and the 1996 reunion tour proves that the original line-up really captured their sound from the 70s and that there was something special about the chemistry of Simmons, Stanley, Criss and Frehley. There was always a power struggle going on, with Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley controlling the band, but the fans have to this day recognised the contributions that Peter Criss and Ace Frehley made to the music and the fun of it all, decrying later versions of the band. The rot set in to some extent during the recording of the landmark ‘Destroyer’ with Bob Ezrin, super-producer and famous for his major work with Alice Cooper amongst others in rock royalty. Ezrin was all about the theatrical production, and ‘Destroyer’ is a great piece of work and contains some Kiss classics like opener ‘Detroit Rock City’, but the making of it moved away from the live rock’n’roll of the early days and created a rift, so much so that the follow-up ‘Rock and Roll Over’ was a deliberate ‘back to basics’ recording by the band. Along with electric-guitar driven rockers, the latter included the brilliant acoustic-driven ‘Hard Luck Woman’ with vocals by Peter Criss, a great follow-up to the mega-successful Kiss staple ‘Beth’ that Criss sang on ‘Destroyer’ and to become a live favourite. ‘Love Gun’ and ‘Alive II’ brought the glory days of the original Kiss to an end, session musicians starting to appear, accusations of drug-taking, alcohol abuse and musical under-perfomance being levelled by Simmons and Stanley at Criss and Frehley. Kiss ‘went disco’ on 1979’s ‘Dynasty’ album, with poppy tracks ‘I Was Made For Loving You’ and ‘Sure Know Something’ singled out from the record, powered by session drummer Anton Fig when Peter Criss ‘couldn’t make it’. Criss didn’t appear on the next record ‘Unmasked’ either and Frehley’s performances were sporadic, marking the end of the original Kiss and a transition to a new future, one without make-up and geared to recording big-haired rock hits for the 1980s…
Kiss ‘Alive!’ Tracklisting:
Deuce (Simmons)
Strutter (Stanley/Simmons)
Got To Choose (Stanley)
Hotter Than Hell (Stanley)
Firehouse (Stanley)
Nothin’ To Lose (Simmons)
C’mon And Love Me (Stanley)
Parasite (Frehley)
She (Simmons/Coronel)
Watchin’ You (Simmons)
100,000 Years (Stanley/Simmons)
Black Diamond (Stanley)
Rock Bottom (Stanley, intro Frehley)
Cold Gin (Frehley)
Rock And Roll All Nite (Stanley/Simmons)
Let Me Go, Rock And Roll (Stanley/Simmons)
‘Alive!’
Originally released as a double LP: 10th September 1975
Label: Casablanca
Recorded at: Cobo Hall, Detroit, Michigan; Wildwood, New Jersey; Davenport, Iowa; Cleveland, Ohio; USA 1975
Mixed at: Electric Lady Studios, New York City
Producer: Eddie Kramer
Personnel:
Ace Frehley: guitar and vocals
Peter Criss: drums and vocals
Paul Stanley: guitar and vocals
Gene Simmons: bass and vocals
References and quotes:
1. Leaf, D. and Sharp, K. (2003). ‘Kiss – Behind The Mask, The Official Authorized Biography’. New York: Hatchette Book Group.
2. Stanley, P. (2014). ‘Face The Music – A Life Exposed’. New York: HarperCollins.
3. Simmons, G. (2002). ‘Kiss And Make-Up’. London: Random House.
4. Frehley, A. with Layden, J. and Ostrosky, J. (2011). ‘No Regrets’. London: Simon & Schuster.
5. Criss, P. with Sloman, L. (2013). ‘Makeup To Breakup’. New York: Simon & Schuster.
6. Kiss ‘Alive!’ CD cover and booklet
Photographs:
Kiss ‘Alive!’ CD cover and booklet
Eddie's Rock Music A-Z 