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WABENO – Gene Simmons is becoming something of a Wisconsin northwoods regular, and even in the leather pants and rock star cowboy boots, he fits right in.

The KISS legend was back at Potawatomi Casino Hotel Carter on Tuesday to open the newest and 25th Rock & Brews restaurant in the franchise he co-founded with bandmate Paul Stanley.

He hammed it up with local media, swiping microphones and flipping up the collars of his interviewers, and sat down with Green Bay’s WIXX-FM morning show co-hosts Huggie, Natalie & Corey for a chat minus the usual radio questions.

He posed for photos with the kitchen staff, members of the Forest County Potawatomi Community color guard, kids in KISS makeup and T-shirts, elders with walkers and “every person on the planet” at the invite-only ceremony. He signed KISS memorabilia, did the honors of the ribbon-cutting with a pair of giant scissors and impromptu danced to Prince’s “1999” in between meet and greets like only he can.

Just when everyone thought The Beatles had done all that could be done with rock music, the 1970s arrived. Following the momentous hippie phase of the late 1960s, this new decade was marked by more anarchistic countercultural revolutions in the punk wave alongside progress in the realms of heavy metal, glam rock and prog-rock. Somewhere amid this chaos was the New York City glam metal group Kiss.

In the early 1960s, rock bands mostly stuck to dark suits, later embracing colourful, fluffy jackets and shoulder-length hair in the psychedelic era. By the time the 1970s rolled around, glam rockers like David Bowie and Marc Bolan operated at the fashion vanguard, the former with colourful flare suits and orange hair and the latter with a fetching stovepipe hat and cheek glitter.

Taking heed of such developments in style and showmanship, Kiss made icons of themselves by layering their faces with white makeup and elaborate suits that developed throughout the years. As bassist Gene Simmons unravelled his six-inch tongue on stage before tearing into an early hit like ‘Deuce’, there could be no mistaking who stood on stage.

Behind all the glitz and glam, however, Kiss were serious about their craft and prided themselves on innovative composition. Invariably, their music was hard-hitting, inspired by early metal innovators like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, with an appreciation of catchy bass hooks and uptempo rhythm guitar work.

As the band’s co-lead vocalist, prolific songwriter and bassist, Simmons relied on inspiration from all corners of the musical map. As a bassist and composer, few of Simmons’ luminaries could measure up to Paul McCartney, whose songwriting prowess seemed to outshine his melodic grasp of the bass throughout the 1960s. “When I was growing up as a Beatles fan, I heard a Beatles song, and you’d listen to it, and you’d go away humming it,” he reflected in a 2016 conversation with Rock Cellar. “You only later realise that every once in a while, you’re humming a bass part.”

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Episode 580. Recently Peter Arquette announced he was shutting down his long running and respected KISS collectibles store KISS Museum. He sold the inventory to KISSArmyWarehouse.com and is retiring. Why now, why is he retiring. What is he going to do now. What about the future of KISS expos. Is he planning to do any expos in the future.

Great set of new KISS glasses.

Buy now at KISSArmyWarehouse.com!

Andy Warhol, Studio 54, Madison Square Garden and two albums – this is what it was like being in Kiss in 1977

(Image credit: Fin Costello/Redferns)

By 1977, Kiss were the most famous rock’n’roll band in America – and they knew it. In 2012, singer and guitarist Paul Stanley looked back at the year of Love Gun, Alive II, Madison Square Garden and some dedicated hedonism.

1977: How was it for you?

It was an incredible time for us. Everything had kind of exploded and we found ourselves trying to fortify Kiss’s place in rock’n’roll. I wanted to see the band become the biggest it could possibly be. To reach the Olympus of Rock.

There were two Kiss albums that year. One was Love Gun, which featured Plaster Caster. Were you ever ‘commemorated’ by Cynthia Plastercaster?

That song was more of a fake homage to the person who spearheaded that movement. But no, I never had it done to me. It always sounded a bit painful. I can think of better things to do with an erection than stick it into a load of dental gel.

The other Kiss album that year was Alive II.

Sonically, I never felt the studio albums lived up to what we were doing live. They just didn’t have the kick, the balls or the sonic enormity of what we did live. Alive II captured the experience of being at a Kiss show and what we stood for.

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Original KISS guitarist, Ace Frehley, performed at at Hard Rock Live in Orlando, Florida on June 21, and YouTube user Shane Cordwainer has uploaded 4K video of the entire set. Check it out below.

Ace and his band performed the following setlist (as per Setlist.fm):

“Shock Me” (KISS song)
“Shout It Out Loud” (KISS song)
“Cherry Medicine”
“Rock Soldiers” (Frehley’s Comet song)
“Love Gun” (KISS song)
“10,000 Volts”
“Parasite” (KISS song)
“New York Groove” (Russ Ballard cover)
“Rip It Out”
“Detroit Rock City” (KISS song)
“Love Her All I Can” (KISS song)
“Cold Gin” (KISS song)
“Strange Ways” (KISS song)
“Deuce” (KISS song)

There are things in the universe for which the head of the rock’n’roll gods must be personally responsible.

When the Gene Simmons takes to the stage of the Turbinenhalle in Oberhausen, Germany on August 6, Double Crush Syndrome frontman / ex- Sodom guitarist Andy Brings and his six-piece band will have opened the evening and, true to the title of his 2018 film Full Circle – Last Exit Rock’n’Roll, will have completed a circle that began 45 years ago. That’s how long Brings has been a KISS fan. You can watch the movie here.

Andy Brings: “Gene and I have already crossed paths several times, but playing with him is absolutely amazing. A real rock’n’roll fairytale. This is what I live for!”

Drum Legend Carmine Appice Talks Cactus, KISS, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin and more!

Episode 579. One of the premier showmen in rock, Carmine Appice became known worldwide for his astonishing live performances, in addition to becoming a highly sought-after session drummer, recording with countless artists throughout his career. In ‘76, he joined Rod Stewart‘s band, touring, recording and writing two of Stewart‘s biggest hits, “Do Ya Think I‘m Sexy’ and “Young Turks.’ He left Stewart to record his first solo album, “Rockers’, and tour Japan and North America with an allstar band. . In the early 80’s, he toured with OZZY Osborne ,Ted Nugent . In the mid 80’s, he formed King Kobra for two Capitol albums and international touring And in the late 80’s, Carmine played on a Pink Floyd record “Momentary Lapse of Reason’ and formed Blue Murder with Whitesnake‘s John Sykes and The Firm‘s Tony Franklin. In the early 90s, he pounded away soul-style for The Edgar Winter Group.

As an educator, Carmine was the first to legitimize rock drumming with his landmark book, The Realistic Rock Drum Method, selling over 400,000 copies (now in video format). He was the first Rock Drummer and Rock Musician to conduct instructional clinics and symposiums around the world.

Gene Simmons has opened up about the first time he saw AC/DC live in 1977 and the way he was “blown away” by the sheer “brilliance” of their performance – though the band’s name initially gave him rather the wrong impression.

In the latest issue of Classic Rock, the Kiss bassist reminisces about his fateful encounter one summer night with the Australian rock band at the iconic Whisky A Go Go in Los Angeles.

“I’d never heard of AC/DC, and I thought it might be a gay band,” Simmons admits, noting that the term ‘AC/DC’ was slang for bisexuality at the time in America. What he discovered that night, however, was apparently a band far removed from any stereotypes Simmons had.

“I was blown away,” Simmons recalls. “No minor chords here, mate – just major chords hitting you in the balls! It was all – as you say in England – meat and two veg. I was just mesmerised by this band.”

“Bon Scott was a force of nature with his shirt off, drinking. It was like a homeless crazy guy had jumped up on stage. He never had that sort of rock-star sheen, or any kind of showmanship. It just felt like a stream-of-consciousness expulsion of his inner demons on stage.”

Scott wasn’t the only one who left an impression: “When the lights went out at the end of each song, Angus [Young] was still going crazy, doing that Chuck Berry thing during the blackouts with nobody watching. And I said to myself: this is the real deal. This is a guy that does it because he feels it inside.”

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Jay Jay French looked back on what would eventually become KISS, and recalled witnessing what he thinks is the first time the legendary NYC band performed under their new name.

Between dealing drugs (which, as he would often suggest, taught him how to be a good manager) and playing in a myriad of bands, Jay Jay’s pre-Twisted Sister‘s days were definitely picturesque. One fascinating episode in the guitarist/manager’s early career was auditioning for KISS when the on-stage extravaganza that would enter the annals of rock history was barely a glimmer in Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley’s eyes.

As French explains in a recent interview on the Denim and Leather podcast, the audition came as Gene & Paul were “transitioning” from their previous band, Wicked Lester (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar):

“I was babysitting for a guy who was a music business attorney, and his client was a producer named Ron Johnson, who produced the Wicked Lester album. One day, when I was babysitting for his daughter, he told me, ‘Are you in a band right now?’, because he would hear me play guitar in the building. And I said, ‘No, I’m looking for a band.’ He said, ‘Well, I’m representing a guy who’s producing a band, Wicked Lester.’ So, he gave me the phone number of either Gene or the producer.”

“I made a phone call, and I was invited. Gene and Paul came down to see me play. On June 6, 1972, I was playing with a band called Scout, at a church social event, when they asked me to play with them, so I did. They invited me to rehearsal, which I did three or four times. I jammed with them, and I never heard back.”

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