Chris Epting | Noisecreep

KISS lead guitarist Tommy Thayer was on hand at the 2013 NAMM show in Anaheim, Calif. over this past weekend to visit the Gibson guitar booth and give the capacity crowd an up close and personal look at his spectacular new signature Epiphone “Spaceman” Les Paul.

It’s a silver sparkle beauty that Thayer is clearly very proud of, as he should be. He’s now been in KISS for over a decade, and he’s slowly but surely carved out his own unique sound and approach, all the while being sensitive to the legacy of the “Spaceman” character originally created by original guitarist Ace Frehley.

As Tommy tells us, he didn’t want to rock the boat too early in the game, but with the last two KISS albums, Sonic Boom and Monster, he took the opportunity to begin putting his personal stamp on the sound of the “hottest band in the land.”

In just a few weeks, KISS are off to Australia to bring some thunder down under and then hopefully after they have their way with Europe, we’ll get some KISS here again in the U.S.

Aside from being a fantastic guitarist, Thayer (formerly of Black ‘N Blue) is also one of the most down-to-earth guys in the business and it’s always a pleasure when Noisecreep gets a chance speak to him.

Michael Brandvold

Michael Leonard | Gibson

KISS turn 40 in 2013. They played their first show in January 1973 in Queens, New York. Since then KISS have become adored and derided in equal measure, but their influence on a generation of guitar rockers has been huge, and they have proved themselves time and time again to be masters of marketing and self-mythology.

Below are some fun facts. If you want to read about KISS’s Gibson guitars, check out:
Ace Frehley “Budokan” Les Paul Custom, Gibson.com’s 2012 interview with KISS’s Tommy Thayer and Tommyinterviewed recently at NAMM 2013.

But here’s some fun…

1. Before changing their name to KISS, the quartet were called Wicked Lester. As Wicked Lester, they even recorded an album’s worth of demos for Epic Records in 1971-‘72 that never got released. Some of these songs would show up on later KISS albums. Drummer Peter Criss joined around April 1972 and Ace Frehley followed in January ’73. Two weeks later, they debuted as KISS.

2. Before they decided on KISS, they also considered the names Albatross, Rainbow (before Ritchie Blackmore’s post-Deep Purple band of the same name), and Crimson Harpoon. Gene Simmons was once quoted as saying that he wanted to call the band F***, but he was joking. Simmons is smart enough to know that would be uncommercial.

3. In the 1970s, some anti-rock preachers suggested KISS stood for Knights in Satan’s Service – that’s not true.

4. The Rainbow connection doesn’t end there. Ken Kelly, the artist who painted both the Destroyer and Love Gunalbum covers also painted album covers for Blackmore’s Rainbow.

5. Former Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French auditioned for lead guitarist of Kiss in late 1972/early ‘73, when they were still called Wicked Lester. But Ace got the gig. Even though Ace auditioned wearing mismatching sneakers, one red and one orange.

6. Their fervent fans are known as the KISS Army, and started in Indiana when a local radio station refused to play any KISS songs in the early ‘70s. Protesting fans marched outside of the radio station and referred to themselves as the KISS Army.

7. Original pressings of debut album KISS did not include “Kissin’ Time”. The album was reissued in July ‘74 to include the cover, “Kissin’ Time,” originally a hit for Bobby Rydell.

8. For the cover of KISS, the band wanted their debut LP to resemble Meet The Beatles. Oh, and Warner Bros. Records initially threatened to end the band’s deal if they did not remove their makeup.

9. To get the silver “Spaceman” look for his hair on the KISS artwork, Ace Frehley applied commercial spray-paint that he assumed would wash right out afterwards. Ace was wrong.

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Tim McPhate | KissFAQ

KF: I assume Tommy would have been around during this time as well. How about Peter Criss? Would he have been around during this stage?

MO: No, Peter wasn’t around at all during post-production. Tommy was around a lot because he was our contact. In the end, we had to get involved in the video side as well, because the video guys were sending us pictures that weren’t what we needed. They were sending us pictures with shots from Dallas and other shows like that, and we said, “No way. No way. We can’t do that. We can only use pictures that we’ve got. It won’t work.” So in the end we took a big hand in how the video was put together as well. That’s why we get such a big credit, if you watch the DVD, we come straight away after the band and Doc. In the end, we had to get involved in the vision as well. Because music is king and that’s the thing that we had to keep putting across to the video people that video is very, very important and vision is very much part of a KISS show when you go to see it, very much part of the spectacular, but in the end the music has to be king. The vision has to follow the music. Again, we know what the KISS Army is like and their fan base, and there’s no band in the world that treats their fans better than KISS. There is just not. The just really are so conscious of their fan base.

KF: I want to go back to Peter. Given he was struggling with carpal tunnel at the time, how do you rate his performance on the album?

MO: Well, I rate his performance really well. Because he was soft hitting, there was a bit of enhancement on the drum sound to get a bit more power into it. But it was his playing, I just had to use his good hits and when you had a really good hit, I would use that snare Continue reading →

Lyndsey Parker | And The Winner is…

Forty years ago this week, on January 30, 1973, the band formerly known as Wicked Lester played its first gig under its new name. To three people. In a long-forgotten venue in Queens called the Popcorn Club (later renamed the Coventry). Why is this notable, you ask? Well, because that was the first official concert by a not-so-little band called KISS. And four decades, 100 million in album sales, multiple lineup changes, thousands of pieces of mass-produced merchandise, and countless gallons of facepaint later, KISS (or at least founding members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley) are still rocking and rolling all nite and partying ev-er-y day.

While the group’s characters–Paul Stanley’s Starchild, Peter Criss’s Catman, Ace Frehley’s Spaceman, and Gene Simmons’s Demon–weren’t yet fully formed when KISS took the stage that fateful night in Queens (their legendary platform-footed characters would make their true debut 10 days later, at the Daisy club in Amityville, New York), the KISS guys already knew that they wanted to put their own, much more macho spin on the early 1970s’ prevailing glam-rock style.

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KissFAQ
Photos: wireimage.com

Paul Stanley and wife Erin Sutton were among the attendees at the Voice Health Institute’s Raise Your Voice Benefit on Jan. 24 at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. Other notables in attendance included Aerosmith’s Tom Hamilton and Steven Tyler, the Who’s Roger Daltrey, and Lionel Richie, and actors Mel Gibson and Kate Hudson, among others.

On the red carpet, Stanley and Tyler exchanged pleasantries. Last October, the two frontmen engaged in a verbal joust.

Tim McPhate | KissFAQ

KissFAQ has conducted an interview Australia-based producer/engineer Mark Opitz regarding his role as the producer/chief mixer on KISS’ 2003 project “KISS Symphony.”

In the first of a two-part interview, Opitz discusses the challenges of capturing KISS alongside a symphony orchestra, some of the technical demands inherent to the project, the project’s post-production schedule, and working with KISS’ Tommy Thayer and conductor David Campbell, among other topics.

The following are excerpts from Opitz’s interview with KissFAQ’s Tim McPhate:

KissFAQ: Mark, let’s start with the obvious question. How did you come to be involved with KISS on “KISS Symphony”?

Mark Opitz: Doc McGhee, the manager, asked a friend of mine, Michael Gudinski in Australia, for the names of three people he thought could get involved. And at this stage it was only [at] the mix level. Michael Gudinski said there was only one [person], and it was me. But once I got involved and I started to speak to a few people, I realized it was a lot bigger. I was living in Sydney at the time, so I flew myself and two of my crew down to oversee the operation of the recording aspect of the whole thing.

KF: Mark, live albums present a multitude of challenges. And even then, “KISS Symphony” isn’t your typical live album. What were the main challenges in capturing KISS alongside a symphony orchestra?

MO: The challenges were the fact that KISS are a very active band onstage, and not only active in the way they play but in the audio aspect. I mean you have things like Paul flying off the stage to the middle of the audience at one point. You have Peter Criss going 50 feet up in the air on a drum riser. And not only that, you have massive fireworks going off all the time. Those present a lot of challenges, not just for me but for David Campbell, in particular, when he can’t see the drummer. It’s very hard to keep time as an orchestra, Continue reading →

Cassius Morris | COTN

For their 40th anniversary, COTN host, Cassius Morris, does a 7 minute spoken word piece on why he has such a passion for KISS. This is a raw, commercial free salute to the hottest band in the world. 

Mia Gray

German model Mia Gray does a photo shoot as a tribute to Paul Stanley. See Mia on her Facebook page.

Michael Brandvold

Michael Brandvold

PeterCriss.net

If you’d like an official autographed copy of Peter Criss’s Book MAKEUP TO BREAKUP, and are worried about it’s authenticity, worry no more! Peter’s management has arranged to have KISSmuseum.com be the official seller of the signed copies. The link comes directly from Peter Criss’s official website, so you know it is the real deal. Many people were unable to travel to his many book signings he did at the end of 2012, so now here’s your chance!

The link from Peter’s website, (second box down), is HERE.
The direct link to the KISSmuseum.com page is HERE.

Limited numbers are available!

Cassius Morris

Steven Hyden | Grantland

Submitted by Neil Gido

“I am a fan of Middle America. Remember, it was mass culture that created rock ‘n’ roll. Our tastes happen to coincide with theirs.” —Gene Simmons, 1977, in Rolling Stone

The video begins — the 17-minute-and-18-second version that’s posted on YouTube, anyway — with a medium close-up of a carnival barker carnival-barking at a group of gawkers outside of a freak show. The tape is blurry but the metaphor is clear to the point of obviousness. And yet Edwin Newman, the unflappable veteran reporter carved out of hickory and tweed who has been dispatched by NBC News to get to the bottom of this evening’s investigation, isn’t afraid to underline it several times. He alludes to P.T. Barnum and the suckers who are born every 60 seconds. He warns against a “vast machinery of hype” threatening to sucker the suckers of today — which in the video is 1977 — into mindless oblivion. Even by the murderously lax standards of the network-news hatchet job, Edwin Newman has dispensed with all subtleties. He is out to bust balls.

Hype is this newsman’s primary concern. Hype is the subject of his special report, helpfully titled Land of Hype & Glory. Suddenly, the setting shifts to a rock concert, and we meet Newman’s Exhibit A. “These four men have been performing for four years. In that time they’ve been responsible for selling records worth $30 million,” he intones grimly. “By some accounts, they are the favorite rock group of American teenagers. Their name, for no reason immediately apparent, is Kiss.”

Kiss is playing “Black Diamond,” the final song on the band’s self-titled 1974 debut. “Black Diamond” is sung primarily by drummer Peter Criss, the Catman, but the Catman is the one member who is not in view. Instead, we see Gene Simmons stomp from stage right to stage left like Frankenstein doing the funky-chicken. We whizz by Ace Frehley playing a guitar solo with his Gibson held at a mathematically precise 45-degree angle. We venture to the outskirts of Paul Stanley’s black forest of mossy chest hair.

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Michael Brandvold

Ashley Baylen | Shalom Life

Frank Frazella

‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ producer, Scott Steindorff, has partnered up with KISS musician and business mogul, Gene Simmons, for a re-imagined version of ‘Icarus’.

According to Variety, the sci-fi version of the ancient tale of ‘Icarus’ does not have a confirmed logline, “other than it is centered on two characters, one the hunter and the other hunted”.

‘Icarus’, a concept created by Simmons, will be loosely based on the character in Greek mythology. Icarus is the son of Daedalus, who makes wings out of wax and feathers to escape from Crete, only to drown after ignoring instructions to avoid flying close to the sun.

Steindorff is currently working on ‘Jane Got a Gun’ with Natalie Portman and Michael Fassbender and ‘The Master and Margarita’.

Steindorff is producing through his Scott Pictures banner.

KISSmuseum.com

The new KISS Sonic Boom Action figures will be released soon – slated for the 3rd week of January, this month! The KISS Museum is now taking pre-orders and will ship out on the release date, (exact day is yet to be determined – we will update all info on the website when it becomes available).

As with the two recent KISS Figure releases, these highly articulated and detailed figures come in both 8 inch and 12 inch variations.

Reserve your set today – the first orders placed will be the first to ship!

KISS SONIC BOOM FIGURES available at KISSmuseum.com

Melissa Ruggieri | Atlanta Music Scene

In case you thought there was one industry that KISS hadn’t cornered, well, keep looking.

Last fall, the band’s new slot machines debuted at the Borgata in New Jersey and have now made their way into the Las Vegas casinos.

This isn’t the first time the quartet has been immortalized with their own row of reels, but the visuals and multimedia elements that accompany this latest incarnation are impressive – and no doubt the timing of their release was to coincide with the band’s robust new album, “Monster.”

Since I had zero luck when I first played the game in Jersey in November, never experiencing the all-important bonus round that truly shows a slot’s entertainment value, I was wary of feeding the beast more money at the Venetian in Las Vegas last week.

But, I’m glad I did, as this machine was much more accommodating, frequently rolling into Continue reading →

From: Jeff

It was my 50th b-day surprise party throw by my wife and my partner in crime, my son ‘lil jeff. My son had designed the cake and his friend at Gencarelles bakery in Wayne NJ made it for me – what a blast! Been a kiss fan since day 1 and will be till the last breath!!!!