irst of all, too many songs. Like the emperor summing up Mozart in AMADEUS: “Too many notes.” Well, Hot In The Shade does not have “too many notes” – that would be Animalize – but it seems like producers Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons crammed every sticky-sweet, trashy-funk, dirty-glam, sweaty-shoed cockrocker they could find into this 15th studio KISS album (23rd overall). Hmm, 15th album – 15 songs… Was that the concept?

Lacking cohesion or direction, Hot In The Shade is a Hot MESS In The Shade. The band that had found direction (on Crazy Nights – even if that direction was simpering and obsequious) was flailing again. They had definitely made a choice to throw out the stringpads (the only songs featuring keyboards, Hide Your Heart and Forever), so the harder rock direction was welcome, and the sonic quality of the album was raunchy, as was Eric Carr‘s urgent drumming, and Bruce Kulick rattling off consistently stunning solos that seemed effortless; it is simply just a lack of good songs. Where did all these duds come from?

I can see the reason many fans complain this album is made up of demos. However, being demos is not the issue (sometimes the demonstration version of a song IS its best version); civilians were mistaking the lack of quality songwriting for lack of production. Grasping an aspect of the music industry they thought they understood, they complained Shade was “made up of demos.” What they’re saying is that some of the songs sound half-baked and scattershot. (Then again, when listening to that lack-of-fills drum track on Love’s A Slap In The Face, we wonder if it’s because Gene wanted Eric to emulate AC/DC’s Phil Rudd, or because he just couldn’t program that drum machine…) When listened to in a complete block, the songs don’t do the album as a whole justice, but if listened to individually, each song has its own cool space; they just don’t fit together as a unit. There’s also something to be said for the album title spelling HITS as an acronym, but that’s probably just coincidence… for a band that meticulously crafts all its marketing gimmicks… yeah, just coincidence…)

Posterity has been cruel to this album, the only songs remaining on live lists being the two singles Forever and Hide Your Heart. Admittedly, those two songs shine out like musical beacons amongst this bland-rock desert. On KISS Kruises and at KISS Conventions, the band regularly perform deep cuts from their full catalog for the fans, but they can safely avoid this album’s deep end; no one is requesting Betrayed or Silver Spoon any time soon.

KISS Live 1989: The Sphinx named Leon.

Rise To It. A powerful riff-rock opener that belies the weakness of the album compleat. Paul Stanley – for the 178th time on record – once again sings about his erection.

The video to Rise To It took our breath away. Or more correctly, the INTRO to the video. Now keep in mind this is the era when the legendary KISS makeup was completely lost to the past, dead to the world, and in the intro sequence we see a title card: BACKSTAGE 1975, and then we see – Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons sitting at a dressing room mirror applying the Starchild and Demon! Two faceless guys in the background are Peter and Ace. Paying tribute to their past? A peek into the Reunion future? Ironically, while they apply it, they’re talking about removing it.

Then they perform the song – but out of makeup, with Kulick and Carr. A soft-focus “live” gig for a small audience, with no lightshow and MTV crash-cuts. And for the first time in a long time – KISS look cool! At last settling on faux-street clothes and cohesive hairstyles that bespoke their rock god status, simultaneously making them seem like accessible regular guys.

The video is bookended by Stanley and Simmons in full makeup and costume leaving the dressing room to the roar of the mythic crowd. (And the chagrin of fanboys – though the title card said 1975, Paul’s costume is from 1977 and Gene’s is from 1980!)

On Betrayed and Prisoner Of Love, Gene uses vocal techniques he first revealed on Unmasked – that high clean hard palate voice that enables him to sound like any old eighties hair-vocalist; he gains range but loses individuality with that voice. The rest of the album is in his usual growl. Now this could be construed as variety or diversity – after all, we don’t want to hear 6 Simmons songs that sound all the same – but it comes off as lackluster lack of direction. His third song on Side 1 sits better with us – Love’s A Slap In The Face – because it’s Gene doing Gene, rather than Jani Lane.

Read My Body. What is that little temple-block in the intro? Like KISS meets Tainted Love. A guilty pleasure that Paul funks out, with its share of piggish bits (those rap-style shouts at the end of every line of verse) and catchy choruses that imply – unsurprisingly – having sex with Paul.

Hide Your Heart. One of the most “cosmopolitan” KISS songs, as it involves three gang teenagers in a love triangle, a topic far removed from KISS’s usual fare – Paul’s and Gene’s crotches. Originally written for Crazy Nights (by Stanley, Desmond Child and Holly Knight) and rejected, the song was then shopped around, and four other artists bought it and recorded it (Bonnie Tyler, Molly Hatchet, Robin Beck, and – the ex-spaceman himself, Ace Frehley, for his 1989 album Trouble Walkin’!)

KISS’s video for Hide Your Heart was another first, as it featured a completely secondary story to the shots of the band performing the song. That other story, shot in black and white, featured three Latin teens getting tangled; contrasted with the full-color band playing atop the Hotel Royale in Los Angeles. Censors in the States edited out every gang shot where a gun could be seen, so the story must have seemed piecemeal to American viewers, but everywhere else in the world we clearly saw the shootout atop that roof. America – gun-death capital of the world – with censors too gutless to show guns in a music video… Ironic, no?

KISS in the studio with Dean Martin producing.

Forever. Stanley co-writes with Michael Bolton. Yep, even that guy with the soppy ballads has a one-degree connection to KISS: Bruce Kulick was in Bolton’s 1979 band, Blackjack. Reaching #8 on Billboard charts, Forever would be the band’s highest charting single since Beth. Miles above its surrounding material, we can hear the craft that has gone into this lachrymose wailer, with surprisingly heavy drumming that somehow works.

Kulick would track an admittedly super electric solo, only to be told by producer Stanley that he needed to rethink it as an acoustic solo! He relates he was pissed, but – professional craftsman that he is – laid down an evocative acoustic gem.

The sepia-tone video showcases the band looking casual, big bouffant hairdos, at last at ease with their non-makeup personas, not trying too hard to be colorful or look-at-me; Gene sits on a stool, while Paul’s voice careens; Eric’s hair shaggies and Bruce fretboards nirvana; camera moving amongst the band in a room lit like a cathedral.

Gene’s driving Cadillac Dreams features a well-arranged horn section.

Vini Poncia (the producer responsible for Dynasty and Unmasked) co-writes with both Stanley and Simmons, but turns out better material with Simmons; his output with Stanley ends up resembling those vapid disco ducks (King Of Hearts, Silver Spoon).

The Street Giveth And The Street Taketh Away. Gene co-writes this song and Betrayed with the KISS go-fer at that stage, a young guitarist named Tommy Thayer. Each verse starts with a “Hey, man!” very very very reminiscent of Bowie’s Suffragette City. To add to the Bowie evocation, one lyric mentions “rock and roll suicide” (the name of the song that closed the album with Suffragette on it, Ziggy Stardust). (Okay, for the purists: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. Happy?)

You Love Me To Hate You. Interesting harmonies keep this Paul contradictor from suffering at the hands of this album.

Somewhere Between Heaven And Hell. One of the albums catchier songs, composited from War Machine and that song we just heard, Love’s A Slap In The Face.

Little Caesar. Eric Carr’s one and only lead vocal contribution to KISS is probably the best song on the album! Written by Carr and tightened by Simmons and Adam Mitchell, it’s a punchy funky walking riff about being a man in a cruel world, Carr’s scratchy vocals lending it all the street it needs: “Well they tried to tell you that the world is rough / But they never rocked it hard enough!” Based partly on Gene’s love of old movies (Edward G. Robinson’s 1931 film of the same name) and Gene’s nickname for Little Eric, it should have closed the album on its E power chords. Instead, a Gene throwaway throws away the impact…

Little Eric Caesar: rocking the world hard enough…

Boomerang. Nice guitar sound, with Kulick sounding like a more sensible Mark St. John. A tuneless Simmons double-kick extravaganza that goes nowhere. But it goes there really really fast.

The album cover was a little lackluster – the Sphinx wearing shades – but it was a tie-in with the Hot In The Shade Tour, which featured an awe-inspiring giant Sphinx head in place of the KISS sign, nicknamed Leon (of course). Complete with his complement of lighting in his head-dress and explosive eyes.

The material might have been at a low ebb, but KISS were on their way back visually, with Gene already tilting toward that scruffy leather street-cred he would adopt during Revenge. Little did we know it, but they were on their way back musically as well. Sadly, this would be Eric Carr’s last full album with the band, as cancer would come calling before the next album’s tracking sessions. How amazing then, that at such an emotional nadir, that next album would be one of the finest of KISS’s career.

END

he amazing happens! The unthinkable becomes fact! On KISS’s 16th studio album, all Gene’s songs are better than Paul’s songs! It only took 16 albums…

Revenge, produced by Bob Ezrin (who produced the KISS career high – Destroyer – AND career low – The Elder), is a cohesive, steel-belted sharpshooter. If it’s at all possible, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons deliver the heaviest album of their career, not just in production, but compositionally and lyrically, on an album where the Zeppelin influences flow passim (you can’t quite figure the homage/ripoff you’re hearing before the next one crashes into your cochlea). Guitarist Bruce Kulick‘s scathing solos are the most fitting for Heavy KISS that he’s ever composed; melodic, ferocious, memorable, with a rich biting tone that no producer has yet pulled from his guitars. And drummer Eric Carr dies of cancer…

Shaken to our cores, and so sudden that it took awhile to register, KISS were forced to change drummers midstream as Carr’s cancer treatments and operations precluded him from performing on this next scheduled album. Carr’s death would force KISS’s hand to hire the drummer who tracked in Carr’s stead. We would see a new member gracing the back cover of Revenge – oh-so-blond Eric Singer! (A blond? In KISS?!) Respected session veteran from Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Badlands, Olivia Newton-John (!) (just so you don’t think only Mark St. John has bubblegum pop skeletons!), Singer’s drumming on Revenge is spectacular, his fluidity and smackdown precision reflecting his vast experience. Singer was only supposed to sub for Carr until Carr recovered from his operations. But Carr did not make it. Heartbreaking.

With this sadness heavy in our hearts, we held this new KISS heavy in our hands. If there’s one thing music is good for, it’s to dispel the gloom of harsh reality; to celebrate and move forward against crushing sorrow. We look at the cover: A steel-plated door emblazoned with the KISS logo – riddled with bullet holes! This album was serious as… uh, cancer? Oh God! Too soon, you nitwit, too soon!

The KISS X-TREME CLOSEUP DVD is released in August 1992, in conjunction with Revenge.

KISS 1992: Silver and black attack is back.

Unholy. From it’s opening semitone crunch to its diminished-5th riff (all devil’s intervals, to be sure! And co-written by that wizard of riff couture, Vinnie Vincent!), Gene Simmons grinds the opening track. “I was there through the ages / Chained slaves to their cages / I have seen you eat your own…” My god! My god of thunder… is back! “You send your children to war / To serve bastards and whores…” This is the song that should have followed the intro to Radioactive!

And look at that video: the absolute best Simmons has ever looked out of makeup, with a raggedy-ass goatee, his long weave tied back in a bun behind his head, rather than on top, black-lacquered fingernails, attire based around a black tee and leather pants. Now THIS was Gene Simmons, reclaiming his throne of blood. “I’m suicide and salvation / The omen to nations / That you worship on all fours…”

Matter of fact, the video is a hellish sepia-toned/black and white assault, with a gritty jerkiness that adds a filmic veracity to the visuals. Every member looks as street-cred as crack, with Gene once again adopting the twitchy Bat-Demon persona that he abandoned in favor of the 80s-Sensitive-Woman persona. We see drummer Eric Singer in his first KISS video; correction, we hardly see him through the flailing locks and thrashing limbs. And for all the shit that bands have to take about their hairstyles and clothing, it makes or breaks your presentation; in this 1990’s incarnation of KISS, some new hairstylist has made them FAAAB-u-lous! Gone are the girlish poodles of the 80s; they’ve got weaves down to their leathered asses, Paul looking especially sensual with that side-parting and his “fuck” t-shirt. This band looks like it’s about to knife you in an alley and jack your car.

Take It Off. A Mr. Paul sex song follows the demon gargle. Especially good for bringing hookers up onstage to strip in public like the whores they are.

Tough Love. Another Paul prancer, with a middle section ripped from Zep’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine.

Spit. Simmons is back in the biggest, baddest way. Matching his new fearsome aspect, his songs on this album are consistently scary as hell, even if they’re about nailing some fat, filthy whore, as this one is. Stanley trades off vocals in the chorus. “The bigger the cushion / The better the pushin’…” (Forget Zep! Now they’re stealing from Spinal Tap?!) Bruce tears into snatches of Star Spangled Banner during the solo. KISS would take these snatches and turn them into a feature of the patriotic outro of the live show (featured on Alive III, with what has become known as “Bruce Kulick’s Star-Spangled Banner”).

God Gave Rock N Roll To You II. Gene, Paul and Ezrin re-lyric this Argent song (written by Russ Ballard) for the movie BILL AND TED’S BOGUS JOURNEY. Ballard’s original is more musically challenging, but KISS (I’m presuming Ezrin in particular) do a grand job of retaining the song’s complexity, yet making it marketable for Bill and Ted fans.

The video is shot in a bare airplane hangar, with vintage KISS footage interspersed. Love the energy of Paul kicking up puddles, playing a Sunburst Les Paul (very cool!), trading off vocals with Gene, who is playing a bloodied Warlock. The last time you will see Eric Carr in a video with KISS – as always, giving his all.

Domino is one of those songs that seems to SIT as if it always WAS. Gene’s got “a man-sized pre-dick-ament…” in a song so well constructed, it’s been floating around the cosmos for eons, just waiting for someone to capture it on tape. Like Smoke On The Water or You Shook Me All Night Long or Rock And Roll All Nite…

The video would feature Gene cruising in a pimpmobile from SCARFACE, and changing the lyric, “She’s got me by the balls” to “She’s got to have it all.” We see KISS have completely forsaken the glam of Asylum and cut back to basics. As with their very first album in makeup, it’s black and silver to glory. But let’s get back to the R-rated album version… “That bitch bends over… I forget my name…ouw!”

KISS 1992: Getting revenge on cows.

Heart Of Chrome. On any other album prior to Revenge, this Stanley rocker would have shone bright, but with the Demon Reborn commanding the night skies again, it is relegated to Just Another Song. I can’t be sure what Kulick was wearing as he spiked this solo through our frontal lobes, but I’ll bet it was black leather pants.

Thou Shalt Not. Simmons once again captures that satanic lightning he rode on Not For The Innocent (on 1983’s Lick It Up). He tried it on Lonely Is The Hunter (from Animalize) but failed. Is it, in fact, Ezrin’s superior production and composition skills that have restored Simmons and KISS to their former glories?

Attitude immediately changes on Every Time I Look At You, Paul’s perfunctory “pussy song.” Excellent throwback tune; sounds like something from 70’s Alice Cooper. Uh, is that Ezrin co-writing again? Yup. Man, everything that guy touches sounds like 70’s Alice Cooper.

And what’s that crawling over Paul’s face in the video – a three-dayer? That’s almost as hilarious as Bruce once again pretending to play the piano. There’s a string section and wailing and regret and loss, and damn! Gene looks so badass and righteous with that cool hairstyle and playing his signature Punisher bass guitar, he’s even stealing Paul’s thunder in Paul’s own song!

Paralyzed. Yet another Simmons cranker, his lead vocal salted with an evil lower harmony. For all his absence (spiritual and physical) on the last four albums – now Simmons yanks the reins from his devoted buddy and bitchslaps him with them.

Paul saves his best for last; closes the album with the single I Just Wanna, with the evocative line: “I just wanna fuh– I just wanna fuh– I just wanna fuh-get you!” accompanied by a stylish white-background video clip.

Revenge is dedicated to Eric Carr (1950-1991), and the album closes with Carr Jam 1981, an instrumental (and drum solo) that Carr recorded originally with Ace Frehley, that sounds oddly familiar. Bruce Kulick overdubs the guitar – and we realize why when we realize what song it is: Ace Frehley’s Breakout, from his 1987 album Frehley’s Comet. KISS had to overdub it for legal reasons! (On Frehley’s album, there’s Carr’s co-writing credit on Breakout.) It almost tears our breath away when we consider this will be the last time we will hear the boy play. Much loved, much missed. Think I’ll go spin King Of The Mountain with tears in my eyes…

carr’s last jam

Eric Carr: To chikara and beyond…

Of all the KISS members, Eric Carr’s tale is surely the saddest. From an oven repair man in bar bands, to drummer in the biggest band in the world! Made it, ma! Top ‘o the world! Not only that – he deserved it, with his breathtaking Bonham/Paice-styled drumming and all-round nice guy work ethic. He was one of the first drummers in an international hard rock band to use such a gigantic kit. Having lived past the 80s, we’ve grown used to that visual – but before Carr, there were very few who dared cover themselves in drums like he did. If Criss did not exit, Carr would not have bodily hurled KISS into the 80’s metal scene. Everyone speculates on Vinnie Vincent saving KISS, but the first actual save came from Paul Charles Caravello.

In April 1991, after the Hot In The Shade tour, Carr was diagnosed with a rare heart cancer, which sidelined him from recording the next KISS album (Revenge). Eric Singer was brought in to ghost on it, with the promise to Carr that once he got better, he would be back in the band.

According to Gary Corbett, KISS’s offstage keyboardist for the Crazy Nights tour, who befriended Carr, Carr was near the end of his tenure in the minds of Stanley and Simmons (for reasons unclear) and the cancer hit him at a time when they were trying to figure out how to oust him cleanly. This is earth-shattering information (if indeed it is true), and might explain the reticence of S&S when it comes to granting authorization for Carr tributes. To this point, they have not participated in any of the unauthorized biographies of Eric Carr, nor have they ever given authorization to make a “clean” documentary about Carr’s life because – here’s what they told Carmine Appice when he tried to film a tribute – they own the name “Eric Carr”!

On November 2, 1991, 41 year-old Eric Carr succumbed to complications (an aneurysm and brain hemorrhage) and died. (It happened to be the same day Freddie Mercury died, so Mercury stole his press. I remember back in the days of newspapers and music magazines, Freddie got front page coverage, while Carr got a few column inches a few days later.)

And while Freddie got a tribute concert at Wembley, everyone is waiting for Stanley and Simmons to stop being so megalomaniacal and let those who loved Eric do the same for him. Yes, there are many Carr “documentaries/biographies” floating around the web – but none of them contain interviews with S&S. And when S&S speak of that terrible time, they stick to the talking points (“cancer / we visited him in hospital / back in the band when he’s well / relapsed / died”) and do not deviate. It seems to have affected them morbidly – BUT – could their remorsefulness stem from the fact that fate stepped in and did what they were aiming to do, but in the most gruesome way?

Stanley’s account of the situation is just as credible as Corbett’s: In his book (Face The Music, A Life Exposed, Harper Collins 2014), he tells of how he forced Carr to take time off from recording to recover, not realizing that in doing so, he was cutting Carr off from the One Thing that mattered to him most – his relished job as drummer of KISS. To his family, Carr would paint he and Simmons as the bad guys who were going to fire him for being sick. A contrite Stanley confesses to being wrong – that he should have let Carr work out his last days, to the end if need be. Isn’t that how any artist would want to go?

KISS’s manager at the time, Larry Mazer, maintains that Gene and Paul were totally broken up over Carr’s situation, and that the criticism they get for being clinical and businesslike for completing Revenge is wholly unwarranted.

I’ve read all these stories about how non-feeling Gene and Paul were about Eric, and how they were coldhearted about firing him in place of Eric Singer – but I was there. I was in the meetings… / Unfortunately, the guys were in a position where they had to make a change. It was not coldhearted; it was not non-feeling. A lot of people held grudges against them for many years and I’ve read many, many interviews where they’ve gotten slammed, and it boils my blood… / All the criticism of Gene and Paul about the handling of the change from Eric Carr to Eric Singer is bullshit! They were totally respectful; they were crushed by his death; I went to the funeral with them. They were totally devastated by his death; he was a brother to them. But unfortunately, he had a disease that he was not gonna recover from, and the band had to keep moving forward. And that’s the end of the story – anybody that says anything negative about them in regards to Eric Carr doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.
— Larry Mazer, KISS manager 1989-1993 (from: 3 Sides Of The Coin podcast, 2-8-2022)

The last time KISS would see Eric is during the filming of the video for God Gave Rock ‘N Roll To You II. From his sick bed, he begged the band to let him perform in this video. We all kinda “know” when there won’t be many opportunities left to do what we do… Struggling to breathe and even hold himself up, Carr would still be seen in the final cut bashing the hell out of his instrument one last time. He would not live to see the release of the Revenge album.

We can take heart in knowing that this young lad’s last live gig with KISS (Nov 9, 1990) was at that iconic venue that is the benchmark for success – a success that Eric Carr richly deserved and attained – Madison Square Garden. Made it, ma! Top ‘o the world!

END

KISS 1998: Two ringmasters, two clowns…

You Wanted The Best — You Got… a facsimile thereof.

  drummer that forced hotel staff to put tinfoil on his windows that faced a certain direction and a lead guitarist that would rather play cards with his friends than catch a plane to a gig with the biggest band in the world. It truly was a…

Psycho Circus.

Did Paul Stanley name the first and only KISS Reunion album in honor of his wackadoodle bandmates, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley?

Psycho Circus followed on the heels of The Reunion Tour 1996, which was touted as The Return of KISS. But KISS never went away. (It should have been called “The Reunion Of The Original Members Tour” – but how do you print that on a ticket and stay fashionable?) What was regarded as “the return” by only diehard purists (and people who hadn’t followed KISS’s post-makeup career), was actually The Regression of KISS – from a fully-functioning, four-wheeled juggernaut (Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Bruce Kulick and Eric Singer) to a dysfunctional pushcart with two of its wheels rolling smoothly and the other two crooked and squeaking and constantly falling off their axles.

After the success of KISS: MTV Unplugged in August 1995, where past KISS members Criss and Frehley joined the current KISS lineup to jam on some KISS oldies, “Reunion” fervor had reached a peak. Entrepreneurs Simmons and Stanley saw the glut of money that could be made – and the 1996-1997 Reunion Tour aka KISS Alive Worldwide would be the most successful KISS tour to that date. Touring spawns talk of a new album. KISS (i.e. Simmons and Stanley) saw more dollar signs, more product.

That resulted in the psycho circus that would become Psycho Circus.

Y’see, Peter and Ace, tasting relevancy by being included in the KISS machine once more, instead of being thankful they had been pulled from obscurity (Peter especially!), had long since reverted back to their idiot selves, allowing lawyers, girlfriends and card-playing buddies to sway them to whatever worked worst. Nothing went smoothly with the recording process. Both Criss and Frehley were only used sparingly on the album, for various reasons (deadlines to be met, lack of ability, tardiness, erratic behavior, lawyers interceding), and many session players were hired to complete their parts… YET… Psycho Circus (either despite its adversity or because of it), is one solid KISS mamajama.

Produced by Bruce Fairbairn, Psycho Circus does in fact capture some of the KISS magic of old – but not because the original lineup is (supposedly) performing on it. It’s because Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons were still in the zone of writing excellent hard rock material (coming off Revenge 1992 and Carnival Of Souls 1995), and the session players they used (notably, drummer Kevin Valentine and lead guitarist Tommy Thayer) did such remarkable jobs. Circus hums with a vitality and energy on par with the best KISS material from the 70s and 80s. With a few juvie elements thrown in.

Psycho Circus. “…the makeup runnin’ down my face / We’re exiled from the human race…” I love that line and its context and innuendo. Paul Stanley’s voice in fine form, belting the opener to the album.

Within. A Gene Simmons scowler, using both high and low registers of his voice, at one point, overdubbing both ranges simultaneously in two separate, eerie vocal passages! Song even switches to a surprising 6/8 passage midway. Opening backwards-guitar passage by Bruce Kulick (leftovers from Carnival).

I Pledge Allegiance to the State of Rock & Roll. This is what I mean by juvenile. A solid Stanley rocker, with a nostalgic construction, but with that puffball red meat title. I guess I was looking for less fist-pumping redneck titles in an album that followed the mature Carnival Of Souls…

Into The Void (not to be confused with the Black Sabbath song of the same name) is a Frehley song that somehow sounds like one of his solo efforts; one of the few tracks he plays lead guitar on. Tommy Thayer (ex-Black and Blue guitarist, now KISS gopher, making his presence felt as tour manager, videographer, editor, and Frehley’s guitar tutor for his own songs!) did all the lead work that Frehley did not have songwriting credits on.

We Are One. This nostalgic Simmons track always brings me to tears. WHY? Simmons opts for his human AOR voice (the same one he used on The Elder), rather than his demon growl, and I think that’s a crybaby factor for me. Because it reminds me that one day this is the ONLY voice Simmons will be able to use, when we’re all too old for this game and gaze longingly back, with this song in the background… “Everywhere I go, everyone I see / And I see my face looking back at me…” That makes me cry, because of the gigantic legacy Simmons has created. He looks out at a sea of faces, and his creation, his persona looks back at him through the makeup on hundreds of faces. What must that be like?! To BE Gene Simmons or Paul Stanley.

“What I know is true/ Every one of us lives inside of you…” It IS true. KISS lives in each one of us, yes, even those unfortunate few who are NOT KISS fans, because their influence has affected others around you all around the world in myriad indescribable, inexplicable ways. You know that one in four people in Australia owns at least one KISS album? Influence like that is dangerously close to godlike. A butterfly flaps its wings in China — hurricanes in Nebraska. A KISS record is burned in Ohio — a stadium is sold out in Chile.

You Wanted The Best – a self-referential, high-heeled juvie stomper, written by Simmons, that reminds us of hip hop artists touting themselves as badass on their own records. “The fans wanted us to play / We hear and we obey / You wanted the best / And you got the best.” It’s a lame concept, and a lame attempt at getting the band to sound like they’re all together in the studio having a lark. The whole band takes turns on lead vocals, one line each. It’s nice to hear them do this – but it’s all fantasy. They were not functioning as a “real band” – not in that traditional sense where they would create music together and then go for pizza and hookers; they were not even unified in a business sense, where they were all contracted to do an album so worked hard together to produce the best rock and roll around. What is this – Bunny Week? We all know Frehley and Criss, like any old session musicians, are contracted to Simmons and Stanley, who run the KISS Corp. We all know anarchic Ace was late and left early, and poseur Peter brought a chick to the studio to see how tough he looked, and then had to be taught the melody line over and over by Simmons…

Raise Your Glasses. Another superbly-constructed song by the master songwriter, Stanley. “I shot my arrow at the mark / And hit it.” Nice to hear a retrospective that isn’t moaning about loss or soul-searching, but celebrating unbridled success, with a snappy Ace-like solo by Tommy Thayer. An awesome look back at his own career: “We struck our matches / Set the world on fire,” yet the lyrics must have given Stanley pause when considering his two re-recruited bandmates didn’t deserve all the accolades he was showering upon his band; some accolades, yes, but not everything that he and his brother-in-arms (“Went into battle with a force of thunder”) had to live through to that moment.

I Finally Found My Way …to Alice Cooper’s How You Gonna See Me Now. Written by Stanley and Bob Ezrin, this classically structured, piano-based ballad (sung by Criss), sounds at first like something off the good Peter Criss solo record (the 1978 one he made while still nominally in KISS), until we realize it sounds like Alice – because of Ezrin! Ezrin didn’t write How You Gonna See Me Now? but he worked so extensively with Cooper in his heyday that he unwittingly put that stamp on this song.

Criss would complain that he hardly played on anything. Fact is, he played on nothing except Into The Void. Because he was a furball of his former self. Stanley would write in his autobiography years later that Criss could hardly hold his sticks. Drummer Kevin Valentine’s original interaction with KISS was hiring and operating the P.A. for KISS Conventions. A veteran of Donnie Iris, Graham Bonnet, Cinderella, et al, on Eric Singer’s referral, Valentine was hired as drum tutor for Peter Criss for the Reunion Tour. [Scene Missing] Next stop: ghost player on Psycho Circus.

Speaking of Alice Cooper: Cooper’s lawyers sued Paul Stanley and Bruce Kulick for Dreamin’, which sounded too close to I’m Eighteen for comfort. It was settled out of court.

Journey of 1,000 Years closes the album, a thoughtful, introspective Simmons chugger that develops into something quite epic, with a string passage that emulates the guitar solo from the opening track, nicely book-ending the album and making this song sound nostalgic – when, in fact, you were experiencing deja vu because you had just heard that motif at the head of the album! – with Simmons’s voice rising in intensity as it progresses to a climax, and fades into an uncertain future.

The CD was released with a lenticular cover that showed alternating images of an evil clown dominating the band’s faces, and the KISS logo. Like the cover, Psycho Circus was a façade. It sounded cohesive, and actually does achieve greatness in parts, but it was a fragmentary offering from a COMPANY, not a band. But we can understand why it was sold as a band renewed. The public wanted that reality so much that they MADE it reality in their heads, ACTUAL reality be damned!

Now that’s psycho!

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