They're immortal now ...

[uwe]

Kiss are preparing for infinity ...



Larger than life, but not real, isn't that what they always wanted?

[Ken]

Too bad it doesn't seem to include Ace and Peter.  Biggest reason I had zero interest in these two last MSG shows.

[uwe]

It's as fitting for Kiss as their Marvel Comic series at one point was. And I don't mean that negatively, it's just that they embraced this sort of stuff and their image lent itself to it.

Alice Cooper has now both preceded and outlived them as a touring act. Who'd have thought!

[Ken]

I get it, but the lack of respect for their history isn't very motivating to me.  And the comic was as the original members.  Or am I missing your point?

Major respect for Alice.  He seems to be a great guy.

[uwe]

I'm not a Kiss Fan enough to root only for the original line-up above anything else they have done. In public, non-diehard-fan perception, Kiss are Paul Stanley/Star Child ("the guy with the red lipstick" who sings most of the hits) and Gene Simmons/The Demon ("the monster that spits blood and breathes fire + also had a TV show with a nice enough family) plus two other guys who also wear make-up, but aren't as important. Similar to Status Quo who were from one point onward seen as mainly Francis Rossi & Rick Parfitt + whoever else was around, to the eternal chagrin of original line-up Quo fans like me!

If you asked me who the musically most rewarding Kiss guitarist was, I'd probably say Bruce Kulick (as good as Vinnie Vincent without being a dick). And Peter Criss I liked more for his singing voice than for his drumming (not that it was bad, it had charm in its un-heaviness).

The avatar thing is not so much about preserving musical band history as it is about projecting a brand image into the future. That is neither good nor bad, it's just the essence of Kiss as a visual band.

[Ken]

Yeah, I get it.  I grew up loving them because an older cousin gave me the first two albums.  And I always loved Ace.  Probably why to me no guitar tone sounds a good as a Les Paul through a Marshall stack.  So if he's not there I have no interest.

[uwe]

I'll give that to Ace: He has a weird style (especially rhythmically), but it's all his own. No one sounds like him by nature, Tommy Thayer just emulates him (and he does that well enough for stadium purposes) because he has been instructed to do so. Poor guy, his own guitar style is nothing like Ace's.

Ace is also one of the most unlikely Les Paul players around, he plays it as if it was a frigging Telecaster! But as I said: an original.

My introduction to Kiss was Dressed To Kill (followed shortly by Alive and Destroyer) - it struck me at the time that their music was nowhere near as heavy as I had expected it to be, more New York Dolls than Black Sabbath. But what appealed to me was that it was uncluttered, you could actually hear exactly what each instrument was doing. And it was pleasantly replicable, a secret to Kiss' widespread appeal, my first fledgling band covered C'mon And Love Me.



Of course, come Destroyer and its layered, symphonic "Ezrin Wall of Sound" that changed radically (not that I dislike Destroyer, I still think it's their Sgt Pepper), before they reverted back to type/re-dumbed down with Eddie Kramer on Rock And Roll Over.

[doombass]

[uwe]

Q:  ARE WE NOT KISS ?   A:  WE ARE ...


Ok, with those full body motion capture suits they are wearing 30:30, it is finally confirmed what I knew all along: DEVO are behind KISS !!!