KISS buys football team

[planetgaffnet]

I'll weigh in here. 

They toured in Europe 1976...this was about the time I got interested.  Destroyer period.  I profess to being a big fan (despite preferring Starz by a country mile), although being pretty irritated that they avoided Europe for the most trivial of reasons for a few years.  Saw them at Wembley Arena (I think Phil Lewis/Phil Collen's 'Girl' were supporting); this must have been 1980 and they were laughable...comedic gold.  I can remember so little about the gig musically, otherwise, it was all about Gene's wig, no Peter Criss, Gene hitting the PA stack when he flew across the stage pre-God Of Thunder and a lump of his boot breaking off.  I also recall my best mate (and drummer in my band to this day) punching some guy in the row behind us who insisted on headbanging and grabbing onto my mate when he lost balance.  He went over the back of his seat and took out a few people domino style.  I lost interest quite soon after.

Fast forward to the comeback tour, I caught them at the Monsters Of Rock at Castle Donington in 1996.  We had backstage passes through Warners and blagged our way into the Kiss Army tent for the mid-afternoon press conference and the joy was tangible.  The set was how I wanted them to be back in 1980.  I took my 60 year old mum to Wembley to see them a few months later...she was a huge fan as well (probably more so than me at that stage).

Now?  They're just a joke.  Gene/Paul (and whatever the other two actors are called), let it go...end it.  Soon.  Stop raping your back catalogue for easy cash and retire gracefully, while you still have some grace.
P

[gweimer]

...and yet...I'd bet every one of us here wishes we could have had the musical career that they have enjoyed.

[Highlander]

A band I really rated supported them in '76 (and Rush in '77) by the name of Stray - they are sort of still going... anyone else ever heard of them here...?
I still have pretty much all of their vinyl and have yet to get the CD's
Flat Eric met up with the guitarist as part of his PC project some time back...

[uwe]

"(despite preferring Starz by a country mile)"

Ah yes! Violation (a mandatory buy for any bassist since Peter Sveval's bass is so loud in the mix, you can practically hear his pick jump out of your speakers!) was such a killer album, every track a winner, they really should have gone somewhere. The members of Starz had more musicality in their little pinkies than Kiss could ever muster with their larger than life stage look.



 "Now?  They're just a joke."  

Kiss were always an act. They aspired to be one right from the start (I think they had little illusions about their limited talent as musicians) and they honed themselves to be the perfect act once they had made it commercially. Accusing them of selling out at any point in their career is a bit like scolding Vincent Price for his latter day film appearances - he was never in the Academy Award league.

[Basvarken]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JpqCun2BkU&sns=fb

wow!

[uwe]

An unlikely choice for an acoustic guitar piece if there ever was one, but beautifully executed. He made all that up in his head. With no make up on either or leather batwings. 

[nofi]

starz? those guys are from here in atlanta. at home they could not do better than a small club. i guess they did better elsewhere.

[gweimer]

starz? those guys are from here in atlanta. at home they could not do better than a small club. i guess they did better elsewhere.

If I have my facts correct, Styx played themselves to death on the way up all over Chicago.  When they were at their peak, I don't recall them ever playing a major venue at home.  We were tired of them, but loved the records.

[uwe]

starz? those guys are from here in atlanta. at home they could not do better than a small club. i guess they did better elsewhere.

Hey, Starz deserve better than to be subsumed under the Confederacy! People in Atlanta didn't look like this in the mid-seventies:



People from New Jersey did. (That said, I always thought they were from Detroit before I looked it up. Somehow I always think that any American hard rock act has to come from Detroit.)

Granted, they look a little different today. Michael Lee Smith might not wear the same red sash waist size anymore, but his pipes can still carry those über-catchy tunes. Starz not making it is one of the great American tragedies.

[gearHed289]

I remember seeing them do Fallen Angel and maybe a couple other tracks on Don Kirschner's or something. Thought they were pretty cool, if not kind of an Aerosmith knockoff. Which, listening back now, probably had more to do with their look than the sound. And also explains why I thought they were from the East coast. LOL! And holy cow Uwe, that (P?) bass IS right up there in the mix! They would have fit right in with Loverboy and Billy Squier. Maybe a hair too soon? And yeah, I lived just outside of Atlanta in 76/77 and nobody looked like that. 

[uwe]

It's like that on the whole album! P Bass, yup. I wanna be produced by Jack Douglas too!!!

Yeah, the lead voc's looks had the Tyler comparsions starting early, but Starz had none of the blues roots Aerosmith so overtly (and in my book quite expertly, you could hear they really loved that type of music) touted. Your comparison to Squier (whose knack for a poppy bridge or chorus I have always rated, just ordered the 30th Anniversary reissue of Dont't Say No which I think is a pop rock classic that still stands up today) and Loverboy is spot on.

Starz' poppy leanings were mainly bassist/songwriter P(i)eter Sveval's do - he had seen fleeting national success a few years before, albeit still bearded and with a Ric.