KISS

Unplugged is really good.

I have not seen Kiss live in some time for 4 reasons.
1) As a matter of principle, I do not care for Tommy Thayer playing the part of Ace Frehley and Erik Singer playing the part of Peter Criss. It just seems hollow to me, I am fine with new members in the band if they 4 originals could not make it work, but it seems like a half tribute show. I saw Tommy as Ace once and it was pretty pathetic ... Ace is Ace and Peter is Peter.

2) They have been pretty much playing the same show since the 1996 reunion .. very similar set list. very similar stage show, etc ... People complain about the Maiden setlist, but it looks like they are pulling obscure stuff out of their ass compared to Kiss

3) Paul Stanley sounds like crap nowadays from the youtube videos I have seen, his voice is pretty much gone and Gene moves at the pace of a glacier. I get that they are older and this is expected, but the decline is really obvious .. even compared to bands like Aerosmith, the Stones, etc ... they just look ancient and Paul's vocals are a shell of their former self.

4) I understand music is a business and I have no problem with acts maximizing their take as much as possible, but they have been on this "brand versus band" thing for so long, everything they do just seems like a pure money grab. Like I said, I get that all bands try to make money, but they are just so far over the top that the Half Tribute show, dull set lists, decline in talent just makes it seem that the music is almost an afterthought to them.
 
I love Unplugged. Hearing the songs revamped is cool plus they did a lot of stuff that hadn't been done in a long time.
 
Thanks Bearfan,
That was what I was afraid of.

But the boys want to do road trip and it looks like I'm in.
 
Some stuff is leaking from the hoarders, an early 1973 show from New York and a bunch of 1975 demos have leaked out .. pretty sweet stuff
 
bearfan said:
Unplugged is really good.

I have not seen Kiss live in some time for 4 reasons.
1) As a matter of principle, I do not care for Tommy Thayer playing the part of Ace Frehley and Erik Singer playing the part of Peter Criss. It just seems hollow to me, I am fine with new members in the band if they 4 originals could not make it work, but it seems like a half tribute show. I saw Tommy as Ace once and it was pretty pathetic ... Ace is Ace and Peter is Peter.
Click to expand...

Exact reason i refuse to see them. The new members should have had new persona's like when Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent joined. That said, i always found Kiss's music to be generally very bland.
 
a nice companion article, comparing their version of the same events .. for example, the Alive! album

www.rollingstone.com/music/news/kiss-and-tell-comparing-the-original-band-members-memoirs-20140326#ixzz2x4rWqVzL

RECORDING ALIVE!

Gene
"There have always been rumors that the Alive! record was substantially reworked in the studio. It's not true. We did touch up the vocal parts and fix some of the guitar solos, but we didn't have the time or money to completely rework the recordings."

Ace
"We all went into Electric Lady, and for the better part of three weeks we tinkered and tweaked . . . and sometimes completely overdubbed songs. None of us got off the hook completely. There were times when [producer] Eddie [Kramer] was unhappy with Paul's singing or Gene's singing . . . As the studio sessions went on we became increasingly flexible in terms of what we considered to be acceptable doctoring."

Peter
"In the end we wound up keeping only my drum tracks, my vocals, and Paul's between-song raps. Everything else was re-created in the studio."

Paul
"Yes, we enhanced it. Not to hide anything, not to fool anyone. But who wanted to hear a mistake repeated endlessly? Who wanted to hear an out-of-tune guitar? For what? Authenticity?"



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/n...l-band-members-memoirs-20140326#ixzz2x5ZuAgji
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
 
Well, reading all four statements on Alive... makes me think that Gene's is the least believable one when he says that it was not substantially reworked in the studio. Fucking hell, now I wonder how much they re-did Alive 2!
 
I am guessing Alive II is about the same. For example, Hard Luck Woman was taken from a sound check, then re-edited. I think Peter is about dead on with this one. I read an interview with Eddie Kramer who said about the same thing, the live aspect of that album is mostly Peter Criss
 
Interesting when you look at the reasons why Criss had to leave the band. At some point he became (or is said to have become) the worst, but in the end he is the only real member of the seventies live releases.
 
By the late 70s, he was all over the place. If there was an Alive III from the Dynasty Tour, he would have been overdubbed as well. He only played on 1 song (Dirty Livin') between Dynasty and Unmasked ... Anton Fig did most of the drumming on those albums
 
I know. But he was a straightforward rock drummer. He was no disco drummer. Imo the drumming on these two albums is no chicken shit, or at least not easier stuff than previous albums (Detroit Rock City excepted). It may sound simple but there's quite some subtlety going on. Live: he was the man.
 
Yeah, I think it had a lot less than his abilities than him just being out of his mind by then (drugs, splitting with his wife, marrying some model, I think he briefly died twice in two different incidents), and on top of it hurt his arms in a car accident right before the did the 1978 solo albums. It is amazing he and Ace are still alive themselves.
 
Forostar said:
Interesting when you look at the reasons why Criss had to leave the band. At some point he became (or is said to have become) the worst, but in the end he is the only real member of the seventies live releases.
Click to expand...

If his statement is true.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top