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NBC explains KISS to old people, 1977
07.31.2015
09:56 am
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From Kiss’s 1977 special edition Marvel comic. They said that drops of the band’s own blood had been mixed in with the ink.
 
Gimmicks get a bad rap, and the music snobs who supposedly abhor them tend to be very inconsistent in their denouncements. No one would talk shit on Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ manic voodoo schtick for example (unless, I guess, they’re just openly anti-fun). Likewise, “serious” music nerds love bands like The Spotniks, and “Swedish science fiction bluegrass surf” is about as “novelty act” as you can get. But mention KISS in a Pitchfork crowd and you will inevitably encounter at least one disdainful scoff—if not the entire room—but if you can’t appreciate a man in glam rock alien makeup vomiting blood onstage, I feel sorry for you. Take this 1977 NBC mini-doc—“Land Of Hype And Glory”—as your cautionary tale.

The piece starts with scenes from a carnival, which is actually a decent metaphor for the band (carnivals are fun! People love carnivals, and people love KISS!). But the narration goes for the P.T. Barnum angle—“there’s a sucker born every minute”—implying that KISS fans are somehow being swindled by enjoying a sensational live show. (Fun and entertainment? Whatta bunch of suckers!) The reporter goes on to ask the band if they’re “bludgeoning rock to death,” and interrogates Gene Simmons on KISS’ “less-than-average” music. Simmons is quick to point out that their songwriting is intended to be “accessible,” rather than “self-indulgent.” Intended as a denunciation of hype, the entire feature comes off as a besuited old man scolding a group of professional showmen who aren’t taking themselves too seriously.

You don’t have to be a fan, but KISS are dumb, loud and easy, and if you can’t appreciate that, you’re really missing something fundamental about rock ‘n’ roll. And now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to run away before I am pelted by Sleaford Mods and Brian Eno CDs…
 

Posted by Amber Frost
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07.31.2015
09:56 am
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Remember that time when Menudo covered KISS and it was kind of awesome?
03.18.2015
12:18 pm
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Menudo and KISS are two bands that would never be mistaken for one another, though some historical fan-base overlap wouldn’t be out of the question. Both acts in their heyday tended to appeal to pre-teens, through either calculated intention or accidental finding of their niche.
 

 
By the time KISS cranked out the top 40 disco hit “I Was Made For Loving You,” they were comic book heroes with their own Hanna-Barbera-produced sci-fi action movie for kids and their own line of dolls. 1979’s “I Was Made For Loving You,” penned by Paul Stanley and hitmaker Desmond Child, was largely decried by KISS fans at the time as a major “sell-out,” despite the fact that KISS had already long sold out in every possible way imaginable. It was incidentally one of their biggest selling singles.
 

 
Time seems to have been kind to the “I Was Made For loving You” legacy, however, as “KISS Army” die-hards seem to have come around to accepting the track thanks to the band making it a barnstorming live concert staple, best exemplified on their Alive III album.

But before the “KISS Army” came around to “I was Made For Loving You,” the biggest latin boy-band of all time, Menudo, took their crack at it - and here’s the thing - their cover is actually pretty great.
 

 
“Fui Hecho Para Amarte” from Menudo’s 1981 Xanadu album is a cover of the KISS tune, played straight ahead, retaining most of the rock of the original. This track is one of five fascinating Spanish language covers on that album, the other four being “Cosita Loca Llamada Amor” (“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen), “No Se Puede Parar La Música” (“Can’t Stop The Music” by Village People), “Voulez-Vous” (originally by ABBA), and “Xanadu” (originally by Olivia Newton-John and the Electric Light Orchestra).

Menudo, whose own band rules forced their members into retirement by age 16,  would later go on to launch the career of Ricky Martin, while KISS’ members never knew when to quit and would of course go on to spectacularly piss all over their own legacy for the next 30+ years.

Continues after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Christopher Bickel
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03.18.2015
12:18 pm
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Wash down that spicy KISS steamed meat bun with some ‘Cold Gin’
10.17.2013
09:38 am
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Kiss spicy steamed meat bun
 
It’s been a good month for KISS. Earlier this week it was announced that they were nominated for consideration to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with 15 other acts, including Nirvana, Linda Ronstadt, Peter Gabriel, Yes, Link Wray, and the Zombies.

Later this week KISS will commence a quick tour of Japan, with one gig in Osaka and three shows in Tokyo, two of them at the legendary Budokan. To celebrate their arrival, the Circle K Sunkus convenience stores yesterday began selling its promotional line of KISS Super-Spicy Chili Tomatoman meat buns.
 
Kiss spicy steamed meat bun
 
As the report from RocketNews24 describes the experience of eating this delicacy:

Mr. Sato purchased the lone dumpling for 100 yen (US$1), and dashed back to the office. When he peeled back the wrapping he was in awe of the stylish Kiss logo branded on the top of the bun. ...

When he broke the black bun in two a glowing red tomato paste could be seen inside. It was so red Mr. Sato’s eyes stung a little. It certainly looked hot, but how does it taste? The display case had said that it contained the habanero chili pepper which once held the Guinness World Record for hottest chili.

After biting into it, tears began to roll down Mr. Sato’s face which he wiped off with his Destroyer T-shirt. It was every bit as hot as the lava like substance it looked like. Probably it was too hot, but anything less just wouldn’t be rock and roll so he accepted the spicy intensity with pleasure.

As an added bonus, the wrapper had the Peter Criss/Eric Singer Catman logo printed on it. There are five wrappers to collect; one for each member and one with all of them and the Kiss logo. Mr. Sato was hoping for a Gene Simmons Demon wrapper but it would have to wait for next time.

 
The eight-year-old me would have done just about anything for one of these wrappers, I tell you.
 
KISS logo wrapper
 
Here’s KISS performing “Cold Gin” in Cobo Hall, Detroit, in 1975:

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
1982 news special on Satan-worshiping rockers Kiss
Wonder Woman vs. Kiss

Posted by Martin Schneider
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10.17.2013
09:38 am
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‘Skool Of Rock’ mix: over 60 minutes of fist-pumping Disco-Rock anthems

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OK, enough of the hating between the rockers and the disco-freaks! This ain’t the damn 70s, so why can’t we all just get along? In love, peace and some sweat-drenched bell bottoms? Besides, there is a big crossover between these two supposedly “opposing” genres.

About five or six years ago, at the height of both nu-disco and the Italo revival (and while I was releasing music under the name Trippy Disco), I found myself playing more and more vintage disco records with crashing power-chords and wailing axe solos. Because of the “sell out” accusations that these kind of records attracted at the time (from both camps) it’s a side of disco that’s been neglected, even though I love those sounds. So, I decided to put together an hour’s worth of my favourite disco/rock records, and, lo, the ‘Skool Of Rock’ mix was born.

I decided not to feature anything too “New Wave” or post-punk as the disco influence on those sounds was already very obvious, though I did get to slip in a few acts who would technically be classed as “disco” but who dipped into “rock” now and again (Edwin Starr and Giorgio Moroder, for instance.) And accordingly, there’s also the obligatory disco cash-ins by some of your favourite rock acts (Queen, Bowie, ZZ Top.)  Besides that, there are some real gems here, including the Patrick Cowley remix of Tantra’s “Hills Of Katmandu” which is one the most “fuck yeah!” fist-pumping disco anthems of all time.

So, you might love this mix, you might really hate it, but either way here it is: 
 

 
Tracklist:

ELO “Don’t Bring Me Down (Trippy Disco Re-Edit)”
CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL “Fortunate Son”
ROCKETS “On The Road Again”
EDWIN STARR “The Rock”
CHILLY “For Your Love”
KISS “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”
TANTRA “Hills Of Katmandu (Patrick Cowley Megamix / Automan Edit)”
LED ZEPPELIN “Whole Lotta Love (Acapella)”
MATERIAL “Bustin’ Out”
ZZ TOP “Legs (Metal Mix)”
GIORGIO MORODER “Evolution”
MACHO “Not Tonight (Dimitri From Paris Re-Edit)”
SKATT BROS “Walk The Night (Album Version)”
QUEEN “Another One Bites The Dust”
DAVID BOWIE “Stay”
WINGS “Goodnight Tonight (Trippy Disco Re-Edit)”

You can download the ‘Skool Of Rock’ mix here.

BONUS!

David Bowie performing “Stay”, live on Muzikladen, Bremen 1978:
 

 

 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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03.10.2012
07:12 pm
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Wonder Woman vs. Kiss

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Lynda Carter’s rock and roll fantasy from her 1980 TV special Encore.

I find this an almost perfect collision of pop culture iconography that could have only existed in the era of spandex, platform shoes, disco balls and hairspray - twixt the end of the punkish 70s and the dawning of the gloriously absurd 80s.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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01.14.2012
02:22 am
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Hairspray for Steven: The Decline of Western Civilization Part II - The Metal Years


 
Ah, the delights of hair metal. Marc, you have really opened up a can of glam worms with that post on vintage Poison! Here in its engorged entirety is still the best document of the mid-80s spandex metal years I have seen, though how most of these bands qualify as “metal” is beyond me, as is the fact that most of these men were considered red-blooded, macho heterosexuals! This whole world has been undergoing a re-appraisal in recent years, possibly as being the last time mainstream rock was this fun, stupid and thoroughly enjoyable. To quote Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler “And then that pussy Cobain came along and ruined everything”.

Decline… Pt 2 has lots of recognisable faces (Kiss without their make-up, a surprisingly lucid Ozzy Osbourne, the Toxic Twins from Aerosmith, wisened elder Lemmy) but the real stars of the film are the musicians and fans plucked straight from the Sunset Strip who we have never heard from again. The “where are they now” pathos, especially at the end, is almost heart-breaking. But don’t let that detract from the fun, especially the sight of Paul Stanley on a bed full of groupies, and Chris Holmes from W.A.S.P. pouring fake vodka into his own face while floating in a swimming pool and shouting at his mother: 
 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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09.10.2011
12:13 pm
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1982 news special on Satan-worshiping rockers Kiss
08.17.2011
07:18 pm
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This news cast was from 30 years ago, but it might just as well be today. We’re living in dark times folks and it ain’t rock and roll that got us here.

In contrast to the southern preachers, who sound like a bunch of drooling idiots, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons are the voices of reason. Ironic that the craziest looking people in the room (in their “evil looking make-up”) are the most sane. Even the newscaster buys into the religious hysteria claiming that Kiss fans “idolize the underworld.”

From a 1982 edition of Entertainment Tonight.

I wonder what’s on Rick Perry’s play list?
 

 
Graphic via Princess Sparkle Pony.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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08.17.2011
07:18 pm
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Sean Connery gave TV its first male-to-male kiss

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Here’s a small piece of TV history as Sir Sean Connery kisses Richard Pasco in a BBC production of Jean Anouilh’s play Colombe from 1960.

This is the first ever male-to-male kiss aired on television. It would take the BBC another twenty-seven years to show two men kissing on-screen again, in an episode of the soap opera EastEnders. For fact-fans, the first man-to-man kiss in a major movie is claimed by Raf Valone in the 1962 feature Vu du Pont.

While this is a TV first, the kissing couple were not lovers but brothers. Connery’s character Julien believes his brother Paul (Pasco) is having an affair with his wife Colombe (Dorothy Tutin), and kisses Pasco to find out what makes him such a good lover. Hm, that old excuse?

This might seem like nothing to us today, but we should appreciate that homosexuality was outlawed in the UK,  a criminal offense punishable by gaol, until 1967, when the law was repealed. Therefore, it was more than hugely controversial to have two grown men kissing on TV (whether brothers or not) for it could have finished the careers of both Connery and Pasco, as they would have been seen as “corrupting viewers’ morals” and open to attack from those hateful right-wing moral evangelists, like Mary Whitehouse, who wielded such frightening and dangerous power back then. So, three cheers for Sir Sean and Mr Pasco.

The play Colombe was believed to have been lost or deleted, but copies of the drama turned up in the U.S. last year, after a reseracher found copies that had been sent to broadcaster National Education Television. The programs have now been returned to the British Film Institute in London, where Colombe will screened today.
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Sean Connery - The Musical


 
Via the Daily Mail
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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06.06.2011
09:42 am
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My Dinner With Paul (Stanley)
03.12.2011
12:32 pm
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“Episode 1. Paul gives me advice about the ladies and makes an offer.”

True story: Sometime in 2004, I was returning to my car in the parking lot of a CVS drugstore in Sherman Oaks, California (the one with “The Party Store,” the Marie Callendar’s restaurant and the really good dry cleaners on Ventura Blvd. & Willis Ave., for all you locals).

Just as Paul Stanley and his son, who was maybe 6-years-old at the time, were leaving “The Party Store,” two transgendered women were walking in.

The kid looked them and when the door automatic doors had closed behind them, he asked his father the rock star, “Dad were those GUYS???”

Stanley, with a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face that I will never forget said softly: “I don’t know, son” and then quickly changed the topic to “Hey, this is going to be a really great party, tomorrow, huh?”
 

 
Via Kembra Pfahler/Howie Pyro

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.12.2011
12:32 pm
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Horrifying Kiss makeup GIF
07.25.2010
08:42 pm
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image

 
Or is it genius?
 
(via HYST)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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07.25.2010
08:42 pm
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I Feel Casablanca Records, Parliament Sells Itself

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Before records labels like Slash and Dangerhouse came along to consume my youth, there was, of course, Casablanca Records.  With KISS, Meatloaf, Parliament and Donna Summer under its roof, the label straddled a number of seemingly incongruous musical worlds.

But as the LA Weekly’s Gustavo Turner points out in his review of Larry Harris’ new book And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records, these worlds were all linked, albeit tenuously at times, by Casablanca’s visionary-in-chief (and Harris’ cousin), Neil Bogart.  A genius at both label promotion and self-indulgence, Bogart passed away from cancer in ‘82, but not before becoming one of the defining figures of the ‘70s.  Here’s a snip from Turner’s review:

They struck gold, big-time ?

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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01.08.2010
05:10 pm
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Celebrity Perfumes: Who Wants to Smell Like Carlos Santana or Gene Simmons?
08.20.2009
05:08 pm
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imageDid you know that Carlos Santana has his own perfume? (He’s got two actually, one for women and man’s cologne) Or Kiss? Michael Jackson even had six different kinds! Antonio Banderas, too. Hell, even Alan Cumming has his own perfume! WHO wants to smell like Alan Cumming? It doesn’t make any sense! The Incredible Hulk and Spiderman have their own colognes, not to mention Austin Powers (it’s called “Mojo” and smells like someone pissed on candy). Above is an amusing vintage clip from MTV circa 1996 about some hits and misses in the celebrity scent sweepstakes. Seems that no one wants to smell like Prince and MJ’s scents weren’t that popular either…. and boy did they pick a bad name for Anna Nicole Smith’s fragrance, eh?

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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08.20.2009
05:08 pm
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