Come on, people! I would have expected this to be one of the first boards created!!

I'd've guessed Elvis, The Beatles and Dylan. So we were both wrong.

The best KISS album, to me, is Destroyer.

So let's see, what all was K-I-S-S supposed to stand for? "Keep It Simple, Stoopid", "Kings In Satan's Service", "Knights In Satan's Service". Any others?

By the way, who all's dumb enough to believe that last year was the final farewell tour?

Didn't Eric Singer replace Peter Criss on the final leg of that tour? How was he made up?

I don't believe for a second that that was their final tour. I give it three to five years at most before they reunite!

I've got a few questions for anyone in the KISS Army (because I doubt anyone else could answer them):

1. Which member had the strongest (best) solo album?
2. Did any of the other members appear on each solo album?
3. Does anybody (besides me) actually like the song Lick It Up?

My favorite songs (in no particular order):

Heaven's On Fire
Beth
Hard Luck Woman
I Love It Loud
Lick It Up
World Without Heroes
Hide Your Heart
God of Thunder


I can't even stand to listen to I Want to Rock And Roll All Night anymore.

And which do you think the members of KISS should be more embarrased over:
The WCW Demon disaster or performing Hard Luck Woman on the Tonight Show with Garth Brooks?

(Incidentally, Garth Brooks is one of my favorite country singers, but that was just too weird! Wish I had taped it.)

Lol. Yeah, BF, I agree. Four years at the most. Gene and Paul will be interviewed on MTV, saying, "We're doing this for the fans." The complete sentence should be "...for the fans' monies."

If you're talking about the solo records from the Seventies, I'd have to say Ace's was the strongest. (Gene singing "When You Wish Upon A Star"? Jiminy the Cricket he ain't.) It's been awhile since I've had 'em, but I think The Catman had help from his fellow KISS members on his solo album.

Like "Lick It Up"? Actually, I like the entire album. It's the only good one really they put out when they got rid of the make-up.

Favorite KISS songs:

"Hard Luck Woman"
"Shock Me"
"Christine Sixteen"
"Rocket Ride"
"Detroit Rock City"
"Do You Love Me"
"Lick It Up"
"Heaven's On Fire"
"I Love It Loud"
"Sure Know Something"
"Black Diamond"
"Cold Gin"
"All Hell's Breakin' Loose"
"Not For the Innocent"

That's not in any particular order, and there are probably others I like that I'm not thinking of.

By the way, I'm not in the KISS Army. Does that matter?

Nope, it doesn't. And add All Hell's Breakin' Loose to my list. I completely forgot about that one.

Incidentally, I'm not in the KISS Army,either. The only KISS-related album\8-track\cassette\cd I have is Frehley's Comet. It actually has a few decent tracks on it.

I've never heard Black Diamond or Strutter, which are considered two of their best songs!

Another favorite KISS song that I forgot to mention is "Uh-All Night".

I was going to pick up a copy of Frehley's Comet this week, come to think of it. I hadn't yet gone out to the record shop that has it. Maybe I'll go later today, after I wake up. May blow it off 'til next week, then again.

By the way, on Frehley's Comet, the song "Into the Night" was originally done by Russ Ballard, more famous for the song "Voices" ("Don't look back/Go straight ahead/Don't turn away the voices/Don't look back/Yesterday's gone.")

BF, try to get yourself a copy of Double Platinum. That'll have "Strutter", "Black Diamond" and several other early KISS classics.

I know. I almost bought Double Platinum a couple of weeks ago.

"Knights In Satan's Service" is the only one I've ever heard. Well, "Keep It Simple Stup¡d", too, but not pertaining to them.

I can't even stand to listen to "I Want to Rock And Roll All Night" anymore.
Amen, brother! Oops! Did I just say that? Well, the sentiment still holds. When we used to listen to a rock station at work this was the only KISS song they played, and like all the other songs they kept playing everyday we all got pretty tired of it pretty fast.

I was never really into KISS at the time, and I thought they were supposed to be very hard rock for the time, but I heard that their studio stuff wasn't really that up to snuff, not like AC/DC, Ted Nugent, etc, but last year I bought "Greatest KISS" and listened to it but only once cuz frankly I thought it sucked. I heard their live albums and performances are the way to go cuz they're much better. The only two KISS songs I ever liked are "Beth" (even my mom once said she liked it and this ain't her kinda band) and "I Was Made for Loving You". Since I now have a CD-RW I can record those two on a blank CD and just get rid of "Greatest KISS". I'm now giving this one more listening to first (except for "I Want to Rock And Roll All Night"), just to see if I may like any of the other songs better. Hmm. "Hard Luck Woman" sounds like a Rod Stewart song. Oh, well, same era.

BTW, what are some good blank CDs to use? TDK? Maxwell? Sony? I don't care for rewritables, cuz I hear they can get messed up if you re-record on them too often. Besides, they cost more.

I've used Memorex CD-Rs myself. (I don't have a burner, but I have friends who do.) Gold is what you'd want, with silver being a runner-up. Avoid the blue ones. They're the cheapo brands. I'm not sure how good black discs are. My buddy has been using them. Last night I took my ELO collection to his house, and put together a good, 19 song, ELO greatest hits disc for him. The black disc sounded pretty good on playback.

Hey, Mark, if you don't want the KISS disc, I'll take it!

That's ok. I just listened to it again last night, this time on this computer with headphones on and it wasn't too bad. It'd been awhile since I last listened to it on my home stereo and I guess the music was diluted a bit cuz I didn't have it too loud (I live in an apartment). I did skip over Rock And Roll All Nite, though, but I listened to I Was Made For Loving You twice.

Yeah, I know gold ones are best but they're also costlier, right? Costco has a 100 pack of TDK 74 min for $30 and a 30 pack of 80 min ones from another brand whose name I forget at the moment, and it's $18. Wal-Mart has a no-name brand 100 pack of 80 min ones (probably their own) but I wasn't gonna buy those pieces of crapola. Since the Fall of Napster I don't really have a need, or at least not a big hurry, to burn CDs now. Someone at work wants me to burn my 2CD Bad Company set for her, which I will when she brings me the blanks. I still haven't played around with this thing yet, either, so I hope it's not too hard. Doesn't look like it should be, though.

|Snaps fingers| Darn! Thought I was getting a free CD. |Sigh| Oh well, better luck next time.

Dude! If I had a burner, I'd've been playing on it so much, y'all wouldn't hear from me for quite awhile.

One of the things I despise about KISS is their whorish nature (which is why they will do any "Farewell Tour", bet on it). For instance, in looking over last week's newspaper, I saw this little item in USA Today:

"At a recent licensing convention in New York, KISS bassist Gene Simmons showed off what he considers to be the ultimate piece of music memorabilia; a life-size, fully-functional* KISS coffin," (are we drooling yet?) "otherwise known as a KISS Kasket." (cute) "Cost: $4,000. 'This is the ultimate KISS collectible,' said Simmons. 'I love livin', but this makes the alternative look pretty •••• good.' He notes that the coffin, covered with a photomural of band members and emblazoned with the words 'KISS Forever' can be used as a cooler." Did he mention how tasteless this is?! What scares me is that some people will actually buy this. What's next KISS condoms? KISS enema bags? Lord, KISS just got demoted several rankings on my top favorite bands.

*"Fully finctional"?! The only function a coffin has is to hold a corpse! A cardboard Sears refrigerator box will do the same thing!

Yeah, or a garbage bag and some duct tape! :p


Can anyone tell me which album "World Without Heroes" is on? I looked at several cds at the mall today, and couldn't find one with it on it. If it helps, its from the period when Gene had short hair. Probably around the time he did the (awful) Tom Selleck movie "Runaway".

Dude! If I had a burner, I'd've been playing on it so much, y'all wouldn't hear from me for quite awhile.
Dude! If Napster was never effectively shut down and I had it and a faster connection I'd be burning CDs like crazy off of the internet at least as often, if not more than, I play games or do normal surfing.

I saw Gene Simmons on Howard Stern last week, and a new VH1 2-hour special on KISS, and on both shows the Kasket was mentioned. I thought not only was it tacky but caskets usually come with nice bedding (why worry about how comfortable a corpse is gonna be? It's dead!) but how could you use it as a cooler? Is the bedding removable? I sort of think it'd be a bit of a kick to have one, though, just to get people's reactions to it. Ya gotta admit it makes for a hell of a conversation piece. Have you seen the PC game, KISS Psycho Circus, based on the Todd McFarlane comic book? I noticed it slowly went down in price to $9.99 at the same store that had another version of it for double that. The VH1 KISS special showed brief clips of it without identifying it and what little they showed looked very awful. The graphics didn't look nearly as good as other games that came out at around the same time.

If I'm not mistaken, BF, "World Without Heroes" is way before the movie Runaway. It's off the album Music From "The Elder". It's the one with the giant door knocker on the cover.

Speaking of KISS comics, anyone remember Marvel Super Special #1? That was a magazine sized comic Marvel put out. Allegedly vials of the band members blood were mixed into the red ink of the presses that printed the book. That was probably the coolest thing about it.

Yeah, it was off Music From "The Elder". I saw a re-run of the VH-1 special, and they showed them performing it. On Solid Gold, or something. Only good song on the entire album, according to some people.

Okay, Eric Carr was the Fox, and Vinnie Vincent was the Wizard. And Eric Singer rejoined the band on their "Final Tour" after Peter quit, and wore Peter's Catman makeup. So that means Mark St. John and Bruce Kulick were the only two members of the group who never wore makeup? I thought I heard somewhere that someone tried out a Birdman gimmick, with a jacket with yellow feathers on it. Was that B.S., or just a really, really short-lived gimmick that the VH-1 special cut out?

Almost grabbed a copy of Double Platinum (again) at the mall, but it was $22.00!! I'm going to wait and get it at Wal-Mart. I think it was only 18 bucks there.

Btw, are there any copies of KISS Meets the Phantom out there? Was it ever released on video, even as a bootleg? From what I saw on that VH-1 special, and from what I've read about it, I just absolutely have to see it!

No you don't! It was absolutely awful. I'm not sure, but I think I read somewhere...hold on. I think I know where I read it. No, that wasn't it. I've got a book called KISS and Sell The Making of a Supergroup by C.K. Lendt, who was a business manager for KISS. Anyway, I had read (or heard) that Peter's voice for dubbed in by somebody else.

I've seen the movie, though. It pops up occassionally on those independent TV stations. It's pretty cheesy. It probably does exist on video, If not, you can always wait for it to be run on TV.

Peter Criss, from what I heard, did not quit "The Final Tour". Gene and Paul fired him because he wanted more money.

Never heard of the Birdman costume story myself. It sounds really dumb though. What would he do? Fly? I thought Gene did that.

Tuesday I bought a CD, Ultimate Collection by Black 'N Blue (Gene produced their third and fourth albums). In the liner notes it mentions that Black 'N Blue's lead guitarist, Tommy Thayer (who is "Ace" in the KISS tribute band, Cold Gin) is working to put together a KISS box set. You may not even want to bother with Double Platinum now.

Sorry, but if I can sit through Egah!, Red Zone Cuba and Manos, The Hands Of Fate on Mystery Science Theater, and Krull, Howard The Duck, Beetlejuice, and Fraudzilla in theaters, then I can sit through ANYTHING! Bring it on!

According to either Paul or Ace, I don't remember which one (probably Paul), on that VH-1 special, Peter's lines had to be dubbed, because he was stoned\drunk during the making of most of the movie. And in one scene, Ace is actually played by his stunt double. His AFRICAN-AMERICAN stunt double! Its during the scene where they're attacked by a gorilla, and it grabs Ace around the neck, I believe.

Peter asked for more money, and quit when they refused; they did not fire him. (If you believe Gene, that is) Either way, Peter was an idiot.

I should have clarified what I meant about the Birdman gimmick; I think I heard that Vinnie Vincent tried that out, maybe at just one concert, before he became the Wizard. Vinnie had the worst make-up of all the KISS members, in my opinion. A gold ankh with a black outline. Lame!

I'll probably go ahead and get Double Platinum. I don't buy boxed sets. If its not more than, say $60.00, then maybe I'll buy it.

One more question: Did Ace ever sing lead on anything when he was with KISS?

"Cold Gin" was possibly his most famous KISS song. Then there's "Shock Me", my favorite. On Dynasty, there is, I believe, "Hard Times" and "Save Your Love".

Howard the Duck? Okay, if you sat through that... Either you're a hardcore KISS fan, or a masochist. I'm not sure which yet.

By the way, citing anything done on MST3K doesn't count. Joel, Mike, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot made those movies endurable.

"Peter asked for more money, and quit when they refused; they did not fire him. (If you believe Gene, that is) Either way, Peter was an idiot." - BF

Well, duh. I'm not sure how much I'd trust Simmons, though. Remember, he's one of the ones saying they've had their "Farewell Tour."

Speaking of KISS comics, anyone remember Marvel Super Special #1? That was a magazine sized comic Marvel put out. Allegedly vials of the band members blood were mixed into the red ink of the presses that printed the book. That was probably the coolest thing about it.
I remember that comic but never bought it. That was actually shown on that VH1 KISS special. They were all standing in front of a big vat and I guess they were either actually getting pricked to "donate" blood that would go into, of course, red ink, or else they were just posing for the camera, I dunno.

Anyway, I had read (or heard) that Peter's voice for dubbed in by somebody else.
Also shown in the special, and you're right about its being awful. I saw some clips from it and not only is the acting bad as hell but the film they used, too. I either never knew about this film before, or had forgotten it if I had, cuz I thought Runaway was Gene Simmons' first acting job. His first legit one, I guess.

I used to own Marvel Super Special #1. I keep wanting to say that they fought Dr. Doom in that issue. It may've happened in the second Marvel Super Special they were in. As I recall, Steve Gerber wrote it and John Buscema was the artist. What I remember is that they were a rock band (without make-up!) who were given these symbols that transformed them into The Demon, The Star-Child (I think that's what Paul was), The Catman and The Space Ace. Paul shot an energy beam through his eye that enabled him to control people's emotions. Ace could create some "conical field of energy". What was really funny was that Gene's boot could fly off his feet and attack!

KISS also appeared in a couple issues of Howard the Duck. Their appearance made no sense at all.

About the movie. You know it's gonna be bad when Paul Williams is the villain!

Yeah, I remember Paul's ability to shoot an energy beam outta his eye.

Well, there is now a KISS box set. I haven't looked at it yet, but it appears to be a four disc set.

Meanwhile, the Farewell Tour is not over. According to Gene, the band's going to tour Asia, Japan, South America, etc. Then it's back to the States, where they'll play "one". final. show. My guess the show will be in either New York or Detroit. Eric Singer is still the drummer.

**dusting off topic**

A couple corrections to posts above-

Peter Criss did NOT have any other member of Kiss playing on his solo album.

Eric Carr originally tried the chicken man/hawk outfit mentioned (there is even a picture) but it was decided that it was wrong so he became the fox.

"Kiss Meets The Phantom" is a laughingly bad film- good for a bit of a laugh (it's produced by Hanna-Babera so you can imagine who it's aimed at). Yes, Peter's voice was dubbed because he didn't show up to do ADR sessions. Worth a see- if only once.

Ace sang the following songs whilst in Kiss-

"Shock Me" (Love Gun)
"Rocket Ride" (Alive II)
"2,000 Man" (originally done by the Rolling Stones- but Kiss' is far better- for one thing, Ace sings in tune) (Dynasty)
"Hard Times" (Dynasty)
"Save YOur Love" (Dynasty)
"Talk To Me" (Unmasked)
"Two Sides Of The Coin" (Unmasked)
"Torpedo GIrl" (Unmasked) (My personal fav Ace song)
"Dark Light" (Elder)
"Into The Void" (Psycho Circus)
"In Your Face" (b-side to "We Are One" single)

and of course, his solo album.

The box set is brilliant and should be in any serious Kiss fans' collection (but the grossly overpriced "deluxe" edition has has no extra cd's just a different case and the booklet in hard cover)

Peter Criss disses Gene Simmons.

np - Speakerboxx/The Love Below - Outkast

"Music is a world within itself and a language we all understand." - Stevie Wonder

Uh, it's that like a pig in the mud saying, "Hey, you're dirty!"? They were ALL on drugs at one time.

Sheez! I despise "Holier than thou" attitudes!

"ISN"T" that like a pig....

To be honest, I'm glad Kiss dumped him. Eric Singer is a much MUCH better drummer than Criss EVER was. It seems to me that Peter has moments when he loves the band and then hates it. I can't keep up with him.
Same thing with Ace. Both of them talk about closing that part of their lives forever yet strangely they are quite happy to keep the door open on their royalties and performing those songs in concert.
Those two are no more hypocrites than Paul and Gene.
KISS still rock- especially with the current line-up. Thayer is an excellent guitarist (in fact he taught Ace how to play his solos).

"Sonic Boom" is due out in a month and is apparently a very good album. I'm looking forward to hearing Tommy Thayer do some original work not to mention sing something other than "C'moooon everybody shout it now....".

Just listening to Ace Frehley's new studio album "Anomaly" at the moment. Very VERY Ace.... his voice hasn't changed in the last 30 years. Scary....