Unmasked - The First KISS Non-Makeup Fantasy Draft

Regular readers of Pencilstorm know when it comes to covering the band KISS, we do not shy away from controversy. (Click here for 12 stories) But when Scott Carr and myself started discussing ways to evaluate the KISS non-makeup years, we knew we had to do better than a standard ranking by one guy.  Remember that Cheap Trick list that one guy did? It was fun, like, 5 years ago, but times change. People deserve more in 2018. Hell, just the other day, some guy drove an electric car into space with most of its expensive booster rockets returning to Earth without crashing. That's some mind-blowing Jetsons stuff. Or as the Scientologists say, "Progress.". 

So with fantasy baseball season coming up fast we thought, what if six guys had a fantasy draft pulling songs from the KISS records Lick It Up through Revenge, plus the two unreleased songs from Smashes, Trashes and Hits? Now, that would be interesting. Something never attempted before by mankind. How would random folks value this period in the band's history? Or shall I say......KISSTORY!!!

Hold on KISS Kruisers, I can hear you bitching....yes, we left off Carnival of Souls because everybody knows that's not a real record. The two people who have listened to that record can do a draft and we will be happy to publish the results on Pencilstorm. 

Anyway, in pursuit of the truth, we set out to find a diverse group of owners. And when I say diverse, I mean it in the RUSH rock n roll definition: a bunch of white guys who don't spend five nights a week together in the same bar.  Let's face it, white guys are pretty much the only demographic that sat through all of Hot in the Shade. After a lengthy vetting process conducted by a search committee, the following players were invited to join the league:

Matt Walters - I was christened a KISS fan at 3 in 1977 while living on Long Island by my then-16-year-old badass babysitter Donna Knappie. I would never be the same. After Peter and then Ace left, I lost interest, and I never really listened to the albums in the '80's until way later. The non-makeup era definitely has some of my least favorite albums, although I've grown to appreciate many of the songs on those albums over the years. I've seen KISS six times, including the Kiss Kruise III first night, considered one of the greatest and most surprising set-lists in KISStory. My KISS war-room is now in Oak Park IL, just outside of Chicago, complete with an acoustic guitar, KISS Alive Forever, and my trusty Ace solo album poster.

Scott Carr -  You may know me from numerous music-related stories that have been featured on Pencil Storm, many of them about Kiss. I also play guitar in Radio Tramps, a very active cover band from Columbus, OH. When I'm not doing gigs with my band you can usually find me at Lost Weekend Records, an indie record store in Columbus. 

My Kisstory dates all the way back to my youth when I first saw Kiss in concert during the Destroyer tour in July of 1976. From that day forward I have been a fan. The good, the bad and the ugly.....I've been there for it all. I saw Kiss a total of five times during the original make-up years and then numerous times during the non-makeup and reunion/farewell years. I've met all four original members of Kiss at different times over the years and have also met Eric Carr, Bruce Kulick and Eric Singer. I am hoping to meet the elusive Vinnie Vincent in June at a Kiss Expo in Nashville. 42 years om, I still love talking about and defending The Hottest Band In The World....KISS!

David Martin has seen Kiss perform live nine times and once asked Ace Frehley to autograph an empty McDonald's sack. He lives in Kansas City.

Colin Gawel - decided to give up a promising career in business for a nomadic life of rock n roll after being exposed to KISS Alive at the young age of 6. He thinks Paul Stanley's solo record is better than Ace's, saw every tour of the non-makeup era and is known to hijack random facebook threads and steer them into KISS conversations. He founded Pencilstorm for precisely this purpose. 

Mike Lovins - plays in the band Bava Choco. Spends his spare time taking pictures of people wearing Vinnie Vincent t-shirts.  Once spotted carrying a copy of Hot in the Shade around mid-town Manhattan for no apparent reason.

Jeremy Porter - KISS was the first band I discovered on my own, not through perusing my parents' record collection.  Alive! was the first record I bought with my own money. Ace Frehley was the first rock star I ever wanted to be. My interest waned as the original four lineup dissipated and I discovered punk rock, but some 25 years later I found myself sucked into the Kiss "Unplugged" episode and I saw that there was greatness in the post-makeup era too, albeit a bit more diluted than on those classic albums. Fast forward another 23 years and I'm locked in my home office, picking songs in this fantasy draft, and remembering that time I spotted Bruce Kulick literally across the terminal at LAX and rushed over to introduce myself.  "Who?" my wife asked innocently, trying to keep up.  My drafting war room is in Detroit where I will be researching with my band: Jeremy Porter and The Tucos.  

Up next: The draft lottery will be held Saturday February 10th at Cobo Hall in Detroit to determine the order of the draft. Stay tuned KISS nerds. - Colin Gawel

Bruno Mars @ The Super Bowl by Ricki C.

I was contracted by Pencilstorm to critique the Bruno Mars halftime performance at the Super Bowl, but first I’d like to refute a coupla points Colin made in his “What kind of jack-ass actually wants to go to the Super Bowl?” post, the main one being that the Super Bowl is not American Sports' Greatest Championship, which I happen to believe it is.

First, and let me be clear up-front, I am a professional football fan.  I don’t really enjoy the college game, it just strikes me that college football players never really look like they’re trying very hard.  (My Sunday Night NFL friends Kyle & Rob - both of whom actually like college football, O.S.U. in particular - begged me not to put that sentence in print, but I stand by it.)  (That being said, I’m not answering any knocks at my door the next week or ten days, in case Michael “Biggie” McDermott is hiding in the bushes, waiting to punch me in the throat.)

I like my football liberally sprinkled with million-dollar paychecks, commercial endorsements, greedy owners (who will at least admit their greed, unlike college presidents & athletic directors who reap untold MILLIONS of dollars off of their “student athletes”), steroids, concussions & painkillers.  Plus the NFL season is short, succinct and to the point, just like the best rock & roll.  The NFL season starts in the fall and ends in the winter, unlike the Endless Slog Bataan Death March that the Major League Baseball season has become, wherein the games commence in April and end in November with snowflakes flying and die-hard baseball fans bundled up like extras in an Antarctic documentary.  Baseball should begin when the birds start singing in the spring and the last game of the World Series should be played the day before elementary school starts.  Case closed.

Also, as my good friend Rob points out, the entire NFL playoff season is accomplished in three tidy weekends, one & done, you lose and you’re out.  It’s not the NBA where all but six teams make the playoffs, or the NHL, where the Stanley Cup is still being contested when baseball season opens, a situational sports overlap that should not be tolerated.  Hockey & baseball just do not mix.  Dropping the puck and throwing out the first pitch are not contemporaneous in a Rational World.

But I digress….Bruno Mars:

Mars’ halftime show was just as underwhelming as this year’s Super Bowl game.  (Which I enjoyed, once I adjusted to the fact that my Steelers, Packers and Saints were nowhere to be found and threw in my lot with Brian Phillips’ Seahawks, just so his family would be safe in February.)  When Mars was first announced as the Super Bowl halftime “entertainment” I had serious reservations, doubts and questions: 1) Had we really used up every classic-rock act – your Tom Petty’s, your Bruce Springsteen’s, your Rolling Stones’, your Aerosmith’s, your Who’s – that we had to resort to the likes of Bruno Mars?  2) Would the Great Unwashed of football-watching, wing-chomping masses even know who Bruno Mars was?  (Not everyone suffers through the Grammy’s or other “awards” shows of their ilk like I do.)  3) Worst of all, does this mean I’m facing a future where I might have to sit through the likes of Mumford & Sons, Imagine Dragons, or Arcade Fire during halftime of the Super Bowl?  Christ, I’d watch a high-school marching band playing Foreigner tunes like back in the day before I’d subject myself to that.

Anyway, Mars delivered his usual “I-think-I’m-Prince-for-the-21st-century” act, complete with unison step routines for the band and the obligatory James Brown dance cops.  (It just kinda made me miss Wendy & Lisa.)  (And oddly, Prince himself guested on Zooey Deschanel’s “New Girl” right after the Super Bowl, effortlessly making Bruno Mars appear the wannabe that he is.)

Mars began the show playing drums, briefly leading me to believe he was going to challenge the late Karen Carpenter as pop music’s Greatest Lead-Singing Drummer.  (For those of you scoring at home: Dick Dodd of The Standells - of “Dirty Water” fame - was rock & roll’s greatest lead-singing drummer.)  (Am I forgetting/overlooking Don Henley of The Eagles, one might ask?  Don’t make me laugh. That millionaire egomaniac sucks.)  Mars and the band moved through “Locked Out Of Heaven” and “Treasure” pleasantly enough, prompting my buddy Kyle to comment, “White girls know ALL the words to Bruno Mars’ songs.”  

By 8:16 pm, when The Red Hot Chili Peppers appear for their guest-spot on “Give It Away,” we’re all just kinda waiting for this debacle to be over, just as Peyton Manning and the rest of the Broncos were probably doing.  Flea and Anthony Kiedis take the stage shirtless and the best thing I can think is, “At least, thank God, they’re in relatively good shape and it’s not Roger Daltrey of The Who baring his pale, bumpy, 60-something year-old chest.”    

Mars ends his Super Bowl show with “Just The Way You Are,” a BALLAD, for Chrissakes.  You clamber all the way up the pop ladder to appear for no pay at the Super Bowl and finish your set with a BALLAD?  Come on, Bruno.  (Kyle comments, “Bruno is now tied with Billy Joel for the worst song called “Just The Way You Are.”)

Anyway, ending his appearance with a romantic, heart-wrenching ballad apparently brought tears to the eyes of the Broncos kick-off team, making it impossible for them to see the Seahawks’ Percy Harvin clearly, thus enabling him to run back the opening kick of the second half for a game-clinching touchdown, and ending the Broncos season really, really early.

Please God, don’t make me watch Daft Punk or Robin Thicke at next year’s Super Bowl. – Ricki C. / February 3rd, 2014.

Random Thoughts About A Thousand Thoughts - by Anne Marie

While I have fully-loaded cable plus Amazon plus Netflix, and generally love having all those thousands & thousands of viewing choices, I do sometimes get nostalgic for the days when we had just four national television networks and everyone would watch the Wizard of Oz or A Charlie Brown Christmas on the same night. There is just something to be said for a shared experience. It’s a large part of what keeps me going to see movies at theaters.  Yes, I like a big screen and seeing a movie when it first comes out, but I really like how seeing the movie with a bunch of other people somehow heightens my own reaction to it. That happened when I went to see The Post a few Saturdays ago. It’s a movie based on actual historical events - so I knew the ending - but that did not stop me from being on the edge of my seat as Meryl Streep so convincingly played Kay Graham’s hand-wringing, lip-biting uncertainty over whether or not to publish the Pentagon Papers, and it was worth every penny of my $10.25 when the whole theater broke into raucous applause at the ending. 

But what’s even better than watching a movie together with others?  For me, it’s enjoying live music.  That’s when I’m most in the moment and when I most can feel the energy of not only the performance but the crowd reacting to the performance.  Director Sam Green has developed a merger of both movie and live performance, a form he calls the “live documentary.”

Last Thursday night, The Wexner Center for the Arts co-premiered A Thousand Thoughts, a live documentary by Sam Green and the Kronos Quartet. (Columbus was supposed to be the “World Premiere” but it actually premiered earlier that week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. I guess that was an offer too good to refuse.)

This is how it worked. Green spent weeks combing through the archives of the Kronos Quartet, housed floor to ceiling, room to room. in a second floor San Francisco apartment that doubles as their practice space.  He interviewed and filmed current and previous members of the quartet, as well as a handful of the nearly 1,000 composers with whom Kronos has collaborated (including Phillip Glass, Terry Riley, the Inuk throat-singer Tanya Tagaq and the Chinese pipa player Wu Man), then fashioned a film which played on a large screen while Green narrated the history of the quartet from its founding in 1973 by violinist David Harrington up to the present, as Harrington and Kronos’ three other current members – violinist John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt, and cellist Sunny Yang - played live on the stage in front of the screen to more than twenty compositions, providing the soundtrack to the movie, while oftentimes also telling parts of the story from within the film. 

This is how it felt.  Always interesting and entertaining. At times intense.  At times powerfully moving.  And overwhelmingly immediate and fleeting. I did not see one person look at a cell phone or even whisper to their neighbor.  We were hundreds of people in the collective moment from 8:00ish to 9:30ish. (Sam Green told us the exact times to the second at the start and at the finish but since I was in the moment and wasn’t taking notes, I don’t remember.)  Unlike a live concert, you could never be complacent in a moment.  You could never think to yourself, “Oh, here comes that long [bass][drum][guitar] solo” and mentally check out. There was always a new clip or image hitting the screen, a new part of the story being told. 

The story of any group that has been together for 45 years is sure to have its share of comic and tragic moments and both were shared in equal measure, from the quartet's outlandish hair and clothing stylings throughout the years in an effort to break with the stuffy “penguin suits” of traditional string quartets (my favorite were the Star Trek-looking outfits), to the deaths in quick succession of Dutt’s longtime partner, of Harrington’s son and the loss by cellist Joan Jeanrenaud of her baby, who was stillborn. 

In one of the most compelling portions of the documentary, Harrington described how following the joyous event of the birth of his first grandchild in early 2003 he felt himself pulled down into a deep depression. He related that the buildup to the invasion of Iran began to trigger flashbacks to his late teens and early 20's and his reaction to the Vietnam War, and he dreaded what the world would be for his grandson.  As a consequence of the depression, he lost his inner resonance, and was unable to hear/feel music inside of him.  He felt hopeless and on a downward spiral until he realized he needed to talk to someone with a great voice to lift him up, and he thought of Howard Zinn, the American Historian and author of People’s History of the United States (and - by the way - my Professor back in the day at Boston University).  Harrington describes how he got Zinn’s telephone number from a friend of his, called him and asked “What can a normal person do in this time?” The film then cuts to Zinn’s answer in a clip from Zinn speaking at a fundraiser for Spare Change street paper and the Homeless Empowerment Project in 2004.  (It's at 11:19-12:42 of the video below.)

Then we are back to Harrington saying that after an hour of talking with Zinn, he had confidence and energy and could return to his mission of finding music that can protect people from suffering and children from harm, which is what still drives him after more than four decades.

Although Sherri Geldin, Wex director, mentioned that there are plans for a limited tour of the production, I am not sure where, and as far as I know, it was one show only for Columbus. But if you can see it somewhere else, do!  And, in the meantime, go have another shared experience at the Wex.  Here’s a few upcoming events on my calendar:

Paris is Burning on Feb. 6th @ 7 PM – winner of a Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, looks at the drag ballroom subculture of 1980s Harlem (1990) 

In the Intense Now on Feb. 16th @ 7 PM – documentary revisits the revolutions of 1968 in France, Czechoslovakia, Brazil and China (2017)

Dementia 13 and Lick the Star on Feb. 24th @7 PM – a double bill of Francis Ford Coppola and daughter Sofia Coppola movies - or catch Adam O’ Farrill’s Stranger Days, a jazz quartet that took the last Winter Jazzfest in NYC by storm, in the Wex Performance Space at 8 PM

You can find the full calendar of events at www.wexarts.org.

And, if you are looking for a place to eat before or afterwards to continue your communal experience, check out the South Village Grille, a relaxed and yet upscale little grill located next to the Thurman Café in German Village. This place is so good that it inspires love letters rather than reviews on Yelp. The food (American, with especially fantastic seafood & vegetable selections but also steak and many other offerings), craft cocktails, atmosphere and service have been very, very far above par on each of my visits (and there's also plenty of free, on street parking).  If you want a fun place for a drink and snack, try Service Bar, the front portion of the distillery at Middle West Spirits, tucked in a street back from High Street in the Short North.

Even though we are finally having a bit of an actual winter, it's definitely worth heading out into it in Cbus!

Anne Marie covers the Wexner Center and other non-KISS related material for Pencilstorm.

Tom Petty: A Real Highwayman's Farewell - by Ricki C.

(editor’s note/reader advisory: Ricki C.’s first blog in awhile on Pencilstorm contains strong language, which, truthfully the Pencisltorm Editorial Board chose not to edit, because we’re all a little afraid of Ricki, so we don’t like to screw with his copy.  Consequently, you might wanna keep the kids from reading, or at least monitor the new words they learn.

Also, the Editorial Board HAS detected the vaguely suicidal leanings in the piece, but Ricki is, after all, a West Side Rocker, so we all think he’ll be okay in the long run, but we ARE monitoring the situation.) 

It’s not exactly a state secret that I haven’t been writing for Pencilstorm for the last few months.  Long story short: my sister Dianne died at the end of November, 2017, after losing a two-year battle with cancer, first slowly, then suddenly (to quote a Watershed tune, I just realized) and I was staying with her at her house in Grove City for her last six weeks while she was in hospice care.  I fully realize that thousands, if not millions, of people have lived through that situation: caring for a loved one in hospice, and I'm not presuming to speak for anyone else here, just for myself, but I have to say - it’s not noble, it’s not life-affirming, it doesn’t offer a loving sense of closure, it’s just sad and heartbreaking.  (I don’t know how hospice care nurses – all of whom, Mount Carmel nurses in my particular case, were wonderful & caring – do their jobs.  I only had to do this once, they do it dozens, if not hundreds, of times.)  

Plus Mike Parks – the fucking GENIUS lead guitarist of Colin’s League Bowlers band – lost his bout with stomach cancer a couple of weeks ago.  

And right before all that Tom Petty died.

Tom’s back in the news this week, because it seems he didn’t die of heart failure at 66 years old as was initially reported, he died of an accidental opioid-related overdose.  Myself, I will turn 66 in 2018, and I’m already on my second cardiac pacemaker (got my first before I turned 50), so I wasn’t all that elated about the “dead of heart failure at 66” news reports about Petty.  It’s oddly comforting to me that Tom died of an overdose, and truthfully, I’m not at all sure it was all that accidental.  It might be comfortable to his children and loved ones to believe it was an accident, but I like to think that Petty took stock of his situation: “I’m 66, I just finished an extensive Farewell Tour with what I thought was just a bad hip, which now turns out to be a fully broken hip that will pain me for the rest of my life, this just might not be a bad time to check out of this existence for good.  I’ve had a long life, I rocked for upwards of 55 of the 66 years I resided on the planet, I made millions of people happy with my rock & roll, in the immortal words of Robert Johnson: I believe it’s time to go.”

I can’t say I blame him.    

I consider an overdose death from Tom Petty after a long & fulfilling GENUINE Farewell Tour a more fitting conclusion to a Rock & Roll Life than many other rockers – Gene Simmons of KISS and Don Henley of the fucking Eagles leap immediately to mind – are ever going to attain.  And Pete Townshend is NEVER going to leave this mortal coil with as much integrity as Tom Petty did.  I find myself wishing at this point that Pete HAD died before he got old.  (And just so our loyal readers don’t find that sentiment a little TOO harsh, I might wish it for myself too.)  

Mr. Petty, I salute you for a Real Highwayman’s Farewell………

"just junk all all across the horizon, a real highwayman's farewell"

- Bruce Springsteen, 1973
 

A Recap of TV Party Tonight! Season One: January - March 2017, Episodes 1-10

Congratulations! If you are looking to kill about 300 hours of time watching music videos, you have come to the right place. Each TV Party Tonight! episode is designed to be a launching point for your own never-ending rabbit hole. We set 'em up and you knock 'em down. Below is a summary of Season One, which is sure to keep you up past your bedtime and leave you bleary-eyed the next day.  They also make for fine conversation starters with people you disagree with on Facebook. Enjoy!!! - Colin G. 

TV Party Tonight Part One: A George Martin Rehearsal with Queen  by Colin Gawel

Part Two : Friday's by Scott Carr. (featuring The Clash, Devo, Stray Cats, KISS and more)

Part Three: My Inauguration Rabbit Hole. Colin goes on a post-election bender and takes you along for the ride. (Featuring RATM, Dylan, Prince, 3 Doors Down, Buddy Miller, The Hives and many more. Seriously, he was on a bender. 

Part Four: The Dictators and The Neighborhoods by Ricki C. 

Part Five : Mark Linkous of The Dancing Hoods and Sparkle Horse by JCE

Part Six: Random Stuff from Great Rock Docs by Colin Gawel

Part Seven: Powerful Political Music for President's Day  (featuring Staple Singers, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and more) by Anne Marie

Part Eight: Generation Axe (featuring Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson and more) by Wal Ozello

Part Nine: Gulity Pleasures (featuring Gwen Stefani, Britney Spears, Aerosmith, Van Halen, The Bangles and more) by Jeremy Porter

Part Ten: Bands I've gotten mail from. (featuring The Dictators, The Pop, The Atlantics and more) by Ricki C.