Loving a Band That's Easy to Hate: My Life with KISS - David Martin

This is Day 2 of Kiss Kountdown. Click here for Day 3

Loving a Band That's Easy to Hate: My Life with KISS - David Martin

I was eight years old when Kiss' popularity peaked. I owned a copy of Alive! and a Destroyer jigsaw puzzle. I was not a dues-paying member of the Kiss Army. But I was at least in the Kiss Reserves.

Then, Kiss became like a toy that no longer interested me.

I don’t remember being upset when Peter Criss and Ace Frehley left. My friend Steve, who lived across the street and had cable TV at his house, called me when the video for “Thriller” aired on MTV. There had been no phone call when, a few months earlier, the members of Kiss appeared on the network without makeup.

I became a Kiss fan again in high school. Colin and other friends argued on behalf of the band’s legitimacy in the lunchroom. Also, we were driving by this point. Waiting out the tense period after puberty but before girls found us appealing, we did not have many places to go besides record stores and concerts.

My first Kiss show was in the spring of 1986. Kiss visited Columbus at the tail end of the Asylum tour. Hair metal was going through its neon colors-and-rouge phase. Gene Simmons — the demon! — was not a man for these sequined times. He looks ridiculous on stage in pictures from that era. But I don't recall thinking the show was ridiculous. I remember having a great time.

I continued to attend Kiss shows past the point where I could blame a not fully developed brain. Sometimes I have paid for shows, and sometimes I have had press credentials. I have seen the band with and without makeup and the original four members. Shows have ended with me feeling cheated and shows have ended with me feeling elated.

The last time I saw the band, in 2009, I accompanied the music critic at the newspaper where I worked. Our seats were in the second row, right in front of Gene’s microphone stand. It was the first and only time I have had great seats at an arena show. During one break between songs, I spied Gene using a water bottle to wash the blood off the ends of his hair. 

I am not a stupid man, and I like to think I have pretty good taste. Bands I really dislike — Poison, Def Leppard — are not too dissimilar from Kiss. On paper, at least, I should have grown out of Kiss a second time. But I did not. In fact, not too long ago, I took the time to burn a CD of my favorite Gene songs. 

Therein, I think, lies the simple answer to the riddle of why I still like Kiss: The band has a lot of good songs.

This, for instance is Gene's B-material:

Kiss performed "Almost Human" in concert for the first time on a recent, nerds-only Kiss cruise. Yep, even on the night when Paul Stanley went to the hospital and the band performed without him, this gem stayed in the bag. That's how many good songs Kiss has.

​Think Kiss is all mediocre head-banging bullshit? Cuddle up to this fire. It will keep you warm:

 

Gene, of course, is not the only songwriter in the band. In his review of Rock and Roll Over, the respected critic Robert Christgau praised the band for its "tough, catchy songs." I like think that Christgau was thinking of Paul Stanley's contributions when he wrote that passage. Take a look at what Paul brought to RARO:

"I Want You"
"Take Me" (co-written with Sean Delaney)
"Mr. Speed" (co-written with Delaney)
"Hard Luck Woman"
"Makin' Love" (Delaney again)

Eight moths later, the band released Love Gun. "I Stole Your Love" and "Love Gun" (Paul songs) opened each side. The solo albums came next, and Colin's right that Paul's is the best of the bunch. Starchild was on fire. 

The band's Lennon/McCartney dynamic is a big reason why the band has endured. No, I am not arguing Kiss was as good as and important as the Beatles. But bands with two principals have a lot of advantages: more songs, a less fertile environment for self-indulgence. When one crew chief hits in a dry spell or becomes disinterested (see: Gene, 1982–1991), the other one can put the band on his back. (Paul wore bike reflectors on his.) 

Having two male leads has obviously meant a lot to Kiss' live shows. When you begin to tire of Paul's ass-shaking, finger-linking and chest-hair caressing, you can watch a seven-foot bat clomp around, breathe fire and leer at your date. 

Sure, sure, there's a lot not to like about Kiss. The relentless and crass merchandising. How obnoxious Gene is. The lyrics. (Not content to write a song called "Love Gun," Paul would later reference said gun in song called "Bang, Bang You.") Hipsters collect and swap Paul's ridiculous stage banter in the same way that hipsters of yore used to swap videotapes of Jerry Lewis being maudlin on his telethon. 

I cannot defend Kiss Kaskets or Gene's interview with Terry Gross. But if I knew something about your tastes, I could probably burn a CD of Kiss songs that you would like (or at least not hate). If I took you to a show, you would think it is dumb in a pro wrestling kind of way. But your head would bob when the band played "Love Gun" and you might think Gene's boots are also kind of cool, too.

"A million so-and-so's can't be wrong" is usually a bad argument. But if the Grateful Dead gets to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so does Kiss. The fist pumps and hippie dances have spoken. 

So here's a toast (or as Paul might say, a little al-ka-HOL!!!) to the band famous enough to appear on jigsaw puzzles, greedy enough to remain a going concern several years after a "farewell" tour, and tough and catchy enough to keep us interested. 

David Martin

I'm Opening for Miles Nielsen this Friday at Natalie's - by Colin Gawel

If you haven't already got tickets for the Two Cow Garage / Tommy Stinson show this Friday August 19th, I've got another suggestion for your social calendar. Yours truly will be opening the show for the fabulous Miles Nielsen and The Rusted Hearts at the equally fabulous Natalie's Coal Fired Pizza in Worthington. I'll be on at 10 pm with Miles and crew following around 10:45.

Click here to reserve a table or purchase tickets.    

Sure, Miles happens to be the son of Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen, but he and his band the Rusted Hearts have cut out their own swath of pop-infused cosmic American music. I'm a huge fan. In fact, you may have read the story I posted a while back. (click here to read "Miles Nielsen is the opposite of Sammy Hagar's Kid")  

His latest record is Heavy Metal. You can check out the video below and click here to visit his website.  Hope you can make it out to the show. It's going to be a good one. 

Above: Heavy Metal teaser.  Below: Me

Back To School: Then vs. Now - by Andra Gillum

The first day of school is August 17th.  Seriously?  I double-checked to make sure there was no mistake.  What happened to the good old days when we started after Labor Day?  Who decided that mid-August was the new September?

I’ve gotten several explanations.  Someone suggested they want the school districts to follow the college schedule.  That makes no sense.  Who wants to be in Florida on Spring Break when the college students are there?  I have no desire to compete in a belly flop competition, or set sail on a fraternity booze cruise.

Our Superintendent said they took a survey, and the majority wanted an early start.  I know the kids and teachers don’t want this, so it must be the seniors.  They want the pool to themselves.  Can’t blame them.  They just want to do a little water aerobics in peace.…without the whistles blowing.  Plus, seniors are the only ones who took time to complete the survey.  The rest of us don’t bother to participate.  We prefer to complain about the results.

The most likely reason I’ve heard blames the early start on the standardized testing in the spring.  Schools need to pack in as much curriculum as they can before the testing period.  Common Core strikes again.

I’m glad school didn’t start this early when I was a kid.  I would have been awfully hot wearing the new Firenza sweater and Gloria Vanderbilt jeans that my mom bought me when we went school shopping.  My Member’s Only jacket would have been a little better, but still warm.  

My kids wear shorts for the first six weeks of school.  Actually, my son wears shorts for the entire year.  He’s a 7th grader now, and I gave up that battle years ago.

So many things about back to school have changed.  Now we buy school supplies through the PTO, and they’re delivered right to class.  That’s actually helpful.  No more running around searching for the box of crayons with the built in sharpener, the wide-ruled spiral notebook, or the newest Trapper Keeper.

What about textbooks?  We used to haul around an armful of them, all carefully covered with a brown grocery bag.  I could never figure out how to cut the bag right, but we managed.   Then, we added our best graffiti.  My older sister always had the Van Halen logo on her books.  I think mine had the MTV logo and probably something about Duran Duran.

Now kids get MacBooks and iPads instead of books.   Nobody is covering those in brown grocery bags.  First of all, grocery bags are plastic now.  Secondly, that paper wouldn’t provide much protection when kids drop their device on the ground.  I’m pretty sure the screen would still shatter.  The “optional” laptop insurance coverage is the new book cover. 

How about the lockers?  They still use those same old combination locks.  Is it left, right left, or right, left right?  Shouldn’t there be something digital by now?  After all, they now sell entire lines of designer locker accessories and supplies.  Who wouldn’t want a locker chandelier?  Can’t we all agree that is a little over the top, especially if dad has to stop by school to run the electricity.

Back to school has certainly changed since I was in school, but kids will always dread the start of early mornings, and especially homework!  If we want joyous faces, we’ll need to head to the local pool to watch the ladies group-walking their laps around the lazy river.

Welcome back to school to all students, teachers and staff.  Ready or not, here it comes!

 

Andra Gillum is a free-lance writer from Upper Arlington with kids heading back to school at Windermere Elementary and Hastings Middle School.  Send your comments and feedback to andra@doggydrama.com.  
 

Andra is also the author of the children’s books “Doggy Drama” and “Puppy Drama” (coming soon).  Learn more at www.doggydrama.com or at www.facebook.com/doggydrama.  

 

 

Summer In The City reprint series, part three: My Chance Meeting With Bruce Springsteen (Or Bruce's Chance Meeting With Me) - by Colin Gawel

 

Today's entry concludes our summer reprint series.  It originally ran in March 2013, the dawn of Pencilstorm.

 

Note from Colin: This the final and likely most interesting chapter of a three-part Bruce essay I wrote a little while back when Colin Gawel and The Lonely Bones were the only band asked to perform at the opening of the Bruce Springsteen exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Needless to say it was a huge honor. I knocked out this story to contribute to the program. Hope you enjoy.  Part One. Part Two.

 

Yes, I met Bruce Springsteen once, but it wasn’t how I imagined it. In fact, it was totally unexpected. The two of us had a nice conversation in his dressing room one winter night in Youngstown, Ohio.

I was there because my band, Watershed, was in the process of being dropped from Epic/Sony Music Entertainment. Something about how we didn’t sell enough product and/or our records weren’t very good anyway. Go figure. In an effort to cheer me up, Columbia/Sony reps Andy Flick and Dave Watson invited me up from Columbus to catch one of the early Ghost of Tom Joad performances. I don’t remember the name of the small theater he played, but I can recall vividly that it was snowing so hard, Andy and I barely made the gig in time.

The theater was coal-fired warm and our seats were 20th row or something. Bruce killed. Hearing the song "Youngstown" performed in Youngstown was eerie. Initially, the crowd went wild hearing their hometown’s name mentioned, but by the end of the song they were quiet.

After the gig, knowing I was a huge fan, Andy asked if I wanted to go backstage with the press. “Uh, ok, sure. Is that cool? Yeah,” I sorta mumbled. Five minutes later I am whisked down a narrow hallway and find myself standing in a small dressing room with Bruce and five or six members of the Northeast Ohio press corps. (I remember the famous music critic from the Cleveland Plain Dealer was there. Bruce greeted her warmly. Her name?  (editor's note: It was likely Jane Scott, who covered music at the PD from 1964 to 2002. She died in 2011.)

No one seemed to know how to get the thing started so I offered up: “It must be very strange to spend your entire career learning how to wind up a crowd, and now devote most of your energy to winding them down." Understand, this was his first solo tour and people just couldn’t stop screaming during quiet moments.

Bruce looked at me and said: “Wind 'em down…. Yeah that’s good, that’s right.”

We continued chatting about the show and reporters busily jotted down notes and held tape recorders out in our faces as talked. Noticing I was doing neither, Bruce asked: “Who are you exactly, anyway?” I explained about my band getting dropped, guys at the label feeling sorry and hooking me up, etc.

Someone came in and said it was time for the press to go. Bruce asked if I wanted to stick around and have a couple of beers with him. “If the label’s buying, I’m staying,” I said.

Everyone left and we sipped our beers and chatted about this and that. I recall bits and pieces of the conversation, but what I remember most is that it was comfortable and very two-way. It felt like old friends catching up.

OK, let’s address the obvious question: “Weren’t you nervous?” Strangely enough, I wasn’t nervous at all. But it’s not like I’m above getting a little jittery around people I admire -Steven Tyler, Terry Anderson, and Cincinnati Reds broadcaster Marty Brennaman jump to mind.

Eventually, it was time for both of us to go. I grabbed a beer for the road and Bruce said, “Might as well grab two - get 'em while you can.” or something to that effect.

Looking back, I think our connection that night in Youngstown was real because we had something in common that trumped any of our differences in status or accomplishment.

We were just two musicians sitting in a dingy dressing room in Youngstown, Ohio, who had absolutely no idea what the future would bring either of us. One would lose his record deal and return his old job making sandwiches at Subway. The other would continue touring alone, singing songs about Mexican immigrants working in meth labs.

Both were terrified and thrilled at what the future might hold and both knew it was going to be a tough fight. Rock 'n' roll is always a tough fight.

 

Colin Gawel is a founding member of Pencilstorm. He writes songs and performs with Watershed and his solo band The Lonely Bones. You can read all about it in the acclaimed book Hitless Wonder. He owns a small coffee shop and lives in Columbus Ohio with his wife and 9-year-old son whose favorite band is Aerosmith. More Springsteen stories can be found at www.colingawel.com

Summer In The City reprint series, part two: All I've Ever Wanted To Do - by Ricki C.

Like most of Continental Europe - which does not have the benefit of central air conditioning -  the Pencilstorm offices largely close down during the dog days of August.  It was especially bad this year, since Ricki C. took home the Koolerator box fan he brought in from a West Side yard sale and Colin "borrowed" the Kenmore window A/C unit he scored at a St. Agatha's swap meet "temporarily" for his second bedroom and never brought it back. 

As such, for the next week or ten days, Pencilstorm will be running a reprint series of our favorite blogs from our regular writers and some of the ringers we've solicited pieces from over the past three years.  This is part two:  

ALL I'VE EVER WANTED TO DO - by Ricki C. (originally ran late summer 2014)  

All I've ever wanted to do - since I was 13 years old in 1965 - is to go see bands play.  (Before that, all I ever wanted to do was to be a soldier in World War II, but since I was 12 years old in 1964 and that conflict ended in 1945, that goal was largely out of my reach by that point.) 

The first time I ever saw a rock & roll band play live was when my sainted Italian mother – who, by the way, worked 35 years as a waitress and later a hostess at Scioto Country Club in Upper Arlington – called my older sister and had her bring me to the Club on a Saturday night because there was, in my mom’s words, “a rock combo playing.”  

Looking back I now realize that the band was probably a group of Upper Arlington High School kids, at least one of whom had a father who was a member at Scioto.  I wasn’t allowed in the main ballroom, of course, being just a child of The Help, but even watching from the door to the kitchen I was utterly mesmerized by these kids – probably only three or four years older than me – bashing out the rock & roll.  To borrow a phrase from my former employer, Hamell On Trial, my brain exploded at that searingly close proximity to rock & roll music.

That was the night I learned to love live rock & roll music.  (I also learned a lot about the distribution of wealth in the United Sates and the myth of the classless American society peeking out of that kitchen door, and having to duck back inside anytime a Scioto member or their kids happened to glance my way.)  For right then, though, all I knew was that those four boys – in their paisley shirts & striped pants – were conjuring up a truly mighty din.  Their teenage peers were dancing their little hearts out.  Their parents – and many other adults – were holding their hands over their ears.  Kick out the jams, indeed.  It quite literally took my breath away.

I’d watched The Beatles and The Dave Clark 5 and Gerry & the Pacemakers and The Animals and The Rolling Stones and all of the other British Invasion acts on television, on the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace (I don’t think Shindig and Hullabaloo had even debuted by that time), but I had never seen a live rock & roll band up close and personal, had never shared an enclosed space with that electrically-amplified, brain-numbingly loud noise, drive & excitement. 

I think I probably watched that band – who shall forever remain unknown to me – for at least 45 minutes, and I’m sure they played all cover tunes, but I don’t remember a single song except “Gloria,” which that Upper Arlington quartet NAILED but good.  I don’t know for sure if my lifelong love affair with that Van Morrison/Them tune began that night, but I do know that “G-L-O-R-I-A” is one of my five favorite songs of all time, and rock & roll’s most perfect, most primal rallying cry.  (Just ask Patti Smith or Willie Phoenix.)

After that night my dad – in his nighttime second-job position as ticket agent for Central Ticket Office – started getting me into national touring rock shows at Vet’s Memorial.  I also started taking the bus downtown every Saturday afternoon to see bands, first at Lazarus and later at Morehouse Fashion – the two big Columbus department stores – when they started booking local rock bands in their Junior Misses departments to bring in the teen girl shoppers for groovy fashions and – by extension – the teen boys who would follow those teen girls pretty much anywhere. 

I liked records and used all of my lunch & bus money (I’d hitchhike home from school, knowledge that would have killed my mother) and all of the money I earned working at the Dairy Queen across the street from our house on Sullivant Avenue to buy them, but really what I liked was watching bands play live.  At one point in my life – fairly early on – I concluded that ALL records should be recorded live, because if the bands couldn’t cut it to record live, they shouldn’t be making records.  In many ways, I stand by that notion to this day.  It certainly would have saved us from a fuckload of bad music – starting with The Beatles after “Revolver” and ending with Mumford & Sons.   

It has occurred to me recently that almost every single thing I’ve done in my entire life I did so that I could go see bands play.

I turned 62 years old on June 30th, and just started collecting Social Security, so this is not a particularly auspicious thing to realize; at least to most of respectable, workaday society.

I started playing in bands in high school so that it would be easier for me to go see bands play, including the ones I was in.  (I also did it to meet girls, but that's whole 'nother blog.)  I stayed in college long enough to stay out of the Vietnam War, but not long enough to graduate.  And then for twenty years I worked in warehouses, unloading trucks, so that I had enough money to go see bands play.

I couldn’t begin to go into all the bands I’ve seen in the past 49 years:  from Columbus bands The Dantes, The Fifth Order, The Grayps, The Godz, Black Leather Touch, The Shadowlords, Gunshy Ministers, Howlin’ Maggie, Mrs. Children, and probably dozens more.  I saw Watershed dozens of times BEFORE I worked for them and dozens after.  I saw Paul Revere & the Raiders, Bob Dylan's first electric tour with The Hawks, The Turtles, The Jimi Hendix Experience, The Doors, The Left Banke, Cream, Janis Joplin, and – most crucially, in 1969, the best live show I ever witnessed – The Who.  I saw everybody in the 1970’s, from bands I loved – The Kinks, Mott The Hoople, The New York Dolls, Cheap Trick, AC/DC, the Patti Smith Group and Aerosmith – to bands I hated and later learned to despise – Styx, Rush, Triumph – to bands I loved then and hate now – The Eagles.         

I saw The Stooges – the original band, with Ron Asheton on guitar – TWICE while I was still in high school.  I saw Brownsville Station – the pride of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with the immortal Cub Koda on lead guitar – a dozen times between 1969 and 1972 with my high school best friend & bandmate Dave Blackburn, the person who taught me more about music and rock & roll and life than anybody else on this planet, and to this day Brownsville remains one of the five best live bands I’ve seen in my entire rock & roll existence.  It was like seeing The Who every few weeks, like Pete & Keith and company were a local band.  I saw Mink DeVille, Nick Lowe & Rockpile, and Elvis Costello & the Attractions all in one night in Cincinnati one time.  I’ve seen Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band and Ian Hunter – both with Mott The Hoople and in his solo years – more times than any other national acts, and over a longer span of years – 1969 to 2013 for Ian, 1976 to this past April for Bruce.

I’ve had my head knocked sideways by the most unexpected bands in the weirdest places: by a band of teenagers called The First Ship that sounded like Fairport Convention backed by The Velvet Underground in a small town in Canada when I was on the road with Hamell On Trial; by 1970’s singer/songwriter Marshall Chapman, whose live performance at a beach-bar happy hour while I was on vacation around 1985 somewhere in South Carolina was so much better than her records that it made my heart hurt; by Pete & Maura Kennedy at the old Border’s Book Store at Kenny & Henderson at 11 am on a Sunday morning, with only 3 other people there, one of whom turned out to be Mark Segal, who I didn't meet until years later when I started working at Ace In The Hole Music, where he was a regular customer and became my good friend.  

I saw the Jim Carroll Band, The Replacements, REM, The Del-Lords, Violent Femmes, Marshall Crenshaw and Prince – among many others – in the 1980’s.  I saw five of my favorite singer/songwriters – Richard Thompson, Dave Alvin, Steve Earle,  Lucinda Williams and Alejandro Escovedo – in the 1990’s.  I didn’t see my all-time rock & roll hero, Elliott Murphy, until 1992, but it was worth the wait.  Somewhere in all that I saw the three best live rock & roll bands that you never saw – Bronx’s The Dictators, Boston’s The Neighborhoods and Columbus’ Romantic Noise. 

At the dawn of the 21st century – owing to a small inheritance from my mom & dad – I was able to stop unloading trucks in warehouses and to start working in record stores and being a roadie for bands.  From 2000 to 2014 I’ve seen exactly three rock & roll bands I didn’t see in the 20th century who were truly epic – The Strokes, The White Stripes, and The Avett Brothers – but I’m still out there looking.

Because all I’ve ever wanted to do is to go see bands play. - Ricki C. / The last day of summer, 2014.