It's a brisk day here in hell, and someone tell those Pigs to fly a little to the left, I'm tired of them pooping on my lawn from 20,000 feet. Oh yeah....and KISS are in the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame.....they had a full issue devoted to them in Rolling Stone asw well....and they are generally considered one of the top classic rock bands of all time.
Wow.......I am reminded of the famous nation inspiring Olympic ice hockey call from the 1980 Winter Games...."Do you belive in miracles?" I 'm told that fans in the 70's were often beaten up if they wore their KISS gear in public, I wouldn't know but i can tell you that in the 1980's I wasn't afraid of getting my ass kicked....but I got mighty tired of getting laughed at, That was the sub-basement level of down-and-out the band had sunk to, after having never even been taken seriously during their heyday, where they were briefly but honestly able to lay claim to the title of "Biggest band in the world" my childhood introduction was reminiscent of a kid taking home a hobo and asking his parents to feed him. In neither era did KISS have an ounce ofr respect from the Rock establishment (Oxymoronic no?)
So one would be tempted top think that this fairy tale has a happy ending for all the founding deities who energetically fused im the stratosphere and took the form of rock musicians to save the world from....yeah, whatever, two Jews a Catholic and a guy who wasn't sober enough to remember his religious background,would be able to sit back shake each others hands and say, "Well, your an asshole....but whatever....we did it, love ya you prick" Y'know like Ace and Paul do in Ace's video before they play that diareha inducing Free song.......ewww....and I guess for the most part they have,
Except this is KISS, and for however big they get there is a small but active biut of sel-destruct implanted firmly in thier foundation. Oh....you didn't know? It'sd the same thing that makes them continue on eith the rediculas narritive that UNMASKED and THE ELDER are bad records, even though if today's indie kids got a hold of UNMASKED it would probably be 4 x platnum by the end of the week, and people would have realized (Like the original reviews of it confirm) that the ELDER actually IS a work of art and an incredible KISS record that people would love if the band stopped telling them it sucked every five minuetes, The same reason the sure-fire smash hit and worthy successor the "Rock ' Roll All Night" and potenmtially the best KISS sonmg of all time "It's My Life" has been neglected and unreleased (save for a collection of demos) for over 20 years.
In light of all this you must admit, KISS does some pretty strange stuff to it'self. There always has to be an internal scapegoat, even when times are good, even if the thing being targeted is crucial to thier success, crucial as say......Peter Criss?
The KISS strategy has always been CONTROL THE NARRATIVE they rinse and reapt the styory they want told so many times that the public begin to parrot it in spite of themselves,it's quite the clever trick actully. But you think they woulduse it mor to thioer benifit (MONSTER is a great record now write that down 1000 timkes!) than to slight a man who though troubl;lesom, can only help the band bring even MORE loot flowing into the coffers of KISS inc
Even semi-excumunicatees like Ace Frehley have begun spining the yarn of how Peter couldn't play the drums and was insufferable and they would have been better if he hadn't been theree.....
STOP IT
Let's get one thing straight. ALIVE didn't NOT cement KISS as a household name and ensure their trajectory to the top. DESTROYER was slipping off the charts in the summer of 76' and it seemed like the live breakthrough was more like a stay of execution than a full parole from "wanna-be status" (Hey if Dee Snyder is the watermark for a wanna-be than the shoe fits, platforms and all) there was one man however who stepped forward into the spotlight and saved the day for KISS CASABLANCA and Bill Aucoin's AMERICA EXPTRESSS.
THAT WAS PETE CRISS Make no mistake about it. without Beth it was looking like Destroyer would have been the final KISS record. It saved Destroyer and led to the record pushing past platinum and beyond, little is mentioned these days of the miraculous "night of the living dead like " re-birth of what is rightfully know as KISS's best record, but Detroit Rock city had failed as a single and after it's initial bit of interest Destroyer was a week away from sliding off the charts, sales of the record had ground to a halt and KISS was within a week or two of being pulled off the road by Neal Bogart who wasn't about to risk his company on KISS a second time, he had made much of his investment back with ALIVE but he wasn't going to spin the wheel a second time.
Nobody else was even on the track that saved KISS, only Peter. Paul wants to have us believe Peter is unable to sing.....well......what can I even say tot hat, he is spitting at the voice that paid for his house. Ace wants to "Separate" himself from Peter these days, well Ace if it weren't for Peter you never would have made that acclaimed solo record in 78' that has granted you a steady revenue stream ever since. Paul also tells thew story of how Peter couldn't possibly have written anything important on the song, it must have been all Bob Ezrin, Ezrin deserves near equal credit I'm sure and a healthy helping to Stan Penridge too for whatever his contribution was, but the man who co/wrote sang and breathed life back into a rock n' roll white elephant was Peter Criss.
His greatest sin? As far as I can tell it's that he doesn't play like Bonham and for reasons known only to them the three other founding members are and were obsessed with the plodding English brick layer who made all those Zepplin records so dourly un-danceable and gave birth to what is now known as "Butt-rock"
But believe me when I tell you this, Peter Criss has been vindicated as a drummer musician and member of KISS once and for all,
"Huh?" you say? Yep, it's on the KISS KLASSICS RE-RECORDED record that Peter once and for all is proven to be MORE imprtant than Paul Stanley to the original sound, to the point where I would say: Paul Peter and Ace or Gene Peter and Ace will sound more like KISS than any combo that doesn't include both Peter and Ace, go listen and you'll hear what I mean....
Without Peter's reckless Brooklyn swing and unorthodox, click track abandoning, "hey f*ck you I felt like playing it" drumming KISS doesn't sound like KISS! It's the missing ingredient that no one wants to admit.
Technically Peter has never been a great drummer, even his teacher, Jerry Nolan of the New York Dolls and Johhny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, who was a seminal, highly influential and one of the top 3 punk rock drummer of all-time, admits it. But it doesn't matter, it never mattered, Peter's volatile stick's manship paced KISS in a way no other band's drummer did, even Paul (Who apparently hates Peter and his playing) pays Peter this unintentional compliment in his book, "Peter wasn't like other drummer's....he was downright erratic....instead of creating a foundation for us to lean on, he ran along side us" Paul was trying to degrade Peter, but unknown to him he was decoding the Rosetta stone of the "KISS sound"
Peter Criss still struggles with being given any credit for one of Rock's greatest bands although his musical intuition did more to create the sound we all love than anything Paul Stanley ever did (Paul...you are NOT a producer, please stop)
So let's see some love for the Catman going forward, and remember the greatest favor he ever did us was hating John Bonham (His playing, appearently they were drinking buddies for a minuete)
