Being a KISS fan in the '70s

How about a thread for those of us who were KISS fans in the 70s to share random memories?
I got into the band, aged 10, in '77/'78 because the kid across the street from me was a huge fan. He owned Alive and Alive II and his bedroom wall was plastered with the booklet/posters from those LPs. He loved KISS, with one exception. He hated, hated the song "She" - for reasons that weren't clear to me - so much so that he had taken a ballpoint pen and literally scratched out the grooves to that track on Alive, so that the track could not be played.

I also remember buying 16 magazine solely for their photo features of band members partially exposing their faces, which seemed really cool at the time. I once found a mag that had a full-on pic of a make-up-free Paul with a female companion, which was very cool. Until my friend across the street took exception, claiming the photo was actually of Robert Hegyes from Welcome Back Kotter... For the record it was definitiely PS...

 

I was the neighborhood KISS freak...I got all my friends into them, and by 1979 they all jumped ship! I stuck around...
I remember I'd buy an album, and a friend would buy a different one, and we'd spend time in the backyard with a portable record player and listen for hours.

 

I had the albums in the 70's. In the early 80's everyone hated them, but I still secretly listened to Love Gun. Now I listen to all the albums again.

 

The 1970s were the best time to be a Kiss fan.

Personal question: if I could only own one Kiss album, which one should it be?

 

A friend of mine during HS got me and a couple of other friends into them. He had seen them on the Alive! tour and raved about them and said the crowd was wild. Went to see them during 1977 and the crowd was nothing but teenyboppers and their parents. He was severely disappointed...lol

 

Well, for me...it would be Lick It Up
For most other people; Rock N Roll Over

 

I posted this in a different thread earlier but it seems to be just as relevant here:

I was born in '73 and by the time I was 5 years old I was an avid KISS fan. So while they were a bit spooky to me, I was way more intrigued than scared. I seriously just considered them like superheroes. I have this vivid memory of being on vacation in Florida when I was 5 or 6 and looking for KISS stuff in magazines while my mom was shopping and coming across the photo shoot of them with a woman in bondage. There was fake blood and the woman had a hood over her head. Really intense stuff for a little guy but at the time I thought it was cool, exciting and scary all at the same time. When I got older I started to think it was a fake memory as I never saw those photos again...until finding them online a couple years ago. Brought me right back to that moment as a kid. Crazy.

Here is a link to a few of the pics (NSFW): http://damageincorporated.tumblr.com/post/6149991249/1975

By '79 or so my wall was PLASTERED with KISS posters and clippings.

I also remember my 5th or 6th birthday and I specifically recall not being able to sleep the night before because I was so excited knowing that I was getting KISS Alive! as a present. I made my parents let me open it around 6am and while they slept in, I listened to it all the way through on headphones while staring at the front and back covers.

 

I'm leaning towards ROCK 'N ROLL OVER.

 

I would think Alive!

My personal favorite is probably Destroyer, but opinions among fans vary greatly on that one.

 

Love Gun, for me.

 

Im leaning towards either ROCK 'N ROLL OVER or ALIVE now.

 

I would have to think most people are going to say Alive!...and I adore Rock And Roll Over.

 

I think my vote would be for 'Destroyer'.

 

I like that one, too. Damn!

 

KISS was such a bizarre phenomenon in my music-listening life. I got into them when I was seven or eight in the late 70's because my older brother had some of their albums, and for a couple of years I was obsessed with them. They were a mystery because there was no cable TV or youtube, and seeing them live certainly wasn't an option for me. But every now and then I'd see a clip of them which was amazing, and of course the KISS Meets the Phantom or Scooby Doo or whatever silly movie that was. I knew all those songs. Then one day they put out those solo albums and it all deflated for me. The whole time I was in to them I was still listening to all Beatles related music, Elton, Simon and Garfunkel, top 40, etc. KISS just kind of appeared then disappeared to me. I can probably name three or four songs now. When I listened to the Replacements' Let it Be and heard Black Diamond, it was quite an "ah-ha" moment when I realized where I had heard it before.

And oh yeah, Gene Simmons stomped on Shawn Cassidy's face with his boots, and Peter jammed his drumsticks down Cassidy's throat. That's what we told the girls at school.

 

Another love for Love Gun.

KISS was my first favorite band, my first album, my first musical obsession. My room was covered in KISS posters, pictures I took out of magazines, etc. There must have been a 1000 push pin holes in the walls when the stuff finally came down.

I was always looking for KISS articles in the rock magazines of the time. I never did join the KISS Army though I wanted to (I didn't have the $). I bought all their albums, watched the wretched movie 'KISS Meets the Phantom" and everything else. I wound up getting to see them (fairly late in my fandom) in 1979 then again in 1983 and 84, but regret missing them when they were at their peak in 76 and 77. I was too young.

 

My experiences are similar to Brother Maynard--I also had that older brother who grew out of his Kiss records and gave them to me. My first experience was about 6 years old with a cassette of Destroyer that I listened to on an old cassette recorder through a mono earpiece. Detroit Rock City and other songs were very scary to me... like listening to that tape on the Evil Dead movie.

After that I started listening to a proper vinyl LP of Rock N Roll Over, which remains my favorite Kiss album. It sounded like electricity and ozone... like your're sitting with Kiss in the back room of a guitar store while they jam on these awesome riffs. What a great record.

 

It's funny so many like Rock n Roll Over because that album has never been on the radar for me much. My first album was Love Gun which I got for my 11th birthday after hearing "Christine Sixteen" on the radio a lot. After LG, I went backwards and bought Destroyer and some of the earlier stuff. RNRO was one of the last albums I purchased and, to this day, remains one of my least favorites.

 

I think he was the one kid who anticipated the original Wicked Lester arrangement and thought: 'No dammit! It needs a flute- it needs to be more like Jethro Tull!'

 

Funny how music for life states how Alive was wild and II was Kids because I saw the later at Olympia and was 10 or 11.
I like the first 4 albums then they are kinda done for me now.
If I could only have one it would probably be Alive but my favorite Kiss song is Strange Ways so its a tough call.
Was SW's ever played live in the 70's ?
My first Kiss album was DTK in 75 bought for me by my mom at a Woolworths or Korvettes.

 

Rock n Roll Over might be the least Kiss-like of those early records... there's not a lot of horror/fantasy/sci-fi lyrics on that one, and even the sex metaphors seem toned down a little to me (there's certainly no Plaster Caster on RNRO!). I also think that it lacks any single BIG song... other than maybe Calling Dr. Love there's not a real stand-out or single, and no real anthems. One the other hand, all of the songs have a great groove and lots of nice riffs. So maybe those are some reasons why it stands out to some people, and others don't like it as well?

 

Destroyer. It has it all; the riffs, melodies, anthems, consistency, and a great 70's vibe. That is the one Kiss album I always come back to.

 

I got into KISS in 1978 after seeing their trading cards at a local candy shop. I bought a few packs to satisfy my curiosity. A few weeks later, bought the Alive 2 album. A fan for a few more years afterward. At the time of Unmasked, I was disappointed but I ended up liking the album anyway.

At this day in age, The Elder is my favorite album.

 

All good points, but it's also the most heavily produced (courtesy of Ezrin) and the most saturated into the collective conscious. I can't listen to much of it because I've heard it so much, but it is their best album, overall.

 

I see RNRO as the most balanced...certainly the "livest" they have ever captured themselves on a studio record.
I Want You is one of the finest songs Paul has ever written...under 3 minutes of pure power. The sleaze of Take Me and Makin' Love (never mind Ace's smokin' lead and the acoustic guitars that fill out the mix)...you mentioned Calling Dr. Love; but what about the groove of Ladies Room? The country tinge of Mr. Speed, and the Rod Stewart of Hard Luck Woman. And how about that killer bass sound and pounding rhythm of Baby Driver? It's just a perfect 70's rock album.