Regarding KISS MY ASS - Dinosaur Jr is by far the best thing here. UNPLUGGED - a killer live album/video. The reunion moment was magic and boy did 2000 Man rock!!
I always wondered why I felt so at home in this thread. I wanted to think it was because of our mutual love for KISS or the respect for on another. Now I get it! There are so many Mental Health Professionals here...... Oh I'm not a professional in the field.....exactly.... I'm just not.... right and you guys make me feel right at home..... kinda..... Shock Me! Make Me Feel Better...... I love Alive & Unplugged, the rest of the live material is hit & miss for me. Some great shining moments and a few more rough spots. Never liked bootlegs as a rule. Quality is never any good. At least in my experience. Love the Unplugged version of Goin Blind. One of my all time favorite KISS tunes ever. It just "sounds right" whatever that means. OK I'm ready now......COS
Just wanted to share this. I remember watching this Oct. 1976. The Paul Lynde Halloween special. Love this clip.
I think Kiss Unplugged was indeed great then. I say 'then' because I haven't felt the urge to listen to it in years... I agree with everybody who said Comin' Home was a revelation, because it really was! Also agreeing with Curveboy about having a better time watching it instead. Still, undoubtedly a very important release, albeit one that unfortunately seems to have initiated the period of hardly any new albums for the band. They've only recorded FOUR albums of new material since Unplugged, and that was 22 years ago....
The "reunion card" was something P&G knew they had in their deck, but it was not predetermined at the time of Unplugged. Was it on their minds? It's impossible to think that it wasn't. But was it a fait accompli? No way. There were a bunch of boxes that had to be checked off before they were going to proceed. But the conversations between P&G and industry people, as well as promoters, started up in earnest in the aftermath of the Unplugged performance. A lot of people think this was all completely planned out in advance, but it wasn't.
KISS My Ass I like it, but it sometimes errs on the side of "covers being too close to the original tune" for my tastes. I like people to do something different with covers. It doesn't necessarily have to be something radically different (though I certainly like when it is), but I just want something that's a unique arrangement, unique feel, etc. relative to the original tune--otherwise it seems kind of pointless to me. This album's "Calling Dr. Love" is the sort of thing I want to hear on a cover album. Unplugged The above is the case for me with live albums too (and live performances in general). I want the band to do something different with the tunes. So unsurprisingly, unlike KISS Alive II and III, I love Unplugged. I wouldn't say that I like any of the tunes on this album better than the studio versions, but they're just as good, and they're different enough to bring different aspects of the tunes into focus, like looking at a jewel from another angle.
And...if we hadn't before, we now definitely enter the '90s with a one-two thud... KISS MY A*** KISS jump on the early to mid 90s tribute album bandwagon. Between about 93 and 96, I also remember tribute albums to the Eagles, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Cream coming out, and I would skip over them all while browsing at the music store, knowing that the originals were better. I DID, however, like the KISS My A** home video, which contained a number of (then) hard to find '70s clips as well as clips of KISS showing off a lot of their merchandise over the years. I remember when I saw the reunion tour in 1996, they were playing this videotape on a loop in the lobby before showtime, and once I figured out what it was, I promptly bought it a day or two later. KISS UNPLUGGED KISS jump on the 90s Unplugged bandwagon, but at least they tested the waters for a full-blown reunion. When I got Kissology 3, one of the pleasant surprises was how much I enjoyed seeing this show again (I hadn't see it since it was broadcast on MTV during Halloween '95), and how good songs like "Comin' Home," "Sure Know Something," "See You Tonite" and even "Plaster Caster" came off in the unplugged format. While it was great to see Ace and Peter come out for a few songs, it's so instructive in retrospect to see Bruce and Eric S. play rings around them.
Was it? That means they were pretty darn busy from summer 95 to spring 96-- the conventions (a massive undertaking at the time) unplugged taping and promotion recording COS officially getting back together with Peter and Ace the Grammys/announcement with Conan O'Brien intense rehearsals with Peter and Ace I guess it's possible! In the early days they did like 2 albums a year and toured almost constantly.
I just don't believe they would have invited Peter and Ace otherwise. They're smart guys. They knew full well what having those two there would do, and they also knew they wouldn't get that big 'bang' out of it twice. Performing with Ace and Peter was like pulling the pin on the hype grenade (if you will ) They wouldn't have set that off if they weren't intending to follow through.
Sure, but Peter passed his peak by then, which was my point. KISS didn't reach equal peakness with its members until the Revenge era.
Yes, it was. The Unplugged taping happened in August, and aired on Halloween of '95. COS was recorded between Nov of '95 and Feb of '96. Neither the band nor the label would have gone to the expense of recording another album if the reunion was a slam dunk. But the momentum was clearly heading that way as the recording sessions progressed.
I think P&G were interested in playing with them again, but the truth is, MTV all but insisted that Ace and Peter be a part of the proceedings. Despite the success KISS had playing their back catalog acoustically during the Convention Tour, they were hesitant to grant KISS an Unplugged airing unless they got the ratings boost that they knew a reunion with A&P would provide. And MTV knew that the mini-reunion with Peter at the L.A. Convention show had been a big success. If MTV had never leaned on them, I wonder if P&G still would have invited them on to the show? I think they would have, anyway. But MTV's pressure insured it.
Unplugged is a really good album because it's Kiss for once with the show. It's them as people and a true interaction with the audience. I'd describe it with a word I don't think I would've ever used for Kiss; warm. It's very warm and personable. Though they were at a low that forced them into a position where they connected with their audience more than ever. It was a brief time until they started doing the cruises but one that was very important and that has nothing to do with the reunion though I think that put them all in a good frame of mind for it to happen at that time.
Which proves my point that the reunion stagnated them as a band and ended them as an active current recording band. They became a nostalgic act which is a shame. Their last years of Paul being in good voice and of quality playing was wasted on nostalgia. What a shame.
Sorry I couldn't post it earlier...but if you never heard it, done around the same time as KISS My A**, Anthrax with Gene and Paul on vocals... Love Her All I Can
I'm a Dinosaur Jr fan but I was disappointed with this cover. J's singing lets it down.[/QUOTE] In my top 10 worst bands I've ever seen.
I haven't heard the KISS My A** tribute album since it was still relatively new. I remember liking several songs on there, but I haven't heard it in ages so I'm reluctant to get into specifics. I'll probably be loitering around this thread once it's finished, so I will try and do a more thorough rundown of this album later, when I have the time to listen to the whole thing again. Unlike a lot of people here, I remember digging the Kravitz/Stevie version of "Deuce", and I remember really liking the version of "Black Diamond" on there. I actually would have preferred a few more radical reinterpretations of that nature. The Anthrax cover kicked butt, too. But I'll look at it in more detail later. As far as Unplugged, the people who have been here for a while might have been getting sick of me raving about it all of the time, when we looked at the original studio versions of many of the songs that are featured on it, way back in the earlier days of this thread (back when we were young, and the world seemed oh-so simple). I think it's one of KISS' most significant releases, and I'd argue it represents KISS at the peak of their musical powers. The release was important because it was an eye-opener for a lot of naysayers in the industry who had always put KISS' music down. Here, stripped of the bombast and the special effects, were really good rock and roll songs being presented with no frills. It didn't surprise me, but you had many folks saying, "hey, these guys can sing! And play! And they've written some decent songs!" Obviously, it didn't lead to the industry embracing them with open arms, as their long exclusion from the RARHOF has proven in more recent times. But it did open some eyes. And even more importantly, it served as the impetus for a full-blown reunion with Ace and Peter. You might think that it should have been obvious to P&G that it would have gone over as well as it did, but for whatever reason, they still had some doubts. The reaction of the audience that night at the MTV taping really opened their eyes to the overwhelming demand there was for "classic KISS". For Gene, the wheels were turning in his head before they had even left the stage at the end of the performance.
A fellow Kiss enthusiast very wisely pointed something out to me a few years ago - it seemed absolutely exorbitant to pay $100 for a ticket to the convention in 1995. So, let's just fast forward to say, 2010 - can you imagine what they would charge for the same all day affair? You certainly know they wouldn't guarantee signing something for everyone...but then again, nowadays, they would charge an arm and a leg just for the privilege! Looking back, it was a true bargain...
THIS is what ended my total commitment to "everything KISS". I literally laughed out loud when I saw the ticket price. Apart from the records, I stopped buying all the "stuff" Only saw them 3 times live after that (and I live in Metro Detroit, so they came here a LOT). I am still a HUGE fan, but that was the first slap in the face for me.
