Let Me Go, Rock 'n' Roll - My Ultimate Kiss "Fantasy DVD Set"

Montage of 8mm Kiss footage at Milwaukee, WI. 5/6/75 3:16



Peter "Moose" Oreckinto: Kiss would play clubs, cafeterias, ice skating rinks - anyplace that would have us. And if that meant we had to play a bunch of off the map towns, we'd do it. For a lot of the fans that couldn't afford the major cities, we'd bring the show to them. You'd go to a small venue, impress five hundred people and then a high percentage go out and buy your records and tell their friends about the band. It was a crucial element towards building their popularity. None of the big acts of the time like the Rolling Stones, David Bowie or Led Zeppelin played the small towns. Kiss built their popularity from the ground up.









CONTINUED...

 

"Love Her All I Can" by Kiss - From their new album Dressed To Kill, available on Casablanca Records & Tapes 2:41



Neil Bogart: It was a year of financial hardship for Casablanca. It was taking me six months to pay off the previous months debt before I could move forward again. In December of 1974, after the Johnny Carson album, which was not that successful, some of the people here came to me and said, "Neil, we need a Christmas card. What do you want to do?" And I would say, "Oh, show a gold record with snow falling, I don't know". "But what do you wanna say on it?" they asked. And I thought about it for a minute and I said, "In every desert, there is an oasis."

Carol Ross: Bill was using his American Express card to finance the entire Dressed To Kill tour.

Bill Aucoin: You always know whether or not it's there. It's just a matter of when is it going to break.

J.R. Smalling: Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan was the first time Kiss played to a sold-out crowd that big, as headliners. It was the turning point.

Joyce Bogart: Going from the small crowd at Coventry in late '73 to less than two years later selling out Cobo Hall was incredible. When the 12,000 fans held up their lighters, Bill and I started to sob. I'm getting chills thinking about it now. I remember looking at Neil and saying, "Oh my god, we've done it!" That show at Cobo Hall was the first real realization that there was nothing stopping this group. They were gonna be big.

Eddie Kramer: Detroit was a great show and it sounded pretty damn good. Neil had just called me and said, "I'd like you to consider working with Kiss and doing a live record with them."

Bill Aucoin: From Neil's perspective, attempting a live album made sense because it was less expensive than doing a studio record. That's one of the reasons I was financing Kiss on my American Express card - Casablanca was in no position to pay us royalties.

Paul Stanley: When the first album didn't exactly break, we said, "You don't like that one, how about this one?" And when the second album didn't make it, we said, "How about this one?" The remedy was there all along. We said why not make a record that is like a souvenir of coming to see us live? Before we started taping shows that were to become "Alive!", we recorded a few shows for reference. Bands can often mistake energy for tempo. I know we did. What we found was that the tempos on our live songs were often excessive. We listened back and realized we had to keep in time more because we were often playing too fast.

Eddie Kramer: We would go into Electric Lady studios and begin the laborious process of mixing the best performances together. Gene, Paul and I made a list of all the shows we would use, which songs were the best and what we were gonna use.

Paul Stanley: Eddie Kramer was superb at helping us create "Alive!" and I say "create" because the album was really an enhanced version of what took place live. It was enhanced in a way to make you feel part of the event, to remind you of the experience you had when you were there in the audience. Live albums didn't do that back then.



CONTINUED...

 

Most of the time, it's the networks and producers of the shows who cover the logos since they look at them like "free advertising".
Even NBC covered the Gretsch logo on Mickey's kit with a taped on Monkees logo.....free advertising.

If a instrument company gives a band free gear to use, part of the agreement is for the logos to be visible.

 

ALIVE! September 10, 1975







Bill Aucoin: A live album was completely contrary to the current trend at the time. In the industry, everyone told me that live albums were not sellers. I was even told that a live album would be the death of the group. I had no logical reason to believe I was right except for my own belief and Neil's unwavering support. We plowed ahead with the release despite the warnings. "Alive!" turned out to be a monumental success and set the trend for every live album after that.

Gene Simmons: We always went against the grain. Everyone thought it was the end of the record company and it almost was because, at that point, the record company didn't have a lot of money. And very few record stores wanted a double live album. Number one, because nobody cared about live albums then, and, number two, who cares about Kiss? They don't sell records. And this thing just exploded...

Larry Harris: No rock and roll band had ever come up with a double live album unless they had some hits. It was a crazy thing to do but it unlocked the door.

Mark Parenteau: Not a lot of bands were successful with live albums at that point. Sometimes they were just a throwaway to fulfill contract obligations. But "Alive!" was the real deal.

CONTINUED...

 

To fully experience Kiss "Alive!", you really need to play all four sides. Yet if you're looking for an abbreviated taste of what this landmark album is all about, try these four scintillating gems...

"Deuce" from Kiss "Alive!" on Casablanca Records & Tapes 3:50


"Firehouse" from Kiss "Alive!" on Casablanca Records & Tapes 4:00
Firehouse »

"Black Diamond" from Kiss "Alive!" on Casablanca Records & Tapes 5:51
Black Diamond »

"Let Me Go, Rock n Roll" from Kiss "Alive!" on Casablanca Records & Tapes 5:45
Let Me Go, Rock 'N Roll »





CONTINUED...

 

Eddie Kramer: In retrospect, "Alive!" was really groundbreaking because no rock band was doing an album like that at the time. By the time we came out with "Alive!", Kiss had (registered) fans somewhere in the 200,000 range. And so we knew that they could sell 150,000 to 200,000 copies of the album. We all figured, okay, maybe we can double that and we'd all be elated. No one was prepared for what the album would eventually sell. We never thought it would go Gold. When it did, everyone went nuts. Then it went Platinum and beyond. We were speechless.

Larry Harris: "Alive!" surprised the label too. It came out in the Fall of '75. At the same time, we had Donna Summer and Parliament albums shipping. All of a sudden these albums started to sell. There was one problem. We couldn't afford to press them all! (Laughs). It's one of those bizzare cases where success can almost put you out of business.

Bill Aucoin: We signed a new deal with Casablanca, who paid us all a huge lump sum and we went forward.

Larry Harris: Neil bundled several million together and sent Bill and the band the biggest check he'd ever seen in his life.

Bill Aucoin: We went from literally funding the band on debt to having money. All I can remember is staring at those zeros. I must have counted those zeros a thousand times.

Paul Stanley: Suddenly the album went gold, then platinum, then double platinum. I can remember saying to Bill when it was released, "Do you think we will sell 300,000 or so this time?" And he said, "Well, that would be great but let's not get our hopes up".

Ace Frehley: A lot of people have come up to me and told me that "Alive!" is their rock and roll bible. Which I find flattering.



CONTINUED...

 

Bill Starkey (Founder of the Kiss Army): My father took me and my brother to see a band named Kiss on a snowy Sunday on December 8, 1974, at Roberts Stadium in Evansville, Indiana. Kiss blew me away. Three weeks later, my mother would take us to see them again in Indianapolis on December 28. By that time I was a lifer Kiss fan. We ended up calling ourselves the Kiss Army because we felt a kinship with the band. It became the name that all Kiss fans would be recognized by. Every band had fans, but who had an army? Decades later, I'm proud to recall how the start of something so small would be embraced by people worldwide from varying countries and backgrounds. The experience I garner from that crusade has ingrained in me a spirit to always question the status quo.

TV segment with Kiss Army founder Bill Starkey 3:30



Paul Stanley: Kiss fans are the envy of any other band's fans. The Kiss Army typified what would become consistent, which is the fans are very loyal and adamant about their support of the band. And it all started with the founding of the Kiss Army in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1975. The greatest armies on Earth are the volunteer armies because people are there because they want to be there and because they believe in something, and the Kiss Army is no different.

Carol Ross: When the Kiss Army formed, it was not only inspiring but I was able to use it as a press device. If I found a journalist that was ignoring Kiss's impact, I could say, "How can you turn away when there is such a large following of readers and listeners?" With Kiss we could never use the standard pitch, the respectable angle, to get a story.



Gene Simmons: The Kiss Army was created for the fans by the fans. It was a sense of bond that didn't have its origins in New York or L.A. but in middle America. There was a groundswell happening amongst our fan base. And if you were brave and proud enough to say, "I like Kiss" and put the makeup on, then you became a star too. It continues to this day.



CONTINUED...

 

Are you still going to contribute to this thread?

I know it's a lot of work, but I miss reading/seeing the history (er, KISStory)!

 

Thank you, and yes, I plan to keep it going. It seems I got sidetracked with other Kiss threads lately, but thank you for reading. I'll try to add another update or two this week.

 

Thanks. Looking forward to it!