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Just For FunReprint Courtesy Zoo World“We're not a glitta band,” says Peter Criss in the richest Brooklynese tones. In a few hours, Peier will be in the dressing room of Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom in Atlanta, applying clown-white makeup to his face and drawing dark circles around his eyes and cat-whiskers on either side of his mouth. From there, Peter Criss will proceed to the stage, passing the huge logo of his group’s name done in marquee lights, and during the course of his performance Peter will watch one of his colleagues spit fire 20 feet into the air, he will see a singer approach the microphone with “blood” dripping from his mouth, he will be lit with the flashing red lights of four sirens mounted atop amplifiers, and finally he will ascend, complete with drum set, eight feet into the air to shoot off his drumsticks in a flash of light while dry-ice smoke covers the stage and smoke bombs fill the hall.For Peter is one-fourth of a group called Kiss, and if you haven’t heard of Kiss, it’s a cinch you’ve never seen them perform. What Peter said up there would be almost laughable, but he elucidates: “We play heavy metal music, if you want to put a tag on it. I can take that handle better than ‘glitter’. We are trying to return to the comfortable feeling that rock ’n roll used to have.”There is nothing polite about Kiss’s music: it is loud, pounding, power-chorded, and heavy on tight vocals. It suggests that the audience move, not simply stare at the pyrotechnics. Gene Simmons, the group’s bassist, says, “All our music is basically what we think all groups should do: get together on their own, experiment, find out what works within the context of the group, and then do what is good on stage—don’t subject the audience to experimentation at their expense. All the things we do are three and a half, four minutes at the most. We give you the meat; you get no excess fat on the side. ”ReviewChis Give Students‘Entertaining Night’By wore DIXON Staff WriterThe evening of Wed- genius focused on were TV nesday, Sept. 4, proved to be commercials, anatomy, auite an entertaining night ugliness, aualudes. and aThe group has been together, experimenting, for about two years, but Kiss has been playing outside their native New York City only since January. Simmons and rhythm guitarist Paul Stanley played together in a previous band that, uh, didn’t care to get into the visual aspect that much. Criss was hired after the two saw his ad in a music paper and lead guitarist Ace Frehley was brought in from open auditions. The group had rehearsed as a unit for the best part of a year, playing a few carefully selected dates (and those personally publicized by the bands’ members), when their present manager saw them in action and spoke to Neil Bogart. Kiss’s Lp was the first release on Bogart’s Casablanca Records, and the band started touring before its release.Just before they took to the road in January, Kiss honed its stage show into precision by performing it again and again before video tape cameras and watching themselves on TV. And since January, Kiss claims, they have never failed to receive an encore at the end of the show. It is not hard to believe, since their last number, “Black Diamond,” features Peter Criss’s levitating drum set. Their show is a visual and aural barrage—but they start with the simplest, most accessible music,“Our lyrics and song titles have absolutely no double entendres,” says Gene Simmons. “What you see is all there is. If I want to tell a lady that I want to spend some time with her, I’m not going to say, ‘The TV is the way thine eyes look through the nostrils of my mind.’“As the sixties drew to a close, rock became very self-indulgent, almost elitist in a sense,” he says. “And all of a sudden, people got off their legs—they sat down!—some schmucks in dungarees got on stage and started singing, ‘Babee, the sunlight goes through your eyeball. ..’ Forget that. If we’re not walking off drenched after a gig, then we’re not doing our job.”Peter Criss nods in agreement. “If somebody’s paying ten bucks to see you, they should really walk out and say, ‘That was a hell of a show!’ If you want to listen, just take the album home and lay back and listen. But if you’re going to go out and see a group, there ought to be something tosee.And Kiss is something to see. The band comes dressed for work in Kabuki-style facial makeup which they designed themselves. Each design has something to say: “We’re each taking a basic individual preoccupation and exaggerating it.” Peter is The Cat; he speaks of “stalking”an audience in casual conversation; he mentions having seen an audience, all through his professional career, as “a dynamite meal.” Paul, who wears white with a star over his right eye, is interested in the breaking down of sexual differentiation. Ace, whose eyes and forehead are covered with a gold lightning bolt pattern, believes that Earth was inhabited by supermen before Man arrived, in the Erich Von Daeniken tradition: “Ace has trouble getting used to the gravity on this planet.” Then there is Gene Simmons, whose hair is bundled on top of his head, eye area painted in menacing blat-wings. He plays Evil Incarnate on the stage, a reflection of his lifelong fascination with the cosmos of horror films, using his tongue as a stiletto during a song and grinning insanely. ^“A musical concert, since it happens on a stage, is a(See KISS, Page 8)THE SGA PRESENTS
Newspaper Details
Jacksonville Chanticleer
Jacksonville, Alabama, US
Mon, Sep 16, 1974
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Andreas V.
DE 19 Jan 2021
Other Publications Near Jacksonville, Alabama
Jacksonville Republican
Jacksonville Teacola
Jacksonville State Collegian
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