Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / 50 Years Of KISS On Film, TV & Home Video [Episode 288]

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50 Years Of KISS On Film, TV & Home Video [Episode 288] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On this episode of Booked on Rock. It's a deep
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: dive into kiss on film, TV and home video. The
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: early appearances, the bizarre, the funny, the forgotten, the famous,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the infamous. We cover it off.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: We're totally booked rock and Roll. I mean, I'll leave you.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: You're reading Little Hands says it's time to rock.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: And roll, roll out. I totally booked. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: book Don Rock. I'm Eric Senach our guest this episode.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: John Harrison, author of Creatures of the Screen, The Uncentered
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and Unofficial History of Kiss Floitation on Film, television and
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: home video. Thanks for being on the show.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: John, Jerry, appreciate it. Nice to be here.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: This is a rare insight into kiss. A lot of
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: kiss books out there, but I think you even said,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I don't believe there's really anything out there that covers
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the history of kiss on the screen, the big screen,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: small screen, home video.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: No, I was sort of had it in the back
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: of my head that I'd love to write a kiss
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: book someday, just wanted to wait until I found a
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: good angle for one, because, as you mentioned, there's so
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: many kiss books out there these days, both official and unofficial,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: and I've written a couple of articles over the years
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: about Kiss, covering different aspects, and about six or seven
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: years ago I wrote for an American magazine a fairly
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: in depth article about Gen Simmons's acting career in the eighties.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: They took off the makeup. He had a bit of
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: a was on a bit of a role there, acting
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: in movies like Runaway and Wanted Dead or Alive Never
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: too Young to Die, usually playing the villain. So that
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: created a bit of a spark. I was kind of like,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: you know, that might be a good idea for a
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Kiss book, you know, looking at their history, but concentrating
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: on their history both on film, television, and home video.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: But also I wanted to dive into the influence that
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: they had over other shows. You know, there was a
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: lot of shows like The Love Boats and Scooby Doo
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: and Chips, you know, back in the seventies and eighties,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: and The Incredible Hulk that had very Kiss like characters
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: that were obviously inspired by the band and their popularity
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: and their unique look and style. It's always easy to
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: tell when something in a movie has been influenced by
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Kiss because they're so uniquely distinctive. And the more I
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: sort of examined it the more I found out there,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: you know, in terms of like movies and TV episodes
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: that have been inspired by Kiss or in some way
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Kiss mentioned or Kiss centric. So I kind of thought, yeah,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: that would be a great angle for a book, and
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: one that hopefully would be a little bit unique and
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: not one that covers a subject that's already been covered before.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: There's been a couple of books that have sort of
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: touched on their work and the film and TV, and
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: there's been a couple of books that concentrated solely on
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: their TV movie Kiss Meets The Phantom of the Park.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: But as far as I'm aware, this is the first
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: book that just concentrates purely on an overview of all
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: their film and TV work as well as you know,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: as we've mentioned all the movies that have been inspired
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: and influenced by them.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: In depth, and it goes back all the way to
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four. Will we see the first appearance by
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Kiss on TV? Let's get into those early TV appearances.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Their manageabile Coin was able to get them on two
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: TV shows early, which is impressive since those appearances were
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: usually reserved for established acts. What were those early appearances,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the first ever March twenty, nineteen seventy four, tried.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: I think Bill o'coin, with his background in television as
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: a producer of Flip Side and you know, just his connections,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: I think he was fortunate for the band in terms
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: of he had those connections to be able to get
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: them spots on TV shows that were fairly sort of
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: big for a new, up and coming band. And their
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: first appearance obviously was on The Mike Douglas Show in
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four, not long after their deboo album had
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: come out, and that was like a daytime TV show,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: and you could just imagine all these people at home
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: sipping their cups of tea at lunchtime and suddenly being
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: bombastard by Kiss, wondering what the hell's going on and
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: the cost. They came on and sung Firehouse on the
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Mike Douglas Show, but prior to that, they brought Gene
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: out for a bit of an interview. I wants it.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, one of the members of this act close
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: up here from Kiss is Gene Simmons. Excuse me when
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: I spread my way, Yeah, Geen, what what are you.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Just a member of Kiss? You know?
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Who dreamed this up?
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: This this get up we all did.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: How many members?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: There are four members?
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: You know your audience real looks, amvertis Oh.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: Really are you a bat?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: Actually what I am is evil incarnate And some of
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: those cheeks and necks look really good.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: I think Gene was obviously pretty nervous, but did quite
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: well and created quite an impression with the other guests,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: and for a first appearance, I think it was a
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: really good one and a really unique one, And it's
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: great that the footage has survived for us to be
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: able to look back on it and appreciate it. There
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: there's a couple of other shows that they did. There
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: was one in Canada called Boogie, which I'd love to see,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: but unfortunately, apart from a few stills, the footage has
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: apparently been lost. So, you know, a lot of those
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: shows back then, especially like a lot of regional shows,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: they probably wiped the tapes after they had finished the episode.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: But you know, you never know, You always hold out
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: that something might surface in some collection somewhere at some point.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: A little piece of trivia. I can't remember the comedian's name,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the one that was kind of teasing Gene. She's from
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: right nearby here. I mean you're in Australia. I'm in
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: the US in Connecticut, just.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Like tease the gene about does your mother know what
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: you're doing? And then she said it would.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: Be funny of under this it was just a nice
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Jewish boy, you said, only no.
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: I do.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: You can't hide the hook. If you listen to the
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: tape carefully, I think you can hear Ace Freeli's distinctive
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: laugh in the background. Oh really, I guess setting up
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: on the stage ready to perform, and yeah, that joke.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: If you listen to it, you can definitely hear his
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: high pitched laugh there in the background.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Oh you can't.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Funny Fields, was it? I think?
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Tody Fields, I believe you are correct. Yeah,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: and she's from.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Her very funny. They had a great chemistry together on
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: the show.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: And Toty she does the I roll like you know,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: who the hell is what on, which is indicative of
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: that point in time where there's this generational gap, you know,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: between yeah, yeah and the younger yeah.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Whereas now a lot of the early Kiss fans are
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: sort of as old or older than what Tody was then,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: you know, And also, you know, because it was something new.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: You know, she's rolling her eyes. No one had really
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: seen anything like Kiss. You know, you had Alice Cooper,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: I guess, and David Bowie with his ziggy stardust make up,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: but I think his definitely took it to the extreme.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: And to see Jean walking out there for the first time,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: not knowing what to expect, I think that a lot
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: of people would have been shocked, and probably a lot
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: of people who were experienced would have just rolled their
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: eyes like Tody, like you know how people will try
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: anything to get attention sort of people.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they'll come and go, they'll be gone in fifteen minutes.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: There we are fifty years later now, was in Cancert.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: The second one is that file of Mike Douglas show.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Dick Clark's in Concert, I think was the first appearance
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: of Kiss Live. Yeah, and obviously these shows, you know,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: they went broadcast live. A lot of them were pre recorded,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: and some of them were broadcast a couple of months
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: after the recording. But Dick Clark's in Concert where they
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: performed I think four songs, although I think maybe only
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: two or three will aired initially, But yeah, that was
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: purely like a performance segment whereas the Mike Douglas Show,
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: you know, was the first appearance at least that survived
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: to this date that had one of the band members
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: on for an interview. That TV show I mentioned earlier,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Boogie from Canada. I believe they did an interview segment
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: on that as well, but as I mentioned, unfortunately that
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: footage just been.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Lost in between in Cancert and the Mike Douglas Show
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: is an appearance in Saint Louis, but this was quite
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: on film. There's surviving footage of kiss March thirty first,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy four. What is on this film and where
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: can it be?
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: That's the Kite Festival, I believe. Yeah, so that was
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: a huge outdoor rock concert. There was probably, you even
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: to this day, maybe one of the biggest crowds Kisses
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: ever played to, and obviously they weren't their headliner that day.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Was always sort of rumored that there was footage existing,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: but none of it really surfaced until about four or
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: five years ago when they were putting together that Kisstory
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: documentary for A and E, some eight millimeter home movie
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: footage of the Kite Festival surfaced and that can be
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: found on the Kisstory DVD or Blu ray that you
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: can get or stream online. Very interesting, particularly because it's
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: got Kiss playing in broad daylight, which is very strange
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: to see playing on an open stage in the middle
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: of the day, you know. But one of the great
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: things about those scenes is it really creates a bit
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: of a different atmosphere to seeing Kiss at night on
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: a dark stage. Just see them up there on this
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: and you can tell it was like very windy because
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: their hair is blowing everywhere, and you can actually see
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: a couple of roadies sort of behind the speaker stacks
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: at one point trying to brace them just so they
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: didn't blow over in the wind. I'm watchingly. It's only
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: like little snippets that have survived. It would have been
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: great if the whole show had been broadcast or filmed.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: But of course, back then, you know eight millimeters home
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: movie cameras, they would only like have a small role
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: of film that could maybe you know, handle five or
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: ten minutes, so people would just turn them on and
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: off for the highlight, as opposed to like a VHS
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: or a video recorder or even like an iPhone these days,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: where you can just hold it up and record the
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: whole show from Go to Woe.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know. You may have had this. I'm sure
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: so many kids fans had this. I think it probably
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: early two thousands, as we get to that point where
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: you got YouTube, but also there's a lot of file sharing,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and I got a bunch of DVDs of all these
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: concerts and footage and TV appearances and all this stuff.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: It was like a gold mine. I just I couldn't
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: start watching, you know, because you wondered as a kid
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: growing up, what was it like. I wish I could
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: see that show. And although started to roll.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: In, Yeah, you're I read about in books, and especially
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: out here in Australia, it was even harder to get
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: hold of that stuff. And we never saw the tours
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: that you did in America. You know, we didn't get
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Kiss out here until nineteen eighty for their first tour,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: by which time their career was already sort of pretty
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: much on the downslide in America their initial wave, and
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: they didn't tour again here until nineteen ninety five, so
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: it was a good fifteen year gap. So you had
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: to rely on things like video and trading with other friends,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: trading bootleg tapes, just to try and experience some of
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: those kiss tours from the seventies and eighties that we
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: never got over here. But but you know, it was
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: a golden ear, like you say, and part of the
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: fun and the nostalgia of it was the fans and
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: other people that you met, you know, whereas today, even
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: though there's a benefit and appreciate the fact that you
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: can just go onto YouTube pretty much or go online
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: and you know, bring up any concert that's recorded and
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: watch it at the tippy your fingers, there was something
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: about the old days where you had to go through
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: the effort of trying to track something down, and you know,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: you'd meet a friend and.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: You'd trace conventions.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, trade something that you had that they didn't have,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: you know, and your made friends that way.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: You know, Oh, I hear you.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: There's good, good, and bad things to say about modern
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: technology and the way things are done today, But I
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: kind of missed the camaraderie between fans that you had
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: when you were trading, because sometimes you talk with other
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: collectors on the phone for hours, you know, just about
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: what you've got and what you want to trade, and
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: you know, and that huge part of the fun of it.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Bo Rock podcast will be back after this. Surely
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: you can't be serious.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Going back to those early days, it is interesting. Despite
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the TV appearances and radio exposure, Kiss struggled. But then
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: you get to the live album. That's when we know
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the band takes off. So let's get to the your
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five. Now, the first show recorded for the
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: album took place on May sixteen at cobleholl And, Detroit.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: But you say that the first official Kiss music clips
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: were filmed on May fifteenth, tell us about that. This
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: is all so when the front album photo was taken,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: it's correct.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So they did a bit of a rehearsal at
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: a nearby hall, just getting ready for the shows. They
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: knew they were going to be recording them, so they
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: wanted to be, you know, I guess in tip top shape.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: They did the photo shoot for the iconic album cover
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: at that rehearsal the day before the full dress rehearsal,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: and I guess again. Bill o'coyn, with his access to
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: film and television equipment, decided to shoot a couple of
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: short clips for two of the songs off the then
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: current album Dress to Kill, which were across rock and
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Roll All Night and come On and Love Me, and
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: they I guess became the first official Kiss music videos.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And I remember as a kid in Australia seeing the
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: rock and Roll All Night one on a TV show
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: over here we had called Countdown on Sunday nights. So
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: I think back then, you know, that was the main
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: function of music videos, even though they weren't really cool.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: I guess they just called them film clips back then,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: or song clips rather than music videos. But yeah, it
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: was mainly I guess, done to send out to overseas
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: country where the band couldn't tour at that point, or
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: just to other areas of the US, I guess as well,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: where you know they weren't able to tour at that
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: point or they weren't playing, or just for TV shows
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: to run if they were going to do a bit
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: of an interview with them as well, just as a
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: bit of a taste of their show. And those clips
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: are interesting because they included some of the stage effects
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: like gene breathing fire and the explosions and that, so
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: they were great. They gave a good I guess encapsulation
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: of what the live Kiss experience was. But you're right,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: they were definitely struggling still at that point. Their first
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: three albums had done nothing, so they certainly weren't an
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: overnight sensation. They still hadn't had a gold album, and
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: you can imagine all the money that it was taking
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: to keep The Kiss Show on the road. And you know,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: I know, Casablanca had gambled a lot of money putting
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: out a double album of Johnny Carson Show Highlights, which
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: they not only spent a lot of money on production wise,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: but that also spent a lot of money clearing the
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: rights to a lot of the celebrity voices and interviews
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: and that that We're on it, and that album just
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: totally bomb, you know. So casablanc were really on the
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: verge at that point and only really did a live album,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: I guess just because they couldn't really afford to go
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: into the studio to do another studio album, and with
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: the first three not selling that well, there was also
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: the thought of, well, what's the point of just going
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: in and doing another album that's only going to sell
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: a couple one hundred thousand copies, And I think with
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: a live it was kind of like their last roll
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: of the Dice as we know now. Of course, a
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: lot of the album was touched up and re recorded
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: parts in the studio later on, but that's what happens
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: with all live albums. Really, you know that none of
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: them are one hundred percent live. But I think with
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Kiss it doesn't really matter. It's more about the experience
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: of listening to it, you know, where as a souvenir
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: of what you imagine, the Kiss show was, like I
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: think Alive totally hit the nail on the head and
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: just showed that. As the band members have said in
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: the years since, there was nothing wrong with those first
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: three albums. The songs were good. Just people thought, well,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: it doesn't sound though what it's like live. It's not
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: the live Kiss experience, whereas doing the songs for a
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: live gaven more that raw feel that the songs had
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: when they came across live and thankfully worked out for them.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: It's still only i think officially only certified gold. They
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: haven't applied to have the albums recertified in a long time,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: but it would have to be at least triple platinum
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: A this oh sure, so it certainly did a lot
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: more than you know they were hoping. I think their
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: initial hope was if it went gold, that would at
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: least keep them going and give them the motivation to
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: keep going. But just went beyond their wildest dreams, I guess.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a famous story of a coin using his
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: credit card, right pretty much? Yeah, yeah, dreamed his credit card. Yeah.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: And there was also rumors about certain notorious Italian families
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: that are helping to finance the tour and then demanding
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: their money back. It was, you know, which I could
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: certainly understand that Bill a Coin and also Neil Boga
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: from Casablanca. You know that's part of the pascel I
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: guess the promoters back then, they all had some dodgy connections.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: In New York mobsters. Yeahf went down back in those days.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: It wouldn't have been like there was a TV commercial
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: to promote alive. It remained unseen for decades. What was
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: on that commercial? And why do you think it was
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: never aired?
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: They'd already done an ad for a Hotter than Hell,
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: which is really cool as well the year before a
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: TV commercial that did air and that was really good.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: It gives us some clips of a kiss playing in
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: the small club still, and there's footage job on the
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: clowning around in their motel room and on the way
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: to the airport and in the limousine and that, which
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: is really cool. But for live, yeah, it was maybe
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: just some shots of that pre warm up show they
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: did prior to Cobo Hall of them doing the effects,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: and just shots of the album cover and the booklet inside.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: And there's a great voiceover to the rock album of
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: the air Kiss Alive on Cassa Blanca. Why it wasn't aired,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I don't think there's a specific reason.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: I can only maybe think that once the album started
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: taking off on its own, maybe Bill of Coin thought well,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: or Cassa Blanca thought, maybe the album's doing its own
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: thing without the advertising, so let's save the money that
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: would to cost to get the commercial on air. Obviously,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: tvir space isn't cheap, so they may have thought, yeah,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: it's selling itself. It's about the only reason I could
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: think of the commercial was air and in the can
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: so I can only imagine it was a financial reason
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: that they decided not to. But it's great that it
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: did resurface, you know, all these years later, just to watch.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: A fascinating moment in KI history is this Cadillac High
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: appearance in Cadillac, Michigan, October ninth and tenth, nineteen seventy five.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: For those not familiar, to talk about this appearance and
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: how it's possible there maybe more footage of this exists.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Cadillac, Michigan. The local high school football team that were
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: on a bit of a losing streak and the coach
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: decided that to try and get him buy it up,
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: he wanted a band to play their music in the
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: locker room beforehand, just to get him in the right mood.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: And he was a bit of a Kiss fan, so
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: he decided Kiss music was the perfect thing to get
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: them worked up. And Kiss, he said, was the same
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: philosophy that he kept in coaching, which is keep it simple, stupid,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: you know, the older an acronym. So he thought, yep,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Kiss is the perfect band. And I think once they
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: started playing the music in the locker rooms, they won
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: the next nine or ten games and made it to
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: the playoffs. So as a I think the coach just
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: sort of wrote to Bill ocoyn and said, we've been
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: using your music to get us fired up, and we've
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: reached the playoffs now and the finals, and I think
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: they were initially just hoping that maybe Bill o cooyn
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: would send them a letter or something just to encourage
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: them and provide a bit of support. But I think
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Bill o'coyn, being the showman that he was, thought this
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: is a great opportunity to do something really special, so
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: rather than just send them a letter or a greeting
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: or something, the whole band actually turned up to Cadillac
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: for two days and did a lot of promotion, hang
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: out at the school and talked to the school kids
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: and mingled with the townspeople, and even put on Kiss
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: makeup for the mayor and all the town officials. They
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: got the key to the city and then went to
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: the football field and greeted the team, and they did
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: a show as well Cadillac Hi in the gym the
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: night before the big game, which was amazing. Would have
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: been amazing seeing Kiss in a little high school gym
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: back then. It was pretty much the full Kiss show
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: as well. I think the only thing missing was the logo,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: which they couldn't fit onto the stage because it was
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: so small, so the students made their own homemade logo.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Then the next day, a helicopter came and landed on
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: the football field and the band members jumped in the
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: helicopter and off they took and dropped all these leaflets
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: saying Cadillac Hi, Kiss, Love, Juice, and they also did
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: the parade as well down Main Street. There was a
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: lot of cameras there recording that I guess local TV
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: cameras as well as a lot of home movie cameras
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: and stuff. So, you know, there has been a lot
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: of stuff that's surfaced over the years, but you always
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: hope that maybe there's more. You know, there could be
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: other people, other people that maybe were there with their
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: home movie cameras and it's just sitting in a cupboard somewhere,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: or you know, sitting in the back of a wardrobe
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: somewhere and lost for years. But mainly it would be
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: the I guess the concert as well would be the
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: thing with people would love to see, you know.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: There's so there's absolutely nothing we've seen from that cart.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: But there's a few segments, yeah, a few snippets of footage,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: but yeah, I've never seen like a whole complete song
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: or a complete audio recording of it.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: But surprising that the band didn't record all those things.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: In the early days, yeah, somebody record.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: It, I know, like when they did Cobo Hall and
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: those places. Those venues had their own sort of built
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: in video systems to project onto the screens behind the band,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: and thankfully a lot of those survived put onto tape,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: you know. But I know, Kiss always in the seventies
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: and eighties always tended to say, oh, yeah, we've recorded
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: every show we've ever done. But I think they were
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: maybe embellishing or exaggerating a little bit there. But but yeah,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: there's a few shows that I think, well, it's really
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: surprising that Kiss didn't professionally have that film themselves, knowing
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: what a big deal it was. Like you're going a
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: few years later when Erik Carr, the new drummer maybe
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: used to do at the Palladium, you think, you know,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: why would they not film one?
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's so true, you would think that they would
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: have done that. But again, who knows. Maybe in somebody's
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: attic is sing.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: The role of film because it doesn't exist yet, it
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean it's you know, there was some great footage
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: of the Pladium that surfaced a few years ago, just
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: like a news segment that we're in on one of
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: the TV New York TV news programs. Even just seeing
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: that little snippet of footage was exciting to see.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Book on rock podcasts. We'll be back after this, be.
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: Right back with a snack.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Jack, Oh, go away.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Let's get to that legendary era of Kiss. Seventy six
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: through seventy seven, Moulsey, but right up through nineteen seventy nine.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: The Paul Lynde Halloween Special in nineteen seventy six is
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: one of the most well known Kiss appearances. Had you
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: write quote, It's remarkable not just because it features the
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: first primetime appearance of Kiss, but for the simple idea
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: that it even exists. This appearance represents a pivotal moment
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: for Kiss. It is somewhat bizarre to see Paul lind
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and Kiss, but it did a lot for them.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: It is, but at such a classic Kiss moment. A
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: little chamber music, A little chamber music. Oh, that would
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: be nice.
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: But where are the musicians.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Locked up in a little chamber? But I can summon them.
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: Oh, they make such very soothing, quiet dinner music.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: You'll love them. We call Kiss.
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: Unless you brush your fangs, O wise, play.
• 22:30
  Speaker 7: Something a little peaceful for mister Lynn.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: You know, I think it really represents a moment where
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Kiss went from being just a rock band on the
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: rise to becoming true superstars, and that was kind of
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: like their entrance into pop culture. I think it was
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: their first primetime exposure as well. And you know, and
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: just seeing Kiss, as you mentioned with Paul In, but
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: also with Donnie and Marie Osbon and Florence Henderson from
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: The Brady Bunch and which you who from hr Puff
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: and Stuff and the Witch from the Wizard of Oz
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: and just all these characters. You know, it was such
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: a perfect environment for Kiss to play around in. And
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: we not only get to see all these great stars
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: and bizarre skits with Paul Linde and all the other
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: guest stars, but you also get three great performances of
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: the band doing Detroit Rock City, Peter doing Beth and
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: King of the Nighttime World, and pauled into such an interesting,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: funny character as well. And we never saw it over
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: here in Australia. Unfortunately, I didn't see it until well
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: into the eighties when I got it on like a
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: VHS tape. But you know, I could just imagine how
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: great and exciting it would have been. To have been
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: a fan back then in America and getting to see them,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: and I can only imagine it also brought in a
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: whole lot of new fans as well that wouldn't have
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: been aware of the band, who probably got turned onto
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: them after that appearance on the show.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: You Caute Paul Stealey in a book kind of sad.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Paul Lynn was not the happiest guy.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: If you look at his appearances on the Hollywood Squares.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: He was like the middle square person for years, and
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: I think you could sort of see there in some
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: of the barbs that he maybe had a bit of
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: a cutting wit that could cut people down to size.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: And I think if you are combined that sort of
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: wit with heavy drinking, as Paul Linde was known to do,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: but can often result in some fairly unpleasant behavior. But yeah,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: he could throw great character and great great actor as well.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: You know. I remember him as a kid, just always
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: seeing him show up in shows like Bewitched and The Monsters,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: you know, and he was always just hilarious to watch.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: He's great. And The Monsters stick like a dream. I
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: forgot about that. I love the Monsters.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: I think it was like a doctor in the Monsters. Yeah,
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: maybe got herman in for a physical and of course
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: it was a classic thing where you know, as soon
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: as he looked at herm and his glasses just sort
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: of like shattered.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: And I have to believe Jean is a Monsters fan
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: because we know he loves old monsters.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Oh you have to yeah, Yeah.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Pivotal year for Kiss in eighteen seventy eight, chapter four
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: ist titled I Could Roll Superheroes. A lot of exposure,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: but this is where we start to see the overexposure
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: of Kiss take effect. You have the original TV guide
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: listing for the nineteen seventy eight NBC special titled Land
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: of Hype and Glory. This is the one where we
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: find out about the band member's blood being used for
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the Marvel comic. And then on October twenty eighth, nineteen
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: seventy eight, Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park aired
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: on NBC.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: He's the one, all right, almost tore my arm off,
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: jeans clean a pussy cat, almost hi curly.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: Look. Someone vandalized our park last night, smashed some of
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: our buildings and injured a few of our guards.
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: Well, Gene, they think it was you.
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: I think it was him.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Far as twin Jean's brother was an only child.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Easy cat man.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: They are serious and they've got guns.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: This was Bill A. Coyn's idea. The screenplay was given
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: to two guys who didn't have all that much credibility.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a couple of guys that, as you mentioned,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: didn't really have much experience. I'm not sure where they
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: picked them out of, but they've done a couple of
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: low budget exploitations, exploitation flicks, one called Too Hot to Handle.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: I guess at that point they probably just went for
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: whoever was cheap.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: The whole project was based around how can we exploit Kiss?
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: They got Kiss. I think they could have just put
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: anything on paper and it would have sold. But yeah,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: I mean the TV movie. I just said it was
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: great exposure for the band, but I think maybe it
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: ruined a lot of their mystique when people finally saw it,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: and in retrospect it's a fun movie and their career
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: did recover from it, But at the time, yeah, I
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: think it disappointed a lot of people and really sort
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: of I guess up until like in that sort of
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: seventy four to seventy six period, Kiss was still seen
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: as something of, you know, a bit of a dangerous
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: sort of rock band. There was still a lot of
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: controversy around them about don't let your kids see Kiss,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: They'll recruit them into devil worshiping and they'll destroy their mind.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: And you know, whereas by seventy eight, kids had become
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: the main Kiss audience and Phantom of the Park certainly
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: helped push that agenda. And that's probably something that billocoy
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: and Kissed Gene maybe in particular, we're also pursuing, not
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: realizing the damage it would likely have. But also you
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: had in the lead up to the TV movie, you
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: had the four solo albums as well that were released
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: on the same day, and a lot of controversy there
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: as well, because they'd pressed so many of them. They
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: pressed over a million copies of each one, and most
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: of them came back unsold and when they're offloaded to
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: church fates and opshops and that, and that was another
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: sort of damaging thing for the brand, you know, because
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: as a teenager, if you want your band to be
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: the coolest, and certainly there's nothing cool about seeing one
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: of your favorite band's records sitting there in the discount
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: beIN at the local church. Fate you know, does not
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: area cool or dangerous, but you know, it's also I
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: think a lot of people don't sort of stop to
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: think about just how much material they put out in
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: that four year period between nineteen seventy four. In the
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: TV movie it was like, you know, six studio albums,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: two live albums, a compilation, the four solo albums. It's
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: when you look back and see all that discovery, you think, wow,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: that's a really long makes you feel like it's a
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: really long period of time, but really it was all
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: done in like that case of a few short years.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: So I think even if the TV movie hadn't come about,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I think there was maybe still going to be that
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: risk of Kiss just totally like overexposing themselves to the
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: point where there was bound to be some kind of blowback.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: And of course all the merchandising on top of that,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: and the Kiss comic book, the famous Marvel Kiss comic
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: book from early nineteen seventy seven, which was advertisers being
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: printed in real Kiss blood, And of course the funny
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: thing there was was even though they did obviously they
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: did genuinely go and donate their blood, I believe Bill o.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Cooin later sort of spilled the beans years later, like
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: during the Reunion period where he said that there was
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: actually some kind of mix up. There was either a
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: mix up with the file delivery or Marvel didn't deliver
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: the files for the comic in time that a reading
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: that had the Kiss blood in it. The majority of
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: that was actually used to print that month's issue of
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Sports Illustrated, the one with Big Bird on the cover
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: from nineteen seventy seven. So while some of it did
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: end up in the actual Kiss comic book, most of
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: it ended up in Sports Illustrated. So if you have
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: a lot of fans, collect both the comic book and
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: that issue of Sports Illustrated with Big Bird on it,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: just because I know that's the one that also had
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: the Kiss blood. But it was such a great gimmick though,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: you know, it obviously got them a lot of publicity.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: And there's a great news item from one of the
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: New York news stations where the reporter is really snotty
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: about us, saying very classy guys, you know, really like
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: talking down about them, saying like what a rotten publicity
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: act to some of the stunts say people do these days.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: It's nothing, you.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Know, booked one rock podcast. We'll be back after this.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: I think you'd be glad later if you weren't here now.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: John Harrison, author of Creatures of the Screen, The Uncensored
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: and Unofficial history of kissploitation on film, television, and home
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: video Me and many other Kiss fans. The band's appearance
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: on The Tomorrow Show, which aired on Halloween Night in
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, is my favorite. Not for reasons Paul
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: and Jane want it to be four. Ace steals the
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: show here. Ace was drunk guzzle champagne before the show
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: and it becomes the Tom Snyder h Freely Show. Ace
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: is just cracking jokes and you can see Paul and
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Jean just staring daggers at him, and Peter's loving it
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: because he's sick of Gene And Paul, tell me about
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: your outfits, I mean, did you design your own outfits?
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: All of you?
• 30:32
  Speaker 7: And then tell me what each outfit means?
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: And I'll start with you Ace, Well, that means self explanatory.
• 30:41
  Speaker 7: I mean, you know this is part of a kind
• 30:44
  Speaker 7: of a V shape. This is my utility belt and
• 30:46
  Speaker 7: we don't want to go any belower than my waist.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Area, because that's reserved for constant.
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: They say this, I still listen flash Cord.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: And you know I have my OK.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: But you're kind of like a spaceman.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: No, actually, I'm a plumber.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Listen, I got a little piece of pipe backstage. I'd
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: like to have you work on. Tell you about it
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: that you.
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: All sweet talker.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: There's a greednessay in your book by Andrew Graves on
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: this appearance, and he writes, well it the embarrassment doesn't
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: or shouldn't belong with Chris or Freeley. The blame for
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: the terrible atmosphere which ensues lies purely with Stanley and sentence.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: I agree. I think with Gene and Paul, the Tomorrow
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Show was a very sort of serious late night TV show.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, Tom Snyder was someone that often had politicians
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: and big political figures and real sort of intellectuals. So
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: for Gene especially and Paul, I think they saw that
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Tomorrow Show is their chance to really show the serious
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: side of Kiss, to try and show how intelligent and
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: clever they were. But unfortunately, as soon as Ace started
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: opening his message, that sort of went downhill. And I
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: think rather than go along with it and at least
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: get into the spirit of it. Gene and Paul just
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: decided to like really hunker down, and you can sort
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: of tell Gen's just really miserable and doesn't want to
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: talk about anything really exciting. There's a couple of shots
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: here which you maybe didn't catch you, you know, when you
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: first saw it live, but with the benefit of video
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: where you can pause it, you can really see Gene
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: and Paul making dagger rise towards As and Peter. And
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: there's a great moment as well when Ace makes one
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: of his jokes at the band's expense and everyone's laughing.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Even Gene and Paul are sort of trying to laugh
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: along with it as well, you know, to try and
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: show a bit of solidarity. But you can actually hear
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Peter say Andrew's breath, that's funny. You're going to pay
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: for that in the dressing room later, you know, sort
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: of said Gene and Paul are going to kill you
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: when you get back there. Look, obviously, it's become one
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: of the mythical appearances in Kiss history, and for good reason.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: It's not only funny and endearing. It shows that Kiss
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: were real people with real issues and real problems. They
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: weren't superheroes, and it was kind of like almost watching
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: the band disintegrate before your eyes, you know, being a
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: live show. And unfortunately with a lot of this stuff too.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Being a kid in Australia at the time, we didn't
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: get those shows. We never got the Tomorrow Show even
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: kissed me as the Phantom of the Park never aired
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: over here on TV. We didn't get it till they
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: re edited it and released it to cinemas here in
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine. Is Kiss in Attack of the Phantoms,
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: So I had to actually pay to go and see that,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: whereas other people to see it in America for free.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: But it became a huge hit over heah. You know,
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I played a cinemas for like about eighteen months running,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: you know, because nineteen seventy nine, Kiss suddenly became absolute
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: megastars here in Australia. I remember the Kiss Attack of
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: the Phantoms cut was still playing at cinemas here two
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: or three years later in nineteen eighty one. But the
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Tomorrow Show and things like that, Paul and Talloween special,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: you know, none of that was ed in Australia at
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: the time, so a lot of but I read about
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: I collected rock magazines like Circus and Cream in the
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: seventies and eighties, But a lot of that stuff I
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: didn't get to see until later on trading as we
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: talked about earlier, you know, trading videos at the Kiss
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: conventions and things like that was when finally got to
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: see all that stuff me. So it was interesting for
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: me as a fan to see that stuff years later
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: in hindsight rather than seeing it live. So I wonder
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: how I would have felt, you know, if I was
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: a kid in America and Kiss for my heroes, my
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: favorite band, watching the Tomorrow Show live, what would I think?
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Would I think, Yeah, go Ace is the real rock star?
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: Would I think, Oh, what's happening to my favorite band?
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: They just looked miserable. They look like they're not getting
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: on and you know they're fighting.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: But Andrew his point is it should have lightened up
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit and just rolled with it.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, it could have all had fun with it, but
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: they just made it worse by trying to pull it
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: back to something that's serious, you know, just have fun
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: with it and just.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Made themselves, just made Gene and Paul themselves look more
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: stuffy and humoralus, you know, but yeah, Andrew's piece is great.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: He's an English writer. He has a great podcast as
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: well called Tifa Terror where he invites a guest on
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: to talk about one particular horror or genre exploitation movie
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: that's influenced him. And being English as well, he's also
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: got like a unique insight into Kiss as well, because
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: you know, Kiss didn't really gain popularity in England until
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: they took off their makeup, which was kind of interesting.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: You know, Lick It Up was like their first real
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: top five album over there. And yeah, he's got a
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: great insight, but yeah, I totally agree. You know, they
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: should have just lightened up and gone with the flow
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: and it's a Dutch rook and roll, you know. But
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: there's another great interview that Kiss did just after that
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: with kn't think of the name, but now a thing
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: of it later, but they were interviewing him backstage before
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: the Dynasty concert. A starts making a couple of jokes
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: and you can sort of hear Gene and the back goes, oh,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: it's going to be another one. It was kind of
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: like thinking, oh, it's going to be another tomorrow show
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: is But there was one, yeah, with Erik Carr that
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: they did on top of the Empire State Building where
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Aces really are clowning around and clearly on something, and
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: that was actually done for the Australian TV show Countdown
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: and the lead Up as a special for the lead
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: up to the Australian Tour that year. But I think
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: with Verry Card too, he maybe brought a bit more
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: solidarity to the band as well. Whereas Ace was kind
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: of like the rowdy one. I think Peter was like
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: by the late seventies, Peter was like the miserable one.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: So I think once Eric came in, he maybe brought
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: a bit more sort of positivity towards the band, so
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: they maybe let Ace get away with a bit more.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: And also once Peter had gone, Ace didn't really have
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: the voting power that he had when Peter was in
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: the band, because you know, they were equal partners, whereas
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Eric was just a paid employee. So you know, I
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: think they were able to keep Ace under a little
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: bit more rain for a couple of years before he'd
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: finally left.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: There was a sixty minute special in nineteen eighty this
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: is interesting. It was called Super Kiss Elite April nineteen eighty.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Then they re erit early November nineteen eighty. The second
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: one makes mention of the departure of Peter Criss, and
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: on July thirtieth, nineteen eighty, Eric car is introduced to
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: American television viewer on the show Kids Are People Too.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: There's another interesting one. The show it September twenty first
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty weird.
• 37:05
  Speaker 6: Kids Are People Too are going to help Kiss welcome
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: their newest member.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: So please give a big hand for the Fox, Eric Carr.
• 37:15
  Speaker 6: Eric, how's it.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Feel now to be a member of Kiss, which is
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: none only a terrific rock group, but a phenomenon.
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: It's great, Michael, It's like a dream come true for me.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: It's kind of hard to see them in a kids
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: show and as you know, sad for older fans.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. I mean, obviously the sixty Minutes was the
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Australian sixty minutes and that was after because Kiss were
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: just basically like a cult band here in the seventies.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: You know, they had a couple of minor hits like
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: rock and Roll All Night had dented the top ten
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: and Destroyer and Alive had been briefly top twenty albums here,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: but mostly they were like a low level cult band.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: While they were superstars in America, it wasn't until Dynasty
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: and I was made for Avenue that the popularity out
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: here really broke big. And that's what resulted in Ray
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Martin from Australian Sixty Minutes flying to New York to
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: do an interview with them to cover it, because there
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: was a big controversy out here as well about Kiss
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: being dangerous to the Australian youth and devil worshipers, and
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: that's why sixty Minutes went and covered that. But yeah,
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: kids are people too. I guess they were pretty much
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: one of the only shows that were interested in covering
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: the band at that time, just because of how far
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: their popularity had fallen. And by that stage the serious
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: sort of mainstream rock magazines like Circus and Cream and
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Hit Parade are still covering them occasionally, but most of
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: the rock press had given up on them. The only
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: magazines that kissed were getting any coverage. And still we
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: were a teen mags, you know, like teen Beat and
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Tiger Beat, and I remember sixteen Magazine was one that
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: they were always in and it was always articles like
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: you know, Jane's Lonely Search for Love and all these
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: out Reich teen Love Story type scoops, and I still
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: went out and brought every issue of sixteen. You know,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I would always be embarrassed bying it because it would
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: have Matt Dillon or the Dukes of Hazard on the
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: But you know, they were the only magazine that's still
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: cover and kiss with any regularity.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Didn't People Magazine run the picture of the new lineup
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: with their content?
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that was about their only mainstream cover for
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: that year when Eric joined, and they did get the
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: cover of Circus that year as well for their anniversary issue.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: But yeah, definitely their main domain had been the teen magazines,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: and I guess as a result of that, that's why
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: they were on Kids of People too, because that was
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: pretty much their audience. And again, that was a show
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: that we never got over here. I first remember seeing
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: it in reruns when I went on my first vacation
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: to America as a kid in nineteen eighty one and
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: seeing it on TV. It came up. My mum was like,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: come on, we go on sightseeing. I'm like, no kisses
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: on TV. But we didn't come halfway around the world
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: to watch Kiss.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: A true kiss.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was kind of like even even back then,
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: I was kind of like sad just seeing all these
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: little kids screaming at him, thinking it doesn't not really
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: rock and roll, you know, unfortunately, But that period of
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Kiss is one of my favorites. Sometimes a band's period
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: when there's struggling down on their heels can be their
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: most sort of interesting and fascinating.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Oh one hundred percent. And I remember in nineteen eighty one,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: when The Elder came out, I had one friend in school.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: He was still diehard Kiss fan. He said, you got
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: to listen to he liked The Elder, or he was
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: trying to like it. I think he did. I remember
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: he recorded it for me, gave it on cassette. He
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: was among the few who were still holding on. But
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: otherwise everybody was checking out, as if you thought it
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: was bad enough when the kids are people too airs.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: But then you get The Elder and this chapter seven
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: is fascinating. It's titled The Elder. The Movie that never
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: was in nineteen eighty one. Now, I know a tour
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: was planned and scrapped, but there was to be a
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: film to go along with the.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Album that was I think the initial genesis is in
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one, Kiss were trying to decide what to
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: do next. You know, I think they were a bit
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: lost in terms of their direction. That they were trying
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: to record a back to basics rock album, but feeling
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: that the songs maybe weren't quite there. And when they
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: brought Bob as Run back into the Fall to produce
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: the new album, I think that was when Gene brought
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: up this concept that he'd come up with a movie
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: called The Elder, which was pretty much like a fairly
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: sort of basic good versus evil story in the Star
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Wars excalib a kind of mold, you know, medieval story.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: And I think once bob Ezron sort of saw that
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: idea or read that idea that Gene had had that
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: he was like initially, you know, just come up with
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: for a potential movie that had nothing to do with Kiss.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Bob Ezron was like, this is fantastic. Why don't we
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: do this as the next Kiss album? And bob Ezron
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: had just come off The Wall, which was like one
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: of the most successful concept albums of all time, the
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Pink Floyd Album, and Geene and Paul both drank the
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: kool aid, so to speak, and thought, Yep, this is
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: what we need to really impress people and impress the critics,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: I guess was their plan with that album. They probably
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: figured they also had nothing to lose since their last
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: albm Unmastered, pretty much bombed in America. But yeah, I
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: mean over here, Kiss were like the biggest thing in
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: music in nineteen eighty and even over here by the
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: time The Elder came out a brief I think it
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: reached number eleven on the charts in Australia, so it
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: was one of the few places where it actually charted,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: but within a month that had just totally gone, whereas
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: Dynasty was top five for like no nearly two years running.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: So even in Australia, you know, the Older pretty much
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: just totally sunk their career. But you know, I was
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: like your friend, I was still a fan in nineteen
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: eighty one. I still had a few sort of friends
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: as well that were eager for it, and I think
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: The Older pretty much killed off most of the remaining
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: fan base over here for a while. But I always
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: liked it. I thought it was an interesting concept. Thankfully,
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: I always had an open mind to all different kinds
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: of music, you know, I wasn't just like it's got
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: to be a heavy metal or nothing. I loved music soundtracks.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: I love Frank Zappa and the Cramps and sixties seventies stuff,
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: so I always had an open ear to all music.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: So while I was a bit disappointed that Kiss didn't
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: come back with the full pard rock album that they'd
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: been promising the year before, I still thought, well, this
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: is really interesting, and I think when you listen to
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: it with an open mind, certainly the musicianship is fantastic
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: and the production there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: think the general consensus is correct that it's not a
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: bad album. It's just not a good Kiss album, and
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: it certainly wasn't a good Kiss album for the time
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: when they needed perhaps a good, strong, straightforward rock album
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: just to try and get back some of that hardcore
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: fan base that had deserted and marked a dynasty and unmaked.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: You wonder what might have happened, how their career might
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: have gone if they did come back with a hard
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: rock album.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Who knows, but I think you summed it up perfectly.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I think the album as a whole takes a hit,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: but it's unfair to criticize every song on the album
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: because there's some really good stuff on there. Like you say,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: the production's really solid. If they had used some of
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: those songs just for a straight ahead Kiss album, I
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: think they would have come off great, Like the Oath
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: dark Light Light.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably my favorite track, fantastic Ace really solo on it,
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: just blistering.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Escape from the Island, mister Blackwell. I there's some really
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: good songs on there, but as a whole yeah, I
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: think the whole concept thing was just a little too
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: much to take a little too.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think I was really well thought out.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: There was always a famous story about when they first
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: played the album for the record execs, they put them
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: in a room and insisted that everyone's not talk and
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: just listened to it because they all thought they were
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: going to be exposed to brilliance. I'd love to be
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: a fly on that wall and just see the record
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: company's faces as the album went on, because I think
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: initially the original track listing started off with fanfare of
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: the ballot and then that operatic song that Paul did Odyssey.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: That's now the order that we hear on streaming services
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: and the re release it's.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, And they replaced the original order when they
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: did the remasters CD in the in the nineties.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine the look on their face. You got
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: a kidding right, you're kidding right, all right, bring in
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: the realizing.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: I found some memos from the Australian record company at
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: the time PolyGram over here had sent to Bill o'coin
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: saying this is absolutely not what Australian Kiss fans were
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: hoping to hear from the band, and almost imploring them
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: to just can the album altogether and just get back
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: into the studio. And I think there was also like
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: another memo from the Australian record company saying the best
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: thing to do for us it would be to just
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: put out a compilation Oldman, use a couple of the
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: tracks from the new album, like Oath and the Eye,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: just to fill it out. But Kiss didn't want anything
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: to do with that. They would convince that they had
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: a masterpiece on their hands, and unfortunately it didn't pan
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: out that way. But as you mentioned, there was a
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: script written, a feature script that no one's ever really
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: been able to read. There was only one copy of
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: it known to exist, which Gene had and which got
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: sold off at the Kiss auction at Butterfields in the
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: early two thousands. And I think the guy that brought it,
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: he said he read it himself and didn't really get
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: much out of it, but it would still be a
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: fascinating document to read. The way the album bomb, there
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: was no way any film company was ever going to
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: be interested in producing it, certainly as a feature film.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: The most I could have thought of is maybe it
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: might have done like a one hour TV special or something.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: But even that, I think The Old Man reached something
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: like number seventy five in America, So it was just
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: totally dead in the water. And I just think it
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: was just a strange concept for them to undertake. You know,
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: even if they did a tour like how do you
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Mix Songs from the Elder with Rock and Roll All
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: Night and Detroit Rock City. The plans for the tour,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: the stage shet were pretty bizarre as well. They were
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: going to have like all these figures in medieval roads
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: and like a well of something that was going to
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: be like a something like that. There was going to
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: be some sort of like invasion of killer bees or
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: something on stage which they were going to use by
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: rear projections.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Oh man, Yeah, it would have.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Been a total spinal tap. But I'd still love to
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: see it get done though, you know, I guess we
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: can look back on it too with a bit more
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: sort of humor and acceptance because we see now that
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: you know, the band did recover and re establish themselves,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: whereas at the time after that Oldum came out and
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: after Creatures as well came out and just totally bombed.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: I was like, well, I think that's the end of Kiss,
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: you know, I can't see where they're going to go
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: from here. So there was a real fear and expect
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: that yet they're on their last lege, they're just dead
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: and buried. All these new bands Van Haylen and Motley
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: Crue and ACDC that'll just totally overtaken them. And especially
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: back then, you just didn't see bands really come back
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: like that. Once your popularity dive, that was it was
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: over for you.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Booked on Rock Podcasts, we'll be back after this, Oh Jack,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: time a lunch. Hey, guys, thanks so much for checking
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: out the bookd on Rock podcast. If you've just found
• 47:29
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• 47:32
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• 47:35
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• 47:38
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• 47:41
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• 47:44
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• 47:50
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• 47:53
  Speaker 1: the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
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  Speaker 1: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: to the show, we get to nineteen eighty three and
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: they make that decision to take the makeup off. That
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: is on MTV September eighteenth, nineteen eighty three. It's four
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: days before the album Lick It Up is released, but
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: it's on the same day as the single, the title track,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: was released. And you write in the book quote, While
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: it would have seemed like a brave and daring, creative
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: decision for Kiss to drop the makeup just a few
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: years earlier, by nineteen eighty three, it was a move
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: born more out of desperation than anything else.
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: This is a really big moment, after ten years together,
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: exclusively here on MTV this evening, we're going to see
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: Kiss without their makeup for the very first time, very
• 48:40
  Speaker 6: first time out. How does it feel? Not without makeup,
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: appearing for the very first time.
• 48:45
  Speaker 7: It feels good. It feels We've always been close to
• 48:48
  Speaker 7: our fans. In fact, in a lot of the shows,
• 48:52
  Speaker 7: we'd walk out into the crowd to sort of get
• 48:53
  Speaker 7: a feel of what everybody was feeling like, and most
• 48:56
  Speaker 7: often they really wouldn't know it was us. So we've
• 48:59
  Speaker 7: always felt closer, and I think it's time for them
• 49:01
  Speaker 7: to sort of know us a little bit more. It
• 49:04
  Speaker 7: feels very very comfortable. I mean, I hope it seems
• 49:07
  Speaker 7: that way. I feel fine about it.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Well, I see, it feels great.
• 49:11
  Speaker 6: I mean, to me, it doesn't feel all that different
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: because I've seen these guys more often without makeup than
• 49:16
  Speaker 6: I have with makeup.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: That appearance was huge for them.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: They had to do it, Yeah, even though it wasn't
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: the period where Kiss would have got the most exposure
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: and the biggest publicity taking off their makeup would have
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: been in seventy eight seventy nine. By nineteen eighty three
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: they could barely get arrested. There was only two original
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: members left, and pretty much any die hard fans had
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: already seen photos of them without makeup. By that point,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: you know, there'd been a few paparazzi shots that had
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: captured Jeane and Paul out with their days. They might
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: have been hiding a little bit of their faces, but
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of the mestique had already been
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: gone by that point.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: And yeah, the handkerchief of them, you have a handkerchief, the.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Menus and tickets. Yeah, but you know, I think there
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: was still like a for MTV to which was of
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: at the height of their power. Really, MTV were just huge.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: That was the place to be if you're a rock
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: band in nineteen eighty three, and Kiss really struggled to
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: get on MTV during their first couple of years. You know,
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: they weren't really interested in the band. Even the Kiss
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: unmasking I think took place like at eleven o'clock at
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: night on MTV, whereas a few years earlier probably would
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: have been in prime time. But you know, it still
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: did its job. It definitely helped kickstart the album and
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: it gave them a new lease of life, and it's fantastic.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it was the one ace they
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: still had up their sleeve to try and get a
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: bit of momentum going, and it probably helped that they
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: had a great album under their belt with Lick It Up.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: It's definitely one of their strongest albums I thought certainly
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: worked for them to a degree. It didn't put them
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: back on the top of the ladder, but it still
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: I think Lick It Up when top twenty in America
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: went gold and eventually probably platinum, if not more by
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: these days. Lick It Up became a pretty popular single
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: on MTV and the video was kind of funny as
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: well as in the way it's sort of influenced by
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: the post apocalyptic movies that were so popular around that time,
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: like Mad Max two and Escaped from New York. So
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: that was another part of the whole interest in me
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: doing the book was seeing the type of movies and
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: TV shows that also influenced and inspired their music videos,
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: and the whole post apocalyptic theme was pretty popular amongst
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: my metal bands back then. You know, Motley Krue did
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: similar things with a couple of their videos, and.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: It set the stage for a decade that they were
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: able to maintain their status as a player in the game.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: They never hit single off of each album, they had
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: a video on MTV that did well, and you know,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: the child.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: Might at least gold, you know, occasionally platinum like Animalized.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: You know, they did Heavens on Fire. So yeah, they
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: certainly weren't up there with the top heavy metal rock bands.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: But certainly for a band that were over ten years
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: into their career, they weren't doing bad. And I think
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: also a lot of its perception as well. Even if
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: you go back to the seventies when Kiss were at
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: the height of their popularity, you know, they were never
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: like the biggest selling band in America like Fleetwood Mac
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: and the Eagles and the Rolling Stones. They sold way
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: more albums and Kiss did and played way more tours
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: and Kiss did you know? Kiss were popular, But that
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: was their whole genius in terms that they were able
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: to market themselves to make you think that they were
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: the biggest band in the world. They were huge, they
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: just but there was a lot of bands that were bigger. Now.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: They've never had that album like bon Jovi had Slippery,
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: when Wet and ac DC had Back in Black and
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Motley Crue had Doctor Feel Good. Kiss had never had
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: that one studio album that just went gangbusters and sold
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: five or six million albums. But what they did have
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: was a career of constantly selling one or two million
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: records and constantly playing five to ten thousand people to night.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: So that's a career I would have been happy with
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: as a rock musician.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Peter and Ees they didn't have the best decade.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: And there's this surreal moment in kisstory, which is in
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: eighteen ninety one, February fifth, ninety one the Donahue Show,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: and the show is titled Celebrity impostor talk about what
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: we see here.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety one, the story came out that Peter Chris,
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: who had pretty much disappeared after he left Kiss. He'd
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: done a couple of solo albums in the first couple
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: of years that did nothing, and then he pretty much
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: just laid low. You know. He was married and I
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: guess had a kid and was just living off his
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: fame that he had amassed. But yeah, by nineteen ninety one,
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: the story came out that he'd pretty much lost all
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: of his money and was now an alcoholic and living
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: under a peer in Santa Monica. And I remember first
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: hearing about it on MTV Australia. They did a story
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: where the host guy called Richard Wilcoms, came out and said, oh,
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: We've got a story coming up about original Kiss drummer
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Peter Chris, who's not a very well boy. At the moment,
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what's going on? And then yeah, he sort
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: of obviously the Star newspaper story or The Empire or
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: whatever newspaper it was that was covering it had just
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: come out, and the story was that he'd basically blown
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: through all his money. He had become destitute and an alcoholic.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: And Tom Arnold from the Roseanne Show, who'd been married
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: to Roseanne and was a big Kiss fan as a kid,
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: actually read the story and traveled to Santamoni to try
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: and find him to see if he could help out.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: And the Donnaue Show again, I just happened to We
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: did get the Donnau Show out here at the time,
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: and that showed up. I think it played at like
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: midday over here, and I used to just tune in
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: to see what the subject was going to be every day.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: And I just tuned in one day and Yep, it
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: was like the Kiss episode. And I was like, Holy,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: you know, they're covering a Donnyu's covering out. That's a
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: big story.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: Not only is this imposters show up, but there's Peter.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: He comes walking on like we haven't seen this guy
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: in the longest time, and.
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: There he is rock superstar. Here's the lead rock superstar.
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: Peter Cress, the former drummer for Kiss, is a hopeless
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: alcoholic living a pathetic existence on the streets of Santa Monica, California.
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: I lost it all, Chris told Star, revealing his pitiful
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: flight for the first time. I blew all the money
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: on cars, hotels, people in bad investments. We were on
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: the top, We were the biggest. May I ask you
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: now to kindly welcome the real Peter Chris.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: Never met 'em.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: How you doing?
• 55:07
  Speaker 7: Why could you impersonate like the low Ranger or uh
• 55:10
  Speaker 7: tno or something like that.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I sure you really give me a rocky time.
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: You wanna you wanna say something to Peter?
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: You're sorry?
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: Yes, the stars takes your picture And did they say
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: they were from a star?
• 55:25
  Speaker 7: No?
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: They didn't.
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: Uh.
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: I was in a uh food line waiting for some food.
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: It uh In Santa Monica they give out hot food
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: and this writer and photographer came up to me. I
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: just didn't think anything of it. They were taking pictures
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: of few other people too, and after maybe twenty shots,
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: thirty shots. You know, they said we'd be interested in,
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: uh doing a story, and I was so totally out
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: of it at that time. I was very sick at
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: a dema and kidney and liver problems.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: Uh huh.
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: And what they offer you five hundred bucks.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was around the time his own mum was
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: sick and dying from cancer. And that's why he didn't
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: come out to dispute it at the time, because he
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: was he had no idea all this was going on.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: You know, he was more preoccupied and concerned with just
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: being by his mother's bedside. But you're correct. It was
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: just such a bizarre moment in history to see them
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: both there confronting each other and such a bizarre, strange
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: story like Arnold drummer from Kisson.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Tom Arnold's there.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: And I fort having sadly the impersonator I believe died
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: several years later. He clearly had some addiction issues and
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: possibly mental health issues as well, So yeah, I think
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: he was definitely manipulated in it, But at the same
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: time he also went along with it. Well, yeah, I
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: guess when you're desperate and homeless and an alcoholic, you'll
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: do whatever it takes to get your next drink and
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: refavor you ahead for a couple of nights.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Booked on Rock podcasts will be back after this.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: Don't go away, gentlemen, we may need all of you.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: Find the bookdown Rock website at bookdown rock dot com.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
• 57:27
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• 57:30
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• 57:36
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• 57:57
  Speaker 1: You do cover the nineties Kiss, which is of course,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: you got the big reunion in ninety six. You cover
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: the MTV Unplugged appearance. You cover the Kiss appearing at
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: the Grammy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium, full makeup. That's
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: when Tupac introduced them, so you got all that in there.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: Of course, the film Detroit Rock City nineteen ninety nine.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: That you have the chapter on the film career of
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: Gene Simmons. You cover the Kiss documentaries, interviews with key figures,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: and kisstory, but let's finish with the Kiss influence. This
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: chapter takes a look at some of the more interesting
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: and memorable examples of our Kiss ploitation infiltrated projects, which
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: in most cases had no connection or affiliation with the
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: band itself. Talk about some of the entries, maybe some
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: of the stand up ones for you in this chapter.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Linda Carter paying tribute to Kiss as a trip. That's
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: a great one.
• 58:43
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: That was definitely one of the elements of the book
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: that I really enjoyed researching and writing, and it was
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: one of the things that when I first got the
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: idea for doing the book, I was thinking. I caught
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: a rerun of the famous Chips episode from nineteen eighty
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: two Halloween. Donnie Mose, who played ralph An Happy Days,
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: plays a controversial gothic lamb rockstar called Moloch who has
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: very gene like makeup and breeze fire and sings a
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: song called Devil Take Me. And I remember watching that
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: and thinking, Wow, this is even more Kiss inspired than
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: I remembered it. Then I also remembered I remember there
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: was an old episode a Scooby Doo that had a
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: Kiss like character as the villain, so I rewatched that online,
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: and then I started finding other little shows that Kiss
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: had obviously been an inspiration on. So that's what really
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: helped me solidify the approach to the book. And one
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: of the earliest was that Scooby Doo episode from nineteen
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: seventy seven called The Diabolical dis Demon, where the game
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: go to visit a friend who's a musician in a
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: recording studio and turns out there's some typical Scooby Doo story,
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: there's a phantom that's haunting the record studio, but it
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: turns out to just be a guy who's trying to
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: hide the fact that he's stealing albums from the studio
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: and selling him on the street.
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: But the monster, and it's called the Diabolical diss Demon
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: and is very much like a g. Simmons character, with
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: the Gene Simmons makeup and the costume he's got him.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: I was very reminiscent of a Israel Is Hotter than
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: Hell outfit. So that's a really interesting early piece of
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: kiss Flutation. And then there was a love Boat from
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine where one of the characters played by
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: Sonny Bono, a rock star called Dick and Dark who
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: again has the full white face makeup and does the
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: whole show with explosions and volg and he's also a
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: bit inspired Ballist Cooper as well, I guess because he's
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: got a pet Boa Constrictor, so you can sort of
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: see an Alice Cooper influence in there. But I always
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: thought that was interesting as well, being it was Sonny
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: Bono and early nineteen seventy nine, it's kind of around
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: the same time that Gene was dating his real life
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: ex wife Cher, so I kind of wonder whether Sunny
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Bono took on that role to try and show share
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: see I can be just as good as Gene Simmons,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: you know, just just good. So there was that. There
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: was also like an episode of Benson from nineteen seventy nine.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: Can you remember that sitcom?
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: Ben's one of my time favorite shows. I can't remember
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: this episode and I've seen everyone, but it's.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: One of the very first ones. I think might have
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: been like maybe the second or third episode where you
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: had the daughter in the show defires the dad's orders
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: and sneaks off to see Kiss with their friend and
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: gets into a lot of trouble. So that was another
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: one that even though Kiss didna appearing, they were still
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: part of the narrative of the show. There was an
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: episode of The Incredible Hulk where Mackenzie Phillips, the daughter
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: of the Mummas and Puppa's John Phillips, plays again another
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: rock star that has a very Kiss like appearance and
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: very kiss like show with a lot of spark machines,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: and the Hulk ends up getting up on stage at
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: the end to save her because she plans to commit
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: suicide on stage because she's depressed. And that's got a
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: lot of nice Kiss references as well, when she goes
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: and visits Fan in the hospital and the fan says, Oh,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: you know, you look so different with that your makeup.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: I always wondered what you would look like. And actually
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: the night that I first aired, Kiss were on their
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: Dynasty tour, and I remember they called in to do
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: a radio interview in the city they were playing in
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: the next day, as and Paul start talking about Oh,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: Kiss were on TV tonight we're on The Incredible Hulk.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: You know, there was a real kiss like bands, so
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: they were obviously in their hotel room watching the show.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: So that was kind of fun. And there was just
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: so much stuff that came out that did sort of
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: riff on Kiss. You know, you get into the nineties,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: there was an episode of Homicide Life on the Street
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: about a guy from Turkey who's over visiting a friend
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: in America and they're going to a kiss party. He's
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: dressed up as Gene Simmons and goes knocking on the
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: wrong door thinking that's where the party is, and this
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: guy answers and he just does because he can't speak
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: English and he's got Gene Simmons makeup on. He's just
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: sort of ranting in Turkish and the guy shoots him.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: Was the guy that shot the fan dead? Was he
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: right in doing that in defending his territory or did
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: he show too much force? But that was a really interesting,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: more serious sort of angle. And you know, you look
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: at the Millennium TV episode that Kiss Themselves appeared on
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: and it's just really endless. I'm sure there's probably a
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff out there that still to be discovered
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: because you'll look at stuff from different countries as well
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: that get to surface.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: Great research on this. There is one there's a Saturday
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Night Live episode where this is from the original seventies cast.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, John Belushi is the doorman the Dormis show and
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: the fans are trying to get in. Yeah, I think
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: Art Garfuncle turns up. He said he parachuted in for
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: the show, says he's like, I think he pretends that
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: he's Paul Stanley's brother, and I think it's dan Ackroyd
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: that comes out in the end as Gene Simmons and
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: sort of you know, scares them all the way. But
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: that was about the closest Kiss ever got to being
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: on Saturday Night Low because I don't think Lawn Michaels
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: was a fan of the band, So you know, that
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: was pretty much as close as they got to being
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: covered on that show. Kind Of like Rolling Stone, you know,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: they were both like very anti Kiss for some reason.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: I think they maybe were a bit too high brow
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: or thought Kiss for a bit too you know, beneath them,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: but stupid. It was stupid when Erek Carr died and
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: Rolling Stone didn't even mention it. You know, I think
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: that's when they revealed that they're obviously just totally biased
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: because totally ignore the death of a musician, a rock musician.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: They played on multiple gold and platinum albums and two
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: of the world for ten years with one of the
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: biggest bands, and Rolling Stone don't even mention their death
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: where they would mention the death of any other bit
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: part musician normally. You know, I think they just really
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: showed their bias and it made them look bad.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: The fans will love this book. Creatures of the Screen,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: The Uncensored and Unofficial History of Kissploitation and film, television
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: and home video. The book is out now find it
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: wherever books are sold. You can look forward at your
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: nearest bookstore. If you want to find your nearest independent
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: book store, you can go to book on rock dot com.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: And if they don't have a copy, there as and
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: we get one. And where can people find you online?
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: John, I'm on Facebook at cost you can always do
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: a search there. I've got a blogger as well as
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: sin Street Sleeves which has all my writings, or just
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: Jharrison blogspot dot com. The book itself can be barded
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: by bear manor or the publisher, so barmanormedia dot com,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: also on Amazon and as you mentioned, you know, other retailers,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: and hopefully I'll be doing some book signings coming up
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: locally in Melbourne for people who are local and got
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: a plan to do a bit of a proper launch
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: for the book at one of the big cinemas here,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: or I'm going to do a bit of a clip
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: and tell and show some of the clips from some
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: of the shows I talk about in the book and
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: then have a secret screening. So yeah, I'm not sure
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: what I'm going to screen at this point, but yeah,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: there'll be a few fun things, so yeah, anyone local
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: and obviously will hopefully film that as well and upload
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: that for people to watch that can't be there.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: John Harrison, thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: Thanks Eric, appreciate it. Pleasure. That's it.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: It's in the books.