The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
By: Ken Mac Vicar

Greetings fellow KISS Asylum devotees and contributors. I hope my article will be as entertaining and insightful as the ones which have already been posted. I wanted to contribute to this feature since its inception but never found the time, and now I'm happy I did not. My original thoughts involved a defense of the non-makeup years, and why I thought "Unplugged" was their finest hour. I'm sure I've lost credibility with many of you after that statement, but please bear with me. In reading all the recent criticisms of KISS, many of which I totally agree with, a new thought dawned upon me. What we are currently seeing and criticizing is unfortunately nothing new, it's all happened to KISS once before, specifically the post Destroyer period.

Now believe it or not, I was, am, and will always be a huge KISS fan. Like many of you I was turned on to the band at an early age, eight, when an older friend brought over a copy of KISS Alive! I even grew up in the same neighborhood as Ace. His dad used to go into my mother's bank, and gave me my first autograph. I even went to see two of Ace's wrecks on the Bronx River Parkway, the 2nd & 3rd ones specifically. I admit to straying a little during the "Unmasked" & "Elder" years, but gladly rediscovered them on "Lick It Up". I loved the eighties (gasp!!!), and saw them at least five times during that period. The Reunion Tour was fantastic, despite the "limited" set list, and the "Psycho Circus" tour, which I saw for free, was fair to middling at best. If I had paid the suggested ticket prices for it I probably would have said it sucked.

So now you're saying, let's get to the point pal. Well here goes. There are a lot of people complaining that the focus of this band is not on their music anymore, and rightfully so. The band seems more concerned about the merchandising, the visual aspects of the show, and simply trying to be the biggest band in the land. Well those all sound pretty familiar -- I believe they also happened around 1979, when the original lineup first started to lose credibility. In my opinion, the music was the last priority during that time, sadly, as it is now. I was too young to attend a show in the 70's, so I base my opinion on footage I've seen, as well as the two live albums. On any compilation or bootleg tape I've seen, the pre Destroyer and Destroyer era performances are vastly superior to anything that followed. The vocals are all excellent, and the band is tight and focused. Gene is more concerned with singing than spitting blood/fire, and Paul is more concerned about singing and playing than dancing and prancing. The post "Rock & Roll Over" shows are pretty weak, the vocals for the most part are strained and the playing is sub par. Now, I realize this is a generalization. I did not see every show during that period, and people have off nights. The disparity between the two periods for me though is startling, and that was always this band's strength, live performances. Secondly, "Alive" is a vastly superior record to "Alive II", and the first one was actually live, they couldn't even pull a second live record.

Now we all know the stories of Ace & Peter, at least from Gene and Paul's point of view, and much of what KISS was lacking at they point may be attributable to them to some degree. That said, I think the real problem in this band was ego, in particular Gene's, though no one is blameless. These egos trips were epitomized in the solo albums, and even on "Dynasty" which I happen to love. "Dynasty" is not the work of a band, but four individuals doing their own thing musically. Take a listen to the "White Album" for comparison's sake. It seems that all four members began to believe their own hype, and we the fans suffered for it. What most people consider their next good record, "Creatures", was recorded when they were again hungry, and basically starting over. Thankfully for me, the eighties came along, and albums like "Animalize", "Asylum", and "Hot in the Shade" made me a bigger KISS fan than I was before. What can I say, I was always a Paul fan anyway.

So, I think we've seen this all before, and perhaps we were too young, too frenzied, or just too blind to notice the symptoms 20 years ago. That said, maybe it is and was too much to ask for four kids from New York City not to let everything go to their heads. Given the fame, adulation, and monetary rewards, could any of us say we would have handled it any better?

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