Only a couple available!
Very cool poster on Metallic Paper. Hard to see in the photos but looks amazing in person. Ace signed a few of these for us in a private signing in Jersey City, NJ in July 2021. Measures 13 x 19 inches. Photo does not do this print justice. Includes our Certificate of Authenticity. Fun fact. When signing this Ace told the story that this was the night of his bachelor party.
Remember the hair metal craze of the late 1980s? Well, there was a reason each of those bands almost invariably included an earnest ballad on their albums, usually with the intent of releasing it as a single. They’d seen the examples of so many of their hard-rocking predecessors, who often enjoyed their biggest commercial success when they slowed it down a bit.
For example, KISS, known for their crunching, unrelenting rock anthems, made their highest incursion into the pop charts with the tender “Beth” in 1976. Here’s how the song came to life and, almost against the band’s intent, turned into such a big smash.
Before he was a member of KISS, Peter Criss, the band’s drummer, was in a short-lived New York City group known as Chelsea. One of the other members, Mike Brand, had a wife named Becky. And Becky wasn’t all that crazy about the way that Chelsea practiced to all hours of the night.
It got to the point Criss and fellow Chelsea member Stan Penridge wrote a song mocking the calls this woman made to the studio in almost nonstop fashion. They never recorded the song with Chelsea. But years later, Criss, wanting to add something of his own creation to the KISS album Destroyer, brought the song to the band.
It’s at this point in the story we should inject the details behind the creation of “Beth” have been in dispute pretty much since the song became a hit. Penridge has maintained the version of the story told above, while Criss has claimed his loneliness about behind away from his then-wife Lydia inspired it. (Lydia has also claimed to have helped with some of the lines in the song.)
Meanwhile, both Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, who were generally in charge of the writing for the bulk of KISS’ material, have denied Criss had much at all to do with the writing, suggesting Penridge was largely the writer of the original version. Keep in mind that relations between Criss and that duo have long been strained, so it’s difficult to know where the truth exactly lies.
What is certain is that Bob Ezrin, who had gained fame working with Alice Cooper and produced Destroyer, also served as a catalyst for the song’s success, helping with the lyrics and devising the lush orchestral score that would back up Criss’ vocal performance. (Approximately 19 people have claimed credit for changing the song title from “Beck” to “Beth,” so it’s perhaps best we don’t get too far into that.)
“Beth” found its way onto Destroyer to give Criss a showcase, and the band snuck it on as the B-side to “Detroit Rock City,” the third single released from the album. But a funny thing happened: DJs locked onto “Beth” and started playing it in favor of the A-side. KISS realized the opportunity and flipped the two songs in a rerelease, and it led to “Beth” hitting No. 7 on the charts.