I was in the sixth grade the first time I ever heard of KISS. Again, this was one of those times where I heard the name in passing, but I would not hear the music until sometime much later.
There was this kid named Parker Wilson that had long hair, something still a bit taboo for grade-schoolers, and he always wore cool clothes. He had the big flare bell bottoms like the older teenagers wore, cool jackets, and these killer boots. I would become friends with him a year or two later, but right now, he was the new kid, and he was ahead of his time.
I was becoming painfully aware of my awkwardness at this point. I shot up like a weed over the past year, and I was all bony arms and legs. I couldn't find a pair of pants that fit, and I even learned how to let out the hem in my jeans because I had been accused of wearing high waters on more than one occasion.
"What's the matter, Simmons? Expecting a flood?"
"Too bad your pants are so high, Mikey, we can see your cheapo Zayre buddy boy tennis shoes! HAHAHA! Why don't you get some Converse, buddy?"
The "buddy" was sneered mockingly sometimes.
"Nice buddies, buddy!"
Apparently, there were two things cool kids didn't do. They didn't wear high waters, and they didn't wear cheap, off-brand, "buddy" tennis shoes.
I hated my high waters and buddies. It wasn't like we were poor or anything, but my pleas for Converse and bell bottoms were ignored. I was left to wallow in my insecurity, doomed, and scarred for life. I blame my demise into the worship of Knights In Satan's Service (KISS) on this very thing. I would make them pay! All of them! The kids who made fun of me and my cheap parents!
Not really.
The very first time I saw a picture of KISS, it didn't really phase me. Parker had a cutout magazine picture of the cover of their first album. He came into class one morning, all excited talking about this band that his big sister liked, and he was stoked about KISS. I looked at the picture, it was just their faces, and I thought to myself: "Huh. There's no way Ritchie Blackmore would paint his face up like a clown."
I didn't give KISS another thought, I needed to find Curtis anyway. We had figured out how to make each other pass out by hyperventilating, and holding our breath while bear-hugging the other dude from behind. Pass outs were the shit! They felt good, but you didn't get sick and trip out like you did sniffing gasoline...LOL. Our sixth-grade class actually met in a converted gym with a stage, and there were wrestling mats back behind the curtain on stage. We would sneak up there and do pass-outs when we had free time. It was great! When you passed out, and the other guy let go, you could just fall, face first, on the mats, and not break your nose.
The summer between seventh and eighth grade was the last summer I would not be obsessed with rock-n-roll 24/7 for a long time.
I still played baseball that summer, made out with girls, smoked a little weed in the woods, rode my bike, read books about military aircraft, and even played some golf with my own clubs Paw Paw had gotten for me. Life was not bad at all, but I was kind of coasting through as any thirteen-year-old would. I had no cares really, and I had no mission, why would I?
Junior high was way different. Not only was there the whole "this is not grade school, this is Jr High" head trip, I was being bussed from Edge-O-Lake to Donelson about ten miles away. The first year at Donelson Junior High, seventh grade, really sucked ass. I couldn't stand it, but I didn't really bitch about it too much. Dad was working the graveyard shift, shit at home was kind of weird, and he and mom were in a rough patch, it seemed. I was doing my best not to be noticed. By the time eighth grade rolled around, I had a whole new set of issues, mostly sparked by my transition into puberty. I wasn't looking forward to my second year at Donelson.
I had a void inside me, and I did not know how to fill it.
There was a kid named Jeff Rivers, who was in homeroom with me. Mr. Hemphill's science class was the bright spot of the day, but having him as my homeroom teacher was a double bonus because I got to see him twice a day. He was a cool black guy with an impressive afro, and he dressed hip. He had a great attitude, was always upbeat and positive, cracking jokes and shit, and he made science fun and exciting.
One fall morning, I came in, and Jeff was staring at a double album fold-out at his desk. He was mesmerized. It was strange that a kid would have an album open at his desk, looking at it. Seeing this rock-n-roll artifact on a school desktop seemed counter-intuitive for some reason. The class had not begun yet, and all the kids were still settling in.
He just sat there, staring at it.
What the fuck was he looking at?
Mr. Hemphill started calling the roll.
I was craning my neck over now to try and see just what the hell was on that album. I couldn't make it out.
Mr. Hemphill blew through the roll call, coming to the Rs.
"Rivers!" Mr. Hemphill bellowed. No answer.
"Rivers!" Louder. "Mr. Rivers, has that music impaired your hearing, son?"
"Huh? Oh! Here!" Jeff replied as if he was just awakened from a trance.
"What have you got there, Rivers? The new Mouseketeer's album?" Mr. Hemphill asked, smiling sarcastically. The class laughed.
"Uh, no, sir. It's the new KISS live album. It's a double album!" Jeff said proudly.
"Kiss? You mean the Parliament-Funkadelic of rock-n-roll?" Mr. Hemphill snorted. "Well, put it away, Rivers. I know school may not capture the imagination like KISS, but it's time for class."
There they were again... KISS. A double album? The only double album I knew of at the time was Made In Japan, a live album by Deep Purple. I saved up my allowance and yard mowing money to buy it a while back. It was my prized possession, even though I was burned out on it, and not listened as much lately. I did like live albums though, the crowd noise made it feel like you were there. I had never been to a concert, one of the mysterious gatherings of rock music fans I'd heard so much about, and could not wait to experience. (I was told that would not be happening anytime soon. Thanks, Mom.) I would have to talk to Jeff Rivers about this KISS album, at lunch.
I couldn't find Jeff at lunch, and other pressing shit probably came up, like going over to Shane Williams' after school, He said he had the new Playboy, with full bush!
I forgot about KISS again.
A few weeks later, we went on one of our monthly trips to Harding Mall. After Baskin Robbins, we had some time to kill while mom went to Cain Sloan. You know where Paulie and I headed. Port-O-Call was calling our name! We didn't have any money and were not on the hunt for anything in particular, but flipping through albums was the shit man! We could usually get from A to Z in the rock section, in thirty to forty-five minutes.
Paulie started at Z, and I started at A, our routine. We would flip through and meet in the middle unless something caught our eye. If so, one of us would call the other over. This was so much more fun than scrolling through Itunes, but I digress.
I saw a couple of new things, but nothing that really made me stop. H ... I ... J ... K. KISS.
Hmmm. I don't remember ever seeing KISS in here before.
I flipped the plastic divider forward, and there it was.
Even in the shadows, the images from the cover of KISS Alive! grabbed me by the collar, and said:
"HEY, KID! LOOK AT ME!"
I was compelled to pick it up.
I was immediately drawn to Gene Simmons. His pose on the cover of Alive! is fucking classic.
The boots, the spikes, the studded black leather, the lights, the smoke, and that... face.
The look on his demon painted face, as he held his bass like a samurai sword, infected me immediately. The Gene on the cover of the first album from Parker's picture was not the same Gene, which beckoned me from the cover of Alive!.
"Paul! Come here!" I whispered. He walked over, with his big curious blue eyes.
I showed him the album. His eyes got bigger, and we both gazed at it with wonder.
"Wowwwww! Mannnnn!" He said, reaching out to touch it.
Yep, It got him too. I'm telling you that fucker had magic power.
Interestingly, neither of us commented on the fact that we had never really heard of KISS, or ever wondered what the music sounded like. It's as if we both knew we were supposed to have this record, no questions asked.
"She will never let you buy that, Mike."
He may have had a point, but in my mind, there was no way I was leaving that store without KISS, Alive!.
The job I did on mom to get that record, would have gone down in the history book of Promises Sons Made To Get Shit They Want From Their Moms if such a thing existed.
We walked out of Port-O-Call, triumphant, and excited as hell.
When we got home, Paulie had to go somewhere else. I can't remember where, but I know he wasn't happy about it. I felt bad for him, I really did, but there was no way I was waiting for him to get back, to open this record. I had to see and hear what was inside this album, and it was going to be now! He would have done the same thing.
The first thing I remember after peeling the plastic off and opening the double album fold-out was the smell. The ink they used had a scent that I will never forget. It smelled awesome, It smelled like fucking rock-n-roll! There was a booklet inside with badass live concert shots. There were personal handwritten notes from each band member to the fans on the left side of the fold-out, and pictures of their three previous albums on the right. It was almost too much for my thirteen-year-old senses. They were like nothing I'd ever seen before.
The menacing bat demon, Gene, on lead vocals and bass.
The rock-n-roll star-child, Paul, on lead vocals and guitar.
The tripped-out space Ace, on guitar.
The ferocious feline Peter, on drums.
There was blood, there was fire, there was smoke. There was tongue!
At this point, they probably could have sounded like rhinoceros farts, and I would have loved it. The infection was spreading.
I had the living room to myself. I turned the stereo up to stun, banged the needle down, and held my breath as the crowd noise filled the room. Dad had these killer speakers, designed and built by this friend of his named Lee, who was some kind of aircraft engineer. They were four feet tall, by one foot wide, triangle-shaped, folded horn, affairs. They had varnished wood backs, and this blue-green sparkle fabric covering the speaker part. They looked wild, and they fucking cranked!
"YOU WANTED THE BEST, AND YOU GOT THE BEST ... THE HOTTEST BAND IN THE LAND ... KISSSSSSS!"
I probably heard that intro a thousand times after that, but the first time was the best.
There was a kind of smallish sounding guitar line that was the first thing I heard. It was the opening riff of Deuce, one of the top five opening songs of all time. The riff was okay, but what came next is one of the best things in rock music: The Gene Simmons bass slide.
BUHHHHWHOOOOOMMMM!
When the groove to Deuce kicked in, I knew I had struck pure, 14 karat, rock-n-roll gold.
"Get Uuuuppp, and get your grandma outta heeeeyyyuhhh!"
Oh yeah. Fuck, yeah.
What followed was probably the best hour and a half of my life until that point.
If the first glance at the cover infected me, after listening to the whole album, I was in full-on disease!
The condition was KISS, and the symptom was Gene.
My transition from relatively normal teen, to full-blown KISS freak, happened practically overnight.
The pictures of Evel Knievel and Alice Cooper on my bedroom wall came down. The time I used to spend riding bikes, playing baseball, or cutting a golf course in the back yard, was now spent walking to SuperX for the latest Circus and Creem magazines, reading the articles, then cutting the pictures out, and plastering my wall. Paulie, and my friend David Wallace, were at my side on many of these trips, the disease had most definitely spread. My life had changed drastically, and its new soundtrack was Alive!
The first time I painted my face, I used some of Paulie's watercolor paint. It wasn't ideal, it stunk, and it cracked when it dried, but the effect was there. If you have never painted your face like Gene Simmons, I highly recommend it.
I also used the red watercolor paint to mix up an awful tasting blood-spitting concoction. I began leaving my mark around the neighborhood. I scared the shit out of some poor little kids, and it was fucking sweet.
Now ... If I could just figure out the fire breathing thing.
To be continued...
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