PHANTOM SWAY

    • KISS: A Begrudging Appreciation


    When venerable rockers, chest-hair farmers, and Kabuki-makeup enthusiasts KISS recently announced their umpteenth farewell tour, the Internet went understandably alight with snarky indignation.

    “WTF, another farewell tour?!? I saw their first one in 1996!” was the most common screech. And, yes, KISS does deserve some shade thrown their way, as they’ve been seemingly saying goodbye since the Clinton Administration, all in the name of the filthy lucre Gene Simmons is so famous for unashamedly accumulating. But for me, it was the location of the tour announcement that was so jarring: America’s Got Talent. Here, at one of the world’s preeminent talent shows, was a band that’s always seemed so…talentless. If the 1974 version of KISS showed up at AGT, fresh off the streets of New York City, Simon Cowell would blast them with a water cannon and tell them to get the bloody hell off his stage.

    And yet, these guys are in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, alongside Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, The Who, Dylan, Clapton, Jimi, Janis…how? HOW?

    I’ll be honest, when it comes to KISS, I could take them or leave them, which is hardly a compliment. In my 47 years, I’ve paid actual money for exactly one KISS album: Psycho Circus, the 1998 reunion of Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, the first album by the four original members since 1979. The title track rocked, and showcased the one dude I thought had some chops: Stanley, the lead singer. The album, on the whole, wasn’t bad. Again, not exactly a compliment.

    Of course, this being KISS, it’s Gene & Paul versus everybody else in the band, and they had a George Steinbrenner / Billy Martin relationship with Frehley and Criss. The erstwhile lead guitarist and drummer soon found themselves crushed under Gene’s ridiculous platform boots, and KISS kept on saying goodbye with hired guns in their places.
    Theatrics. It’s what KISS is famous for, both within the band and on the stage, their shows being legendarily long on spectacle and short on musical prowess. And that’s fine, not every hard-rock band can be as talented as, say, Van Halen. And, sure, KISS took marketing and money grubbing to a ludicrous level, with their KISS caskets, pinball machines, and comic books, all the stuff punk rock and New Wave tried to eradicate in the late 70s. All that smacks of a band trying to cover something up, which leads us back to their famous makeup.

    It’s genius.

    Nobody else was pulling that in 1975, and it instantly made KISS stand out in a crowded rock field. And you never saw their actual faces, unless you were a groupie, which added to the mystique. The Demon, the Starchild, the Catman and Space Ace, coming to your town to spit fake blood and blow stuff up, rocking all night and partying every day. And now that these dudes are pushing 70, the makeup covers the wrinkles and crow’s feet quite nicely.
    Genius!

    And before you deride the makeup as goofy child’s play, consider what Geddy Lee, the lead singer and bassist of Rush – a band loaded with gravitas and chops – has to say about KISS.

    Rush and KISS were tour-mates throughout the mid-70s, and Lee (in the superb Rush documentary Beyond The Lighted Stage) said that no matter what you think of KISS, no band ever worked harder to put on a great show for their fans, which is what rock & roll, at its still beating heart, is all about. The show, the spectacle, the entertainment value.

    I’ve come to this realization about KISS: they’re not a great band, but they’re good enough. Their music catalog is largely forgettable, big, dumb rock. (Frehley’s New York Groove, however, is wicked awesome.) But they’re not a band that’ll ultimately be judged by their skill. They’re judged by the millions who went to a KISS show and walked away thinking they had a great time. They’re in the rock hall because they did the best with the tools they had, and kept the masses coming back for more, as good as or better than any artist in history. And they’re a reminder that we shouldn’t take rock music, or ourselves, too seriously. After all, we’re capable of putting masks on ourselves every day, trying to be something we’re not to gain the approval of others. At least KISS gets handsomely paid to do it.
    The fact that news of yet another KISS farewell tour can blow up social media means that after all these years, this band is still a force. So take your time saying goodbye, boys, you’ve earned the right.

    We’ll never see another band like KISS again. I’ll let you decide if that’s a compliment.

    Chris Carlson
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