Sidebar:
How KISS Showed a Young Black Man That Dreams
Really Can Come True
THE
SCENE:
Rose Garden
Arena, Monday, July 24
THE
CAST:
Paul Stanley:
lead singer and guitarist; "The Starbearer"
Ace Frehley:
guitar and vocals; "The Celestial"
Peter Criss:
drums; "The King of Beasts"
Gene Simmons:
bass, sometimes vocals; "The Demon"
I.
As the wet smoke from the dry ice machines curls into nightmare
shapes and bites its way through the stadium...as one more
girl with pink pigtails offers her chest and thighs for
sacrifice to the gods of KISS...as thousands of fists pump
the air in solemn ejaculatory tempo...The Demon slams the
chords for "The Firehouse" from his sequined bass. He slowly
turns around. With the speed of a hunting falcon, he slaps
his own ass. Wild cheers, drunken sobs, cathartic embraces.
A couple, both sporting beautiful blond mullets, screw up
their faces as if Absolutely Overwhelmed. They shake violently,
barely breathing.
II.
When KISS plays "Calling Dr. Love," you can feel the pheromones
pulsing through the smoke-filled air of the arena. It is
as if, in some dirty warehouse in the worst section of Queens,
an insane and pitiful scientist is working around-the-clock
for KISS Incorporated. On a table cluttered with bat droppings
and torn pages from Ukrainian mating manuals, he is designing
bass and guitar riffs that will stealthily, perversely crawl
up your legs and force you, despite your best judgment and
countless oaths taken against heavy metal, to MOVE
your nether regions.
III.
A small woman wearing a blue bandanna has her baby at the
show. The Child is swaddled in white and yellow blankets
to insulate it from the tremendously loud music. But KISS
will have the last laugh. Ten years from now the Child,
its most intimate biorhythms shaped by this long-ago encounter
with KISS, will stroll the schoolyard, the cadence of its
footsteps matching The Catman's snare storm from "Detroit
Rock City." The Child will absorb, process and excrete food
to the secret, ancient tune of "Lick It Up." The Child will
make important life decisions based on words that have always
echoed in his skull, words strangely reminiscent of the
chorus of "2000 Man."
IV.
One of 19 sexual things you do with a guitar if you are
Ace Frehley: you pretend that your instrument is a magic
weapon, capable of delivering both death and pleasure.
When you reach the crescendo of "Let Me Go, Rock and Roll,"
you dramatically halt all music and let the audience boil
in its own anticipation. Then, at the instant your fingers
play an A chord, thin red darts shoot from the top of your
guitar like lightning and pop two huge white balloons tied
to the ceiling of the stage. Finally, as confetti from the
burst sacs rains down on you and your fellow KISS soldiers,
you rest assured that the crowd will go hogwild. Oh...my...fucking...God:
Ace is the man.
V.
The year is 910 AD. On a hunt for a Trixmari salamander,
I find myself wandering through the wilderness of the Southern
swamps. It is a dirty gray morning. The brackish waters
slowly become shallow and, all of a sudden, I am in an airy
green clearing. Strange chanting from the willow trees above.
I look up. Four wizards dressed in silver mail and black
face paint perch in the branches. The one called The Starbearer
leads the invocation: "You keep on saying that you'll be
mine for a while, you're lookin' fancy and I like your style."
The Demon does backup: "You drive us wild, we'll drive you
crazy...you show us everything you've got...and baby, baby
that's quite a lot." The four join forces for the chorus:
"I wanna rock and roll all nite and party every day! I wanna
rock and roll all nite and party every day! I wanna rock
and roll all nite and party every day!" I give up the hunt
to spend the rest of my days in that clearing, enslaved
by the brotherhood of the KISS.
How
KISS Showed a Young Black Man That Dreams Really Can
Come True
During my misspent youth in Stamford, Conn., KISS was one
of the most popular bands among my inner-city brethren.
Everyone had their favorite member of KISS. Some people
liked the Cat Guy (Peter Criss) or the Lightning Bolt Guy
(Ace Frehley), but my friends and I all favored the Guy
With the Cool Boots Who Barfed Blood (Gene Simmons) and
the Star Guy (Paul Stanley), who had us all convinced he
was really black under all the makeup, because he sounded
just like someone from uptown when he talked.
KISS was a band whose popularity defied convention within
the black community. Especially since not one of us knew
a single KISS song. The KISS Army's brutal mid-'70s invasion
of America--the outrageous costumes, legendary stage antics
and surrounding media blitz--didn't stop at the borders
of whiteness. Black kids like me and my friends were caught
up in the frenzy, even though the band itself never got
play on the stations we listened to. Even at its best, '70s
radio never played Earth, Wind & Fire on the same station
as KISS.
But KISS was like nothing we had ever seen before. They
were comic-book superheroes who captured our imaginations.
We didn't have to know their songs, because they were about
more than songs. They weren't even about musicianship so
much as characterization. I had my KISS action figures,
trading cards and comic books--printed with real KISS blood--long
before I ever owned a single album.
On July 24, Gene, Ace, Paul and Peter took the stage at
the Rose Garden for what they promised would be their farewell
tour. When they launched in to the legendary concert opener
"Detroit Rock City," my 25-year-old childhood dream finally
came true. I was seeing KISS, in full makeup, live in concert.
For the next two hours it was 1977 again, the year I got
my first KISS album, Double Platinum, which I blasted
on my Fisher-Price turntable until the speakers blew.
They delivered all the goods. "Dr. Love," "Love Gun," "Do
You Love Me?" Ace's smoking guitar. Peter's cat-getting-strangled
vocals on "Beth." Gene's wagging tongue and spewing blood.
Paul's rock-cliché interactions with the audience
and spastic stage antics, worthy of a bi-sexual black woman.
Hopefully this will be the end for KISS, three-quarters
of whom are in their 50s--a fond farewell amidst a blaze
of glory. This way I can remember them as they were: four
white guys in cool makeup and costumes who were superheroes
come to life for a bunch of black kids. That, my friends,
is America. David Walker
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