SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Alive II (1978).
There’s not too many million-selling albums that have a man covered in blood on the cover. And yet here is one. (I’ve always been confused why Paul and Ace both look like they are not wearing the white makeup in these photos). I must have listened to this 4 sided LP a thousand times as a kid (my poor mother–what did she do while I monopolized the only stereo in the house and made her listen to Paul Stanley rambling on and on?
“Detroit Rock City” and “King of the Night Time World” open the concert just like they open Destroyer. But unlike on Destroyer, the next songs keep up the fast pace with “Ladies Room” and “Makin’ Love.” All four of these songs are a bit faster, a bit louder a but more intense than the album versions (especially the Destroyer tracks, which have all of the bombast removed). This first side ends with an energy-packed “Love Gun.” I mean, holy cow, what an opening, it’s all nonstop heavy rock. Even though I like, nay, love the originals, these version have so much energy, so much presence (they would have it even without the crazed fans screaming–which is practically like static it is so continuous) that they blow away the studio versions.
“Calling Dr. Love” is a much faster tempo (with a wonderful intro about “rock and roll pneumonia”) and “Christine Sixteen” loses the piano (which I admit I liked, but it works great without it), and it’s far creepier here. “Shock Me” picks up some rock from the studio version, but more importantly, it picks up a crazy guitar solo (which is yes, much better seen than heard). “Hard Luck Woman” to me sounds funny in this setting. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but it’s hard to imagine them playing it amidst all the chaos of the rest of the show. And then “Tomorrow and Tonight” is fine in this context, but you can kind of feel the fans wishing for “Rock and Roll All Nite.”
Side three opens with “I Stole Your Love” which rocks equally as hard live. It’s followed by “Beth” perhaps the strangest thing on a live album. From what I’ve seen, Peter comes down from behind the drums, sits in the front of the stage and sings his mega-hit to piped-in piano music. I guess it was something of a break for the rest of the band. It’s followed by a truly intense version of “God of Thunder”–faster and heavier than the original and very cool. The only surprise is that it contains a drum solo–the solo is not the surprise (it is the 70s after all), the surprise is that “God of Thunder” is so obviously Gene’s song, it seems odd that they would break it up with a drum solo (although if memory serves, he uses the time to clean off all the blood from his face and guitar). “I Want You” sounds really great in this version (the guitars are wicked) and it gives Paul a chance to show some vocal acrobatics.
The LP version featured this awesome gatefold inner photo which I have to say may have really set the bar high for other bands in terms of concert awesomeness. My vinyl copy has pencil lines etched into the cardboard from the number of times I traced the picture. (Thanks to Porcelain Theology, a blog I am enjoying very much, for this picture). The live portion of the show ends with “Shout It out Loud” which works as a very solid anthem to end the concert.
The fourth side of the LP always confused me. When I was young and didn’t really understand how to read credits, I assumed that whoever’s name was after the song was the person who sang it (generally true, but not always). So, when side four featured covers and songs written by people not in the band, it blew my mind. I also didn’t understand why there were five non-live, indeed, brand new songs on this live album (they didn’t want to release any songs that were also on Alive!–perhaps the last time they didn’t reissue music). I respect this decision, but at the same time, how much cooler would this concert be with “100,000 Years” or “Deuce” included?
The five songs actually aren’t bad, but they don’t really have all that much excitement to them. “All American Man” is a surprisingly gritty song from Paul and “Larger Than Life” is pretty interesting musically (and I just realized that love means penis in this song too and that it’s actually a pretty funny brag song). “Rocket Ride” is probably the best song on this side. Ace didn’t contribute to any of the other songs on this side, but he goes out with a blaze! The chorus is a little cheesy but the verses are really cool, and the solo rocks.
How I miss the excess of the 70s.
[READ: October 1, 2011] “Flick Chicks”
Mindy Kaling is a writer for and actor on The Office. She is very funny. I’m not sure if she has written for the New Yorker before, but I like her and wanted to include her here (just to get some of her magic mojo to appear on my blog). This piece is labelled an “L.A. Postcard” and it is more or less broken into two parts.
The introduction shows Mindy sitting down to pitch a new movie. She claims that all TV writers want to write for movies because “At the Oscars, the most famous person there is, like, Angelina Jolie. At the Emmys the huge, exciting celebrity is Bethenny Frankel.” [I actually don’t even know if Bethenny Frankel is a real person, so I guess that proves the point]. Although this year there has been a lot of chatter about the movies stars who are now on TV shows–see the New Yorker event Bravura Television. William H. Macy and Jeremy Irons may not be Angelina Jolie, but they’re still pretty awesome.
Anyhow, the joke of her movie pitch is that she wants to write a romantic comedy, but the studio is now focusing solely on making movies based on board games (see the existence of Battleship: The Movie). Pretty darn funny.
But the piece shifts to Kaling’s assessment of movie women who do not exist in real life. The clichéd characters that populate every romcom. The observations are funny, even though the premise of this assessment is far from original. Nevertheless, Kaling is right on, and her descriptions of each of these women is hilarious.
She gives us: The Klutz, The Ethereal Weirdo (“if she appeared in real life people would think she was homeless and cross the street to avoid her”), The Woman Who is Obsessed with Her Career and is No Fun at All (I loved everything about this summary, but especially: “Do screeenwriters think that loose hair makes it hard to concentrate?”); The Forty-Two Year Old Mother of the Thirty-Year-Old Male Lead (thinking about the logistics of that, she writes, “I am fascinated by Mom’s sordid early life. I would rather see this movie than the one I bought a ticket for”); The Sassy Best Friend and The Skinny Woman Who is Beautiful and Toned but also Gluttonous and Disgusting.
My favorite of the bunch is the last one: The Woman Who Works in an Art Gallery. “How many freakin’ art galleries are out there?” I loved the write up of this hilarious bit, and like it even more because one of my favorite shows, How I Met Your Mother is Guilty of two of these clichés, one of which is summed up in the rare “male counterpart” to this woman: “Whenever you meet a handsome, charming, successful man in a romantic comedy, the heroine’s friend always says the same thing. ” He’s really successful. He’s–say it with me–‘an architect.’ The final paragraph joke to this set up is priceless.)
As I said, Mindy Kaling is hilarious. When I thought that she was just detailing clichéd women in movies I didn’t expect to laugh as hard as I did. And I love her even more for proving me wrong.
[…] book also includes the excerpt that was in The New Yorker not too long ago as well as a number of other observations (about men, […]