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River & Dam

I see need to express that I have a soft spot for Alice in Chains, but despite this fact I haven't yet managed to listen to more than a few songs or maybe half an album of them in one go (1) (2), which makes it more of a matter of principle for me than of the heart.

There are one or two songs of theirs that I really like and even find absolutely fantastic, but so far it has always balanced out nicely without ever feeling like I've missed anything.

Until I recently read, to my astonishment but not really to my big surprise, how someone from the fan sector drew a comparison between Alice in Chains' Dam That River (1992) and Kiss' Master & Slave (1997) from their universally popular and beloved 90s metal album Carnival of Souls, cough! And to my greater astonishment, dear people, I can only agree with this, and of course not without displaying my very own understanding of the matter in a framework that is at least halfway satisfactory for all of us.

Which, in turn, puts me in the position of being able to proudly present another case of parallel universe twins, this time with a first-degree relationship in riff structure and a more cousinly relationship in melody. But that doesn't really matter much, because Kiss have more or less reassembled the riff of Dam That River from their own older riffs anyway, so that the whole damn thing always sounds like Kiss (3).

But here it comes, Master & Slave definitely decides the race as a long-distance groove in its favor, and quite clearly in my opinion. You know, it's more clearly structured, more melodic, overall the more polished and distinctive and at the same time the catchier (and much more acrobatic) riff, an equally smooth dynamic with its loud and quiet changes between metal guitars, and a soft warm but still nasty bass,

where Alice in Chains evoke rather lively and somewhat insane impressions of a furiously rumbling, black smoke coughing engine made of bent and rusted metal and tangled spiky wires. Which, of course, has an appeal in itself that should not be underestimated, but they don't get very far this way, if I may say so.

So, Kiss: One point. Grunge: Zero points.

Side Note:

(1) Not including the Jar of Flies EP (1994) or MTV Unplugged (1996), but that shouldn't matter much today because it was certainly a good 30 years ago.

(2) Basically hardly anything other than one of the main arguments why many of the old hardcore Kiss addicts reject Carnival of Souls altogether.

(3) And I should have subtly mentioned more than once in passing where these can only come from.

Dam That River (1992)

Master & Slave (1997)

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God Loves You

When I think of early Kiss, I can't help but think of early Beatles to a certain extent.

Deuce or Got to Choose come to mind first and foremost, and the latter especially in terms of Gene and Paul's literally stinging double vocal harmony, which for me is a distinctive characteristic of the band's identity on Hotter Than Hell (1974) in general.

These purely personal impressions are more or less limited to the first two Kiss studio albums and A Hard Days' Night (1964) or Rubber Soul (1965) by the Beatles (1). And I guess I have probably never given much more thought to the relations between the two of them.

But then, one day, when I felt more like writing something easy about Sonic Boom's (2009) Say Yeah, I stood in front of She Loves You a little longer than usual and almost imperceptibly said to myself: Paul, you old bastard, that's where you got the second half of the God of Thunder riff from, don't you? (2)

So, She Loves You might not necessarily be God of Thunder's daddy, but rather something like an anonymous sperm donor who doesn't want to be recognized (3).

Side Note:

(1) I like to leave Gene's 78's solo album including its shallow-harmonic Beatles claim out of it, because I see a completely different form of songwriting in it, which doesn't really belong here.

(2) Maybe not to one hundred percent, but this 80% is enough for me to hold some sort of parade.

(3) But more like in the comedy Twins (1988) with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito, where the two had more than half a dozen sperm donors for fathers.

She Loves You (1963)

God of Thunder (Demo) (1975)

God of Thunder (1976)

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Ways to Get You Long Faces

When Monster (2012) was released I listened to it quite often with pleasure. I mean, it was the new Kiss album, and it wasn't a bad one, on the contrary (1).

The only difficulty for me was that I quickly became saturated with it and unfortunately lost interest in it after a relatively short period of time. As a result, one or the other stereotypical thought process about Monster stubbornly stuck with me. Not that these turned out to be significantly wrong over the years, but rather less serious or off-putting than I unconsciously stylized into a self-perpetuating prejudice during my self-prescribed Monster hiatus.

And no, I'm not talking about the production, at least not in terms of the sound and the heavily criticized sonics, but the arrangements and the riffs. It was all just too Led Zeppelin-heavy - but in a not very beneficial way (2).

For me, more than half of the album sounded the same riff-wise. Like that rearing little bass line from Hotter Than Hell (1974) that I occasionally cite, which follows Paul's terrific "You Know She's Gonna Leave You Well Dooone", and which Gene also recycled for Russian Roulette on Sonic Boom (2009). As a small catchy element, it works quite well for me, song structure-forming for half an album less so.

Or better, that's how I had memorized it, looking at the whole album. And at a distance.

But of course I don't do things like that anymore, because here and now I look at things from every conceivable angle and, above all, point-blank (3). And I can only say that every single song on Monster is great and rich in its own right, which is to say that Monster, If you take each song on its own, of course contains everything that should make a Kiss fan's heart beat faster (and a little more).

So, because everything is not exactly little, let's devote todays' last few lines at least to Long Way Down and its riff echoes coming directly from Animalize (1984) and Lick It Up (1983). And to be more specifically, from Get All You Can Take and Dance All Over Your Face.

I'm talking about the verse riff after Long Way Down's descending and ascending intro, which is certainly not unlike a memorable part of the intro and main riff from Get All You Can Take, behind which, of course, there is no attempt to hide a man-sized reference to Lep Zep. And this riff expands in the bridge to the verse into something that at least gives the impression of being a sonic reflection to the main riff of Dance All Over Your Face. Not necessarily something you would have expected, in my eyes.

Sometimes, I guess, also noisy waters run deep (4).

Side Notes:

(1) C'mon, it's better than Hot in the Shade (1989), and even that one's not exactly unloved.

(2) I'm willing to bet that some of the songs on Monster sound better on acoustic guitar than on the album.

(3) After all, we exist the entirety of our existence in the here and now, don't we?

(4) At least relatively.

Addendum: Of course I know that the Get All You Can Take's riff mentioned here has its origin in Led Zeppelin's What Is And What Should Never Be and Travelling Riverside Blues, did you? So don't be surprised about the Led Zep link below.

Only the Led Zep link is highlighted by the way. I wanted to save myself an extra cramp today:

Long Way Down (2012)

Get All You Can Take (1984)

Dance All Over Your Face (1983)

What Is And What Should Never Be (1969)

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They Called Him Mr. Hollywood Vol. 1

ATTENTION RAGNARIANS: I think we can confidently say that with this showpiece today we are gradually approaching the weird to more bizarre offshoots of Kisstory.

Which brings us to the infamous Nightclub Act Scene (1), if you know what I mean. That film sequence from the 80s James Bond Jr. trash flick Never Too Young to Die (1986), in which Gene performs a glam metal revue as a hermaphrodite drag queen-king in front of an audience that looks like it's straight out of a Mad Max movie, wearing an outfit for which the word extraordinary is truly an understatement, and which Wonder Woman also wore on a television broadcast special when she presented I Was Made For Lovin' You (1979).

So far so good, actually, yet what good would it do for me if I couldn't include at least a little Kiss reference, and I'm not even aiming at I Was Made For Lovin' You, but at a song that saw the light of day in the Kiss world quite a bit later, and which is to be found on Revenge (1992).

So, Spit, which is only one of today's topics' songs, contains, to be precise, a small lyrical element that we have already heard in that high-profile scene I already tried to find the right words for above. And to be more precise, looking back a little, also on Lick It Up's (1983) Fits Like a Glove (2). And to look back another step further and to be even most precise, also on an old Gene demo from 1976 with the flattering title Mongoloid Man 1976 (3), which can be found on Simmons' The Vault (2017).

And since the very last one should have rung a bell long ago anyway, it doesn't really make much more sense to beat about the bush much longer, full attention to the following enchanting lines of lyrics, because they must have been very close to Gene's heart (or at least he must not have been able to fully exploit the potential of these word creations) over several decades:

"I got no manners and I'm not too clean. But I know what I like, if you know what I mean".

I mean, they're certainly better than "It takes a man like me to be a woman like me", or "Well goodness sakes, my snake's alive and it's ready to bite", aren't they?

Although, only just.

Side Note:

(1) Aka It Takes a Man Like Me to be a Woman Like Me.

(2) In slightly modified form.

(3) Joe Perry got a co-credit on that one.

Mongoloid Man was unfortunately not available on YouTube, but those links below do have manners, and they are certainly cleanly highlighted:

It Takes a Man Like Me to be a Woman Like Me (1986)

Spit (1992)

Fits Like a Glove (1983)

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Take Off All That You Want

Howdy doody, how should I put it this time? Today we've got two character-supporting song elements of two very different songs on two very, very different albums, from two very different decades, from two v… .

Ok, I think you get the point, but just to be on the safe side, the two titles we're talking about today are Take It Off, an ode to all the strippers of the world (or maybe just America), which can be found on Kiss' Bob Ezrin produced hard rocking and Metal edgy semi-comeback Revenge (1992), and You're All That I Want, the closing song on the Las Vegas SuperKISS Marshmallow-Pop Aussie & Euro export hit-album Unmasked (1980), whereby the opening and main riff of You're All That I Want got more or less remodeled into a catchy rocking passage, as a kind of outro bridge after the chorus of Take it Off.

So, have I promised too much?

Whether this was done unintentionally with a blind reach into the spare parts box I do not dare to judge, but…oh nonsense! Let's not fool ourselves, of course it was intentional. They always know exactly what they're doing. And always in an effective manner, when they suggest this completely uncertain familiarity every time anew, in a not entirely clumsy way, virtually through the back door, and there are oh so many backdoors in the House of Kiss.

But luckily I have a crowbar.

If you want to get hot, click on the highlighted links that I've got:

You're All That I Want (1980)

Take It Off (1992)

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The 79th Secret

Good taste can be learned. Attitude too, of course, and if you don't have time to learn it, you can just imitate it. Or put it on like a hat.

If you were to listen to Asylum's (1985) Secretly Cruel, one of the songs under Gene's responsibility, without this ulterior motive, you might quickly think: "All right, as we all know, Mr. Simmons was often in a hurry in the studio back in the '80s, and had therefore rushed out his lines (it's the verse lines we are talking about today, by the way) for his contributions very briefly and spontaneously, but at least with a respectable rock attitude in his voice, before he most probably jetted off again to some film set of a B to C movie production (1)."

If you take Humble Pie's 79th Sunset (1971) and its verses into account, you could easily be tempted to mercilessly deprive Gene of this above-mentioned point of respect, and because we're all not meanies, we want to refrain from such a plan and content ourselves with the simple acceptance that Gene is a very big Humble Pie fan.

And that he doesn't exactly make a secret of it.

Side Note:

(1) According to the sacred Kiss legend, it's pretty clear that such collegially hardly tolerable conditions applied to the production of Animalize (1984), but this does not necessarily apply to Asylum. At least not to the same extent. Therefore, please turn a blind eye to the fact that I have used this circumstance as a projection surface and rolled it out a little.

Hit the links and the verses of Secretly Cruel and 79th Sunset will be all over you like a cheap suit:

79th Sunset (1971)

Secretly Cruel (1985)

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A Little Peculiar

Can someone please explain to me why Eric Carr's Ain't That Peculiar respectively Little Caesar from Hot in the Shade (1989) is not officially a cover version, but was credited as an original composition? To be honest, I've never fully understood this, or simply haven't had it explained to me well enough. Maybe it just doesn't fit into my big thick clumsy head, so I can't say for sure.

I'm talking about the vocals, riff and melody of Little Caesar, because whether it's the version by Marvin Gaye (1965) or by that Street Hawk guy (1979) (1) , regardless of arrangement or riff or whatever, the song and its melody remains one and the same for me. You can even see how the riff and arrangement get more and more similar from version to version, right up to Eric Carr's.

And somehow Gene has managed to get a credit here once again. How does he keep doing that?

Side Note:

(1) Not the nerd.

Aint That Peculiar (1965)

Ain't That Peculiar (1979)

Ain't That Peculiar (Demo, 1989)

Little Caesar (1989)

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The Right Science

Once you get into the circumstance of listening to Love Me Right (1987) from Ace's Frehley's Comet album, you might find yourself involuntarily wondering if Mr. Frehley and his Comets might have been watching some John Hughes movies during the recording sessions, or perhaps a very particular one of his works… a little too often (1) ?

Or maybe they just went among the Oingo Boingo fans, which would be no less plausible for me, because both of those factors need not be mutually exclusive in this equation (2).

So, to get to the point, what do Frehley's Comet's Love Me Right (1987) and Oingo Boingo's Weird Science (1985) have in common?

Hm, basically one and the same riff, an impression that is all the more reinforced by the identical change of pitch in the bridges/refrains or wherever of both songs. And there is no reason to highlight anything here, the resemblance is as striking as Santa Claus in full costume on the beach in Acapulco.

What is there left to say except a movie quote, whether it fits or not: If you want be a party animal, you have to learn to live in the jungle.

Side Note:

(1) "Hey Curly, we watched this movie, it was about computers and girls and stuff. As you know that's right up my alley."

(2) Or maybe they had malaria?

Weird Science (1985)

Love Me Right (1987)

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Soulburn

I can get a good idea of why the sinisterly stalking Burning Up With Fever (1978) (1) was not taken into consideration for Destroyer (1976) back in the day. If you take into account that the preferred God of Thunder, as the archetype of all so called Demon songs, forms an almost insurmountable benchmark and virtually its own closed dimension, you don't necessarily have to be Sherlock Holmes to find a reasonably meaningful answer (2).

But why it was also excluded from Rock and Roll Over (1976) is another question, because there is no other Demon song on this album.

I never noticed any positioning or questioning of this almost Kiss-atypical circumstance anywhere, but maybe it was simply because with Rock and Roll Over they wanted to let it go for once with the dark song and it was probably too peculiar for the spirit of the album, and not rock n' rolly enough, because they probably saw need to focus more on classic, light-hearted dick songs again. And then again, maybe Burning Up With Fever just wasn't lightweight enough (3).

But hey, maybe it's all just a funny coincidence, who knows, besides, this is only supposed to be the, ahem, introduction anyway, just to warm up to the subject matter a bit.

So where did this troublemaker of a Gene song, which finally found an adequate and comfortable home on Gene's '78 solo album, actually originate?

Well, somehow with Jeff Beck and his Rock My Plimsoul (1968), I would say. More or less, because this one has the classic blues in it and also moves rather quietly and smoothly, as if it could do so all night long. Gene brings the rough edges into this groove with his spindly, somewhat awkward monster walk, half gorilla, half Godzilla, coming towards you with equally slow, but in its grotesqueness almost comically irregular steps.

Gene basically puts Jeff Beck on as a costume over his Love Gun outfit, complete with red Dracula cape. You know those full body suits that are printed with something extraordinair and are so thin that you can basically always see exactly what the costumed person is wearing underneath? You know what I mean?

The Devil in Disguise.

Side Note:

(1) Originally first moved into the Kiss picture as a '75/76 pre-production demo for Destroyer, or something like that.

(2) It probably didn't quite fit into Bob Ezrin's musical concept/vision either.

(3) But as I said, almost Kiss-untypical. On Hotter Than Hell (1974) half the album was dark and gritty, Dressed to Kill (1975) at least had the gloomy-stoic She, Love Gun (1977) later had Almost Human, but what about the debut album? Yep, no Demon song at all. Rock and Roll Over and the self-titled debut are thus the only two Kiss albums of the klassik (and even not so klassik masked) period without a dark and brooding Gene song.

And, oh yes, I do indeed include Naked City from Unmasked (1980), albeit this track contains more Drama than Demon, but still has enough Demon in it to hold its own as such against all the Gene songs post-Lick It Up (1983). More on this, wrapped up in a sneaky love triangle between Love Gun, Dynasty (1979) and Unmasked, sometime in the future.

No highlighted inks, but Burning Up With Fever begins directly without that jangling intro:

Rock My Plimsoul (1968)

Burning Up With Fever (1978)

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Some Trains Don't Turn Me On

Bon Jovi are back, and they're not alone, because this time they've brought Ozzy Osbourne along as reinforcement!!!

[note: This would have been my originally intended introduction for today, dear people, but in the end I opted for the following, somewhat less flashy version.]

Tinkering hour with Turn on the Night (1987), and how to put together a hit that didn't want to become one, but preferred to eke out its modest existence as an eternal insider tip in gradually enlightened hardcore fan circles.

There are those who claim that Turn on the Night is a rip-off of Bon Jovi's She Don't Know Me (1984) (1), others, on the other hand, swear their first-born child that they clearly recognize Ozzy's Crazy Train (1980) in it. Even if I personally think that neither party is wrong with their respective assumptions, I belong to the faction that unmistakably recognized the intro of a popular German pop talk show called Na, sowas! from the Saturday evening prime time TV program of the mid-80s in Turn on the Night's anthemic keyboard intro and chorus.

The Bon Jovi comparison certainly applies with his intro and the chorus melody, and Ozzy's verses rather reinforce the impression that Bongiovi and Co. might have already had their way with them before. But if we now add the first few verse lines and Spencer Davis Groups' Gimme Some Lovin' (1966) and above all its flow and feel, this wild affair could slowly become a well-rounded one.

It's written somewhere on the holy internet how Paul spoke out about Diane Warren being the main contributor to Turn on the Night, and Diane Warren herself expressed her surprise that the song didn't become a hit.

My idea to this subject is, it's a bit as if a food designer had designed and developed an attractive and appetizing fast food product inspired from the most popular offerings of the three best-known providers in Western culture in this field, only to be completely ignored by the entire analyzed and potential customer base. Which makes me think once again that sometimes it's not the product itself that counts, but the brand, or at least its promotion (2). I don't know what kind of crazy world we live in that Turn on the Night shouldn't be a hit.

I guess Unmasked's (1980) Tomorrow must have felt something like that.

Side Notes:

(1) You could just as easily accuse Holly Knight of using Bon Jovi's She Don't Know Me for The Best (1988/89), which would of course be complete nonsense, because these kinds of melodies were something of a junction for pop and rock music in the 80s, just as the riff from Smoke on the Water (1972) was more or less a blueprint for rock riffs from the 70s onwards. But it was all up in the air at the time an all you had to do was reach for it and pick it like a ripe fruit.

(2) As I'm writing this, I'm feeling a deja vu to one of my previous entries, namely Nothing Can Keep Me From You (1999), also written by Diane Warren.

The links are all highlighted somewhere, but don't ask me where exactly, because I wrote the above lines more than half a year ago. Let's just trust that everything will be all right:

Turn on the Night (1987)

She Don't Know Me (1984)

Crazy Train (1980)

Gimme Some Lovin' (1966)

1980-F (1980)

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Lonely and Well

Welcome to the swipe of the day which, to indulge in a little monotony, can be found once again on Paul's more or less solo album Animalize (1984), has its origins in Music from The Elder (1981), and goes by the endearing name of Lonely is the Hunter.

After all, it wouldn't be the first time that a rip-off, even if in this case it's a verse-vocal swipe, has been taken from a title by The Elder and given a new coat of paint for the subsequent 80s Kiss years (1).

I admit this one could seem pretty inconspicuous if you weren't specifically looking for it, but luckily for all Kissian obsessives, there's a Roland Rockover for exactly that.

What seems unusual or striking to me in this case is that Gene not only simply ripped a verse, a chorus or a bridge from Mr. Blackwell, our second candidate, but that it rather seems as if he paraphrased the entire vocal structure, regardless of the emotional charge and attitude of the content framework, which resembles that of Lonely is the Hunter like one shadow to another, only slightly distorted in perspective (2).

Mr. Blackwell just has a sort of different song structure overall thanks to the stamp of Bob Ezrin's character-building production, but overall, at a minimum, verses and chorus don't seem to have just a random connection to each other either. Just give it a listen.

You could most definitely say that Gene didn't put all his eggs in one basket in the 80s.

Side Note:

(1) And it was by no means the last one outside of that period, when I think of a very specific spacy song from Psycho Circus (1998), for example.

(2) We had a very similar case quite a while ago concerning King of the Mountain (1985) and a very, very well-known klassik from the debut album, where it was mainly about their verse guitar chords.

Do what I want and I don't give a damn, the links are highlighted at the verses anyway:

Mr. Blackwell (1981)

Lonely is the Hunter (1984)

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Hell of a Night

I think I've dedicated a thesis to the opening riff of I'll Fight Hell to Hold You (1987) more than once. Firstly in the context of Hotter Than Hell (1974) and secondly in relation to Flaming Youth from Destroyer (1976) (1).

How could I ever say no to a third?

It was only recently, in a rock podcast that I had discovered before, which is also about Kiss from time to time, that I came across another admittedly rather obvious but nonetheless unerring kinship that had previously escaped me just as much, and which I probably wouldn't have noticed so quickly while whistling while doing the chores. Namely the one to Creatures of the Night (1982), and therefore its opening and main riff of course.

It's not so much the riff itself, or whether one could possibly be a rip-off of the other, but rather the Sturm und Drang with which both defend their position right from the start, almost relentlessly paving the way for the rest of the song behind them, regardless of how different these may be.

Sometimes the similarities between some Kiss songs are so obvious that my head could pop off because I hadn't noticed them before.

If you know what I mean.

Side Note:

(1) Oops! I've finished writing it, but this one might still be lying around somewhere in the back of the drawer.

Creatures of the Night (1982)

I'll Fight Hell to Hold You (1987)

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Life in Europe

I'm not really keen on doing the dishes (1), but I'm obviously quite good at it and sometimes it gives me the best ideas. This may not be much solace, but it is still of some practical use. At least now and then… and to also quote Gene in passing:

It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it.

The verses I'm going to talk about today, how could it be otherwise, came to my attention once again while I was wonderfully washing the dishes, merrily whistling It's My Life (1982/1998) (2) to myself and originally focusing on a completely different matter in the context of a Love Gun (1977) song (3).

Well, and then some lyrics from the Australian cultural asset album Unmasked (1980) appeared in the back of my head all by themselves, as if by magic. And please consider, with some Kiss fans you always have to be a bit careful with magic, it has somehow become an edgy topic in recent years. Don't ask me why.

So what else is there left for me to write about, except perhaps my vivid visualization of how Gene might have stumbled across an unfinished song by Paul around 1982, and must have been as delighted as I was while doing the dishes with the following thought:

"Terrific! I bet the verses of She's So European fit in there perfectly!"

(1) Seriously, who does that? If there's anyone among you who does, you're welcome to come to my house and do it for free.

(2) Yes, I am indeed pretty jolly when I do the dishes, and I usually sing or whistle while I do them. I can only recommend this to everyone.

(3) I'll let you know more about it another time. Maybe. When I've worked through all the entries that are still pending, which could still take quite a while. Just like doing the dishes, you know?

The links are not European, by the way, but are highlighted at the verses:

It's My Life (1982/1998)

She's So European (1980)

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Crazee Nites

ATTENTION PLEASE! This entry has nothing to do with Crazy Nights (1987), but was bound to happen at some point anyway,

as inevitable as the classic intonation of Rock and Roll All Nite (1975) at the end of any regular Kiss set, and I think that's an adequate enough comparison. So why not just swim along and benefit from the current instead of continuing to resist the inevitable. After all, I'll have to work through all these things at some point anyway. I mean, where else would we end up?

Which brings us to Rock and Roll All Nite and Slade today. So, what did Gene say? Rock and Roll All Nite's verse lyric line with its very memorable emphasis You Drive Us Wiiild, We'll Drive You Cray-Zeahhh basically only varies the chorus of Slade's Mama, We're All Crazee Now (1) in all its peculiarity that we have grown to love.

I never really noticed it myself in the past, which could also be due to the fact that I always knew how to make do with the few songs I knew from Slade. Another thing that has changed since I started writing about our favorite band.

And yes, I can hear it now too. And when Gene says it, I believe him, just this once. Because it makes my work a lot easier today between the holidays, and as I said, today I'm just going with the flow. Actually that's not such a bad tactic as I would like to add in all serenity.

Maybe I'm just slowly beginning to understand this band better.

Side Note:

(1) One may equate such a method in a similar relationship between Paul's Hotter Than Hell (1974) title track and Free's All Right Now (1970), moreover, a working practice usually remains a common practice. Especially within the realms of this band.

I'll show you everything I have, which in this case would be gighlighted links, of course. You'll have to dance and heat up the room yourself:

Rock and Roll All Nite (1975)

Mama, We're All Crazee Now (1972)

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Unimaly

One could easily assume that Unholy's (1992) intense finale, to put it gently, resembled the culmination of a horror movie, but more of the kind where evil wins, and thus the inescapable realization of an incipient reign of terror.

And I'm not even referring to Gene's bloodcurdling, song-closing scream, something that can also be found at the end of I'm an Animal (2009) (1), the second song of our interest today, but rather its underlying final riff, which gyrates and loops in the background and just increases in intensity (2).

So, what's supposed to be a final world ending over-drama for Unholy, powerful and beyond all measure, also happens to be the beginning and one of the main riffs for I'm an Animal. Which in and of itself shouldn't be the worst way to start a monster song on a new, almost infinitely long awaited Kiss album.

But unfortunately, wherever finality takes hold, it is always pretty difficult to get a foot on the ground. Especially when a song, like in this case, moves on more than two legs and trips itself up on the way to true greatness.

What I could possibly mean by that, in turn, is something I will in all likelihood generously address another time. And even if that might be just another road that leads to nowhere,

nothing's going to hold me down.

Side Note:

(1) And of course also on Fits Like a Glove, which can still be read right here, for the case you might me interested in three prime examples in a row of Gene screaming the shit out of hell.

(2) Actually pretty much the perfect setting for your head to explode.

The links are highlighted, so please take care of your heads:

I'm an Animal (2009)

Unholy (1992)

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Since I've Still Been You

I would be only too happy to dub our two candidates today as Blues Brothers in spirit, if this could not be interpreted as somewhat inappropriate or even distasteful for today's subject.

So, if my instincts don't deceive me in an unspeakable way, some of you will hardly be surprised that I'm pulling Led Zeppelin's Since I've Been Lovin' You (1970) and Kiss' I Still Love You (1982) out of my hat with the not exactly daring thesis above and asking for a little test of strength in the matter of "Who suffers the best" (1). And of course I'll take off my black hat and my sunglasses in this regard.

This is about men left alone with their love, and what they tend do with it when they ponder their distant lover in their inner monologue and give themselves over completely to what bubbles out of them. Which is not necessarily the most constructive path to take in such a case. But since we're talking about Kiss once again, we should be happy with this approach, as they have never been closer to the blues than they are here and now, nor have they ever taken a decisive step beyond it.

While Led Zeppelin simply try to get rid of this insurmountable inner urge, this unique Baby, Baby, Baby - I Just Can't Live Without You thing, in as many details as humanly possible, I am often only too reminded of the depiction of small children in cartoons who hold their breath until they get their way and tend to turn blue in the process. Which is also where the popular saying "Getting the blues" might well have its origins, as I now suspect.

Kiss' I Still Love You, on the other hand, describes a man alone at home in a dim, warm light, surrounded by the ugly darkness, which should provide an appropriate setting for someone who gets the blues in the middle of the night and tends to completely tear his apartment apart in the course of emotional outbursts. Only to be brought back down to earth again and again by grief and insight, and yet, one breath later, banging on the door to self-destruction, screaming for entry.

And despite all of this, the woman remains gone, even though she does seem to have a thing for men who seem to have a thing for the blues (or who also hunt ghosts), just in a slightly different way than Paul does here. Unfortunately, this is of the least use to him.

Any of such a behavior could easily be seen as an almost innocently childish (see above), slightly perverted masochism, dwelling a couple of steps below the normative existential level of romance, or as someone who doesn't quite want to accept that the sun has already set a damn long time ago.

It's not pretty, but it's probably pretty romantic, if you like being down. But do you really want to call that romantic? Maybe. And how about overambitious? Oh, yes. Absolutely.

What else is there to say, except that sometimes it can be helpful to just jump in the shower, go to the hairdresser, and get on a slightly higher wavelength, and whatever else you might do to win back your sweetheart.

Sometimes it works.

Side Note:

(1) The Led Zeps are more of the intellectual version and Kiss the more direct one, at least in this case the one with a good deal more muscle. Speaking of muscles, the drummers of both bands keep their distance from each other acoustically, and yet are able to remain on an equal footing in terms of ambition.

I Still Love You (1982)

Since I've Been Loving You (1970)

[rolandrockover]

Dudes n the Hood

Today I feel like chatting a little about multi-layered rooted choruses, and with Childhood's End from Kiss' much maligned album Carnival of Souls (1997) I think I've found a perfectly suitable candidate for my modest little intention.

And what do I mean by multi-layered? Possibly God Gave Rock and Roll to You II (1991), which, just as Childhood's End, follows the path of David Bowie's All the Young Dudes (1972), and thankfully doesn't get much in the way of its Kiss companion, but only occasionally shares the same footsteps, as it appears (1).

Bowie virtually shines through both Kiss interpretations more or less unhindered, with Childhood's End channeling the vocal refrain in particular, and God Gave Rock n' Roll to You II placing more emphasis on the instrumental rhythm section.

And even if God Gave Rock n' Roll to You II is a remodeled cover version of an Argent song, this applies to it in even double respect, because the composer of the original, Russ Ballard, must clearly have been aware of the existence of All the Young Dudes, because its noble and gracefully descending rhythm part is also clearly present there, only slightly deviating from Bowie's pattern and adding a different kind of hook at the end. Kiss' God Gave Rock n' Roll to You II, on the other hand, makes more use of the catchier and more potent Bowie origin and refines it to smooth perfection.

If you keep Childhood's End's refrain in mind, you must immediately recognize that Gene, Bruce & Company have added a whole lot more melodic density to David Bowie's aural endless harmony wave, which seems to have sprung from a perfect unperfect moment in the primeval age of all music, making the whole thing neither better nor worse in any respect, but simply adding another dimension (2), only to send its own enhanced energy signature for all further generations into eternity.

Childhood's End is a swan song and a revival in equal measure, which allows melancholy and euphoria to become one. According to my personal philosophy, there are these two types of gloom: The one that spreads the darkness, and the other that forms the spark in it and gradually illuminates everything around it.

This is peak Kiss. One of their finest moments in one of their darkest hours.

Side Notes:

(1) I had been aware for some time that the two Kiss versions of this basic melody had a connection, only that this connection came from David Bowie for a little less long. My first assumption in the context of a song by Hotter Than Hell (1974) can be read right here by the way.

(2) Black Sabbath's Black Sabbath (1970) was ultimately also forced to undergo the same excellent process for a Paul song on Carnival of Souls.

And God has not only given you rock n' roll, but also these great highlighted links. They start in the choruses, of course:

All the Young Dudes (1972)

Childhood's End (1997)

God Gave Rock n' Roll to You II (1991)