KISS - Larger Than Life

[I finally cleared some space in my Mega account. I have a small handful of projects to post and one special project in the works but that won't be ready for some time yet. I'll try to space the new posts out in hopes the new one will be ready by then but I can't promise.]

In late 1977 KISS released their second live album, KISS Alive II, only 2 years and three studio albums after their previous live album Alive!. Because of the close release dates between the live albums they decided that the second album should only contain songs from the last three albums which led to not having enough songs for a full two vinyl disc set. To fix this they recorded five new songs and put those on side four making the album a three sides live one studio.

What if instead of the live album they just put out a new album. This is my answer to that question.

Side One
01 All American Man
02 Rockin' In The USA
03 Larger Than Life
04 Rocket Ride
05 Goodbye

Side Two
01 Burning Up With Fever
02 Wiped Out
03 Tossin' And Turnin'
04 Living In Sin
05 Wouldn't You Like Me To Know

Reality Notes

1977 saw KISS transform from the lean, hungry and mean underdog band from New York into the superstar household names often referred to as SuperKISS. After Alive II they released a best of package, the solo albums and two more studio albums before SuperKISS was brought down and humbled. During this time they relesed a disco single and the average age of their concert attendees went from 18-20 down to 12-16.

For this comp I took the studio songs from Alive II and fleshed them out with the leftovers from the solo albums not used on my yake of the 1978 Radioactive album. I did drop one song, a cover of The Dave Clark Five's Anyway You Want It. I replaced that with another cover, Tossin' and Turnin' which was a part of their setlist in 1979, from Peter's solo album to give him a vocal. KISS have done covers before but never more than one per album. It's for this reason I did not use New York Groove from Ace's solo album. We do have two Ace songs.

I tried to pick the most KISS sounding songs from what was left from the solo albums after my 1978 construction. What's left is truly scraping the bottom of the barrel. The final result is quite enjoyable and sits in nice between Love Gun and Radioactive.

For the cover I reconstructed the Alive II album cover with the new title.

KISS - End of the Road - Not Live

I had other plans this week but this one needed to go up instead. This is part of my now ongoing Not Live series. This was thrown together at the last minute so there might be some volume matching issues. I'll do an update if needed.

Last week KISS played the first show of their End of the Road tour. I'm not going to get into any of the "debates" that the different fan factions are having. For me this is the time to be celebrating one of my favorite bands as they say good night one more time to their fans.

KISS was my first musical obsession. My brother brought home the first KISS album in 1976 and by the time Destroyer came out he had all of the back catalog. My first KISS LP purchase of my own was Love Gun in 1977. 1977 was also when we first saw them live on the Rock and Roll Over tour which still featured the Destroyer stage set and costumes.

I had originally planned on making studio versions of their first two live albums (might still post then in the future) but someone posted the setlist for the first show of the new tour online and I decided to recreate that instead. It's a great setlist full of classic KISS from all eras. While a little light on the non-makeup era and a bit heavy on tracks from the first album and Destroyer, really, in the end the only song I could do without is Beth. It will be interesting to see if the setlist changes throughout the three year tour. Enjoy.

01 Detroit Rock City
02 Shout It Out Loud
03 Deuce
04 Say Yeah
05 Heaven's On Fire
06 War Machine
07 Lick It Up
08 100,000 Years
09 God Of Thunder
10 Cold Gin
11 Psycho Circus
12 I Love It Loud
13 Hide Your Heart
14 Let Me Go Rock 'n' Roll
15 Love Gun
16 I was Made For Lovin' You
17 Black Diamond
18 Beth
19 Do You Love Me
20 Rock And Roll All Nite

Reality Notes

I took a couple of liberties with the song sources. I chose alternate sources for three songs. Detroit Rock City and Black Diamond are the Double Platinum mixes. Detroit Rock City is minus the intro/outro vignette. It's cool when you listen to the album as a whole but gets a bit annoying after repeated listens in a mixtape setting, just get to the song already. Black Diamond, which closes the first album, has an effect at the end of the tape slowly slowing down until it stops. This goes on for at least a full minute and like the vignettes on Detroit Rock City. can get frustrating on repeated listens. The Double Platinum version does not do this.

The last alternate version of a song is I Was Made For Loving You. For those of you that do not know, the original version from the Dynasty album was KISS' disco hit. In 2008 KISS released the album Jigoku-Retsuden, at first only in Japan, then later included as a bonus disc with Sonic Boom. The album consisted of 15 re-recorded classics. For the most part the re-recordings are faithful to the original but I Was Made For Loving You was done more in the style of how they were playing the song live. With tougher guitars and stripped of it's disco beat the song is much more listenable if not actually enjoyable.

I assembled the cover using elements from the KISS Online landing page announcing the tour.

KISS - The Elder - 1981

I've had this project finished for some time but other projects kept insisting they go up first. The project I had planned for this week needs a little more time so finally here is The Elder the heavy version.

In 1981 KISS released their follow up to Unmasked. The first album to feature new drummer Eric Carr and produced by Bob Ezrin, KISS promised to deliver their heaviest album to date. On some levels they succeeded in spite of a couple of soft songs.

Some fans also noticed that some songs seemed to be connected with each other with a loose common thread plot wise leading to some speculation of a hidden concept album below the surface. Still not one of their more popular records, at least the boys were rocking again. It would take the departure of Ace Frehley and the entrance of Vinnie Vincent on the next album to bring the band fully back into the hard rock/heavy metal sound they were known for before the 80s.

Side One
01 The Oath
02 I'm A Legend Tonight
03 Mr Blackwell
04 A World Without Heroes
05 Escape/Partners In Crime

Side Two
01 Nowhere To Run
02 Dark Light
03 Only You
04 Down On Your Knees
05 I

Reality Notes

This is the final album in my KISS series. As much as I would like to be able to fix Dynasty and Unmasked we just don't have the material to do so. We could maybe combine the best of the two but then we'll end up with an album with more Ace songs than Gene and Paul songs and we still have to keep Peter happy. I'll look into it.

The Elder is the most contentious album in the KISS catalog. Recorded at a time when they were trying to change their teen idol ways the band had been promising in the press to record their heaviest album yet. To accomplish this the band hired producer Bob Ezrin. Ezrin had produced their iconic Destroyer album and the hope was that lightning would strike twice. Ezrin had other ideas.

Fresh off of his success with Pink Floyd's The Wall Bob Ezrin somehow managed to talk the band into dropping the metal album and instead record a concept album. While Ace felt they should keep to the original plan Gene and Paul sided with Ezrin. Gene sketched out the story line and recording began at Ace's home studio. When recording moved to a bigger facility Ace stayed home. And poor Eric Carr. His first album with the band and this is what they give him to do.

When the label was finally allowed to hear the finished album they were less than thrilled with the results. Records execs insisted the the track order be changed to put emphasis on the more commercial songs. Unfortunately this confused the story line which confused the fans and most likely contributed to this album being the only album in the KISS catalog not to achieve gold record status. Recent remasters have restored the original track order.

Before Ezrin's involvement and the rise of the concept album idea several songs were written that were intended for the heavy album. These songs were released soon after The Elder appearing on the European only best of compilation Killers. I've used these four songs to flesh out the album after removing anything that didn't rock. While that is not enough songs to truly fix the album completely to my liking it is certainly improved to the point of making the album enjoyable (still not a fan of World Without Heroes but it works better in this context).

Editing was limited to volume matching and a few nips and tucks. I did join Escape from the Island with Partners in Crime to create a single track by means of a hard edit that removes the last power chord from Escape and the first sliding intro note on Partners. I did this for two reasons. One, Escape is an instrumental track but it's an Ace track so I did not want to lose it but it seemed weird on its own. Two, KISS albums were typically ten songs each. By combining the two the track count was reduced by one giving us ten tracks, five songs each side.

This is a transitional album for the band. After Ace's departure they would go on to record Creatures of the Night, hiring Vinnie Vincent and removing the makeup. The return to a heavier sound and the taking off of the iconic makeup gave the band enough momentum to see themselves through the MTV years, the death of Eric Carr and into the new millennium with the reunion of the original lineup and the return of the makeup.

The background of the cover is a screenshot of the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary (Oblivion) from the Elder Scrolls video game. The archive also includes seven more covers for you to choose from. These include the original official cover, one alternate cover from a vinyl release and five more made by me. Take your pick.

Sources
Music from The Elder (1997 remaster)
Killers

KISS - Indy Debut - 1973

In 1973 KISS released their debut album as a self financed independent release. Funded by manager Bill Aucoin who used the LP to secure a major label contract with newly formed Casablanca Records. The tracks were recorded quickly and cheaply at two different studios. They even included a live track recorded at an early gig. While the album didn't sell it did get them signed and they still play most of these songs live today. It was cleaned up some and repackaged for re-release in 1975 after the success of their double live LP Alive!

Side One
01 Strutter [Electric Lady]
02 Let Me Go Rock And Roll [Bell Sounds]
03 Firehouse [Bell Sounds]
04 Cold Gin [Electric Lady]
05 Let Me Know [Bell Sounds]

Side Two
01 Watchin You [Electric Lady]
02 Deuce [Electric Lady]
03 Acrobat [Live at The Daisy]
04 Black Diamond [Electric Lady]
05 100,000 Years [Bell Sounds]

Reality Notes

Things happened fast For KISS in 1973. Within a year after forming they had acquired a manager and a record contract with an up and coming label. Both helped to shape and mold them into the machine they became four years later. What if things did not move quite so fast? What if their debut album was an independent release? With the available demos we can construct what could have been that LP.

The tracks here were all recorded before their debut album. Five songs were recorded at Electric Lady by Eddie Kramer as payment for session work owed Gene and Paul. Four songs were recorded at Bell Sounds studios by Kerner and Wise who produced their major label debut and the follow up Hotter Than Hell. Acrobat was recorded live at an early gig at the Daisy, this song would become Love Theme From KISS after dropping the Much Too Young second half.

There are two songs from the first album that we do not have a demo for. Nothin' to Lose and Kissing Time. Kissing Time is a Bobby Rydel cover that was added to the second pressing of the first album. These two songs are replaced with two demos from the same sessions of songs that would later appear on the second album. You could take Nothin' to Lose and Kissing Time from the first album and move them to the second if you really wanted to.  

Watching You comes from the Eddie Kramer produced demos and Let Me Go Rock And Roll is from the Kerner and Wise produced Bell Sounds demos. It was standard practice for Kerner and Wise at the time to record pre-production demos in an independent studio. Their reasoning was to keep any unreleased songs out of the labels hands. It's not theirs if they didn't pay for it.

I basically used the first album as a template and substituted the HTH tracks where they were needed. I did switch the last two songs around simply because I wanted to. All songs were sourced from the 28 disc KISSTORY bootleg.

The cover features one of the earliest photos of the band in full makeup.

KISS - Radioactive - 1978

I felt the cover needed updating so I made a new one. I did not update the zip file so if you like the new cover you can right click on the image and choose save image as or how ever your browser like to do that sort of thing.

 

In 1978, between the releases of Alive II and the Dynasty albums, KISS released solo albums. What if instead they recorded a band LP. The idea for this is not new and is most likely on the verge of cliche but I thought it was a cool idea to tackle.

I took inspiration from this episode of the Three Sides of the Coin KISS podcast. Their premise was that you are the executive producer for the new album. You get to choose the producer and the songs, which will all come from the demo pool of songs that are on each solo album, and who will sing the lead vocals. Because of this, this is the first time I speculated on how the songs might be different from the actual official versions.

I went back and listened to each album to see what was there. It has been a while since I listened to any of them. When they came out I really only listened to Ace's album. I did have Peter's on 8track back in the day and listened to it often but not much since. I think I heard Gene and Paul's albums two or three times at the most. After a few listens I realized that nothing on Peter's album and only two or three songs from Gene were up to par. This meant that Paul and Ace were going to have to pick up the slack.

As this would have been the studio follow up to Love Gun I used that as a template. I chose songs that I thought had an overall KISS vibe then slowly narrowed them down to the final ten, arranging them for feel and flow.

Side one
1 Rip It Out
2 It's Alright
3 What's On Your Mind
4 Radioactive
5 Tonight You Belong To Me

Side two
1 Move On
2 I'm in Need of Love
3 Love In Chains
4 Tunnel Of Love
5 Speedin' Back to My Baby

Reality Notes

• Rip It Out - Written by Ace but sung by Gene. I prefaced this song with the last 15 seconds of the spooky intro from Gene's album. 
• It's Alright - Paul, used as is. 
• What's On Your Mind - Ace, used as is. 
• Radioactive - Gene - used as is minus the spooky intro. 
• Tonight You Belong To Me - Paul, used as is. 
• Move On - Paul, sung by Peter. 
• I'm in Need of Love - Ace, Sung by Gene. 
• Love In Chains - Paul, I did a slight edit on the first chorus to tighten it up by removing the second and third lines. 
• Tunnel Of Love - Gene, used as is.
• Speedin' Back to My Baby - Ace, Peter sings the response calls at the end.

What we end up with is what I feel is a strong album with four Gene vocals, three Paul vocals, two Ace vocals and one Peter. It was not unusual for the composer of the song to not be the lead singer. Before Love Gun which features the first Ace lead vocal someone else would always sing Ace's songs. Two of Paul's earlier songs were given to someone else to sing, notably God of Thunder by Gene and Hard luck Woman by Peter.

I honestly tried to find a song from Peter's solo album but in the end decided against it. His album contained a mix of covers and originals with the covers being mostly oldies and the originals already rejected on previous albums. I'm sure that if Peter insisted on having a song on the album the band would have reworked one of them into something more KISS like but I had a hard time visualizing any as contenders.

Gene's album is all over the place. There might be another song or two that could have fit but with so many great Ace songs available why try to shoehorn a mediocre song in. KISS during the time of the original lineup was an equal partnership so there was no real reason to fight for a songwriting credit beyond a sense of pride. Everyone received an equal share of the profits.

The second alternate cover was created using artwork by David E. Wilkinson. Check out his site for other KISS  and non-KISS related works.

Hindsight 

So it's been over a year and a half since I posted this and even longer since its construction. How has it held up? Very well indeed. I'm pretty confident in saying that if I did this on today it would turn out very much the same. The only thing I flip-flop on is on the speculation of how many Ace songs are given to Gene to sing. in particular I'm In Need Of Love.

I would have loved to see Ace get three vocals on an album like he did on Unmasked but this is supposed to be the studio followup to Love Gun which featured Ace's vocal debut. Ace has at least one songwriting credit on every album before that with the exception of Rock And Roll Over. While it would seem odd to go from no vocal to one vocal to three in the span of a few albums they were still putting out two albums a year and evolved quickly. In the end it would have been the producer's call and like George and Ringo in The Beatles, Ace and Peter were always looked upon as support for Gene and Paul.

Is it on my iPod? 

Yes. I have all of the studio albums on there up to and including this one. I then have two best of comps, one that covers the rest of the makeup era and another that covers the non-makeup era up through Hot In The Shade. From there I include all full albums that came after, minus live and compilation albums of course.