Tag: Talk to Me

Kiss – ‘Live in Australia 1980’ – Album Review (The Kiss Bootleg Series)

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I have been doing a Kiss Bootleg Series for years. You get a review every time I add a new one to the collection. Well, after buying 38 Bootleg CDs from John Humphrey’s personal collection, I figured let’s jump right back in and do a whole lot of reviews on the Bootlegs. Oh, if you don’t know who John Humphrey is, you need to know he is a massive Kiss collector. And he is the drummer of the band Seether. John decided to sell off his entire collection…sort of…he kept all the vinyl (like 4,000 of them). He did it through an auction at Backstage Auctions and I had to have a piece of it…and I did wind up with some things.

The next one in the collection I bought is ‘Live in Australia 1980’. It isn’t really a live show per se. It is actually a Australian documentary show that talks about Kiss and interspersed between the narrator, we get live songs and tidbits from band members, Doc Mchee and even their road manager. It sounds like the show was recorded on VHS and they transferred it to be put on CD (more on that later). You get about 11 live songs from their tour in Australia that hit Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane I believe. Most songs I’ve read come from Sydney, but I hear the announcer and Paul calling out Adelaide I believe.

As I said, it is a documentary type show as there is a narrator and the dialogue written is quite comical at times. The narrator delivers it so seriously, but it is so cheesy and at times so inaccurate. Quite enjoyable for the humor of it that wasn’t intentional. It all kicks off with a TV promo that has each member introducing themselves and then Ace introducing the band’s new drummer Eric Carr. The band gets introduced and they go in to “Detroit Rock City” but it is not listed on the track listing. That song is usually a great song to kick off the show, but because this recorded on tape, the tape was rather warped or whatever because we get a lot of tape drag and Ace’s playing sounds simply atrocious. Luckily, this is the only song that is that way.

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Kiss – ‘Star Boulevard’ (2012) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

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Universal Music was spitting out Kiss compilations faster than Gene and Paul were badmouthing Ace & Peter. Man, that is fast. This time around, we get a German only compilation from 2012 that was only available at the retail store Rossman. It is a 2 CD set with 30 songs and a bonus track as well. But is it really a bonus track if this is the only version released. No vinyl, no cassette, only a CD. That to me seems like it is a 2 CD set with 31 songs. Maybe it is because all the songs on here are album cuts except for this 31st song…who knows. Regardless, cool to get this one in the collection and I love that it has the German Kiss logo with the different SS’s.

The songs are mostly focused on the 70’s with a small taste of anything from the 80’s and when I say small, I mean only like 4 songs out of the 31. But there are some cool choices on here that you don’t normally see on a Kiss compilation and being 2 CDs, gives you a great taste of the band especially if you like the 70’s.

CD 1:

The album kicks off with the song “Strutter”.  The song was written by both Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons and over the years, this would be a rare experience as they would wind up writing songs by themselves.  The music of the song was based off an old Gene song called “Stanley the Parrot” which was recorded even before there was a Wicked Lester.

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Kiss – ‘Gold’ (2005) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

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Between 2002-2008, The record labels in control of the Kiss Catalog released not one, not two, heck not even 3 Greatest Hit Compilations. Nope. They released a total of 7 greatest hits compilations spread over those years. I am sure there are more, I just haven’t found them yet. Over the last few weeks, we have been through a bunch of them and hopefully this is the last one for a little while. At least until I find more…which I will. As far as compilations go, this one is worth taking notice. Let me explain.

Originally this was released in 2004 as part of the KISS Sound and Vision box set. This set was released on January 11, 2005 and is a 2 CD Set called ‘Gold’. The label for this one was Universal Music Corporation. This set covers the make-up years from 1974 up to 1982…except it doesn’t include anything from ‘Creatures of the Night’. The 1982 in reference here is for the ‘Killers’ compilation. There are 20 songs per disc which means we get a handful of releases from almost every album with some minor exceptions. There is at least one from every release though (except maybe Double Platinum. If you want a comp that gives you the best coverage of the make-up era, I don’t know if you can do better than this.

DISC 1:

Kiss (1974): The representation of the debut album is strong as it gives you five tracks:

The album kicks off with the song “Strutter”.  The song was written by both Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons and over the years, this would be a rare experience as they would wind up writing songs by themselves.  The music of the song was based off an old Gene song called “Stanley the Parrot” which was recorded even before there was a Wicked Lester. 

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Kiss – “Off the Soundboard: Tokyo 2001” (2021) – Album Review ( The Kiss Review Series)

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After over a year of reviewing everything Kiss and pretty much everything in my collection, we are finally to very last Kiss record in the collection…I am sure it won’t be the last as they will release more over the years to come and I will add them to the series. For now, this is it though. Kiss has finally realized they can make money on these Kiss Bootlegs that are out in the wild by finally releasing their own Bootleg Series called “Off the Soundboard”. First up for them is the show from Tokyo 2001 which is a short era of the band that has little to no representation anywhere else. It was with the line up of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, of course, but also features Eric Singer on drums and Ace Frehley on lead guitar. This line-up was only around a very short time right after the first Farewell Tour that was really a farewell to Peter. And it is this line-up that is the major selling point which is why they highlighted it on the front cover.

The album came out last month on June 11, 2021 and it is great to go out on the Review Series with a new release, but do note, I would’ve bought it no matter what. The packaging is really fantastic and yet very simple. Kiss brilliantly gave the set a look like it was really a bootleg. It looks like cheap cardboard box with everything just stamped on to the box. It looks cheap and yet it is that cheapness that is the brilliance. The vinyl are on a white label that looks like the info was also stamped and typed on to it which gives it even more of a bootleg feel. If it is going to be an official bootleg, make it look like one and they did. I hope this is the beginning of a lot of great shows that are out there in the bootleg world and yet we will get a cleaned up mix with some great sound and this one is a perfect start.

The show for this release was on March 13, 2001 at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan. This was actually part of the Farewell Tour and really close to the end. As I mentioned earlier, by the time this show was done, Peter was gone and Eric Singer was brought in. This set list is impressive. It contains 21 songs and includes all the solos, the great Paul Stanley banter and all mistakes which is exactly what you want from a bootleg. The show is over 2 hours long and does cover 3 LPs. Kiss didn’t skimp on this release in the least.

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Kiss – ‘Unmasked’ (1980) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

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By the end of they Dynasty Tour, the Kiss Empire was eroding quickly. Between Ace’s and Peter’s drinking problems (among other things), the band was at an all time low. During an interview on October 31, 1979 on the Tom Snyder Show, Ace was totally hammered and you could see the faces of Gene and Paul and they did not look altogether happy. Pissed is a probably a good word for it. And let us not forget Peter during the Tour. By the end, he would make so many screw-ups and some times would simply stop playing. Gene and Paul had had enough and so had Peter.

When 1980 rolls around, the band have to make a new album and this would become the first album without all four members of the band. Peter did not play on the album at all and there are no Peter sung songs, but he was credited to play and he was on the cover as Kiss wanted to keep the illusion going the band was fine for as long as they could. Who handled the drumming, well that would’ve been Anton Fig.

Now Ace, well, he was on the album, however, he only shows up on probably 5 of the 11 songs with the rest of the guitar parts being handled by Paul, Gene or Bob Kulick. It was becoming more and more obvious that the end was near for Ace as well although it wouldn’t be for another year or two. He somehow managed to hang in there for a little while longer.

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Kiss – The Box Set (Disc Three 1976-1982) – Album Review (Part 4 of 6)

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Welcome back to Part 4 of the 6 Part series. We have already talked about the Box Set and its packaging in Part 1 and we have covered Disc 1 and Disc 2 in the set.  For those, we got about 20 unreleased tracks between those two.  Quite impressive.  For Disc Three, we only get 3 unreleased tracks.  Rather a big let down after the first two.  As a result, I will also talk about the other songs on here to make it a fair representation.

Disc Three covers the years 1976-1982, which were some very rough years for the band. Coming off the fantastic Alive II album, the band released 4 solo albums, Dynasty, Unmasked, The Elder and Creatures of the Night.  Creatures being the only album that was truly fantastic…one of their absolute best.  The others were not so great.  The solo albums were a mixed bag, Dynasty was too Disco, Unmasked was too Pop and I don’t know what the hell The Elder was (I like it better as I am older).  Kiss lost a lot of fans during this era and probably for good reason.

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Disc Three contains 19 songs covering all the album I mentioned above and then some.  Like the albums from this time, the songs for me are a mixed bag as well.  It starts off with “Detroit Rock City” and omits the opening intro which is a version I don’t have so I will gladly take it.  The next song is “King of the Night Time World” off the Alive II album.  This is the only live song off that album which to be honest, I am a little surprised.  Instead, we get two of the studio tracks from that album which more than makes up for it as the songs are “Larger Than Life” and “Rocket Ride”, with “Rocket Ride” being one of my favorite Ace Frehley tracks.  It rocks out quite nicely.

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