This Kiss Planet -
First up is an outtake from a TV advert for Kiss' 1978 compilation "Double
Platinum". We hear Howard Marks of Kiss' financial managers Glickman
Marks fluffing his lines. This advert was taken from the Kiss My Ass
video.
Next is some random 70's TV ad listing our heroes' names in full also
from Kiss My Ass. The guitar wail crowd noise and Paul shouting are
all from live Kiss performances (possibly Alive II). Original drumbeats
created in Hammerhead. Once you hear "Does Everybody Feel Good?"
this and most of the speech samples are from legendary motion picture
Phantom of The Park and the guitar is from 2000 man (Dynasty album)
more on both of these later. Gene declaring that he was "not on
this planet, not on this Kiss planet" etcetera is from the Kiss
X-Treme Close Up video, the original inspiration for this project, used
in the Kiss Kaoss Mix and still the definitive source for examining
the soul of Kiss. Incidental music from Phantom adds an atmospheric
feel. You might hear Paul declare "Hey!" a number of times
.. this is the "Paul Stanley Exercise Hey!" .. the details
of which will be revealed to you in the breakdown for Goontown.
This track was mainly constructed by Pindar, I devised some of the
intro and he mashed it all together .. it was originally at least two
separate tracks and made its way to the start of the album over time
due to it's obvious "opener" feel (i.e. "How's Everybody
Feel?" etcetera).
A special treat at the end is when we hear Ace declare "Leave it
to me Starchild, I'll bend these beams with my mind" .. he sounds
as though he really believes that he can do it although even in the
film he manages nothing of the sort and in real life we can be almost
certain that he thought the whole idea was total nonsense.
Satan's Service -
"All Generators Are Running" is from Phantom. The "You
all look better" etc. is from a live version of Do You Love Me?
(Probably Alive II). This morphs into the studio version of Do You Love
Me as we also hear the car crash from Detroit Rock City, both from legendary
Bob Ezrin produced 1976 "Heavy Metal Sergeant Pepper's" Destroyer
album which cemented Kiss' success after Alive! took off. Coming out
of the car crash you can hear more Phantom incidentals and Gene regaling
us with a tale of being bashed by a bible basher from, I think, X-Treme
Close up. When you hear the car crash again and "Well you are a
sinner!" the bass you can hear is from I was Made For Loving You,
more of which in the breakdown for Goontown. By the time Gene says "Knights
In Satan's Service" the music is constructed from samples from
the mighty Lick It Up, title track from the 1982 post apocalyptic video
embellished first Kiss unmasked album of the same title. Don't confuse
with 1980's confusingly titled Aussie hit album Unmasked which was in
no way used anywhere in the Knights project. Pauls preachers speech
is also I think from X-Treme. "Don't play with your mind, play
with your dick" is Gene going on about Kiss 1980's tree like guitarist
Bruce Kulick who was actually Kiss' longest serving lead prior to the
Second Coming and almost unbeliveably actually wore a suit on stage
sometimes. God knows where the "Huh" sound came from. All
the "without the make up?!" stuff at the end over more Phantom
incidentals comes from the intro to the video for "I just wanna
Fuh-get you" from god knows which video tape.
This song was again mainly constructed by Pindar and I added most
of the spoken samples .. The first time I did the running order it was
way down the list but got promoted to slot 2 by mutual agreement in
order to get the song based feel happening in the first half of the
album. It also is a title track of sorts so fits well in the early stages.
Numbing Themselves -
Quite an intricate mix of the live version of "I Love It Loud"
from the last ever Kiss in make up concert in Rio via Brazillian TV
and the Kiss EXposed video with some phasing and reconstructed versions
of the I love It Loud riff in Reason. Vocal starts with left overs from
the "Fuh-Get" promo outro including crowd noise. There seems
to be a tennis ball THWACK sound in there .. I can't identify it. The
"numbing themselves chatter is from X-Treme and is Gene's strikingly
earnest holier than Ace and Peter speech.
This is almost entirely a Pindar production .. it was the last track
in the bag and was boosted to track 3 by virtue of being attached to
track 2 when it moved. It overlaps with the nect track a bit and we
might have fucked up the indexing I can't decide if the switch from
3 to 4 should have been somewhere else or not.
Kiss Radio -
Most of the samples are from Kiss My Ass I think. The underlying tune
is Ace's Into The Void from controversial and I think underrated post
Second Coming album Psycho Circus. The version of Into The Void is done
in Reason and all of the samples are triggered by ReDrum drum machines
in such a way that they became impossible to move. I had to commit to
certain sections very early which reminded me of Gene's description
of Bob Ezrin submixing for Destroyer in Kiss and Make Up. The overall
feel is meant to be a cheap transistor radio capable of receiving Kiss
related transmissions only! There is a transition into a weird version
of Hard Luck Woman. This is a segment from the original Kiss Kaoss Mix
which was the spontaneous result of playing X-Treme Close Up through
one channel and Ritchie Hawtin's DE9 Closer To The Edit through the
other channel of the Korg KM2 Kaoss Mixer on the day I bought it. At
this stage the Kiss craze had not taken root here at The Jam Factory.
I hadn't thought about Kiss for years until I saw X-Treme close up for
£5.99 in Music Zone Trade Direct and I think it's fair to say
that Pindar had had little or no interest in the band ever at all.
At the end of the track you hear a reporter say "Maybe Kiss knows
something or reflects something about us that we don't see!" Probably
my favourite line to sum up Kiss' appeal and their apparently supernatural
success.
I created most of this track with little or no help from Pindar ..
as usual Chris Cola did nothing.
Kill The Power -
This song is about Phantom. It features some speech samples from the
film and quotes about the film and the meltdown of the band which it
arguably brought about as well as Ace's plaintive "understand me"
from the over used 2000 man from the Dynasty album (described in a fan
review on Amazon.com as the sound of America's biggest band literally
coming apart at the seams). It seems to fit as Ace was definitely misunderstood
during production of the film. Read Black Diamond by Dale Sherman for
the full story. It can be argued that Phantom was what really split
the band up as it was during production that Ace and Peter became very
disillusioned with the Kiss direction as all round entertainers rather
than straight ahead rock and rollers. This disillusionment led to the
solo albums (a concession by Gene and Paul to Ace and Peter who it is
said where threatening solo albums outside of the Kiss umberella) after
which the band where internally competitive and never "gelled"
again on record.