Today in 1975 Kiss released there Live album Alive! New York City, New York Hard rock, heavy metal Status:Active Years active 1973–present Kiss (often styled as KISS) is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well known for its members black and white face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s with their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting, smoking guitars, shooting rockets, levitating drum kits and pyrotechnics. Counting the 1978 solo albums, Kiss has been awarded 28 gold albums to date, the most of any American rock band. The band has sold more than 40 million albums in the United States, of which 20 million have been certified by the RIAA and their worldwide sales exceeds 100 million records, making them one of world’s best-selling bands of all time. The original 1973–80 lineup consisted of Paul Stanley (vocals and rhythm guitar), Gene Simmons (vocals and bass guitar), Ace Frehley (lead guitar and vocals) and Peter Criss (drums and vocals). With their makeup and costumes, they took on the personas of comic book-style characters: Starchild (Stanley), The Demon (Simmons), Spaceman or Space Ace (Frehley) and Catman (Criss). The band explains that the fans were the ones who ultimately chose their makeup designs. Stanley became the Starchild because of his tendency to be referred to as the starry-eyed lover and hopeless romantic. The Demon makeup reflected Simmons cynicism and dark sense of humor, as well as his affection for comic books. Frehleys Spaceman makeup was a reflection of his fondness for science fiction and his supposedly being from another planet. Criss Catman makeup was in accordance with the belief that he had nine lives because of his rough childhood in Brooklyn. Because of creative differences, both Criss and Frehley were out of the group by 1982. The bands commercial fortunes had waned considerably by that point. Buoyed by a wave of Kiss nostalgia in the 1990s, the band announced a reunion of the original lineup in 1996. The resulting Kiss Alive/Worldwide/Reunion Tour was the top-grossing act of 1996 and 1997. Criss and Frehley have since left Kiss again, but the band continues with Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer. Stanley and Simmons have remained the only two constant members. Kiss has been named in many Top lists. They include Number 10 on VH1s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock, 9th on The Greatest Metal Bands list by MTV, number one on Hit Paraderss Top 100 Live Bands, 56th on VH1s 100 Greatest Artists Of All Time, and 26th on Gibsons 50 Greatest American Rock Bands. Kiss was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, ten years after becoming eligible. Casablanca - Paul Stanley / rhythm guitar, vocals - Gene Simmons / bass guitar, vocals - Ace Frehley / lead guitar - Peter Criss / drums, vocals Disc 1 1. Deuce (3:56) 2. Strutter (3:22) 3. Got To Choose (3:40) 4. Hotter Than Hell (3:30) 5. Firehouse (3:50) 6. Nothin To Lose (3:33) 7. Cmon And Love Me (3:05) 8. Parasite (3:34) 9. She (6:56) Total Time 35:28 Disc 2 1. Watchin You (3:49) 2. 100,000 Years (12:12) 3. Black Diamond (6:16) 4. Rock Bottom (3:21) 5. Cold Gin (7:16) 6. Rock And Roll All Nite (3:59) 7. Let Me Go, Rock N Roll (5:44) Total Time 42:39 Alive! is the first live album, and fourth overall, by American hard rock band Kiss. It is considered to be their breakthrough and a landmark for live albums. Released on September 10, 1975, the double-disc set contains live versions of selected tracks from their first three studio albums, Kiss, Hotter Than Hell and Dressed to Kill. It was recorded from concerts in Detroit, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio; Wildwood, New Jersey; and Davenport, Iowa Despite their reputation and success as a live act, which emphasized theatrics as much as it did music, their notoriety did not translate to increased record sales. Fans told the band that their albums were not capturing how the band sounded live, so the band decided to release a live album. Kiss was essentially surviving on then-manager Bill Aucoins American Express card. Complicating matters was the fact that their label, Neil Bogarts Casablanca Records, was having financial difficulties of its own stemming from a major misstep. The label had released a double album of Johnny Carson monologues earlier in the year. However, the album was a flop, but Casablanca had pressed millions of copies in anticipation of it being a strong seller. Casablanca, however, did think a Kiss live album would be a respectable seller. The album outperformed expectations as it was certified gold, becoming both Kiss and Casablancas first top 10 album. Years later, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons recounted that in the weeks after the release, they saw a significant increase in concert attendance. In the documentary Kiss: X-treme Close Up, Stanley remembers that at one particular show in Dayton, Ohio, the place was packed; I mean you couldnt have gotten another person in with a shoehorn. The albums title was an homage to the 1972 live album Slade Alive! from the English rock group Slade, a band that Kiss were heavily influenced by.[ There has been considerable debate as to how much use was made of studio overdubs. In his autobiography Kiss and Make-Up, Simmons stated that very little corrective work was done in the studio and that most of the studio time was devoted strictly to mixing down the multi-track recordings. He also emphasized that Kiss could not have done extensive overdubbing even if they had wanted to; thanks in no small part to the Johnny Carson album fiasco, the extremely meager budget allotted to the band simply would not allow it. The original recordings from the July 23, 1975 concert at the Wildwood Convention Center (Deuce, Hotter Than Hell, Firehouse and Black Diamond) along with the June 21, 1975 Cleveland Music Hall concert (Rock and Roll All Nite) demonstrate that there was very little overdubbing used for the Alive album. According to Dale Shermans book Black Diamond and Goldmine magazine, in the early 1990s, Eddie Kramer stated there were a few overdubs to correct the most obvious mistakes: strings breaking or off-key notes, for instance. However, in recent years, Kramer has stated that the only original live recording on the album is Peter Criss drum tracks. Stanley has noted that there is a bass mistake in the choruses of Cmon and Love Me. He has also made comments that even though there have been live albums recorded later that make Alive! sound like it was recorded in a washroom, he has no qualms about it. Criss has also claimed, in his 2012 autobiography Makeup to Breakup,[4] that the only original live recordings on the album were his drum tracks. During the program Classic Albums, the band members all stated that while many changes had been made, such as overdubbing vocals and mixing together various crowd sounds to get a more amplified sense of the live sound, they considered the changes minor. In particular, they stated that they only altered the noise of the crowd to better capture the feel of the actual performances, since the raw recordings only dimly picked up the audience. They also stated that they had difficulties capturing vocals due to the natural jumps, dancing, and other stage activities youtube/watch?v=czMAkRfDlZ4
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 20:32:48 +0000
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