Don't Diss The Kiss

Me and The Boy are still rocking and a-rolling about one of the greatest gigs we have been to some 26 months after the event.

The mighty KISS.

I may be criticised for being a bit morbid but KISS can now be ceremoniously ticked off my list of ageing bands and performers to see before they die only leaving Neil Young, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin as the stalwarts of a quite exclusive and well respected club. The criteria to qualify for the club are clear and unambiguous.

1)Talent
2) Longevity but not boring
3) Quality
and
4) The ability for any content of their back catalogue to create alternative feelings of reminiscent melancholy and euphoria, to bring about instant recall of a time, place or person or where you find yourself humming, whistling or singing any of their songs for a good part of any day.

KISS are of a generation of true musicians and showmen which are qualities so sorely missing in the current crop of wannabee rock and pop stars.I find it difficult to respect the life story of new entrant to the fame game when they have not actually done or acheived anything and yet I am confronted by their glossy fresh faced photos amongst the best sellers at the book shop every week.

The KISS make up and outrageous high rise footwear are not gimmicks to supplement a weak performance but embellishments to create the overall larger than life image. The gig that me and The Boy went to was not  a foursome of creaky jointed, grey haired and portly gentlemen looking to meet alimony payments or to support a series of low interest or bad investments from the 1980's and 1990's in dot.coms or Ostrich Farms but a band without any restrictions imposed by age or any lack of enthusiasm. They perform because they live for performing and everything else is incidental.

By everything else I mean the extensive merchandising items, thought to be around 3000 products, from lunch boxes to condoms, the Theme Park, coffee shop and restaurant chain, books, collective works, re-issues of CD's, clothing and cosmetics. I do not join the voices of some who view this commercial aspect of the band as exploitative or greedy. The demand is there because the band have developd a fiercely loyal fan base, The KISS ARMY, and if there were even a miniscule impression that the followers were being milked for every pound, dollar, Euro and any other national currency then this would surely show on the balance sheet of KISS Ltd. The Kiss Army would surely march in such circumstances.

I have felt it necessary to strongly defend KISS after a disgraceful piece of TV reporting with the insidious undertone of criticism over their recent Help for Heroes Benefit and the release of the Monster Book, in all senses of the word , to the world. It is a typical form of attack for the British Media in particular to undertake a character assassination of the succesful and selfless in our society, be it those in business, the arts, general public life and specifically those who have attained celebrity through ability and credibility and not through hype or the toxic mischief of image and PR consultants. The nice guys are the ones who get shot down first.

Surviving as long as KISS have in the well known fickle circus that surrounds the music business and also still able to release great music and live performances is not something that can be sustained just on the output of a well oiled media machine. It takes a lifetime of effort, sacrifice and service to get to the heady heights of the Kiss Empire. Long Live The Kiss.