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KISS: Behind the Mask - David Leaf &amp; Ken Sharp
By: Chiprocks1 Date: March 20, 2012, 3:26 pm
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[center]KISS: Behind the Mask - The Official Authorized
Biography
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I can't believe it took me over a month to read this book. I'm
an avid reader and I can blow through pretty much any book in
record time. But this one took 3 days over a month. Yikes. The
book at first sight is a little misleading. It's actually 3
books in one. That wasn't the problem. It was the text itself
which smaller than usual and each page seemed to be jammed a
little bit tighter than normal with regards to kerning and
tracking for the written word. Okay, enough with the boring
stuff. Since this is a 3 in 1 book, the review is about 3 times
the size. Sorry if it's more than you would normally like to
read in a book review to those that stumble across this. Now
without further ado, on with the review.....
I read books like this for one reason and one reason only and
that is to get behind the scene dirt, a different perspective if
you will about some iconic things that went down. For me, I
gotta say that the best was when KISS Meets The Phantom Of The
Park
HTML http://pennycan.createaforum.com/dvd's-blu-rays/kiss-in-attack-of-the-phantoms-(european-theatrical-cut-1978)/msg6261/#msg6261 was being screened by insiders, around 30 people in attendance
,
the movie was so bad that EVERYONE sat silently in the theater,
not sure of what to say or do. And in the back row, you can hear
Ace cackling and laughing at the stupidity of what he was
watching on screen. Whenerver he would laugh, the rest of the
attendee's would laugh along with him, which was a great way to
break that tension in the room.
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HTML http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i266/Chiprocks1/Smilies/0%20All%20Smilies/ROFL.gif[/img] I can totally picturing how this was playing out in the room a
nd
would have loved to be there in person.
Another great story was after having just seen Deliverence, Sean
Delaney was driving the band to their next gig, gets "lost" and
fakes running out of gas and has the band hide in the back of
the car under a blanket with their platform boots showing
because they were convinced that they would become playthings
for nearby Hillbillies. While all this was going down, Sean is
at the front of the car drinking all of their booze.
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Another great story was when Ace faked like he was s h i t
-faced drunk and wouldn't be able to perform that night. He did
the joke to get back at Gene and Paul who of course freaked out
about losing money if the show couldn't go on and called Bill
Aucoin to fix the problem. When he got there, Ace lets him in on
the joke and ends up having beers with him in the room while he
is suppose to be fixing the problem, making Gene and Paul sweat
it out. Ha. No wonder they hate Ace so much.
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Peter knocking Ace out cold for being a "lazy mother f u c k e
r " was an eye opener as was the time the band got dressed up in
drag and to pull a prank on Bill. The kicker was having Grace
Slick there as their ring leader and them as her doo-wop
background singers. Also cool is hearing other famous rock stars
and their KISS stories being told in the book as a sidebar,
ranging from Julian Lennon, Ted Nugent, Little Steven, Rick
Nielsen. I like hearing what other rock stars have to say about
each other and we get plenty here.
I never comment about picture inserts in any book, ever. So,
this is a first for me and I need to make a comment about it
because it's so damn cool and tripping me out. Inside they have
an outtake for what is the centerfold interior of Alive II
HTML http://pennycan.createaforum.com/music/kiss-(the-original-lineup)-discography/msg1592/#msg1592 and it was taken at the Sports Arena in San Diego. I had no id
ea
that iconic shot was taken here. Wow.
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HTML http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i266/Chiprocks1/Smilies/0%20All%20Smilies/HTL_jaw-dropping.gif[/img] Also, they have a shot of Paul taken here during the Farewell
Tour, a show that I was at. (Chip's Note: In hindsight, now that
I think about it, I remember either hearing about the Alive II
image being from the Sports Arena or reading it in the linear
notes inside the album. Can't remember which.)
This book does a great job of dissecting pretty much everything
about KISS that there is to know about. How deep does it get?
They actually interview the two 15 year olds, Bruce Redoute and
Lee Neaves on the back of Alive!
HTML http://pennycan.createaforum.com/music/kiss-(the-original-lineup)-discography/msg1584/#msg1584 and what it was like discovering that they were on the back
cover when they went to buy it for themselves. That's pretty f
u c k i n g awesome if you ask me.
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Some other things that caught my attention was when Paul
basically dismisses Double Platinum because "once a song is
recorded, there is no need to re-do them...ever". And yet, many
years later he along with Gene would re-record the biggest KISS
songs with Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer on KISS Klassics
HTML http://pennycan.createaforum.com/music/kiss-(the-replacement-lineup)-discography/msg2722/#msg2722. It's not lost on me that this particular album is utter garbag
e
and an embarassment. Hmmm...maybe Paul was right and he
shouldn't have gone to the well a second time. Oh well.....
For me, out of the 3 sections of the book, I found the last one,
which is devoted to commentary by the band, engineers,
producers, managers, secretaries, song writers and whoever else
happened to have a story to tell in which they go into great
detail, breaking down every single KISS album and probably about
95% of every single song they ever recorded.
The gloves are off when rating the albums and songs. The most
brutally honest of them all had to be the Kulick Brothers. Both
Bob and Bruce did not pull punches about what songs they
absolutely hated and each one had some pretty eye opening
stories to talk about with their working relationship with both
Paul and Gene. I was actually surprise to see this stuff get
into the book and I was even more surprise to hear Gene rip on
Paul for writing "whimpy" love songs. This is great stuff.
I definitely recommend this to any and all KISS fans as a Buy.
Non-fans should definitely give this one a Rent and get some
good behind the scenes stories. This isn't a perfect book.
Because Part 1 and Part 2 are written by two different people,
there is a good chunk of stuff that is repeated in Part 2. After
awhile it becomes extremely annoying reading the same thing
again. This is where an editor failed his job of tightening
things up and getting rid of stuff that was just rehashing the
same information. That's my only gripe about the book, otherwise
an awesome read.
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