KISS! 1977-2003 My History

I'm in this retrospective mode so bare with me. 1977 was a good year for a six year old kid living at 3023 Wilder Drive. I had discovered music and I have to give credit where it's due. The very first band I ever liked was... 'You wanted the best, you got the best, the hottest band in the world... KISS!!!!'. That simple creed was the opening lines to the 'Alive II' that came out in 1978. Before that though, I had been going through the newspaper and always found those old Columbia Record Club things on the back of the 'Parade' Magazine that was in the sunday paper. I would go through and circle the names and albums that I thought were cool. My friends down the street, the Kruggels (Jeff and Todd) were a couple of my best friends when we were growing up in the neighbourhood. Anyway, Jeff was already into this rock'n'roll band that wore all this make-up and spit blood, blew fire and had these amazing stage shows (things have not changed one bit... their shows are even bigger now) called KISS. I was curious to know why he thought they were so cool. So, I was at their house playing and we were in their room and he put on this record and I believe it was 'Destroyer' (released 1976) and it was outstanding. I went home realizing that these guys were really cool. I wanted their albums... BAD! I had shown my mom the ones that I had circled in the last 'Columbia Record Club' sheet and she was resistant to my having the KISS ones because they were so different and she was a little worried that my dad might not approve of me having that rock'n'roll music. I was persistant (i.e. pouted) and she finally agreed to order them for me so long and we didn't tell dad until after they arrived, I agreed. A few weeks later, I received the very first of what would become a merely huge collection and passion for music. The first three albums(cassettes) I ever called my own were KISS' 'Destroyer', 'Love Gun' and 'Rock and Roll Over'. I had this portable tape player that I would play them in. I played those tapes over and over through most of 1978. I would save my allowance and buy the teen magazines that had them on the cover and put the pin-ups on my bedroom wall. Dad didn't seem to mind (as far as I ever knew) that I liked 'that' band. By the time christmas had rolled around in '78 I was totally infatuated with KISS. I asked for a record player and more KISS music. My mom and dad had bought me the table top record player and the 'Gene Simmons' solo album. My grandparents had actually bought me the 'Ace Frehley' solo album. I was on cloud nine that year. From then on, I would go to Ayr-Way (became Target... then became vacant) and check out the posters that they had. I bought with my allowance the posters of Gene and Peter and Paul (I was upset because the had sold out of the 'Ace' one... Jeff Kruggel had it and I envyed him for that). I did trump him when I bought the oversized 'Love Gun' tour poster from Spencer Gifts. I had the trading cards, the dolls (yes, the dolls), posters, music, lunchbox and all sorts of other things that I had found in the KISS Army mail order magazine that I had managed to acquire through one of the teen magazines that I was buying. The one major magazine I always had to have was '16 Magazine'. Virtually every month there was something about them in there and pin-ups, pullout posters and the articles about them. I was a hooked on these guys. They made me want to be a rock star when grew up. I became something else but, I countinued to follow them and buy their albums. The first time I ever saw them live was on the 'Animalize' tour, 1987, if I remember correctly. They were playing at notre dame a.c.c. (before they named it the j.a.c.c.). This was after they had stopped whereing the makeup. I saw them again three years later in Ft. Wayne on the 'Asylum' tour (1990). Again, they still put on a great show. The third time was the highlight of my life, 1996. The reunion tour. Full makeup, the original stage and most importantly, the original lineup. I had been using ticket brokers for one show each year for the last couple of years to see the concert of the summer and KISS was the one to see that year. Four of us went to see them, paid $200 a pop to see them and it was worth every single penny spent. We kept on ranting and raving about how awesome the show was afterwards. The 'best' was yet to come. It wasn't until 2003 that I would see them one more time in Nashville, Tenneessee with friends who lived down there. This time though, it was more than just the concert. Gene was promoting his second book 'Sex Money KISS' in conjunction with the tour. There was a book signing at the Borders in Nashville and we had decided that we were going to stand in line and meet Gene, and we did (took us four hours but, we did). When we got close, there were people working for him going through the line handing out post-it notes and telling us to write our name on them and put them where we wanted Gene to sign them. When I went up, he extended his hand to me and said, 'Thank you for coming out to see me, I really appreciate you taking to the time to wait in the line'. I said, 'Thank you, Gene'. I didn't say too much. He signed my 'Kiss and Makeup' book that I had brought along (his first book). We put our arms over each other's shoulder and one of his crew took a picture of us on my camera. I was absolutely impressed by how well organized his book signing was. He took the time to chat with everyone and ended up spending, from what I had heard, almost nine hours there. Every single person who showed up got to meet him. He made sure of that. The next night, the concert. We had our tickets under the pavillion at this outdoor venue but, it was agreed that if we could get better seats from a scalper, we would. Well, we came about this guy who happened to have third row seats that he was will to trade with us for (we gave him our tickets and an additional $75 a piece to upgrade). Absolutely worth it! I spent the most I've ever spent on tickets for that show ($275) and it was well worth it. Since then they have become more iconic and more of a marketing tool for Gene and Paul. 'Kiss' the brand (like Disney... without the mouse). I've grown up with them and now, I respect them not only as musicians also as business men. They've done all the right things and they had the foresight to see that they were going to make something more of themselves than this garage band in 1973... when it all started. Three years after I was born. I think that those of us who get into music find a band that we like and we kind of 'grow up' them. I did so with the 'hottest band in the world... KISS!!!.