Are there any Kiss fans in the room?

If so, you may want to leave at this moment because I’m about to lay into some things you might not want to hear but may, deep down, know to be true. And it is not solely a gripe left at the doorstep of the platformed, painted ones either. There are several bands and artists that fit the description I’m about to toss into the oscillating fan. You, dear reader, can fill in whatever blanks your mind will free-associate. But for the sake of framing, let’s start with New York ’s own.

I’m not a member of ‘the Army’. I’m not even really a casual listener. For me, the band began and kind of ended with “Destroyer”. Produced by Bob Ezrin, who guided another colorful figure in Alice Cooper through some interesting paces and would later shape Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, “Destroyer” had it all. It had the lasciviousness, the danger, and the power and also had moments that can’t easily be described in words. They’re the moments you can only hint at through the music itself. The chiming Quasimodo bells in “Do Ya Love Me” or the strings in “Beth”, or even the long sound-effect overture leading into “ Detroit Rock City ” hinted at a reach far beyond the somewhat one-dimensional antics of “Sweet Pain” or “God Of Thunder”. Those tracks were more the standard paeans to lust and rebellious assertion that most hard rock groups of the time plied, but taken as a whole, “Destroyer” was something more.

They haven’t really had much in the hits department since, barring compulsory purchasing from their fans. There was the disco-dified “I Was Made For Loving You”, the modest comeback “Lick It Up” and a Billboard charting tune from “Hot In The Shade” co-written by Michael Bolton. There was a spark of excitement when, in 1999, they reunited with since departed (and now re-rejected) band mates Ace Frehley and Peter Criss for “Psycho Circus”, as well as their trademark makeup and costumes. The album was not much more than a postcard for expensive ticket reunion tours touted as farewell tours; rather uneventful and mostly unmemorable.

In the past four years, there hasn’t been much more than that farewell tour that never ends, live recording after live recording, lots of knick-knacks and merchandising, from toys to books to licensing up the proverbial wazoo. Kiss became rock’s equivalent to the Yu-Gi-Oh cartoon show, more a commercial for stuff than a creative entity. Oh, and there has been squabbling. Ace and Peter are in, they’re out. They’re in and out. None of this has anything to do with new music. Gene Simmons released a solo disc called “Asshole” that has this gem of a lyric - “But you got a personality just like a bucket of pee”. Paul Stanley is apparently working on solo stuff too. Who knows what that will be like and I’m not sure I care.

Well, yeah. I do care, at least enough to write this tirade. There are plenty of bands for which new opportunities are gone. I have gotten in trouble for naming some in the past, so I’ll skip the exposes, but let me alert the guys in Kiss: you do NOT want to get anywhere near reality TV. I beg of you, please oh please. What I would suggest to Paul and Gene, sincerely, now is the time to get serious, put aside the makeup, the swagger and the clichés.  It doesn’t matter that Ace and Peter are gone. What matters is that this organization has the funds, the fan base and the experience to make a strong, original and corn-free hard rock album. All that is needed is the will to do so.

Hard rock has always dwelled in a state of arrested development. Practitioners have either run to the lite or stayed eternally, hopelessly, ludicrously teenaged. They’ve stayed on-point with subjects they have no business commenting on. They’ve missed the opportunity to “be real” and most of these bands have missed it year after year or have dropped off the face of the earth, their last release usually an ignominious crapfest. If I was so bold to throw down the glove, I’d say now is the time to get to work on those career-defining projects rather than career-deflating ones.

I’ve sent this one out not just to the addressed, but also to any of the groups and artists so casually resting on ever-increasingly bloated laurels. It doesn’t have to end at the Oldies Tour. Lester Bangs once said that rock had to remain immature to remain rock, but he’s not with us anymore, everything has changed. The life expectancy of a performer has dramatically risen (as VH1’s “Behind The Music” would tell us all, mostly in spite of the performers themselves), and isn’t this new playing field even slightly tempting?

 Leave the kids stuff to the kids and get to work... please?