That's right, I'm in the KISS Army, too. Frightened yet? ;) Jon Wardell, the other half of Not An Exit, has always been a huge KISS fan, and he and I have turned each other on to different bands and sounds over the years, so he more or less introduced me to the Kabuki Four. Of course, at the time (early to mid-'90s) it wasn't Gene, Paul, Ace, and Peter, but rather Gene, Paul, and two other guys. Heh-heh... Granted, the original incarnation of KISS wasn't the only one to produce good music, but... they were the best. Anyway, I heard some stuff from early and late KISS, though I liked the early music more. On vacation in Cancún, I found a jukebox that had "Love Gun" on it, and I just had to play it, though there was barely anyone around to appreciate it.
But Revenge, was, in my estimation, a great album. Jon and I got back from a club one Saturday night and rewound the video tape on which he'd recorded the premiere of the new video from the album. We fast-forwarded through some hair-metal crap, then stopped the tape on some heavy song with a frightening goatee-laden lead singer. Good stuff. And our jaws dropped when we realized it was "Unholy," the KISS video, and that was Gene Simmons with the goatee! It was a new look, in black leather, and a new sound for the band.
It wasn't long after that that the rumors of a reunion with Ace and Peter started circulating, and of course they turned out to be true. First the MTV special, then the tour, and Jon and I got on board for that. Some would say overboard. ;) We went to a show at Madison Square Garden in makeup, I as Peter Criss and Jon as Ace Frehley. First, though, we stopped at White Castle in Clifton, where two young men recognized the makeup, but everyone else just stared. (We were even asked if we were with the City Ensemble!) We took a bus to Manhattan, joined the other made-up freaks at the show, then ate outdoors at a Mexican restaurant and walked around the Village afterwards with our unmade-up and embarrassed friend Scott. Here, we were asked if we were with Cats. One older gent asked if I were an actor, or a mime, to which I merely shook my head no, without speaking a word.
We had so much fun in the makeup, we put it on again a few weeks later down the Jersey shore! Saturday night in Wildwood, Peter and Ace cruised the boardwalk with a group of our friends, after dining in makeup of course. We had an old-time photo taken as gangsters, had a few pictures taken on the boardwalk by complete strangers, then I had one of our friends get a shot of me kneeling in front of the word "KISS" someone had written in the cement when it was fresh.
We went to KISS' 1996 New Year's Eve show at the Meadowlands in Jersey, again in makeup, and although we went to a show on the Psychocircus tour in 1998, we haven't both been in makeup since January 1, 1997. (Jon dressed as Gene Simmons that Halloween, though.) The honeymoon seems to be over, now that Eric has replaced Peter in the band, but... Jon continues to be a rabid KISS fan, though neither of us is especially fond of what Gene and Paul are doing with the band and its image these days....
