Kiss News

12/06/2020

The wild history of KISS — and how they almost never made it out of Queens

 By Michael Kaplan / NYPost.com

In the early 1970s, David Bowie, Lou Reed and the New York Dolls made men in makeup cool. So it was no wonder that a Queens band wanted to try it out, too.

“Kiss originally wore lipstick and eyeliner,” recalled musician Binky Philips, who went to high school with guitarist Paul Stanley. “But Gene [Simmons, bassist] saw himself in the mirror and realized he looked like a pro wrestler in drag.”

The only way they could make it work was to create theatrical characters inspired by comic-book ­superheroes: a starchild, a demon, a spaceman and a freaky-looking cat.

But success was a long shot. Former yeshiva boy Simmons and opera-loving Stanley were nobodies who couldn’t cut it at Manhattan hot spots. Instead, Kiss played its first gig, in 1973, to an almost empty Popcorn Club in Sunnyside.

“Most musicians thought the kabuki makeup was lame,” Philips told The Post. “They made a big noise as a group but, individually, there were no stellar musicians in Kiss. They were not handsome. ­Peter [Criss, drummer] had a weak chin and Ace [Frehley, guitarist] had bad skin.

”Stanley (real name: Stanley Eisen) and Simmons (born Chaim Witz) met through a mutual friend and teamed up for the short-lived band Wicked Lester.

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12/05/2020

KISS On Spotify

WOW! Thanks for listening to KISS over 300 million times on Spotify this year!
12/05/2020

KISS 2020 Goodbye!

We will only have a limited number of exclusive packages to see #KISS2020Goodbye LIVE from 

the ATLANTIS in Dubai.

Sign up for our wait list if you don’t want to miss out on this once in a lifetime experience to watch KISS light 2020 on fire.

kiss2020goodbye.com

12/04/2020

Collecting KISS!

Valentin Sinkevich of Russia has 154 (111 pictured) different copies of Dynasty -including releases from Bolivia, Russia, Southern Rhodesia, S. Africa, Peru, Philippines, Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, Korea, Taiwan, Greece, Uruguay, Yugoslavia, & many more WOW!
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