SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Gene Simmons (1978).
Even all these year later I feel like there is something very “polished” about this album. It feels different from the others for an intangible reason. I like it quite a bit,and yet it doesn’t sound like a record from a demon with blood leaking out of his mouth. Maybe it’s the surprisingly faithful (and delicate) cover of “When You Wish Upon a Star”? Maybe it’s the cameo by Cher? Maybe it’s the weird effects on “Radioactive”? The whole things just seems different to me.
It starts out menacing enough with the creepy laughing and the crazy strings (like a Disney nightmare) and the chanting (what is that chanting–its sounds demonic but they seem to be saying Hosannah?). And it all swirls into a…disco sounding guitar? “Radioactive” is a wonderful ditty and shows that Gene, while not exactly a good singer, has more range than the God of Thunder would have suggested. (That’s Aerosmith’s Joe Perry on guitar). “Burning Up with Fever” opens with a bizarre, really out of tune guitar intro (that’s two songs with crazy intros). This feels much more Kiss than anything else on the album, although again, it’s very slick feeling. And surprisingly, I like the backing vocals on this track–especially the solo that the woman takes–hey is that Katey Segal? No evidently it is Donna Summer (!!). I guess Katey was one of the backing chorus on some other songs. (And that’s Steely Dan’s Jeff “Skunk” Baxter on guitar).
Musically, I rather like “See You Tonite,” but I find his vocals a little weird on this one. It’s such a sweet song…again, unusual for the demon (Skunk Baxter on guitar, again). “Tunnel of Love” seems quite sinister in the beginning with a great bass line. And then the chorus kicks in with these delicate la las (Skunk Baxter on guitars again–Katey Sagal must be in there somewhere). “True Confessions” has a pretty hilarious choir in the middle of the song. My mom felt that “Living in Sin” was bad publicity for the Holiday Inn. Although I thought it was a very funny line (and yes, Cher is the squeaking fangirl and Joe Perry is on guitar again). “Always Near You/Nowhere to Hide” is a really slick track in which Gene shows of his more delicate singing style. The first half is a gentle acoustic track but it builds into a high concept highly produced track–and let’s not forget the amazing high notes he hits (is that really him?).
“Man of 1,000 Faces” is another song with sinister sounds in the verses (cool strings, and is that french horn?) and then a gentle, swelling chorus. “Mr Make Believe” begins the delicate ending of the album (Skunk Baxter, again). This is a sweet ballad, showing a very gentle side of Gene. There’s a little diversion in his cover of Kiss’ “See You in Your Dreams.” This version rocks harder than the Kiss version, and the backing vocals lend a weird edge to the song which is why I like it better than the one on Rock and Roll Over (that’s Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen on guitar). And then yes, “When You Wish Upon a Star.” My dad laughed about as hard at the demon guy singing this song as he did about the butch biker guy singing “Oh Danny Boy” in the Village People movie Can’t Stop the Music (which we watched as a family.
Gene’s solo album charted the highest when they were released, although now Ace’s has sold more. It’s pretty great.
[READ: October 8, 2011] “To Catch a Beat”
There were four one-page pieces in this week’s New Yorker under the heading “Sticky Fingers.” Each one was about theft in some way (this being the money issue, that ‘s a nice connection).
Lethem, who now appears here twice in just a few short days, also breaks the mould set up by Miranda July (so I guess 2 of four stories about shoplifting is not so much a mould as a half). Indeed, Lethem goes against all the conventions of the other pieces, for in this story, Lethem is not the thief at all. There is hardly any thieving going on here.
This story is about Lethem working in used book stores in Brooklyn as a kid. He mentions several different places where he worked, nut the story focuses on one in particular. The name isn’t important to the story (in fact it doesn’t exist anymore). But what happens there is the crux of the story. It’s basically about a friend of Allan Ginsberg’s armed Herbert Huncke (who I’ve never heard of). Huncke was a major fixture for the Beats, and is written about (in disguised form) by Burroughs and Kerouac. But he was also a junkie and an ex-con. And he came into this bookstore regularly.
Huncke was unthreatening, but he needed money. And so, he would come to the bookstore to sell copies of the “one of a kind” autographed edition of Ginsberg’s Planet News. Turns out that Ginsberg autographed a carton of books for Huncke to sell when he needed money. And he needed money a lot. But sometimes that book wouldn’t sell as quickly as he liked.
The ending of the story is a theft that is actually quite poignant. This turned out to be rather touching.
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