I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Music from The Elder (1981).

Kiss lost me on this one.  I had been a faithful fan for several years, even putting up with all of the haters in fifth grade.  But once I heard that Kiss was releasing an “opera,” well the heck with that noise.

Now, granted, I had no idea it was a rock opera or that Tommy was a rock opera.  I heard the word “opera” (thanks newspaper review that my grandmother showed me) and said, Nope.  Of course, I wasn’t the only one who said Nope.  This record tanked.  It tanked so bad that the band almost went bankrupt.

But the album wasn’t just an album.  It was mean to be a film (there’s even film dialogue on the record!) and Chris Makepeace (Woody the Wabbit from Meatballs) was meant to star in it–I love that the film credit info is left on the record packaging).  What could this film have been like….if only it were made!

At some point I decided to buy the LP (Who even knows where I found it on vinyl) and I was surprised by how much I liked it.  In fact, I find it much more preferable to Dynasty and Unmasked.  It’s less pop oriented, and some of the tracks rock harder than anything since Love Gun.  True, there’s weird pretensions on it, but even those are just experiments.

This album also features Eric Carr on his first Kiss record (what a strange place for such a heavy rocking drummer to start).

So yes the album does open with horns and fanfare (like an opera perhaps?), but the first song, “Just a Boy” is a gentle ballad sung by Paul.  It’s certainly wimpy, but I rather like it (as I’ve said many times, I love Paul and his swelling choruses).  And there’s some nice guitar work from Ace here.

“Odyssey” has strings and strings galore.  It’s a pompous swelling song that harkens to Destroyer, yet goes in a very very very different direction.  As a fan of epic pretentious music, I rather like it, but as a Kiss song it’s a disaster.  Of course, I have always enjoyed the jokey “Once upon….not yet” line.

“Only You” is Gene’s first foray on this album.  And I will state categorically that this period was not good for gene’s songwriting.  His songs are really quite dull and boring (when you think of the crazy, complicated bass lines and things he was throwing on songs just a few years back, dull songs like this are a shock).  What’s also a shock is that this song is a kind of gritty guitar song, again, much less wimpy than anything on Unmasked–fickle fans turned on the band without having heard the songs–sure they weren’t good songs, but they weren’t disco either.

“Under the Rose” is the exception to gene’s malaise.  It begins softly with Gene’s whispered vocals not unlike “Man of 1,00 Faces” but the chorus is heavy and chanted, foreshadowing what they would do on Creatures of the Night (although Creatures was heavier and faster).  The riff is also pretty solid, too.

“Dark Light” is Ace’s contribution to the disc.  It has a pretty heavy opening riff as well.  And the verse reminds me a lot of the kind of verse Ace has been writing for a while–simple chords with lots of words.  The solo is pretty much literally a solo–very little in the way of backing music while Ace wails away. Shame it’s not a very interesting solo.

“A World Without Heroes” is a very gentle ballad by Gene.  There’s a great commercial for this album in which you get to watch Gene sing this song.

The crazy thing of course is that he’s in demon make up.  If this were Kiss without makeup no one would think it was weird, but I mean, look at him, why is he singing songs like this?  It is once again an impressive display of Gene’s range though.  Nice guitar solo, too.

“The Oath” is actually one of my favorite Kiss songs, no irony intended.  I used to laugh at the lyrics, which yes are silly (but this is Kiss, come on).  True, it’s an odd mix of really heavy guitars and pretentious falsettos (along with a bizarre keyboard/swirly third part).  But there’s a bitching guitar solo and as I said, the guitars sound great.  And Paul manages all of those different parts very well.  It’s vastly underrated and worth checking out (especially if you like unexpectedly weird music).

“Mr. Blackwell” feels like a song from a movie.  It tells a bit of a story of a bad guy.  The music is incredibly minimalist (one note bass bits and very sparse guitars during the bridge and chorus).  Lyrically it’s dreadful–“You’re not well/Mr. Blackwell/Why don’t you go to hell”, but at least Gene sounds like a demon delivering it.  The solo is an amazing bit of noise though.

“Escape from the Island” is another high point on the record.  It’s an instrumental, it’s fast and it’s heavy.  And it’s got another great solo from Ace–it’s funny that Ace was dissatisfied with the direction of Kiss at this time because he gets to really show off on this disc.

“I” is another solid anthem from Kiss.  It ends the album in an upbeat way and if it weren’t on this dismissed album it would be on any Kiss anthems collection.  Paul and Gene both take turns singing and the chorus is chantworthy and fist pumpable.  They should release it on a new album.  They’re so into it in the recording that Paul even shouts “you feel it too, don’t you?”

There’s an interesting review of this album at Popdose.  The bad thing is that the site has links to lots of MP3 demos from the album, but they’re all broken links.  I’d like to hear those.

[READ: October 30, 2011] “Homecoming, with Turtle”

This is an amusing piece of non-fiction from Junot Díaz.  I’m grouping it with the Oscar Wao stories because it actually bears an impact on them.  It’s about a visit that Junot took eleven years ago (from 2004) back to his homeland of the Dominican Republic.

He hadn’t been there  in nearly twenty years and he decided to go with his girlfriend.  Of course, like Yunior in the novel, Junot cheated on his girlfriend before their trip and one of her friends told her.  This put some tension on their trip (and one even wonders why he persuaded her to go along after that).

Their trip began with a week volunteering in the DR for a kind of Doctors without Borders (but for Dentists)–they assisted dentists with extracting thousands of teeth.  It’s a strange thing to do and a strange (but generous) way to start a vacation, but the exhaustion and camaraderie at least kept them from killing each other.

Which is what happened once they got on with their vacation proper. Their lodging decisions were terrible, Junot was hopeless in the DR and his girlfriend grew angrier and angrier.

Now, the part that appears in Oscar Wao is when they are in their hotel room.  His girlfriend believes that there is an intruder in the room with them.  And Junot, trying to be brave, jumps at the man.  Which turns out to be, as the title suggests, a turtle (a sculpture on the wall).   Which pretty well kicked Junot’s ass.   As did his girlfriend once they got back to New Jersey.

The essay ends with some comments about the Dominican Republic (where Junot navigates pretty well these days).  Since I learned so much about the DR and Trujillo from Oscar Wao, it’s interesting to read his take on Trujillo’s successor: Belaguer (we don’t get any thoughts on him in the novel).

Junot calls him, “a murderer, an election thief, an apologist of genocide, and, of course, a U.S. stooge of the Hosni Mubarak variety.”  Looks like I need to do some more research on the D.R.

If you enjoyed Oscar Wao, read this essay for some behind the scenes treats.