KISS is playing the Sonic Temple Festival in Columbus this week; time for a KISS Saturday Night Special re-run.
Read MoreLoving a Band That's Easy to Hate: My Life with KISS - David Martin
This is Day 2 of Kiss Kountdown. Click here for Day 3
Loving a Band That's Easy to Hate: My Life with KISS - David Martin
I was eight years old when Kiss' popularity peaked. I owned a copy of Alive! and a Destroyer jigsaw puzzle. I was not a dues-paying member of the Kiss Army. But I was at least in the Kiss Reserves.
Then, Kiss became like a toy that no longer interested me.
I don’t remember being upset when Peter Criss and Ace Frehley left. My friend Steve, who lived across the street and had cable TV at his house, called me when the video for “Thriller” aired on MTV. There had been no phone call when, a few months earlier, the members of Kiss appeared on the network without makeup.
I became a Kiss fan again in high school. Colin and other friends argued on behalf of the band’s legitimacy in the lunchroom. Also, we were driving by this point. Waiting out the tense period after puberty but before girls found us appealing, we did not have many places to go besides record stores and concerts.
My first Kiss show was in the spring of 1986. Kiss visited Columbus at the tail end of the Asylum tour. Hair metal was going through its neon colors-and-rouge phase. Gene Simmons — the demon! — was not a man for these sequined times. He looks ridiculous on stage in pictures from that era. But I don't recall thinking the show was ridiculous. I remember having a great time.
I continued to attend Kiss shows past the point where I could blame a not fully developed brain. Sometimes I have paid for shows, and sometimes I have had press credentials. I have seen the band with and without makeup and the original four members. Shows have ended with me feeling cheated and shows have ended with me feeling elated.
The last time I saw the band, in 2009, I accompanied the music critic at the newspaper where I worked. Our seats were in the second row, right in front of Gene’s microphone stand. It was the first and only time I have had great seats at an arena show. During one break between songs, I spied Gene using a water bottle to wash the blood off the ends of his hair.
I am not a stupid man, and I like to think I have pretty good taste. Bands I really dislike — Poison, Def Leppard — are not too dissimilar from Kiss. On paper, at least, I should have grown out of Kiss a second time. But I did not. In fact, not too long ago, I took the time to burn a CD of my favorite Gene songs.
Therein, I think, lies the simple answer to the riddle of why I still like Kiss: The band has a lot of good songs.
This, for instance is Gene's B-material:
Kiss performed "Almost Human" in concert for the first time on a recent, nerds-only Kiss cruise. Yep, even on the night when Paul Stanley went to the hospital and the band performed without him, this gem stayed in the bag. That's how many good songs Kiss has.
Think Kiss is all mediocre head-banging bullshit? Cuddle up to this fire. It will keep you warm:
Gene, of course, is not the only songwriter in the band. In his review of Rock and Roll Over, the respected critic Robert Christgau praised the band for its "tough, catchy songs." I like think that Christgau was thinking of Paul Stanley's contributions when he wrote that passage. Take a look at what Paul brought to RARO:
"I Want You"
"Take Me" (co-written with Sean Delaney)
"Mr. Speed" (co-written with Delaney)
"Hard Luck Woman"
"Makin' Love" (Delaney again)
Eight moths later, the band released Love Gun. "I Stole Your Love" and "Love Gun" (Paul songs) opened each side. The solo albums came next, and Colin's right that Paul's is the best of the bunch. Starchild was on fire.
The band's Lennon/McCartney dynamic is a big reason why the band has endured. No, I am not arguing Kiss was as good as and important as the Beatles. But bands with two principals have a lot of advantages: more songs, a less fertile environment for self-indulgence. When one crew chief hits in a dry spell or becomes disinterested (see: Gene, 1982–1991), the other one can put the band on his back. (Paul wore bike reflectors on his.)
Having two male leads has obviously meant a lot to Kiss' live shows. When you begin to tire of Paul's ass-shaking, finger-linking and chest-hair caressing, you can watch a seven-foot bat clomp around, breathe fire and leer at your date.
Sure, sure, there's a lot not to like about Kiss. The relentless and crass merchandising. How obnoxious Gene is. The lyrics. (Not content to write a song called "Love Gun," Paul would later reference said gun in song called "Bang, Bang You.") Hipsters collect and swap Paul's ridiculous stage banter in the same way that hipsters of yore used to swap videotapes of Jerry Lewis being maudlin on his telethon.
I cannot defend Kiss Kaskets or Gene's interview with Terry Gross. But if I knew something about your tastes, I could probably burn a CD of Kiss songs that you would like (or at least not hate). If I took you to a show, you would think it is dumb in a pro wrestling kind of way. But your head would bob when the band played "Love Gun" and you might think Gene's boots are also kind of cool, too.
"A million so-and-so's can't be wrong" is usually a bad argument. But if the Grateful Dead gets to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so does Kiss. The fist pumps and hippie dances have spoken.
So here's a toast (or as Paul might say, a little al-ka-HOL!!!) to the band famous enough to appear on jigsaw puzzles, greedy enough to remain a going concern several years after a "farewell" tour, and tough and catchy enough to keep us interested.
David Martin
KISS, Black Flag and a Parking Lot in Spokane, Washington - by Brian Phillips
This is the final story in the 10 Day KISS Kountdown to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Click here for previous KISS story.
Brian Phillips Vaguely Remembers Seeing KISS in Spokane 1985.
I feel like I don't have a good reason to write this, but figure I should anyway. My relationship with Kiss is hardly intimate. True, my big sister bought me "Rock N Roll Over" on cassette for my 13th birthday and that was my first album. I'm pretty sure I asked for "Destroyer" or "Alive," but that's only because I didn't know any other Kiss records. Growing up in a small town far from Seattle rock radio and years before MTV how could I? Perhaps I knew about "Love Gun" too, though I'm certain I would have thought the title referred to a literal gun that fired daisies and made feather-haired lasses in Junior High fall in love with you. I was an awkward, naive little bugger. I suppose most of us were.
High school came and with that I became a Rush fanatic. I listened to "Permanent Waves" and "Moving Pictures" over and over and over. I don't recall thinking of Kiss one way or the other until college at Washington State. We all watched the MTV press conference in '83 when the makeup came off and "Lick It Up" was on all the time.
"Animalize" followed and that tour hit Spokane two hours to the north in early 1985. My college radio program director and his girlfriend were going and Seattle prog rockers Queensryche were opening and for some reason I thought they were pretty fucking awesome so I decided to go.
In those days The Spokane Colisium was like most in mid-sized American cities. Shaped like a bread box, and years of smashed gum on the the cold cement floors, the old barn grabbed it's fair share of butt rock tours. I remember burn-out Spokane kids in the parking lot slamming Rainier Beer pounders and blasting Black Sabbath's "Children Of The Grave" as we stole through the Eastern Washington winter gloaming. Think of the mini-doc "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" and you'll get the idea.
No video exists of that show, but the essential Setlist.fm has captured the evening for posterity. Then again I'm pretty sure Kiss did more or less the same show every night. Detroit in late 1984 will give you an idea.
I was stone-cold sober, but hell that was a long time ago. I don't remember much other than from our vantage point we could see roadies throwing bras and panties at Gene Simmons' feet. This was a few months after we'd seen Spinal Tap mind you. We knew all about that shit. Paul Stanley's "Cold Gin" patter seemed to go on forever and involved a nurse.
My metal days were short lived. A couple of skaters from the tony enclave of Bellevue, Washington were on my dorm floor and they had Dead Kennedys records. Later that year I'd be back in Spokane seeing Black Flag at The Grotto Hall, a rickety old building I heard had burned to the ground a few years later.
Before the show Henry Rollins stood behind the sound man and banged his head during the entire Black Sabbath "Born Again" album. Later some asshole from the Spokane band Vampire Lesbos was getting out of hand in the pit, so Rollins grabbed him, produced a hand of ball sweat from his ubiquitos black gym shorts, and rubbed it on the guy's face. Funny what you remember.
Brian Phillips is the afternoon DJ for CD102.5 FM, Radio's Last Hope.
Lifelong Kiss Fan Gives You His Ten Least Favorite Kiss Tunes - Nick Jezienry
This is day 3 of Kiss Kountdown. Click here for day 4.
You Wanted The Worst and You Got It! - by Nick Jezienry
I am a lifelong Kiss fan who saved up pennies and loose change to buy Kiss Alive! at the local department store. It was a double 8-track and I didn’t have enough change, so I got the first release instead.
That’s what started it off. I was hooked.
My first concert was Kiss in 1978 with The Rockets opening at the now-leveled New Haven (Conn.) Coliseum. My parents were reluctant to let me go as I was in third grade, and the only way they would let me attend was if I got straight As. That was the only time in my life I got straight As, by the way.
I stayed a Kiss fan but I admit that I lost interest for a few years (Unmasked, The Elder and Creatures weren’t on my radar at all as Kiss wasn’t “big” in junior high). In high school, I got reacquainted when “Lick It Up” came out and I revisited the old stuff and caught up on what I missed through some kids who had these albums. I saw Kiss for the second time on the Asylum tour — paid $35 for a third row seat and saw Black N Blue open. (Tommy Thayer rocked! Who knew he’d become Ace!!)
I went away to college at Ohio University and stayed true to Kiss. I was fortunate that the Crazy Nights tour rolled through New Haven when I was home on break and got to see that tour, too. When CDs became popular, I traded in all my cassettes at SchoolKids during my junior year at Ohio U. The first CD I purchased with the trade was “Music From The Elder.” I had owned all of the band’s work on 8-track, cassette and now CD. And then I got all of the remastered versions. You can say I am a Kiss completist.
I've seen Kiss a handful of other times — twice on the very stellar “Hot In The Shade” tour, once on the first reunion tour, the Psycho Circus opening tour date at Dodger Stadium and again on the first farewell tour in Las Cruces, N.M., that was one of the last shows the original lineup did.
The point of all this is I really like Kiss and don’t truly dislike anything they’ve done. Some discs were weaker than others (hello Asylum), but Kiss has a formula that resonates with me. I did a quick, very unofficial count of 224 songs and I’m picking my LEAST favorite 10 to celebrate the band’s long overdue induction into the Rock Hall. I’m picking the least favorites because everyone makes “best of” lists, right?
I chose not to include any covers (Kissin’ Time, Then She Kissed Me, Anyway You Want It). The newer material also got a hall pass as I’ve listened to “Sonic Boom” and “Monster” less than any of the other records. I like both of those offerings, but I just don’t listen to them as much as I did other material. Anyway, you wanted the worst and you’ve got it …..
1. Nothing Can Keep Me From You: This was the new track on the Detroit Rock City soundtrack. I remember thinking “Oh god, I hope this isn’t the last song Kiss ever writes.” Just an awful ballad. Who knew they’d put out about five more records after this came out. I’m still not sure if I like the movie or not.
2. Love’s A Deadly Weapon: Kicked off Side 2 of Asylum (cassette reference), which is my least favorite Kiss release from start to finish. Gene Simmons’ material on Animalize, Asylum and Crazy Nights wasn’t much to brag about. I can say that now, but back in high school, I’d have defended Gene and probably argued he was a better bass player than Geddy Lee!
3. My Way: This ends Side 1 of Crazy Nights, and along with I’ll Fight Hell to Hold You, are the low points of Kiss’ commercial success in the 80s (Paul Stanley version, as Gene’s worst songs are way worse than Paul’s duds).
4. It Never Goes Away: Carnival of Souls. Just a weird song for Kiss on a very different Kiss CD that has some strong moments. This song, clocking in at over 5 minutes, wasn’t one of those strong moments.
5. Tomorrow and Tonight: Love Gun. Even as a third grader, I knew this was a ripoff of “Rock and Roll All Night.” The live version on Alive II is even worse than the studio version. Kiss was really trolling for a hit with this one. Why not release “I Stole Your Love?"
6. Saint and Sinner: Creatures of the Night. The only weak spot on a very cool sounding record. Eric Carr’s drums on this disc were amazing. This too-long, too-boring song probably prevents this from being my favorite Kiss CD. And it’s the second song — usually a spot on the record for the hit single!
7. Boomerang: Hot In The Shade. The closer on what I feel is a very under appreciated Kiss record. I thought a lot of the material was good, but this song just didn’t seem to fit. Seems like it would have more of a “Revenge” era song.
8. Partners In Crime: Killers. This was among the material Kiss reportedly scrapped to make “Music From The Elder.” The other three songs were stellar, but this one definitely qualifies as filler.
9. We Are One: Psycho Circus. Had this been a Paul Stanley song, it might have worked. But it doesn’t fit The Demon’s persona at all and comes across rather cheesy.
10. Any Way You Slice It: Asylum. Another second song sleeper from Gene Simmons. Any Way You Slice It, this isn’t a good song.
Nick Jezierny is a former journalist who worked at The Columbus Dispatch, El Paso Times, Idaho Statesman, Lancaster Eagle-Gazette. He graduated from Ohio University and lived in Columbus from Labor Day 1991 to Memorial Day 1998. He never saw Watershed perform during that time, but he spent about $2,500 to travel from his current home in Boise, Idaho, to see four Watershed shows in 2013.
I Was Gonna Be The Only Rocker On The West Side of Columbus, Ohio, To Never Smoke Pot, And Then Kiss Came To Town by Ricki C.
This is Day 4 of Kiss Kountdown to Rock Hall. Click here for Day 5 - "Reason To Live"
It’s a little hard to explain the type of rocker I was in early 1977. I had started playing in bands when I was 16 in 1968, but immediately previous to that, I had been an INCREDIBLY shy, backward, book-loving mass of neuroses. I never trusted drugs. From a very early age I could see that drugs were gonna have a very deleterious effect on my beloved rock & roll. By the time I was a freshman in college in 1971 we had lost Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix & Janis Joplin (within THREE FUCKING WEEKS of each other) and Jim Morrison to drugs, in one way or another. I had seen the latter three of them – Hendrix in the Experience, Morrison in The Doors and Joplin with The Full-Tilt Boogie Band at Vet’s Memorial in 1968 and ’69, while I was still in high school.
Meanwhile, all around me, my friends – former hell-bent-for-leather West Side rocker boys & girls – were now either laid-back, patched-jeans Crosby, Stills & Nash and singer/songwriter devotees or nodding out to heavy metal with Seconal juice & red wine running down their chins. At that juncture my viewpoint was that, from everything I could see, drug use led to listening to and actually enjoying the music of Santana, something I just could not abide. At any rate, as the 1960’s became the 1970’s, I made a very conscious decision to be the only rocker on the West Side of Columbus, Ohio, to never smoke pot. (In that respect, Jonathan Richman – the leader of Boston band The Modern Lovers – was my hero, and Richman’s 1971 tune “I’m Straight” was my anthem.)
(editor’s note: Kiss, Ricki, the subject of today’s blog is KISS. Okay, okay, okay, I’m GETTING THERE.)
I hated Kiss from the first time I saw them back in March 1974 when they debuted on In Concert, ABC’s totally lame rip-off of Midnight Special and EVERY-FUCKING-BODY on the West Side of Columbus stayed home from the bars that Friday night to see them. In the rock & roll community – and that was a thriving entity in those days – that show was hyped every bit as heavily as the Beatles had been on the Ed Sullivan Show back in 1964. (See video below.)
From the first moment I laid eyes on Kiss I knew my rock & roll future was in desperate, desperate trouble. It was painfully obvious that Simmons, Stanley & Company (and I mean Company in the strictest Corporate Sense) had absorbed everything they could from my beloved New York Dolls, dumbed it down with hopelessly generic Foghat/Deep Purple/Uriah Heep riffs, and threw in every extra-musical element – monster make-up, sirens, smoke machines, breathing fire, bullshit “overdubbed” fireworks ‘cuz Kiss wasn’t allowed to use pyrotechnics on TV – they could possibly think of. Those guys KNEW what was gonna play in The Great Midwest. My West Side brethren might not have been able to stomach queer-boys in rouge, boas & platforms like The Dolls, but they dearly loved ‘em some Godzilla movies, comic books & quaaludes.
Jump-cut to 1977: a mid-70’s band I loved beyond comprehension was The Dictators – the pride of the Bronx, the link band between The New York Dolls and The Ramones in New York City rock & roll lore. I had my own punk fanzine – Teenage Rampage – going at that time, inspired partly by Dictators’ lead singer & songwriter Adny Shernoff’s early-70’s Teenage Wasteland Gazette. Adny and I corresponded back in the day (see postcard below) and he would let me know when The Dictators were gonna play Columbus.
The problem was, the first two times The Dictators were supposed to play (opening first for Styx and later for somebody else TOTALLY lame that I can’t remember, possibly Marillion) they didn’t show, because they had been kicked off the tours for behavior unbecoming an opening act. (i.e. Rocking harder than the headliners, being sarcastic & hilarious in the DEADLY SERIOUS age of overblown prog-rock, fucking with the headliner’s gear, etc.)
March 6th, 1977, Kiss was scheduled to play St. John Arena on campus, with The Dictators opening (see ad below). And if you don’t think it fucking KILLED me to plonk down my hard-earned $7.50 (see ticket below) to pay to see Kiss, you better think again, mojumbo. So three of my rock & roll compadres and I arrived at St. John's just after 7:30 pm so we wouldn’t miss The Dictators’ 8 pm opening set, except there was already a band PLAYING while we were getting the de rigeur 70’s pre-concert booze & fireworks patdown, and I was yelling at the cop that he was making us miss The Dictators.
Only we weren’t missing The Dictators, we were missing some jag-off L.A. band called Legs Diamond, who had taken Adny & the gang’s place on the Kiss tour, bringing to THREE the amount of times I paid good money to NOT see The Dictators, and to have to sit through a band I despised. Except I didn’t even get to SIT through Kiss, I had to stand ON MY RICKETY FUCKING FOLDING CHAIR the entire concert, because those dumbfuck Kiss Army idiots STOOD ON THEIR CHAIRS through every lamer-than-the-last Kiss opus, and ladies & gentlemen, I gotta tell ya, Kiss sucked BAD that night.
First - and most problematically to somebody who had seen and been deafened by The Who when I was 17 - Kiss wasn't NEARLY loud enough for St. John Arena. It was absolutely THE MOST ANEMIC sound system I have ever experienced in a venue that size. (And I saw a LOT of other shows at St. John: from The J. Geils Band to The Faces to Joni Mitchell to Aerosmith . It’s quite possible the Joni Mitchell show was louder than Kiss. Unforgivable.) And Peter Criss’ drumming? Jeez, it was an embarrassment to behold. There were times in the show that guy couldn’t have found the beat if it fucked him in a closet. At some point, the lunkhead stoners next to us, oblivious to the fact that we weren’t friends of theirs, passed over the joint they’d been puffing, something I normally would have disdained with the “No thanks, maaaaaan,” response I’d been employing years before Johnny Rotten snarled it in “God Save The Queen.” That March evening, however, I was so depressed over the fact that I was at a Kiss show that I took the joint and availed myself of a good, hefty hit.
I was no longer the only rocker on the West Side of Columbus, Ohio, to never smoke pot. And it was all Kiss’ fault.
It was lucky that I was high for the rest of the show, though, because by The Big Finish – when Paul Stanley swapped the Gibson Flying-V guitar he’d been playing the entire set for an obviously plywood, not-remotely-plugged-into-anything facsimile of a guitar to smash – I’d have probably been moved to enact some kind of violence against those clowns onstage. As it was, I just stood there on my chair in Row 17 of St. John Arena, hitting the joint that I had refused to give back to my aisle-mates, and thinking, “Jesus, these guys are the biggest band in America, they’re making millions of dollars and they can’t even be bothered to smash a REAL guitar to close the show. Rock & roll as I know it, and love it, is OVER.”
I realized in that moment that there was to be no more power & passion in arena rock & roll, just plywood & play-acting.
In March of 1977 Colin Gawel was 7 years old. I was 24. Generational differences abound. - Ricki C. / March 29th, 2014.
Laying The Groundwork For Kiss: The New York Dolls, 1973
Kiss' First T.V. Appearance, 1974
I Fully Realize It's Comparing Apples To Oranges to Plug In Dictators Footage From
2004 After Kiss In 1974, But There's Not A Lot Of Dictators Videos From the 70's
Available On The InterWideWeb, So Bear With Me, Folks
(writer's note: I was AT this show. I'm the brown-haired guy with the cowlick right in
front of the white-haired guy in the white ball-cap from the 7:21 mark on.)
"Reason to Live" by KISS Gave Me a Reason to Live. - by Jeff Hassler
This is Day 5 of Kiss Kountdown. Click here for day 4 or Click here for Day 6 "Kiss Rocks vs Kiss Sucks"
Reason to Live Was My Reason to Live by Jeff Hassler
Thanks to Colin for letting me contribute to the Kiss Kountdown! I like to think I bring a different sensibility to the conversation. On one hand, I agree with Wal and Ricki C. that Kiss while wearing make-up were just a circus act. As a fan of quality music myself, I too had zero interest in the original line-up. Kids stuff.
But once the group "unmasked" (ha), got rid of all the special effects and replaced Ace Frehley with the completely superior musician Bruce Kulick, KISS finally started making records for grown-ups. While all the non-make up albums are superior to the previous (except for maybe The Elder) I think they hit their high-water mark when the band teamed up with master producer Ron Nevison for the blockbuster CD Crazy Nights. In fact, I would even go so far as to say it's even better than Bon Jovi's classic Slippery When Wet, which came out around the same time. Both went on to be HUGE sellers and influenced millions of people the world over.
What makes Crazy Nights so much better than the early Kiss stuff? Well, in addition to Bruce being a technically superior guitar player to Ace, Nevison finally brought the band into the modern world by adding all kinds of cool synthesizer parts. Kiss records like Rock n Roll Over and Love Gun just sounded so dated by the year 1987. So boring. Nevison was able to bring a modern rock quality to the record, allowing it to be on the cutting edge of the new metal scene that was happening. Digital recording got rid of all that noisy tape hiss, and sampled drums allowed Eric Carr's drumming to finally sound as thunderous as it did live.
For example, Reason to Live was the #1 video on MTV's daily countdown and it featured keyboards for the first time in a Kiss song since Beth. And the lead single, Crazy Crazy Nights, while not a smash in the States, went on to become one of the biggest hits of the decade in the UK. You know, England: home of The Beatles, Stones, The Who, Ozzy, Oasis, Def Leppard, Arcade Fire, Deep Purple.....do I have to go on? My point being that Great Britain knows a thing or two about good rock n roll, if you know what I mean. Let's face it, the USA can be a little off in our taste. I mean can anybody explain why Guns and Roses became huge and Faster Pussycat didn't? Exactly.
Desmond Child. Heavy Metal Personified.
Do you know what else Crazy Nights and Slippery When Wet had in common? Desmond Fucking Child! One of rock's greatest songwriters. Ricki claims he has never heard of him and Colin says "Desmond Child is where bad songs go to become even worse," but you cannot argue with his results. The guy is a lyrical genius and he has co-written more hits than any "Hitless Wonder" I know. Sorry, Colin, but you know it's true. Just sayin'.
I have my own story about how the songs of Desmond Child have touched my life. In 1987, I was a senior in high school and I had just met my later ex-wife Kim in French Club. (Looks good for a college resume: French Club that is, not Kim!) I went stag to the Valentine's Day dance and Kim got into a fight with her boyfriend Chase on the way there and ended up coming alone, too. When the DJ played "I'll Die For You" we danced and that became "our song." It was co-written by Desmond Child.
I'd die for you, I'd cry for you, I'd do anything, I'd lie for you, you know its true, baby I'd die for you, I'd cry for you. If it came right down to me and you, you know it's true, I'd die for you.
Hard to top that. Anyway, fast forward a couple of months and Kim and I were still going strong until.... One day she stopped by my parents house with some leftover cookies she had made as part of the dance squad for the lacrosse players. I don't know how to say this exactly, except she surprised me in my bedroom while I was doing a private act adolescent boys are known to engage in. I was listening to the song "Bang, Bang You" on Crazy Nights (also co-written by D. Child.) and didn't hear her knock. To make matters even worse, the school yearbook just happened to be open on the bed next to me turned to the page of the girls tennis team. I SWEAR it was just a coincidence, but when Kim saw the picture of Linda Assario stroking that backhand in her tennis skirt she just went CRAZY, screamed "Chase was right!" then threw the cookies in my face and stormed out of the room in tears.
I was beyond heartbroken. Frankly, I was borderline suicidal. I'm not sure I would have made it if not for this Kiss classic. Ricki C likes to say rock n roll saved his life, well the song "Reason to Live" saved mine. "Reason to Live" was literally was my reason to live. I played it first thing in the morning and the last thing at night for six straight months. I found strength in the words and in the sampled drum sounds. Desmond Child, I am forever in your debt.
"Reason To Live" (Stanley, Child)
Out of love, there's nobody around,
all I hear is the sound of a broken heart
Out of time, no more waitin' for you
Now the hurtin's through, and a new day starts
And I feel a change in my life,
I sailed into dark and endless nights
And made it alive
[Chorus:]
Everybody's got a reason to live, baby
Everybody's got a dream and a hunger inside
Everybody's got a reason to live, but it can't be your love
Out of touch, with myself for so long,
now a feelin' so strong comin' over me
Down the line, there's a lesson I've learned
You can love and get burned, if it has to be
And I see a change in my life,
and I'm not alone when I'm strong inside
And I realize
Anyway, Kim and I eventually met up again in college and got married and then recently divorced. Thanks for reading my blog. Hassler is out.
You can learn more about Jeff Hassler and other Pencilstorm contributors by clicking here
Below: 1) The video for the song that saved my life. 2) The best KISS lineup rocking Bang Bang You. LIVE!! It really takes off around 2:40. Trust me, it's worth the wait. 3) Kim and my song. 4) KISS live in a rare daytime concert from Germany on the Crazy Nights Tour. They are so much better without Ace, Peter or any lights or effects. Great set list too! Paul is playing the coolest guitar.
I wonder if Kim still plays this once and a while.