This week we take a look back at Scott Carr’s Pencil Storm KISS Unmasked Fantasy Album Draft LP from 2018!
Read MoreKiss Turn On The Night - My Kiss Record by Scott Carr
Eddie Trunk recently released a cool list of his top twenty KISS songs. But just before that moment, Pencilstorm held a fantasy draft of songs from the KISS Unmasked era. Click here for the full results of the draft . Below is the album selected by Scott Carr.. More albums from other owners coming soon. Enjoy!
KISS Turn On The Night - My Kiss Record by Scott Carr
Produced by Scott Carr with permission of the Pencilstorm Unmasked KISS Fantasy Draft. Number next to song indicates the round it was taken.
Side A
Take It Off
Who Wants To Be Lonely
Not For The Innocent
Spit
King Of Hearts
Side B
Turn On The Night
A Million To One
While The City Sleeps
(You Make Me) Rock Hard
Get All You Can Take
Carr Jam 1981
Thoughts on Side A:
Take It Off (Revenge) - I decided to start my record off with a Paul song from Revenge. It's always a good idea to start your record with a Paul Stanley song. Great uptempo rocker from the starchild. Classic Kiss vibe on this one complete with solid guitar licks from Bruce Kulick and plenty of cowbell. Speaking of cowbell , this is the only track on Revenge that newly seated drummer Eric Singer did not play on. Producer Bob Ezrin thought Singer wasn't quite locking into the groove and Eric had to leave the studio to go on tour with Alice Cooper, so Ezrin brought in Kevin Valentine to play drums on this track. Valentine would later provide drum tracks for the Psycho Circus album in 1996.
Paul claimed he was trying to write a strip club anthem in the vein of Lick It Up. I think "Take It Off" is the better of the two songs.
I was happy to get "Take It Off" in the third round. I knew the Revenge tracks would go quick and this was one I really wanted. "Take It Off" was almost the title track for my fantasy album but I figured it would have made for a better album title in 1983 when the band officially unmasked.
Who Wants To Be Lonely (Asylum) - A round #2 pick for me. Sadly my only pick from 1985's often overlooked Asylum album. I always thought Asylum was a much stronger album than the previous years Animalize and rocked a lot more than it's follow up Crazy Nights. "Who Wants To Be Lonely" is an 80's classic from Paul....great vocal and catchy chorus. Asylum had a lot of other contenders for me but these tracks got snatched up almost as quickly as the Revenge tracks,
Not For The Innocent (Lick It Up) - Gene's first appearance on what ended up being my very Paul oriented Kiss fantasy album. Gene had a very strong set of songs for 1983's Lick It Up and "Not For The Innocent" is one of my favorites from that record. Gene co-wrote this song with guitarist Vinnie Vincent who had joined the band during the recording session for the previous years Creatures of the Night album. I actually prefer the demo version of this song were Paul sings the chorus sections...I always enjoy hearing Paul and Gene sing together.
Spit (Revenge) - Cringe-worthy Spinal Tap lyrics aside, "Spit" is a great Gene track from Revenge. Not sure why I picked this one for my record other than I love all the cool guitar riffing throughout the track. Again Bruce Kulick shines on this track. Bruce really came into his own on Revenge, I just wish I had been awake enough during the draft picks to capture another Revenge track or two. I think at one point I was trying to sneak in a Carnival Of Souls track or two but the other guys weren't having any of that.
Some sections of "Spit" date back to a 1977 demo that Gene recorded with Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry called "Mongoloid Man".
Kiss having fun during the MTV Unplugged sessions playing "Spit".
King Of Hearts (Hot In The Shade) - Side A of my fantasy Kiss record ends with a Paul track from 1989's Hot In The Shade. Oddly enough this was the first track I ever heard from Hot In The Shade. I remember it well, I was playing a gig with a band I was in at the time and the local rock radio station said they would be debuting a new Kiss track at a certain time that evening and the time happened to fall right when we were on a break. I tuned on the radio and this is the song they played, not sure why they chose this song over the albums first single "Hide Your Heart" but radio was a different animal back Then.
I always liked this song, kinda the same vibe as "Hide Your Heart". Paul claims he was trying to write a Bon Jovi type song but felt like he fell flat with this one.
Thoughts On Side B
Turn On The Night (Crazy Nights) - I always like when the band uses a song from the album as the title for the album. Kiss has had many title track songs that have went on to be classics including Hotter Than Hell, Love Gun, Creatures of the Night, Lick It Up etc. I thought I would use that as a template for my Kiss Fantasy album and call it Turn On The Night. I would make this my albums lead single because of it's catchy sing along chorus. "Turn On The Night" was actually the third single from Kiss' 1987 album Crazy Nights and it was a complete flop on the charts. I think it deserves another chance.
A Million To One (Lick It Up) - I will admit that going into the Kiss Unmasked Fantasy draft I had no real game plan in mind. The draft was held on a very early Sunday morning and I had played a gig the night before and had only a few hours of sleep when it was time to start the draft. I had all my notes in front of me but in my foggy sleep deprived state they made no sense. The one thing that was clear tho was that I had to have "A Million To One" on my album. I took it in the first round and was very happy with this pick.
I think "A Million To One" may be Paul's best song of the entire non makeup era. In fact I would place it in his Top 10 all time best.
Paul co-wrote all his songs for the Lick It Up album with new guitarist Vinnie Vincent and "A Million To One" is the best of the lot. In recent years it's been asked if Vinnie Vincent saved Kiss and the general response has been "YES!". With songs like "A Million To One", how could you argue this point.
While The City Sleeps (Animalize) - The weakest of the Gene songs to make it onto my album. I have no real defense for this except that it's not "Burn Bitch Burn" or "Murder In High Heels".
(You Make Me) Rock Hard (Smashes, Thrashes and Hits) - By the late rounds in the draft I will admit that my record kind of went off the rails. When I got this one my thought was at least it's not "Read My Body". Musically this one is pretty cool but those lyrics. Even Paul has suggested that it wasn't one of their finer moments and he didn't like it at all.
For some reason Paul decided to ditch his guitar for the videos from Smashes,Thrashes and Hits and just prance around in front of the camera. He seems almost as uncomfortable as Gene does playing his bass without a pick in all those Kiss videos over the years.
Get All You Can Take (Animalize) - I always thought this was a bit of a sleeper track on Animalize and never really got much attention. Has a cool Zeppelin-esque guitar groove with Paul doing a Robert Plant inspired vocal.
Carr Jam 1981 (Revenge) - My album wraps up with the instrumental "Carr Jam 1981". This song was included on Revenge in 1992 as a tribute to drummer Eric Carr who had passed away the year before.
"Carr Jam 1981" is a studio outtake from the (Music From) The Elder sessions and features a drum solo from Eric Carr in the middle of the track. Ace Frehely would eventually turn the track into a song called "Breakout" for his first Frehely's Comet record after leaving Kiss.
I like having "Carr Jam 1981" on my Kiss Fantasy album because it has a link to the makeup era and to one of my all time favorite Kiss albums The Elder. More importantly it has my las name in the title. No one else in the fantasy draft was gonna touch this one.
So there you have Turn On The Night, my Unmasked Fantasy Kiss album. It didn't quite turn out as expected but it's a fun listen. It's pretty unbalanced and all over the place but when you look at the unmasked era for Kiss that's a pretty accurate description. With that said I loved every minute of being a Kiss fan during the unmasked years and would defend them at every turn. For awhile I turned away from the unmasked records but in recent years I've been revisiting them and probably enjoy them more now than ever.
This was a fun way to look back at these records.
And, for the record, here is my ranking of the unmasked era Kiss albums. For fun I have included the live albums and Carnival Of Souls.
1. Lick It Up
2. Revenge
3. Asylum
4. Kiss MTV Unplugged (actually one of my favorite Kiss records period)
5. Kiss Alive III
6. Animalize
7. Crazy Nights (could have been higher with better production)
8. Hot In The Shade (could have been higher with fewer songs)
9. Carnival Of Souls (not a grunge record and I don't hate it as much as most people do)
10. Smashes, Thrashes and Hits (should be smashed)
Scott Carr is a guitarist who plays in the Columbus, OH bands Radio Tramps andReturning April. Scott is also an avid collector of vinyl records and works at Lost Weekend Records. So...if you are looking for Scott....you'll either find him in a dimly lit bar playing his guitar or in a record store digging for the holy grail.
Kiss Rules The Month Of September - by Scott Carr
If you are a Kiss fan, you know that September is a very busy month in the band's history. Or if you will, Kisstory. The band has released more records in the month of September than any other month, followed closely by October.
The trend of releasing albums in September goes all the way back to the September 10th, 1975 release of the bands seminal career-launching double live album Alive! No question, if this album had not taken off, we would not be having this discussion today. The band's career was in serious jeopardy as their first three studio albums had been major duds in the sales department. Luckily for myself and Kiss fans around the world, Alive! became the bands first million seller and gave the band a second wind.
Next up in the September cycle of releases for Kiss came on September 18th, 1978 when the band released their individual solo albums. Each band member had their own full-length album but all were marketed under the Kiss name. Some would say it was one of the most brilliant concepts ever attempted in the music business while others say a complete fiasco. I wrote a detailed recap that you can read here.....
During the 1980's the September releases for Kiss really kicked into high gear beginning with 1983's Lick It Up, released on September 18, 1983. Lick It Up was the band's first studio record to feature lead guitarist Vinnie Vincent who had replaced original Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley during the previous years Creatures of the Night Tour. Lick It Up also marked the first time the band had appeared on an album cover without their signature makeup. The official unmasking of Kiss happened on the same day of the album's release during a special appearance on MTV. Lick It Up was a solid record and brought the band back to platinum-selling status after the declining sales of their previous records, Unmasked and (Music From) The Elder.
A world tour followed the release of Lick It Up, but by the time September of 1984 rolled around Kiss had another new record hitting the shelves. Animalize was released on September 13, 1984. Animalize pretty much continued were Lick It Up left off and Kiss once again had a million seller on their hands. The band had also ushered in another new lead guitarist for this record. Mark St. John replaced Vinnie Vincent for the recording of Animalize. Shortly after the albums release Mark would be replaced by Bruce Kulick due to an illness that affected Marks ability to play guitar.
Another tour followed and by September 1985 Kiss returned to the record stores with Asylum. Released on September 16, 1985, Asylum became the third million seller in a row for Kiss. The band was definitely on a roll and for Kiss fans it was like Christmas every September. It's pretty amazing to think how quickly the band were delivering a new record. In today's market you are lucky to get a new record from your favorite band every five years and Kiss fans were getting a new record every year!
After three consecutive September releases there was a two-year gap before Kiss delivered their next album. Crazy Nights was released on September 18, 1987 and although it seemed like a lifetime between records Crazy Nights proved to be another hit for the band and their fourth platinum record in a row. Crazy Nights was a much more polished affair than previous Kiss releases but the album spawned several MTV hits including the albums opening anthem "Crazy Crazy Nights."
Kiss' next studio album Hot In The Shade arrived in mid-October of 1989 marking the end of their 1980's September juggernaut and also the string of platinum albums as well. Hot In The Shade only achieved Gold status.
Kiss would not release another album during the month of September until 1998. Psycho Circus was released on September 22, 1998 and claimed to be a reunion of the four original members of Kiss. While the band had been on a highly successful reunion tour since June of 1996 when it came time to record a new studio record the band brought in several outside players to perform on the record and contributions from original drummer Peter Criss and guitarist Ace Frehley were very few. The album received lackluster responses from critics and fans but still managed to go gold.
So there you have my round up of Kiss albums that were released during the month of September. A couple other items I will throw at you: Peter Criss released his first post-Kiss solo album Out Of Control in September of 1980 and Ace Frehley released his fourth post-Kiss solo album Anomaly on September 15, 2009.
.....and finally I will leave you with this: I saw Kiss on their Dynasty tour on September 10th, 1979 at the Huntington Civic Center in my hometown of Huntington, WV and then 37 years exactly to the day I saw them again in the very same venue. You can read all the details about those experiences here.....
Scott Carr is a guitarist who plays in the Columbus, OH bands Radio Tramps andReturning April. Scott is also an avid collector of vinyl records and works at Lost Weekend Records. So...if you are looking for Scott....you'll either find him in a dimly lit bar playing his guitar or in a record store digging for the holy grail.
KISS SEPTEMBER ANNIVERSARIES
ALIVE! (SEPTEMBER 10, 1975)
KISS SOLO ALBUMS (SEPTEMBER 18, 1978)
OUT OF CONTROL (SEPTEMBER, 1980) PETER CRISS SOLO ALBUM
LICK IT UP (SEPTEMBER 18, 1983)
ANIMALIZE (SEPTEMBER 13, 1984)
ASYLUM (SEPTEMBER 16, 1985)
CRAZY NIGHTS (SEPTEMBER 18, 1987)
PSYCHO CIRCUS (SEPTEMBER 22, 1998)
ANOMALY (SEPTEMBER 15, 2009) ACE FREHLEY SOLO ALBUM
