KISS ALIVE is 40, just like me.

I had the opportunity to have a long overdue re-listen to KISS ALIVE today through my ridiculously sweet noise canceling Vic Firth head phones while plugging away at a very trying spreadsheet.

I figured, why not? After all, the band is celebrating the release's 40th anniversary, and I am a wanna be member of the KISS ARMY. 

The listen is overdue because KISS is one of those bands that I can still enjoy dusting off old records and rocking out to. There is absolutely always something I missed. 

KISS pre-dates me in age by a few months, so they were under my radar until I was 11. The make-up-less "Animalize" was my introduction, and hearing them Live consisted of watching the Animalize tour video on VHS. 

In many ways, KISS was one of the first bands that set me on a path of geeking out on a bands history. I found them in 1985, but as a band "Animalize" was their 12th studio release, and 14th overall release (give or take) so they had this huge back catalog just waiting for me to unlock. Given the enormity of the catalog, I never really did invest enough time into most of the early material, but I did find that Destroyer and Love Gun were beast LP's, and Creatures of the Night is still my favorite KISS release, all of which were discovered by me between the ages of 11 and 14.

I had Alive II on vinyl back then as well, and I thought it ripped, but beyond the "hits" on ALIVE, I can't honestly say I ever bonded with the topic of today's blog with any regularity.

I first blogged about KISS in Feb of 2012, and at that time I was digging on the first 3 LP's. The takeaway from that blog and exercise was understanding the groove these guys had very early on, and the impact it had on Groove Metal, mainly Pantera.

So today, 3-1/2 years later, I put the virtual needle down on ALIVE, and again I am smitten by Baby KISS, which makes sense given that ALIVE was basically live cuts of primo material from their first 3 studio releases.

Paul Stanley refers to early KISS musicianship as virtu-no-shows, and that's true, but there is something that I love about the raw nature of the early years. Rock and Roll shouldn't be perfect, and Paul so elegantly says that what you remember, and what it actually was, are two completely separate things. He is absolutely right.

"She," "Parasite" and "Got to Choose" are great, but I was really impressed by "C'Mon and Love Me" on this listen.

No one will ever touch Paul's stage rap, and hearing Peter's sticks click and unplanned sloppy rim shots during the drum solo, both on "100,000 Years," are super cool.

This was KISS, warts and all, and even though it was "fixed" in the studio, it's still the band before production really took them to polished professional heights.

So, Happy Anniversary ALIVE. Thanks for being my background music on this stress filled day.

Nago