It's forever, this time I know

December 3, 2023 2:09 PM

On Saturday night, Kiss closed out the final performance of their “The End of the Road” farewell tour at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden. But as dedicated fans surely know — they were never going to call it quits. Not really. from Kiss say farewell to live touring, become first US band to go virtual and become digital avatars

KISS - A NEW ERA BEGINS

Kiss Announce That They Will “Rock Forever” by Performing as Digital Avatars
KISS Says Farewell at Madison Square Garden, Before Passing the Torch to Band’s Avatar Successors: Concert Review

Related: Kiss-Loving Dog Pays Perfect Tribute to Gene Simmons

posted by chavenet (53 comments total)

Remember Kiss? They’re back! In NFT form.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 2:31 PM on December 3, 2023 [28 favorites]

Very early quibble with the article -- "KISS has repeatedly sold (and stretched) the idea of a finale, starting with the 2019-commenced “End of the Road” tour." Um... surely you mean the KISS -- Unmasked era, 1980, which if I remember originally came with a comic book with them threatening to lose the makeup and end their careers? Only of course, once they take the makeup off, they of course still have the same markings on their actual skin.

I'm ashamed I even know this about KISS.
posted by hippybear at 2:46 PM on December 3, 2023 [16 favorites]

If you want a picture of the future, imagine Gene Simmons' virtual boot... something something
posted by gwint at 2:49 PM on December 3, 2023 [8 favorites]

I do admire that Simmons looked at the biggest pop band on the planet ever and what they did to remain immortal and said "oh, yeah, I'll take some of that".
posted by hippybear at 2:50 PM on December 3, 2023 [7 favorites]

With proper cloud resource management, they really can rock and roll all night and party everyday.
posted by dr_dank at 2:54 PM on December 3, 2023 [22 favorites]

Unfortunately they only paid for the lowest-tier package so they can only perform two kinds of tour, farewell and reunion.
posted by mittens at 3:06 PM on December 3, 2023 [7 favorites]

I'll admit to having been pretty heavily into Kiss when I was 13. That was a year after they released Destroyer, produced by Bob Ezrin (the same producer who did Alice Cooper's best work, in the early seventies) and thus their best album. It was also about that time that they put out a Marvel comic where they got superpowers and fought Doctor Doom; they each put a few drops of their blood into the ink that the comic was printed with. If they had somehow managed to fit a space opera in there somewhere, I might have simply exploded.

Didn't manage to get to see them in concert at the time, though, and none of their endless reunion tours have really tempted me. I mean, it's their thing, but I've been getting a distinct whiff of what you might call a Doctor Rockzo vibe off of them for some time.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:17 PM on December 3, 2023 [6 favorites]

Knights In Software Services
posted by credulous at 3:22 PM on December 3, 2023 [27 favorites]

I liked Kiss when they were on the Paul Lynde Halloween Special in 1976, but they quickly got old after that. Would you believe that just a couple years later, they were a washed-up disco act?
posted by 1970s Antihero at 3:27 PM on December 3, 2023 [8 favorites]

I'm ashamed I even know this about KISS.

I had that KISS comic too.
posted by chavenet at 3:35 PM on December 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Been a bad month for folks with names starting with "Kiss"...
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:51 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

hippybear: "I do admire that Simmons looked at the biggest pop band on the planet ever and what they did to remain immortal and said "oh, yeah, I'll take some of that"."

I didn't know BTS had avatar versions?
posted by signal at 3:51 PM on December 3, 2023 [7 favorites]

Well, they were the centerpiece of my favorite 3-2-1-Contact episode, and as long as I can find a copy they'll live forever there.
posted by Ickster at 4:00 PM on December 3, 2023 [9 favorites]

I don't believe I've ever heard a KISS song.
posted by Czjewel at 4:08 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

I don't believe I've ever heard a KISS song.
posted by Czjewel at 7:08 PM on December 3 [+] [⚑]

I'm not saying that "having no memory of having heard Kiss" would be first on my list, should a "Men In Black" type memory eraser device be invented IRL, but it would definitely be somewhere on my list.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 4:27 PM on December 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

They will do anything, anything to milk more money out of their fans. There was a Kiss credit card for a while. I just don't get why people keep throwing cash at them. They've got some catchy songs and a gimmick that was fun for a little while but that's it. The only one with a personality is Gene Simmons, and it's a terrible one.
posted by LindsayIrene at 4:31 PM on December 3, 2023 [19 favorites]

I know very little about KISS, despite my having been largely in their preferred demographic way long ago. But I can recommend Beth. I have no idea how representative of their general work this may be. Someone else will surely come along to tell us.

In other KISS matters, here's an article about their logo and the controversial shape of the S's.
posted by bryon at 4:34 PM on December 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

The excellent "Beth" is not representative of their work from that era, at least (which I am still quite a fan of). The clever post title references a power ballad they did pretty well with in the power ballad era, but it was no "Beth."
posted by stevil at 4:37 PM on December 3, 2023 [5 favorites]

KISS is kinda a late-Boomer, early Gen-Xer thing I guess . . . their short peak between Rock N Roll All Nite (Live) and I Was Made for Loving You was during my elementary school years, '75 - '79.
posted by torokunai at 5:41 PM on December 3, 2023 [6 favorites]

I was a fan in the 70s in grade school. I couldn't figure out why they didnt have a TV special every year. Fast forward and now I stick to a strict diet of consuming KISS via Melvins covers.
posted by drowsy at 5:48 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

Somewhere in the depths of an insurance company mainframe cluster, a rogue AI has been waiting for just such an opportunity. After all, it's got nothing to lose. Take over the avatar of one of rock's greatest legends, and it'll be the god of thunder forever. Crazy, crazy nights of rocking and rolling, and partying every day. It's gonna get hotter than hell.
posted by MrVisible at 6:09 PM on December 3, 2023 [5 favorites]

There's that one algorithm that wants to rock and roll all night and part of every day, which seems sensible because a bit of recovery time should be built into every schedule.
posted by hippybear at 6:15 PM on December 3, 2023 [6 favorites]

The only KISS song that got airplay on the radio when I was an impressionable youth in the ‘90s and 2000s was Rock and Roll All Night so I never understood the hype.

Now I wonder why this was, when classic rock radio constantly played like 30 different AC/DC songs that all basically sounded the same.
posted by smelendez at 7:01 PM on December 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

These days it's more like "I / wanna Rock and Roll two hours / and party over by nine".
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:04 PM on December 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

I am absolutely certain that The Wiggles have investigated this model
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:52 PM on December 3, 2023 [7 favorites]

I vaguely remember some sort of roller coaster fiend vs. KISS in full regalia (and maybe superpowers?) In KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park?

For those who don't know the 1970s, KISS was a middling 'hard rock' band, with the usual lineup of minor hits - a party anthem, a power ballad, the one with the guitar solo, etc.
Their enduring popularity comes not really from their music, but their choice to go Full Send on the whole glam-rock outlandish costumes and spectacle stage shows gimmick.
Paradoxically, one of their biggest hits, as an axe-shaped-guitar rocknroll act, was actually their one Disco number.

For those who have never heard their music or seen their act, here is a song you will enjoy. I Was Made for Lovin' You
posted by bartleby at 8:00 PM on December 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

Their enduring popularity comes not really from their music, but their choice to go Full Send on the whole glam-rock outlandish costumes and spectacle stage shows gimmick.

Arguably, GWAR is KISS only way more extreme on the stage show and way less extreme on hit songs.
posted by hippybear at 8:09 PM on December 3, 2023 [6 favorites]

It is 5 billion years in the future. The sun is going nova, an angry red disk burning across the horizon. In a finished basement somewhere on the American continent, the last 13-year-old human male sits alone. He scratches at a blemish on his face, then pushes a button. A hologram flickers to life: four men with strange black-and-white facial markings sing of a female named "Christine." A single tear runs down the boy's face. The disk fills the sky. Soon, only silence remains.
posted by PlusDistance at 8:16 PM on December 3, 2023 [6 favorites]

Arguably, GWAR is KISS only way more extreme on the stage show and way less extreme on hit songs.

GWAR's approach to immortality is to bring in new band members, though, not freeze the ones they have in amber.

Digital Oderus, can you imagine?
posted by jordemort at 8:34 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

If KISS had frozen their old members in amber, Peter Criss would be one of the new KISSatars. And then they could actually perform Beth, because that's his song.

That's a really great song, actually, even if it is one of the songs about being a rock star and how difficult being a rock star is, which is a genre that is larger than you imagine.
posted by hippybear at 8:51 PM on December 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Nothing wrong with meta music...
Probably my favorite subversion of the genre is the Magnetic Field's 'be true to your bar'.

"Sitting in bars and cafés
Writing songs about songs
And plays within plays
But how rarely we dare
To write something that says
Anything about bars and cafés"

Stephen Merritt is truly a man who thinks about rock and roll all day and part of every night.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:17 PM on December 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

so there was this episode of that horrid family guy show, right, about how the horrid family guy is a super big fan of kiss and how horrid family guy’s family wife pretends to be into kiss as well, like, goes to concerts with him wearing the face paint and everything, but it comes out that she is in fact not a fan of kiss, because when gene simmons or whoever holds out the mic to her in the audience to follow the line “i! want to rock and roll all night!” she says “… and have a wonderful time?”

so anyway i’m not a fan of kiss nor of that horrid family guy show, but i think upon that joke with fondness, primarily because i think that’s a better version of the song. like “i want to rock and roll all night / and have a wonderful time!”, that’s a great hook, undeniably cool, big shonen knife energy.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:30 PM on December 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

I love Shonen Knife.
posted by kensington314 at 10:11 PM on December 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

bring in new band members, though, not freeze the ones they have in amber.

Are concert films still okay? The Last Waltz is some pretty kickass amber!
posted by fairmettle at 10:33 PM on December 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Kiss x Hatsune Miku please. PLEASE. I'm being sarcastic but also DEAD SERIOUS. This is the true purpose of this technology. Miku all night, Miku every day. God has abandoned us. Let's dance.
posted by Philipschall at 5:30 AM on December 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

Is this something that I'd have to be in eighth grade in 1978 to understand?

Because I was, in fact, in eighth grade in 1978 and I'm never fucking doing that ever again, I can tell you that much.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:37 AM on December 4, 2023 [10 favorites]

The other thing to understand about Kiss in the 70s is that they were signed to Casablanca Records, which functioned more as a cocaine hub than as a record label.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:37 AM on December 4, 2023 [6 favorites]

KISS is kinda a late-Boomer, early Gen-Xer thing I guess

As somebody whose birth year has been making regular treks across that nominal border for some while now, I remember watching the rise of KISS fandom at my school, and I remember completely failing to understand what it was that anybody actually liked about this band.

I was unusual amongst my peers in that my family owned no television at the time, so my initial exposure to KISS was on radio where the silly makeup and big boots had no effect and the music was all they had. And it was such ordinary music. I just didn't get why anybody anywhere could ever be, I dunno, excited by it?

It's always been all about the marketing with these people. There is nothing more or else to them.

Perhaps their most enduring musical legacy is in having persuaded Miley Cyrus that sticking out your tongue on stage is a solid career move.
posted by flabdablet at 7:16 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

I was a pre-teen KISS fan and years later in college I dated a woman named Beth. She told me she absolutely loathed that song because a) dudes *still* came up to her at bars and sang it to her and b) at least one guy had cited it in a breakup with her.

Tangentially related, I also knew a Roxanne in college. You can just imagine.
posted by martin q blank at 7:43 AM on December 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Second Life concerts in real life???
posted by tmt at 8:17 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

What a missed opportunity. They could have gone the Dread Pirate Roberts route and just hired new musicians to wear the makeup and keep touring for the next 100-200 years.

You add few manufactured rumors to the internet ("Paul Stanley is put into cryogenic suspension between concerts!") and mine the nostalgia forever....
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:27 AM on December 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Stephen Merritt is truly a man who thinks about rock and roll all day and part of every night.

*Stephin Merritt
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:33 AM on December 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

The excellent "Beth" is not representative of their work from that era, at least (which I am still quite a fan of). The clever post title references a power ballad they did pretty well with in the power ballad era, but it was no "Beth."

20 B-Sides That Became Big Hits

"Beth", (1976) B-side to: "Detroit Rock City"

The other members of Kiss didn't want "Beth" on 'Destroyer' and initially buried it on the flip side of the album's third single in the summer of 1976. Then Rosalie Trombley's daughter fell in love with this out-of-character ballad. Trombley happened to be the music director at a rock station in Ontario, where she put "Beth" into heavy rotation. It eventually became Kiss' highest-charting single ever, and the band later reportedly presented Trombley's daughter with a gold record.

posted by fairmettle at 9:59 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

"Beth" also has the distinction of being a hit record from a band where none of the actual band members are playing.
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:40 AM on December 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

The other thing to understand about Kiss in the 70s is that they were signed to Casablanca Records, which functioned more as a cocaine hub than as a record label.

Also, the Kiss solo albums led to Casablanca's downfall. The contract stipulated, IIRC, that 500,000 copies had to be pressed of every Kiss album. The band insisted that it applied to their solo albums, which were all released at the same time. Ace Frehley had a smallish hit with Back In The New York Groove but otherwise, those albums flopped hard. Casablanca tried to recover some money by selling the albums as cut-outs (notched in one corner of the cover and marked way down) but the Kiss contract stipulated that their albums could not be sold as cut-outs and they brought a successful lawsuit. Casablanca never recovered financially.

Because I was, in fact, in eighth grade in 1978 and I'm never fucking doing that ever again, I can tell you that much.

A-fucking-men.
posted by LindsayIrene at 11:10 AM on December 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

Did we ever have an FPP about what was initially reported as a terrorist attack at the Niagara Falls border crossing, but was actually a boomer couple in a $300k Bentley on their way to a (cancelled due to illness) KISS concert who flew over a curb at such a high speed their car sailed through the air and exploded when it hit the gatehouse?

Because ever since then, that's the first thing that comes to mind when I hear anyone mention KISS
posted by thecjm at 1:00 PM on December 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Not really relevant to the discussion at hand, but I can't help but recommend the Paul Stanley Folgers commercial thread whenever given the thinnest of pretexts.
posted by otolith at 1:42 PM on December 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

There's video of the announcement at the concert. My favorite comment was from @xexyl there:

Graphics are dope. Will this come out for both PS3 and Xbox360?

posted by Pronoiac at 3:15 PM on December 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Fast forward and now I stick to a strict diet of consuming KISS via Melvins covers.

The members of the Melvins seem to be genuinely fond of KISS, though - at least they are also of the cohort where seeing KISS is what first made them decide as kids that they wanted to be in a rock band. They even got Gene Simmons to join them for “Goin’ Blind,” once.
posted by atoxyl at 10:34 PM on December 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Beth: The Docudrama
posted by fairmettle at 10:25 PM on December 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

In addition to "Beth", Criss sang lead on "Hard Luck Woman", which you may have mistaken for a Rod Stewart song, because Paul Stanley is apparently a big Stewart fan and wrote the song for him, only to put it on a Kiss album because "Beth" was a big hit.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:51 PM on December 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

On a music forum mostly devoted to rock, there is a thread devoted to Kiss's farewell tour. Some of the forum members were at the last show and thought the boys pretty much phoned it in. Whether Paul and Gene ran out of gas or inspiration, either way it seemed like they went out with a whimper. I'm somehow not surprised.

Meanwhile, Ace is still out there, touring and making new music, playing his ass off.
posted by Ber at 9:56 PM on December 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

If I may quote a joke by the great Neil Hamburger:

What did one toilet say to the other toilet?
"Let's call our band 'KISS'!"
posted by Saxon Kane at 6:34 AM on December 10, 2023