The 500 - #489 - Kiss - Destroyer

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

My plan. 

• 2 records per week & at least 2 complete listens.
• A quick blog post for each, highlighting the important details and a quick background story.
• No rating scale - just an effort to expand my appreciation.

Album # 490

Album Title: Destroyer
Artist: KISS
Released: March, 1976
My age at release: 10
How familiar am I with it: Very familiar - but haven't listened through it in years.
Song I am putting on my Spotify Mix: Detroit Rock City
Great Lyric:
"My uniform is leather and my power is my age,
I'm getting it together, to break out of my cage.
Cause Flaming Youth will set the world on fire!" (Flaming Youth)

At nine years old, walking through the "big kids hallway" at Jack Miner Public School, I saw her coming toward me - a Grade 8 girl - tall, blonde and both pretty and frightening.  She was one of the "tough" girls that Juniors, like me, were wise to avoid. She dated high-school guys who could beat you up. In reality, it felt more likely that she would be the bigger threat - likely adding verbal humiliation to a beating she was more than capable of delivering. The character of Kim from the television series Freaks and Geeks looks as if she was cast with this girl in mind.

So, there's me, Grade 5 prey, walking down the hallway...alone...toward an obvious predator. I tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid eye-contact, but my vision was drawn to her T-shirt and the letters printed aggressively across the middle. 

I had no idea that this was a band. I legitimately thought she was being intentionally brazen. Thoughts swirled through my adolescent head. 

Was she bragging that she "kissed" people? 
Was she daring boys to kiss her?

"Why don't you take a picture, it'll last longer!!" she barked, snapping me out of my temporary trance as continued her strut down the hallway. (That was a popular expression in the mid-seventies, so I assume that is what she said.)

It wouldn't be long before I knew that KISS was a band. Well, more than a band - a cultural phenomenon. They wore make-up and giant platform boots. They had a guy who might be a devil-worshiper, who breathed fire and regurgitated blood. Much like the blonde in the hallway - they were an intoxicating mix of scary and fascinating. It was a heady cocktail for a pre-teen audience. 

By the summer of 1976, KISS were ubiquitous, even in the sleepy, Ontario town of Kingsville. I can remember finding KISS records in the small department store (I think it was a Woolco) in the neighbouring town of Leamington. I know I asked if I could have ALIVE II when it came out and was shut down by my mother as soon as she saw the cover. I'm pretty sure I got a K-Tel Super Hits compilation instead - I do know it had Rich Girl by Hall and Oates on it.

Truth be told, I was never a big KISS fan. When they were popular, I followed along with my friends and I know my brother and I went out as two of them for Halloween one year. I liked a few songs here and there but, as I developed my taste in music, they fell to the wayside. My 70's aesthetic went more toward the progressive rock sound - Styx, Kansas, Supertramp, E.L.O. and my big obsession Rush. Sadly, I got in the habit of dismissing music that I deemed "too simple". It was a temporary phase and I now look back apologetically for being such an insufferable prig. 

Destroyer was fun to revisit. It immediately transported me back to the 70's and wood paneled basements where my friends would "crank it up" on their parent's stereo systems. The deeper cuts on the record resonated more powerfully for me, likely because I haven't heard them since the 1970's. I picked Detroit Rock City for my Spotify mix because that opening guitar riff brings me great joy and it's always better to pick a song where Paul sings.

I've never seen KISS in concert - I hope to remedy that one day. I love a big show, and I know that KISS will always deliver. The make-up is such a deceptively clever idea - the band never ages. I've even heard Gene say that they will eventually replace themselves when retirement arrives...so KISS will live on forever. 

I wonder if the hallway girl is still a fan? 

Influential Albums Day 5

Day 5

This is the fifth post in a series of ten documenting the albums I consider influential. My first post, found here, provides some insight into the rationale behind this journey. The first album I selected was the Soundtrack to "Oliver", which I discovered in 1973 at about age 8. My second choice can be found here and was The Cars Debut album. The third selection was "All the World's A Stage" from Canadian band Rush (found here). The fourth, Duran Duran's "Rio" is (here).

The story behind this album actually begins in the late 70’s when I was about 11 or 12 in the small, lakeside farming town of Kingsville, Ontario. I had made a friend with a guy named John who was a couple years older than I. He lived on a farm near Windsor, but often stayed at his grandparents’ place about a block from my home during the summer.

He was usually up to no good and I certainly made some dubious choices with him. One summer morning, he arrived at my house with $20 and suggested we walk into town to the pool hall - where we could play pinball, pool & video games, get ice cream and talk to girls. I was nowhere near the “talking to girls” stage of my life. Regardless, the other two options were entirely in my wheelhouse.

On the third day this happened, I asked him where he was getting the money.

“I stole it”, he said plaintively “my aunt is staying with my grandmother and she is rich - so she’ll never notice. I just take it out of her purse, she has lots.”

At this point in the story, I would like to say that I took a firm stand and refused to condone this nefarious act; but, video games and ice cream do something to the 12-year-old brain -- it’s like hypnosis.

By day 4, the jig was up. To his credit, he didn’t tell on me. His grandparents really liked me and I think he wanted to keep that relationship honest. Regardless of the reason, he took the fall and had to stay at home and do chores in order to begin his reparations. I volunteered to help him (once again, not out of honour or duty...but because I was bored and there was no one else to hang with).

That evening, we got permission to walk around the block. John wanted to go to this house where “The Bikers Lived”. In retrospect, it was a couple guys with long hair, handlebar moustaches and motorcycles. However, in my adolescent mind, they were Hard-Core Outlaws. I was always extra-intimidated when they weren’t outside because John always insisted on knocking on their door - which was exactly what he did on this hot summer evening.

They invited us in and John immediately began talking about motorcycles with them. Their living room looked exactly as you'd imagine if I said the words 

“Late 70’s, twenty-something, bachelor pad.” 

It was beanbags, bead curtains, shag carpet, empty beer cans and posters on the wall - mainly women in bikinis straddling Harley Davidson bikes and (likely) the ubiquitous Robert Crumb "Keep On Truckin" poster that adorned many walls of my youth.

However, there was one that I had never seen before - it had a shiny black background and a single shaft of white light thrust from the darkness on the left. It traveled upward and pierced a white triangle. The light disappeared, but re-emerged on the right of the triangle in fan of spectral colours. It was, of course, the album art for Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.” I knew this at the time, because that was also printed on the poster in glossy, bold lettering.

For the next few years, I would identify Pink Floyd as being: “Music that biker’s liked”, and I would give it a wide berth. I was content with my Supertramp, ELO, Rush and Cars records, thank you very much.

It was a few years later. I was in my room doing homework and listening to late night rock radio.

At first, there was silence, like dead air… and then I heard something primitive, but absolutely beautiful in its simplicity begin to radiate from my tiny transistor speaker. Almost imperceptible at first, a rich synthetic, but also orchestral, hum grew slowly - like electronic vines creeping through my synapses. It was simple, but also seemed to be complexly layered - with the sound of fragile chimes whispering like dusty windswept glass in the distance...there, then gone.

The first time you truly “hear” a song, time seems to move more slowly. This was one of those times. It was like floating comfortably through a warm pool toward a distant, pleasant light. I stopped everything and was entranced.

The notes would modulate ever so subtly, but always find their way to a perfect, albeit temporary, resolution...and then a guitar, playing a simple series of four notes that seemed to ring out and fade at the same time. I don't think I did anything but breathe for the next 15 minutes.

It was the opening to “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” from “Wish You Were Here” by, that "famous biker band", Pink Floyd. My world was shaken and I was forever changed by this album (as well as everything else by The Floyd). I wore out at least two cassettes of this on countless bus trips around the city in my early teens. I have purchased it on vinyl and CD and I have been fortunate enough to see both Roger Waters & David Gilmore in concert on a number of occasions. Sadly, the line-up that recorded this record disbanded in the early 80’s and I did not seem them all play together. Pink Floyd have a stellar catalogue - but this was, for me, the high water mark.

So, thanks John. Despite your troubled ways -- which eventually forced us to part company permanently, you were a pivotal part of my youth and an important part of my taste in music. And, thank you anonymous biker guys (who are probably pot-bellied grandfathers in their mid-sixties now). Thank you for introducing me to Pink Floyd.

Influential Albums - Day 3

This is an update from a post from June 20, 2018 

The Influential Album Challenge is circulating on Social Media platforms again. I have been asked to participate and am revisiting my picks from 2018. 

In March, 1980, I traveled by Greyhound bus to London, Ontario, to spend March Break with my dad who had secured a new job in advance of our family joining. It was my first opportunity to explore my future hometown.

London, Ontario (2012)

I had $30, earmarked for my favourite stuff -- video games, National Lampoon magazines and junk food. However, I knew I wanted to buy a Rush album. The villiage of Kingsville where I lived for five years only had one location that sold records, a small Five & Dime/pharmacy where the selection was limited. A rack near the counter had an assortment of current releases from which to choose. Although, it was mainly K-Tel compilations and Donna Summer's latest offering, a disco record that was ubiquitous that year. Certainly nothing as eclectic as Rush could be found in Kingsville.

K-Tel record from1980 - a mix of rock and disco

I had become fascinated with Rush's music after hearing the song Cinderella Man during a school dance. Anyone familiar with the song knows that this is not a dance track. However, 80s teen culture had embraced the “Disco Sucks!” movement, complete with T-shirts, so I suspect it had been requested by a student at the dance. 

A popular shirt worn by many high school students at the time.

My week in London was marvelous. Each morning, my dad and I would drive into downtown where he worked. Wandering the busy sidewalks was both overwhelming and liberating: video game arcades, bookstores, a half-dozen record sellers and a library (with more than one floor!) At fourteen, I was at the perfect age for this experience -- old enough to be independent and young enough to be untethered from responsibility.

I spent two days debating my record purchase, diligently comparing prices at Sam the Record Man, Mister Sound and the music section at both Eaton's & Simpsons' department stores. In a pre-internet age, it was a crash course in popular music. I absorbed all the available details as I flipped through hundreds of records, carefully examining cover art, track listings and dates.

Eventually, I settled on the live album All the World’s a Stage because, as a double album, it was the best value for the buck. After making my purchase, I went to the Central branch of the London Public Library and convinced the librarian to let me borrow headphones and use the record booth, despite having no library card or any form of identification. 

This is where I would spend much of the next three days. Plugged into a library turntable listening to both discs over and over again. As the band's first live release, it covered songs from their four initial albums. Consequently, it was a journey through the evolution of their music - from their 1974 debut to the 1976 release 2112. There were no lyrics in the liner, so I painstakingly tried to decipher each verse. Songs had names such as Bastille Day and Soliloquy ... clearly, there was some heady stuff going on here. 

I  loved the inner gatefold - it was amazing for a kid who had never seen a concert.

It was the beginning of a lifelong relationship with Rush. Eventually, I owned their entire catalogue on vinyl and I would see them perform many times -- including their final Toronto concert in June, 2015, on the R40 tour. 

The lyrics, the musicianship, the Canadianity of it all resonated with me. This record immediately transports me to a simpler, carefree time: shoving quarters into an arcade game, slugging a can of soda and walking to the library with my Rush record under my arm.