Welcome back! For those who do not know the "history" of the "KISS Album Focus" it's quite simple: Long ago I wrote a feature for another website that went online in installments. Later, as the feature grew and grew, I decided to print out all of the articles and bind 'em into a book that I'd sell direct to other fans. This led to corrections and other enhancements, and eventually several printings of the work. Now I'm bringing some of the feature back to where it began: Online, for your reading pleasure (or torture). As will all of the previous versions, there are yet more revisions and "stuff." This 3rd Edition, Second Printing online version will be installment based and available only in Adobe Acrobat PDF (free download). So... Read on friend, and enjoy.

Chapter 1 - Introduction [PDF]
KISS is more than a band, though it would be almost a cliché to suggest, as some do, that they are a brand. It simply seems too crass, too inadequate to reduce the impact of the band to something so simplistic. Yet neither does "band" do the band justice. If nothing else KISS defies definition and being categorized. For more than a third of a century KISS have entertained, shocked, and more often than not annoyed or agitated the masses. It has been an infrequent occurrence for the band to be ignored or disregarded. That might well have been the whole point of the exercise, since there is little point in doing something if nobody notices or cares. And what better than to provoke discussion or argument...

Chapter 2 - Pre-KISStory/Peter Criss [PDF]
The "Hottest Band In The Land?" To many fans the answer is simple: "Hell yeah!" For more than a third of a century KISS have entertained, shocked, and more often than not perhaps even annoyed the masses. Seldom has the band been ignored or disregarded, which one can suppose was the whole point of the exercise on the first place. What's the point of doing something if nobody notices or cares! "We hear and we obey?" Well, nearly. After all a band is usually more than just the music; it is a business with the purpose of keeping individuals from getting real 9-to-5 jobs...

Chapter 3 - Pre-KISStory/Gene Simmons [PDF]
Gene Simmons epitomized both the end results of Beatlemania and the British Invasion, but most importantly the "American Dream." Indeed it had been the Beatles who got him interested in music in the first place, but not from the nobility of the art of music making. Like millions of others, the Beatles appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show had a profound effect on Gene. But it wasn't the music that made the greatest impression...

Chapter 4 - Pre-KISStory/Paul Stanley [PDF]
Paul's musical background defines that the "Star" he later used in KISS was the appropriate character for him to take. Always something of a musician, Paul was a purist educated at the Manhattan High School of Music and Art where serious budding musicians were sent to study and develop their skills. Paul was born Stanley Harvey Eisen on January 20, 1952 in Manhattan, New York, the son of William and Eve...

Chapter 5 - Pre-KISStory/Ace Frehley [PDF]
Born Paul Daniel Frehley on April 27, 1951, in the Bronx, to Carl Daniel and Esther Frehley Ace's basically came straight off the streets. Carl was the son of Dutch immigrants, while Esther was the youngest of seven children of the Hecht family who had immigrated to North Carolina from Germany at the turn of the 19th/20th century. Ace was almost an accidental musician even though his parents actively encouraged music in the household...