CHAPTER 13 - KISS
March 1973 Demo & Early Live Songs
“KISS Demo” Session Notes:
Produced by Eddie Kramer
and engineered by Dave Wittman. The original KISS
demo (Tracks 13.01-13.05) was recorded in Studio B at Electric Lady Studios,
and completed by March 13, 1973, according to studio reel documentation
published in “KISS Alive Forever” (Gooch/Suhs).
Recorded on half-inch 4 tracks the demos would essentially be recorded live
with overdubs.
It would be a result of
Eddie’s work on this demo that Neil offered him the job of producing KISS
“Alive!” Eddie recalled, “it was done as a favor,
because their producer, Ron Johnsen, was working at
Electric Lady at the time and, I think, eventually became the manager of the
studio for a while. He approached me because KISS’ previous band, Wicked
Lester, was a soft, folky thing, then Gene had this
concept of a band. I remember seeing the drawings of all these various
characters and he had it all planned out. I remember Ron coming to me and
saying ‘look, Gene and Paul have got this idea for a band called KISS. It’s not
my kind of thing, it’s hard rock. Would you mind doing
a demo for them?’ And I said ‘sure, no problem.’ So we did it in Studio B the
old fashioned way, 4-track. And to the engineer Dave Wittman
I said, ‘look, you’re going to help engineer this. We’re going to do it the old
fashioned way, we’re going to do it 4-track, and go
Since the band was by that
time only 2 months old, the recording is all the more impressive considering it
was long thought that the demo session had taken place in June 1973 after a
long period of rehearsal and practice to get the band fully syncopated. Only
two tracks from these sessions, “Deuce” and “Strutter,”
have ever been officially released, turning up with annoying frequency as
B-sides, usually in
13.01. Deuce
“Deuce” was written by Gene
Simmons during the winter of 1972 as Wicked Lester transformed into the band
that would become KISS. Thus it is a pre-KISS song in one sense and post-Lester
in another, though the band would be referred to, nominally at least, as Wicked
Lester into January 1973. Regardless, the song would become a piece central to
the band for the rest of their career and one of their signature live pieces.
According to Gene, the “basic lick came as a bastard – it came to me fast.... A
bastard son of ‘Jumpin’ Jack’ meets ‘Bitch’ – lyrics
came at the same time as melody” (First KISS, Last
Licks liners).
The song would come
together quickly, in less than half an hour, and, with some disjointed lyrics,
was “more concerned with conveying attitude than making sense” (Guitar World,
8/92). As would be the case with many early KISS songs, Paul Stanley would have
a hand in the song, contributing the intro section, that
he had borrowed by altering part of a Raspberries song, “Go All The Way”
(Sharp, Ken – Goldmine). For those who have wondered about what “Old Jim”
refers to: “Old
Jim (referred to in my lyric to “Deuce”) is as real as Elinor
Rigby or Jumpin’ Jack Flash. None of them are real”
(GeneSimmons.com). In other words, it’s just something that worked with the
song’s lyrics.
The history of “Deuce”
includes the then new song being performed by Peter, Paul, and Gene, as the
final incarnation of Wicked Lester, for that band’s record label A&R man
Don Ellis in November 1972. That performance would finally kill off the band’s
prospects with Epic and what little name value “Wicked Lester” had to Gene and
Paul. “Deuce” would be the first song Paul “Ace” Frehley would play during his
audition with the band during December 1973 (Gooch, Suhs
– KISS Alive Forever). When recorded in March 1973, the demo would run
13.02. Cold Gin
Ace’s earliest musical
contribution to the group, apart from his “sound,” he’d write this ironic
anthem while on the subway going to and from rehearsals at the band’s horrible
loft. What is clear from the song, which would become one of KISS’ anthems, was
that Ace was capable of writing quality material on par with Gene and Paul’s
level right from the time he joined the band. This would be something he would
repeat (or increase) on “Hotter Than Hell.” The irony
of the song would come from the non-drinking Gene singing the piece due to
Ace’s lack of confidence in taking on lead vocals at that point. When recorded
in March 1973 the demo would run
13.03. Strutter
This second of the pre-KISS
and later core KISS songs would be Paul Stanley’s “Strutter,”
which was written even before Peter Criss came into the picture. Like many
other “collaborations,” Paul borrowed the chord pattern of Gene’s earlier
“Stanley The Parrot” and developed a new song. According to Paul, “once we picked up the tempo of it and started
playing a lot of suspended chords, the song developed a real Stones-y kind of
feel” (Box Set liners). Paul saw the lyrics as describing, along with
the strutting style of the song’s music, how he saw the glam movement espoused
in the early 1970s
Ace also had input on the
song commenting, “I wrote those inverted chords, and I think they were a great
addition to the song. It’s funny, but Paul and I never wrote a song together”
(Guitar World #14, 1992). Recorded as a
13.04. Watchin’ You
One of only three songs
(the others are “Black Diamond” and “Deuce”), on the KISS demo, that were
performed by KISS at their first ever show at The Coventry on
The demo arrangement runs
to
13.05. Black Diamond
“Black Diamond” is one of
the earliest songs Gene and Paul wrote together, even though the writing was
credited solely to Paul. According to Paul, “Gene came up with the riff that’s
incorporated into the chords” (Guitar World, 8/92). The collaboration also goes
a little bit further, with Gene originally intending to write a song with the
title and Paul grabbing the title for his own use before Gene could finish
writing his own song! According to Gene, “Paul had stolen some of my titles,
like ‘Black Diamond’” (Guitar World, 8/92), though he would later have revenge.
Essentially, the song is
about a black prostitute and
13.06. Acrobat
“Acrobat” was a mostly
instrumental jam performed live by the band throughout the club era. It was
constructed of two distinctive sections, the first of which would become “Love
Theme From KISS.” The second part is commonly referred
to as “Much Too Young,” since that comprises most of the sparse lyrics of the
piece. The light instrumental introduction of “Love Theme” segues in to a
free-form power jam that really had no static arrangement and would often vary
when performed live. This suited Peter’s unschooled drumming style perfectly,
since it has often been mentioned that he had problems playing the same thing
twice.
The transition of the
pieces gave Peter the opportunity to demonstrate some of his drum fury while
Ace was soon allowed to soar to stellar heights with his fluid lead guitar.
Lyrically basic, Gene would essentially repeat a single verse based on: “I’m in
love with you / Don’t want the truth / Because you’re
much too young / You’re much too young.” According to Gene the song was based
on a riff Ace had come up with prior to writing “Cold Gin.” Gene continues, “I
remember thinking that if the guitar passage went through two turn-arounds, that maybe every other passage could be a bass
lick. It was similar to what The Who did in ‘My Generation’ where the band
stops, the bass player plays a figure, and then the band comes back in.... Paul
added the harmony part, and all of a sudden we had something. Problem was, it
went nowhere and it didn’t have any vocals, although we thought it sounded
pretty cool....” (Box Set liners). Gene then adapted
the lyrics from a piece he’d not completed, called “Too Young,” for use on the song.
There is the remaining
question concerning “Did they?” or “Didn’t they?” in regards to the
long-rumored recording of this song during the first album sessions in October
1973. What does seem likely, or at least most plausible, is that a rough recording
of the song was done with the rest of the band’s then catalog during the Bell
Sound Studio demo sessions. Since the arrangements of some other songs that
were recorded for the first album did change in the full recording sessions it
is possible that the band were unable to find a satisfactory arrangement for
the full piece when it came time to record it for the album. All parties
involved seem to have decided to “no comment” on whether the piece was fully
recorded for the album but eventually cut down to be just “Love Theme From KISS.” This decision for so many to “no comment”
suggests that the full song was indeed recorded for the album and cut at the
last moment. Refer also to “Love Theme From KISS” in
the KISS (1974) album section.
13.07. Go Now
Paul Stanley has commented
that this Moody Blues cover was regularly performed by KISS during their club
days (Sharp, Ken). Furthermore, he has suggested that it was recorded in some
lower form by the band. This could mean that it was recorded live, or as a rough
demo. The band would never properly record the song, having never transformed
it into an acceptable KISS format. It is possible that the song was recorded
rough during the Bell Sound Studios demos sessions
prior to the recording of the first album, though this is pure conjecture. It
is interesting to note that the original version of the song was one of the
earliest Moody Blues songs, well before Justin Hayward became involved in the
band.
13.08. Baby,
Let Me Go
Apart from being one of the earliest KISS
songs, “Baby, Let Me Go” was for the earliest part of KISS’ career their
musical anthem and one of their set closing pieces (along with “Firehouse” and
“Black Diamond”). It would retain this position (usually – there were some
occasions during 1975 and early 1976 when “Rock And Roll All Nite” closed the band’s set) until superseded by “Rock And
Roll All Nite” in 1976. Written by Gene Simmons and
Paul Stanley, the song grew out of a riff Paul had been working on that had
caught Gene’s attention. He’d later pull the song together with structure and
lyrics and create the energetic piece, during free time while working his day
job (Sharp, Ken – Goldmine). According to Gene, “We were writing,
there was so much material coming in, and I wrote the lyric as a free form
lyric. That was one of the few times that lyrics were written, that lyric was
written first, before the chords or whatever were written out. I came up with
this riff… which is based on an old R&B lick, but that’s all I had” (KISS Konfidential Radio Tapes). The song would be demoed for
inclusion on the debut album, but was left off at the time, even though it was
part of the band’s live set. This song would later be given the title it is now
known as: “Let Me Go, Rock ‘N Roll.”
13.09. Life In The Woods
One of the very earliest
KISS songs, “Life In The Woods” is also known by the
alternative title “Want You Beside Me.” Written by Paul Stanley, the song was a
riff-based song that the band would perform at the Daisy. The song could hardly
be considered to be completely developed since it was by all accounts a very
strange piece of music with lyrics that were generally just shouted out over
the music and that didn’t make much sense at all. By August 1973 the song was
starting to disappear from the band’s set list, even while the Wicked Lester
material remained, but not before it was included in the set recorded by Eddie Solan at the
While Gene has suggested
that the band never recorded the song, there is the possibility that it was
roughly recorded along with the rest of the band’s repertoire prior to the
first album sessions. Paul, in the Box Set liner notes, lends support to this
theory, “before we actually recorded the first album we set up at Bell Sound
Studios.... and recorded our live repertoire of songs. Doing so, so that the
producers would have a sense of what was available and how it might hold
together in album form, which songs to keep and which to discard” (Box Set
liners). Since KISS’ set in the club days varied from 7 to 13 or more songs, it
would seem likely that there are more “Bell Sound Studio Demos” than the four
that were presented on the Box Set and that this (and other interesting songs)
was one of them. Along with “Acrobat,” this song would see the band in
musically seldom charted waters: Approaching something which could be
considered a jam, something which some former members have accused the band of
being incapable of doing.
13.10. Keep Me Waiting
13.11. Simple Type
Tracks 13.10 & 13.11
are two Wicked Lester songs that survived the transition between that band and
KISS and were regularly performed by KISS. Apparently, the live arrangement of
“Simple Type” makes it nearly completely different to the Wicked Lester version
(Gooch, Suhs – KISS Alive Forever). Both “She” and
“Love Here All I Can” would also be performed by the band from their earliest club
days.
13.12. Got To Give Me More
Listed on one of KISS’ club
set lists (KISStory) nothing is known about this song
and whether it was a cover, or an original, or even an alternative title for a
known KISS song. It may even have been a rap by that point, but it should be
noted that Gene wrote a song with this as its title....
“Live At The
Daisy” Session Notes:
Tracks 13.13-13.19 were recorded by Eddie Solan live
at “The Daisy” on
13.13. Firehouse
13.14. Life In The Woods
13.15. Simple Type
13.16. Acrobat
13.17. Deuce
13.18. 100,000 Years
13.19. Black Diamond
“23rd Street Rehearsal” Session
Notes:
Like the Bell Sound Studio demos, which were rough
live rehearsal recordings of the band’s catalog, tracks 13.20-25 were recorded
live at the band’s
13.20. Strutter
13.21. Firehouse
13.22. Watchin’ You
13.23. Let Me Know
13.24. Life In The Woods
13.25. Acrobat