Author Archives: Steve Moyer

In Defense Of KISS

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I KNOW I’m the only one who liked/likes KISS around here. KISS takes a beating anytime they come up and I’m certain that will continue. Despite the futility of this effort, I will stick my neck out anyway and offer a few random points on their behalf:

1) It is next to impossible at this point for haters to remember what KISS was about when they first showed up on the scene. They were exciting, mysterious and dangerous. My little brother was downright frightened of the debut album cover. There was nothing like them in 1973.

2) They were a unique blend of hard rock with poppy tunefulness. The best comparison – as others have mentioned – is Slade, but heavier on the hard rock and lighter on the pop. Gene Simmons has said flat-out that there would be no KISS without Slade. I loved Slade.

3) There was no dicking around with ballads or hippy-dippy experimentation with their stuff. They went four entire albums before a ballad appeared on the fifth album (yes, “Beth” was the first sniff of the downfall). All the other rocking bands I knew at the time required the patience of dealing with at least some crap. Do we really need “Going To California?” Sorry, I didn’t know The Stooges yet. I was just a 12-year-old for heaven’s sake. Perhaps Iggy could have saved me from KISS.

4) The “no dicking around” policy was nirvana for me. Finally a band that was bam-bam-bam, in your face. Three minute blasts of hard rock with a pop edge. Later, Brit punk provided bam-bam-bam-bam. Then hardcore bam-bam-bam-bam-bam. The less nonsense the better always worked for me.

5) KISS is a band’s band in a lot of ways. So many good bands cite KISS as an early influence. The fact that my beloved Hellacopters are huge KISS fans justifies my fondness all by itself as far as I’m concerned. I bought the first real KISS tribute album “KISS My Ass” a long time ago and look at the list of participants – Lenny Kravitz, Garth Brooks, Anthrax, Gin Blossoms, Toad The Wet Sprocket, Shandi’s Addiction, Dinosaur Jr., Extreme, The Lemonheads, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Yoshiki. Certainly some losers in there, but some pretty big winners as well.

6) Now everyone knows Simmons and Stanley were cold and calculating (and Simmons is an asshole of Nugent proportions), but no one knew that from 1973-1976. Yes, KISS hasn’t produced much of anything good since back then, but, so what? Their early stuff still rocks. The debut album still stands up very well. How about Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship? Do we say throw out Airplane because Starship sucked? Forget about KISS since the late 70s.

Here’s a video from the good old “Midnight Special.” What’s not to like? (By the way, the bass Gene is playing is the very same model I bought – had to have it – as my very first brand new bass guitar back in 1976. I still have that Gibson Grabber today.)

What I Believe

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This shuffler exercise, as with lots of stuff on this website, is another underhanded, backdoor attempt to prove who has the most diverse musical taste, the widest appreciation of music, etc.

“Look at me, I like country and reggae and punk and jazz.”

“No, look at me, I like folk and ska and rockabilly and punk and migrant workers playing wooden flutes.”

“No, look at me. . .blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.”

Well, good for you. You win the friggin’ Dave Marsh Award.

I’m going to lose these contests every single time. And you know why? Let me use a drug analogy. I don’t know a lot about drugs personally, but I read a lot. Let me give you Handsome Dick Manitoba’s number one from “Richard Manitoba’s 9 Best Drugs Ever (In Descending Order), from “The Official Book Of Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘N’ Roll Lists,” first paragraph only:

1. Heroin

“Best drug ever. No matter what drug they invent, what I might have missed – because there are a plethora of new intoxicants all the time – I went out with a World Championship ring on my finger. I went out winning the World Series and I retired in 1983. Heroin was the granddaddy of them all.”

I’m not quite as old as most of the authors of this site, but I’m plenty old. And I’ve dabbled in all those genres at one time or another. But I think I’ve found the heroin of rock ‘n’ roll.

So, I’ll continue to dabble occasionally, but I know what I really need. And there’s plenty of variety within the “heroin” genre. (This will surely surprise the hell out of all of you, but I think if the only music I had left was the fairly big Hellacopters catalogue, I could get by.)

Kick Out The Jams.

This Time It’s For Real (I Think)

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1) Hellacopters – (Gotta Get Some Action) Now! – Yeah, I know. But if this is the only song my MP3 player played it wouldn’t be so bad.

2) Hellacopters – Dirty Women – Great Sabbath cover.

3) Queens Of The Stone Age – Mosquito Song

4) Gang Of Four – Outside The Trains Don’t Run On Time

5) Turbonegro – You Must Bleed/All Night Long

6) Hellacopters – Bullet – Speaking of the Misfits. . .

7) Dead Boys – All This And More

8) Hellacopters – Be Not Content

9) Angry Samoans – Carson Girls

10) Thin Lizzy – Derby Boys (Early version of Cowboy Song) – From the extended “Jailbreak” CD set.

11) Devo – Mongoloid

12) The Raconteurs – Old Enough – I think Raconteurs is Jack White’s best project and “Consolers Of The Lonely” is his best project’s best album. For all you kids in the audience, a real drummer often makes things better (good riddance Meg White).

13) Hellacopters – You Are Nothin’

14) KISS – Let Me Go, Rock ‘n’ Roll

15) Hellacopters – All I’ve Got

This list is funny. I don’t know why my shuffler didn’t shuffle very well. I have almost 1000 songs on my MP3 (950 by The Hellacopters, say you). It’s old. Maybe it knows what I like best. Who knows? I never use shuffle and immediately turned it back off anyway after this.

I Don’t Shuffle, But My MP3 Does

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1) Hellacopters – (Gotta Get Some Action) Now! – Existence of God proven once again.

2) Devo – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – I’m actually pretty tired of this (and “Whip It”). Obviously, I favor parentheses.

3) Hellactopers – (I’m) Watching You – From their final album of covers you won’t know, “Head Off.” I’m three-for-three on parentheses.

4) Hellacopters – (It’s Not A) Long Way Down – This is getting funny.

5) Masters Of Reality – 100 Years (Of Tears On The Wind) – But seriously folks. . .

6) KISS – 100,000 Years – The suit has switched from parentheses to Years.

7) Wire – 106 Beats That – From Years to Numbers.

8) Wire – 12XU – “The Shuffler’s Broke, But The Suit Remains The Same”

9) Hellacopters – 16 With A Bullet – I think I just realized I’m doing some sort of alphabetical order, not Shuffle.

10) Hellacopters – 1995

OK. I’ll stop now and do the exercise correctly later.

The Very Short History Of Supershit 666

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“Supershit 666 or Super$hit 666 were a European rock supergroup consisting of Ginger from The Wildhearts on vocals and guitar, Nicke Andersson from the Hellacopters on vocals and drums, Dregen from the Backyard Babies on vocals and guitar, and Swedish producer Thomas Skogsberg on bass.”

I copied that from Wiki.

I got what is supposed to be The Wildhearts’ best album “Earth Vs. The Wildhearts” and was very disappointed (too poppy and stupid-punk, kind of like something like Rancid at times). The Backyard Babies are very inconsistent as well and I think Dregen is crazy for choosing BB over the Hellacopters, because the Hellas were best when Dregen was around. (For a great example, dial up BB’s version of “Star Wars” and compare it to Supershit’s “Star Wars Jr.” In this case, junior beats the crap out of senior.)

Nicke Andersson is a god. He’s the main force behind The Hellacopters, as a guitarist and main vocalist. With SS666, he plays drums, where he originally began with the thrash band Entombed. And play the drums he does. For me, SS666 is a rock drum clinic, especially on the use of the snare. Nicke’s drumming could be what puts the whole thing over the top.

I don’t know Thomas Skogsberg very well, but he’s supposed to be a legendary producer.

Legend has it that this band wrote and recorded everything in one day. They never performed live. Does it get any more rock ‘n’ roll than that?

You can hear it in the recording, with just enough sloppiness to keep things interesting and the producer and other band members talking to one another throughout.

Maybe the whole one-day thing is contrived and they really recorded it in two weeks or something, but, even if that’s the case (hopefully not), it’s still a cool concept.

If you don’t already know, it’s my favorite piece of music of all-time. I can listen to it every day.

Thank you and goodnight.

Some Light Summer Reading

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I’m going to be away from Saturday to Saturday and away from the computer as well. I found what I think is a brand new book (yes, a book, not a download of a book) called “Detroit Rock City – The Uncensored History Of Rock ‘N’ Roll In America’s Loudest City” by Steve Miller (no, not THAT Steve Miller).

It’s one of those oral history books – just tons of little quotes from people who were there (I love that format). Of course, Iggy and MC5, but also Alice Cooper and even Ted Nugent, who I liked a lot before he shaved off his beard and eventually morphed into the world’s biggest asshole.

If this paragraph from the Introduction is any indication, I’m going to like it a lot:

“We all read Creem magazine in high school, learning about the real deal in a way that effete bullshit like Rolling Stone could never conceive of. Creem was Detroit; the rest were from, well, somewhere else. Creem wrote about the Stooges more than anyone else. When it came down to Mick Jagger vs. Iggy Pop in the rock-star idolatry sweepstakes, Iggy came out on top every time. He was Detroit. I would puff furiously on my Newport at the notion that anyone outside Iggy could be any more badass. Starting at age fifteen, we listened to the Stooges as we drove in cars on back roads and cradled bottles of Mad Dog 20-20.”

I loved Creem magazine. The first thing I did to my first very own brand new car (1982 Volkswagon Scirocco) was put a Creem Stars Car license plate on the front.

I also will finally write a review of the new QOTSA album when I get back. Meanwhile, enjoy the ride while 40 of pretty much “The Albums You Always Expect On A Greatest Albums Of All-Time List” pass by.

Is There Life On Mars?

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Got permission to publish this story sent to me the other day from my guitar-playing friend Phil Pilorz. Yes, both he and I know that “Take Me To The River” isn’t originally Talking Heads.

This is musical reality in the real world:

I’m doing a pick-up gig on Saturday with a bunch of guys. We got together tonight to run over some sets.

The keyboard player had left blank spots in the sets for tunes I would do. When we got around to trying to figure out what songs I would sing I hit them up with “Sweet Jane.” Started the riff, sang the first verse, got nothing but complete blank stares. They had never heard the song in their lives. Never really heard of Lou Reed. So I started “Take Me To The River”. Blank stares. Never heard the song, never heard of Talking Heads. Actually, one guy had. He knew “Burning Down The House.” The keyboard player suggested “Johnny B. Goode.”

I’m glad I didn’t hit them with “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”