Ken SharpResenhas

Wow, this was a fascinating book! It's a behind the scenes look at the creation of KISS and their rise to fame, circa 1972-1975. It's co-authored by two band members, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, so you see a lot more of their viewpoints than others, but they have good stuff to share, so it works out. It's interestingly presented in that it's 99% interviews. The primary author, Ken Sharp, sets up a chapter or section with a brief paragraph and then there is page after page of interviews with band members, managers, record company owners and employees, producers, DJs, fans, concert attendees, and other bands, some of whom liked KISS and some of whom hated them. Very interesting.

KISS got its start in Queens with Gene and Paul wanting to start a band. They found Peter Criss, their drummer, through a newspaper/magazine ad, and I think they found Ace by guitarists trying out and him standing out to them. The band started out named Wicked Lester and they only played at the Coventry. Apparently, in the early '70s, there were only three clubs in all of NYC that would take bands playing original music -- all of the rest wanted covers. KISS wasn't about covers. KISS was about heavy metal partying. They were about girls and love and lust and life. Nothing subtle. Nothing to think about. Not your thinking man's band. But they played the hell out of the Coventry. Then they got a gig at a club in Amnityville, out on Long Island. Yep, that Amnityville. And by this time, they were wearing early versions of their makeup, although Paul was just wearing red lipstick and rouge. (Even after reading this book, it still isn't clear to me who came up with the kubuki makeup thing. It happened early. It was obviously a gimmick. I just don't know.) Glam was popular at the time, and KISS wanted to out-glam all of them. They found a manager and then started doing gigs at an old hotel in NYC, a place where other decent bands had played, but was run down. By then, several people had heard of them and were started to come see their shows. Their manager sent them on the road. To tiny little places no one's ever heard of to play at places like high school cafeterias and barns. I'm not kidding. And they went all out, pretending they were at Madison Square Garden every time. They thought they owed it to the audience and they were trying to build an audience one person at a time. They went on a three city Canadian tour and froze their pants off. Again, they played in odd places. They were glad to get home.

A fellow came into their lives named Neil Bogart, who was a record company owner. He loved KISS and could envision big things for them, so he started a new company called Casablanca, aligned it with Warner, and signed KISS. KISS made a record. The record didn't sell. They continued to tour. They opened for just about anyone. They opened for folk artists. They opened for comedians. They opened for Manfred Mann, who hated them. They opened for ZZ Top. They opened for Slade. They opened for Black Oak Arkansas, which was a strange combo. They hated each other. They opened for Black Sabbath. Sabbath hated them and dropped them from the tour midway through. Still, they soldiered on.

By this time, their show had gotten big. They had their makeup and costumes. Gene was breathing fire and spitting blood. They had huge amps and could blow the sound of just about anyone off the stage. They had drums on risers. It was pretty professional, especially for an opening act. It got to the point where not many bands wanted KISS to open for them cause they were concerned about being upstaged.

A side note. The band were not partiers. Gene and Paul didn't drink or do drugs. Ace drank a lot, but kept to himself. Peter enjoyed the girls. They all enjoyed the girls, actually. The rumors about the groupies are apparently true. Lines and lines of girls waiting to be let into the hotel rooms of these guys just for a quickie. Bizarre. I've never understood groupies. Still, they didn't trash hotel rooms or do crazy things like Zeppelin did and other bands.

A second album came out. Sold about the same amount as the first. Not much. They couldn't get radio airplay. They weren't a singles band. They also couldn't get press. Rolling Stone detested them. About the only magazine to cover them was Creem, based in Detroit, the city KISS made their home. They considered themselves to be a blue collar rock and roll band playing gritty, real life stuff and they thought they would appeal to blue collar workers who had shitty jobs who would like to bang heads for a few hours. And they were right.

Sometime along the way, Neil cut ties with Warner because he didn't think they were promoting KISS sufficiently, so he took a big gamble and mortgaged his house and maxed out his credit cards. KISS was losing money like crazy. Still, everyone thought they'd make it. Big. It was just a matter of time. There were more and more fans. The shows were getting sold out. You'd see t-shirts and posters. People would call up radio stations and ask for KISS.

Third album -- Dressed to Kill. Had "Rock and Roll All Nite" on it. Didn't chart. They couldn't buy radio airtime. It did sell better than the first two albums, but not enough to generate enough money so that they'd go into the black. What to do?

Someone came up with the idea to capture the intensity of their live shows on an album, because they just didn't think it was happening with the albums they had put out so far. So Alive was born. It was a double live album and had a great cover shot of the band and it sold -- in the millions! And "Rock and Roll All Nite" (live) made the top 20. All of a sudden, they were international stars. Someone in middle America, a schoolboy, decided to start the KISS Army, to which I belonged as a kid, and it grew to become huge. All of a sudden, they were headliners. Pre-Steve Perry Journey opened for them. Rush opened for them. Rush and KISS came out about the same time, KISS perhaps a year or two earlier, so they could each relate to how things were going for each other. KISS loved Rush and Rush loved KISS. They had nothing but great things to say about each other in this book. Some kids at a high school in the midwest wrote KISS to ask if they'd come to their homecoming and they did! The whole town came out for it. Everyone dressed as a KISS member, babies and old people. The mayor gave them the key to the city. This, after the local clergy had taken him to task for allowing them to come to town. Hah! It was fun to read about.

One of the great things about this book is all of the pictures. There are hundreds of pictures of KISS, of liner notes, scrawled lyrics, fliers from early shows, etc. Real collector item stuff. The reason I'm giving this book four stars instead of five, however, is the incredible redundancy. The author would raise an issue, there would be an interview quote about it and then something like 10-15 more just like it. It's like he was beating you over the head with it. It really ticked me off. Just give us a few. Some of these interview quotes were completely unnecessary. Did he have a page count he had to make? It just went on and on. The book gets a five for the photos and a three for the redundancy and a four plus for the story, so a solid four overall. Recommended.

I really enjoyed this biography of my favorite band. The format was interesting and the information in it was fantastic. Despite enjoying the band since late 1983 (when my uncle played "All Hell's Breakin' Loose" for me), much of this journey I didn't know. I hadn't read much about their club years. This was a fantastic read and I'd like to thank my brother for loaning it to me.

Great oral interviews about how hard the band worked to succeed in the early days of their career.

"Nothin' to Lose" is a good KISS book. If you're like me--a rabid KISS fan--you'll have heard a majority of the stories about the band's beginning. What this book does offer, however, are vastly more details about Casablanca and the promotion of the band. You get to hear from some of the earliest fans and see pictures previously unreleased.

I've read Ken Sharp's previous KISS book, "Behind the Mask," many times. This one is put together in a similar fashion, with the vast majority of it being told from those who lived it, including the band, of course. But "Nothin' to Lose" was also structured rather haphazardly. The first 1/3 is pretty chronological, but after that--once the band begins touring constantly--the chapter breaks really don't mean much and a lot of what you read is pretty repetitive. And even for a KISS fan like me, the repetition gets a little old. We also hear about tours supporting albums before reading about the creation of those albums,which comes later in the book.

Still, this is well worth the read. Even if you're not a huge KISS fan, it's rather inspirational (maybe even more so to the non-fan) that these four guys and their team bucked pretty much every piece of conventional wisdom at the time and succeeded on their own terms.½

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Nothin' to Lose: The Making of KISS (1972-1975) by Ken Sharp with Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley is an IT/ HarperCollins publication. This book was released in September 2013. There are 560 pages with photographs. The book starts way back when Paul and Gene first meet. The first group they were in- Wicked Lester, then the formation of KISS. The influence of groups like "The Brats" and "The New York Dolls" on them. Slowly we work our way up to the release of KISS ALIVE!, and the hit song "Rock and Roll All Night". For many diehard KISS fans that have read everything they could get their hands on, this book might be just a rehash of the same old, same old. But, although I was a KISS fan from way back, I didn't read any books about the band before this one. So, for me this book was like a trip down memory lane. It had the feel of a group of guys and gals sitting around talking about the good ole days. This book wasn't really written in the dry biography fashion so many performance arts books are written in. The majority of the book was a collage of interviews and stories from the people that lived through that time with the band. The roadies, the managers, the promoters, the opening acts, the bands the group opened for, the road experience, the first recording contract, the issues with the label, the slow process of making it in the music business is all covered. KISS was a very hard working band. Their makeup and costumes worked for them with the fans that were blown away by the live shows, but worked against them when it came to getting air play on the radio. People didn't know what to make of them. There was also the criticism of other musicians that felt that the group's outrageous stage show and the entertainment first attitude was putting music way down the list. KISS was never thought of as a band that broke ground musically. In my opinion though I thought their music was no worse, (or better) than other hard rock type music you heard in the seventies. KISS was a group that was needed for that time. The sixties and the seriousness of the lyrics in music, such as war and violence etc. was beginning to lose it's passion and people were ready to kick off the social conscience of the times and party a little bit. KISS was perfect for that. Sometimes people just want to have a good time and see a show and be entertained. There are lots of groups and singers etc. that are more focused on the music and when we want that we will buy that music or go to those concerts. KISS put on one hell of a good show. Early on they realized the fans were what it would be about for them. The music industry has never acknowledged KISS in that way. Sort of like the Academy Awards will never give a blockbuster action movie that raked in millions at the box office, a nomination for an award. But, there has never been a band like this one before or since. My favorite story in the book was about the visit to Cadillac High School. The writing wasn't really "writing" if you will, since it was a mainly a collection of stories from people involved with the group. Most of the stories were told by Gene and Paul and I guess that's way their names are on the cover as co-authors. (They didn't really write anything, but they were obviously the main contributors) I also enjoyed the stories about the group Rush and the help KISS gave the group in terms of how things should work on the road and so forth. There were also some really good pictures in here as well. Old photos of the band from way back and other bits of nostalgia. I found the book entertaining and for me many of these stories were new. I have read some reviews of this book that stated this was nothing new to them. But, if you are that big of a fan, you may want to at least give the book a try since so many of these stories are told by the actual people who were there. These are actual quotes and told in first person. The book is rather long and there were times when I had to put it down and read something else for a while. I think some things could have been edited out without compromising anything, but I think all the stories were chosen for a reason by either the main author or the members of the band. Overall I give this one an A. Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for the DRC of this book.

This is the umteenth time I've read this book. As a huge KISS fan, I didn't think I'd get much out of it considering I'd bought KISSTORY, the $150 coffee table book put out back in the 90s that was supposed to have detailed the history of the band. And it did...but only from two primary perspectives--those of founding members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons. "KISS: Behind the Mask" takes place in three parts. The first does better what KISSTORY should have done as it is a biography that never got released in the late 70s/early 80s. It details the lives of all four original members including Stanley, Simmons, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley. The latter two were most interesting if only because there's little out there about them.

The second part is actually quite redundant as it's culled from interviews from band members (which is repetitive from the first part in many ways) as well as managers, road crew, and other peers of the time. The interview topics appear in chronological order.

It's the third part of the book that's most interesting. "Speaking in Tongues" recounts virtually every song the band has released (up through 1998's KISS' "reunion" album "Psycho Circus"). The band themselves, managers, producers, other musicians, and co-writers all chime in on each song. What's amazing to me is how many times the band poo-poos the sound of the albums. They often lament how their demos were much more raw and powerful. My reaction is "Why the hell did you let producers and engineers muck it up, then?!" I don't know anything about the process of creating an album, but as professional as Stanley and Simmons are, I'm surprised how often they gave the reigns of an album to someone else, then didn't correct problems before the album was released.

If you're a KISS fan, you'll enjoy the book...even if you know much of its contents. If you're not a KISS fan, why are you even reading this review?!

A great book telling the tale of the Hottest Band in the World! There are many things that I did not know contained within these pages. Kiss has always been heroes of mine and it was a little painful to hear the bickering and fighting going on backstage. No one wants to know that their heroes are real flesh and blood! One thing I would like to have read was more comments by Ace and Peter. I also wished that it had more quotes from Eric Carr. Over all an enlightening story of one of the most influential rock bands of all time.

Fabulous!