"KISS & Make-up" Clarifications/Corrections Page

I did it to Dale's book, so I guess I'll do it to Gene's (twice, since the paperback has recently been published for the book. And I assume I shalln't get pissed when someone does it to my book(s)! Comments, contributions, additions, further clarifications welcomed! This section is not an insult to Gene, or his book, but should add some detail to some of the events mentioned in his book and correct some factual errors.

• P39. Seth Dogramajian, guitarist and vocalist in Gene's early bands including the Missing Links (Lynx) and Long Island Sounds, died in New York aged 47 (b. 6 Sep 1950), on 11/20/98...
• P61. The Steve Coronel cowritten "She" appeared on "Dressed To Kill" in 1975, while "Goin' Blind" aka "Little Lady" had been released on the second KISS album, "Hotter Than Hell"...
• P62. Ronnie Leejeck/Stephen Coronel departure. There is documentary evidence that Ron signed on with the band in December 1971 (15th) from the details contained in a letter from Leejack to Ron Johnson when he quit Wicked Lester in January 1973 (1/15/73). That would put the date of a Mertomedia Records audition as early in 1972. Metromedia was Bobby Sherman’s label...
• P66. Sources have invariably dated Peter's ad in Rolling Stone to April 1972. However, no copy of this ad has yet been found in April - the ad actually appeared in the August 31, 1972 East Coast edition of Rolling Stone, and read "Experienced & Roll drummer looking for original group doing soft & hard music. Peter XXX-7778, Brooklyn".
• P68. Gene didn’t shorten Peter’s name to "Peter Criss". Peter had already been credited on the 1970 Chelsea album as "Peter Cris".
• P68. Epic’s A&R man for the final Wicked Lester audition was Don Ellis.
• P69. The ad in the Village Voice for a lead guitarist went in the December 14, 1972 edition and read, "Lead guitarist wanted with Flash and Ability. Album out Shortly. No time wasters please. Paul".
• P78. The KISS Demo was recorded at Electric Lady studios during March 1973 and produced and engineered by Dave Wittman supervised by Eddie Kramer. It consisted of five songs: "Deuce", "Cold Gin", "Strutter", "Watching You", and "Black Diamond".
• P79. Bill Aucoin and Sean Delaney were room-mates, not just associates. According to Sean, "Bill Aucoin and I were roommates back in the early Seventies 1969-1980. That's right 11 years. I had been the lead singer of several successful groups in the NYC area, ‘Sean Delaney and Trust’ (we had landed a contract with Electra Records) and a group called ‘Natural Juice’ that landed a contract with Columbia records. In fact the band was discovered by Clive Davis. Bill Aucoin was my roommate and best friend. I also had a company called the ‘Music Dept.’ with a man named Howard Marks. This was before KISS. Neil Bogart was a personal friend of mine. So, you can see by the facts that I was there before KISS. Gene had sent us a phony press release and press packet. Listing all the places they had been playing and REVIEWS of their performances. ALL were BOGUS".
• P85. The Who's "Quadrophenia" show at the Spectrum in Philadelphia was on December 4th, 1973, and has been extensively. Wonder if they cheered, if so they’re on the bootleg ;)
• P87. The magician was apparently Amaz-O, and Gene has recounted in other stories about this event that he got the part when the other members of the band stepped back rather than him volunteering...
• P88. The bill for the December 31st, 1973, as per Variety’s review of the show, on January 2, 1974, was Blue Oyster Cult supported by Iggy & The Stooges, Teenage Lust & The Lustettes, and KISS.
• P97. According to the Casablanca press release for the KISSing contest, "the winners will be flown May 31 to Los Angeles to see and meet KISS as they perform at the Long Beach Auditorium. From there they will depart on an 8-day cruise to Acapulco to recuperate". Not Hawaii...
• P98. Kenney Kerner recalled the Kissin’ Time incident differently, "So he wanted to find a gimmick that would get the band national attention, and radio play at the same time. And what better gimmick than the band called KISS to cover Bobby Rydell’s "Kissin’ Time". Well, we were furious. We absolutely refused to do it and the band refused to do it. Here was Neil, again, relying on the only thing he knew how to do which was put a gimmick on top of a gimmick to sell records. He basically forced everybody in to doing it. I mean, he was the boss and could threaten you in ways, you know, "the record isn’t coming out, I’m not going to promote it. I’m going to drop the ball." So we went into the studio to cut a brand new version of "Kissin’ Time", the only problem was that we couldn’t use the lyrics that Bobby Rydell sang. They were really stupid and completely out-dated! This is like amazing, we sat in the studio, and behind the board was me and Richie, the engineer, the manager, and Sean Delaney, who worked with the band. And on the other side, in front of the board, were the four guys in KISS. And we sat there, we all had pads and pencils, and we just went around the board. And we went, "alright, well... they’re Kissin’ in".... and somebody would go, "Detroit!" And we’d go, "alright, they’re kissin’ in Detroit". And that’s how it went. We re-wrote the song in like twenty minutes. We changed it to some Rock ‘N Roll cities, and shit like that, and went In and cut it. And that came out on the second pressing of the same first album".
• P98. The "Kissin’ Time" single reached #83 with five weeks on the charts...
• P99. Kerner and Wise moved out West because that was where Bogart was setting up the label...
• P103. The "Hotter Than Hell" album only managed to reach #100...
• P103. Bogart was to produce the "Dressed To Kill" album because he’d fired Kerner and Wise. He was also seriously dating KISS’ co-manager Joyce Biawitz, who he’d later marry...
• P115. Dick Wagner’s connection was more direct than the obtuse Lou Reed connection mentioned. He had worked with Ezrin and Alice Cooper since the 1973 album "Billion Dollar Babies"...
• P116. "Flaming Youth" was not a picture disc, but a picture sleeve...
• P122. KISS was in Europe in May 1976, and thus could not have sold out the MSG that month. February 1977...
• P130. On Van Halen. The date was October 31, 1976. The Boyz vocalist Michael White recalled, "in 1976 we played a Halloween show at Gazzarris on the Sunset Strip. The club was packed and most of the kids who came to the show that night were dressed up in KISS makeup. We played mostly our own tunes, but in order to get gigs we played some ZZ Top, KISS, etc. We ended our first set with Firehouse, a KISS song. As we were walking off the stage, I noticed an extremely tall guy approaching me. To make a long story short, the man was Gene Simmons. He was at the club partying with Paul Stanley". Also playing at that show were Van Halen. Mo Ostin would sign the band to Warner in March 1977...
• P133. The April 1977 shows at Budokan tied the record with The Beatles. They’d beat it the following year...
• P135. "Love Gun" was the first KISS album to ship a million copies. By that time, it was KISS’ fourth platinum record.
• P135. "Howard The Duck" issues #12 & 13 published in May (12) and June (13) 1977 respectively. Issue 12 only has a single page featuring KISS, while issue 13 has 4 pages. The KISS Marvel comic would be published in June 1977, the week prior to the album being released, and thus came just two weeks after the second issue of "Howard The Duck". Page 219 of KISStory shows a letter, dated 12/29/76, from Steve Gerber at Marvel, presenting the KISS camp with the plot synopsis of the KISS comic book. Far from the success of the "Howard The Duck" appearances being the motivation for the KISS Comics, as Gene suggests, the KISS comic book was being planned in late-1976.
• P136. The second KISS live album had been planned earlier and postponed until after the band had a third studio album to cull material from rather than repeat songs performed on "Alive!".
• P136. Here’s something to ponder: The definition of an album under the KISS contract of late 1976 with Casablanca specified that an album, counting towards the completion of their contract (5 albums by June 30, 1979), would consist of a minimum of 25 minutes of music. While the five new songs on side 4 do not add up to 25 minutes (19:27) if you add the 6:26 which the new recordings of "Hard Luck Woman" and "Tomorrow And Tonight", which would be recorded live in the studio and over-dubbed with crowd noise you do get "not less that 25 minutes" of new material (in a way).
• P137. It’s hard to go into the Bob Kulick versus Rick Derringer again and again. Bob states that the Alive II side was him, except on "Rocket Ride" which is Ace, and probably "Any Way You Want It" which is Paul. Rick Derringer’s official website lists "Lick It Up", for the Vinnie Vincent confirmed solo performance on "Exciter", but not "Alive II". If Rick really is on "Larger Than Life", perhaps he’s due some residuals? ;)
• P154. The solo albums, as is now commonly known were defined in the KISS contract with Casablanca Records of late 1976 which specified that solo albums, only in groups of two, would count as 1 record towards the fulfillment of the terms of the contract.
• P154. Katey Sagal was of course, later Mrs. Bundy of the TV show "Married With Children".
• P155. "Living In Sin At The Holiday Inn" titled "Living In Sin"...
• P155. With 5 gold albums and 2 gold singles, Donna Summer was hardly Casablanca’s next big thing in 1978. She had come into Casablanca through Oasis in 1975...
• P156. While Casablanca engineered the shipping of 1.25 million copies of each of the KISS solo albums, they were returned in masses, even ending up having Paul quip that he had a garage full of the damn things. They are more often seen as cut-outs, albums sold at knock down prices to clear them.
• P156. Ace’s "New York Groove" made it to #13 in early 1979 and was by any definition a hit. There’s no "none of the albums really yielded hits"...
• P158. As previously mentioned, Casablanca by definition of the late 1976 contract with KISS did count the solo albums. If anything, "Double Platinum" was released by the label not considering "Alive II" a legitimate album towards fulfillment of the contract and thus exercised their option to release a "Best Of" at will. Getting KISS involved in discoing up "Strutter" is another matter which could really do with some realistic explanation.
• P158. "Double Platinum" was released prior to the release of the KISS solo albums in March 1978...
• P160. Vincent Poncia Jr. is Vini Poncia, not Vinnie...
• P164. Gene would provide 2 songs, one a recycle of Wicked Lester’s "Simple Type", for the album and play bass on 3 songs...
• P165. "I Was Made For Lovin’ You" only made it to #11 in the United States. In numerous other countries (except the UK at #50) it went to #1 or 2. But it was the biggest single the band would ever have worldwide.
• P165. The tour was a disaster financially...
• P166. Anton had also drummed on "Dynasty", though Peter would play on one song.
• P166. Peter had essentially quit KISS at the end of the "Dynasty" Tour, and was, by the time KISS were working on "Unmasked" already in the studio working on his own album which would be released in September 1980.
• P173. Paul Caravello had not been in bands "on and off", he’d been continuously in bands since 1965 and had drummed on an album released on Casablanca in 1979...
• P173. Paul Caravello was offered the position as drummer in a message left on his sister’s answering machine...
• P174. Europe 1980. Bon Jovi didn’t yet exist. Iron Maiden opened all dates except in England where glam band Girl opened...
• P174. The Eric photo incident occured on the "Animalize" tour...
• P175. Uh, America didn’t go nuts for KISS in 1974, it was late 1975/early 1976... And furthermore, KISS wasn’t in Australia in 1981. Success was so fleeting there that the local label quickly pulled the final single release from the "Unmasked" album after the group’s visit.
• P180. The lyrics on the album for "I" go, "and the balls to stand alone". The "guts" edit was only used on a few of the singles released outside of the US...
• P185. "War Machine" had already been recorded in its’ original Adams/Vallence form by the band The Investigators. The same was the case for "Rock And Roll Hell" which had been recorded in 1979 by Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Gene would make changes to both songs for their use on the KISS album, but they can hardly be considered original material.
• P185. Again, Rick Derringer doesn’t credit "Creatures Of The Night" as being an album he participated on. Guitarists were Vinnie Cusano, Bob Kulick, Steve Ferris, Adam Mitchell, and Robben Ford (and possibly others).
• P185/6. Torture working with Vinnie? But they didn’t mind writing with him!
• P188. In late-1982/early-1983 The Clash were descending having released their final real album, "Combat Rock" in May ’82 and riding on the tails of one of the Who’s farewell tours. The band had also passed it’s heyday in every other country, along with most other real punk acts by 1979... Michael Jackson could hardly be considered in ascent either, having blasted out a solo path in 1979. Sure there was "Thriller", but he was already big with "Off The Wall" which had 2 #1 singles, and a total of 4 top-10 and all Gold singles...
• P191/2. Paul has continuously stated that he suggested taking off the makeup in 1982.
• P192. "Lick It Up" quickly went Gold, but it would take until 1990 to gain Platinum certification...
• P192. For KISS’ touring in the 1980’s, one should read C.K. Lendt’s "KISS & Sell"...
• P192. Eric was not a fan of KISS prior to joining the band, so it would hardly be the "KISS he knew and loved"...
• P196. Neil Bogart died May 8, 1982...
• P196. KISS dropped Vinnie Vincent at the end of the "Lick It Up" Tour in April 1984, not 1983...
• P196. KISS never started a tour with Mark. Bruce covered for all of Europe, and Mark would play a couple of shows in New York State in November 1984. By that time it was too late. Bruce fit with the band and was already in synch with them... Mark would play part of Baltimore, and Poughkeepsie and Binghamton.
• P208. There was no odd coincidence of Bruce Kulick. He’d been known to band, through his brother, since 1978, and had apparently tried out for KISS in 1982...
• P219. Eric Carr did appear on "God Gave Rock And Roll To You II" singing harmonies with Paul. Additionally, the song appeared on "Bill And Ted's Bogus Journey", not "Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure". KISS did not decide to give Ezrin another chance at producing, their participation on the soundtrack was requested with Bob's addition...
• P220. The timing of Vinnie’s involvement with KISS again is probably as early as July 1991.
• P220/221. There is also the small matter of Vinnie’s label Enigma going bankrupt...
• P227. There were 21 US Konvention dates with Houston and New Orleans being cancelled.
• P227. Gene's projects with Wendy O. Williams, Black 'N Blue, Keel and EZO were all in the 1980's.
• P227. While talking about Peter's appearance at the US Konventions, Gene then recounts the Peter Criss imposter episode suggesting that it took place six months prior to the Konvention. It occurred in 1991, not 1995.
• P234. "KISS My Ass" has only ever been certified Gold in the United States, and took over a year to get there...
• P245. The first leg of the reunion tour lasted 127 dates and concluded in Melbourne, Australia in February 1997. The tour would play an additional 64 dates and end in London, England in July 5, 1997. KISS would not perform again until October 1998. KISS did Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year 1996/7.
• P249. Bob Ezrin did not take himself completely out of the picture, he would perform on the album playing fender rhodes...
• P249. Gene’s writing with Bob Dylan was reported as long ago as 1992 for "Laughing When I Want To Cry"...
• P250. Ace getting himself shot. This occurred around 20 August 2000 while the band was on their Farewell Tour, not during the Psucho Circus era...
• P253. The Beatles and the Gold Records fiasco. Actually, the Rolling Stones (38) are next in line behind the Beatles (41) for bands. KISS are the most successful US group in terms of Gold records awarded (so c'mon, go out and buy "Elder", "Greatest KISS", and "Carnival Of Souls", which haven't attained Gold certification!) with Aerosmith close behind. KISS have 24 (28 including the solos, which I'd tend to count since they are part of the KISS catalog and have the KISS logo on them - a technicality) gold records, with Aerosmith currently on 22… Elvis, well, he has 81… Bob Dylan, he has 32… For the women, Barbra Streisand has 43.

"KISS & Make-up" Paperback edition Clarifications/Corrections Page

All of the same errors originally printed in the hardback appear in the paperback. Since there is additional material in the paperback only corrections, and new items, will be listed here.

• P260. KISS' "Alive!" did not attain multi-platinum certification by 1975. Indeed, the RIAA still only recognizes its' Gold Certification from December 1975...
• P263. The first single off "Destroyer" was not "Detroit Rock City", but "Shout It Out Loud". DRC would be the third single...
• P266. "I Wanna Shout" is the title of the Hollies song covered by Wicked Lester, not "We Wanna Shout It Out Loud". Furthermore, the song was written Clarke and Sylvester, NOT Cook and Greenaway. The song WAS used by the Hollies appearing on their 1970 album, "Confessions Of The Mind". How much more Wicked Lester could have done to their cover of the song is an interesting concept since their version is pretty close to the Hollies' version...
• P267. After say on page 264 how "Destroyer" stiffed at under 900,000 copies, now we find KISS the biggest band in America when the album came out. The success of "Destroyer" would take until August to take off when "Beth" became the album's saviour. This was nearly six months after the release of the album. Some would also argue about the stature of KISS in 1976, notably with the likes of Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, and Peter Frampton scaling their own mountains at the same time (if not earlier)...
• P267. KISS have played under 2000 shows, so "KISS has played thousands of concerts"...

KISS & Make Up by Gene Simmons

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