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METAL SCHOOL - CHAPTER 1 - Alice Cooper and KISS: Spawing the Genre
From its inception, Rock n' Roll encompassed anything that wasn't another style of music, for instance Elvis, The Supremes, The Four Tops, The Beatles, The Doors and Jimi Hendrix were all Rock n' Roll, even though today they would be Oldies, Mowtown, and Classic. It wasn't until the late 60s or early 70s that designations began to find their way into the music venacular. While heavy rock had been around for quite some time, heavily influenced by the drug infused 60s art rock scene. Jimi Hendrix is a fine example of a Blues/Rock guitarist that paved the way for Heavy Metal. While songs like Purple Haze and All Along the Watchtower are renown for their heavily distorted guitar solos and in your face music, other Hendrix selections like Little Wing were decidely more Blues inspired and mellow.
As noted earlier in the "Vocab/Prolgue" section, Heavy Metal was first coined in the late 60s by Steppenwolf for motorcycles and somehow was attached to the music, therefor it should come as no surprise that many bikers began to espouse the 'Heavy' sound of Rock n' Roll. Concerts that were more about raucous and rougher life tended to have the more heavy sound and therefore drew the biker crowd. This tended to give the image of the 'average' heavy rock listener as long-haired, unshaven, unkempt, tattooed and having a general disregard for authority and order. During the rebellious holdovers from the 60s that were only old enough to remember and yet not participate this was a great chance to thumb their nose at the emerging 'Disco' scene.
A young man from Detroit, Michigan come Phoenix, Arizona named Vincent Furnier - the year was 1968 and the Nazz a local band from Phoenix was traveling to Hollyweird and hitting the clubs. The band's manager said they should get out of the 'run of the mill rut' they were in and do something different. There are countless tales of how he arrived at the name Alice Cooper, some involve Ouija boards, others a reference to a ghost, and others, because it just sounded good, whatever the reason, the pre-glam man dressed in mascara that took the stage at the Cheetah Club certainly made a splash in the papers.
By 1970 the band relocated to Alice's hometown of Detroit and things began to change forever, where on the west coast, fans raised peace signs, Detroit rockers raised fists and 'other appendages'. It was here that Alice is quoted as saying, "We drove the stake through the heart of the hippie movement." The shows generated buzz because no two shows were exactly the same, oh sure the music was, but they used whatever they could find in the hotel as props, fire extinguishers, bed sheets, towels, furniture, etc. In Toronto a momentous occasion happened later that year, mistakenly believing that chickens could fly (later aped by the 70s TV show "WKRP in Cincinnati") Alice released a live chicken on stage. As it flopped around Alice , still believing it could fly, thought it had been dazed by the lights and picked up the flailing bird and arched it into the crowd. It went about ten rows back where it was then set upon by rabid fans and torn apart, the next day the papers screamed "Male Rock Singer Bites Head Off Chicken and Drinks Its Blood." Later Ozzy Osbourne would try to duplicate this feat with a live dove and (accidentally) with a live bat.
The sick stage show that Alice is known for pretty much evolved from this one incident, "The sicker the fans are the sicker the stage show becomes.", he has been noted as saying. Still lacking a producer for their music a young assistant from Toronto's Nebula-9 studios was assigned to go look at the band in order "to shut their manager up". The assistant, Bob Erzin, not only liked the group, he want the shot at producing them, it was he that pulled the group apart and then put them together again, to include the polished stage show for which the group became known. Each night Alice would 'sin' on stage only to be punished by dying at the end of the show, of course to be resurrected in time for the encore.
Meanwhile a couple of teachers from New York with a fascination for Japanese Kabuki theater were hatching a plan to launch into stardom. While performing as "Wicked Lester" alongside other such glam rockers as the New York Dolls, it was evident that the show was over for glam and that rock was going to move on without them. In 1972 Chiam Witz and Paul Eisen, formerly of Wicked Lester, recruited Peter Crisscola from an ad he posted in the Rolling Stone and dropped an ad in the New York Village Voice and snagged Paul Frehley to round out their new foursome. Cueing on Alice Cooper's shock the audience into submission tactics, they decided to outfit themselves in Kabuki makeup and adopt onstage personae in order to both function in normal life without having to explain why they were doing what they were doing and in order to give the air of mystery to their shows (this would later become the major selling point of the band, who were they and what do they REALLY look like). They called themselves KISS.
Though the music was good and it was nicely produced for the time, it wasn't until their ALIVE! album hit the shelves did the band begin to see commercial success. The live performance sounded so much better than the studio recordings because it was like the groups image on stage, bigger, badder and more terrifying. Now armed with commercial success they were able to play larger arenas, book larger recording studios and play with better toys. The image quickly outgrew the music and no one could escape the marketing genius of Chiam Witz (Gene Simmons). Toys, clocks, posters, T-shirts, pillowcases, sheets, coloring books, model cars and a comic book (made with vials of the band member's blood mixed in the red ink) soon came to a store near you; KISS was no longer a band, they were an enterprise.
Of course with fame comes controversy and as Gene said, with controversy comes larger pay checks. KISS became the poster child of every anti-rock group in America, Knights In Satan's Service was supposedly the acronym for the name of the band, "The Demon" make-up (Gene) was based on a real Japanese demonic mythological creature, and other falsehoods soon had parents up in arms and kids paying more and more money to join the KISS Army. Then the really big time hit, TV. The recently released neo-Disco song "I was Made For Loving You" began eating up the charts and went triple platinum in no time, a TV appearance on "American Bandstand" proved that not only could they hold an audience on-stage, but also on screen, the reception was quite warm and the stars aligned for the made for TV movie "KISS Meets the Phantom of The Park". Unfortunately, none of the group could act, and the breaks were directly applied. However the damage had been done, a nation of future metalheads had been given the bite of doom.
Alice Cooper and KISS set the bar high for all rock band to follow, not just the Heavy Metal acts, but their HM legions took notes and went for the gusto, not only on stage, but in the studio.
From its inception, Rock n' Roll encompassed anything that wasn't another style of music, for instance Elvis, The Supremes, The Four Tops, The Beatles, The Doors and Jimi Hendrix were all Rock n' Roll, even though today they would be Oldies, Mowtown, and Classic. It wasn't until the late 60s or early 70s that designations began to find their way into the music venacular. While heavy rock had been around for quite some time, heavily influenced by the drug infused 60s art rock scene. Jimi Hendrix is a fine example of a Blues/Rock guitarist that paved the way for Heavy Metal. While songs like Purple Haze and All Along the Watchtower are renown for their heavily distorted guitar solos and in your face music, other Hendrix selections like Little Wing were decidely more Blues inspired and mellow.
As noted earlier in the "Vocab/Prolgue" section, Heavy Metal was first coined in the late 60s by Steppenwolf for motorcycles and somehow was attached to the music, therefor it should come as no surprise that many bikers began to espouse the 'Heavy' sound of Rock n' Roll. Concerts that were more about raucous and rougher life tended to have the more heavy sound and therefore drew the biker crowd. This tended to give the image of the 'average' heavy rock listener as long-haired, unshaven, unkempt, tattooed and having a general disregard for authority and order. During the rebellious holdovers from the 60s that were only old enough to remember and yet not participate this was a great chance to thumb their nose at the emerging 'Disco' scene.
A young man from Detroit, Michigan come Phoenix, Arizona named Vincent Furnier - the year was 1968 and the Nazz a local band from Phoenix was traveling to Hollyweird and hitting the clubs. The band's manager said they should get out of the 'run of the mill rut' they were in and do something different. There are countless tales of how he arrived at the name Alice Cooper, some involve Ouija boards, others a reference to a ghost, and others, because it just sounded good, whatever the reason, the pre-glam man dressed in mascara that took the stage at the Cheetah Club certainly made a splash in the papers.
By 1970 the band relocated to Alice's hometown of Detroit and things began to change forever, where on the west coast, fans raised peace signs, Detroit rockers raised fists and 'other appendages'. It was here that Alice is quoted as saying, "We drove the stake through the heart of the hippie movement." The shows generated buzz because no two shows were exactly the same, oh sure the music was, but they used whatever they could find in the hotel as props, fire extinguishers, bed sheets, towels, furniture, etc. In Toronto a momentous occasion happened later that year, mistakenly believing that chickens could fly (later aped by the 70s TV show "WKRP in Cincinnati") Alice released a live chicken on stage. As it flopped around Alice , still believing it could fly, thought it had been dazed by the lights and picked up the flailing bird and arched it into the crowd. It went about ten rows back where it was then set upon by rabid fans and torn apart, the next day the papers screamed "Male Rock Singer Bites Head Off Chicken and Drinks Its Blood." Later Ozzy Osbourne would try to duplicate this feat with a live dove and (accidentally) with a live bat.
The sick stage show that Alice is known for pretty much evolved from this one incident, "The sicker the fans are the sicker the stage show becomes.", he has been noted as saying. Still lacking a producer for their music a young assistant from Toronto's Nebula-9 studios was assigned to go look at the band in order "to shut their manager up". The assistant, Bob Erzin, not only liked the group, he want the shot at producing them, it was he that pulled the group apart and then put them together again, to include the polished stage show for which the group became known. Each night Alice would 'sin' on stage only to be punished by dying at the end of the show, of course to be resurrected in time for the encore.
Meanwhile a couple of teachers from New York with a fascination for Japanese Kabuki theater were hatching a plan to launch into stardom. While performing as "Wicked Lester" alongside other such glam rockers as the New York Dolls, it was evident that the show was over for glam and that rock was going to move on without them. In 1972 Chiam Witz and Paul Eisen, formerly of Wicked Lester, recruited Peter Crisscola from an ad he posted in the Rolling Stone and dropped an ad in the New York Village Voice and snagged Paul Frehley to round out their new foursome. Cueing on Alice Cooper's shock the audience into submission tactics, they decided to outfit themselves in Kabuki makeup and adopt onstage personae in order to both function in normal life without having to explain why they were doing what they were doing and in order to give the air of mystery to their shows (this would later become the major selling point of the band, who were they and what do they REALLY look like). They called themselves KISS.
Though the music was good and it was nicely produced for the time, it wasn't until their ALIVE! album hit the shelves did the band begin to see commercial success. The live performance sounded so much better than the studio recordings because it was like the groups image on stage, bigger, badder and more terrifying. Now armed with commercial success they were able to play larger arenas, book larger recording studios and play with better toys. The image quickly outgrew the music and no one could escape the marketing genius of Chiam Witz (Gene Simmons). Toys, clocks, posters, T-shirts, pillowcases, sheets, coloring books, model cars and a comic book (made with vials of the band member's blood mixed in the red ink) soon came to a store near you; KISS was no longer a band, they were an enterprise.
Of course with fame comes controversy and as Gene said, with controversy comes larger pay checks. KISS became the poster child of every anti-rock group in America, Knights In Satan's Service was supposedly the acronym for the name of the band, "The Demon" make-up (Gene) was based on a real Japanese demonic mythological creature, and other falsehoods soon had parents up in arms and kids paying more and more money to join the KISS Army. Then the really big time hit, TV. The recently released neo-Disco song "I was Made For Loving You" began eating up the charts and went triple platinum in no time, a TV appearance on "American Bandstand" proved that not only could they hold an audience on-stage, but also on screen, the reception was quite warm and the stars aligned for the made for TV movie "KISS Meets the Phantom of The Park". Unfortunately, none of the group could act, and the breaks were directly applied. However the damage had been done, a nation of future metalheads had been given the bite of doom.
Alice Cooper and KISS set the bar high for all rock band to follow, not just the Heavy Metal acts, but their HM legions took notes and went for the gusto, not only on stage, but in the studio.
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