“The KISS Army” will appreciate Simmons’s fondness for them and uncritically consume his heavy-metal memories.
Raunchy, good-hearted memoirs of the prodigiously tongued co-founder of megaselling band KISS.
Simmons (previously Gene Klein, previously Chaim Witz) defends his warts-and-all narrative of pop-culture collisions and 1970s excess by noting, “Those of you who believe in KISS need to know the truth.” The most colorful, engaging sections here deal with Simmons’s childhood in Israel and Queens. He attended yeshiva to please his fiercely devoted mother, yet became obsessed with “television, the Beatles, superheroes, science fiction, girls. Everything about America.” As for the band’s roots: “We all picked up guitars because we all wanted to get laid,” Simmons writes. With his ambitious songwriting partner Paul Stanley, and the rougher-edged Peter Criss and Ace Frehley, Simmons lived and rehearsed in dingy lofts while writing flamboyantly muscular songs like “Strutter” and “Firehouse” and devising schemes to attract industry attention. Their tactics worked well, and their dynamic stage show (incorporating pulp-Kabuki makeup, tight leather, pyrotechnics, fire-breathing, and blood-spitting) rapidly built their reputation. KISS sold out stadiums throughout the ’70s, but by 1982 internal strife and commercial missteps made the band appear shopworn. KISS soldiered on without Criss, Frehley, or makeup throughout the heavy-metal 1980s. The events become less compelling here, as Simmons surveys his merchandising savvy and his then-insatiable drive for short-term romance: Like many aging rockers, he recalls his odyssey with hazy bonhomie and good-humored bluster that can turn nasty, e.g., his gratuitous slams of ’70s art rock bands and ’90s grunge and his acrimonious portrayal of Criss and Frehley as self-destructive chuckleheads who needed to leave the band for everyone’s benefit. They were eventually hired back as contract players, in time for a final tour in makeup and appearances at lucrative, popular fan conventions.
“The KISS Army” will appreciate Simmons’s fondness for them and uncritically consume his heavy-metal memories.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60855-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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