Kiss unhappy at induction process

Next month, Kiss get inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame - they're told about the fire escape procedure, get to meet their line managers and get given a swipe card that lets them get into the stationery cupboard.

But they're not happy.

They're annoyed that only some Kiss people are being allowed in:

“We have continuing issues with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, starting with the fact that they chose to only induct the original lineup when that’s hardly the case with other bands,” [Paul Stanley] said from Los Angeles.

“In the Grateful Dead’s case, (they) also inducted a writer who never played an instrument,” said Stanley, referring to Robert Hunter’s inclusion when the band was inducted in 1994. “Or they’ve inducted rap artists, or they’ve inducted people who have been in the band for seven years as opposed to ... 25 years or 20 years — whatever their criteria of this week is.”

It does seem, on the face of it, to be unfair. But on the other hand, it's a pop museum and a band who are mostly known these days for squeezing every merchandise cent they can from their fanbase. I suspect the human rights agencies won't be taking many calls on this one.

Kiss try to pretend there's a Lady GaGa duet in their futures

It might surprise you that crappy novelty goods firm Kiss also have a band which puts out records from time to time. It's this endeavour which has led Paul Stanley to try and talk up a Lady GaGa duet:

The frontman said that he wouldn't rule out a duet between the band and the 'Bad Romance' singer, and described her as "terrific".

"Anything's possible," he told LA Weekly. "She's terrific, and it's not improbable."

You'll note that this is a basic scientific fact - a situation could exist whereby Lady GaGa and Kiss were in the same room, singing the same song, at the same time - dressed up to offer a vague impression that maybe something is already happening to bring about this situation.

Jackson concert organisers admit maybe hiring people who think he fiddled with kiddies "an oversight"

I don't know if they're actually planning to use the title "The Ill-Fated Michael Jackson Tribute Concert" formally, but, boy, it fits.

Latest nightmare for the organisers of the Cardiff concert is having to uninvite Kiss from the bill after being reminded of this:

Some of [Gene] Simmons' harshest comments came last year in an interview with Classic Rock magazine. "Well, you know, where there's smoke there's fire," Simmons said regarding accusations that Jackson abused young boys. "There's no question in my mind he molested those kids. Not a doubt."

You know, says Global Events CEO Chris Hunt, perhaps putting Kiss on the bill was a bad idea:

"Under the circumstances, we fully agree that even though Kiss is a band Michael admired, we have no choice but to rescind our invitation to them to appear in our tribute concert," Hunt wrote in a statement.

A slightly more interesting question is why Gene Simmons signed up to pay tribute to a man he believes molested kids.

Managerobit: Bill Aucoin

Bill Aucoin, the man who not only drove Kiss to fame but was smart enough to copyright their facepainting, has died.

He hadn't been meant to be managing pomp-rock bands; he had been working in television. A series he directed on the music business led to him getting letters from a Gene Simmons, asking if he could be hooked up with people who would help his band. Aucoin decided he should be that person.

He took over in October 1973, pushing their gentle-toying-with-glam-make-up to toddler-at-the-dressing-table-when-mummy-is-distracted levels, and shaping the various members of the band into 'characters'.

Aucoin made money from his charges, although having funded the band's first proper tour with his chargecard he had invested heavily. He put the figure at something like a third of a million dollars he'd sunk into the project - although, like all things Kiss, this figure may well have been overinflated and only have one foot on the solid ground of fact.

By 1982, Kiss were weary of Aucoin's level of return on investment, and dumped him to claw back the 25% of earnings he was taking.

It's arguable that Bill Aucoin's greatest contribution to the band was his insistence that they split the income (or the 75% they had left after his cut) equally amongst all members. That the band continue operating today probably owes much to this move cutting out the development of petty jealousy over who gets what.

After Kiss, Aucoin operated mainly as a management consultant for bands.

Bill Aucoin was 66; he died from complications related to prostate cancer.

Hall Of Fame shortlist announced

Who'll be given the increasingly-watered-down honour of an induction into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame? Some of this lot:
Abba
LL Cool J
The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Kiss
Darlene Love
Jimmy Cliff
Donna Summer
Laura Nyro
The Chantels
The Stooges
Genesis
The Hollies

It's hard to believe that Kiss - precisely the sort of dreadful good-idea-turned-into-grim-cash-machine that the Hall Of Fame trades in - aren't already in there.

Kiss upset about not being put in some sort of museum

Kiss want to know where the respect for them is. Respect? Love, perhaps. They feel unloved by their exclusion from the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. Yes, like it matters:

"There are disco bands, rap bands, Yiddish folk song bands in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but not Kiss," the band's outspoken frontman said during a speech at the Billboard Touring Conference on Thursday. "I believe we have more gold records in America than any other group, but it's OK."

Perhaps the Hall Of Fame team don't realise that - alongside the bobble-head dolls, action figures, Kiss-branded lighters and Kiss footballs, the make-up bags and army buckles - there's actually a band using the same logo and trademarks.

Not that Simmons is bitter about it, or anything:

"A lot of those guys on the board [of the museum] can go and get my sandwich when I want, and I mean that in the nicest way," he said.

It would have to be a Kiss-branded sandwich, of course.

Still, Simmons might be able to draw comfort from knowing that while Leonard Cohen might be getting a small section in a corner of the Cleveland museum, nobody has yet bothered to make a Leonard Cohen Mr Potato Head.

Kiss and chips

There seems to be no end to the nasty old tat that Kiss are happy to flog to their fans - and, clearly, the fans are more than happy to dig deep into their pockets for the stuff. So, amongst the fence-sitting McCain and Obama Kiss t-shirts, the horrible lighters shaped like guitars and, probably, guitars shaped like lighters, this year they're launching Kiss Mr Potato Heads. They're squishy, plastic ovoids upon which you can slap some designs and pretend they're a heavy rock band, even though they look slightly ridiculous. And (inevitably) they've now just launched a range of Mr Potato Heads, too.

MTV plot over-literal Katy Perry performance

Given that Katy Perry's I Kissed A Girl has all the subtlety of a Simon Heffer think piece, it's surprising to discover that MTV executives are afraid that their viewers might not have got the point of the song, and are trying to get her to kiss a girl while performing her hit single Look! Look! I've Had A CosmoGirl Style Bi-Try Experimental Snog With A Girl! Me, Over Here! Little Bit Gay! OMG Not "Gay" Gay Though Like, Cringe Or What?.

And through a process which we can only conclude involved typing FAMOOS LESBIAN into Google, they're angling for Lindsay Lohan. Which would take a grindingly obvious stunt record, add a screamingly hackneyed stunt, and call for a flatly unsurprising guest appearance.

Now: if it was Blanche from the Golden Girls, then we'd offer some respect.

Kiss blame the consumers

Whose fault is the demise of the record industry? Gene Simmons points the finger at the audience:

"The record industry is dead, it's six feet underground, and unfortunately the fans have done this.

"They've decided to download and file share. There is no record industry around so we're going to wait until everybody settles down and becomes civilised."

So, it's not the fault of the industry itself for failing to respond to changing technology and shifting consumer demand.

And does it not occur to Simmons that - if an industry finds itself without people willing to pay for the products it produces at a price they are happy with - there actually is no industry? Does he believe that the major labels are in some way a social good, like education and socialised healthcare and that - although they are profit-maximising beasts who have happily embraced capitalism in the good years - customers owe them something to support them when times get tough?

Why is 'unfortunate' that businesses which fail to respond to the markets in which they operate will, themselves, fail? Isn't that what the market economy is supposed to do?

The Bush presidency winds down

The last days of Empire: Having apparently decided to not bother with any sort of legacy, the people who've been running America for the last eight years are now clearly just goofing off - six months of bringing in games and surfing the net for cheap flights.

So it is that Condoleezza Rice is making time in her schedule to meet up with Kiss. In Sweden:

"It was really fun to meet Kiss and Gene Simmons," she told reporters, noting that they seemed well-informed about current events. The band had asked if she could stop by after she finished dinner with the Swedish foreign minister and Rice readily agreed, she said.

After all, she had some spare time as her planned date with Sammy Hagar had fallen through.

Kiss: 35 years of pompous

Signs that your band has long since ceased to have any value as a band and is now little more than a money-making machine, number 396: You issue a newsflash to announce the design of your tour logo.

Bless! There's still part of the world that's afraid of Ozzy

Churches in New Zealand are panicking, trying to prevent the forces of darkness descending on their land. Wellington pentecostal church Lifepoint are campaigning to stop Ozzy Obsourne taking part in a rock festival next year.

We did wonder if the church was alarmed - what with Ozzy's shilling for I Can't Believe It's Not Butter - at a margarine salesman running amok in the land of Anchor, but as they're also worried about Kiss and - really - Lordi turning up, too:

"It's not appropriate from our angle of things," said pastor Karen Crawshaw.

"I don't think we can force our views on others but at the same time we think it's a very negative influence on our city.

"It'll put a damper on the things the church traditionally focuses on at the Easter season."

Perhaps they're just feeling awkward about the poor quality of line-up for the bank holiday.

Dicky ticker nixes Kiss's singer

Paul Stanley, singer and guitarist for Kiss, left the others to play alone after managing to keep a sustained heartbeat of over 190 on Sunday. Which is faster than their drummer can manage these days. Kiss played on as a trio, although they could have got anyone to slap on some make-up and fill-in, and nobody would have been any the wiser.

Kissobit: Mark St John

Guitar teacher turned Kiss guitarist Mark St John has died, apparently from a brain hemorrhage.

St John was an affectation - he was actually born Mark Norton. He stepped up to the Kiss guitar role after Gene Simmons had canned Vinnie Vincent, but would only spend eight months in the role before arthritis forced him out again. During that time, he worked in the studio on Animalize, the peak of the brief period when Kiss tried to be something other than face-painted panto rock. St John played just three gigs with the band before Bruce Kulick moved in to replace him.

As with so many other musicians born in the 50s, it was the Beatles who lured St John to a life of rock:

I remember watching television and seeing the Beatles and the Rolling Stones on The Ed Sullivan Show," St. John once told KISS Force in an interview. "They didn't have tubas, they had guitars and everyone was going crazy and that put a spark in my mind. The guitar is rock 'n' roll. That's what it's all about...the guitar is what's happening."

Before Kiss, St John's main income came from giving music lessons, but it was his work with the band Front Page which had brought him to Kiss' attention. Although a covers outfit, St John's talent built Front Page a following beyond the usual local crowd they could have expected. After Kiss, it didn't take long for St John to get back into performing, but on a lower level: the odd benefit here, the odd radio station jam there. These sessions, and some time in the studio, led to the foundation of White Tiger with David Donato. A debut album sold well enough to lead to plans for a second, but not so well as to see those plans carried through. White Tiger split in 1988.

St John filled in with session work - even turning up on some of David Hasselhoff's music (popular, as we all know, in Germany) - before forming The Keep. Again working with Donato, and Peter Criss (another Kiss evacuee), The Keep managed a single gig before falling apart. Actually, playing at a drum clinic barely even counts as a single gig, does it?

In 1999, the Mark St. John Project issued one EP before again sinking without trace; there would be one last record, an instrumental affair, before Mark left the studio and returned to teaching others to play.

He leaves a brother and a sister. Mark St John was 51.