Jump to content

Paul Stanley Gives Bands an F


RonJonSurfer

Recommended Posts

I'd like to think that's what he was referring to, "bang for your buck", because I have seen various bands perform at different levels of "intensity", I guess is the way to put it, certainly AC/DC, Cheap Trick, Kiss, Mötley Crüe, and Judas Priest (to name a few) have provided audiences with some high-energy and improvisational entertainment value over the decades, some other acts are simply more refined. I've always thought I was stranger than most in regards to music, while I love to rock-out wailing and head-banging with the best, I can also enjoy Caribbean Reggae and steel guitar Polynesian delights!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's funny is that the bands who aren't giving audiences enough bang for their buck are the bands of KISS's era who are still playing today. Nobody walks out of a Wolf Parade show saying "what a terrible waste of 10 dollars," but I could totally imagine someone walking out of a modern day Rolling Stones show saying "that totally wasn't worth 300 dollars." Same goes for KISS actually, ha ha ha.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another thing worth noting is that with music today, the problem isn't high ticket prices, it's the process of buying tickets online. People can make machines to buy out an entire concert within a few minutes, and then they sell them for much more than they originally cost. When concert tickets cost a lot, it's often not the band's fault.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My opinions on Kiss are neither here nor there, but....

and others make it for 10 minutes or so and blow away like last November's withered oak leaves (the eels, Wallis Bird, Nerve Rack, the Kooks etc.) I'm not saying that those bands are bad, just, they won't be around this time 5 years from now.

Eels released their first album in 1995. That's thirteen years ago. By now they have released 6 albums(*below); the most recent being the critically-acclaimed double-album "Blinking Lights And Revelations", (featuring contributions from Tom Waits and Peter Buck (REM); both highly-respected types in the music world, and not noted for putting their names to any old crap). Eels songs have featured in at least three block-busting movies. Eels frontman Mark Everett has been described as one of the best songwriters of his generation: an accolade I suspect has never been sent in Kiss' direction. Eels are still going: I saw them in concert at York Opera House just a few weeks ago.

"Last November's withered oak-leaves"? A tad unfair, methinks.

However: Props for even mentioning Nerve Rack, who must be one of the most unknown bands in the world. Too right they won't be around in 5 years time: they split up as long ago as 1993, having sold approximately 3000 albums worldwide. This bunch of post-punk art-core anarchists weren't even a household name in their own house. However, at least they couldn't be accused of ripping off the customer, having never headlined a gig in their own right, doing all shows "for costs only" (however far afield), and always putting in a committed performance.

* Make that seven: I totally forgot about "Meet the Eels: Essential Eels Vol. I and Useless Trinkets", their first "greatest hits" compilation, as well as a compilation of b-sides, rarities, soundtrack singles and unreleased tracks, released in early 2008

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mark Everett or "E" (head, lead and only consisting member of the Eels) is a widely recognised and very respected musician, just today I read an interview, where he talked about dogs, and yes - it was in one of the leading German music magazines...

as of Wallis Bird - I didn't know she was around (as in "famous") at all, I so very seldom hear of her... I like her though, so it could be that (still) nobody will talk about her in five years... I like her though :thumbsup:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, (as expected) we have just come down to the question of whether Kiss were any good or not, rather than discussing why Stanley has made this statement and whether it has any validity.

I can't claim to be any kind of a Kiss fan. They passed me by. Their hey-day straddled two great times in UK rock/pop music: glam-rock and punk. So while American youth was digging Kiss in a big way, the UK had Bowie-mania (or in my case Slade and The Sweet :blush: ), the Pistols and punk-rock. Just as I've come to the conclusion that, try as they might, Americans will never really understand or get to grips with the impact of punk and how it was experienced here, I have to confess that I can't possibly conceive "Kiss-Mania" (if that's what it was called): but that's fine. Respect the difference!

Rock/pop is a many-faceted beast, and I'm not sure any of the four artists mentioned by Ken in an earlier post bear any comparison with Kiss whatsoever, having vastly different artistic goals and performing totally different functions for the "music consumer". For example, Eels and Kiss are almost polar opposites: the one quiet, understated, modest, writing beautifully poignant, wistful and philosophical songs about unrequited love, grief, "God", inadequacy, birds, etc. and the other...well, you get my picture? There is plenty of room for both in rock's rich tapestry. I'm certainly not averse to the appeal of glamour, swagger, pzazz, showmanship, etc.: after all, my life was changed by seeing THIS. Anyway, I digress, wildly.

The point is: why is Paul Stanley saying this now, and does he have a point?

I'm inclined to the view that scare-stories about the inadequacy of modern music/artists are propagated by those who have a vested interest in re-living the past. Stanley has to suggest that today's performers are deficient, in order to validate his own bands re-existence. Otherwise why bother? Frankly, I have more respect for bands who openly admit that they are in service to the nostalgia industry.

We gave up doing this for money a long time ago, we love it, but we still get paid.

What do you make of this? It seems to imply that there certainly was a time when they were doing it for the money. How are we supposed to believe that they are now doing it "just for the love"? The fact that Kiss ever had a "tawdry and shameful disco phase" suggests the possibility that there was never any real sincerity, integrity, belief in what they were doing. You wouldn't have caught Sabbath or AC/DC engaging in that kind of thing.

"Rock and roll is in a pathetic state. Bands think they can get up on stage and strum their guitars and then download it - it's useless and pathetic.

Sounds like the sort of confused drivel one's granddad might say in a rare moment of semi-lucidity.

"We're sick and tired of seeing bands getting up on stage and not giving value for your buck."
There are bands / artists out there nowadays, who do go in for the glitz/glam and showmanship schtick, if that is what you seek. Trouble is: you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. What are the phenomena of Marilyn Manson and Slipknot, if not Alice Cooper/Kiss figures for the post-hardcore metal generation? Yet the very same people who continually hark to the past "tut-tut", chastise and disdain the very artists who are reinjecting the "virtues" of OTT showmanship, the return of "the rock'n'roll show as a spectacle". (Not that I'm a huge fan of those artists particularly: they merely serve to illustrate a point.) And on the other hand, there are absolutely loads of really great, vital bands, who can put on a storming live show without necessarily having to resort to gimmickry, costumes, make-up, fire, ice, laser-shows, dancing-girls, flying pigs, etc.

I'm 43, a former punk-rocker, and as vulnerable to nostalgic yearning for a mythical past as the next person, yet as far as I can see, "modern music" leaves nothing much to be desired: the "live music scene" is as vibrant as at any time I have known (here in Leeds, at any rate), and there is also no shortage of excellent recorded music to be had, if one is sufficiently open-minded and committed to look. Sure, today's punk-rock doesn't seem to be as good as it was in the past, but to be honest, I've moved on and I'm not so particularly bothered about that stuff any more, when there's so much great, more relevant and contemporary music to enjoy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...and others make it for 10 minutes or so and blow away like last November's withered oak leaves (the eels, Wallis Bird, Nerve Rack, the Kooks etc.)

Lord knows I've tried not to let it bother me, but it's just....it's only a week or two back I was likened to verminous scum and my children were disparaged, now folks're slagging off ma band. How long before my self-esteem is totally shredded? :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm 43, a former punk-rocker, and as vulnerable to nostalgic yearning for a mythical past as the next person, yet as far as I can see, "modern music" leaves nothing much to be desired: the "live music scene" is as vibrant as at any time I have known (here in Leeds, at any rate), and there is also no shortage of excellent recorded music to be had, if one is sufficiently open-minded and committed to look. Sure, today's punk-rock doesn't seem to be as good as it was in the past, but to be honest, I've moved on and I'm not so particularly bothered about that stuff any more, when there's so much great, more relevant and contemporary music to enjoy.

very well spoken :bow: :bow: :thumbsup:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Probably my favourite artiste sold next to no albums when he was alive and it was 30 years after he topped himself before he gained any recognition...but he was a helluva lot more influential in the long run than Kiss ever were. The 'eat poop....70 000 flies can't be wrong' argument is just a vacuous nod to power of mass hysteria. I'm sure they all had a good time listening to the anodyne, derivitive second hand drivel that bunch of poodle haired (literally in one case, wasn't one of them meant to be a dog?) tossers provided. Ace Frehely was an OK guitarist and one of them had a long tongue. I think that might have been their biggest contribution to rock history.

Nerve Rack were cool live!

:D

(and I'm off to see Wallis Bird the first opportunity I get! :P )

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...