ah, kiss. i grew up with this shit and i was obsessed. we made guitars made out of our tennis rackets and stitched fabrics together over our moon-boots and staged faux concerts. i was gene simmons, my sister was paul stanley and other friends acted as peter chris and ace frehley. it was crushing to learn later in life that i was worshiping gene simmons whose true character came out later in life. gene turned out to be a right-wing used car salesman trapped in the body of a rock star. we also found out that paul couldn’t really play much guitar. peter was just a drummer and ace, as it turns out, was probably the most competent musician and surely the nicest of them all. somehow though they captured the imagination of teenagers in my time and i think the “dressed to kill” was probably their coolest period. the suits, genes clogs mixed with the stage make-up on the streets of new york was pretty awesome. i just wish gene would have settled down somewhere in miami in a hawaiian shirt and would have left the dreams to stay as what they were, dreams, instead of pandering like an account exec: “our real bosses are the fans” cause they pay our bills. come on gene, what kind of a rock star talks like that? by xy