KISS “White Christmas (Live)” (w/ Adam, Jeremy, Vinnie & Kathryn)

What’s up, dudes? I wanna rock and roll all night while dreaming of a white Christmas! Yes, we’re talking KISS “White Christmas!” I’ve got my whole band with me: Adam Pope from Wizards! The Podcast Guide to Comics and The Retro Network (Geekster), and Remember That Show?, Jeremy Phelps the Alamo City Santa, Vinnie Brezinsky from Huey and Bax, and Kathryn Sugg!

On Dec 19, 1987, KISS came out for an encore and sang the Irving Berlin classic “White Christmas!” The a capella harmonies were tight! And yes, Gene helps the audience keep the beat as they start clapping.

Also, Paul took over MTV for the Paul Stanley Guest VJ Hour! He’s joined by two present wrapping helpers in sexy Mrs. Claus outfits. He introduces videos, and does a QVC-style gift demo. Some are wild, like the mini car for Gene.

Makeup? Check. Guitars? Got ‘em. Waterbugs and ‘80s robots? What?! So paint your face, hop in your little car, and sing an encore to this episode on KISS “White Christmas!”

Wizards!
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IG: @alamocitysanta 

Etsy: North Pole General Store 

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Check us out on Facebook, Twitter,  Instagram,  Totally Rad Christmas Mall & Arcade, Teepublic.com, or TotallyRadChristmas.com!  Later, dudes!

Transcript

SPEAKER_09 0:00

No, I know! I know everybody's hot! Everybody's got St. Nicholas pneumonia! So let's call out Jerry D.

SPEAKER_04 0:13

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas because I want to rock and roll all night and party every day. We're talking kiss, white Christmas, and other things. Hit it! It was the 1980s. Gene Simmons starred in Runaway. Paul Stanley was a guest BJ on MTV, and Kiss sang a Christmas classic at their live shows. I'm your host, Jerry D with another episode of Totally Rad Christmas, the podcast that talks all things Christmas in the 80s, toys, movie specials, music, and fads. If it was gnarly during Christmas in the 80s, we got it covered. Now, joining me are three Totally Rad Christmas All-Stars and Ratty winners and a brand new guest. My first guest you'll know from Wizards, Wax Pack, Flashback, remember that show, and a few others. It's Adam Pope. Adam, how's it going?

SPEAKER_09 1:37

Ooh, Merry Christmas indeed. Oh, I've been waiting my whole life for this, Jerry. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:45

I'm very excited. This is gonna be a fun one. Just looking at some of the pictures that you sent me. Yeah, this this will be a blast. So you guys know way more about KISS than I do, and I'm excited to learn. I'm super eager. So thanks for coming on, man. It's good to see you. Next from Huey and Bax, it's Vinny Brzezinski. Vinny, what's up, man?

SPEAKER_08 2:04

Totally like Christmas. You're not ready to go home yet, are you? That's my question. Uh my best Paul Stanley. Sorry, guys. Um it's all right. That was pretty good. But I'm good. I'm glad to be uh Jerry gave me a little text this morning, and he's like, You want to come on? I'm like, heck yeah, I'll come talk talk some kiss with everyone.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

Well, I was looking back through some of the old posts and I had posted on this, and then I saw that you wanted on. I thought, I forgot I was supposed to invite him on. So I was like, quick, I gotta get Vinny on. So I'm glad you were able to make it. My next guest is the Alamo City Santa. It's Jeremy Phelps. Jeremy, what's happening?

SPEAKER_07 2:39

Well, I'm gonna also, since everybody else is quoting Paul, I'm gonna do my Paul in light of my air conditioning condition. I got the feeling tonight's gonna be one of those hot nights. So let's talk some kiss. Chris, two of my favorite things.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

I love it, I love it, man. It's good to see all of you. But tonight we're introducing Kiss Superfan Katherine Sugg. Catherine, thanks for joining us. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Really well, and I'm not just a super fan, I also just happen to be Jean Simmons Stepney's. Yeah, that is not a fib, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 3:17

I I held that back because I I wanted to see their face.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah, for all the people out there getting ready to call me a fake and a foster and stuff like that. Yes, technically, family, on quote. But last time I checked, step family was still family. That is true. Now, what you're probably just wondering is how did I end up lucky enough to end up related to Gene Simmons? Well, just like with all things Gene Simmons related, but um bum, it's a little complicated. But if you pay attention, it can be explained.

SPEAKER_04 3:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_09 4:03

We have to play the record that way. Yeah, Sonny and Cher.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

That's Sonny and Share. Well, as it turns out, suddenly my mother's uncle wallet. We're cousins.

SPEAKER_05 4:23

Really?

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, legitimate cousins, but nonetheless, they're my auntie. And since she and Gene Yeah, since Sonny and Cher were husband and wife, that makes Cher my auntie. And since she and Gene were an item once upon a time, that makes him my step uncle.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

All right. Okay. Right on, right on.

SPEAKER_07 4:44

That's back when Gene was still masked. That's a long time ago.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Well, when I when I first revealed myself to him at the Charlotte Volt experience before the pandemic, I was so scared, I almost chickened out. I was so scared that he would reject me. That like my parents and my sister did, but he didn't.

SPEAKER_04 5:08

Well, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Yeah, he's publicly he's publicly claimed me and he's allowed me to claim him. So that's that as far as he and I are concerned.

SPEAKER_04 5:18

That works. That works for me. Well, it's good to have all you guys here. I'm excited. We're gonna have a great discussion all about Kiss. But before we do that, just like Carol Kane did to Bill Murray and Scrooged, I want you to hit me with the toaster. So I'm gonna ask you a few questions, and I want you to hit me with the first answer you can think of. Okay, you don't have to think too hard about it. So, okay, into which Christmas movie would you insert Kiss's version of White Christmas? So if you could put it in any Christmas movie, which one would it be?

SPEAKER_08 5:48

I would just put it right back into home alone, right? When he's there in uh the shower or the shower scene when he's doing it?

SPEAKER_07 5:55

Yeah, that's the same thing I thought of too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 5:59

Okay. Adam. Hmm. Questions, questions. I was actually I I went back to a Christmas story, and I would probably put it in like when he's listening to Little Orphan Annie when he's on the radio, then he first tunes into White Christmas, and then he switches it to Little Orphan Annie's announcement.

SPEAKER_04 6:18

Okay, I can see that. What do you think, Catherine?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

That's a tough call because I'm aware there's actually more than one different rendition of Kisses White Christmas. There's the traditional one, which was performed on a radio show, and then there's the more jazzy one, which you which you showed me in that video clip of them during a concert in which Uncle Gene was getting handsy again.

SPEAKER_04 6:44

Uh he was. He totally was with Derek Carr. Yeah, I mean, I think I I if it was me, I'd probably I'd probably put it somewhere in Gremlins. I think it would it'd be really fun to see it in Gremlins somewhere, you know. All right, well that's good. That's good. What other Christmas songs would you like Kiss to cover?

SPEAKER_08 7:04

You're a mean one mince to grinch.

SPEAKER_04 7:06

Okay. Like a red looking.

SPEAKER_07 7:14

Yeah. With a guitar solo.

SPEAKER_04 7:16

Hey, you gotta, you gotta.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, I've yeah, I've always this during Christmas. I've always keep hearing this little duet between Peter and um and Ace, God rest his soul, in which they're performing the fun little Christmas song, Gonna Eat for Christmas. That's a fun little ditty. That would be perfect for the two of them.

SPEAKER_09 7:41

Yeah, all right. I I think I'd love to hear kind of of a parody of Grandma Got Run Over by a reindeer from G and Paul's perspective, but it's about Vinny Vincent. Vinny got run over by a reindeer.

SPEAKER_07 7:54

They might prefer that might be considered transphobic now, so we gotta be careful with that. Oh, that's true.

SPEAKER_09 8:03

Oh, is he a uh they them and I didn't know this?

SPEAKER_07 8:05

What's I believe that is the case now, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 8:09

Oh, no idea.

SPEAKER_04 8:12

Well, all right. Uh, and if you could create your own kiss stage persona, so you know there's the start star child, you know, all the the demon, you know, all those. If you could create your own persona, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Oh, I already created my persona years ago.

SPEAKER_04 8:30

Okay, what is it?

SPEAKER_01 8:32

I'm known as the wolf or the sea wolf. Nice because just like my dear sweet hammy uncle, I take after him. So he's the big wolf and I'm the little wolf, and we both have wolfish personalities and stuff like that. We have wolfish eyes and stuff like that. And when it comes to certain things, we definitely have a wolfish appetite if you catch my craft, but um gotcha, gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 9:01

What do you guys think?

SPEAKER_01 9:02

And I actually got confirmation of my wolf spirit in the coolest way a few years back when my first husband was still alive. He took me out to Montana for elk hunting as his hunting partner, and there, right in front of me, not 20 feet away, was a fully grown male timber wolf perched on a rock. I looked at him and he looked straight back at me for three whole minutes.

SPEAKER_04 9:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

That's how I knew that I am indeed a wolf.

SPEAKER_04 9:29

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

I was recognized as one of their own.

SPEAKER_04 9:33

What do you guys think?

SPEAKER_08 9:34

I would like to be Auggy from Role Models from Kiss Myanthea and give that speech that he gives in role models. I don't know if anyone ever seen role models. It's excellent if you have not.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

Oh, is that with uh Paul Rudd?

SPEAKER_08 9:48

Stiffler and Mc McCloven.

SPEAKER_04 9:51

McLovin.

SPEAKER_09 9:55

I I was trying to think because I was like, you know, they they mostly, you know, like started like it with the fox and the cat man and stuff. So you could go animal or you could just go like random symbol, right? And if you're gonna if you're gonna be the Egyptian wizard or whatever, if you're gonna I got I got Vinny on the brain. So I'm just I was I was trying to think of like what what is the ultimate representation of my essence, and I don't know, like I think I think it would just have to be like some sort of I don't know that I it always felt like they missed out on doing something that was maybe like kind of like a a mix of of faces or something on a face. Like, I don't know. I didn't I could see like I don't know, you'll have to come back to me because I'm still putting it together in my mind. I'm like, is that possible?

SPEAKER_04 10:44

What do you think? What do you think, Jeremy?

SPEAKER_07 10:47

Well, I went through a whole period in wrestling where I was obsessed with sharks, and I I can't find a picture of it, but I even painted myself up for a Halloween-themed show with you know some sort of shark paint on my face. So I guess that would be it.

SPEAKER_04 11:00

Shark. I think if it was if it was me, I'd probably be either Rudolph. So like a reindeer, every everything, you know, white and black, just like his, but then just like a big old rainbow. Or like a Santa.

SPEAKER_07 11:15

Yeah, I was thinking Santa too, but it just seemed too cliched for me.

unknown 11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 11:19

I always pick Santa when you ask those kind of questions. What would you be in the movie? I always say Santa.

SPEAKER_04 11:24

Well, it makes sense for your other occupation. That's true. Nothing. All right, that's fine. Well, that's just a way for our listeners to get to know y'all a little bit better, so thank you for that. Now, tonight we're here to talk kiss. Like, what's your history or experience with them? Like, uh, you know, how do you know KISS and then why do you love them? Let's start with you, Jeremy.

SPEAKER_07 12:08

Oh, we're gonna start with the hard one first. I've been a KISS fan for as long as I can remember. My uncle, who's like 15 years older than me, he's married to my uh dad's youngest sister. He had a room in his house. It was basically a man cave before anybody had a man cave, and he had some pictures of KISS. The pictures were taken in 76. I'm not sure if I saw them in 76, but I was fascinated then. And then when I was six years old in 77, I moved to Cavina, California, and all the kids in my neighborhood were obsessed with KISS, and it just became my life from that point on. I've seen him in concert five times. The first time I kind of saw him in concert, I can say kind of now was they you know they used to always have these KISS tribute bands where you know in the 80s and 90s, people would dress like KISS from the 70s. Right. And I saw this one band called Cold Gin while I was stationed in Japan. And at the time, it was the guy who played Gene who was amazing. His name was Spiro Papadados or something like that. The guy did Gene perfectly, and I actually saw a picture of him recently where he looks like Gene's son, Nick, but supposedly they're not related. But it turned out the real highlight was their guitar player used to be the guitar player for black and blue, his name was Tommy Thayer, and then I've seen him in concert playing for kiss three times since then. So and I've got a small kiss collection, nothing like Adam. But I've I met Bruce Kulik at a meet and greet the day before the first time I ever saw them. I saw them on the reunion tour. I saw then I saw the current band or the last run, the last version of the band three times, twice on the end of the road tour.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

So right on. Vinny?

SPEAKER_08 13:52

So I am not the super fans that you guys are, but they did change my music experience. That's why I wanted to come on here. I mean, my first memory of KISS was uh the Crazy Night CD. I think it was one of the first CDs I owned, right? I mean, I was born in 80, so I'm you know growing up with this. And then I one year I stole my uncle's Kiss Alive 3 album, Fell in Love. And then when 96 came around, they were going to Philly and we had some connections down there. So we went down and saw the show, and they were telling me it's the best live show I'll ever see. I'm like, I already seen the stones, I've seen others, right? This it can't be. So we went there and it's just ridiculous. And I mean, you guys that went know this, right? You know, they they the curtains up, says Kish, you think it's gonna go up? They drop it, they rock out the deuce coming out, they they hit hard. Gene goes to the rafters for God of Thunder. Like, you're like this big man on these stills, and all of a sudden you see him fly to the top of this arena. And I'm like, no way. I think I was telling you guys before that we had such good seats from the local radio station that Sebastian Bach sat two seats behind us. He was livid that that he was like behind us, but then you know, we were going, they just did Beth, and they're gonna do one more. And Gene came out and was like, You don't want to go home yet, do you? And they came out, and you know, doing Detroit Rock City, and Peter Chris is there doing his little drum thing. Next thing I know, Ace is above me with a boo-noo-doo-doo. I'm like, it blew me out of the water. Like, I try to tell people, like, I've been, I saw The Who, I've seen Metallica, I've seen ACDC, I've seen them all. Best show I still ever seen is live was Kiss, and it's not even close.

SPEAKER_04 15:29

Wow, that's amazing. Catherine?

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Well, when I was a little kid, I saw Kiss meets Phantom of the Park, the one on this side of the pond, not the one on the other side of the pond.

SPEAKER_05 15:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

And that was my first experience. And I freely admit this, though I'm a little embarrassed by it, because I couldn't see Star Child Star because it was hidden behind his hair, and because of the wings on his consummate stuff like that, I ended up thinking his stage name was something else altogether. You can see I could think that. Innocent little me, right? With those black wings and his black hair and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

Yeah, I could see that for sure.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

And his oh-so cleverness. And that was when I had my puppy love experience with Ace. It was that adorable parrot squawk of his and then his legs, and you know, and then when I got older, mom sat me down one night and said, Catherine, there's something I need to tell you. Sonny Bono just passed away that is very sad, mother, but what does that have to do with me? Well, he was your uncle. What? And then I started learning about Uncle Sonny and T-Cher. And when I learned that she and Gene were an item and that he was my step uncle, another big shock to my system. And that was it. There was no coming back for me.

SPEAKER_04 17:08

Right on.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

I became all things kiss. Yeah, Ace and Ace and Dear Little Fox were my puppy loves when I was a kid, and when I grew up, I fell hard and fast for a star child.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

You've loved them all, except for Peter. You know, sometimes you like to be a channel.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Well, I kill my kitties and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_09 17:33

What about you, Adam? I I was kind of a situation where initially I was repelled by KISS. There, you know, there's in you know, I was in high school in the mid-90s, and I had a classmate who was always wearing KISS t-shirts, and I was just like, Oh, those devil worshippers, because this is the era of Marilyn Manson and all that kind of stuff. I'm just like, oh yeah, they're they must be doing crazy stuff. I don't know why people like that. I'd never heard him, I'd never really seen him, I just saw the image, right? And then one day we had a substitute, and uh, this buddy brought in his he just had like computer speakers and a disc man, and he played the destroyer album because the sub didn't care what we were doing that day. Just like this don't cause a problem. You can just hang out.

SPEAKER_04 18:14

God bless substitute teachers, man.

SPEAKER_09 18:16

And I so I hear, I hear the destroyer album, and then it gets to Beth. And I'm like, This is KISS? Like they have this much range, and so I was just like, This is actually good music, they're good hooks, there's all this stuff. So he he started lending me kiss CDs, and then I just I just like fell in love with the music, you know, after initially hating the look, hating the style of the band, and I just I became obsessed after that. Like that that summer, I just started like working, you know, doing extra chores, whatever I could. Every every dollar I earned, I just ran to Circuit City and bought a new KISS CD until like you know, I had the full catalog. And I just then I saw him live in '98 at Dodger Stadium, the kickoff to the Psycho Circus tour. That was my first concert. Yeah. And from then on, like I've I've seen him 12 times live. You know, I met Ace at a book signing. I've I mean, it's just I became the KISS guy to everybody that knew me, especially like in high school, but it's just like, you like KISS? What is KISS? But everybody knew, you know, because they were starting to come back around and they're just like, Well, that's Adam's thing. Okay. And so basically, like it's it's been like my my obsession for these 30 years, you know, at this point, like where just constantly, like almost everything in my life, I just automatically relate to KISS. Like, if there's a date that is set, I was like, Oh, well, Kiss was doing this at that time, and so on and so forth. You know, like, all right, are you this is what was going on with this person's solo career that year or whatever. Like that, like everything just instantly flows through the KISS filter for me. And so I I've kind of like tamped it down as much now, but like as often as I can. I'm I'm listening to KISS. I uh you know, I I went to the you know the final tour, I got CM in LA, and it's so it's just uh yeah, it's been pretty great looking forward to virtual kiss when we get to the Kiss Avatar shows and that comes around.

SPEAKER_07 20:08

So I'm nervous about that one. Time will tell.

SPEAKER_09 20:12

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:14

So I was a little bit like you, Adam. So I remember seeing pictures of them when I was, you know, like two or three, and this is right before they ditched the makeup, right? And I was like scared. Like I saw I saw Ace and I was like, Oh, that's cool. It looks like you know, like he looks like a superhero or something. And then I saw Gene and I was like scared out of my mind as a little two-year-old.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Yeah, same here. I'm ashamed to study. Right. That's not fair to him.

SPEAKER_04 20:41

Well, I you know, I mean, I was two. What did I know? But I mean, I was also scared of Michael Jackson's thriller video, so um, but like, you know, later on, you know, they ditched the makeup. I remember some of the music, but I wasn't super into it. And then in same thing in the 90s, as everyone was getting into grunge and like rap rock and all that kind of stuff, I started getting more into classic rock. So I don't even know why or how, but like Blue Oyster Cult, ACDC, you know, like all those guys were like my faves, Boston. And so I started getting into Kiss. And I same thing, like those albums, all the Alive albums are fantastic. Psycho Circus, when that came out, I remember just thinking, man, like, man, this song rules. And you know, all my friends are like, yeah, whatever, I'm gonna go listen to Dishwalla. Like, okay, whatever. You know, but like it was just it was super cool. So, so uh, but I've never been like a super fan, I've always been more of a thrash metal kind of guy. So Metallica was always and you know, Megadeth were always like more my jams. But I gotta say, no matter what, whenever I made, especially in college, because this was back in like the LimeWire Napster days, whenever I was making my own classic rock CDs, and I made lots of them, I always had to have at least one kiss song on those CDs. So, you know, it's it's been pretty cool learning over. About them, and when I found out that they sang a live version of White Christmas, not only in one of their concerts, but I you know at a at a few times throughout uh their tours, I thought this is awesome, and I gotta talk about it because I needed a way to talk about these guys, and now I have it. So, so we're gonna be diving into that. We're also gonna be diving into Paul Stanley's uh little VJ stint. Before we do that, it's time for a quick history of Kiss. And I'm gonna try to get through this really quick so we can just start talking favorite songs and everything here. But 1973, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley form Kiss with Ace Fraley and Peter Chris after leaving Wicked Lester, creating their iconic makeup personas and theatrical stage shows. So, like we said, the Star Child, the demon, the spaceman, the catman, you know, all those 74-75-ish. Can they release their first three studio albums before Alive becomes like their huge, massive breakthrough and basically saved Casablanca records and launched the band into Superstardom? Well, 76-77 came around, destroyer, rock and roll over, love gun. I mean, like just massive albums there that started cementing their position as like the biggest, one of the biggest bands in the world, right? With like Beth, Detroit, Rock City, Shout It Out Loud, like all these classic KISS tunes. Well, Alive 2 comes out in 78, and then Marvel Comics decides to make a comic book with a little bit of blood from Kiss mixed in with the ink, and sure enough, bam, we got like just pop culture history. You know, it's like it's like one of those uh urban legends that just kind of spread around everywhere. KISS starts to kind of go a little more pop rock-oriented the next few years, a little disco as well. Tensions with Peter Chris make him leave. We get Eric Carr, who's by the way, phenomenal, phenomenal musician. That guy can harmonize, as we'll see in in just a little bit. But from there, we get music from The Elder, which was like a failed movie that never actually got made, but they released their music anyway. We get Creatures of the Night, which is just another phenomenal album, super heavy. That's like heavy metal kiss, right there, right? They ditched the makeup in the lick it up era, and we get other we get Vinny Vincent, we get Bruce Kulick, we get all these other cats joining, and yeah, from there it's you know, they they reformed in the 90s and and with the original lineup and bam, we're we're here. So that's kiss in a nutshell. Before we move on any further, because I can't wait to talk about White Christmas and their version of it. Before we do that, favorite songs or or favorite albums, like what moments just stand out to you from KISS? Anything. It could be movies, it could be anything. What do you guys think? Whoever wants to go first is fine.

SPEAKER_07 24:42

Favorite album overall, Kiss Alive, favorite studio album. It used to be Destroyer, but now I lean more towards the original album because it wasn't the best produced album, but it's got so many iconic hits. Uh also Creatures of the Night, awesome heavy metal album. It was the beginning of their true heavy metal era. You know, some people call them heavy metal, and they were heavy metal for a period, but they were glam rock for a period. They were, you know, whatever they were when they did Unmasked in Dynasty. They were just those are those are gotta be my favorite albums. Favorite songs, I still love you from creatures, I stole your love from Love Gun, and Black Diamond from Alive. Right on.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

Oh wow. Well, and and you're right, because like there is kind of like the this discrepancy, right? This disparity. Like you have these these very intense images, like like Gore almost, except Gore is a whole other level, right? But then you hear the music and you're like, well, this is just good tunes, man. This is just like good rock and roll. This isn't like the deathy metal that everybody said they were. So yeah, I I totally get it.

SPEAKER_07 25:54

And I and I try to channel I try to channel Paul Stanley as J-Wave, you know, given that kind of level of performance, and I've ripped off some of his, you know, raps between songs and a few promos in the ring. So it's an important part of my life. Like, you know, when you see like Vinny talked about that first show we saw. They I mean, they're like the WrestleMania of rock. To fit my other thing, they're just a huge, overblown, ginormous super production, and that's something I try to do every time I perform, even if I'm doing a home business of Santa Claus. I try to bring it, you know, to the next level.

SPEAKER_04 26:35

Yeah, for those of you that don't know.

SPEAKER_07 26:36

This is a huge part of that.

SPEAKER_04 26:38

Jeremy, Jeremy is a professional wrestling manager, but but he also is Santa Claus in in San Antonio.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

So right now I'm gonna do it. Well, my first husband would have loved to meet you. He was a wrestler himself back in the day, and he trained wrestling champions himself when he got older and could no longer wrestle himself.

SPEAKER_07 26:58

That's cool.

SPEAKER_04 27:00

When is the show gonna drop? This is probably dropping next week.

SPEAKER_07 27:03

Okay, then I won't say everything that's gonna happen in my wrestling career, just in case. So there's some changes coming. I'm not gonna talk about him yet.

SPEAKER_08 27:11

Uh are you really Dan Helzen?

unknown 27:14

No.

SPEAKER_07 27:16

I I don't I I I don't get the appeal of the Dan Helsin, but you know, the people love him, and that's what matters. But he's over, and that's all that really matters.

SPEAKER_08 27:24

He he brought back the skits from the 80s in wrestling, which have gone away, right? Like Piper's Pit and the barber shop and all that kind of stuff. They're finally back.

SPEAKER_07 27:35

I had a really good conversation with Buddhist Beef Cake a few years ago. He he was really cool. I can imagine.

SPEAKER_09 27:41

I'll I'll go. I mean, my favorite album is Love Gun. I just think that's like the encapsulation of Kiss to me.

SPEAKER_07 27:48

What do you think about it? Then she kissed me.

SPEAKER_09 27:50

Hey, you can always not go to the very end of the album.

SPEAKER_07 27:54

I actually like that song. I think that song is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_09 27:57

No, it's it's fun. It's I mean, I know why it's on there, but yeah. But like, you know, and then as far as like actual favorite songs, once again, like if I just go to songs, Love Gun itself, I just it just speaks to me so much. I I love Ace's solo, I just love the energy of that song. Yeah, but then you know, you you brought up I Still Love You. I love it, but from the Unplugged album. I love Paul's performance at Unplugged. Like, I've just I aspire to be able to perform that way, like it is amazing.

SPEAKER_07 28:28

I like I said, how I'll I these are all my favorite albums. The Unplugged is probably the album I listen to the most now, right?

SPEAKER_04 28:34

Yeah, oh wow so good. It's and that was from what like 94, 95 ish, something like that.

SPEAKER_07 28:40

Yeah, it was they recorded in 95 because it was on MTV on Halloween '95. And that was the beginning of the end of the kiss as we knew it, because that's when Peter and Ace came back.

SPEAKER_09 28:50

Uh yeah, of 80s kiss. That was kind of the end of it. I then as far as like this is probably a popular opinion, but I love the Sonic Boom album also. And modern day Delilah is in my top three kiss songs of all time. I could listen to that on a loop. I love Tommy's like that's actually my favorite Kiss solo, which is sacrilegious, but I love Tommy's solo in that song. I could actually just pull that clip and listen to that over and over again, too, and get the same joke and vibe.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

So I just Tommy has earned his place in KISS.

SPEAKER_09 29:22

He really has. I was so happy when he joined, actually. I was just like, man, he's just bringing that vibe. Not that I didn't love Bruce, but it's just like he he's got the right vibe for KISS. So so yeah, so that those are kind of my my favorites. I mean, there's so much to talk about, but like really, like, I always go back to that. And I should say I own the the KISS Marvel super special. It was gifted to me years ago with blood in it. So that's my most prized possession. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

I actually own two of them.

SPEAKER_09 29:52

Oh wow, nice.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Well, it doesn't have all by all four members.

SPEAKER_04 29:56

Oh, oh, that's cool. That's super cool. I don't have like man, I don't have any cool stuff. You guys have all the stuff. That's so cool. What about you, Vinny?

SPEAKER_08 30:08

For out live albums for me is three, right? Yeah, I don't know why. It's just it just all goes together, and I know it's gonna be cocheted, but destroyer is still my favorite total album. I think it's the best from for beginning to end, right? I used to have to drive like a half hour to high school every day, right? I could put that that CD on and I can almost hear it all the way through, you know, all the way to go through some of my favorite songs. I'm gonna go a little off the charts here, but it was from three, but it was also in Bill and Ted's excellent adventures God gave rock and roll to you. Yeah. Um it was a good one.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Dear little fox.

SPEAKER_08 30:44

I'm gonna go with another one is because I love me some power ballads. Um, every time we do this one, the place lights up like a damn Christmas tree. Forever is is a good one. I say that my wedding. I said that. Did you really? Yeah, but nice. Well, see, for my wedding, um, I would there was another forever, but the DJ didn't get it. But John Stamos's Forever was supposed to be our first dance song, and he didn't do it, but that's a different story. Um, and I know this is gonna be blast for me, but I can't stand rock and roll all night. Like, it's it's not even in my top 20 songs by them. Uh, maybe that that's maybe pushing it, but it's just like I get it, I get the appeal. But man, every time I hear that's not your cup of key. Could it just could he just do deuce? Couldn't they just do strutter? Couldn't we just do I don't know anything else?

SPEAKER_07 31:33

The first time I saw them, they didn't play that song. Really? Really? I and I I was a fan of the they say they play that song at every show, but in '94, I guess it was technically the kiss my ass tour, but it was like two months before the album came out, and they only did like four shows in the United States, and they did a concert festival in San Antonio, and it was general admission. I paid 10, 15 bucks for my two tickets, and I was front row center. Wow, that's I mean, we got there hours early.

SPEAKER_04 32:00

Yeah, that's how you do it.

SPEAKER_07 32:01

We were drinking before the first of the three acts, and so by the time the show was over, I ran to the outhouse. But but being front row center to see kiss that first time, but they didn't play rock and roll all night, which wasn't my favorite, but you know, it was up there probably in my top 10, 20 songs, but they've played it every time since then. So they've made up for it.

SPEAKER_04 32:21

Well, I and I think if you like, if you if you talk to the general population, so like just people all over the US that like everything, I think that's the song that most of them would recognize as by kiss. You know, if you said name a kiss song, I think that's the one most people.

SPEAKER_09 32:36

Although internationally, it would be I Was Made for Loving You, because that's like everybody across the world knows that.

SPEAKER_04 32:42

I know, I know it's like not quite the rest of their style, but I love that song. It's just so catchy.

SPEAKER_09 32:46

I love the live three version, you know. That that's my favorite version. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_07 32:51

Absolutely the new when he when they sang it live this last time, it sounded remarkably like he sounded in 1979. It was really weird. He wasn't screechy through most of that song. It sounded identical to the CDs. Well, you know, it's been accused of uh using backing vocals and then I Was Made for Love of You, it's really obvious.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Well, my favorite kid songs are it depends on whether I'm listening to them or if I'm performing them.

SPEAKER_04 33:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Yeah. Hydro Hard is a song that I went and turned into a one-song Broadway musical. I came up with my own little fire trick for it. Uncle G is the fire breather, meanwhile, I'm the fire grasper.

SPEAKER_04 33:40

I'm intrigued.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Well, during the song, I do a little move. Better hide your heart, better hold on tight. Say your prayers because there's trouble tonight. When pride and love battle with desire, better hide your heart, cause you're playing with fire. That's when I grab it, and the flame is in my hand. Burning.

SPEAKER_04 34:03

Oh wow. Oh, another great.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

And I clench my fist and the fire goes out.

SPEAKER_09 34:08

That's a cool trick.

SPEAKER_04 34:09

That's a cool trick. That's really crowl.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Yeah, the thing is though, finding the finding the find the thing is though, finding enough people to give a proper performance of Hide Your Heart. Someone to play Johnny, someone to play Rosa, someone to play Tito, someone to play the snitch, and someone to play the two cops who take Tito down near the end of the song and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_07 34:32

Gotcha. Just pay tribute to Bonnie Tyler who covered that song. Oh. She passed away today.

SPEAKER_04 34:38

Yeah, yeah. Just I just saw that.

SPEAKER_07 34:39

She was one of what three or four people that recorded that song in 1989. Ace, Kiss, Molly Hatchin, I think. Yeah. Her daughter of Molly. Molly Hatchet. And then Kiss was like one of the last ones recorded, even though Paul wrote it.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

And then another, and then another favorite I love to perform is Heaven's On Fire. That one holds a special place. That one holds a special place in my heart because not only was it the very first Kiss song I ever taught myself to sing, but it allows me to fully embrace my She-Wolf persona and enables me to howl and prowl on stage and show off my uh oolala choreography, if you will. But in order to do that, I need a boy to oolala. So yeah, I'm a diva. That's okay.

SPEAKER_09 35:25

And we should say Paul does a fire trick at the beginning of that video where his hands are on fire, Jerry. I don't know if you've seen this video.

SPEAKER_04 35:32

I don't remember. It's been so long, honestly. Yeah, it's on YouTube. Look it up. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Well the water music video fun fact. It's the one music video where Mark St. John is in.

SPEAKER_09 35:47

Yep. Oh St. John's in the mix. Yep. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 35:51

Yeah, we were talking about him before we started recording and his tenure. Yeah, for me, I mean, I it's, you know, all the classics, of course, but I I gotta say, I really love Creatures of the Night. That one is just more my jam than I think all the others, you know. It's just it's darker, it's heavier. There's uh some chromaticism and some blue scale in there. It just it gets really cool, you know, just some crunchy, crunchy like distortion and and great riffs. So I I gotta go with that one. That's just that's my jam for sure.

SPEAKER_09 36:22

Yeah, well, and it's a great lead-in to you know, the whole 80 there are non-makeup kiss.

SPEAKER_04 36:27

Yeah, right, exactly. It's like like a almost like a transition. Yeah, oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_09 36:33

Paul has always said, like, people were hearing with their eyes, you know, like they saw the makeup and they're thinking it's passe, like is that album tanks, the tour tanks, they play to the biggest crowd ever, they go to Brazil and then they take off the makeup, and they're like, now we're you know, we're revealing ourselves on MTV. Like, it's just it's crazy, like this great, great album, but nobody would accept it because of how they looked. Whereas back in the day, people were they were getting people's attention because of how they looked, you know. It's so weird.

SPEAKER_04 37:03

Yeah, it really is, and you never can tell with tastes, I guess. So it's one of those where you gotta just keep if you don't adapt, then you're just gonna fail. And I think they adapted well when they took the makeup off because like didn't that that whole era was, I mean, was pretty good for them, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_09 37:21

No, I mean, look it up like the they had a they won an MTV music video award. So it was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

The big the big unmasking that took place on MTV, that took place the very month and year that I made my big big view into the world when I was born. I was born.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

Ah, wow, that's cool. Oh wow, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

If I find out that that it happened the very day that I was born, I'm gonna freak.

SPEAKER_04 37:54

Right. So let's get to why we're here, the Christmas of it all, right? This is a Christmas show. Let's talk Christmas. So we're gonna talk two things specifically, and then I think Catherine had a couple of things that she wanted to talk about. But first of all, white Christmas. I think his version sold like 50 million copies worldwide. It's like the the biggest selling single of all time, right? Well, Kiss decided to cover it, and specifically in New Haven, Connecticut, December 19th, 1987, you can find this video. How somebody snuck one of those big old camp quarters into a stadium, I will never know, but I'm glad someone did because you can actually go and find this. And as Catherine alluded to earlier, Gene does get a little handsy with Eric. You know, and I don't think he's doing it. I mean, I think, of course, he is doing it to be a little bit playful and mischievous, but also if you notice, he's like keeping a beat, and so he's like the audience starts to follow the claps and sink more closely to his beat as he's beating on Eric's posterior, we'll say. So had y'all ever heard of this one or seen it before? Is this something that you knew about?

SPEAKER_09 40:16

I saw it in recent years.

SPEAKER_04 40:18

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 40:20

I had not. I was like, oh, is this a recent upload? I'm I'm sure people who are into all the bootlegs and everything probably have known about it for so long, but yeah, it was a surprise to me.

SPEAKER_08 40:30

I've seen the I've seen the NDB one we were gonna go over, but I've never seen this one. This was this was good. I was a good little surprise.

SPEAKER_04 40:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Yeah, that video with Uncle Gene being extra special friendly with dear little fox. That was that was the second rendition that I stumbled into when I started researching it. The first one is kind of a traditional a cappella version, whereas that one on the during the concert is more of a jazzy rendition. So there's actually more than one kiss rendition of White Christmas, if you want to get technical, and that's cool.

SPEAKER_04 41:08

Oh, I'm sure. Uh you can find another version that they claim it's from 1985. I I don't I can't verify that because it's it's just a still image, it's not them actually singing, it's just their audio. But they kind of do a false start, like they start a little bit and then they're like, okay, okay, let's get serious.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Yeah, that's the traditional one.

SPEAKER_04 41:25

Yeah, and then they get into it and it sounds great, like their harmonies are on point, it's four parts. There's a couple of spots where someone's doubling at the octave, but then they come down and and do more harmonies. So it's just really lush and gorgeous. And uh I gotta say, I didn't realize I mean, I knew they could sing, and I knew that they could harmonize well because you hear it in their songs, but like a cappella like that, you don't really you don't that's not what you think of when you think of kiss, right? You think of some of the the guitars and everything.

SPEAKER_09 42:48

Yeah, well here's here's one of the fun facts too, is that like Gene and Paul used to do like they would sing for commercials and they would do like jingles and stuff like that. So like they did a lot of harmony and stuff like that. You used to earn earn some money back in the day, you know. So it's it's kind of funny how that works. And even like Paul eventually sings a Folgers Coffee commercial, you're like, and uh you know, it does the whole thing.

SPEAKER_07 43:13

Oh, that's amazing. You've seen Kiss Exposed, right, Adam? Oh, yeah, yeah. Remember they're doing the the Beatles Harmony during that one interview segment. They kind of reminded me of that, but you know, a whole lot you know, cooler. Yeah, I'll talk more about Kiss Exposed when we talk about the Paul Stanley stuff too, because some of that was reminiscent, but it very much was, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:31

Yeah, yeah. I I didn't know about it till I started till I started researching. I was like, come on, I gotta find a way to to link Kiss to Christmas. And I was just trying to find links, honestly, to any rock band. Um so I was just typing in like in Google, did blank release a Christmas song? Did blank and so this popped up as I typed in Kiss and I was like, wow, this is cool. And it's just they're there at the live concert. The angle's kind of odd, it's not a great angle, and the audio is. Again, is not 100%, but for 1987, for like probably a handheld camera that's like mega huge on the shoulder, you know, that's what you can expect.

SPEAKER_07 44:09

But that was probably before even VHSC.

SPEAKER_04 44:12

So right. You're probably right. But like the audience starts clapping, and they're actually clapping on like the the two and four and not the one and three, like uh some people start to. They're just they're into it, and it's just it's really lovely. I gotta say, I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did, but I've listened to it like quite a few times now, just trying to pick out the different harmonies, and they they did a fantastic job at the arranging, too. You know, it's almost doo-whoppy, I gotta say. So there are elements of doo-wop.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

Like I said, Jazzy.

SPEAKER_04 44:45

Yeah, exactly. Elements of like the Beatles. There's definitely elements of barbershop at certain points, and like they combine it all into a great arrangement.

SPEAKER_09 44:55

So well, if you like that, Jerry, we should point you to Kiss Meet Scooby-Doo, the animated film from a few years back, because they have a whole a cappella section in there where they're performing as a different group. Okay, not Don't Touch My Asscot. Yeah, don't touch my ass cot. And it is Fred's favorite group and his favorite song, and it is awesome.

SPEAKER_04 45:20

So I I got a great video. I have never seen that. Yeah, so that's what I'll have to check out for sure.

SPEAKER_07 45:27

Watch it with your kids.

SPEAKER_04 45:28

Yeah, I I mean, I probably would. I love Scooby, they love Scooby-Doo. It's uh so yeah, it's perfect.

SPEAKER_07 45:35

If I had a choice between that and kiss meets the Phantom, that's the better version of Kiss Meets the Phantom.

SPEAKER_09 45:39

I would agree.

SPEAKER_04 45:41

Gotcha. Well, so like I said, this was December 19th, 1987. So, of course, the members were Gene, Paul, Eric Carr, and Bruce Kulik. This was at the well, it was formerly called the New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum in New Haven, Connecticut. And this was during their crazy nights tour. And they just they all come to the front of the stage, they're just sharing one microphone, like old school, like you know how they used to record harmony back in the day. And it's just it sounds great. And I gotta say, one of our listeners was actually at that concert, Ken Sacco. But I'm gonna throw it over to Ken to get his take on the concert. Totally read.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Hi, Jerry, it's Ken Sacco. Hey, I'm trying to recall everything that happened. I'm trying to recall the New Ham Coliseum. I think it was 1987, it was a crazy nights tour. And during the Encore, Kiss came out and sang my Christmas a cappella. It was a surprise, although I had later on found out that they've done it a few times. But this is the only video I've seen of it, but I didn't really go looking for it. There's like 116,000 views of this video. But I remember being there, and it's funny, I can't remember who I went with. I think I know who it is, and somebody I haven't seen in years. I know Ted Nugent was the opener that night. And this wasn't even the last song they did. I think they did one or two songs after this. This was during the encore. And I know the lineup it was with Bruce Keelick and Eric Carr, one of my favorite lineups of that band. I'm trying to think of anything else to make it more interesting, but that's pretty much all I remember. The New Haven Coliseum was an awesome place to see concerts. I really missed that place, and it was full. I don't know how much this helps you, but I I hope a little bit. Thanks.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

Totally read. Thanks, Ken. I mean, sounds like it was a great time. I'm glad you could tell us what it was like.

SPEAKER_09 47:34

That's awesome. Wow. Yeah, that was cool.

SPEAKER_04 47:36

Right? I that's so crazy. But not only do they sing White Christmas, they also, you know, like the members like to do other things on their own. And so Paul Stanley was a guest VJ in 1985. It was the Paul Stanley guest VJ hour.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Hey, I'm Paul Stanley. Now I'm gonna be the guest VJ for the next hour. Now, you know, when they said to me, Paul, you want to be a guest VJ just before Christmas, I said, Well, I'm not so sure I can do it because I've got all these Christmas presents to wrap. I'll tell you something. When they said to me, bring them on over and we can wrap them here, this place turned into the new prices right. Now, if you can keep a secret, I'm gonna be showing you some of these presents. So you stay tuned because I'm gonna be showing you videos from Jeff Beck, David Lee Roth, Art of Noise. But first, something from me and the boys. This is Heaven's On Fire.

SPEAKER_04 48:27

Now, uh Vinny, you said you had seen this. Did anybody had anybody else seen this before? I watched the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, I got you. Same. I would I I only only recently had heard of it. Now he he's actually was a guest BJ a few times. There was another one that's the the full thing that you can find. We won't be talking about that one because it was boring. He was better at this one, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 48:51

Yeah, in 1988, when he does it, he's just trying to be cool, like it's it's just it doesn't work. He's having more fun in the one we talk about.

SPEAKER_07 48:59

Yeah, it's a lot like it's a lot like the way he was in Kiss Exposed.

SPEAKER_04 49:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 49:04

Like if you have you seen Kiss Exposed, Jerry?

SPEAKER_04 49:06

No, no, I haven't.

SPEAKER_07 49:08

That was the Holy Grail when it came out because you know it was supposed to be a documentary about the life of Kiss, but it was filmed in the same house that they filmed the 76 of Star is born, and that was supposed to be Paul Stanley's house. It was just a lot of excuse to see a lot of you know half-naked women. And but the crowning moment was the footage they would spice in the classic footage from the 70s that nobody had seen unless they were there, or unless you'd seen Kiss Meets the Phantom. So you'd see Gene spitting blood, breathing fire, you see Aces guitar solo with the uh burning guitar. You saw the crowd in Rio with 150,000 people, and that's why you bought the thing, and then the rest of it was just some fun stuff where they were just being goofy. Because you know, Paul hyped up his exercise video where it's just him trying to, you know, have intimate relations with women while doing aerobics to the uh beat of I was made for loving you.

SPEAKER_04 50:06

I mean, there are hints of that in this when he's looking at uh Sharon and Lydia. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 50:12

Oh, and there's actually almost a Christmas moment in that too, because at one point the interviewer who used to wasn't even a real interviewer, he was some B list comedy actor. He went up to Paul's room, and it's his bed is full of like 15 women. They're all named Carol. Carol one, Carol two, and the guy's like, Oh, I guess you went Caroline last night.

SPEAKER_04 50:32

That's a good joke.

unknown 50:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 50:35

Well, so back in the day, occasionally they would have guests host, like Weird Al had was a guest VJ, you know, just different things. And so David Lee Roth. David Lee Roth was one. Yeah, yep. So in this case, Paul Stanley was a guest VJ. Paul Stanley from KISS, lead singer. I love it because he's wearing like the Santa jacket, right? But no shirt underneath, just like the way he always had his hair sticking.

SPEAKER_07 51:02

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 51:03

You know, that 70s what are the what do they call it on psych? The sternum bush.

SPEAKER_07 51:08

He fought that all the way through the last tour or so.

SPEAKER_04 51:11

Well, and he's got like his sleeves like not rolled up, but like pushed up to the to the elbow, and he's got this like leather belt uh or sequin belt kind of tied around the Santa suit, it's cinched at the waist, so he just looks cool, you know. And he's got the hair, of course, no makeup because this was during the time they didn't wear it, but he's just got like this cool vibe, man. And I think if if I was visited by like Paul Stanley Santa, I don't think I'd be mad at it, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 51:43

I certainly wouldn't complain.

SPEAKER_04 51:45

Oh, yeah, exactly. But he's there, he said that MTV asked him to do this, but he's he needed to wrap presents, so he's using it as an excuse to get his rapping done while he's there, and he's sets us off to the Heaven on Fire video. And of course, during the actual show, they would show the video, but in this case, they edit out all the videos, and it's just a cool, fun Paul Stanley parts.

SPEAKER_09 52:09

So yeah, it's great. I mean, my favorite moment is when he drives in in this little car, it's like a Schreider's car almost. Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_04 52:19

Yeah, yeah, it's so great. Yeah, so he introduces his two helpers. There's these two ladies in like Mrs. Claus outfits or or like I don't know, sexy Mrs. Claus outfits to show.

SPEAKER_07 52:30

They're more like the ho-ho-ho's. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 52:36

That's good. But there's Lydia and Sharon, and he, I guess he asked Santa for some helpers, and Santa sent him them to help him wrap his presents.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

And he'd be all alone without them.

SPEAKER_04 52:48

Oh, that's right. You know how it is. You gotta have some company.

SPEAKER_02 52:51

Ho, ho, ho! I'm Paul Stanley. That was Heaven's on Fire. You recognize me, right? You know, with Christmas here, I needed somebody to help me wrap all my presents. So I called Santa Claus. Santa sent me Sharon and Lydia. Santa's helpers. Wow! Now listen, with all these presents I have to wrap, I was thinking to myself, what's Santa have in store for me this year? I mean, I've been good.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

Well, Santa's got something really special for you, Paul, right, Lydia? Well, we can't tell what it is yet, but not yet.

SPEAKER_02 53:22

I love the wrapping paper. It looks so good. Stay tuned. We got lots more for you. This is how they pay for rock and roll commercials.

SPEAKER_04 53:29

I like how he cuts to a commercial in it and he says, This is how they pay for rock and roll commercials.

SPEAKER_07 53:37

He knows what's up.

SPEAKER_04 53:38

Well, like, you're right. It is just like a relaxed, fun kind of Paul. And the other one, yeah, he was just, he was like, oh man. I don't know the difference. I think you're right. He was just trying to be cool.

SPEAKER_07 53:52

He's trying to be cool, and the video just had all those commercials that I wasn't familiar with, so I didn't feel nostalgic about them. Yeah. Every now and then I'd smile. Like when I saw the uh the MTV sandwich from you know, way back in the day. Like the 3D. Yeah. It was something else that made me oh, the uh when they were talking about uh Santa the slam dancer.

SPEAKER_04 54:14

That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 54:15

The man, the myth. The slam dancer? Those are the highlights of that what of the first half hour of that hour and a half that I watched.

SPEAKER_04 54:25

So that should be a t-shirt, Santa the slam dancer.

SPEAKER_09 54:28

Well, and we we should say, you know, Paul is there alone. Paul was alone there a lot in the 80s, just for context. Gene was off making his movies that I know you're very familiar with, Jerry.

SPEAKER_04 54:40

I man, I love I so you know he's the villain in Runaway, and I know he got the gig because was it Michael Crichton? Or yeah, I think yeah, Michael Crichton, it was it was like, hey, you know, if you can you know stare at me without blinking for a minute, then you got the gig. And he did. And I gotta say, when he just stares at you with those, you know, those eyes. I mean, it really is like he plays a great villain. Did you see Never Too Young to die? I sure did.

SPEAKER_07 55:08

Or he's he's saying it takes a man like me to be a woman like me. So great. So great.

SPEAKER_09 55:15

Wanted, dead, or alive is another fun one.

SPEAKER_07 55:17

I I loved him in uh the rut. Yeah, that that was when he when Rutger Howard killed him, left a grenade in his mouth, it blew his head off. That was great. Spoiler laugh. The movie's over 30 years old. It's okay.

SPEAKER_04 55:29

Yeah, I think you're I think you're fine. The statute of the five.

SPEAKER_07 55:31

Actually, it's pushing 40 years old. Let's let's be honest.

SPEAKER_04 55:34

Well, or um his his cameo appearance and trick or treat. Yeah, oh yeah. That's that's another good one.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

And he was a drug dealer in Miami Vice.

SPEAKER_04 55:45

He was a drug dealer in Miami Vice. Yeah, he was right. So you're right, which is ironic. Gene was off doing his own things, and and so Paul, I guess, takes this time to keep the band.

SPEAKER_07 55:56

He he kept the band alive. He I he I mean Gene doesn't plan on all the albums from that era. Some other people did too because Gene was busy, you know, with his rest of his life.

SPEAKER_04 56:08

That's true. Yeah, some on some he just has vocals, yeah. Yep, yeah, it's it's good stuff, man. I gotta say, every time someone says Gene Simmons, the first thing I think of is the templates, Ramsey. It's like I don't know why, it just it pops in my head every time.

SPEAKER_09 56:26

I loved how he said Ramsey throughout that video.

SPEAKER_04 56:29

Yeah, it's oh those mechanical spiders, I thought they were the coolest thing. And then I went back and watched it like a couple of months ago, and only like one or two of them actually move. The rest are just kind of sitting there. But but Gene still like his performance still holds up. His performance in Never Too Young to Die still holds up.

SPEAKER_01 56:51

I mean, he's the all-time badass bad girl of the 1980s, the queen of the nighttime world. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 57:00

Von Ragnar, right?

SPEAKER_01 57:01

Velvet von Ragnar. Velvet SL Velvet Von Ragnar.

SPEAKER_07 57:06

Yeah, it's so good. Samus is in that too, right?

SPEAKER_04 57:09

No, yeah, and Vanity. And Freddie Kruger. And Freddie Krueger, yeah. Robert England is in it too. I haven't seen this one.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

He also manages to steal a kiss from Uncle Gene in that movie in one scene. Indirectly, but still, he manages to steal a kiss.

SPEAKER_04 57:24

Oh, that's great. So, yeah, Paul Paul does drive up in that little mini car. He does look like he's supposed to be in some sort of parade wearing a hat. It's like the Grinch. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 57:40

Hi, I'm Paul Stanley. Now I'm the guest VJ here today. This is the week before Christmas, and I'm in the Christmas spirit a little bit early. I've got Sharon, I've got Lydia. Santa's helpers are here. What could be better than that? I'd be all alone without them. Here's a car I got. This is gonna go to Gene. Now, you all know Gene. Now he lives a dangerous life. This is from Hamaker Schlemmer, that's on 57th Street in New York City. I think he's really gonna like this. Here's a video. This goes back a long way. This was originally done by Mark Bolin and T-Rex. This is now done by the power station. This is called Bang a Gong. Christmas. I love it.

SPEAKER_04 58:17

But like you said, he says that he's gonna give it to Gene as a present. It's funny because wasn't at the I mean, wasn't uh Paul Stanley Jewish?

SPEAKER_07 58:26

Yeah, he was his real name was Stanley Eisen. Very Jewish name.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

He and Uncle Gene are G are Jean Jewish.

SPEAKER_07 58:34

That's right. Gene is Jewish. Well, Gene's actually Israeli. You know, his real name was Haim. Right, right. Haim Witz. Yep. Was it Witz or Vitz? Witz with a W. I thought it had a V sound to it, though. I'm trying to remember when I heard him talk sometime. I might have misheard him, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:53

Well, either way. Either way, it's it is funny that you know, earlier in that concert that they decided to sing, they chose White Christmas, which is another Christmas song written by a Jewish man Irving Berlin. So it's it's kind of yeah, it's I like the I like the coming full circles.

SPEAKER_07 59:12

Yeah, exactly. So there's a great episode of your show about that movie featuring me.

SPEAKER_04 59:19

If you do say so yourself. No, it was fun.

SPEAKER_07 59:21

But so I think we got ready for it. I think we did. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 59:25

So anyway, they call he he calls them to the power station, bang a gong, and then uh Marillion singing Kaylee, which I did not remember the song, but then I went to look it up and I was like, I think I've heard this before, but nothing that like I would never be able to tell you the name, you know, if if I had never heard it. But then he plugs, I love this. He plugs the sound wave waterproof Walkman.

SPEAKER_09 59:48

Oh, yeah. He just drops it in a little bowl of water and just lets it float there. It's hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 59:54

It's so great. And he says, if you want to play a trick, like toss it into the bathtub with your mom.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:00

What are you doing in the bathtub with your mom? That's what I want to know.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:04

I'm sure uh my mom probably always locked her door, exactly. But then the other gift that he shows off is this like electric corkscrew, right? And so he puts it on the bottle and it it looks like it was a different take. Like, I don't think they'd uh, you know, it looked because well he goes like this is supposed to work, yeah. Yeah, it looked like it was more effort than using a real corkscrew, it really did because he looks like he's pushing it down hard, and I'm like, just use the corkscrew at that point.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:31

Yeah, it looks like some sort of thing you'd find in the back of certain magazines to order to help, you know, uh enhance.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:40

This has branded everything. Did they not brand one of those? I I don't haven't seen that one.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:45

I'm not gonna Google it because I don't want that to show up in my feet.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:49

Right. Change your search history forever.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:51

This is a sound wave. This is a waterproof Walkman. Now, watch what you can do with this. You want to thrill? Go into the bathroom and throw this in the tub when mom's in it. It plays and it floats. You can't get more impressive than that, except let's say you're at a party, right? Now everybody likes to have a little bit of wine once in a while. What's one without a corkscrew? Now, some of us get tired real easily. So this is invented for us. This is an electric corkscrew. You put it on top like this. Watch this. And it should work. It goes in, you hold the bottle. Look! Magic. And I can tell you, this is a very fine wine. This was made last Wednesday, and this is very good stuff. This will lighten up any party. Here's ABC with Be Near Me. Don't go away.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:54

Then so he throws it to ABC Be Near Me and David Lee Roth just to jiggle. And as he comes back, I love this. It's he says, This is a good present for David, you know, David Lee Roth. It's it's a pith helmet, like a safari type pith helmet, all white, solar powered with a little fan in it. Yeah, I had one of those.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:17

Oh, really? I got yes, I had one of those. I got at a garage sale with my mom. I was like, could it be that one that somebody was selling? But I used to wear that all the time. I just I'm a fan in my hat. I loved it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:30

That's amazing. But I I was a little worried because you know he's got like the big 80s hair with the you know the curls, and I was like, Oh man, I hope it doesn't get caught in that fan. Oh god, I didn't even think about that. You know, yeah. Well, he puts it on with the you know the fan and he put it on backwards.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:46

I think the fan's supposed to be here forward, but it was back where all his hair was. I was like, ooh, don't cur, don't get in there.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:52

Well, and I don't know, maybe if you have really long hair like that, maybe it does get pretty hot, I imagine. So then he he goes to rat, lay it down and Jeff Beck Ambitious, and when he comes back, he's now on all fours kneeling between the two standing girls, you know, in in their their little Mrs. Claws outfits, and he is trying to show them the scale that will talk to you and tell you how much you weigh. And then in like a really awful faux pas, you know, because you don't ask uh or you don't worry about what a woman weighs, he has one of the girls stand on the scale, and we find out she weighs 129 pounds.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:32

So yep, that was a little shocking.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:34

That was ambitious from Jeff Beck. And yes, that really was Donnie Asman. You know, I've been showing you all kinds of Christmas gifts tonight. Christmas is the time when you're with the ones you love. And here's something that you just gotta check out. This is a scale that talks to you. You can always say it's not working if you don't like what it says, but one of my assistants will step on the scale and we're gonna find out how much she weighs.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:01

Now we wait, and then the weight is 129 pounds.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:10

That's right. She weighs 129 pounds. It just said have a nice day. Now we've got to take a break, but we're gonna come back. And if you think this is good, you haven't seen nothing yet. I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:20

I mean, there's something tells me Paul didn't walk away with a date that night. That's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:25

Maybe with the other one, but not yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:27

For humiliating the other one, he got the other girl.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:32

Oh man, that was bad. But I did like the the like 80s robotic voice from the scale. Like 129 pounds. I mean, it was just it was great. So then he's there with the big FAO Schwartz polar bear, like just this giant stuffed polar bear. He makes a joke later on about you know your the woman having a headache. You could toss it in bed, anyway. So, you know, a little funny sex joke there.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:59

It wouldn't be Paul without some sort of inuendo. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:03

Paul Stanley is a guest VJ. Around Christmas time, I really want to get into your house, so this was the best way to do it. Hello, everybody. This is my friend the bear. He's from FAO Schwartz, and uh he's got a monkey around his neck, which is also from FAO Schwartz. This is for the special person in your life when they're lonely and you can't be home, you put this in the bed instead. And it says, I've got a headache tonight. Anyway, we're having a good time here tonight, so don't go away, because there's a lot more coming up. And here's a video, it's one of my favorite. This is called Close to the Edit. This is from The Art of Noise.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:37

We get The Art of Noise singing close to the edge, and Prince singing Little Red Corvette, which, you know, I actually thought was interesting that because this was before, of course, Headbanger's Ball, but I thought it was interesting that they didn't have him do like all like more hard rock kind of songs. You know, I mean, Prince is in there. So, and we had Kaylee by Marillion. Like, these aren't songs that you would think. Paul Stanley would introduce.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:02

I don't know. I mean, maybe Paul's into that kind of music though. I mean Bruce Hulick was a big fan of Sting. Well, he he mentioned that when I met when I met him, he was talking about the people he likes to listen to when he wasn't performing. So really? Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:16

Well Sting's Sting is a musical genius too.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:20

Yeah. And this was post, you know, this wasn't the rock and roll star he was from the police. This is you know a much more mellow sting from the 90s.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:27

So mellow sting.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

I got to I wonder if Sting the Wrestler has contacted Sting the Stinger on Possible Well I'm Frontman. I mean they would be the opposite.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:46

Yeah, it'd be the other way around. Sting's maybe.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:49

But yeah, I think it would be it would be the other way around. I think Sting the Singer was first.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:54

Sting the Wrestler came out about he was Sting, what, maybe '87 after he, you know, left uh the Ultimate Warrior and all that. After they were they the dingo were yeah. So they were they were the Blade Rushers. Yeah, they were the Blade Rush.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:07

Oh I I don't know. You know, I I don't know a ton about I didn't meet Sting. He came into the store cut like a year and a half ago. So that was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:18

The wrestler or the singer?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:19

The wrestler, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:20

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:21

Yeah, apparently he shopped there, and there was this. I don't know if you remember Vinny, that big like marble fireplace that was there. Like yeah, well, we had just taken it down and they ended up selling it to someone. And which, by the way, taking down a marble fireplace is hard. He wanted it, he had come in like specifically to buy, he remembered it from the last time he was there. He was like, This might be a long shot. I was like, sorry, can I get a picture?

SPEAKER_07 1:07:49

And that store is amazing.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:52

I'm glad you liked it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:54

I was there in March, and oh my gosh, I could have spent thousands of dollars.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:00

For real, it's pretty expensive.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:01

Uh that's just the crazy thing.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:02

I luckily got some Christmas tree there, so it's that's that's fine. That's right. That's true.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:07

So he comes back with a miniature Mercedes Benz that he wants to give to Pee-Wee Herman because you know, Pee Wee Pee Wee's always on his bike. Well, let's step up his game. This can get him places faster.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:20

Pee Wee Herman's a big star now. Now, with his movie with the bicycle and all that, I figured it was time for him to kind of upgrade his lifestyle. So I got him this miniature silver Mercedes Benz from FAO Schwartz. That's the largest and oldest toy store in New York City. This goes, I don't know, probably 20, 30 miles an hour. I think this is just what he needs. But what someone else needs, mainly Simon LeBon, is right behind us. This is a water bug. This is something really special. You can put this in the water, you pedal, like Sharon's doing right here. She's one of Santa's helpers. Lydia's the other one. This will go, I guess, as fast as you can peddle. If it tumbles over, you'll be right side up anyway. Simon, this is something for you. It's probably coming your way.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:04

I gotta say, I liked this fun, playful Paul here. This, you know, just little bits here were quite entertaining, I gotta say, you know.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:11

I was a little surprised though that there wasn't any Christmas songs in there. Because I think this played on like Christmas Eve, right? So if it played on Christmas Eve, like Billy Squire did, Christmas was the time to say I love you the year before, I think on the Christmas Eve special. And then you had a whole bunch of like eight like 80s Christmas songs. I was a surprise there wasn't any. Now, granted, the playlist of the videos were was great. I was like, wow, that's some bangers. Like that was a good that was a good list. Um, but I was like, eh, I wanted to see at least a Christmas song in there in any beginning.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:42

He was only there for an hour, so it that also could have been part of it. So MTV at that point did have like a staff Christmas video every year, and so that year 85 was John Anderson, I believe. And so it was uh him singing three ships in the 88th presentation.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:02

He did some Christmas, they played some Christmas songs with them. They did like John Cougar Mellancamp and I saw mommy kiss the Santa Claus, and which makes sense because by that time a very special Christmas had already come. Christmas came out, yeah. Before they played a Christmas and they played a what's that one? What's that run DMC song? Christmas and Hollis Christmas and Hollis, yeah. They played that, you know, Anthony's favorite Christmas song.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:24

Right. Well, be I mean, it was kind of a very special Christmas that really like turned it around, right? I mean, that's what brought like Christmas albums back to the forefront. Up till then, for a while, it was like for a long time it had been what, like you were either at the end of your career or you were a country artist that was releasing a Christmas, you know, album.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:43

So I think there's someone on here that won a ratty for that that episode. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:50

I think there was, yes, for sure. I don't know who that is. Well, anyway, so he they have like this huge yellow water bug that he says he wants to give to Simon LeBond, and the whole time all I could think of was for some reason I was thinking James Bond.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:05

Like, I I know I don't know who Simon LeBond did do a Bond song view to the kill. That's true. That's you to the kill.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:13

Maybe that's why, but I was getting James Bond vibes from this water bug.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:17

So they're both British too. So well, that's true.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:21

He has Sharon introduced the Tears Are Falling video, which is another great one.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:25

So, fun fact, I actually at my high school senior graduation, they did this like carnival thing at the school, and they hired somebody to do like basically like just karaoke in like the gym, like they just had this little corner where you can do karaoke. So I go in there. Of course, first thing I do is I'm looking, do they have kiss? And they had kiss. This was like an old system, and they had kiss songs from the 80s, and they had tears are falling. I said, I'm never gonna find this again in karaoke. That's probably true. Tears are falling, and they give you a little cassette of the recording. But what happened was the words on the screen, it was so old it couldn't it couldn't play them anymore. So luckily, I knew all the words, so I just sang tears are falling and had a great time.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:13

That's great. Back in college, they used to we used to go karaoke every Thursday night at Applebee's. They would have I don't know why at Applebee's, but every Thursday night was karaoke night. So we would go and eventually I would sing a couple of songs, and they used to call me Jeruki. So it's a cherry whole pun. I love it. It really is, but uh yeah, same. It was fun. So finally, after the video, we get uh 80s robot, the omnibot, which said ho ho ho again in its like vocoder typical 80s robot voice. It was great. And then Paul wishes everybody Merry Christmas and tosses viewers, like tosses a present to the viewers.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:51

That was kiss, tears are falling. You recognize me, right? I'm Paul Stanley. I've been the guest VJ this week before Christmas for the last hour. I hope you've had a real good time. Wait a minute, there's something coming. I don't know what's it say? It says omnibot on it.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:07

It's something very funny, and it's got something from me.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:15

It's just water books. Anyway, this is an omnibot. This comes from FL Schwartz. That's right. It's a remoting from a robot for all your lazy people at home. And I can think of a few good things I could do with them. I've had a great time here. I'm wishing everybody a really Merry Christmas. A happy new year. You've had a good time?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:37

Great time. Good time? Sivertime.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:39

What could be better than three people having a good time? That's what Christmas is all about. I'm wishing you all the best. There's a present for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:48

Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:49

See you real soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:50

Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:51

Like that's kind of how it ends. It's pretty cool. I like it. Does Bert Young know that robot got away?

SPEAKER_08 1:13:58

Happy birthday, Polly. Yeah, happy birthday, Polly.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:03

No, I prefer when he gave it with a female personality, and you know. And it got really weird.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:11

Well, you know.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:12

There was, I did want to point out one moment, one video that Paul throws to in the 88 version. Yeah, the later one. I just it was so strange because he always is talking like he knows these bands or he knows the artist personally or whatever. Right. And he comes out, he's like, here's one I don't know very much about. They might be giants. Like I'm talking about Christopher Walken there. That was not a good Paul Stanley.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:36

That was a good Chris Walken Virginia.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:38

But it's just he was so like confused to say they might be giants, you know. Like he was just reading off the teleprompter and it cracked me up.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:48

They might be giants. Oh man, now I just want a Christopher Walken VJ like hour.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:00

Only if we get workout bill.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:01

That'd be so great. So great. I mean, there's like a ton of KISS stuff, right? I mean, we could talk like literally forever just about one song, honestly. Yep, there's like literally just so much. But I did hear that there actually is going to be a KISS video game. Is that right, Catherine?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:18

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:20

Yeah. Kid, are you allowed to tell us a little bit about it?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:23

Yes, I am. I am the I am the original creator and the scriptwriter of the game.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:30

Oh, wow, that's cool. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

Yeah, one good thing about the COVID pandemic gave me plenty of time to do my homework and my research and stuff like that. Kiss, there's a way to get it into the game, and it's gonna be in there. Easter eggs galore.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:50

Well, that's cool. What what the platforms is it gonna be on?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:54

Well, the well, that hasn't been decided yet, but the really hard part, the script, that's done. And we've also secured Kiss's blessing for it. So that's important too. Now comes the fun now. Comes the fun part, recruitment.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:12

And we've already started we've already started recruitment of cast members and people who want to be part of the action in other ways, you know, like voice acting, programming, product placement. That's cool, sponsoring, etc.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:30

Right. Keep an eye out, yeah. For sure. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:33

Costume design, set design.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:35

Oh, yeah, everything. That's exciting. I I'd play it. I mean, I used to love that Aerosmith game, Revolution X. You remember that? I lost so much money on that game, but I finally beat it. My daughter and I, my oldest, we went to uh free play. Uh no, Cider Cade. We went to Cider Cade, and we just it was great. We just played it, you know. You pay like 12 bucks and you can play all the games all you want. And we didn't save all of the all of Aerosmith. We only rescued two of them.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:03

So oh well. I feel I feel like the Cidercade in Dallas has the uh the Kiss pinball machine last time I was there.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:11

Oh, probably. I wouldn't doubt it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:12

But you're right about I've got the pinball machine at home.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:16

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:17

Nice, but I gotta tell you fully functional and autographed.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:22

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, the vintage one. That's great. I was walking in my neighborhood once, and I I this is not here, this is a couple of years ago living in a different spot, but I was walking around and I saw in somebody's like living room there was a KISS pinball machine, and it was like lighting up and everything. I couldn't miss it, right? So I'm like, okay, let me remember that house. And the next time that I walked back around, I saw that they were in their backyard. So I'm just kind of like knocking. I'm like, hey, neighbor, I noticed your pinball machine in there. Yeah, are you Kiss fans? I I don't imagine. So like I came with a KISS shirt on and they just like invited me in, and we just like hung out for a couple hours, like got to play the machine, got to talk Kiss concert experiences and everything. Like KISS unites us all, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:08

It's true. Well, do you remember they did that movie Detroit Rock City? Like oh yeah, late 90s, early 2000s. Like that was that was just a fun movie, you know. And I mean, I imagine it was probably accurate on some, you know, to some degree. Like I'm sure people experienced something similar, but you know, just like that was there was like a KISS Renaissance, like when they donned their makeup again after you know, all that whole era there, like people started getting back into KISS.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:39

They played the Super Bowl and that they or they put they opened the Super Bowl in '99.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:43

In '99, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:46

So there really was like just this this renaissance. And you're right, branding-wise, they have branded everything. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:54

They're shrewd businessmen.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:56

Yeah. Well, I mean, we gotta earn a little extra passive income for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:02

Yeah, there's actually, yeah, there's actually a little running joke involving that in the video game that's being developed. One of the one of the tasks in order to advance to the next round and the next level is you have to perform a mini concert. And the better the gamer plays, the better the accommodations and the better the food, the better the clothes, the better everything he gets.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:24

I love that. That's that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:26

And on the off-beat chance that kids should run out of money, then the gamer is stuck there until they have a successful concert. And when I spoke about this to another colleague about the on the offbeat cats that kids should run out of money, he immediately blurted out Gene would never allow that to happen.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:47

That's true. That's true. Okay, I gotta ask. I gotta ask. Okay, what would you guys say is your like hap, hap, happiest like memory or moment with kiss? And it can be anything, it doesn't have to be, you know, we've talked about today, just anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:02

Well, I actually have several favorites. One of the most prominent ones being Uncle Gene saying yes to giving me away at my wedding and going the extra mile and actually springing for my wedding during the last waterbound kiss crew.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:21

Oh, that's cool. Very cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:23

And being Ambasting for it, too. And another prominent one is Ace saying yes to doing the video game.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:33

Oh, wow. Yeah, I mean, I'll I'll just say with Ace, like you know, when I got to meet him, like, you know, there's so many awesome concerts, so many great memories I've made. But meeting Ace was interesting because it was just like, you know, a book signing where you just go through and they're, you know, like Ace isn't doing pictures that you just drop your book in front of him and he'll just sign it, right? So, but he he signed my book and then he looks up and I was wearing a shirt that is the Beatles, but they all have Kiss makeup on. And he's just like, Oh, that's a cool shirt. And I was like, Hey, thanks, Ace. You know, and he put out his hand, I got to shake his hand. Like, so like he acknowledged me a little bit more than most of these moments. I felt extra special. Like, it was really cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:15

That is cool. Man, I would have loved to hear the Beatles sing a kiss song, you know.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:22

Well, Kiss has done a lot of Beatles songs. He likes a lot of like those videos and stuff that they've released, so you see like backstage footage and or just them messing around and they're singing Beatles songs all the time. So you at least get the flip side.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:34

I mean, Gene was the ultimate Beatles fan.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:37

I mean, he wanted KISS to be their ver be a modern version of the Beatles where every member was unique and I I think I think they succeeded.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:48

Yeah, I gotta I gotta say, if you've ever seen man, my memory is failing me today.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:53

Welcome to midlife, Jerry. Yeah, I know, I know.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:56

I gotta start taking Ginkgo or something or doing crosswords, doing crosswords. The the movie that Journey does this the song, but then Ace also has a version of it. It's like, no, not Journey, it's uh the 202, the 707. What what is the name of this song? I cannot remember.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:15

Oh, okay. You're you're you're talking about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:16

Megaforce, Mega Force, Ace's version of Mega Force. I really like, I gotta say.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:21

Yeah, with Freely's Comet.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:23

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:24

Yeah, so Ace also did a version of Hide Your Heart.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:29

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:30

Oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:31

Yep, it came out right after Kiss's version. Molly Hatchet and Oh my gosh, now I'm getting an old person brain. Bonnie Tyler. They both released their version first, then Kiss, and like days later, uh Ace released his.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:47

Right, right. By the way, right here I have the 707. 707, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:52

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:54

Yeah, Todd Howorth of of uh Freele's comment on the back, man. I love Todd. He's great.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:01

That's good stuff, good stuff. Yeah, I mean, uh, for me, I think it was probably hearing Psycho Circus for the first time. Because that's really what kind of got me back into KISS. And it was, I'll never forget, it was my he be ended up becoming my college roommate, but at the time he was he was just a friend of mine, and he's like, Have you heard this new song? I was like, No, no, and I was like, Man, this song rules, and he told me it was my kiss. I was like, All right, I'll I'll I like it, man. This is cool. So yeah, it was for me.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:31

I'm not sure if it's the first time I saw them in '94 after being a fan for almost two decades, or the last time I saw them in 2021 when they came through Austin, and my sister-in-law bought me and my brother-in-law tickets, and they were decent tickets, and I could feel the the pyro. I got video of Jean spreading a fire or gene breathing the fire spreading the blood. I knew I'd never get that chance again. So maybe one of those two moments. I don't know. Kiss has been so important that I can't really pick one of them, though. Yeah. Just being a fan.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:06

Another really cool feather in my cap. I don't know if you guys are aware of this, but like Phantom of the Park is Kiss's first live action movie. There is also a first CGI movie out there called Kiss Immortals. Right. I was almost lost to Kissery and time and stuff like that because the original production company and all the original website hosts went defunct and bankrupt, and they don't exist no more. And one thing led to another, and I went managed to drag down uh 95% complete master company of this immortals. I managed to obtain it and also managed to obtain Uncle G's permission to remaster it and restore it and sell it and stuff like that. I'm at and I'm actually in the process of trying to and even though it was a last-minute struggle for us, we even managed to add a special dedication to Ace at the end of the remaster credits, as well as a special bonus ace song, not in the original Kiss Immortal soundtrack.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:16

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:16

I can't wait to see that again. I I watched it back in the day, you know. I remember when it was online and stuff. So that's cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:24

Yeah, I never did either. Well, now normally we do a segment called Gag Me with the Spoon here, but there's nothing really for us to impersonate. So we're gonna do a little home alone inspired segment called A, 2, and D. And so this is where we list our top three favorite kiss songs of all time. So we've already kind of talked a little bit about it, but this one I want your definitive top three songs. All right, and we'll start with you, Vinny.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:52

Number one is Detroit Rock City, and it's I don't even think it's close. I don't know why, but that song gets me so pumped. Every time I hear it, I will probably then go Deuce is the one in there. And I was made, well no, Love Gun, because I'm sorry, but I love role models. And if you ever heard what saw role models and it saw his explanation, the Ronnie, why he loves run Love Gun, it's it just reminds people that weren't around how great Kiss was, and then you're like, Man, I forgot how much I love this song for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:26

There's a lot of things like that, right? It's like just you listen to one thing and you're like, Wow, this is like heart. I forgot how many great songs Hart had.

SPEAKER_08 1:26:34

So yeah, that that one uh with that 80s album with uh Alone and Atlant, you can play that thing from I forget the name of it from start to finish. It's great, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:46

But like you forget, like they there's all those songs from the 70s, too, that you don't think about, you know, Barracuda and Barracuda Magic Man, they're they're great songs.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:55

Yeah, I saw them in 90 in Tokyo.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:57

Oh wow. That's cool.

SPEAKER_08 1:26:59

So so the one thing Jerry, I wanted to put put, I I was gonna say this, but I they I like how the fact that Kiss is still gets in a lot of movie cameos uh throughout the year, so people keep doing it. One of my favorite ones that they did is that if you guys ever seen it, is why him with uh Brian Cranston's in it's oh James Franco, right? Frank's James Franco, yeah, yeah, in this. So they're big fans of KISS, and at the end he wants to do a proposal. So he brings K Paul and Gene out and they start walking down playing the music, and then she calls off the proposal and he goes inside and they're like, Ah, we we we're our first date was at your your one of your concerts, and he's like, Did you score? And I won't go into the details what they say after that, but it's a nice little cameo if you've not seen it. You can Google it. It's about I gotta go watch this movie now.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:45

I had no idea. Did you score?

SPEAKER_08 1:27:47

That's what it's a lot of kiss references in there because he's a big kiss fan. Cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:51

Well, and speaking of uh cameos, they also come out in the family guy.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:56

Oh, yes. Kiss saves Christmas, Kissaves. That's all right. I wish there was a full video of that. A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:04

Yeah. But still, the little clip we got was pretty funny.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:09

It's a well-known fact then that pteranodons uh don't can't stand the sound of electric guitar.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:17

It's so good.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:18

Everybody knows that.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:19

All right, what about you, Adam? I mean, I will go back to Love Gun and just say, like, I can't get that one out of my my top three, but I God of Thunder is really huge to me just because I we had to do this like drama assignment once. It's like perform something you would only do in private. And it was me lip syncing like I would do in front of the mirror or in my bedroom to God of Thunder and just like stomping around like Gene and doing all the faces and and everything. And like no, have you heard the original version of that song? It was the Alive 2 version.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:51

It was the Paul Stanley version. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's great. Gosh, that is so weird.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:59

Whatever it is. Yeah.

unknown 1:29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:01

Jane's signature song was written by Paul Stanley.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:04

Yeah, it's but much jazzier, but different lyrical content. But yeah. And then I will I will add Psycho Circus to the list as well, only because I I did end up forming a band with the guy who introduced me to Kiss. And so like we would play Kiss songs, but especially Psycho Circus was like our big opener. And I would like attach all you know, those like little champagne bottle poppers that the streamers fly out of. Yeah, I would take like 10 of those, I would tape it to my microphone, and when I would like run out on stage, I would pull them all at once and just boom. That was my pyro for the show, you know. But I just had a great one.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:40

That's what you got, right?

SPEAKER_09 1:29:42

Yeah, so that a lot of good memories of that song as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:45

That's cool.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:47

Jeremy?

SPEAKER_05 1:29:48

Jeremy.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:48

Let's see. I already said I still love you from and I would take that from MTV Unplugged.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:54

Jeremy.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:56

I stole your love from Alive 2. Black Diamond from Alive. And I'm also gonna go with Revenge is Unholy because for already a few times that's been my interest music and wrestling. So nice.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:11

That's a good idea. That song is amazing live. It's so good live.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:16

Oh, I bet. Never heard, never heard a live. I mean, I've heard it on a live three, but that doesn't count.

unknown 1:30:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:21

Because you know, every alive album has been plus in the studio.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:24

So well, every live album, really. Yeah. Catherine?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:32

My favorites are Hide Your Heart, Heaven's on Fire, Hold Me Touch Me, which told us Hold Me Touch Me, a Paul Stanley song from his solo album, in case you weren't aware. And that one's special to me because after I was suddenly widowed the first time, I was fortunate enough to find love again. And that was the song for me and my second husband. And then, of course, there's White Christmas Kiss version. I actually stumbled onto that during my research for the video game and stuff like that. And I found out about the song, and I also found out about the would have been album shot for it. You know how one of the photos of the Kiss group in their leather outfits and stuff like that went on to become the revenge album? Well, there's also a photo that could have been an album cover for a Kissmas album if they had ever done it. And that's also in my collection.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:37

That's cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:40

Yeah, they had two photos done, one of which is well, there being goofballs and stuff like that. But the other one, definitely potential for a Kissmas album cover. And I'll actually send it to you guys so that you can show it on the on this podcast when it's editing.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:58

Yeah, for sure. I still need a 78 pressing of Falls solo album because I've got a picture disc on vinyl of the Falls solo album, but I have the other three solo albums from 78, still with posters in the uh container. So I need Paul that way too. And I don't know if I'll because I ever get all four posters, I might actually put them up. I don't know. Because they connect, but right now they're just in the records. They're in the scenes where they belong.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:24

Yeah. Well, for me, I'm gonna cheat a little bit because it's my show. But uh so I stole your love. I I'd like that one. Yeah, I want you. I really like that one. My top, it's a tie right here between War Machine, which I love, and which was written by Brian Adams.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:44

Yeah, man, but it's great. It's great. He wrote that and uh I Love It Loud. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. That was before he uh broke through on his own.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:54

Well, I love War Machine, but I also love I Was Made for Loving You.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:59

So I know I can't fault any song anybody has mentioned today.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:05

Jerry, that's the song they sing in Why Him. I'll send it to you guys, the link, but that's the song they sing in that movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:11

It's so good though. And it the the funny thing, it sounds, I mean, it sounds like it's four to the floor, you know. And then he's just playing like eighth notes, hi hat, and so that gives it more of a disco feel, but it's not disco-y. If you really listen to it, it's actually not four to the floor, it just sounds like it's four to the floor. Like there's some cool little tricks that they did, and it's just man, it's it's it's a great song, and it's so catchy. That's what I can't get out of my head.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:37

It's in the movies, and the the recent Ryan Gosling The Fall Guy. There's a ton of different covers of that song that plays through.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:44

It's really cool. It is really cool. But you know, GI Joe taught us that knowing is half the battle. What do you guys think is the other half?

SPEAKER_08 1:33:54

Why did I not prepare this? Yeah, I'm the same. I wait every time, and I always feel like, oh, I should have known better.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:04

Being ready is the other half.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:07

For real. Adam? Never ask Mrs. Claus her weight.

unknown 1:34:14

That's a good one.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:15

Blank in here for some reason, Jerry.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:18

If no one is half the battle, the other half is shouting it out loud.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:23

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm bowing out, guys. I can't be up. I'm not talking that.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:30

I those are all better, all better than mine. I just thought if no one's half the battle, the other half is just a cappella versions of Christmas classics. So, guys, it's been a lot of fun. Tell me about your shows or anything you want to plug, and we'll start with you, Adam.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:44

All right. Well, you can uh find me weekly on Wizards, the podcast guide to comics, where we cover every issue of Wizard magazine, which was the uh hub of comic book news from 1991 to 2011. Uh, we just have a great time there going through the issues with special guests that come on. We interview the people that made the magazine. We have uh over 390 episodes at this point, so you can go there, binge it, and find it. Yeah, wizardscomics.com. We're only 10 years into the 20-year history of Wizard Magazine, and it took us six years to get there.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:16

So that's a long commitment.

SPEAKER_09 1:35:19

Oh, yes, yes, but hang in and uh have some fun. We have a great time there, and yeah, so that's the main thing I you can find other shows that I've done throughout the years. Uh, that there is a show I did for a long time that you might enjoy called Remember That Show, which was about obscure television shows with my co-host William Bruce West. So you might go back and check that out and uh see his amazing knowledge of television history. Uh, you'll learn things you never knew before.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:47

So yeah, fantastic episodes, great show, and uh we miss we miss you.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:53

We do, Jeremy. Well, I don't do podcasts except for Jerry's, but uh if you're in the San Antonio area and you're looking for a Santa Claus, Alamo City, Santa, Facebook, and Instagram and dot com. And I'm also running a small business where I make t-shirts, generally with Santa in mind. And one of them was inspired by Detroit Rock City. So it I believe it says if hit top speed still moving much too slow with Santa on a sleigh flying through the sky. So that's Santa Northpolegeneralstore.com. That'll bring you to my social medias and my Etsy page. And since I believe my domain is being renewed automatically soon, I'll have it for at least another year to determine if I'm still gonna do this in a year from now. But that's it. And uh hopefully I'll be on future shows with Jerry. I don't know what he's got coming up because I think you've got a schedule for the year.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:52

Yeah, I haven't really scheduled a lot, but I think you've signed up for a few.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:56

So we'll show you. We got some watch alongs coming too.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:58

So oh, those are great.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:59

The rank and bass are great.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:01

Yeah, they're just they're easy to edit. So when I'm crunched for time, throw in a watch-along.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:07

That's all that's me. Yep.

SPEAKER_08 1:37:09

I also don't do a podcast. I say every time I'm going to, but I'm just really lazy. I'm Jerry's crony that comes in. He asks me to come in last minute. I pop in. But I am a big Christmas fan. Celebrating Christmas in July tomorrow. I don't know when this is gonna drop, but tomorrow is the Hallmark ornament early release. I will be there at 10 a.m. to make sure I get my special Rogue One ornament because there's only like one or two per store. I will be there to go grab that. But yeah, looking forward to the holiday season coming up and always great to be on Jerry's show. And Jeremy, I'm I might have to come watch your wrestling. I'm a big wrestling guy, and I think I'm the only one in Texas, or besides like one of my other friends, that are big wrestling guys. And if you guys do live shows, I might have to come down and see one.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:54

Where are you located? He's up here in Dallas. He's up here with me. Yeah. Uh when we're offline, I'll talk to you a little bit more than.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:03

And Catherine? I have a YouTube channel, but it's mainly comprised of AMVs and amateur videos that I made using music that's been produced by other people like Brianna and Lady Gaga and stuff like that, and combined into music videos using uh medium such as the Final Fantasy franchise. I've done 50 of them at least so far, and one of the most popular ones is Tifa Don't Wanna Be a Murderer. So if you Google that, you can find my channel.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:39

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:40

And uh and my company's name is Siren Productions, and I have a Facebook page too. And you can also contact me via email at shewolf siren at aim.com.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:54

Nice, right on. Definitely, definitely catch all of that, a lot of good stuff there. But um, guys, thanks again. I know I could have probably just picked one song and we could have just talked about that forever, but you know, we only have an hour, well, I guess an hour and a half to do this. Yeah, we went over 90 minutes. Yeah, sorry about that. Sorry about that. But on that note, I'm gonna say thank you and I'll end it with ho ho ho, I'm Paul Stanley. That was Heaven's on Fire. You recognize me, right? You know, with Christmas here, I needed somebody to help me wrap all my presents. So I called Santa Claus. Santa sent me Lydia and Sharon to check us out on our social media pages, which you can find at linktree.com slash totally rad Christmas. And if you're feeling like covering a beloved Christmas classic, leave us a review on iTunes. It helps us reach more people and spread some rad holiday cheer. Now don't forget to check out our merch shop on tpublic.com and our super dope website, totallyradchristmas.com. I'm wishing everybody a really Merry Christmas and a happy new year. Later, dudes.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:52

Cause you know, kiss save Santa's on.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:54

But Mrs. Claus, who would kidnap Santa? Well, ace, that's what I want you boys to find out.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:00

Someone stole Santa? That does not rock. Easy Gene. Guys, let's go save Christmas to the kisscopter. What do we do? Wait a second. Everyone knows how to stand the screech of finger to work.

SPEAKER_09 1:40:38

Hey, how much you want to?

SPEAKER_00 1:40:40

It'll be on the next Christmas. Who the hell knows what that's gonna be?

SPEAKER_09 1:40:44

Well, Peter, do you get everything you wanted for Christmas?

SPEAKER_08 1:40:46

You bet a week's vacation, a new VC honor and festival, my own copy of Kiss Saves Santa.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:54

You just practice that tongue, Santa. Next time we'll let you do a solo.