TONE WORLD "NEWZ"
03/11/08
Kiss Tribute Recording Sessions Report.
"Lick It Up. A Millennium Tribute to KISS" hits the stores on April 1, 2008. We started recording two tunes for that CD back in October of 2007. (Originally it was going to be three songs, but I couldn't bring myself to record yet another version of "War Machine".) The tunes were to be "Shock Me" performed by Reckless fortune (as a band) and "Detroit Rock City" performed by the Slashtones's current roster. Once again as they say, "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry."
Part One: "Shock Me? No, Shock You!!"
The game plan was for Reckless Fortune to perform "Shock Me" but unfortunately some of their band members imploded and were given their walking papers by Joey Fortune. (They are probably floating around in the sewers now.*) This is something that's unfortunately happened before when I was producing Reckless Fortune on "Rock Candy" for a Sammy Hagar tribute and "City Boy Blues" for a Motley Crue tribute. In the past I'd managed to be able to get members of The Slashtones to record for them. Unfortunately the time constraints we had to record the tune didn't give us the time to "Tone up" Reckless Fortune. Joey and Frankie Fortune are always two steps ahead when we work together and once a direction is carved out it's very easy to produce them. On "Shock Me" they wanted to stay very faithful to Kiss, but record a studio version of the extended live version. Co-Producer and Master Engineer Tarik Solongii came up with a brilliant solution, he knew a very good group of accomplished musicians that also played together in a Westchester based KISS tribute band called "KISS ALIVE!".
"OK, this was going to be interesting." I thought to myself. The bizarre aspect of using a Kiss tribute band to record the backing tracks of a KISS tribute tune assured us of a very accurate base to work with, but it was not something I planned to be doing, so naturally the jokes began to fly. Little did I know that the jokes would become a reality.
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A few hours before we were scheduled to go into the studio and record I got a call from the manager of "Kiss Alive!", a man that called himself "Will O'Coin". Will informed me that the members of Kiss Alive! didn't just perform KISS, they "became" KISS and as such they would need:
1. the studio heated to 72 degrees,
2. No media or flash photography while recording,
3. A refrigerator filled with imported beer and wine, and
4. five legal aged female virgins.
Most of that would have been no problem, but good luck finding a virgin of legal age in Yonkers. I said no and offered them a 6-pack of Coors and bag of green M&Ms instead. Will O'Coin agreed as long as he could peak into the men's room at the studio.
Sir Luke "StarChild" Luv, and Tom "The Demon" Pressano arrived together in a stretch limo along with their eight female roadies. Shortly thereafter Pat "The Space Man" Porpora and Dan "The Cat" Gamma arrived together, without any roadies, in a 1974 Ford Pinto that was missing a door. "They really do live the KISS gimmick." I thought to myself.
The session was almost canceled right away when Dan "The Cat" Gamma told the others that he was tired of sharing the spotlight with them and was going to quit "Kiss Alive!" and form a Peter Criss tribute band. As producer i had to step in and intervene. I told "The Cat" that he should stay and work things out with his band but if he chose to leave i knew the number of a drummer that plays in an Anton Figg tribute band and he would be happy to come in and sub for him. After several hours of negotiations including bringing in my own personal negotiator, Guido "Big Thumbs" Boombotsi, all issues were settled and Kiss Alive was ready to record.
OK, so far almost everything you just read was bullsh*t, but if you know KISS history it's pretty funny. I told the guys from 'Kiss Alive! I was planning to write up the sessions the way I just did and they all had no problem playing along with the gag. Truth is they're all very good musicians and they gave us a great take of the live version of "Shock Me" from the live album, "Alive Two". We did some minor overdubs with Kiss Alive a few days later and then Frank Fortune sang the lead vocals and Joey Fortune laid down his guitar track. The end result is fun homage to the live version of "Shock Me", including some fake crowd noise at the beginning and end of the tune. I had a lot of fun producing this track, more so because the guys in 'KISS ALIVE!' were into the joking nature of the sessions and wore bandanna's to cover their faces while recording and acting like they really were KISS during the sessions. The laid back fun nature of the sessions comes through in the recording and we hope you all like it.
* This was a joke, the actually work down there. And no, they weren't mutants or CHUDs.
(Part Two) "Take the Rock City Parkway to Detroit, make a left and go straight to Las Vegas."
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