Kiss Alive II was one of the first albums I got when I was a kid. I got it for Christmas, along with a Cowsills record. Oddly enough I never really took, to it, even after I brought it to my third-grade class and was told never to bring it to school again. That certainly seems odd, but the point of it is that when I did get into Kiss, it was the
Animalize record, specifically Heaven's On Fire, that won me over. Nerds can attest to the anomalous nature of that record, as it featured the only recorded appearance of Mark St. John on guitar, as well as the first credited Kiss appearance by Bruce Kulick, who formally replaced St. John after he was stricken with Reiters Syndrome.
Eric Carr was the drummer for Kiss at that time, having replaced the increasingly besotted Peter Criss. His drum solos were one of the highlights of the shows of that time, to the point where the more jealous proprietors of the Kiss franchise excised it outright. Carr died of heart cancer in 1991 and remains one of the best-loved replacement Kiss members. Greg Prato does a great job of telling the Carr story while offering unique insight into life as a hired hand at Kiss Inc. Probably not the most exciting proposition for those that aren't Kiss obsessed, but another great effort from one of this generation's best new rock scribes. Get it from Lulu.com.
R
Hey Kids:
Bad Banana is the new(est) side project from Katie and Alison from the awesome, awesome P.S. Eliot rock band and it, too, is pretty great. And no I didn't see the photos of either franchise until after I liked the demo. The demo is called Crutchfield, knocking out ten tracks in just over 22 minutes of GbV level fidelity. Frankly, this is not all that far from P.S. Eliot, which given the personnel, would speak to some redundancy, but hey twice as many good songs works, too. I missed the recent show with Slingshot Dakota and am regretting it more and more every time I play this. I can take small consolation in that fact that P.S. Eliot are coming through (with Dead Mechanical, I believe) May-ish. Stay tuned to JS-NYC for details, but in the interim snag Crutchfield for free here.
Hey Kids:
Along with Superchunk and Jon Snodgrass, Austin Lucas is one of the JS-NYC perennial elite. I'd talk about Austin every day if it wouldn't come off a little stalkerish. Luckily, the bumper crop of new Austin Lucas material for your earholes has warranted the regular coverage.
Kiss Alive II was one of the first albums I got when I was a kid. I got it for Christmas, along with a Cowsills record. Oddly enough I never really took, to it, even after I brought it to my third-grade class and was told never to bring it to school again. That certainly seems odd, but the point of it is that when I did get into Kiss, it was the Animalize record, specifically Heaven's On Fire, that won me over. Nerds can attest to the anomalous nature of that record, as it featured the only recorded appearance of Mark St. John on guitar, as well as the first credited Kiss appearance by Bruce Kulick, who formally replaced St. John after he was stricken with Reiters Syndrome.
Franz came on my radar for the first time through his tenure as keysman for The Hold Steady, although there is a pretty decent chance that I saw him play with World Inferno Friendship Society prior to that. Either way, he was a big part of my love for THS and his absence from the fold has left a pronounced void of ambivalence in its wake for me. 
I had always been kind of on the fence about Brian Regan until Norm MacDonald kept mentioning on the regular as one of his favorite comedians. That type of endorsement will get me investigating and after having done so, I'll give our Mr. Regan props. He works pretty clean, if that's your thing, and is pretty funny despite not working as blue as I would normally prefer. My questionable morality aside, pure comedy fans would do well to check Regan and All By Myself. Here's a link.
