In kindergarten, this kid Paul and I bonded over music, though he was a big KISS fan and my tastes were much more tame (and comparatively lame). All I really knew of KISS at the time came from a television commercial for a greatest hits collection. The face-painted hard rockers scared the crap outta 5-year-old me.
A couple of years later, in the same Catholic grade school (though I’m pretty sure Paul and his family had moved out of town by then), our art teacher warned us all against decorating our folders with certain bands she deemed to be evil incarnate. Black Sabbath had something to do with desecration of the holy mass, she said, and KISS was an acronym for “Kings In Satan’s Service.” I didn’t like any of the bands she railed against, but when she was done scaring the bejesus out of us, Barry Manilow might have been the only “safe” musician left on her list.
If Mrs. D is still around, she must have had an apoplectic fit last week when KISS appeared on the finale of American Idol, one of the most mainstream shows on TV today. After Adam Lambert did a bit of the classic KISS ballad “Beth,” the band joined him on stage, launching into a platform-heels-and-pyrotechnics medley of “Detroit Rock City” and “Rock And Roll All Nite.” Heck, Paul Stanley even smashed his guitar at the end.
My only real appreciation for the hard-rock legends came in 1994, when Red House Painters re-did KISS’ “Shock Me” for an EP of the same name. Slowing the song down as though swimming through molasses, their take on “Shock Me” might seem a tad too melancholy for a sunny Sunday morning, until you recall that singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek’s band hailed from foggy San Francisco. Singing “Shock me, put on your black leather,“ Kozelek sounds Xanax’d, completely uninvested in the request he’s making. It remains a revelation. Hear here:
Red House Painters disbanded at the start of the decade, with Mark Kozelek forming another group, Sun Kil Moon, while also regularly releasing solo material. Under both guises, he’s continued to record covers that differ drastically from the source material, from AC/DC to Modest Mouse. Two live solo efforts were released this spring, both of which include a version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Send In The Clowns.”
Purchase Red House Painters – “Shock Me” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.
