Kiss News

By Alyssa Hearin / Up North Live

In 1975 KISS rocked the town of Cadillac when they came to their High School's homecoming and October 9th & 10th marks the KISS Cadillac 40th anniversary.

Wednesday morning 7&4's Alyssa Hearin was live at Cadillac High School to show us how they're reliving the legendary day KISS rocked their school.

It all started when assistant football coach Jim Neff began playing their music in the locker room the year before and the team started winning.

Neff reached out to the band and asked if they would come to homecoming, and to his surprise, they did.

Starting on Friday several KISS-themed events will take place including a re-creation of the concert with a KISS tribute band "Mr. Speed" and the unveiling of a permanent KISS monument.

2015 Homecoming FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9TH

All schools dismiss will one hour early on Friday, October 9 - Welcome to our visiting Alumni!

- 5:00 PM - Homecoming Parade @ Downtown

- 5:30 PM - Viking Athletics Booster Tailgate @ CHS

- 7:30 PM - Viking Homecoming Football Game (Pre-sale tickets available at CHS Oct. 6,7,8)

- 9:30 PM - Post Game photo opportunities on the field

2015 Homecoming SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10TH

- 11:00 AM - KISS Monument Dedication, SE corner Veterans Memorial Stadium/SouthEast Corner

Guests are asked to park at Cadillac Junior High

- 11:15 AM - Pictures on the 50 yard line

- 2:00 PM - KISS tribute band - Mr. Speed Concert

CONCERT TICKETS - TSHIRT SALES - VIP "will call" tickets:

Wednesday 10/7 through Friday 10/9 between noon and 4pm at the Cadillac Area Visitors Bureau

(VIP Ticket Sales end at 5pm on Wednesday October 7th online and at CAVB)

By John Hogan, WZZM

CADILLAC, Mich. (WZZM) -- On a sunny October afternoon 40 years ago, this northern Michigan vacation destination became center of the universe for fans of the rock 'n' roll band Kiss.

The New York band, known for its lavish costumes, face paint and pyrotechnics, rolled into town to meet the Cadillac High School football team, which credited its winning season a year earlier to the band's pounding sounds.

The Oct. 9-10, 1975 visit left an indelible mark on the town of 9,200 nestled beside Lake Cadillac. And it's widely acknowledged as one of history's most famous rock 'n' roll publicity events, even though publicity came primarily after Kiss left Cadillac.

It also left an indelible mark on the band, which last year was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"It's so deeply engrained and the visions that come forward with Cadillac Michigan, it's an honor to have been part of this,'' band member Paul Stanley said in a telephone interview with Traverse City radio station WKLT-FM.

Cadillac will celebrate the 40th anniversary this weekend with a Kiss tribute band concert Saturday afternoon and the unveiling of black granite monument beside the football field to commemorate the historic event.

"When the band started playing, it was so loud, one person said it was like swimming against the current,'' said retired assistant football coach Jim Neff, who spearheaded the Kiss visit in 1975. "People in town got to hear the concert even if they didn't attend.''

Ringing eardrums wasn't the only thing the band left behind. A "battle-ready'' helicopter landed on the 50 yard line the day after the concert to spirit Kiss away. As it lifted 100 feet off the ground, members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley unleashed 4,000 jumbo postcard-sized leaflets that read: "Cadillac High � Kiss loves you. Peter, Ace, Gene, Paul.''

"I think everybody thought somebody was throwing garbage out of the helicopter and you didn't know what it was until you got one in your hand; and it said Cadillac High � Kiss Loves You,'' said David Schemmel, 56, of Rockford, a junior running back at the time.

Not all of the fliers landed on Viking field. The helicopter created a windstorm that sent fliers across town. Neff, who lives a few blocks from the high school, recalls pulling them from his shrubs.

"The idea of playing was really a way of acknowledging what the team had done, so that was number one,'' Stanley said. "And everybody seemed to embrace the idea so much . . . the breakfast, getting the key to the city, the parade, Kiss Boulevard. There were so many things thrown at us and most of them, we just said 'yeah.'''

Rockin' to Victory:

So how did Neff get an internationally acclaimed rock band to show up for Homecoming weekend in the former lumber town located near the geographic center of Michigan?

It started a year earlier when the Cadillac Vikings varsity football team began the 1974-75 season with a 0 and 2 start. Neff, the assistant coach and history teacher, began playing Kiss songs in the locker room to fire up his troops.

The band's name also provided an acronym for the Vikings: Keep It Simple Stupid.''

Kiss in 1974 was starting to get noticed. Its self-titled debut album Kiss was released in February and included the songs Nothin' to Lose and Firehouse � two mainstays of the Cadillac locker room. Its second album, Hotter than Hell, was released that October, coincidentally about the time Neff first fired up the locker room records.

The repertoire included 'Firehouse,' 'Hotter than Hell,' 'Nothin' to Lose' and 'Deuce.' "Strutter was a popular one,'' Neff said. "I think the defensive ends were called 'strutters.' We had a lot of those classic Kiss songs off the first few albums that we used.''

Neff, an early Kiss aficionado, wrote the band during the 1974-75 season and explained how its music helped inspire the team to seven straight victories. To Neff's surprise, the band responded and asked to be kept appraised of the teams' weekly games. The Vikings ended the 1974-75 season as North Central Conference co-champs.

In September, 1975, the band released its fourth album � Kiss Alive! Sales exploded; it went gold after three months. Its release so close to the Cadillac concert isn't lost on Neff.

"That combination of events � Kiss Alive � which was the seminal album for Kiss, and the Cadillac concert, which got publicity worldwide, turns Kiss from a really good band into a worldwide phenomenon,'' he said.

After learning that Kiss would be performing at Western Michigan University just prior to Cadillac's Homecoming weekend, Neff floated the idea of having the foursome visit Wexford County.

Stanley, the Kiss guitarist and an ardent football fan, says they didn't need much prodding to make the 145-mile trip.

"The idea was so off the wall, it fit us perfectly,'' he said. "It's like, you know, a team � a football team that listens in the locker room and has turned their season around? OK. Let's go.''

School officials didn't make a formal announcement until shortly before Homecoming week to avoid a mob scene � even though the word was out among students. Given the setting, Kiss agreed to forego one of its concert mainstays � the spitting of fake blood.

"I told them 'I'm in enough trouble � you're not going to spit blood are you?'' laughed John Laurent, Cadillac High School principal at the time.

Gene Simmons willingly obliged. He did breathe fire to help start the traditional Homecoming bonfire on a practice field east of the high school, however.

Kiss Army invades Cadillac:

The band arrived about noon Thursday and checked into the 66-room Caberfae Motor Lodge west of Cadillac, which has since been razed. Several stretch limousines ferried them to the high school, where legions of kids wearing Kiss face paint cheered their arrival.

"We were practicing making Kiss faces in art class,'' recalls Patrick J. Johnson, a 1978 graduate and member of the JV football team when Kiss played. "We were building floats for Homecoming in advance.''

CLICK HERE to read the rest of the story.

Awesome night, KISS ARMY Melbourne! Thank you!

Photo by Dean Snowden

By Lou Blouin

40 years on, people still relive the days of a Northern Michigan event when mega-band KISS visited Cadillac High School with a homecoming concert. Read on for the story originally featured in the October 2015 issue of Traverse, Northern Michigan�s Magazine by Lou Blouin.

This story sounds made up. But it isn�t.

There�s no doubt in Jim Neff�s mind that the Cadillac High School gym held only about 1,500 people in 1975. So the tens of thousands of people who claim they were there the night KISS played Cadillac are, frankly, inserting themselves into rock �n� roll history. As are the ones who say they partied all night with KISS after the concert. �I was with the band the whole night, and they slept maybe just three or four hours,� Neff says. �So if they were partying, I�m wondering why I wasn�t invited.�

But that�s the way it is with legends. When people want to put themselves in your story, that�s how you know you�ve really got one deserving of the word legend.

This is Jim Neff�s story. And there�s no dispute about that. In the fall of 1974, Neff was a 28-year-old English teacher and assistant football coach at Cadillac High School. The football team was coming off an undefeated season the previous year, which earned it a top-five statewide ranking among Class A teams. The 1974 team looked just as promising, but when the season started, the Vikings surprised everybody by dropping their first two games.

�It wasn�t a lack of talent,� Neff says. �The kids were just so tight trying to live up to the 1973 legacy that they just weren�t playing the game that they were capable of playing.�

So Neff, who�d grown up on rock �n� roll in Flint�who�d sung lead in his brother�s band alongside amps formerly owned by Iggy and the Stooges�came up with a plan to loosen the kids up. With a record player he borrowed from the high school library and his own vinyl, he decided he�d blast the nerves out of the locker room with a barrage of rock �n� roll during practices and before games. KISS�the face-painting, glam metal band famous for their circuslike stage shows�seemed to provide the right mix of absurdity and energy for busting the tension. Neff�s copy of Hotter Than Hell, the band�s second album, which had just been released that October, quickly became a pregame ritual.

�The other teams that we played thought we were crazy. Back then, you had to have your game face on and be all grim before the game. And coming from our locker room was �Hotter Than Hell� and �Nothing to Lose.��

CLICK HERE to read the rest of th story now.

By  PATRICK McDONALD / The Advertiser

CLICK HERE to view The Advertiser's Interactive KISS Photo Gallery

If 1970s superhero band KISS wrote the handbook on rock�n�roll theatrics, then its 40th anniversary tour not only tears out the pages but sets fire to them, blows them up, shoots them with laser beams and sends them on a skyrocket to hell and back.

Its gigantic mechanical Spider, making its first appearance Down Under, descends from the ceiling with its legs arched across the stage, the band riding on its steel back while hammering out the unmistakeable opening riff of Detroit Rock City. .

Red spotlights scan the rabid crowd from its eyes and fireworks explode from its underbelly while balls � no, make that walls � of flame envelop the backdrop, sending forth waves of heat that threaten to barbecue the front rows of fans.

It was like an entire concert�s worth of effects crammed into one song.

This old rock dog might not have learned any new tricks � bassist Gene Simmons still breathes fire, spits blood and flies to the rafters to prove he�s the God of Thunder, singer Paul Stanley sails on a wire over the crowd to fire his Love Gun, Tommy Thayer shoots sparks from his guitar into the lighting rig and Eric Singer�s drum kit rises as he roars out Black Diamond � but like a great Cirque du Soleil show, the band has learned how to wrap the same stunts up in a shiny new package.

On top of this, the current line-up plays fast, furious and incredibly tight, injecting new-found energy into standards like Calling Dr Love or Lick it Up � which morphs into The Who�s Won�t Be Fooled Again � and dusting off such live gems as Cold Gin and the extended outro from She.

The setlist spanned the decades, from its 1974 debut album with Deuce, through the 1980s metal crunch of Creatures of the Night, I Love It Loud and War Machine (complete with hundreds of video game-style Gene warriors), through the late �90s reunion on Psycho Circus to the sure-to-be-classic, frenetic Hell or Hallelujah from its latest album Monster.

There was vintage footage of the band on the big screens during Do You Love Me, and Stanley � who is back in fine vocal form � even led a sentimental crowd singalong on its 1980 Aussie pop hit Shandi.

A three-pronged encore of Shout It Out Loud, I Was Made For Lovin� You and Rock and Roll All Nite sent the crowd home in a confetti-covered, guitar-smashing, pyrotechnics-induced frenzy.

That�s how you do it, kids.

KISS

Adelaide Entertainment Centre

October 6, 2015

By Peter Hodgson / I Heart Guitar

KISS are about to hit Australia on their 40th anniversary tour, and if there�s one thing you can rely on in music, it�s that KISS are going to put on a big, big show. But this time they�re bringing their biggest: their �Spider� lighting rig is coming with them to tower over the band and be even more menacing than Gene Simmons� famous blood-spewing bass solo. And on stage left you�ll find Tommy Thayer inhabiting the role of the Spaceman as he has done since 2002. In the 13 years since Tommy started donning the iconic makeup and costume he�s gradually added hints of his own character to the icon. You can hear it in a certain confidence to his own solos, and see it in his choice of guitars, which diverge from the three-pickup Les Pauls Ace Frehley used when he was the Spaceman.

So KISS is returning to Australia. Now, the show with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was one of your first KISS gigs, right?

It really was! It was my first official gig, in February 2003. I had done a couple of other gigs with the band prior to that but they were more really fill-in shows. It wasn�t quite defined who was playing guitar or not. (Laughs) So that was a transition period and we didn�t do too many appearances. So February 2003 I was officially in the band as the new KISS lead guitar player. It was a big gig, at the Telstra Dome in Melbourne, and it was a big deal because it was being filmed for a DVD and live album. There was a lot going on and it was a little stressful but I took it all in and made it happen, and it turned out great.

Tell me about your latest Epiphone signature guitar.

It�s a striking guitar and everyone who sees it reacts the same way. It looks really flashy and it really pops. I�m really happy with it. I was thinking about a new Les Paul to play on the road with KISS last year and our drummer Eric Singer is a really big guitar collector so he suggested a white guitar. We came to the conclusion that a metallic white guitar would be great, a real Alpine White with a metallic flake in it. He also suggested chrome hardware. Originally the idea was to do a chrome binding as well but they had a hard time figuring out how to do a chrome binding. So we went back and forth and in the end I ended up doing a three-ply binding, the kind they mostly put on Customs. And I�m really happy with the way that looked.

It�s cool that even more you�re establishing yourself as �you� within the identify of the Spaceman.

Yeah! This is the first one I�ve felt that way too. This is really more of a true signature guitar for me because before I was playing the Sunburst and also the first signature silver sparkle Spaceman signature guitar. That�s part of the progression and development of what I�m doing in the band. It feels like a natural progression to do that.

How do you and Paul Stanley work together as a guitar team?

Well, very well! I believe going back to the 70s with KISS the idea with these guys was always about guitar parts that really compliment each other with different voicings in different ranges that you can play together to really broaden the sound. Often Paul would play root chords down low and what Ace did and what I do is to play a higher voicing, and that�s a big part of the KISS sound. And Paul will play more of the Stones-y suspended chords in a song like �Rock And Roll All Nite� or �Strutter,� so there�s always that dynamic of playing not the same chord voicing but relative voicings, often an octave apart. And Paul plays a lot of very different, interesting chords. If you really analyse a song like �Cold Gin� and what Paul�s playing, the main riff is in that kind of Free, �All Right Now� kind of voicing but Paul�s playing these interesting chords down in the A position that you wouldn�t normally think of. Or even in �Black Diamond� he plays these minor chords you wouldn�t normally think he�d be doing. He�s very innovative and creative, and he does a lot of things that are outside of the norm. And he�s got his own rhythm style too which is not as exacting but it really works.

It�s not an exact science. It�s about a feel and a vibe, and it doesn�t have to be perfect. That�s not an excuse to play sloppy at all but it is more of a vibe and a style and a feel. And Paul�s really good at that.

Well I interviewed Butch Vig once and he told me about when he recorded the Foo Fighters album on tape, and what he realised was that when you�re not looking at a screen and making sure it all matches up to the grid, each guy is going to come down on the downbeat at a different microsecond, and therefore that downbeat becomes bigger and more spread-out.

Yeah! It makes it really broad and that�s so true. He�s absolutely right about that. If you listen back to all our favourite records going back to the 60s and 70s, they�re not so precise and they�re not always in tune all the time. You listen to the old Beatles records or Paul McCartney and Wings, the bass is not in tune a lot of the time but it feels great. He�s playing really expressive stuff that just feels right. Listen to Led Zeppelin and it�s the same thing: it�s ragged but it has the charm.

Yeah! Or like �Babe, I�m Gonna Leave You� where you can hear Plant�s voice bleeding through the drum mics from a scratch track.

Yeah! That�s the problem: I listen to a lot of newer stuff these days and it�s all too exact. There�s something missing about that. It�s hard because with technology now, with different recording techniques you can make something perfect but it�s all just diminishing returns. Especially for rock and roll bands.

So let�s talk amplifiers!

I�m using the Hughes & Kettner Tommy Thayer Signature Duo-Tone. I�ve tried the new Tri-Amps and I like those too but I keep going back to the Duo-Tone. I have them on the road with me and I play through two and then I have two as backups. The only thing I�ve been messing with this past year is some Variac voltage regulators that let you adjust how much voltage is going into the amp. And if you lower the voltage you tend to get a little bit of a sweeter tone.

Do you collect much gear outside of what you would use onstage in KISS?

A little bit. I�m not over the top in collecting gear. I like a simple approach, generally. I don�t get too much into collecting guitars or pedals or amps. To me it�s, you need the basic stuff and then it�s about how you play. But I have a couple of old Marshall amps. I bought a 50 watt Marshall amp back in the 80s that I used to play in Black N� Blue. And I have a JCM900 that I bought in the late 80s which was a cool amp too but I haven�t used it in a while. I have a couple of HiWatt 50 watt amps that have been modified with what�s called a �Canadian Mod,� which I got off Bob Rock back in the 80s, and they have a cool sound too. I�ve got a Peavey combo amp that I bought about 20 years ago that I use occasionally. Hughes & Kettner has given me a few combo amps too. There�s one called the Statesman that I use for a few gigs. They also have a great amp called the TubeMeister, which is a combo I have with a 10-inch speaker and it�s incredible in the studio just mic�d up with a Les Paul or Telecaster. So there are a few little bits and pieces but for the most part I�m not a huge collector. I�m not always trying to keep up with technology all the time.

KISS AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES
Tickets from Ticketek

Saturday October 3     PERTH Arena

Tuesday October 6     ADELAIDE Entertainment Centre

Thursday October 8    MELBOURNE Rod Laver Arena

Friday October 9         MELBOURNE Rod Laver Arena

Saturday October 10  SYDNEY AllPhones Arena

Monday October 12   NEWCASTLE Entertainment Centre

Tuesday October 13   BRISBANE Entertainment Centre

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