Back when I was about 3 years old I would enjoy classics like Rock 'n' Roll All Night & Got to Choose on 8-track compilations that my mom would play. I knew the songs but had no idea who it was. Thru 1977 I was blessed with Christine Sixteen, Love Gun, Beth, & Detroit Rock City but again had no idea who it was, radio and being too young to understand.
In 1978, I was 5 and they played in October on TV "Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park". My mother put it on thinking that I would like it since she knew that I liked their songs. Seeing Gene Simmons spitting fire and attacking security guards scared the shit out of me! I was doomed not to get into Kiss for years to come. I was scarred for awhile.
When I was around 7 somebody got me a poster of them that I hung behind my bed. It was a very cool poster(I wish I still had it)! This helped me get over my fear of Gene Simmons but I still didn't have a stereo nor the media to play. I wasn't big into music yet.
Around the ages of 10-12 I started to get big into those video shows that they had on TV, because I did not have MTV yet(you actually had to pay for that back then!). My favorite was a show called Radio 1990 on the USA network, plus it came on after the Cartoon Express. I got a good amount of exposure to videos like Lick it Up, Thrills in the Night, & All Hell's Breakin Loose. This was Kiss without makeup, so I was biased into thinking that it wasn't good. I wanted the makeup and I wasn't really a heavy metal fan yet.
Not long after that I became a "Metal-Head" with a little help from my friends. Kiss videos would come on but I had it in my head that if it wasn't from the makeup days that it wasn't any good. Later I went ahead and bought Love Gun & Destroyer on cassette for about 4 bucks each & I fell in love with those two albums! I even connected the songs that I liked as a young kid that I didn't know was Kiss! Still, Kiss was not yet my favorite group & I still only liked the make up days. until.....
Smashes, Thrashes, & Hits came out and my friend Barbarian(I try not to use real names of people I know) had gotten it and would play it when we would hang out. The newer stuff started to grow on me and after the Let's Put the X in Sex video came out I became a fanatic of anything Kiss! I started buying bootlegs, merchandise, posters, etc. Kiss IS & always will be my favorite band. I saw hem 5 times live(both with and without makeup), and I cannot get enough of them.
Anywho, that's what Kiss is to me. Check out the other info on them once I get it into place.
