Guilty Pleasure - Kiss' "Shandi"
I was about 13 years old when this song came out. And I loved it! I played the 45 RPM record (backed with "She's So European") hundreds of times until I wore it out - then I bought the whole album. It might not be so hip these days, but I still have to say I like the song - makes me feel like a teenager again, for better or worse. From Kiss' Unmasked, released in May 1980, here's "Shandi."
FLAMBOYANT KITCH...
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This was billed as the last Kiss album featuring all four original members: Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss. But that was a myth this video helped perpetuate. The band had already parted company with drummer Peter Criss - and in fact Anton Fig played all the drums on Unmasked. But when it came time to make the video, the band (who feared fan backlash if the news got out) brought Peter Criss in for the filming. Peter said in the official Kiss biography that he broke down in tears after the shoot when he was the last person left in the dressing room.
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Some interesting context for the end of the video... this was when what the members of Kiss looked like was still pretty much a mystery, and there was a lot of pre-album expectation that either the record or video would finally reveal their faces. My friends and I really believed we woud see them sans makeup at the end of the video.
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Have you ever seen any of them without their garish makeup? At least nobody copied them did they? Or did they? I guess they were the product of their zeitgeist and they look like gays in drag.
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Yes, for much of the 80's and early 90s they performed without makeup (and without Peter and Ace). Ace had a mildly successful post-Kiss band called Frehley's Comet. Around the time I got out of prison, they were reunited and playing in make-up again.
Funny thing... to me they look phonier without makeup than they do with it. Here's the first no-makeup video I remember seeing of theirs - "Lick It Up" from 1983:
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really weird - i see the video but get no sound
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Strange - the sound is working on my end.
It ain't the same, but here are the lyrics (song written by Paul Stanley and Vini Poncia):
I just can't pretend no more, I keep runnin' out of lies
Lovin' you is killin' me inside
Everytime I find the words to end it, something in your eyes won't let it
Shandi, tonight must last us forever, forever we say goodnight and go home
But you know me very well, and I know you, you can't tell me goodnight
(say goodnight)
We been holding on so tight, we're afraid to let it go
Shake it loose, we both could use the ride
Here's another mess I got myself in, and when you touch me you ain't helpin'
Shandi, tonight must last us forever, forever we say goodnight and go home
But you know me very well, and I know you, you can't tell me goodnight
(say goodnight) - say goodnight when we should say goodbye (say goodbye)
mmmmm oh yeeaaahhh
(Shandi, Shandi) Tonight must last us forever and ever
Forever we say goodnight and go home
Shandi, Shandi, tonight must last us forever...
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Lick that up!! Just don't get all that hair in your mouth. lol
In the 80s all I heard around here were the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors and I liked Procol Harum and still like all of the latter. Marc, by the way, has just everything here by the Beatles, all the music and all the books written tons of stuff. Come on over and see his collection. You might be interested in his music studio as well since he can create CDs. You both are on the same wave length. (except fot Kiss)
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Definitely, different than Kiss Alive and Destroyer! I remember all the anticipation about seeing them without make-up.
The cool thing back then was that you could like Kiss and Black Sabbath and Genesis and Al Stewart and Pure Prairie League and Bruce Springsteen and Pink Floyd and anyone else and no one tried to pigeonhole you into--oh, you're a metalhead, or, oh, you're only into prog rock... Hell, my older sister loved Kiss and John Denver--go figure!! Like what you want
Today you run into alot of purists even within genres... how dumb! But then I know readers who are the same way...
As my mom used to say about a new food on the plate--try it, you might like it...
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I like John Denver, too! the first song I ever learned all the words to was Denver's "Country Roads (Take Me Home)." I had to have been about 4 years old. I would sing it for my grandma (who lived in West Virginia).
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