Customer Reviews

Kiss and Sell: The Making of a Supergroup

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is the best rock book written in years. It unveils the truth behind Kiss and the tremendous amounts of money blown by the members and manager, Bill Aucoin. Gene Simmons tends to gloss over the reality that he too participated in the financial fiasco that was their 79 tour. However, in a fair and even handed way, CK Lendt tells how the Kiss members and manager foolishly spent money that could have been better invested.

In fact, the reunion tours of 96 and thereafter really gave the members the financial stability that they'd lost in the late 70's.

The irony of Kiss is that without Ace and Peter they were nothing but a sinking nostalagia act. With the reunion tour and make-up back on and Ace and Peter in the band the group suddenly became interesting.

In the end, the great success of Kiss is not the bluster of Gene Simmons or posturings of Paul Stanley but the dynamic of all four members--Ace, Peter, Gene and Paul.

This book is honest and brilliant in it's review of the story of Kiss and of the music business. Buy it and enjoy the behind the scenes look at a fascinating world.

**This is an updated and edited review**

The author pulls no punches in describing KISS's up-and-down financial turmoils during their storied career. Very meticulously detailed, it certainly sounds credible. Chris Lendt spent the better part of 12 years as an employee (of sorts) of the KISS organization -- he was a highly placed employee of one of the business firms that managed the band's financial affairs. Lendt even tosses in a few road stories of his own -- part of the perks of touring with the biggest band in the world. It reads as if you are standing backstage or offstage during a KISS tour, and like you are sitting in the boardroom with them during meetings. Lendt takes you inside the organization and lets you inspect it, warts and all. Absolutely fascinating!! You don't have to be a KISS fan to enjoy this book, but if you are already a fan then this book will be an indispensible part of your collection. Read about the minutae, the tiniest of the thousands upon thousands of details of life with a touring rock band. Follow the author and KISS as they skyrocket from hard-working club band to the previously-unexplored heights of international superstardom, and all the pitfalls, trappings and ego stroking that goes with it.
Kiss had some great years when they were raking in obscene amounts of money. But as Lendt points out in lavish detail, the money went out as quickly as it came in. The Kiss tours were often financial black holes, due either to the outrageous...production costs of touring their larger-than-life stage show, several tours where the ticket buyers stayed home, shady promoters stiffing them out of their guarantees and gate receipts, or a combination of the three. Gene and Paul knew all along that in rock and roll, image is everything. They had to always live and spend like kings to maintain the public image that their reputation as rock and roll gods was built on. But when the lean years set in, and there were plenty of them, their spending habits came back to haunt them over and over and over again. Lesser bands would have packed up their tents and called it a day, but Gene and Paul refused. So they took their financial lumps again and again. The Reunion Tour of 1996-1997 may well have been the only thing to keep them off food stamps in their retirement years.
Chris Lendt's book gives a far more honest look at the inner workings of the "business of KISS" than any other source I've seen or heard of. Peter Criss was essentially paid to leave the band. Ace Frehley's departure was unfortunately timed for KISS, as it left them in such a precarious position with their new record company contract that the whole thing could have collapsed on them and left them penniless and in debt for heaven knows how long. South American and Mexican promoters dangled big payday carrots in front of them so rich that KISS couldn't afford to turn them down, at a time when the band's financial situation was extremely dire, only to have the deals collapse time after time in spectacular fashion. KISS spent years playing to half-filled houses, releasing poor-performing records, and still pouring untold [amount] into touring to maintain the public image of what was termed in-house as SuperKiss. Kiss was borrowing money from any source they could, leveraging themselves to the hilt, all the while shutting their ears to the more practical financial advice that came from their business managers. Kiss had become a cautionary tale.

Chris Lendt saw his ties to KISS rather unceremoniously severed when the band fired their business managers (Lendt's employers) over a decade ago. But Lendt appears to carry no grudges. He always spoke lovingly of the band members and of his 12 year association with the group, even after being dismissed.

Lendt's unique "insider" position makes for a fascinating education about the business of show business!

This book, I must admit had me totally riveted from the beginning to the incomplete end. It tells all the gory details of a band that had / has all the trappings of Rock and Roll success, but were then almost thrown out without a cent. Practically losing nearly all their earnings to some dodgy investments, I can't help but think that they owe a huge thanks to Ace and Peter for helping them out. I'm sure Gene would tell me to f**k off!!. But the truth is they were broke or close to it, then "hello" Reunion tour and "we're in the money" all over again. They could have only done that with Ace and Peter.
Now with circulating band members, they'll be around for years to come.
My strongest memory of the book is of a story where author is walking across a road and bumps into a old manager or someone and they tell him about how the Kiss thing is all over, a thing of the past, when in actual fact they just played to probably their largest audience ever in Rio!! But did they get paid for it??
It's a great read, lots of scrapping at the bottom of the barrel to make some money for Gene and Co. and some fantastic stories for Kiss fans or any fan of the rock and roll world.

Initially I thought this was going to be a 'put down' kinda book, but it wasn't. It was written well, and I definately got the sense the writer was honest. He did 'cut' on the members a couple of times, by showing their 'human' side, but all in all, we are all human, and I'm sure no one is perfect. This book definately goes into the gut of any big band of the time. The tours and money and the machine that runs the group. Four guys from NYC that ended up being the king of the music industry and the first to hit it big with merchandising. The management, laywers, roadies, groupies, its all here. If you are a KISS fan, I would definately say this book is a must, and even if you are not a KISS fdan, but liked the music of the time, this is a good book to get an 'inside' look of how things were done. I still love KISS music and this book was just another side which is rarely written about or discussed.

Written by one of KISS's key business managers, this is a very interesting look at the KISS organization from 1976 to 1989. One of the components that makes it so interesting is that despite working for the band, the author was hardly a hard rock fan and avoids the trappings of star worship as well as refraining from doing an intentional hatchet-job on the group. Sort of a Rock n' Roll Economics 101 textbook at times, but even these parts are written in an easy-to-understand style. An engaging tale of a band who rose to stratospheric heights, then came crashing down, mostly due to their own hubris. A lot of the myths behind the band are exposed, but the truth is even more interesting.

As others have said, this book will help you make sense out of some of the aggravating career decisions that KISS has made over the years. For example, why so many "greatest hits" collections? Because they were tapped out financially, and needed an infusion of cash to keep them from going bankrupt. Partly, the members of KISS overspent their personal fortunes, but mostly the band overspent their corporate fortunes by insisting on appearing "larger than life" every time they went on tour.

So I thought it was a very insightful read. And, it doesn't really contradict the image Gene and Paul have projected over the years. In other words, all their talk about who was "in" and who was "out" of the group, and why. And so on. We always suspected there was more to it than Gene and Paul let on, and we were right. But none of this really invalidates the bits and pieces they've told us in recent years.

Worth the money if you're interested in KISS or the rock 'n' roll business in general.

This is a fantastic book not just for Kiss fans, but anyone interested in the music business be they a musician, manager, promoter, or just a curious fan will find genuinely interesting. I enjoyed this book way more than "Black Diamond". It's not as cynical but it does point out many mistakes that the band made, while not ignoring their brilliant decisions either. I have a lot of respect for Kiss because they always wanted to put on a great show even if it meant they would take a loss on a concert or two (or a dozen) rather than cutting costs with their lightshow or effects. This commitment was apparently a double-edged sword. It's finally a book about Kiss that doesn't seem tainted by any of the band's own input (or Gene's wild exaggerations like his claim that they performed before crowds of "200,000 in South America" in the early 80's.) There is a lot of humor, many ups and downs that the band endured and many surprising facts and events that fans will find intriguing. For example, I didn't know before that Paul Stanley lost his one time girlfriend Donna Dixon to Dan Aykroyd. Ouch! True Kiss fans will enjoy every minute and less zealous fans should appreciate those guys more for what they have accomplished in a business that's constantly changing. As soon as the 80's rolled in, Kiss had a sound and look that was out of style, almost square to some, but they managed to change enough with the times to keep working. The author does a great job of story-telling here explaining these changes and the effect they had on the bands and the fans. You'll be glad you picked this one up. I guarantee you'll read it more than once.

Without a doubt, there are issues on the inside of the entertainment business that are shrouded and never seen or heard of to the general public. This book allows the "general public" to experience the real aspects of being a rock star(s). The ups and downs, and the daily, sometimes monotenous, life that they really lead. This book shows these and other facts that defines the real "rock star world". The members of KISS, would never devulge, ever, any info that would make them seem less than they think they are. This book does that for them...

I won't deny that I was a little disappointed at this book for being what it was--an ex-business manager's story of his time with the band, but it turns out that the book is a lot better than that, even though Black Diamond is a much better devotional tale to the band.

Lendt's vocabulary isn't as highbrow as some people might think, and it's a great textbook(!) regarding economics in the music industry, from the standpoint of the top of the ladder. I'd go so far as to say it was definitive, but considering Lendt's involvement with the band stops in 1988, and I have not yet read KISSTORY, it probably isn't.

But for all it's flaws, it's still an even-handed book, and it's tastefully done. Considering it's lacking a lot of inside support from the band itself, that is a big achievement.

I concur with the other reviewers who sang the praises of this book. This is indeed mandatory reading to any Kiss fan willing to learn what was happening behind the scenes. Quite revealing and well-written.

However, being Brazilian, I have a word to say about the chapter titled "Learning to Love the Third World", which is entirely devoted to the 1983 Brazilian tour. While it is extremely interesting and informative -- and I have no reason to doubt the author's account that the band actually hated Brazil -- I really don't understand why Lendt makes fun of the fact that we Brazilians say "tudo bem" all the time. He even misspells it "tutto bene", which looks like Italian to me (just for the record, we Brazilians speak Portuguese). "Tudo bem" is a greeting that literally translates as "is everything fine?" And yes, we do say it all the time just like English-speaking people say "hi", "hello", "how are you", "how are you doing, etc." It's a greeting expression. I really don't understand why something that is perfectly normal within the context of a foreign country should be the subject of ridicule in a book. Perhaps the writer didn't understand it. A bit of research would have helped here. In fact, whenever I read a book about Brazil written by a non-Brazilian, I always find passages where I feel like contacting the author and clarifying some point (like another writer who said Brazilian CD stores were an alphabetical mess, not realizing we Brazilians always file records and CDs under the first name, so "David Bowie", for instance, is filed under "D").

This is indeed an excellent book, but I felt an explanation was in order, here.