Gene has now mentioned that he will be the keynote speaker at the Branded Tour in Moncton, Canada in January. He published this Tweet just a few minutes ago:
Will be Keynoting an amazing event in Moncton, NB, Canada on January 14th- .brandedtour.ca
Yesterday (December 20th) Gene Simmons was interviewed on the Woody & The Wake-Up Call show on the WCOL radio station. Gene then mentioned this collection of the nearly 5,000 polaroids he says he's got of his conqeusts... Listen to the interview here: http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/newsdesk/tmz_audio/122010_gene_simmons.mp3
There is been talk about the huge Gene Simmons box set for a long time and it has been said it will be released during 2011. Just a few minutes ago Gene posted this update on his Twitter page:
My Monster Boxed Set coming along. Deal to be announced early next year. Details forthcoming.
In late October the new Gibson guitar was unveiled at a party in New York. Footage from this party featuring Ace Frehley has now been released, check it out here.
It has been known for some time that Gene Simmons is into the LA based band Steel Panther. Now Gene reveals that a TV series is in the making. Just a few minutes ago Gene posted this message on his Twitter page:
Developing TV Series for STEEL PANTHER, with Zodiak (production company), and Republic/Universal.
Bruce Kulick has posted a a remix of the BK3 song "Ain't Gonna Die" on his webpage. This remix is made by Chew Fu and the song features both Bruce Kulick and Gene Simmons. Check it out here: http://www.kulick.net/message.shtml
As reported here earlier, the licensee Eternal Image will produce a line of Kiss memorial products. Kissonline has now posted this photo of the very first casket, just as it left the factory floor.
"MTV Ruled The World: The Early Years Of Music Video" is a new book by the author Greg Prato. In the book you will find more than 70 interviews with rock stars about MTV's early days. One of the rock stars is no one else than Bruce Kulick.
The long-anticipated book "The Eric Carr Story" by Greg Prato is now released. This 256 pages book features the life story of The Fox with interviews with many of the people around him and Kiss. You can order the book here:
The website Wolfgang's Vault has uploaded three concerts from 1977 with Treasure. This band featured Vinnie Vincent on guitars and vocals. Checkt his out here:
You'll never stop getting surprised of the Kiss merchandise... We are all aware of the Kiss casket. Now the company Eternal Image will market a limited edition line of official KISS branded memorial products. The will include caskets, cremation urns, bronze memorials, memorial prayer cards, registry books, memorial candles, and pet cremation urns.
December 5th sees the premiere of the new season of Gene Simmons Family Jewels. Because of this, Access Hollywood has made a new interview with Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed which you can see here.
During a live web chat with his fans, Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit mentioned that their upcoming album "Gold Cobra" will include an intro written by Fred Durst and Gene Simmons.
February 22nd next year sees the release of the unauthorized DVD "Kiss - Invasion (A Look At The Lost Egyptian God, Vinnie Vincent)". As you can tell from the title this is a DVD focused on Vinnie Vincent and it features interviews and convention appearances. The DVD can be pre-ordered here.
Today we remember Eric Carr who sadly passed away exactly 19 years ago. Eric was born July 12th 1950 and as we all know he lost his battle against cancer November 24th 1991.
The English newspaper Daily Star has published a story where they say that Gene Simmons isn't too impressed by the jury of the TV show "The X Factor". Gene is quoted saying “I think I could be the sole judge on The X Factor, I’m more qualified than anybody on the show. " (The story can be read here) However, Gene Simmons has now published this comment on his Twitter page: Media lies... "Simmons slams Cowell." Never happened... Cowell is the only qualified guy.
In yesterday's episode of the CBS TV show "How I Met Your Mother" Paul Stanley's make-up was worn by the character Robin. Kissonline has posted this picture. The episode can be seen here: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/
As reported here, Paul Stanley was the guest vocalist at the Russian band Pushking's album from 2009. Paul will also guest on their upcoming album "The World As We Love It" which will be released February 1st.
It is now 35 years since the Kiss Army was founded. This happened in Terra Haute, Indiana and the local TV station has made a news piece about this. Check it out here.
On Ebay you can now find this cool piece of unusual Kiss memorabilia. This is an "empolyee achievement award" from Kiss' record label Casablanca Records. This was given to the employee Keith Allen in the late 1970s. Check the auction out here:
Kiss Coffeehouse has now released two new Kiss candy products. These are called Riff Rocks and the first flavor is dark chocolate/peanuts/pretzles/raisins and the other one is milk chocolate/peanuts/pretzles/raisins. Read more at http://www.kisscoffeehouse.com/.
Gene Simmons will be the keynote speaker at the festival showcase M Pour Montreal. This takes place November 20th and it's a free event. Read more here.
The third and final commercial for the Swedish Lotto featuring Kiss has now been released. If you don't get the joke then "kiss" is the Swedish word for "pee".
Ace Frehley is confirmed as one of the star musicians at the 2011 Rock'n'Roll Fantasy Camp taking place in Bahamas February 17th-20th. Other musicians include Tommy Lee and Lita Ford. Read more here.
February 2nd a big event called "Aces & Angels - Salute To The Troops" will take place in Dallas, TX. Gene Simmons will be the host of this event. Read more here: www.aces-angels.org
Gene Simmons' official webpage has been hacked and FBI is now investigating if this might be done by a group attacking websites connected to antipiracy and entertainment groups. Read more here.
Kisspickworld is doing a contest where the first prize is a guitar signed by all four current Kiss members. No purchase is necessary. Check it out here: www.kisspickworld.com.
Gene Simmons will be the keynote speaker at the Atlantic Brand Confabulation taking place in New Brunswick, Canada January 14th. Read more at www.thebrandedtour.ca.
This Christmas' major movie is "Gulliver's Travel" featuring Jack Black. The trailer has now been released and the Kiss song "Rock And Roll All Nite" is featured as well as a really funny miniature version of Kiss. All of this can be seen at the end of the trailer. Check the trailer out here.
Gene Simmons has for a long mentioned that he will do a box set of unreleased material. A couple of hours ago Gene updated his Twitter page with this comment:
Working on overview of my boxed set. Literally hundreds of songs... Bigger project than I had imagined.
The first Kiss press kit from 1974 is up for auction at Ebay. Included in the auction is also a ticket to the Kiss show with Blue Oyster Cult in April 1974. Check the auction out here.
Yesterday the charity for the Honored Tillman Foundation took place at the Moorpark Country Club in California. Nick Simmons and Tommy Thayer jammed with Robbie Krieger of The Doors. Footage can be seen below. Gene Simmons mentioned this in these two tweets:
Tonight -- charity for the Honored Tillman Foundation. Young Nick rocked the house, with The Doors' Robbie Krieger and Tommy Thayer.
Beautiful Shannon there and so were our GSFJ tv crew. Will post foto tomorrow.
During yesterday's Kiss Expo in Atlanta, Bruce Kulick and John Corabi played a one hour long acoustic set. The closing song was "Beth", check it out here.
Radaronline has posted the deposition and the court documents regarding the lawsuit against Gene Simmons made by ESPN makeup artist Victoria Jackson. The files and more details can be found here.
The Kiss tribute "Kiss Of Death" by Pretty Boy Floyd is now released. The track listing is the following:
Room Service I Stole Your Love I Love It Loud Goin' Blind Deuce Creatures Of The Night Detroit Rock City Firehouse Love Gun Shout It Out Loud Christine 16 Strutter' Let me Go Rock N' Roll Black Diamond
This is one of the strangest Ebay auctions in a long time. A 1975 jock piece that Gene Simmons sent to a female DJ including the letter and envelope is up for auction. Check it out here.
Earlier today Gibson Guitars presented their new model Gibson Firebird X. Ace Frehley was one of the guitar heroes that attended the press conference in New York.
Despite being hospitalized yesterday, Gene Simmons is active today with the Rally For Kids charity. He has now published these three comments on his Twitter page:
Rally For Kids charity event to raise money for children suffering with cancer. Check out GeneSimmons.com for fotos and story.
Went with Miss Tweed to catch Young Nick singing Iggy Pop's The Stranger at Bardot, in Hollywood....imagine Jim Morrison singing a Pop song.
Beautiful Sophie arrived just in time. Cameron Dias was in the audience... didn't see her there.
Yesterday (Monday October 25th) Gene Simmons was briefly hospitalized at the Centinela Hospital in Inglewood, California. Appearatently Gene fainted and hit his head while falling. He was rushed to the hospital. Luckily enough Gene could leave the hospital shortly afterwards. Shannon Tweed has posted this comment on her Twitter page:
Thanks for asking,Gene is fine,he was just tired & dehydrated fr TRYING 2 beat me in the Rally4Kidswith Cancer! Vacation is not his thing.
December 7th sees the release of the unauthorized interview compilation DVD named "Kiss Meets The Press". The DVD can already be pre-ordered at Amazon.
The German musicians magazine Drums & Percussion has put Eric Singer on the front cover of their latest issue. The entire magazine can be read online here. There you will find the nine page interview (in German).
In the 1970s the biggest music magazine in Sweden was POSTER. This magazine played a big part in breaking Kiss in Sweden. In the 1980s the biggest music magazine was OKEJ. And this magazine was also very important when it came to promoting Kiss in Sweden. Kiss were many times on the front cover of OKEJ and there were a lot of exclusive interviews. Later this month a coffee table book about OKEJ will be released. This book will be in Swedish but there is definately enough cool photos to make this enjoyable even if you don’t read Swedish. The book can be pre-ordered at CDON.
The internet magazine Rock Confidential has published a new interview with 80s pop singer Samantha Fox. In 1989 she dated Paul Stanley and she mentions this love affair:
We had a great love affair. I went on tour for six months on a bus with a band. Me and Paul tried to see each other when we could. He was then on tour with KISS. After that tour I became a tax exile because I was paying so much tax and all of my money was basically going to managers and the tax man. I went to live in Spain for a year and our love affair just kind of fizzled out. There were no arguments or bad feelings. It was just a case of being apart. I have great memories of Paul. He's a really nice guy. He's a bit older than me but what can I say? I'm sure he lied about his age then! KISS is still a fantastic band and in 1989 they'd done far more than I'd done. Listening to their stories and his wisdom was fantastic.
The German metal queen Doro Pesch is celebrating her 25th anniversary as an artist. In a new interview with Brooklyn Rocks she mentions her collaboration with Gene Simmons and Tommy Thayer:
It was an honor to work with Gene Simmon and Tommy Thayer on my second solo LP (1990). I was a huge Kiss fan and Gene was an incredible motivator who taught me so much about music. Tommy Thayer, who is now in Kiss, played most of the guitars on the record.
Tommy Thayer has posted a report with some nice photos on his webpage about Black 'N Blue's induction into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame. Check it out here.
October 15th Ace Frehley performed "New York Groove" before the hockey game at Madison Square Garden. At 7:45 in this video clip you can watch the performance.
Tonight (October 15th) Ace Frehley will perform "New York Groove" at Madison Square Garden before the hockey game between New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs.
As mentioned here before, the Japanese film "Detroit Metal City" - where Gene Simmons plays a small part - was released in Japan last summer. November 9th the film will be released on DVD in the US. The DVD can now be pre-ordered at Amazon.
According to the band's Facebook page, Pretty Boy Floyd will release a Kiss tribute called "I Love It Loud - A Tribute To Kiss" October 26th. No more information is available right now.
Ace Frehley has updated his Twitter and Facebook pages with this comment:
Thanks to everyone who came out to see Ace at Spooky Empire! Regarding the price on guitar signatures, collectors say that Ace's signature doubles it in value, so we felt we charged a fair price, much lower than what was charged in the past. Ace also made sure there were many other items priced that were affordable for all.
Today it's 27 years since Kiss performed for the first time without their make-up. October 11th 1983 Kiss played in Lisbon, Portugal and this was the opening night of the Lick It Up tour. At this show Gene was spitting blood during "God Of Thunder". This is the only time he has done that without make-up. It was clear that this routine didn't work unmasked. Here's footage of "Detroit Rock City" from this show, 27 years ago today.
The San Bernardino Sun reports that Gene Simmons held a lecture at the Pitzer College where he taught the students the facts of life. Read the entire article here.
Pollstar has published a list of the most successful tour of 2010 so far. AC/DC is in the top of the list with more than 1.8 million ticket sold. Kiss can be found at 51st place with 210,000 tickets sold. Check out the entire list here.
Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed are now leaving Cannes after a few days there. Shannon Tweed has now published this photo of Gene where he doesn't look too happy carrying Shannon's bag...
Yesterday (October 5th) Ace Frehley took part in a celebrity panel about drug use at The Carnegie Hall in New York. After the panel Ace and Eddie Ojeda of Twisted Sister performed "New York Groove". Check it out here:
As reported earlier, Gene Simmons is in Cannes, France for the MIPCOM conferene. Here is footage of Gene discussing entertainment brands at the conference.
Just a few minutes ago Shannon Tweed published this photo of her and Gene Simmons in Cannes, France. Gene will be the keynote speaker at a TV conference there.
Bruce Kulick is in Australia where he is doing some shows and clinics. At The Australian International Music Show Bruce performed "Unholy", check ut out here:
The mega-rare Turkish 7 inch single Hard Luck Woman / Detroit Rock City is now up for auction at Ebay. This is the only Kiss single every produced in Turkey. Check the auction out here.
The gossip magazine Hollywood Life has published a story where Gene Simmons is quoted saying the following about Lindsay Lohan: “I think she needs to be b*itch slapped for her own good”. Read the entire story here.
According to The Smoking Gun, the average fee for Kiss during the US summer shows was $ 500,000. This puts them at the second place after Rascal Flatts. Read more here or check out the money chart.
During the Kiss show in Fontana last Saturday, Tommy Thayer was very close to get severly hurt by a flamethrower that accidently went off while Paul was introducing "Firehouse". Check this clip, you will find the incident at approx 41 seconds.
The Kiss show in Fontana, California Friday the 25th was broadcasted live on the internet. Below you can see "Rock And Roll All Nite" from the broadcast. Due to a curfew, Kiss has to cut some songs out of the set. They played the following songs:
Modern Day Delilah Let Me Go Rock´n Roll Firehouse Say Yeah Crazy Crazy Nights Calling Dr. Love Shock me Love Gun I Love it Loud Dettroit Rock City Lick It Up I Was Made For Lovin' You Rock´n Roll All Nite
The classic rock radio station 92.3 KGON has done a new interview with Tommy Thayer where he talks about the induction into the Oregon Music Hall Of Fame. Check it out here.
We shot the commercial a Friday evening when the band performed in New Jersey. We didn't think of the fact that is was Friday rush hour so we were nervous they wouldn't make it in time. But just before dusk they arrived and the recording went very well. Afterwards Gene Simmons asked if he was allowed to blog about the campaign.
On Point News reports that Gene Simmons is sued by an ESPN makeup artist. She claims that Gene grinded his groin into her. However, Gene says that this would be impossible since he wore his stage costume and this is “the equivalent of a suit of armor”! Read more here.
As mentioned here before, a TV commercial for the Swedish Lotto game featuring Kiss started to air last Monday on Swedish TV. The gaming company "Svenska Spel" has also made another version that hasn't been aired yet. Check it out here:
Kevin Bacon is hosting a new guitar documentary movie called "Turn It Up!". Paul Stanley is one of the musicians who appear in this documentary. Watch the trailer here.
The Kiss show September 25th in Fontana, California will be streamed on internet. Check this link for more information: http://apps.facebook.com/nightclubcity
Gene Simmons mentions on his website that he has been in meeting with the 15 year old rapper girl Reema Major regarding a possible signing to Simmons Records. Read more at www.genesimmons.com.
As mentioned here before, Gene Simmons was in Toronto earlier this week for the show with The Envy at The Tattoo Rock Parlour. Here's footage of Gene introducing the band.
Mike Ragogna of The Huffington Post has published an interesting and quite long question and answer piece with Gene Simomons. Gene mentions that he is a fan of the English band Muse and that he receives one thousand demos per month. Read the interview here.
Yesterday (September 15th) the sixth episode of the Swedish ”Idol” TV show was shown on Swedish national TV4. This is the Swedish version of ”American Idol”. Last year’s winner was Erik Grönwall and he then performed ”Shout It Out Loud”. Andreas Carlsson (who wrote some of the songs to Paul Stanley’s ”Live To Win” album) is a member of the jury and he arranged so that Grönwall got to meet Kiss when they performed in Stockholm this summer. This was featured in yesterday’s episode which can be seen here (the Kiss part is at about 10:45): http://www.tv4play.se/noje_och_humor/idol?videoId=1.1812759 Paul Stanley wrote one of the songs on Erik Grönwall’s debut album, this can be bought here:
Tonight (September 15th) The Envy will perform at the Tattoo Rock Parlour in Toronto. Gene Simmons will attend the show. He has posted the following message on his Twitter page:
Come by and hang out with me & the guys. Doors are at 10:00 PM @theenvy plays at 11:30 PM
Here's the promotion clip for the upcoming German movie "Annelie", directed by Antej Farec. The story is about some misfits who kidnap Kiss (played by a Kiss tribute band) in order to save their home.
The actor Dylan McDermott was interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel a few days ago. Watch this clip where he mentions he was a member of Kiss Army and having seen the band 13 or 14 times.
Ace Frehley is confirmed as one of the guests at the Spooky Empires Ultimate Horror Weekend. This takes place in Orlando, Florida October 8th-10th. Read more here.
Peter Criss is confirmed as one of the guests at the Chiller Theatre Toy, Model And Film Expo that takes place at the Hilton in Parsippany, New Jersey October 29th-31st. More detals can be found here: www.chillertheatre.com.
Yesterday (August 31st) Kiss performed at The Lakewood Amphitheatre in Atlanta, GA. The set list was the same as on the previous shows on the tour. Here is fan filmed footage of "Say Yeah".
The 7-Eleven chain of stores now offers these nice Kiss Dr. Pepper cups. These are available at 7-Eleven stores all over the US. If you live outside the US you can now buy the cups at Ebay. Check this out here.