Cheap Kiss - Kissology - Volume 1 (1974-1977) (DVD) Price

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Customer Reviews of Kiss - Kissology - Volume 1 (1974-1977)

isnt kiss the best?
theres not much more i could add to what mostly everyone else has said in their reviews. i purchased mine recently and have watched every night since. amazing stuff, i found the video and audio to be just fine. i like kiss just the way they were warts and all. grainy video less than surround sound audio? rock and roll was not meant to be perfect. the houston 77 show was amazing, wish i could have been there. the bonus disc included was madison square garden 77. not the best audio or video but very entertaining none the less. my first kiss show was at madison square garden for the dynasty tour. even the packaging is really nice, theres a cool little book and an old school patch sticker. whether a serious kiss devotee or a casual fan you will enjoy something in this set. on kiss web site there is mention of other sets coming out in the near future. sounds great to me. kiss really is the best.

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File Next to Bearded Lady and Lobster Boy
Well, it was a good run, but my 10-year-old vow to never put another dime in Gene Simmons' pocket, which began shortly after they kicked off their 1996 reunion tour at Tiger Stadium with all four original members in greasepaint, has crumbled in alarming and abrupt fashion with this golden-age treasure trove, packed like a blivit with TV appearances, four complete concerts, and promos from a band who point blank rode the coat-tails of Alice Cooper and the New York Dolls to knighthood among the unwashed masses here in Detroit and then the rest of the planet. <
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>Despite Simmons and Paul Stanley embracing the marketing of anything and everything sporting the Kiss logo (designed by Ace Frehley with a piece of paper and a magic marker) from condoms to caskets, they do occasionally throw the faithful a bone from the pre-"Dynasty" years - the only time they ever really mattered - that is actually worth the long green. <
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>Those of us old enough to remember the band's appearances on "The Midnight Special" and "In Concert," and life in a pre-cable/satellite dish world, are also old enough to remember having to suffer through an eternity of commercials for Popeil's Pocket Fisherman, Ronco's Rhinestone and Stud Setter, and K-Tel's "Super Bad" album, a plethora of ads for local car dealerships, bail bondsmen, and furniture stores, and soporific performances by Leon Redbone, Kool & The Gang, and Neal Sedaka just to get to the chewy bits. The fact that those mini-sets are all bundled here in one tidy package - sans interruption - should be godhead for most, Kiss' mad-eyed manifesto of gargantuan three-chord thud rock welded to a stage show with more surprises than Christmas morning repelling as many as it charmed, their entire career structured to maintain a mythology that hung around them before they even entered a recording studio and long after Frehley and Peter Criss either: a) quit, or b) were fired. <
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>For the life of me though, despite returning home from high school every day for three years to find my mom watching "The Mike Douglas Show" while fixing dinner, I can't remember a stick-thin Gene Simmons, a praying mantis in black leather, chatting up Douglas and Totie Fields before joining the others on a postage stamp-sized television stage for an enthusiastic run through "Firehouse," grunting like Cape buffalo in rut. With full pyro... <
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>And let's face it, with Kiss it's all about the bells and whistles although every nuance (yeah, right...), nook, and cranny of the albums up to and including "Alive" are permanently stamped on my frontal lobe like the UPC code on a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill. If the band couldn't perform in all of its fire-breathing, blood-gakking splendor, they simply wouldn't take the stage, correct in their assumption that anything worth doing was worth overdoing, even in the gymnasium at Cadillac (Michigan) High School's 1975 homecoming. <
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>For those used to life in a surround-sound, digitally-enhanced, hermetically-sealed bubble, some of the imperfections in the audio and video here may be slightly unsettling (hardly surprising with over 30 years of dust coating it), but the concert sets, including a 1976 Cobo Hall show where Simmons' hair goes up in flames like an artificial Christmas tree coated with WD-40, are like bearing witness to a Barnum & Bailey freak show and communal bloodletting wrapped into one, Frehley clearly the man, bringing the noise and unwittingly inspiring an entire generation of nu-metal guitarists along the way, are well worth the price of admission. <
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>The 70's. What a larf...

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A Comprehensive KISSOLOGY I Review...
After many years of speculation and due in large part to the overwhelming fan demand, KISS have decided to produce a comprehensive dvd series sure to please the majority of fans. <
> KISSOLOGY I:1974-1977 is the first installment in a proposed three volume set that should cover the band's glorious thirty year plus legacy in depth. Even though the audio/visual quality varies greatly on this first volume due to the archive footage gleamed from different sources, what is here offers a fascinating look at the embryonic stages of what was to become an international pop culture phenomenon. <
>Disc 1. <
>1. Long Beach, CA. 2/17/74 "Acrobat"-this amateur shot footage offers a grainy look at a rare song never officially recorded by the group. Interesting to note that the video and audio are from two different sources-while the video portion is Long Beach,CA the audio is synched from a gig in Memphis,TN in 1974. Some of this footage was previously available on the unofficial KISS-The Vintage dvd, but without sound. <
>2. ABC "In Concert" 3/29/74-KISS' first tv appearance as it aired in 1974 featuring Nothing To Lose, Firehouse and Black Diamond. <
>3. The Mike Douglas Show 4/29/74-an edited version of this tv appearance. The incidental music as Gene Simmons walks out to be interviewed has been removed and the interview is edited as well, specifically the portion where the winners of the 1974 Kissin' Contest were interviewed. Firehouse is performed. <
>4. Winterland - San Francisco, CA 1/31/75-This historical show from KISS' days as an opening band has never looked or sounded better. The remastered audio is especially evident on this concert. The last song, Let Me Go, Rock and Roll is still incomplete however. <
>5. "The Midnight Special" 4/1/75-This tv appearance is missing 'Deuce' from the original broadcast. 'Black Diamond' was broadcast in black and white and that is how it appears here. <
>6. Kiss Alive Promo Clips 1975-The promo films for 'C'Mon and Love Me' and 'Rock and Roll All Nite' shot at Detroit's Cobo Hall. <
>7. Documentary: Cadillac, Michigan October 1975-Great new documentary featuring never before seen footage of the band's legendary visit to the Cadillac,Michigan high school. Includes concert footage from the band's gig in the high school auditorium. <
>8. Cobo Hall Detroit, MI 1/26/76-Full show from the ALIVE! Tour. This is the 2nd night of the band's three night stand. This portion I can honestly say I was slightly let down as the picture is very grainy and also displays numerous flaws and imperfections present in the master tape. The picture quality improves greatly with the encores suggesting that two separate sources were used. The performance itself redeems the concert as it is one of the most energetic. <
>Disc 2 <
>1. So It Goes. UK News Clip. 1976- A full news clip featuring an interview with all four and concert footage from KISS' first trek to the UK. Notable as they perform in the ALIVE! Outfits but perform songs from the Destroyer album. <
>2. The Paul Lynde Halloween Special 10/29/76-This is the tv special where KISS appeared with Margaret Hamilton(the witch from the Wizard Of Oz). This is an incomplete clip omitting both Detroit Rock City and Beth from the original broadcast. <
>3. Budokan Hall - Tokyo, Japan 4/2/77-A great quality full show from the Rock and Roll Over Tour. Nice to see this one without the annoying Japanese subtitles. <
>4. Don Kirshner's "Rock Concert" 5/28/77-All three songs lip-synched for this tv appearance are present here: I Want You, Hard Luck Woman and Love Em and Leave Em. <
>5. The Summit - Houston, TX 9/2/77-Full show from the Love Gun tour. The audio and video quality on this one is great. Though the footage is quite dark at times due to the venue's poor lighting. A twilight zone moment happens during `Rock and Roll All Night' as a third verse has been inexplicably edited into the performance. <
>KISSOLOGY I also features two very cool easter eggs, to access them is quite easy: on disc 1 simply press the up arrow during the main menu to highlight the KISS logo and then press enter and you will see a performance of `Deuce' taken from an early Coventry gig in 1973. Though the footage is black & white and a little distant it is still very interesting. Repeating the same procedure on Disc 2 takes you to an impromptu jam during Ace and Jeanette Frehley's wedding ceremony in 1977 without make-up. Though the footage is choppy at times, this is still rare and priceless footage. An audio commentary featuring Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons is also supplied for most of the material, but it is anecdotal at best with long periods of silence. It would have been interesting to hear more recollections and insights. <
>KISSOLOGY I is packaged in a quadruple gatefold sleeve and comes with a nice thick booklet of vintage photos featuring recollections by the band of the material contained therein. It also includes a reproduction of an early KISS backstage pass. <
>KISSOLOGY I comes with a choice of three bonus discs in its initial run: the rarest and most sought after is the uncirculated Largo 77 Wal-Mart exclusive, with New York 77 being the most common and Detroit Cobo Hall Night 1 the Best Buy exclusive. It should be noted that all of these 'bonus' shows are incomplete. <
>Having bought the Wal-Mart KISSOLOGY edition, I was fortunate enough to acquire the Largo 77 bonus disc and it is a great show. Largo 77 is nearly a full hour of a high energy Love Gun tour performance from December 20th, 1977. Awesome in both picture and audio quality, it is also filmed much better than the Houston 77 show featured on KISSOLOGY. A true gem of a concert. By comparison, the New York 77 bonus disc is disapointing-clocking in at under thirty minutes and featuring very grainy and subpar picture quality. For some reason, they also decided to dub the audio from Alive II over the opening song 'Detroit Rock City'-very strange indeed. <
>These KISSOLOGY volumes have been so highly anticipated it would be pointless for me to gripe about the varying quality of the audio/visual material, some of which stretches back over thirty years. Instead, I am thankful that this great material has finally been made available to the general public in officially released form. Besides a few minor flaws the material is fantastic and this set is more than worth the purchase price for any KISS fan no matter how casual. <
>In closing, KISSOLOGY I is a vital and comprehensive chronicle of the embryonic stages of one of rock's most dynamic and exciting bands. It sets the bar very high for future instalments, one can only hope that the band will not elect to simply skim over the non make-up years and instead make these KISSOLOGY compilations an all encompassing anthology. <
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