Was I getting more sophisticated in my middle school age? A year or two ago, I came to Vermont armed with a stack of KISS records. now with each passing day, KISS became a smaller and smaller piece of my life. The KISS solo albums came out and Ace, being my favorite member of KISS, found his way onto my Christmas list that year. That Christmas began a tradition between me and my cousin Flavia. Every Christmas for five years [starting with this one in 1978] she would buy me an album. In 1978 it was Ace Frehley because I wanted it. For the next four years, she bought me an album that she thought I needed. How cool is that.
Even though I liked the Ace Frehley album and played it pretty heavily for a while, my musical tastes had evolved and I knew even then that The KISS Age had come to an end. It sounds like this was the last KISS album I bought. It wasn’t. It wasn’t even really that long before I bought another one. Of course this was the last KISS album on vinyl.
The next time I was conscious of KISS, it was fall of 1983. I had moved back to Indiana after graduating from Vermont Academy. Am I getting way ahead in the story? Let me just say that the next time I really thought about KISS, I was in record store looking at Lick It Up. KISS were on the cover of the album without makeup! I kept looking it at it in the store trying understand if I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing. It just wasn’t right. I didn’t buy it. So even though I would eventually buy more KISS Compact Discs and see them numerous times in concert including that record breaking reunion tour in 1996, for all intents and purposes, The KISS Age ended here with Ace’s solo album.
Snowblind
Ozone
New York Groove
I’m in need Of Love
Wiped-Out
Fractured Mirror
Fractured mirror seemed to stand out to my new musical sensibilities. It seemed to lean toward the more complex music I was getting into.