Excerpt from:
Kiss Concert Review - Coventry
New York Daily News (Date N/A)
by Stanley Mieses
...his [Paul Stanley's] black-and-red striped platform shoes should win the Alan Ladd Footwear Award. They're so high that you can crawl through the gap between the heels and layed soles. He also serves as the spokesman for the group. 'We didn't come here to talk no politics, we're goin to rock 'n' roll,' he shouts to the small audience at the Coventry. He winks with the one eye that isn't painted black. 'I hope everyone here's been drinking...' and the thought trails off, sentence incomplete, into a number called 'Sloe Gin' [actually 'Cold Gin.] 'We'd rather you dance than ponder the lyrics,' he advises. The bass player sneers and the lead guitarist strikes an I-dare-you-punk pose. 'We're not the smartest boys around, you know,' the rhythm guitarist says, and the whole band laughs.
Stan Mieses - Writer, New York Daily News
Excerpt from:
"Dressed to Kill" by Ken Sharp
Goldmine Magazine (04/11/08)
Back in 1973, I was 20 years old. I was a copy boy at the Daily News. Hanging around, I impressed a couple of the editors with my enthusiasm for rock and roll. I'd gotten a couple of assignments to review rock shows. Then this guy Paul (Sub) wrote me from Queens - he must have seen my byline.
He said, "You're The Daily News. You guys should really cover clubs in Queens." So, I went out to this guy's club, The Coventry, sat down, and this group named KISS came on. I looked at them and thought this was like comic book or kabuki, something I'd never seen. They looked great. Musically, it sounded like cement mixing. It was not my style of music - my style leaned more to The Velvet Underground - but I thought their stage show was very impressive. The club was half full but they were enthusiastic. The substance of my review, which ran in The Daily News, was how they looked. I described the band in detail and not so much the sound. They had clearly defined characters, and that's something I hadn't seen since The Beatles. Each member of the band was individualized. The makeup made all four guys distinct. The behavior onstage was also very distinct. I thought these guys had a shot at making it, because, at the very least, the next day people would say, "You should see what I saw!"