Tag Archives: the demon

“Happy 70th Birthday” To KISS’ Gene Simmons “The Demon” (8/25/2019)

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Greetings my Friends, I just wanted to take a moment out of the regular course of your day to remind you that today is the birthday of the great Gene Simmons of KISS. Yep, the bassist was born in Haifa, Israel on August 25th, 1949 making today his 70th Birthday. To that I think its acceptable for all of us to say “Mazel Tov” 🙂 The photo I added to this wish was snapped by me just the other day when the band performed at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center for the first time event. As you can see, he is not slowing down in his senior years at all. It was a mind-blowing show it and you will learn all about it in my upcoming concert review and gallery. Stay tuned for that.

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KISS’s Gene Simmons @ Barclays Center (2019) by Ken Pierce

PiercingMetal Thoughts: I don’t think that I need to remind the readership of PiercingMetal that KISS is my very favorite band of all time and that Gene is my favorite member of the group that he co-founded with Paul Stanley, “The Starchild” so many years ago. Gene is an icon in the music industry despite some critics and has shown the world the endless possibilities in branding and what is open to do with ones creative works. The images of KISS are found everywhere and especially in the comic books like in the just announced new series coming from Dynamite Entertainment called “KISS: Zombies”. You can bet your sweet bippy that I will be snagging that when it hits the racks of the local comic book store. For more of Gene’s overall life story you can refer to the link to his Wikipedia entry down below because there is too much to write. We just wanted to make sure to wish him a “Happy Birthday” and to remind our readers about the remaining dates on the “End Of The Road” World Tour. That stuff can be examined by clicking the highlighted text. See you again and I hope you had a great birthday Gene.

Official Websites:
KISS: http://www.kissonline.com
Gene Simmons: http://www.genesimmons.com
Official Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Simmons

Dynamite Entertainment Presents: New “KISS” Monthly Series

Your favorite Rock and Roll superheroes KISS are back in a brand new exciting comic book series that is coming care of Dynamite Entertainment. The byline reads as “KISS is back! Back to the FUTURE in this dark sci-fi adventure. In a world without sun and a world without heroes, four young friends embark on a dangerous mission – to uncover the truth about the mysterious Council of Elders and their underground home, the city of Blackwell. But first they need some help from the past…”

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The Official Dynamite Entertainment site had some commentary by writer Amy Chu about the series and I’ve shared that with you below.

“What is the power of KISS? I was having breakfast recently with the fabulous writer Kelly Sue DeConnick. When she found out I was writing this series, it was like firecrackers had been set off in the restaurant, she was so excited. So I’m doing this not just for the hardcore fans (like Kelly Sue) but also the new ones, like her children. It’s a huge challenge for me. KISS is iconic. Legendary. It’s global and cross-generational. So much has been done before with KISS in comics, a LOT of fun and crazy stuff. So for this series, I thought, why not go more serious? For research, I hunkered down and listened to the 1981 album Music from The Elder several times. Like the movie Blade Runner which came out around the same time, people didn’t know what to make of it. If this album came out now, I think it would be entirely different reception. So this storyline is more focused on mythology, heroism, and legend, and inspired by themes, lyrics, and song titles from that album.”

The series hits the stands on 10/19 so be sure to ask your favorite retailer to set some copies aside for you. Below you will find all of the variant covers of the first issue. Knowing how KISS fans collect things, there are going to be some barren shelves in the comic store on the quick side. Check them out.

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KISS’ “Gene Simmons” Solo Album Is 35 Years Old (1978-2013)

I’ve really been enjoying sharing these “Music Milestones” with you and well, to be honest anything in the “Milestone” category brings a smile to my face because it’s fun to reflect upon something that I remember buying way back in the day or have looked upon fondly for many years. Today’s “Milestone” is actually the first of four related topics because we are at the 35th Anniversary of the KISS Solo Albums – Lifelong KISS fans of a certain age might recall how in 1978 on this very day, four distinct albums were released to the public that showcased the creative side of each of the bands members. I’ll start with Gene Simmons since he has long been my favorite member of the band but as far as deep analysis of the album goes I am going to leave that to the Official Wikipedia entry which is at the bottom. You don’t need me to repeat what is already documented.
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DC Comics “The New 52” First Issues: “The Dark” Titles

As previously blogged about in the PiercingMetal Musings; DC Comics recently re-launched a number of titles and started them off from issue #1 under the branding of “The New 52”. The initiative’s prime objective being to up the number of titles available each month and to offer new readers an easier chance to jump on board with their characters. New costumes and beginnings are par for the course with the reboot but a number of the company’s most historic moments shall remain unaffected. The New 52 appears to have segmented the titles into a number of different groups based on the relation of the character – for instance there is a Superman and Batman grouping to enjoy and each title relates directly to the character. From these segments I have opted to share my thoughts on the first issues for your reading pleasure. “The Dark” appears to deal with those heroes and villains and others that go bump in the night and that made me think immediately to the nineties and Marvel’s oddly received “Rise Of The Midnight Sons” line of books. There were some winners there and of course losers as well. The Dark line did strike a chord of intrigue for me and those titles are Justice League Dark, Swamp Thing, Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E., Animal Man, I Vampire, Resurrection Man and Demon Knights. I did NOT manage to get copies of every title so those are only presented in their cover art. I do apologize to my readers and should I obtain them going forward the views will be added in post-mortem.

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“Justice League Dark” #1

Justice League Dark #1: The existence of a Justice League Dark piqued my interest quickly and it was a reminder of the whole Legion Of Monsters and the aforementioned Midnight Sons angle that Marvel Comics once did. You might recall those stories where the more questionable powers for good had free reign on the world’s villainy and dispatched them with little worry or mercy. As you know the DC Universe has a lot of mysterious powers of their own and this title rounds a bunch of them up and finds them working together for the sake of the world. That being said we find Madame Xanadu being put to a proper use along with Shade The Changing Man, Zatanna, Deadman and John Constantine (Hellblazer) who have joined together against the madness of The Enchantress in the debut of the new team. What intrigued me was how a number of Vertigo characters were now firmly ensconced in regular continuity and I will say that I was fine with that as periodically the Vertigo line was too “out there” for me. Several members of the Justice League make an appearance to show just how helpless they are against the forces of magic as a whole (with the exception of Zatanna) and while this took more pages than I felt were necessary to establish, it leaves us plenty of room for this team to build into something very interesting. I was happy to find Madame Xanadu in this title because she has a lot of potential as a character and never seems to be used as good as she can be. I also felt that it might be more interesting to see a return to original form for Shade than what his Vertigo title was doing. I am on the fence about Constantine though but remain open minded to see what the Brit brings to the table in this kind of scenario. Deadman barely makes an appearance but Zatanna comes off as a strong and independent character and before you ask, no, there are no fishnets and top hat in this one. Sorry to disappoint you but perhaps she will change over time as well. I am interested in the second issue for sure and hope that we find The Phantom Stranger, Mr. E. or perhaps even Doctor 13 paying a visit. The story is penned by Peter Milligan with art by Mikel Janin. Nice stuff from Mikel for sure and a solid read from Milligan.
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The KISS Invasion Reaches 7-Eleven – Gulp!

When KISS released their “Sonic Boom” album back in the summer of 2009 it set off a marketing blitz that I documented in a blog posting entitled “KISS Invades Wal-Mart”.  The reason we felt that writing this up was so interesting was based on just how much product with their branding had been delivered to the consumer in addition to the album which at the time of this writing has sold over 500,000 copies. We featured a number of images from the massive campaign that the kings of the nighttime world had presented to their fans at the Wal-Mart store and offered up our thoughts on them as a lifelong fan and a consumer so please check it out via that title above. With that being said, we were certainly never expecting this sight when entering one of the local 7-Eleven convenience shops in our neighborhood.

The Hottest Big Gulp Cup In The World – KISS!!!

Yep, you are seeing this correctly, it’s KISS on a soda fountain dispenser and in connection with all these Dr. Pepper commercials that we see Gene Simmons doing, there are now four different Super Big Gulp cups to collect and add to your stash of KISS memorabilia.  Of course the particular store that I first visited didn’t have these cups anymore but was still displaying the sign and as a maniac for that which be KISS I was feeling rather mocked.  Lucky for me there was another store I could check a little more than a mile away.  Onward I went and what the hell, a little exercise is never a bad thing these days.
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