Dr. Love Makes Housecall on Willow Street or I Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll All Night (in My Minivan)

Today, the most awesomest thing happened in Brooklyn Heights — this minivan with all FOUR members of KISS on it was parked on Willow Street. We’re talking original KISS here folks – Peter, Ace, Gene and Paul.

I’m sure my old pal/Brooklyn Heights native Binky Phillips would have a story to tell about that van… or at least the band.  Oh wait… he does:

Huffington Post:… From that moment on, Gene, an extremely cocky guy even then, always treated me with respect simply because of that amp, and later, as we became actual friends, because he liked my guitar playing, too. In fact, I wound up his guitarist-of-choice for several of his demos when KISS had become gods (why Gene has never released “Rotten To The Core”, I’ll never know!). And I’m very proud to report that, years later, Gene’s only directive to Ace, according to their engineer, Corky Stasiak, when Mr. Frehley was about to record the solo for “Doctor Love” was, “Do a Binky solo!” and Ace knew exactly what Gene meant and proceeded to cut one of his wildest and best solos ever.

Back to 1972, several months after I met Gene, I got a call from Stan. He announced that I needed to start calling him Paul, please, (“Oh… Okay, Stan”) and asked me to come down to a rehearsal of his and Gene’s new still-unnamed band. They’d just found a lead guitarist a month earlier and he wanted me to check the whole thing out. Stan, I mean, er, Paul respected my opinion and seemed to be seeking my lead-guitarist stamp of approval.

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  • Matthew Parker

    Dude, just saw KISS at Jones Beach last weekend and it RAWKED.

    Lots of explosions, They sounded great.

    Paul’s doing Pilates or something cause he’s still shirtless, and Gene’s still spitting blood at age 60, looking bad*ssed, and slightly like my zayde would if he’d be carrying a bass guitar that looks like an axe and dressed head to toe in leather and spandex.

    The boys from NYC still got it. Remember that Gene’s from Bklyn and Paul’s from Queens. Rock on.

  • Heather Quinlan

    Homer I hear you callin’ ….

  • Heather Quinlan

    Did you see a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac?

  • Arch Stanton

    If you are over eighteen and still into Kiss, you got a problem… LOL

  • Matthew Parker

    If the music’s too loud, you’re too old.

    Gene and Paul might be swigging Geratol backstage (where do you take yours?), but it was too much fun, they sounded great, and they rocked.

  • Arch Stanton

    Matthew, The music isn’t too loud… I is just immature. I loved Kiss from 12 to like 15… then I got into adult level music.

  • Matthew Parker

    @Archie:

    How special to learn that you exclusively enjoy “adult level” music. Good for you!

    I was responding to your snark comment that if one is over 18 and likes KISS, one must have a problem. The legions of fans (which included many, many families and primarily adults) at the Jones Beach show rocking out to some amazing music and fun are not the ones with the problem, mon frere.

    You’ll also catch me at the Met, Bargemusic, BAM, Glimmerglass. For me, and many others, one genre of music is not exclusive to the other. Apparently we differ on that opinion, thank goodness.

  • Homer Fink

    This should settle it, the definitive explanation (NSFW):
    http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1049699195882

  • Soulman

    Don’t particularly like Kiss and never did, but loved Matt’s comeback. At 63 I recently got into ZZ Top – it’s never too late.

  • Arch Stanton

    LOL Thanks Homer, you rock!!!!!

  • Billy Reno

    I was a member of the KISS Army, but I was hit by friendly fire for liking GWAR a little too much.