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It was during the sixth grade. Richard Hendershot approached me right after lunch and informed me that I had to join. I told him it really wasn't for me. By school years end it seemed half the kids heeded the call, and by the seventh grade it was evident that more and more of my peers were now serving proudly. I had avoided duty at all cost and it has come to my attention that I should hold my head in shame for I was a Kiss Army draft dodger. I never intentionally hid my failure to serve in this rite of passage for any kid growing up in the seventies. I never saw this as an issue but recently all that changed. A fellow music-loving friend was pillaging through my record shelves and pulled out Kiss Double Platinum. “I see you saved some treasured moments from your stint in the army,” he proclaimed as he opened up the gatefold. “Actually, I never served,” I replied and then explained how I remembered the record being advertised for sale on the TV with Gene, Paul, Ace and Peter urging you to join the KISS ARMY. I didn't buy it then, in fact, I had picked the album up at a yard sale for 50 cents a couple years ago for pure kitsch and nostalgia value. I then took the album from him and pulled out the application to enlist that was still intact with the packaging. The nostalgic memento with a list of all Army benefits didn't impress him, instead he stood in bewilderment while we listened to “Strutter”, “Do You Love Me”, “Hard Luck Women” and “Calling Dr. Love.” “You never were in the Kiss Army? What will you tell future generations? What the hell were you listening to back then, The Osmonds, John Denver? He was shocked and an explanation was in order. My early teen years were spent loving Alice Cooper, Blue Oyster Cult and Sweet. It is safe to say that this period explains the Uriah Heep and Deep Purple records in the collection. “Well, there was never an Alice Cooper lunchbox and I don't think you ever had any Eric Bloom or Buck Dharma action figures, and I doubt your best Halloween was one where you dressed up as Sweet. I think the debut Kiss album would be considered an underground classic on par with The Godz and The Dictators if no one bought their albums, just proves what snobs some of us really are.” I failed to buy into the four guys who shook their long hair in front of amplifier towers clad in leather and horror face paint, leaving blood, fire and broken guitars in their wake and thus I shirked my duties to popular culture. As “Deuce” played (a song I know ‘cause Redd Kross did it on Teen Babes From Monsanto), I thought about his statement comparing Kiss to The Godz. I was tempted to force him to listen to Nothing Is Sacred by The Godz, or even Crazy Horses by The Osmonds. Instead, I decided to pull the ultimate snob move and pull out the lowest selling recording hated by the even the loyalist Kiss Army soldier-- The Elder. The concept album about slaying evildoers surpasses all those fantazeepoo waltzes through topographical oceans. This is a record in all honesty that I have only listened to once maybe and never in its entirety, but Lou Reed helps out with some lyrics and it is delightfully campy conjuring up Spinal Tap like brilliance. This is so over the top you just know it has to be intentional parody. Was this another one of Uncle Lou's jokes like Metal Machine Music? Did Lou owe producer Bob Ezrin some cash for dope left over from the Berlin recording sessions? “Black Diamond” (a song I know ‘cause The Replacements covered it on Let It Be) ended the Double Platinum listening session. Now was the time to take in the glory of The Elder. “Just a Boy” soon followed the opening instrumental pomp of “fanfare.” The lyrics kicked in and we start to question why we are listening to this. Perhaps it would have been easier to have enlisted in the Kiss Army because next day Frank came over and asked if I ever joined the Abba Navy.
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