NOT THE ORIGINALS BOX SET Buffalo Rock City (independent) *****+
It’s going to be a very merry Kissmas for some lucky fans this year. The ultimate Kiss tribute series has pooled all four of their albums into a limited edition box set, available December 25th. Yes it will be released digitally, but 100 lucky fans will be able to get their hands on physical copies- good luck with that. Buffalo Rock City and Buffalo Rock City II I already have and have reviewed, so Buffalo Rock City Live and Solo Obsessions- a new disc covering material from the 1978 solo albums as well as stuff done outside of Kiss- are new to me and most welcome. Project mastermind is John Jeffrey of the Buffalo-based Kiss tribute act “Kiss This!” is to be commended for both the choice of material covered and the consistency of sound over all four discs. With over 50 Kiss tribute albums out there of varying quality, Not The Originals towers above them all- it’s not even close.
Buffalo Rocky City started innocuously enough. When that first volume came out I was able to secure an interview with Jeffrey, and we talked about its genesis. “In 2014 Kiss This! was playing the Hard Rock Café in Niagara Falls New York and a dear friend of mine, Jody Velletta, was the booking agent. After the show we started having that familiar Kiss fan conversation about aren’t there so many great songs that Kiss doesn’t play live. We talked about the great songs Kiss never plays and we were like “wouldn’t it be cool if we got together and played those songs?” With all the other Kiss fans we knew that were musicians in the area we said “wouldn’t it be great if we just got a bunch of us together and did this huge Kiss jam?” And then we were like “well if we’re going to do something like that we gotta record it.” And then it went to “we’re gonna record it well”, which led to “we’d better book studio time”. The funny thing is not once did we say that we’re going to do a Kiss tribute album, it was just we’re going to record us doing Kiss songs. But by default, recording all Kiss songs is a Kiss tribute album, so that was the genesis of “Buffalo Rock City”. Rather than a regurgitation of the big hits- do we really need another rendition of Rock & Roll All Nite- the focus is mainly on album cuts, the stuff Kiss never bothered with live. Another aspect that makes these songs work is there is no misguided attempt to reinvent the wheel as the musicians stick like glue to the original arrangements.
Buffalo Rock City and Buffalo Rock City II feature recordings of songs done by co-writers of the tracks; Mitch Weismann of Beatlemania singing While The City Sleeps, Jean Beauvoir singing Who Wants To Be Lonely for example. Box set producers John Jeffrey, Dave Comer and John Peace decided that, in addition to working with some great Western New York musicians they would recruit performers who played on some of the original tracks to recreate their parts for the Solo Obsessions volume of Not The Originals. As a result we get Tod Howarth from Ace’s solo band in the 80’s signature vocals on Insane and Mitch Weismann replicating his harmony vocals on Gene Simmons’ Mr. Make Believe.
Recording quality on all 4 discs is excellent, even BRC Live, and I daresay many of the performances are at least equal to the originals, and in some cases even better. That aside, what makes Not The Originals Box Set a home run for me is the selection of material covered. As a Kiss fan since 1974 I’ve heard all these songs, but each of the 4 albums has songs you might not necessarily expect. BRC-1 has Vinne Vincent’s Back On The Streets and Freak from Kiss’s last studio album Monster. BRC-2 has songs like Save Your Love and Saint & Sinner, BRC Live has killer versions of War Machine, Psycho Circus and Lick It Up, and on Solo Obsessions you’ll find Wouldn’t You Like To Know Me, Insane and I Can’t Stop The Rain.
If you sit down and listen to Not The Originals Box Set in one go- and I have, twice already- it plays like the coolest Kiss compilation ever assembled by a knowledgeable fan, which I suppose it is. The songs are faithful to the original arrangements, the performances are excellent and the production is absolutely top shelf, making this box set a pleasure to listen to. I’ve been a Kiss fan for 50 years so if there was anything shady or weak about Not The Originals Box Set I’d be the first to say so, but this is a blast to listen to. Better hit that website now.
HOT TRACKS
BUFFALO ROCK CITY 1: Freak, Back on The Streets
BUFFALO ROCK CITY 2: Save Your Love, Down On Your Knees
BUFFALO ROCK CITY ALIVE!: Psycho Circus, Shock Me
SOLO OBSESSIONS: Wiped Out, All About You
