Steve M.
06-09-2005, 10:37 PM
Before Kiss, there was Psychic Tomato.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/community/carnival/carnival_gallery/images/carnival_people1.jpg
Psychic Tomato in 1973 - Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, Strom Thurmond (now Ace Frehley, alias Fred Ace.)
Psychic Tomato was the group Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley founded with Peter Criss and a young giuitarist named Strom Thurmond. They played songs about eating sponge cake, saying hello ("Hi!", which lasted as long as it took to say "Hi"), saying farewell ("Bye!", which lasted as long it took to say "Bye"), life's embarrassing moments ("I Wet My Pants") and the meaning of life in iambic pentameter. Their act sounded like a commercial dead end to Neil Bogert when he signed them to a recording contract, so he had them do songs about virgins and sluts, changed Thurmond's name to Ace Frehley, and told them, "Keep it simple, stupid." Thus the name Kiss was culled from the acronym.
Bogert had them work out a new act at a Benihana of Tokyo in St Cloud, Minnesota as the house band, and a traveling kabuki troupe that performed there one night gave Kiss the idea for the stage act that would make them dirty rotten stinkin' filthy rich. So here's the question: Should the original group Psychic Tomato be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Pros:
Live At the Saint Cloud Benihana is a millstone - er, milestone among concert albums
"Sponge Cake" is one catchy song.
A rumored cover of "A Horse With No Name" on helium is supposed to be really cool!
They performed for a five-year-old girl in 1973 who would grow up to become Debra Messing.
The one studio record Psychic Tomato made, "Be a Mime," has echoes of "Strutter" in it.
Cons:
No one took them seriously in those clown suits.
Ace Frehley shared his previous name with a hated South Carolina senator.
They opened up for the New York Dolls once by spraying each other with whipped cream and throwing custard pies at the audience, which caused everyone to be arrested following a major food fight, denying the Dolls a shot at mainstream success!
And the biggest con against them. . .
I have now just made all of this up.
:lol: :D :rofl:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/community/carnival/carnival_gallery/images/carnival_people1.jpg
Psychic Tomato in 1973 - Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, Strom Thurmond (now Ace Frehley, alias Fred Ace.)
Psychic Tomato was the group Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley founded with Peter Criss and a young giuitarist named Strom Thurmond. They played songs about eating sponge cake, saying hello ("Hi!", which lasted as long as it took to say "Hi"), saying farewell ("Bye!", which lasted as long it took to say "Bye"), life's embarrassing moments ("I Wet My Pants") and the meaning of life in iambic pentameter. Their act sounded like a commercial dead end to Neil Bogert when he signed them to a recording contract, so he had them do songs about virgins and sluts, changed Thurmond's name to Ace Frehley, and told them, "Keep it simple, stupid." Thus the name Kiss was culled from the acronym.
Bogert had them work out a new act at a Benihana of Tokyo in St Cloud, Minnesota as the house band, and a traveling kabuki troupe that performed there one night gave Kiss the idea for the stage act that would make them dirty rotten stinkin' filthy rich. So here's the question: Should the original group Psychic Tomato be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Pros:
Live At the Saint Cloud Benihana is a millstone - er, milestone among concert albums
"Sponge Cake" is one catchy song.
A rumored cover of "A Horse With No Name" on helium is supposed to be really cool!
They performed for a five-year-old girl in 1973 who would grow up to become Debra Messing.
The one studio record Psychic Tomato made, "Be a Mime," has echoes of "Strutter" in it.
Cons:
No one took them seriously in those clown suits.
Ace Frehley shared his previous name with a hated South Carolina senator.
They opened up for the New York Dolls once by spraying each other with whipped cream and throwing custard pies at the audience, which caused everyone to be arrested following a major food fight, denying the Dolls a shot at mainstream success!
And the biggest con against them. . .
I have now just made all of this up.
:lol: :D :rofl: