So about thirty-five years ago, when the whims of fat white women dominated the billboard charts[1], there was a product called "Elvis Having Fun On Stage". Essentially, it was the culminating act in Colonel Tom Parker's lifelong platform to suck every fucking last marketable molecule out of Elvis Aaron Presley's bloated pre-corpse[2]. Without underselling the vast, complicated tapestry of awful that acted as marrow in the sonic abortion, it's basic format was Elvis doing stand-up comedy. At least, Elvis doing stand-up comedy, but with the role of "humor" being played by "epic fucking tragedy". Forty minutes of on-stage banter. Hiccups. Humming. Awkward half-jokes. Edited together by some Nazi after their cash cow, the aforementioned EAP, was deemed disappointingly unproductive.
In short, it's one of the reasons why people like myself are fiddling as the record industry burns towards a fucking self-created, fourth-circle-of-hell degree of flaming fucked. So legendary was this relic of Elvis' pill-hound decay that, long out of print, it became mythologized the way shitty things often are. Inevitably, the indie-rock crowd needed to pay homage, because as we all know, ironic comedy was the Lord's seventh day masterwork [3]. The second act was cast, with the lead role played by Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices. GBV (one of the few indie rock bands wise enough to realize that it's members are interchangeable components merely designed to approximate the best of Pere Ubu) was led by Robert Pollard; an alcoholic elementary school teacher with a loose tongue.
As he toured the country endlessly, drunkenly disparaging every other musician alive or dead during his epic stage banter, he assembled an aggregate of raw material that even an Jimmy Buffet fan could compile into a relatively charming slab of high-octane drunk shouting. The magnificent bearded bastard eventually took these soundboard mixes, and edited them together into a drunken sound collage of genius/retardation called "Relaxation of the Asshole". There's a fucking rant entitled "My Brother's a Better Guitar Player Than Joan Jett" for Christ Sakes. It's comedy gold; and like all all divine humor, rooted in the truth.
Anyway, tangents, excessive context, and three Natty Ice cans later, it's rather evident that there's a larger point here, and said point is this:
Kicking Elvis when he was down was rather shitty, but at the very least, it gave us a lens through which we could hilariously illuminate the minor flaws of a canonical indie rock artist. Said lens, though, lends itself far more fascinatingly to a more nuanced examination of these people/car crashes than either of the instances above. Nuances of editing, let me clarify; not people of nuance.
Paul Stanley, the mouthpiece of the KISS army, could never be considered a man of subtle tones[4]. Since even the extreme loyalists would grow nauseous listening to Brother Chaim's lengthy treatises on poonannie ad infinitum, Paul holds the reins during the set, in order to keep people that purchased $700 concert tickets from throwing up on adjacent members of the New York Jets Set[5]. Inasmuch as they tour with the zest of Shawn Kemp avoiding welfare police, though, the guy sort of has to make up the banter as he goes along. God knows the ocean of d-bags that would see Gene and the boys in Giants Stadium would know if the banter was pre-written. This ongoing exercise in improv is obviously complicated by the brain damage that comes from thirty years of aqua net skull absorbtion, and having intercourse with Cher[6]. In short, there's a perfect storm of idiocy, ripe to be ripped from it's already fragile context and reappropriated for evil and mischief. Thankfully, one magnificent bastard did just that, splicing and editing years of it together, creating the Mona Lisa of arena rock banter.
"All right Richmond, Virginia: Is this, or is this not, THE ROCK AND ROLL CAPITOL OF VIRGINIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
I couldn't have said it better myself, Paul.
*begins slow clap*
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Pull up a chair, pour a nice tall glass of glogg[7], and put on your headphones. Without further ado, the funniest thing I've listened to in almost a year:
Paul Stanley - People Let Me Speak From My Chest
(via the21gunsalute)
[1]unlike today, obviously
[2] I consider ejaculate-worthy material such as "Suspicious Minds" to be flukes, albeit goddamn phenomenal ones
[3] At least, that's how Genesis reads in that Old Testament bible I found in the Lorimer train station in Williamsburg.
[4] The joke at the 4:51 mark supports my thesis
[5] And in spite of all of this, terrifyingly, I'm warming up to KISS, even as a jaded mu'fucka in my mid-20's. I'm wearing a garlic cod-piece out of fear that the specter of Eagles appreciation cannot be too far behind.
[6] Technically, this may have actually been Eric Carr, or Gene Simmons. However, I reserve the right to lump every one of these assholes together into an monolithic amalgam, until six months from now when I rip off Chuck Klosterman and claim that Stanley is actually a sensitive genius, unfairly miscast as a misogynistic, phallocentric musician/super-hero
[7] Obviously Paul Stanley's Swedish Christmas beverage of choice, referenced on track 36, during one of many introductions for "Cold Gin". It's a nice way to kick off the portion of the album recorded in Sweden, where Paul attempts to win over the tow-headed masses with mispronounced cheeky Scandinavian phrases. Really people, it doesn't get any better than this.
