Decibel Geek Podcast - Vinnie Vincent Special Part 1

[erg2]

A bunch of technicalities and an a-hole move by G&P.

Kiss had an agreement in their contract with Polygram where their unsold albums couldn't be given to second-hand stores. Coincidentally, their contract also gave them the right to dictate how many albums were manufactured.

So KISS forced the record company to manufacture 1 million of each solo album and a year later they had about 2 million unsold albums. The record company moved the 2 million unsold records to the discount bin to try and recoup some of their costs.

KISS sued them for breach of contract, which was a dick move. They made millions and the record company never made KISS a priority again.

[Genebaby]

That sounds about right. They got some money back but it was a bad move as their career tanked and there was not much love from their new Polygram masters after they had just sued them.

[erg2]

There was some other stuff in the suit as Genebaby said, but the "biggie" that they put at the forefront was the solo albums being sold in discount bins, discount stores, etc. That also played a big part in Ace pretending to still be in the band during the CotN era. The contract would only be resigned if Ace was in the band. They made it look like Ace was in, got the contract signed and then sued.
Douche.
Bags.

And THEY talk about unethical behavior...

[Genebaby]

Lucky Chris wrote it all down in his book so history is preserved.

[erg2]

It's a great read. I've been thinking about re-reading it again after having recently read the Eric Carr book and the Casablanca/Bogart book.

[Genebaby]

I definitely need to read it again, it's great.

What did you think of the Casablanca book, is it mostly about Kiss?

[erg2]

The Casablanca book is lacking in specific detail. It's very high level.
Instead of "This happened" it was "This kind of thing happened".

Not to say there were no specific stories, just none that I can remember about KISS. It was more about the Casablanca staff and one of the things I got from the book was that the actual KISS members were not in tight contact with record company.

They talk about going to club 54 because of all the disco hits and that Paul went...but no real "on this one night Paul did this crazy thing" stories.

Interesting as a different perspective for the obsessive KISS fan on the big picture, but light on nitty-gritty.

[Genebaby]

Cool, thanks for the review. I might get it one day still then but it's not a priority.

[erg2]

Delaney's "pamphlet" of a book was more fun and had more detail in it's scant pages than the Casablanca book.
What sucks about the Delaney book is that I've read online that there was a LOT more written with a LOT more stories but for some reason(s) they were cut out or not included.