Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss Author: Peter Criss | Language: English | ISBN:
B007EDYN36 | Format: EPUB
Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss Description
LEGENDARY founding KISS drummer Peter “Catman” Criss has lived an incredible life in music, from the streets of Brooklyn to the social clubs of New York City to the ultimate heights of rock ’n’ roll success and excess.
KISS formed in 1973 and broke new ground with their elaborate makeup, live theatrics, and powerful sound. The band emerged as one of the most iconic hard rock acts in music history. Peter Criss, the Catman, was the heartbeat of the group. From an elevated perch on his pyrotechnic drum riser, he had a unique vantage point on the greatest rock show of all time, with the KISS Army looking back at him night after night.
Peter Criscuola had come a long way from the homemade drum set he pounded on nonstop as a kid growing up in Brooklyn in the fifties. He endured lean years, street violence, and the rollercoaster music scene of the sixties, but he always knew he’d make it.
Makeup to Breakup is Peter Criss’s eye-opening journey from the pledge to his ma that he’d one day play Madison Square Garden to doing just that. He conquered the rock world—composing and singing his band’s all-time biggest hit, “Beth” (1976)—but he also faced the perils of stardom and his own mortality, including drug abuse, treatment in 1982, near-suicides, two broken marriages, and a hard-won battle with breast cancer.
Criss opens up with a level of honesty and emotion previously unseen in any musician’s memoir.
Makeup to Breakup is the definitive and heartfelt account of one of rock’s most iconic figures, and the importance of faith and family. Rock ’n’ roll has been chronicled many times, but never quite like this.
- File Size: 5799 KB
- Print Length: 385 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1451620837
- Publisher: Scribner; Reprint edition (October 23, 2012)
- Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
- Language: English
- ASIN: B007EDYN36
- Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #34,922 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #33
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Composers & Musicians - #96
in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Composers & Musicians
- #33
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Composers & Musicians - #96
in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Composers & Musicians
Want to know how much Peter was being paid per show on the Reunion Tour? Want to know about Ace's big lie to Peter that permanently damaged their friendship? Or maybe you want to play a game and count how many times Peter mentions "Gene" and "herpes" in the same sentence throughout the book. Surprisingly, this is a pretty raw and honest account of Peter's life and career, and is definitely the best KISS bio to date. Peter spares no one, including himself. If you're a long-time KISS fan, you'll find that the venom he has for Paul and Gene runs pretty deep, but you can also definitely see why they referred to Peter as the "complainer." But Peter also holds himself over the fire - you learn how he blew through all of his KISS money (then AND now), destroyed his marriages, got lost in drug and alcohol abuse in and out of KISS, was suicidal many times, etc. And even post-KISS, you learn how much the failure of his solo album a few years ago almost did him in.
Peter really sticks it to Gene, Paul, Doc McGee, Tommy, Ace, his ex-wives, etc., but he backs it up with interesting, never-before-heard (for the most part) stories. As a longtime fan, I often found myself reading passages and thinking, "I can't believe he put that in print." The only people that really seem to be spared are Gigi (and you learn that that relationship hasn't always been smooth sailing either), Chris Lendt (I don't think I've ever read a bad word about Lendt from anyone), his daughter and a few close friends and family. And it was interesting to read how Peter's own parents got pissed at him about his marriage to Deb, how he treated them at times, etc.
The one thing you'll appreciate about this book is its honesty.
Let's face it, we all edit our own pasts in one way or another. We might believe we're being utterly truthful, we might even work very hard to "tell it like it was." But memories are selective critters. Spend a single afternoon listening to "eye witness" testimony at a trial and you will immediately see that even after a relatively short time each person's account of what happened will be unique and different. Many years ago I saw a tv movie (maybe a pilot for a show called, "The Rookies?) that showed the classroom and field training at a police academy. During one lecture, a man burst through the classroom door, fired several shots at the teacher, and then ran out. As the cadets jumped up to react, the professor popped up from behind his desk and told everyone to relax. It had all been pre-planned and staged. He then started asking questions about what color shirt the man had on, what color hair he had, how much he weighed, etc. No two police cadets gave the same description although the event had occured just moments before. Is Peter Criss telling the truth in this book? Yes, as far as he knows. But there are so many inconsistencies and just plain impossibilities as it all unfolds that it quickly becomes clear that some things are jaded, others are amalgams of several events blended together, and so forth. That isn't meant to imply dishonesty or duplicity on Peter's part. As I said, each and every one of us edits his or her own past to some extent. It's human nature. So what we have here is the most honest accounting according to Peter Criss, eyewitness to the (pardon the pun) lion's share of the life of the band Kiss. I was a witness to a very small part of it... a view from the cheaps, if you will.
I first saw the band at their very first concert outside of the NY/NJ metro area.
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