Doug Van Pelt

Who Cares About Don Miller, Anyway?

I do, for one. I love his writing, and what I love the most is how he's so religious. I also love how irreligious he is, willing to talk straight at a subject without watering it down for a prudish person who might get offended by anything outside of his/her culture.

But first, let's talk about Kiss. I recently bought Kissology, a DVD that chronicles their early years, from 1974 to their catapult to the bigtime by 1977. Some of the early stuff is embarrassing, but then so is the music from their first three albums. An appearance on the Mike Douglas show has Gene Simmons walking onto a set with his Alive era costume on, acting about as obtuse and offensive as he could in the mixed crowd on stage. It's funny to see this stuff. It's certainly understandable how/why they'd make such appearances, because Kiss was always about making it big-time. "I am evil incarnate," Gene almost mutters, as if a school kid almost daring enough to be bad and bold in front of his elders.

Most of Kiss' material is very elementary, kind of like how The Ramones boil down their take on pop, punk, and rock in its simplest terms and choruses. Kiss was a tad slow, even for their contemporaries, tempo-wise. Very slow and chunky rhythms with almost bebop stylings. "Let Me Go Rock and Roll" could've been a standard from the Bill Haley & The Comets era. The lyrics were a hoot, too.

"She's a dancer, a romancer / I'm a Capricorn and she's a Cancer /
She saw my picture in a music magazine /
When she met me, said she'd get me / Touched her hips and told me that she'd let me..."

Real deep and real hard to understand, huh? This simplicity and this angle were pretty much all that Kiss was about. This song is one of my favorites from their super simple first three albums, because of its melodic hook. While "Black Diamond" and "!00,000 Years" from the first album had some hooks, as did the title track from Hotter Than Hell, it wasn't until the breakthrough studio album Destroyer that they seemed to figure out what worked best. To their credit, they had some of the heavy, moving riffs down, as expressed in "She," "Rock Bottom" and "Parasite" and "Deuce."

Their skyrocket to fame, which included lunchboxes, Halloween costumes, action figures and Hot Wheels cars, was a phenomenon likened unto Star Wars. I was certainly a fan in the Destroyer, Rock And Roll Over, Love Gun, and Alive II era. That was some fun stuff for a 12, 13, and 14 year old. Turns out it was the band's creative apex. I'll never forget "cruising" the streets of Beloit, Kansas (yes, just like the 50s a la American Graffiti) and hearing "Christine Sixteen" on the radio for the first time. "Is that a new Kiss song?" I thought out loud. It had their unmistakable sound. I'm not sure how many units that sold, but it was surely their best-selling studio album since that time (unless their disco song, "I Was Made For Lovin' You" from a later album, Dynasty, sold more to the John Travolta's of the world).

I remember feeling like I'd graduated into quality musical tastes when I kind of left Kiss behind and started listening more to Aerosmith, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest and other 70s hard rock heavyweights.

If Don Miller and his friend Paul were to blast some music and play air guitar at the top of the Grand Canyon, I'm sure it wouldn't be Kiss, but it'd be a funny sight to see them banging their heads and prancing around like Paul Stanley, shouting: "I wanna rock and roll all nite, and party every day."

How's that for a sylicone smooth transition? I'll take WD-40 as a consolation answer.

"Miracles" is the title of chapter 14, and it begins with a conversation about snake bites. Then they break down. I guess there is a positive spin that can be applied to driving an untrustworthy old vehicle across the country, but what I remember about driving such a vehicle is stress. I was so concerned about making it to my destination that "enjoying the moment" was pushed aside. It's funny to be able to look back at setbacks, but at the time they are no fun.

Don upsets Paul with his attitude at first, being kind of light about the situation. When Paul goes from angry to mad, Don tries to sing him a song about when he lived in an orphanage. Paul tries to keep from smiling as Don belts out the song from Annie: "Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow, you're always a day away." Paul pats him on the head like a dog when he finishes prematurely due to not knowing the rest of the lyrics.

It turns into an interesting story that involves a scruffy man in a station wagon with family that stops to help them in the middle of nowhere (in the desert). They use a coathanger to repair the shifting rod connection to the transmission. They are told to drive into Vegas in second gear from there. What fun.

The best part of that story is that they made it out and they can now look back on it. That's the best part of problems. I remember praying to the Lord not too long ago about some troubling problems I was having, just thanking God and asking Him to give me the strength to make it to "the other side" of this problem.

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at November 27, 2006 12:17 PM