By Kendra Hibbert
June 13, 2003
As I covered in my review of Lemmy Kilminster’s LEMMY a few weeks ago, the Rock Star bio is an ancient and subtle art form that celebrates the pros of consuming copious amounts of drugs and alcohol and screwing as many species of the opposite sex as humanly possible. However, while these instructional manuals may be awe inspiring and educational, the inevitable follow-up book (like this week’s reviewed SEX, MONEY, KISS from Gene Simmons) is usually as valuable and insightful as a Milli Vanilli poster signed by your 5-year old cousin.
For a cradle-to-the-walker account of Gene Simmons life and career you’ll have to pick up KISS AND MAKE-UP, Simmons’ tell-all bio, or if that’s not available take a look in one of the kajillion books out there for the Kiss Army. SEX, MONEY, KISS while it does provide sporadic details of Simmons life, is more focused on the financial genius that is Gene Simmons, former sixth Grade teacher and publisher of a sci-fi ‘zine before he became a man who for years was known as “The Demon.”
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Simmons is very upfront about describing himself as a businessman first and a rock star second. When he was still very young he figured out the secret of the ridiculously simple business practice of giving the people what they want. This book is about all of his commercial ventures from the time he was a little boy in Israel selling cactus fruit to workers and taking the money home to his mother, to coming to the U.S. and making a small bit of cash with his self-published science fiction ‘zines and his two paper routes to starting a band to make some extra cash on the weekend (and get more chicks) to building the KISS Empire with Paul Stanley (though he maintains as in his other books that the other members of the band are more or less incompetent when it comes to money), to building Simmons Records, Simmons Video/DVD, Simmons Books, Simmons Audio and Gene Simmons TONGUE magazine (basically a clone of MAXIM) all the while sticking with very simple business advice of supply and demand.
The format of the book is incredibly straightforward – elementary concepts like “a penny saved is a penny earned” are repeated many times over the course of the book and, just for good measure, are printed in bold in the margins like a magazine article. If you’ve read Howard Stern’s PRIVATE PARTS or his follow-up, MISS AMERICA, you know the style with which this book has been composed, the latter title being the most comparative to this book – that is, a hastily composed text of little substance intended to cash in on the success of the first volume and dupe fans once again into spending their hard earned cash, tricking them into thinking that by buying this book they’ll be treated to some new, original insights about life and/or love from the outspoken men they idolize, but only disappointing them with the same tired, un-insightful views about women, sex and money.
Here’s an example of Simmons’ innovative business advice: “If the day ever comes and you’re lucky enough to make enough money from your hobby, do it full time” – I learned the same thing from my Guidance Teacher in Grade 8 (which I found a little confusing since, if he was following his own advice it would mean his hobby consisted of giving bad career advice to teenagers, but I digress). Occasionally Simmons offers some insights into sexual politics like: “Dumb men will always get married. So will smart women”. These “controversial” gems of advices are intended to be shocking but end up just sounding like rejects from an Andrew “Dice” Clay set from the late `80s. But controversy sells, especially if it’s printed in bolder, bigger font so people can read it while flipping through the book in the store, and apparently shiny things also sell, so I gather from Simmons’ choice to wrap the cover of this book with tinfoil (although, he should’ve learned selling books isn’t that easy from the “Foil Cover Fiasco” of the comic world). He also seems to have figured out adding lots of photos and little sidebars explaining in slightly more detail what he has just gone over in the bulk of the chapter distracts the reader from figuring out that there’s little substance of quality in this book.
This book is, essentially, a 1000-word magazine article gone mad with superfluousness, but it proves everything that Simmons writes within its pages on cutthroat business tactics and paying attention to supply and demand. With the platoons of KISS fans out there, Simmons obviously realizes he has a (thus far) inexhaustible resource of money willing to be thrown at him so long as he keeps sticking his tongue out and showing ‘the horns’. As a not-so-subtle hint at his adoring fans, Simmons Books (and the rest of the Simmons brand of products) uses a money bag for its logo as if in a fit of ironic conscience he wants everyone to know just what a cash grab this book is for him. If, clearly knowing his intentions to take their hard earned money away from him, they’re still willing to fork over $25 for the “limited addition signed copy” he can hardly be held responsible for stealing their money.
Obviously, Simmons’ business savvy approach to rock n’ roll has served him well. He’s a multi-millionaire who has a steady fan base he knows he can exploit who will be just as willing to return to him again and again even after the tenth foil-covered “controversial” re-telling of the KISS story is published. Kudos to him for finding his bottomless barrel of money. If you’re a KISS fan feel free to throw more money at your “God of Thunder”- I’ve got my own ridiculous obsessions I throw my money away on. If you’re not a KISS fan save your cash for something more meaningful like giving to your favorite book reviewer that writes for this site and has a first name that starts with K and rhymes with endra.
Next column: Finally, I’ll be reading the book the publishing world has been going nuts over, following the adventures of a famous character on a journey through a world of fantasy filled with sinister villains and their plots to overthrow the good and rule the world with their evil schemes. Of course, I’m talking about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s LIVING HISTORY. Come back in two weeks to see if this book is worth all the hype.
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