I was gripped by four black-and-white-painted faces, each with a character-driven expression that gazed back; one with pouting lips, a painted star around his right eye, a cocky, silver-nosed feline, a menacing, demonic figure — mouth agape in angst — and a silver-speckled, burst-eyed space creature staring into the void. Black-clad against a dark backdrop. Each wore lipstick, either red or black, half of them with studded dog collars. The logo mesmerized me, too, replete with lightning bolt S’s, letters formed with spangle — emitting flash — that I recreated with pen, marker and chalk, defacing notebook covers, classroom desktops, and building facades.
A seamless integration of sound and vision, hotter than fucking hell.
*****
As fellow Catholic elementary school classmates and I streamed past the turnstiles that marked our entrance into the famed NJ amusement park Bertrand’s Island, we released the tension from the sweaty hour-long bus ride with bursts of energy and teen entitlement. Most of my classmates gravitated toward daredevil rides that produced nausea and vomit from me; I couldn’t stomach any sudden jerks, let alone flips. Literally. Bumper cars were my speed. I took too much pleasure when I caught an unsuspecting classmate in the corner of the track and rammed them full-on. Or turned the wheel abruptly to make the car spin in place which rebounded anyone who approached. Or ignored the rules of the ride and drove in the opposite direction of the required flow of traffic. I’m not sure what the point was to enforce a rule that insisted everyone drive in the same direction, only to gently swipe another car in the process.
They’re fucking bumper cars, their purpose is to bump.
But that day, I wasn’t in the mood for playful, even spiteful mischief. My penchant for wanderlust veered me off course with a few curious friends to explore the grounds of this field day destination. Aside from the usual carnival fare — roller coasters, cotton candy, and tilt-a-whirls — an attraction caught my attention because of the music that blared from its front door: The Electric Cube. Intrigued by the name, I peered inside and urged my buddies to follow.
Constructed prior to World War I, Bertrand’s Island Amusement Park sat on the peninsula of the same name in Lake Hopatcong, NJ. The land was first designated as a picnic area but developed over the years to a fully operational amusement park. The Wildcat roller coaster — built in the 1920’s as part of its expansion — was its claim to fame. For more than 60 years, it was a tucked-away respite destination in the northwestern part of the Garden State, attracting the likes of people such as Woody Allen, who used it on location in his 1985 film The Purple Rose of Cairo shortly after it closed.
To us, it was a slice of felicity in a corral of dogmatic hell.
The sonic thrust of rock and roll louder than I’ve heard it before greeted us at The Cube’s entrance. Aside from the small speakers on my bedroom stereo — the 8 track-equipped Lafayette that my Uncle Frank bought me in the summer of ’76 — I hadn’t experienced any music, particularly music that I adored, played at such a high decibel level. As a bonus, the DJ was spinning one of my favorite albums, Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. Every instrument — from Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones’ slogging riffs on “The Rover,” the pummeling of John Bonham’s frenetic paradiddles on “Trampled Under Foot,” to Robert Plant’s death wail in the coda of “In My Time Of Dying” — was detailed, as if someone lifted a veil from the recording. This liberated me so radically, I could hardly contain myself.
Then, the DJ switched gears and changed the record…
*****
Each morning in the summer of 1974, I awaited my super-cool, feather-haired 18 year-old counselor Tony to pick up me and four of my fellow campers in his ’68 white Camaro, on the corner of Kamena St and Anderson Ave, a parcel of the main drag that slinked through my humble 3/4 square mile hometown of Fairview, NJ. It was far too early for any sane person to witness the day dawning.
By sheer luck, I was first on my counselor’s route and took advantage of my good fortune by settling into the black leather front bucket seat and riding shotgun each day. Tony’s car was an anomaly; his quick, sleek machine was in sharp contrast to my usual ride, dad’s Chrysler boat-on-wheels, in all its unglamorous tan benched-seated, automatic-shift glory. But the chief difference between the two vessels that caught my eye was the 8 track player sitting mid-dash. Each morning, Tony popped in a different tape, and those albums would become musical touchtones: Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street, Bad Company’s Straight Shooter, Steely Dan’s Katy Lied to name a few. There was also a new band that he played for me, “Kiss, from New York, their first album.”
The name excited me. As I thought about how exciting it was to kiss two-doors-down Denise in the alleyway leading to our concrete slab of backyard, I came to the conclusion that I may have a kinship with this band.
As the cartridge snapped into place and the player hissed at us, the first drum notes — a 4-count of snare and tom flams with kick accents — spilled into the main chord progression of lead track “Strutter,” and I was drawn to the catchy and immediate songs. They were guitar-forward with a heavier arrangement than I was accustomed to, and they struck a close comparison to The Raspberries’ “Go All The Way,” a potent slab of fuzzy power pop and a personal game-changer just a few years prior.
After a week of repetition — I’d learned most of the lyrics, or at least my interpretation of them — I formed a mental image of the band. I hadn’t yet studied the cover — ritual for me — but took cues from other rock record jackets I’d prized in local shops. Textbook 70’s chic — long, draping hair with come-hither facial expressions, bell bottoms and tight tees — formed my visual.
At the end of that week, when the car cleared of bodies, I asked Tony to eject the tape from the player so I could see the cover; even at any early age, I’d been compelled by album art; the composition of images, font choices, type placement, and logo design. He smirked and handed me the cartridge, knowing full well the reaction it might elicit.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
As my obsessive personality would form, so, too did my compulsion with Kiss, retracing their history like some mad music archivist, purchasing every back-catalog record, as well as each new one on release day; anything less would have deemed me an inadequate fanboy. Kiss posters swallowed every last bit of real estate on my bedroom walls, so I took to pinning them on the ceiling, enthralled by each pose, each expression, each clenched instrument. Purchased every magazine that featured an article or photo spread. Collected every bubblegum card. Saved every album insert, sticker, and merchandise order form. Even forked over $10 of my hard-earned table-bussing earnings and joined the Kiss Army fan club for two consecutive years, as I stowed away every component from each membership kit.
Their music had always been my point of focus, but their image played a role in my fixation, too, especially when I finally saw full body images and concert shots in various Creem, Circus, Hit Parader, and Rock Scene magazines. I’d long been keen on aesthetic appeal, sound and vision: lean, black and silver-outfitted, hair hog-wild with androgynous appeal, perched on 7-inch leather boots, clutching low-slung guitars, and peering through fogs of smoke and shafts of fire.
Hyperbolized alien rockers whose sole purpose was to instruct misfits like me how to own my power.
*****
As I sensed the morph in mood and rhythm the DJ shifted into, my ears perked at the picking acoustic guitar that opens the album, the exigent call-to-arms vocal that soon follows, the tone-soaked 1/16 note electric guitar strumming pattern, the crack of the snare that ushers in the full-on band assault. The song was direct and recognizable — “I Want You” — and I was dumbfounded by the DJ’s selection, like he was spinning this just for me. Rock And Roll Over by Kiss was released 6 months prior, and I’d memorized every inch of it. It became my favorite Kiss album to that point; this became substantiated when Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert — a late night music program showcasing then-current acts — premiered three previously-taped lip-synced performance videos of “Hard Luck Woman,” “Love ’Em And Leave ‘Em” and the aforementioned tune, predating MTV by 4 years, arguably my generation’s Ed Sullivan-Beatles moment. Nothing short of nuclear annihilation would have peel me away from our tiny 12-inch Hitachi TV, the one I acquired for family viewing peddling tooth-rotting candy door-to-door. Not even verbal slings hurled by my mother and father, like “look at them, they’re so ugly, disgusting no-talent low-lifes” or “lower the volume or I’ll turn it off,” expressly aimed at tarnishing this ebullient teenage moment.
This fledgling experience in a place adorned with incandescent lights, sonically-submersive rock and roll, and boundless floor space to expand and contract my body freely was atypical. Many future dancers start by contorting their bodies in the comfort of their living room, flanked and prodded by mom and dad, showcasing their newly-minted moves in front of grams and gramps and the rest of the extended family. As if parading the dog and pony show at the behest of others is a conscious choice we would make. This was different; the space, the music, the circumstance, calling me to remember who I was. Somehow I’d forgotten, as I’d placed too much merit on others’ unrealistic expectations of me. Or because the hope and joy of having dreams was beaten out of me. Either way, I was seeking every opportunity to shed the daily poison shrouding me at school and at home.
As the music thrashed around me like a sonic tornado I was caught in the eye of, I took note of this multi-sensory experience: a strobe light flaring hopelessly out of time with the snare, flashes of primary pigments saturating the iridescent walls of the dance space, the slight give in the floorboard as I thrashed myself about. My body became weightless, arms flailing as if treading water for the first time, feet scuffling to the muscular rhythm, my entire being an expression of the music’s urgency, at times facing off with my buddies in striking, leg-splitting rock star poses. Pinwheeling in vibrancy, as if captured in a kaleidoscopic wonderland, each song providing a singular soundtrack to my copious motion.
I stayed there for the remainder of the album.
It would take some urgent prodding from teachers to transpose me from this kinesis; I had found a veritable home in The Electric Cube, a sense of oneness and inclusion. To that point, I’d never been in total harmony with myself and my surroundings, an unbounded bliss, a total freedom of mobility that rescued and empowered me, an autonomy that began to embed in my psyche, grounding me with purpose and clarity at times when I needed it most.
A private oasis that adults couldn’t penetrate or pilfer to decimate dreams.
An unforeseen initiation to movement in extreme sound and vision in which I caught a glimpse of my future self.
