Kiss – Horny Bitches & Daisy Daze (The Godfatherecords G.R. 978)

Horny Bitches & Daisy Daze (The Godfatherecords G.R. 978)

The Daisy Amityville, Long Island, NY, USA – June 16, 1973

(70:48) Nothing To Lose, Firehouse, Life In The Woods, Simple Type, Acrobat, Deuce, 100,000 Years, Black Diamond, Strutter, Watching You, Sunday Driver

In mid December 2013 the KISSNation was abuzz with the appearance on a few of the well know torrent trackers of what many fans consider the Holy Grail of KISS Koncerts, the recording of the band at the Amityville club know as The Daisy. Equally and perhaps even more important of a venue the famous Coventry, KISS played a total of 12 gigs at the club (according to KISS Alive Forever) throughout 1973. Away from the larger Rock scene of New York City, the band was able to further hone their live act in relatively relaxed atmosphere and in typical KISS fashion quickly won over the local rock fans and strengthened their already incredible confidence. Recorded by original sound man Eddie Solan, it is an excellent soundboard, with a slight distortion on the vocals when the various vocalists scream and a few songs are not as well balanced as the rest of the set, but there is virtually no hiss. For a 40 year old live recording it is an incredible listening experience, the folks at Godfathers has done a wonderful job mastering the recording by smoothing over a few of the rougher spots. There have already been a couple of releases of this tape, Live At The Daisy (Lost and Found LAF 1889) is a pro-CD-r release and Amityville 1973 (Zodiac 051), all three releases have the same musical content.

“Long Island’s Strangest Nite Club – Warm Beer – Rotten Food – Lousy Bands – Crazy Bartenders – Cheap Beer”

This was the description of the club as printed on the back of the match books given in advertisement of the club, and what better place to find KISS pre record contract and still looking to complete the image they had been working on since the band’s incarnation in Early 1973. They had pretty much figured out the individual make up for each member but it still had a crude look and they still had elements of a Glam look in their stage attire. One things they did not lack at this early stage, was music chops, one always hears of KISS being somewhat sloppy and spending more time on looks and moves versus music but it takes one listen to this recording to know that KISS was a musical force during their infancy. The first set begins with Nothing To Lose, the structure and lyrics of the song are all there but this version is “busy”, a few little solos here and there, the band would strip it down farther to complete it. Peter tells the audience it’s their last show in Amityville and that they have a mailing list and if you sign up they will send you a postcard with their pictures on it, so the horny bitches can do themselves with it, KISS had the sexuality part down already. Also interesting is Peter doing some MC, he was the most experienced member as a live performer at this point. Firehouse is not as refined, in fact in the middle part you can hear traces of the riff that Ace would use in his solo later when it was a part of Cold Gin, a theme that would be expanded upon later in the show.

Life In The Woods is an unreleased song, it is also a vehicle for crowd participation, Paul tells the audience they won’t be back for sometime so “We’re not coming back here for a while…let’s get it out of our system tonight”. The song actually is pretty good in a musical sense although the lyrics are the repetitive “Life in the woods would be easy” and Paul demands “lets see some tits shake….lets get our friends up on stage with us”, and an audience member comes up and takes over on vocals as the band succeeds in starting a party, they get a nice ovation at the songs conclusion. Simple Type is a take on the old Wicked Lester song but stripped down and the band has put a hard rock spin on it musically and vocally making it much more effective, although one can see why it did not make it past being a set filler. The middle section of the song is the main riff from Ace’s future solo spot in an embryonic form and Peter takes a brief solo before the whole thing moves into jam territory that is really cool to hear. One of the exiting aspects of this show is a complete version of Acrobat along with Your Much To Young, as with any version of Acrobat it is great, a simple yet heavy as hell riff and the song is a rare KISS instrumental, the song is broken up by a Peter drum solo that has the band changing gears and they plow into Your Much Too Young. The song is a fast up tempo rocker and almost has a boogie feel to it as well as another spot for a drum solo, Peter was most certainly an important part to the early live set.

“This is gonna be our last song…” leads into Deuce and the primal rock fury is unleashed, the song is all there, Ace’s solos are a bit different and they break the song’s momentum by going into this jam thing making the ending not as effective as it could be, Gene thanks the crowd at its conclusion. Back for an encore the band go into 100,000 Years, this song suffers from tape warble. It is interesting that the middle portion of the song is very similar to the Alive! version call and response except it is more geared to overt sexuality and Paul lets the women in the audience know what he wants, the tape warble does improve near the end of the song. A shout out for “un wed” Fathers Day” leads into a very dynamic Black Diamond, as with Deuce the song is probably the most complete. Peter’s vocals are high in the mix and he is all over his KISS and was thrashing like a mad man. The ending of the song is very long, one can wonder why there were so many long pauses.

The last three songs are from the second set of the night, there is notable tape hiss present and the quality drops a notch,  the music begins with Strutter, musically most complete of all the early Klassics only real difference is Ace’s solo is a little different. The sound does fluctuate towards the end by dropping in volume. Paul asks for a second to change a broken string, Gene takes over and tells the audience to go sign up for their mailing list and offers something “extra” if they do so. Watching You suffers from tape warble, interesting to hear since the song would not be released for well over a year on the band’s second album Hotter Than Hell. Musically the song is close to the released version and is very strong and is a wonderful addition to the set. The last song is Sunday Driver, it would be released on the band’s debut album re titled Let Me Know. It is one of Paul’s earliest songs and is famous in KISS lore as being one of the songs Paul played for Gene when they first met. It’s amazing to hear this tape, the band’s talent as musicians and song writers is apparent at this very early stage.

The packaging is the usual tri fold sleeve, the front cover is taken from the band’s first press kit, there is a picture on the inside of KISS with Sid Benjamin who was the owner of the Daisy as well as live shots from the band’s show at the Hotel Diplomat on July 13, 1973 and the August 1973 dates at The Daisy, there is also a picture of Gene’s handwritten list of gigs, the Daisy matchbook and advertisement to boot. Again Godfather goes the extra mile in making sure the presentation matches the music. As KISS releases go this is most certainly the most important and relevant recording to surface for some time and for the KISS fan, essential.