Rock and Roll Over: An old Kiss fan finds his way back.

My musical awareness began when I was about five years old around the early 1970s. Aside from there being not much to watch on television, my father had a couple of turntables where he would spin records. It helped that he was a record company executive that distributed Casablanca Records (among others) in the Philippines. That meant Donna Summer, Teri De Sario, the Village People, and Kiss. 

Kiss was the first band that I seriously got into. I collected every record from their debut all the way to Unmasked. More on that later. I joined the Kiss Army, bought and read the Kiss comics and dreamed of seeing them perform live. I saw the Kiss film and had a bunch of merchandise. And I wished I would get to see them live. 

Many of my classmates were into Kiss and we got into debates with others who rooted for the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Queen etc about who was the better band. Crazy stuff.

However, by my high school years, I made the move to punk rock which had taken ahold of my senses -- and new wave. I got into the Ramones and the Clash and that opened me up to ska and reggae.

It wasn't that I outgrew Kiss. When my father was promoted to president of the Philippine Association of the Record Industry (the local counterpart of the RIAA), my supply of US pressings of Kiss ended. By my mid and late teen years, I began playing in a band and while I still bought records,  my comic book collection grew. Living on a schoolboy's allowance and trying to earn on the side by collecting soda bottles and their deposits as well as doing my classmates' homework or art projects for them helped me buy my comics and records. 

When we moved houses, my mother threw out almost all my record collection. A few survived and what survived was further whittled down when we lost our home to a fire. 

As I switched to compact discs, I had no Kiss CDs. That is until 2003's Alive IV. But even that wasn't enough to bring me back or make me pick up those old records. Even when I moved to New York City for a while, I still wasn't able to see Kiss. I really wish I did now.

Even as I went back to vinyl only in January 2017, I never picked up a Kiss record and I wondered why. I wanted to get all my favorites from my youth and then some. But nary a Kiss record. Until Rock and Roll Over. Sure I loved that cover. Always have. The one I wanted to jump back into was either Love Gun or Alive II. But I couldn't find a "clean" copy. Until Rock and Roll Over.

I cannot begin to tell you all the emotions and memories that came flooding back when the record began playing. Surprisingly, I still knew the lyrics. I enjoyed it so much I spun the record thrice. 

And now, I am back and will begin hunting down those old records. It will be harder to find copies in near mint or very good condition but that is the thrill of the hunt.

I'm back in (a New York), er... Kiss groove.