KISS's Fake Live Album

In 1975, the conventional live album was a straightforward document of a single concert, often used by labels as a cheap stopgap between studio records. By the time producer Eddie Kramer finished mixing KISS Alive!, the live album had been rebuilt into a massive, engineered studio construction designed to surround the listener and simulate the experience of being in the arena. It proved that a live album could be a controlled dramatic event, and the commercial explosion that followed established a new standard for how the industry treated live rock recordings.

This episode follows KISS and producer Eddie Kramer into Electric Lady Studios as they work to salvage four unusable live concert tapes. We cover the financial desperation of Casablanca Records, the three-week process of overdubbing out-of-tune guitars and missed vocals, and Kramer's inventive use of tape loops to "play" the crowd noise like an instrument.

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Sources and Further ReadingFeatured Articles & Interviews- "Mars Music Presents Ask Eddie!." Kiss Asylum.

- "Eddie Kramer Never Stops." Mix Online.

- "They were doing some fixing on their live record: Peter Frampton claims Kiss borrowed his guitars to do overdubs on KISS Alive!." Guitar.com.

- "50 Years Ago: Kiss Comes 'Alive!' Using Studio Magic." Ultimate Classic Rock.

- "If that album bombed we would have been dropped from the label!: Kiss stars recall the album that saved the band." Yahoo Entertainment.