Earlier this week, Paul Stanley of KISS played at the House of Blues in support of his new solo disc (only his second, the first being released in the late '70's) "Live To Win." Before the show, I took 10 Loop listeners (who had won the prize during my show) along with me to Paul's sound-check. Paul and his band ran through a private mini-concert of 4 or 5 songs from his new CD for us while the sound and light guys tweaked their settings for the show later that evening. Paul was in a jovial mood, bantering back and forth with us between songs. After the sound-check I brought all the winners around to meet Paul. He signed autographs, posed for pictures and chatted with each excited winner. Their beaming faces said it all. To cap off the evening, each winner and a guest got to attend Paul's concert later that night. If you are a KISS fan (and even if you aren't), I highly recommend picking up the just released "KISSOLOGY Vol. 1 1974-1977" DVD set. Nearly 7 hours worth of previously unreleased live performances from the band's formative years have been restored, remastered and presented in a very handsome package. Gene Simmons is a huge Beatles fan (he saw them on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 and it changed his life) and told me he wanted to create a "hard-rock Beatles" with KISS. When you see this early footage, you will be struck with how much he indeed studied and carefully employed the Beatles as a template for their songs and stage presentation. Then they added Japanese Kabuki theatre make-up, wild costuming, lots of pyro and Marshall stacks, and voila! A legend was born. KISSOLOGY Vol. 2 and 3 will follow shortly.