Gene Simmons, bassist and co-lead singer of KISS, messaged the Hungarian fans in their mother tongue:

As LiveNation writes, “after an epic 45-year career that launched an era of rock n roll legends, KISS launched their final ever tour in 2019. Known for their trademark larger-than-life blistering performances, KISS has proven for decades why they are hands down the most iconic live show in rock’n’roll.  The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers, who have sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, have said this tour is devoted to the millions of KISS Army fans. The farewell tour will stop at Budapest Arena as well.”

KISS’s Budapest concert will take place on July 14th as part of the End of the Road World Tour.

sources (article; video): Hungary Today; KISS, Budapest 2022, Live Nation Hungary, Youtube

“Be there or be square”

Be there or be square is an idiomatic expression used humorously to mean that if you don’t attend or show up wherever “there” is – usually it is an exciting event – you aren’t very cool. In other words, you’ll be missing out; you won’t be in the know. (The phrase is in jest and not truly meant to imply that the inviter will think you boring or unfun.)

It’s used to encourage someone to attend a happening or to show up where they’re invited. The origin of be there or be square appears to be the jazz scene of the 1940s. It derives from the slang use of the word square, meaning conservative or conventional.

source: The Word Counter

The band are currently on a farewell tour, where they will also visit Hungary. What people might not know is that Simmons’ parents were from Hungary and he speaks Hungarian fluently.

Early life

Gene Simmons was born on August 25, 1949, as Chaim Witz. His parents were Jewish immigrants. His mother, Florence Klein was born in Jánd, Hungary, she and her brother were the only members of her family to survive the Holocaust and she was in Nazi concentration camps. His father, Ferenc “Feri” Yehiel Witz, was a carpenter.

The family were poor, and Simmons spent his childhood in Tirat Carmel, in a Jewish household. When he was only 7, he started picking fruit to sell on roadsides.

His parents split up and at 8 he went to live in New York City with his mother, he changed his name to Eugene Klein. His father stayed in Israel, where he later had other children.

He went to college in New York and took his stage name from the singer Jumpin’ Gene Simmons. He had a few jobs including teaching and typing work he also worked as an assistant at Vogue magazine.

He had decided he wanted to be in a band in middle school, after watching The Beatles on television.  Simmons said he thought, “If I go and start a band, maybe the girls will scream at me.”

KISS

Simmons was in a few bands including Wicked Lester in the early 1970s with Paul Stanley. Not happy with the band they left it to start the rock band KISS.

First to join them was Peter Criss as drummer, then Ave Frehley as lead guitarist. This was the original and best-known line-up. 

Stanley took on the role as lead performer alongside bass player Simmons with his “Demon” makeup which came from the design of comic book character Black Bolt. Simmons also learnt to breathe fire for his performances. The group played their first concert in January 1973 in New York. There were only three people in the audience!

In October 1973 KISS got a record contract and they released their self-titled first album in 1974. Throughout the 1970s, the band toured with wild stage performances and built a following of fans called the “KISS Army”. The band didn’t get popular until their live album Alive! in 1975 which included the hit single, “Rock and Roll All Nite.”

Their next successful albums were Destroyer and Rock and Roll Over, in 1976 followed by Love Guns and Alive II in 1979.  By the end of that year, KISS were the most popular band in America and doing well in the UK, Japan, Canada, Sweden and Germany.

However, Criss left the group in 1979, in 1982 Frehley also left and the band went through a few replacements before the new line-up of Stanley, Simmons, Eric Carr, and Bruce Kulick. This worked well and they began releasing more platinum albums in the eighties. The band had started performing without makeup from 1983.  Carr died in 1991 and the band took on a new drummer Eric Singer. They released the album Revenge in 1992.

There was a reunion tour of original members in 1996 back with full makeup and shows and an album Psycho Circus in 1998, their first album as the original group in almost 20 years. The original group split again, and Tommy Thayer replaced Ace Frehley joining as lead guitarist and Eric Singer replaced Peter Criss on drums. There have been farewell tours since, including the original band members in 2000.

Personal life

Simmons has been linked to Liza Minelli, Cher, and Diana Ross but now lives in California, with his wife, Canadian former Playboy Playmate and actress Shannon Lee Tweed. They have two children.

Simmons can speak Hungarian, German, English, Hebrew and some Japanese.Simmons gets involved in charities and is very vocal about politics.

Goodbye Tour

After an epic 45-year career which made them rock’n roll legends, KISS started their final ever tour in 2019 with sold-out shows across the world. The tour is again with band members Simmons and Stanley with Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer. The tour began in January 2019 in Canada and will finish in July 2021 in New York. 

On Thursday 16^th July 2020 KISS will perform at the Budapest Arena, HUNGARY!

You never know what hidden talents your teachers might have. Just look at all of these famous former teachers.

1. Gene Simmons

The tongue-flicking bassist of Kiss taught sixth grade in Harlem before he became the world’s most famous bass-playing demon. Simmons later revealed in interviews that his superiors canned him for replacing the works of Shakespeare with Spiderman comics, which he thought the students were more likely to actually read.

2. Alexander Graham Bell

The telephone pioneer got his start teaching Visible Speech at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes. He developed a bond with a student named Mabel Hubbard, and when she was 19 the two married.

3. Sting

Before he became a star with The Police, Sting taught English, music, and soccer at St. Catherine’s Convent School. Sting later said of working at a convent school, “I was the only man on the faculty. In fact, I was the only teacher not in a habit.”

4. Robert Frost

Robert Frost worked as a teacher to supplement the income from his fledgling literary career. He worked as both a farmer and teacher at the Pinkerton Academy in Derry, New Hampshire. His students called him “the Hen Man” because the poet was afraid of chickens, and Frost allegedly had trouble remembering to milk the school’s cows on time.

5. Lyndon Johnson

The man who would later become the 36th president got his start as a principal at the Mexican-American Welhausen School in Cotulla, Texas. He later finished his teaching degree and landed gigs teaching public speaking at Pearsall High School in Pearsall, Texas and Sam Houston High in Houston. The debate team he coached at Sam Houston lost the Texas state championship by a single point; Johnson supposedly had to vomit backstage before he could bring himself to congratulate the winners.

6. Art Garfunkel

We can’t speak for Paul Simon, but at least half of Simon and Garfunkel was really, really good at math. Garfunkel nearly earned a doctorate in the subject and was teaching math at the Litchfield Preparatory School in Connecticut when “Bridge Over Troubled Water”soared to the top of the charts.

7. John Adams

The second President of the United States spent a few years working as a schoolteacher in Worcester, Massachusetts. Teaching didn’t suit Adams, who thought his students were nothing more than a “large number of little runtlings, just capable of lisping A, B, C, and troubling the master.” He eventually gaveup the job to go to law school.

8. J.K. Rowling

The Harry Potter author worked as an English teacher in Portugal as she plotted out the early adventures of her young wizards.

9. Mr. T

It was hard for Chicago students to be fools when it came to gym class in the mid-1970s. You’d pay attention if Mr. T told you to do jumping jacks, wouldn’t you?

10. Sylvester Stallone

Did you know you were seeing a matchup of tough-guy teachers when you watched Rocky III? When Sly was attending the American College in Switzerland during the 1960s, he worked as a gym teacher to earn extra spending money.

11. Andy Griffith

Before he was a sheriff, before he was Matlock, Andy Griffith was a teacher. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, Griffith taught English at Goldsboro High School.

12. Billy Crystal

The comedian worked as a junior high substitute teacher on Long Island while he waited for his career to take off. Among the classes he subbed for: girls’ gym, which must have been a great source of material.

13. Kris Kristofferson

The country star was a Rhodes Scholar who studied literature at Oxford before joining the Army and rising to the rank of captain. Toward the end of his tour of duty, Kristofferson took a job as an English teacher at West Point, but he decided against the professorship at the last minute. Instead of heading to New York, he resigned his commission and moved to Nashville in 1965.

14. Stephen King

Although he initially had to work in an industrial laundry after his college graduation, the horror master eventually found a teaching job that paid a cool $6,400 a year at the Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. King wrote Salem’s Lot while living in a trailer and working this job during the day.

15. Sir William Golding

The author’s experiences as a teacher helped inform the novel that made his career. He once allowed a class of boys to debate with complete freedom, and the classroom quickly devolved into such disorder that it inspired Golding to write Lord of the Flies.

Can you match the famous people and the events or things that they are famous for?

Key:

1. c.

2. f.

3. a.

4. h.

5. b.

6. i.

7. e.

8. d.

9. j.

10. g.

11. m.

12. n.

13. k.

14. o.

15. l.