KISS and the boogeyman in your music

It was kind of fun checking on the KISS competition Tuesday at the Eventful Web site.

In case you missed it, KISS is taking requests, through Internet voting, as part of a contest for the first ever "fan-routed" North American tour. Scott Hallgren, at the Clay County Regional Events Center, wants to get Spencer in the hunt.

With some conditions, the band will reward the top-voted zip codes by booking a concert at the location. (They'll take population percentage totals into mind, so a city like Spencer has a fair shot against the pro sports cities.)

Spencer was making a steady climb -- from No. 282 to 243 -- over the lunch hour alone on Tuesday, when the story appeared in print and at spencerdailyreporter.com. To put that into perspective, almost 9,000 locations have received votes.

By mid-afternoon, Spencer was moving past Davenport, Sioux City and Mankato, Minn.

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The band probably didn't get much help from my mom, who won't be breaking out the kabuki makeup, spandex and glitter for the potential KISS concert in Spencer. She's more likely to have Bobby Vinton in her collection.

Heavy metal had her horrified. I remember being dragged to some faith-based seminar here in town about hard rock and the occult. KISS was "Kids in Satan's Service." AC/DC was "After Christ, Devil Comes' (I've also heard "AntiChrist, Devil Child" so take your pick.)

Oh, and the album covers -- Motley Crue and Metallica did themselves no favors with those album covers. The slideshow part of the seminar scared the dickens out of Little Russ.

They played songs backwards, too - I swear I heard "mah-moo-shen-DEVIL-DEVIL-DEVIL-shoah-noos-shnu" when they played half those songs in reverse.

But, after all of that, it might be my rebellious older brother who gets credit for my easy-listening tendencies. He played those musicians too long and too loud when we were kids.

As for KISS? They can come. I've even put in my vote at www.kissonline.com.

I'll have the band put on their makeup and spook my mom at the mall.

It will be payback for that seminar.