POP MUSIC REVIEW : Paul Stanley Cuts His Show Down to Size

The idea sounded simple enough: Kiss singer-guitarist Paul Stanley performing some solo shows in relatively smaller venues. The one Thursday at Anaheim’s Celebrity Theatre suggested that these concerts will be every bit as tuneful (not very) and thoughtful (not very) as expected.

Of course, Stanley has been living down to expectations for years: The first Kiss record surfaced 15 years ago.

But at least these shows (he’s at the Palace in Hollywood on Tuesday) aren’t part of a shrewd, larger game plan to appeal to the baser instincts of adolescents and separate them from their record-buying dollars.

Indeed, Stanley is between Kiss albums and hasn’t released a solo LP in a decade, so Thursday’s performance really did seem like he wanted to play some smaller places just for fun. And backed by a quartet of hard-rock hotshots (including slick-domed lead guitarist Bob Kulick, brother of Kiss fret-grinder Bruce), Stanley raced through a rawking grab bag of Kiss songs, selections from that solo LP, an unrecorded tune, even a request or two.

This anything-goes musical approach also enabled Stanley to cover considerable ground thematically, from the usual Kiss crotch-rock treatises to more tender, shattered-romance sagas--like an accelerated version of “Tears Are Falling”--to things in between (the unrecorded number discussed a couple who had a nice little relationship--until it became a triangle).

Thanks to the quartet’s full, forceful instrumental and vocal support, this all made for an energetic blast of rock ‘n’ roar, and it almost didn’t matter that Stanley’s voice is shot.

Vocally, however, he is a gifted impressionist: A few times Thursday, he did things with his voice that sounded exactly like a car that won’t start on a cold morning.

Opening the show was D’Molls, a Los Angeles quartet whose garb, manner and music place them in that awkward category of Bands That May Have Thought “Spinal Tap” Was a Documentary.

These guys achieved a nice Thin Lizzy-ish twin-guitar sound a few times, but at this point, most of their songs are merely rollicking rifforama with some pretty shaky lyrics--even for the head-banging genre.