Disco vs Metal: The Final Countdown

A decades-old question was finally and definitively answered at Canal Room in New York City on April 19, when Mini Kiss and Tragedy threw down in a battle royale to determine once and for all which is more powerful, the dance floor or the depths of hell.

It wasn't quite billed as such, but it was still hard to see a double bill of a KISS cover band and a Bee Gees cover band as anything else. Mini Kiss is a tribute show put on by four midgets. Tragedy do heavy metal versions of the better-selling of the Gibb bros. repertoire. The tallies after the jump.

LOOK

Mini Kiss' costumes looked homemade - just like the real KISS did when they started out, which was their best look. But oddly enough, they didn't wear platforms.
Score: 3

Tragedy dressed all in white, with one of the guys (yes guys) wearing a white denim ultra-miniskirt.
Score: 4

STAGE BANTER

Tragedy: "We're the number one Bee Gees heavy metal tribute band in the tri-state area. You don't have to clap because we already know we're great." "This is a song about chicks with dicks and it's called 'More Than a Woman.'"
Score: 4

Mini Kiss: I don't remember anything.
Score: 0

SOUND

Mini Kiss: Sadly, they faked along to a prerecorded backing track - and not very well. But the backing track did sound reasonably good.
Score: 4

Tragedy: This wasn't metal Motown, or metal mambo for that matter. These guys heard something in the music, in the driving bass lines and high-pitched vocals, that just needed a little tweaking to, like, rock. And they made "You Should Be Dancing" into a direct order.
Score: 5

PRESUMED GROUPIE PROWESS

Mini Kiss: Without overgeneralizing too much about any particular demographics, they clearly had some female fans in the house.
Score: 5

Tragedy: While I didn't get backstage, it's hard to imagine that they need anything they can't provide for themselves, or each other.
Score: 1

CROWD RESPONSE

Mini Kiss: They held the crowd, if only because nobody past the first row could see that they weren't really playing.
Score: 4

Tragedy: They didn't just rely on the known quantity, they owned it.
Score: 5

PURITY OF VISION

Tragedy: True they did a Sit 'n Spin on the songs, but the songs were still there. And the back-up singers' choreography was dead on.
Score: 5

Mini Kiss: Nevermind the pantomime, they came out to "We Will Rock You" and "played" Sabbath and Guns 'n Roses.
Score: 0

SUMMARY

The only original thing Mini Kiss did was what seemed like their own remix of KISS's disco hit "I Was Made For Loving You." Tragedy did an epic, druidy interlude. They get the win, and metal rules the day.

Comments

[zombot]

this thread is useless without mp3s! :D

[Kurt Gottschalk]

Check Tragedy's Myspace page (linked above). They've got songs up there.

And if you can find some karaoke KISS, you'll pretty much know what Mini Kiss sounded like.

[zombot]

thanks, true about mini kiss.
i just wanted to hear some tragedy.

speaking of mini kiss, you hear of tiny kiss? 3 dwarves and a 350 lb woman. i think they actually play and sing,i could be wrong. their stageshow looks more lively than mini kiss anyway.

[Kurt Gottschalk]

for seriously? does tiny kiss have a website? or did you just play me for a fool?

[zombot]

here's the first result
http://beachersmadhouse.com/bio-tinykiss.htm

[ashtrough]

Strange though, that a metal Bee-Gee cover band called Tragedy didn't include "New York Mining Disaster" or for that matter, "I started a joke."

[Pinball King]

The photo is Kiss before they were big.