Rock Brand · 7 March 2002
Living in the sticks with the yokels and the bumpkins one must of course turn to the modern miracle of e-commerce and postal delivery when acquiring cultural commodities and the like. It’s always a toss-up whether to order from the US (lower prices, steeper shipping) or the UK (steeper prices, lower shipping, VAT).
Since hearing that splendido radio interview between NPR’s Terry Gross and KISS axemaster Gene Simmons (frightened little boy grasping his willy) I’ve wanted to buy his ‘book’, Kiss and Make-Up. It will be, I am certain, a hoot.
In exercising my empowered agency as a consumer – or, rather, comparison shopping – I discovered some interesting contrast between the US and the UK jackets of this sure-to-be-cracking read: on the American jacket, there’s Gene, all in your face, famous tongue just a-snakin’ away, badass chains nestled in luxurious chest hair. But on the British jacket some Photoshopping has gone down, and that supermacho chest growth is nowhere in sight.
Why the change? I mean, is it meant to be ‘less vulgar’ now? Is the design ‘more balanced’ minus the crusty follicles of a man in his fifties? Was there a meeting on this?
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