Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives is the film responsible for getting me interested in the Friday franchise. I never got to see it in the theater, but fortunately, video cassette rentals were all the rage at the time. I didn't watch this installment first, I started at the beginning with the original classic. Jason Lives, however, is what made me decide to start watching the film series. Alice Cooper being on the soundtrack probably had a lot to do with it, I was a teenager who had recently gotten into hard rock and heavy metal music, and I was familiar with Alice Cooper from The Muppet Show and ads for his comic book that appeared in basically every Marvel comic in the late 1970s. The "He's Back" music video got fairly regular play on the local music video station and it was pretty much an advertisement for the movie.

     So like a good fanboy, I started with the first Friday the 13th and quickly watched my way up to Jason Lives. I was not disappointed. This film had everything I needed: killing, reanimated maniacs, Alice Cooper songs. It was more or less my favorite at the time. It was different than the previous installments though. It's rather difficult to explain exactly what was different about it. I mean, apart from the fact that Jason is now one of the undead; I'm talking more about the look and feel of the film. 

     This installment also broke several traditions established by the previous films. Jason Lives would be the chapter that launched the series into new places — eventually space, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Here we pick up, more or less, from the end of the previous film. We were left on a cliffhanger of sorts that never got resolved, or even acknowledged. Where previous films began with a reprise or a flashback of the previous film's ending, here we start with the action already happening.

   This is an updated version of an article I wrote several years ago. During that time a book has been published that is full of information on early Rock-O-Rama music. If you have the opportunity and are interested in an in-depth look at Rock-O-Rama punk, I highly recommend the book "Rock-O-Rama - Als die Deutschen kamen" by Björn Fischer. I reference this book heavily in this updated article. This also begins a series in which I look at some of the most bizarre and messed up record labels that have existed. My intention is to keep the installments somewhat chronological, but we'll see what happens.

   There are some really bizarre record labels out there. Some famously so, and some infamously so. This is the story of one of the infamous ones: Rock-O-Rama Records. This will be a history in several parts, as the label made some interesting twists and turns along the way in its 25 years. 

   Rock-O-Rama was a West German label born from a mail-order record business and record store owned by a man named Herbert Egoldt. Prior to the first official Rock-O-Rama release, Herbert was known for making bootlegs of old rockabilly records. In the late 1970s, a new sound had emerged, that of punk rock. A newly formed punk band convinced Herbert to release their first record. Herbert undoubtedly saw the potential in that market and so, in 1980, he released the first record on the Rock-O-Rama label from a punk band called Vomit Visions.

   Over the next four years, Rock-O-Rama would become one of the more prolific punk labels in West Germany, releasing close to 40 punk records in that time. Eventually the label went in quite a different direction and after 1986 there were very few punk albums released by the label.

   In 1993, production of vinyl records was ceased and Rock-O-Rama went exclusively to the CD format. Only a handful of those punk records were reissued on CD, and for the most part, those early records went out of print.

   This first installment will focus on the earliest of those releases, covering the years of 1980 and 1981. There were only 7 releases total during that time, four EPs and three LPs, by four different bands. Only one of these bands saw any more of their albums released on this label, but these were all important releases and are sought after by collectors. It all started at the end of 1979...

   If you were alive in the 1970s then you are most likely familiar with KISS. Even if you've never heard a single note from one of their songs, you can instantly recognize them on sight. Before I knew what they even sounded like, I knew how to draw their make-up designs. I knew their aura colors. I knew their real names and their stage names. I would draw them playing their instruments and have them playing the wrong instruments because I didn't know, I just knew they were a band and they looked cool. They were on TV. They were in my comic books. They were on t-shirts. They were in toy stores and on lunchboxes. KISS was everywhere.

   I first became aware of them when I would see ads for the solo albums in some of the comic books I read. This would place it around 1978. I was still pretty young, and as I recall, I wasn't sure if Gene was a girl or a boy because Gene sounded like the neighbor lady's name. One of the older kids at my bus stop had the Gene Simmons solo record with him one day, and this uncertainty was soon cleared up for me.

   The first time I heard anything from KISS was when a kid in my class brought in the Paul Stanley solo album and the music teacher put it on the turntable. I don't think we even made it a minute into the first song, I only remembered the first first verse of the intro to "Tonight You Belong To Me" and I can't be certain if it made it to where the guitar riff kicks in. Anyway, that was my first known exposure to their music, even if it was one of the solo albums. I remember thinking it was kind of cool. It was definitely different, as the only music I really heard at the time was what my mom would play in the car, but that was usually stuff like Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac.

   It was about a year later that I really heard a complete KISS song. There was a KISS song on jukebox at one of the bars my mom used to frequent... I know what you're thinking, but the 1970s were a different time and we lived in a small town in central Florida and kids were acceptable in some establishments during certain hours. So as I was saying, there was a KISS record on the jukebox, it was "I Was Made For Loving You" with "Hard Times" on the b-side. First I played "Hard Times" because that sounded like a less-mushy song than the a-side. I liked it. Eventually I decided to try the other song. I remember when that disco beat hit, my mom has a sort of "who played this" look on her face. She wasn't a fan of disco. I thought it was alright. I still liked "Hard Times" better.

   I didn't really follow up on KISS much for a while. Their star-power had begun to fade around that time and I wouldn't have much exposure to them again until they started performing without the make-up. We didn't have cable TV so I missed out on any of their stuff on MTV, but there was a new local broadcast station, V-32, that played some of their recent songs on their afternoon hard rock and heavy metal show. I was getting into those genres around that time so this started me wanting to listen to KISS again. I think the first KISS album I bought was a cassette of Animalize. I soon acquired cassettes of Unmasked and their most recent album at the time, Asylum. I realize these albums are not representative of the classic era of KISS, but it was the best I could do, your music collection was partially decided by what the stores would have in stock when you had money to spend.

   Since that time, I've heard a lot of KISS. I'm not KISS Army level or anything, but you can call me a casual fan. Their music doesn't break any new ground. They are decent musicians, but not phenomenal. One could even argue they were more style than substance. That's not necessarily a bad thing. You didn't listen to KISS to hear eleven variations on a theme, you listed to hear some catchy rock and roll played loud. However, if you want to listen deeper, you can. KISS went through many different phases in their career. The different eras are even conveniently marked off for easy digestion. I hesitated writing this article because I feel like I won't be telling anyone anything they don't already know. Maybe I will, who knows?