Creature Guitar Pick used by Trixxian Vitolo vintage/ used during a Show circa 1987

“…The headlining band that night was the almost-legendary band Creature.  Creature was, for want of a better description, a sort of Kiss tribute band that played their own original music.  They performed in full whiteface makeup and codpieced leather jumpsuits exactly like Kiss.  That night they did one of their infamous “live in the cage” performances, where the stage was caged off and they played inside it—think of the Scorpions in the video for “Rock You Like A Hurricane”.  It was both ludicrous and sublime.  None of the four of us could stop laughing.  They also had these stepped risers ascending toward the back of the stage and the guitarists would scuttle up and down them like roaches.  They too were striving for the bigger-than-life Kiss live in some giant stadium feel but it came off as pathetic and humorous in the tight confines of the Troubadour.  We still laugh about that concert and how lame it was.

The thing was, the music wasn’t terrible.  It was pretty much as you’d expect, metalized pseudo-Kiss stuff, with elements of Alice Cooper and early Crue.  It had some of the crunchiness and catchiness of classic Kiss (such as “Detroit Rock City” or “Strutter”) but was more metal, so leaned more toward Lick It Up post-makeup era Kiss.  Not great but not terrible either.  Former Creature guitarist Trixxian Vitolo has a fantastic web site (http://trixxianvitolo.com/creature.htm) where he’s collected images, media stories, and MP3s from Creature’s heyday.  “Too Many Girls” has a repetitive metal riff and vocals that hint at a cross between Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley; its perhaps Creature’s best and catchiest song, although it goes on for a bit too long. This struts nicely between “Cold Gin” and “Too Fast For Love”.  “Wicked Witch” again has crunchy metal riffs but the high pitched squeaky chorus of “wicked witch” sounds goofy to me.”