KISS – Long Lost Music From “The Elder” Videotape Goes On The Auction Block; Trailer

1981, 34-years ago, Halloween night, New York… The rock group KISS recorded their first post-MTV music video at Manhattan’s famed Unitel Studios. The new track, “I”, was intended to showcase the band’s new 1980s look and concept album, Music From “The Elder”. However, something was lost in the translation and the all-performance music video, didn’t quite look right; “just not KISS enough,” according to the band’s late manger Bill Aucoin. The video was scrapped, shortly after it’s November 5th edit date and has remained completely unreleased for 34 years. Until now.

After years of intensive research, rock memorabilia auctioneers EliteWorks have finally located a broadcast quality videotape and currently have the master up for auction (which ends this Sunday, November 22nd) here.

The highly sought after lost “I” video, which showcases the band playing in a disco nightclub setting with a fortress of solitude like set, has been a “holy grail” for the die-hard KISS fan base for decades and is often debated in message boards as to it’s very existence. This would be KISS’ answer to Duran Duran’s “Planet Earth” video. Not KISS, the record label or even the video’s director had a copy of the four-minute clip.

This version of the band featured then new drummer, Eric Carr’s KISS video debut and he, along with fellow band mates, Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley are carried off on the shoulders of audience members at the video’s climax. Several KISS fans, along with Aucoin Management staffers and a whole lot of central casting extras are also seen in the video.