Sometimes a topic just falls in your lap. Actually, scratch that, most times a topic falls in your lap. Whether or not it stays there or rolls off and lands on the floor is a different issue. A lot of ideas and random thoughts make their way across my attention in the course of any given day, it takes something of particular interest to actually start the more involved process of actually writing about something. (And I’m acutely aware that most people never write about these things which is, of course, fine.) Today’s rambling musings came about because some topics are so sticky that they can’t roll off. My brain—which has been immersed in all manner of philosophy for a number of years—grabbed a hold of this and simply wouldn’t let go because it’s such a fundamental ”problem”. I couldn’t just think about this, I had to write about it.
Anyway, this began with a comment on one of my Instagram posts which read: ”it’s been pretty well documented that the custom Scarab didn’t get used much at all after the earlier dates of the Animalize tour”. Now, it’s important to note that I don’t quote this or bring it up in order to call somebody out or make fun of anything. At a cursory glance this seems like a statement like any other regarding the use of a particular guitar on a particular tour. Sure, it’s chock-full of weak qualifiers but that’s not uncommon in these kinds of statements. Hell, I use weak qualifiers all the time because of necessity. Since the nature of my research is such that I never, and I do mean never, have the full picture, there is a need for that kind of ”confident uncertainty”. (Just consider me the poster boy for weak qualifiers.)
But, weak qualifiers aside, once you start to unpack what a statement like this actually means—and, as I often do, I want to apologise in advance that this will veer into territory that is completely uninteresting and seemingly irrelevant to most people—we end up in a right pickle of a conundrum. Something that has been a thorn in the collective side of epistemologists for hundreds of years. This will be Byzantine so put on your best ”poindexter” glasses and let’s begin.
Weaving in and out of time
For a long time, empiricism was considered the standard of acquiring (scientific) knowledge and the basic idea was that observation/experience is what matters. (What we consider observation in this day and age of electron microscopes and ridiculously powerful radio telescopes is, of course, up for debate.) In the strict sense, and simplest of terms, that would mean first-person observation using one’s senses but the grand tradition of Empiricism on the British isles—limited here to roughly Locke to Hume—moved away from this to include some inference based on previous empirical knowledge. As a collective we’ve also moved beyond direct sensory data. Since photography was not even a theoretical idea for the likes of Hume it was never really considered in these early discussions on empiricism, but when it arrived on the scene it was generally regarded as the next best thing to seeing something for yourself. Obviously there was always the question of the veracity of any given photo, something that has become even more problematic with digital manipulation, but for our purposes we can assume that a photo of KISS is ”true”. (Our issues revolve more around the dating of photos.)
Quick tangent. As I’ve noted elsewhere, the first time I saw a photo of Gene playing a Fender Precision bass my knee-jerk reaction was that it was a fake. This was relatively early in the wide-spread sharing of digital images and although manipulated images weren’t really on my radar, the complete disconnect in my brain between Gene Simmons, fire-breathing demon of KISS, and the Fender Precision basically forced me into thinking it was a fake. Since then I’ve amassed a number of photos not only of Gene playing that darn thing but also images where it’s backstage and standing on Gene’s side during concerts to the point where I think I can confidently say that our view of Gene’s instruments in the early days of KISS has been slightly altered.
Anyway, for the example we’re using here, empirical knowlegde would mean personal experience of a concert where Paul used the Hamer Scarab during a relevant part of the Animalize Tour and, for those of us not fortunate enough to have witnessed the tour, properly dated photos and/or video that show it happening. Far be it from me to suggest that general ideas about what happened at various times during KISS’s career should be held to scientific standards but, as readers of these posts may have gathered, I do think that we should stick to facts if we can. We don’t want to open the can of worms that might be ”alternate facts”. And that means at least partially understanding falsifiability, if only to have a debate over whether or not it’s a reasonable tool/idea in the context of the kind of reasearch we do into all matters KISS.
Karl Popper’s main idea was that for a given theory to be considered scientific it had to be falsifiable. In his view anyone could obtain evidence in support of a theory so the linchpin was whether or not a theory had principles (or made predictions) that could be tested and thus proven incorrect. This isn’t as relevant in the humanitites as it is in, say, physics, but we can still strive for that type of thinking even though it is disproportionally hard. If I say ”a Fender Precision was used as a backup during 1974”, what would it mean for that to be false? In order for this to be false we would have to show an absence of a Fender Precision in the KISS ranks and, as we’ll soon get into, it’s kind of hard to do that. If the statement had been ”Gene Simmons never used a Fender Precision” then a single photo and/or video showing that would disprove the ”theory” assuming the photo and/or video wasn’t a fake. In a way I used the falsifiability ideal when I wrote about what I called the Appetite Fallacy. There was a specific idea being touted—a single showing of a video upended the entire music industry over night—that should have certain visible effects. If we see that none of those things occured, well, the idea doesn’t hold any water.
Problem is that the work that I and several extremely dedicated people do is basically history. We collate data, we write biographical accounts, and so on. It’s mostly descriptive (”this happened”) but can sometimes go into explanatory (”why did this happen”). I wrote a little about this last year. Now, strict descriptive historical accounts are pretty much subject to falsifiability. Saying that KISS played in St. Louis, Missouri on November 1, 1975, is a verifiable fact and thus a falsifiable statement. We can check local newspapers or band itinerarys from the time and find out that KISS did, in fact, play at Kiel Auditorium on October 31, 1975. Explanatory historical accounts are a murkier subject. If we have an explanation as to why KISS removed the makeup—and feel free to choose your favorite one—or an attempt at an explanation as to why Peter Criss failed to sustain a solo career post-KISS, well, it’s probably hard to find things that irrevocably refute that kind of statement. So we end up with falsifiability being kind of important at times but not useful at other times. Fun, huh?
I saw my picture hanging on her wall
Anyway, most of the things we ”know” about KISS and their dealings throughout the years come from statements from the members, photo and video evidence, and various documents. Simple empirical facts (although I would hesitate to consider anything Gene has said as fact). It was the ridiculous mountain of evidence collected by Curt and Jeff for KISS Alive Forever – The Complete Touring History, most of it in the form of documents and newspaper items, that made that book an indespensible resource; and it’s the veritable cornucopia of (properly) dated photos and video that allow us to say things about the instruments used by the band throughout the years. We use that empirical evidence to build a general (descriptive) history of what happened and when additional or contradictory evidence turns up we either feel further validated in our conclusions or amend our thinking. Take Gene’s backup Gibson Les Paul Triumph as an example. For a long time most of us, myself included, were entirely unaware that it had been part of the arsenal, I only became aware of it when I got backstage photos from Portland, Oregon 76-02-11 (see below). Even then it seemed like a fluke, as if Gene had just posed with a random instrument. It wasn’t until I managed to spot it in other backstage photos—which in itself is a relative rarity—that it ascended to bona fide backup status.
And that’s where we run headlong into absence again. (If one could even do that? Talk amongst yourselves.) With regards to the Les Paul Triumph we can say that it was never used on stage. That’s a strong statement, not a weak qualifier in sight, that I feel confident making. We have the empirical evidence (photos) to suggest that it was a backup during a large part of 1976 but we have no evidence that show it getting actual use on stage and we (as in I) have a fairly substantial amount of photos from this period. Any single photo showing Gene playing the Les Paul Triumph on stage would obviously disprove that he never used it on stage and I would have to eat my hat (as I have many times before when new photos have come to my attention). But do we have anything concrete that shows that it wasn’t used on stage? Can we show its absence? To make a really bad joke, is there any way we can say ”Look! Here it isn’t. And here it isn’t again!”? Theoretically, yes. Realistically, not even close.
At heart, the statement I quoted at the start is about documentation of absence. If that sounds counter-intuitive it’s because, well, it’s kind of hard to think about how one could show the absence of anything. It quickly descends into parody. (Thus the bad joke of the previous paragraph.) The original empiricists grappled with this problem because empiricism is good at showing that things are, but not very good at showing that things aren’t. For instance, can we say that there are no, nor have been any, green humans? Empirical data would suggest that humans come in a relatively narrow range of ”colors” and that green isn’t one of them. But no amount of ”skin-colored” humans—even though that number is many billions—can effectively dis-prove the existence of one or more green humans. We may have looked in the wrong places, there may be a tribe of green humans just going about their business in the Amazon forests. We can say that the probability is low, that’s uncontroversial, but as the old maxim goes: ”probability is not proof”. Not even low probability. This also applies to our friend the Hamer Scarab.
Don’t look for reasons, don’t waste my time
The reason that the custom Hamer Scarab became an issue in the first place was because of my recent look at the guitars Paul used during the Asylum Tour. Those acquainted with my Instagram will recognize the photo below. It’s a backstage photo from the Asylum Tour and it shows three guitars, the Hamer Scarab being one of them. Some objected to the photo being from said tour and suggested that it had to be the Animalize Tour because of the prescence of the Scarab. Alas, the guitar in the middle is the re-finished no. 1 B.C. Rich Eagle so the photo has to be from the Asylum Tour. But the general reaction was right (and it produced the quote from the start of this post). We have no evidence that the Hamer Scarab ever made it on stage during the Asylum Tour. Aside from this one photo it’s not pictured anywhere and it’s not in any of the bootleg videos available. The open-G duty that it performed during the Animalize Tour—and based on the photos available to me it does seem likely that it held that position the entire Animalize Tour—was instead handled by the cracked mirror B.C. Rich Warlock and, once we get to 1986, the no. 3 Eagle.
But we can’t prove that the Scarab was absent from the stage during the Asylum Tour. A lack of live photos with the guitar is obviously indirect proof and it means that there is a low probability that it was used. My collection of Asylum photos isn’t as extensive as, say, photos from 1974 or 1977, but it’s still decent. That the Scarab is nowhere to be seen in any of those photos (or videos) does matter. In contrast we have plenty of photos of the Eagles, the Warlock, and the Ironbird. But… if we assume that the Scarab had one (or both) of two roles during this tour—open-G or general backup—that means that the possible times it could have been on stage are limited. And that means that even if it did end up on stage, the probability of it having ended up captured in photographs is fairly low. But, the fact that we have an absence of proof doesn’t mean that we can prove that it was absent. To reiterate the bad joke, it doesn’t matter that we can say ”here it isn’t” a thousand times. It doesn’t prove that the Scarab wasn’t used, just that it isn’t very probable. Two more examples.
As a direct result of Ace getting electrocuted on stage in late 1976, KISS went all in on wireless transmitters for their guitars when they went out on the CanAm Tour in the Summer of 1977. For Gene and Paul that meant a more or less completely new lineup of guitars as they chose to have the new Vega system built in to the guitars. (Ace, who was obviously no stranger to modifying his guitars, strangely chose not to do this.) The backstage photo from Kitchener, Ontario below show some guitars and basses that should be relatively familiar to KISS fans. We can even hark back to my last blog post about capos and note that the Gibson Explorer is set up to play Hooligan. But what’s with that weird thing in the middle? A clear lucite Dan Armstrong bass? What gives? This was a backup during the early part of the tour and if you look closely at the photo you can see the Vega system—and the 9-volt Duracell battery that powered it—in the body right below the brigde.
There is nothing to suggest that this bass was ever used on stage. There are two backstage photos from this occasion, probably taken at different times since the order of the guitars differ between them, and a soundcheck photo with Gene (in street clothes) playing what appears to be the Dan Armstrong. But that’s it. The bass that I think replaced the Dan Armstrong as the backup during this tour, a Gibson Thunderbird, is another matter. It’s not in this photo but it can be seen standing on Gene’s side of the stage a couple of times and he used it in Calgary, Alberta just two weeks after the Kitchener show. But the available photos not showing the Dan Armstrong on stage obviously can’t prove that it was never used. They can only prove what they show: that Spector no. 1 really was the clear number one for Gene, that the custom LoBue was still used for the early dates of the tour, and that the Gibson Thunderbird was the backup (at least for a while).
The Dan Armstrong suffers from the same ”problem of scarcity” that the Hamer Scarab does: even if it did get on stage the chance that this would have gotten caught on camera is vanishingly small. The same goes for one of Gene’s backup basses during the Asylum Tour. Now, this was probably the tour where Gene actually traveled with the largest nuber of basses he’s ever had. He predominantly used a white Pedulla MVP but the Jackson Axe and the new Staccato was used quite a lot. In addition he had a red Pedulla MVP and a red Spector NS-2 (see below). That’s five (!) basses which one would think would more than enough for any given tour. Alas, there is video showing what appears to be a white Spector NS-2 standing on Gene’s side of the stage. (Those among you who have looked at the liner notes to Asylum lately might be slightly surprised. In those liner notes it says that Gene plays Kramer basses and here we have six basses and not a Kramer in sight. However, Kramer bought Spector in 1985.) This last bass is also a victim of the ”problem of scarcity”.
If the white Spector NS-2 was ever used during the Asylum tour, the photographic evidence we do have—evidence which consists of photos and video showing the other basses getting used, all 5 (!) of them—seems to suggest that it would have been a very rare occurance. The white Pedulla is ubiquitous. Same with the Jackson Axe. We have photos and video showing the Staccato being used at several shows and the same is true of the red Pedulla. And none of this can effectively show that the white Spector NS-2 wasn’t used. The only way we could conclusively show the absence of any specific instrument at a given time period would be if we had complete video of all the shows during said period.
That’s really the only way. To get back to our initial subject, no amount of photos from all the shows on the Asylum Tour could show that the Hamer Scarab wasn’t used. There would always be the possibility that the photographer that was present the night it (might) have gotten used didn’t shoot any photos during that song. Maybe he changed rolls of film at the time. (We are, after all, talking about 1985-86 here, photographers still used film.) Maybe he was on Gene’s side of the stage and focused on Bruce for that song. We can infer that the Scarab wasn’t used from the available empirical evidence, and it’s a strong inference. But it’s a game of probability, not proof. We simply don’t know. And that’s why we have to bring out the weak qualifiers and say that it’s seems fairly likely that the Hamer Scarab was never used on stage during the Asylum Tour but can say, without hesitation, that it was along for the ride for at least a part of the tour. Because we do have a photo of that.
I believe in something more
Or, I may believe in something less. After all these words—which I’m sure has seemed like circumlocution to many a reader—we’ve come back to one of my standard points: categorization and explanatory models. I’ve written about this before, how we use the available information to construct models of the World, a process that is overwhelmingly happening without our conscious effort. And these models are then used to appraise later information something that, again, happens mainly without a consicious effort. (This process can obviously be conscious, reading this post is just such a conscious re-arranging of some readers’s models, but the vast majority of daily information is handled by the default network without conscious thought.) And when something doesn’t quite fit into our model or narrative it produces a discomfort, we get a feeling that something doesn’t feel quite right. Green humans? Well, that’s just wrong. It was my model of what a KISS bass looked like that led me to instinctively feel that the photo of Gene playing a Fender Precision had to be a fake. It didn’t fit into my narrative of Gene’s basses at the time.
And it was this difference between most people’s model of the Hamer Scarab in a KISS context and the photo showing it backstage during the Asylum Tour that caused some to think I had misidentified the photo. The same applies to the quote that started all this. Behind that statement was a set of empirical data about the Animalize Tour that differed from mine, a set of data that had produced a different model. Generally speaking it’s hard to change our models just because somebody else tells us to. The evolutionary bedrock of this whole system seems to favor personal experience so some random moron writing stuff on the internet will have less relevance than what a person remembers (and, in most cases, rightfully so). But you should obviously trust me. I know of what I speak!
Axeology Extended 