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Gene Simmons brings you (literally) ‘The Vault’ – a new 10CD box set

“This is my personal invitation. Welcome to The Vault.”

Next time you hesitate over the value of that four-disc box set that some record company has the cheek to charge you $50 for, reflect on Gene Simmons‘ new 10CD package called The Vault that costs up to $50,000!

The KISS co-founder says “I’ve created a 50-year time capsule (1966 to 2016) that serves as a soundtrack to my life, filled with songs I’ve written, but have never been released. Until now. The Vault includes 150 recordings featuring notable rock and roll artists and of course, my bandmates from KISS.”

Here’s a tweet with the man himself explaining how it works:

The packaging is an actual safe that weighs 38 pounds. As well as the ten CDs, you get some “exclusive mementos” such as a new Gene action figure, an “oversized commemorative coin” (naturally), a deluxe book with over 50,000 words and 160 pages of unseen photos and track-by-track commentary on every song. Additionally, Gene will ‘hand select’ a personal gift “from me to you” direct from his archive.

$2,000 gets you the ‘Vault Experience‘ which is a meet and greet in your area to spend “one on one time” with Gene and get photos, autographs etc.

For $25,000 you can upgrade to the ‘Producer Experience‘ where you and a guest will spend an “intimate hour” with Gene in a recording studio listening to tracks from The Vault. Your name also appears as ‘executive producer’ on The Vault and you are guaranteed low-numbered edition (1-500).

If the Producer Experience seems a bit ‘meh’, then why not cough up $50,000 for the ‘Home Experience’? With this, Gene comes to your house and you and up to 25 guests will spend two hours with Gene and you get a “Songs & Stories” playback session and Q&A in your home! If you can’t imagine what that would be like, the image below might help.


The Home Experience: “Dad, please ask this man to leave…”

Gene appeared on US TV’s Today Show yesterday, which gave him time for a shameless plug. This at least gives you an idea of the size and scale of the set.

The Vault is only available from Gene’s website. Head over to GeneSimmonsVault.com for more.

SDE helps fans around the world discover physical music and discuss releases. To keep the site free, SDE participates in various affiliate programs, including Amazon and earns from qualifying purchases.

122 Comments

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Luc Swaenen

Ha.. Just found the treat again..
Let’s recap after 2 years..

That I know of..
1x Home edition
2x Producer’s Edition

Around 1800 pieces with M&G..

and still selling..

I’d say that’s good money

Ken Moore

Gene is a genius business man! People are going to buy these. Not me, but people.

Ally Early

rubbish

the only worth having is the Van Halen demos.

Leave your boots at home Gene.

LMTR14

well if it was Lars Ulrich I would strongly consider buying the thing, especially since there’s a m&g to come with it. ‘tallica charges that money for the m&g ALONE these days! then again, there is no way lars could whip out 150 unreleased studio tracks, lol.

btw, gene who?

LMTR14

that vault site tried to give my computer malware, if not worse. the fuck?

John

Paul, you absolutely MUST order this. You must video tape Gene handing it to you, and you must open it and review it in front of Gene. I’m actually kinda curious about the content. The 150 tracks aren’t named. Do we get answering machine messages? Anyway, sorry it took me so long to comment on this. In war torn Florida. Got power yesterday.

LMTR14

whoever opens this one first gets a LOT of hits on youtube

Paul Wren

Ridiculous.

A.V.

It would be neat if Jeff Lynne did something like this. I’d pay it (if I was that well off) for a box set of Balance Of Power album demos.

Jim Galvin

Gene and Rhino are both out of their fucking minds!!

Paul W

You are correct ,it makes you sick

Tim

So is this all Gene or is it filler like ‘Songs that inspired me” kind of crap? Haven’t seen

Goin' Blind

If you’re a fan of the man, and you have that kind of money, the downside is what exactly?

And all of the people here harrumphing and rolling their eyeballs – since it’s obviously not meant for YOU in the first place, what is your point exactly?

Can we make fun of you the next time you buy a picture disc of an album you already own 25 times? One man’s foolishly spent money is another man’s…..foolishly spent money.

Or, to condense all that – Dudes! You must chill!

Stevie B

Absolutely. People pay big money for ‘experiences’ nowadays, it’s nots do outrageous, especially for 25 hard-core Kiss fans. That said, some of the comments on here have been laugh out loud funny!

Straker

In the annual Thread of the Year awards (we do have those don’t we?) I vote for this one as winner. Second place to the Macca reissue thread.

Neil R

In Australia we have dedicated television channels for selling products such as mops, vacuum cleaners, wigs(?) etc. Gene has a whole new career waiting for him as a host! ‘If you call in the next twenty minutes, you also get a free set of steak knives….’
Or to put it another way – ‘Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, stuck here in the middle with you’

Michel Banen

Low number [1 – 500] guaranteed for the $ 25.000 Producer experience. He actually thinks he can sell more than 500 of those ridiculously priced vaults !? For the $ 2000 experience you have to go to an event in your country or a country near you (if you live in the Netherlands or Belgium you have to go to the UK or Germany) and you will then have 5 minutes with Gene. For the $ 50.000 home experience Gene will stay 2 hours and will sign a maximum of 2 more items [no instruments] for you. Wow. I’m pretty sure one of those vaults hit his head before he priced these things.

baward

They should get a professional safe-breaker to do the ‘unboxing’ :-)

Peter

If it were Paul (and I had the money), then MAYBE.
Of course, people will buy this. Remember the Kiss Kasket.

Chris Squires

Amidst all of the jocularity (swot alert) and to me this is faintly ridiculous. But only because Simmons and Kiss mean nothing to me. If it were someone else, someone I was fond of, offering to deliver something to my house that would be super rare…

Basically would I do this for Kate Bush? Offering to deliver the contents of her vaults, (200 tracks?) all demos, versions, unreleased doodlings etc. for what £30K? The price of a very decent car. I wouldn’t be mocking and laughing then, I would be figuring out which child I liked least and which Kidney was expendable…. Seriously, I think most of us might have *one* person we could contemplate this for…..It just ain’t this guy, It would be Kate. Even if I didn’t actually do it because my wife would leave me and I couldn’t really afford it… I would still be trying to work out a way….

Thorsten

Ahhh someone mentioned The Residents Box, ltd. to 10 Boxes for 100.000 each, but one box included a “?” and cost 5.000.000 !!! Yes. So Gene’s vault is a DEAL ALERT !

Wes

Are you an investment banker with a big fat bonus burning a hole in your pocket? Well then we’ve got the perfect option for you! You’ll want to opt for our ultimate “Dick-Vault Experience” where Gene’s best friend Martin Shkreli tags along (and brings the drugs).

Metal Mickey

OK, you’ll think I’m mad, and Gene Simmons & Kiss leave me cold, but honestly, I think the $2,000 (£1,500) option isn’t *too* bad… yes, you need to be pretty “flush”, and you’d have to give up next year’s family holiday, but for your *absolute-super-favourite* artist, 150 demos, actual personal memorabilia, a local meet & greet and all that gumph is a reasonably decent once-in-a-lifetime purchase…

Obviously the $25k & $50k versions are only for the super-rich, but as already noted, just selling 500 of these $2k packages in the US (pretty achievable I’d have thought) will net GS a million bucks, most of which will go straight to him, so it’s probably a good plan…

(I do hate the safe itself, though…)

Adam

I used to love Kiss, but they are destroying their legacy bit by bit with all the ridiculous cash grabs. Why not just try and make a decent final album and retire?

Mike V

Actually, I though the last album, “Monster,” was pretty good. Might be a good one to bow out on.

Darren Vickers

Gene Simmons has been a marketing guy since the early days, Kiss dolls, kiss lunch boxes, Phantom of the park movie etc, he Licenced the kiss name to anything he could and still does, he openly admits all he is interested in is making money.
So if some rich dude wants to shell out 50,000K on this, he has more money than sense.

Each to their own.

C’est La Vie.

Knockers22

So I’m thinking if I fly to London to pick up my extremely heavy safe how the hell im I going to get it on the plane I’m sure there’ll be some funny looks from folk wondering what the hell is he doing .

wingspan1985

Seems like Gene would make a good Bond villain…

Charlestowne USA

You can bet every single recording artist on Earth is going to be watching Gene’s Vault experiment to see how successful it is.

Steve

forgot to say – I’m willing to throw in $20 to help Paul obtain a copy of this, just for the unboxing video. Anyone else?

Paul W

Went to see the bank manager for aloan he said no sorry gene

Steve

This is the best thing ever. So appropriate for Gene to be doing this. Too funny!

I’m sure there are enough people who will cough up the dough to make this worth his time.

@Dean – I totally agree about early Kiss and at what point they jumped the shark.

Ron Hatchell

I’ve read most of these comments, and while I am not a KISS fan (I only like “Beth”), I don’t really think this is a bad price, because the vast majority of that money isn’t for the music (which fans will probably torrent off the internet one day), but for him and his employees to TRAVEL to YOUR HOME and spend time with you (and possibly others) for a once-in-a-lifetime experience with what may be one of your favorite artists.

AND this ad was NOT meant for most fans. It was mean for wealthy people who will be glad to pay for this. We are talking wealthy baby-boomers we grew up in the ’70s, and there are LOTS of them. 1,000’s of them.

“If” I was wealthy with much expendable income, I would consider doing to with some of my favorite artists.

He might have an ego, but his time is worth money, and even without the songs, this set (including travel expenses and safe) costs a lot of money.

It was OBVIOUSLY meant for wealthy people. No reason to make fun of him for doing this.

Hard-core wealthy fans will have the time of their life, talking to him in person, (in his studio or your home), discussing songs he’s never released. It sounds pretty cool, whether we have the money or not.

Rogério C. Rocha

It’s 2017. Every news article has to fell like it’s come out of The Onion, because… why not.

ashleyplath

I’m going to wait for the Japanese edition.

Schu

Rumor has it you can also contact Gene’s people about some of the unadvertised Home Vault experiences that are available and slightly cheaper than the full Home Vault experience:
-Lawn Vault ($7500) – You and four friends can watch Gene cut your grass for up to 3 minutes (no professional video equipment allowed), after which he will present you with your vault along with a souvenir, replica Demon bass guitar that is actually a working weed eater (batteries not included)
-Barbecue Vault ($12,500) – Gene will grill hamburgers and hot dogs for you and up to eight friends (Gene will bring the condiments however you must supply the meat and buns). Max time – 25 minutes. Gene will present you with your vault along with fake blood he coughs up that can be used as ketchup
-Bathroom Vault ($5000) – Gene will greet you in the shower for up to 1 minute, and then present you a vault and a special collector’s bar of soap, previously used by Gene himself
-Please note that other fabulous vault experiences will be announced in the coming months

Paul W

Gene your a joke dream on

Gary Hunter

By the way Paul, we fully expect you to buy this so you can do one of your videos to showcase the goodies!

Gary Hunter

Has Gene banged his head??? He cannot be serious about this wonderful offer can he?? Perjaps he will also throw his wig into the Super dooper deluxe edition.

He badly needs therapy if he thinks anyone will take him up on his offer.

A final thought I don’t if his or Gary Numan’s wig gets the award for worst thatch!

Fish

Gene isn’t even that talented. KISS isn’t even that good. Why would he think it’s even worth that much. The whole KISS thing was just a character act before it’s time, which made it appealing. But the thing that matters, the music, has no real depth. It’s somewhat unfair to compare bands, but take Rush for instance. Their music is the reason why they are who they are, not their gimmick, which their has never been one for them. Gene/KISS has never written a song worthy of this kind of hype, or price tag. Glad I’ve never been a fan. For the die hard fans that are working men like me, they won’t be able to afford it, and that’s the craziest thing of all. This should be a thing for the true fans, not only the rich ones, or crazy collectors just to have it.

Mike V

Unfortunately, they’ve been fleecing the fans for at least 25 years. Remember that KISSTORY book that was $300 (or more) around ’93 or so? To say nothing of the condoms, caskets, and whatever other junk they put their name on.

Not Available

Coming to SDE next week: Paul Stanley offers, for $50,000, his new memoir, which includes, and is the only way to get, the combination to open The Vault.

Ralph

And where is the piece of chalk?

Kauwgompie

Answer to the question “would you do it if this was tour favorite artist?”: If my favorite artist would do this, it wouldn’t be my favorite artist anymore.

Paul Murphy

Gene should be careful. Anyone remember that Alan Partridge episode with the guy with the AP tattoo on torso…

Pete Muscutt

But does it include marbles, coasters and a scarf???????

Friso Pas

It’s so extravagant, and silly, and unique, that it actually made me do a calculation. Because you need 25 die-hard and rich! Kiss fans, who each pay $2000, to get the party started. A meet and greet before a Kiss concert will cost probably that amount, so I’d say get some of those people together.

JackC

I’d like just the safe…he can keep everything else.

Paul E.

@Paul Sinclair: “…the box set and reissue music blog for collectors and fans who love holding the music in their hands” – for $50k we can finally “hold” Gene Simmons. BUT for $100 you get a download code and hologram Gene [no 25 person limit with the hologram by the way].

Dustin Soper

Where is the Vinyl in this box set? No wax, no deal.

Adam

Hey, at least he’s not including vinyl just to jack up the price.

Bill Hammell

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Adam

I’m not a Gene Simmons fan, but I was trying to think of ANY artist (living or dead) that I would pay $50,000 to spend two hours with and end up with 10-13 hours of otherwise unreleased material (and other assorted exclusive ephemera), and the answer is no. Not Björk, not Sting, not David Byrne, not Madonna, not Elvis Costello, not Tori Amos, not Stevie Wonder, not Daft Punk, not Dave Grohl, not Aretha Franklin, neither Morrissey nor Marr, neither Bono nor Edge, neither Run nor DMC, neither Jagger nor Richards, neither Sumner nor Hook, not even Prince or David Bowie.

There are plenty of great indie artists I’m guessing you could book to play a small concert/hangout in your home for less than half that. They could use the money a lot more than Gene Simmons, and I’m sure their stories would be just as interesting.

johnny feathers

We can laugh at this, but people will still buy this, thereby justifying the whole thing. It’s music by an @sshole, for @ssholes. It’s the circle of life. And that circle….is another @sshole.

BangAGong

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, this just sounds like another opportunity for rich wankers to hang out and play with each other’s willies (figuratively speaking)…

CJ

So, how much is it if he just leaves it at the curb and I swing by his house to pick it up?

Zongadude

This whole thing tastes like an outtake from “This is Spinal Tap” ! :)

Lyle

Good call. I was going to ask whether Simmons was trying to beat The Onion to this story.