This is a snippet of the article I wrote for KISS Kollector Magazine last year. Hope you’ll find it interesting.
Flaming Youth: Taken from the Destroyer album that was released in 1976 and produced by Bob Ezrin. The main riff was taken from a song that Gene had written and which was called “Mad Dog”. Gene: “Mad Dog was recorded in late ’75 at Magna Graphics Studios in New York City’s Greenwich Village. The complete version of Mad Dog was released on KISS: The Box Set (2001).
Have you ever noticed the complex time signature used in Flaming Youth? Will it make a difference if you did or if you didn’t? I don’t think so. Will you enjoy the song better if you did? Probably not. A good song is a good song; a bad song will still be a bad song. Will it put the song in a different perspective and maybe the band as well because they recorded it? Yes, I think so. It is interesting material. Even when you’ve heard about the fact that the solo section in Flaming Youth has this 7/4 time signature (counting 7 beats instead of 4) there are some tricky parts like: where and how does the 4/4 change into 7/4 and how do they return to 4/4? Try counting and you get lost easily. That’s because you’re probably missing a couple of 3/4 bars (counting 3 beats instead of 4, or 7!). Who came up with this? Bob Ezrin, the producer of course. Great stuff! No wonder Peter Criss had trouble playing this song. It’s easy to understand why Ezrin told him to just keep the beat and pound the snare and kickdrum until the part was over!
For all you guitar players, bass players and anyone else that is interested: check out the score and tablature of the main riff from Mad Dog. (Don’t forget to tune down your guitar half a step if you want to play along with the recorded versions of the songs. Quite common in most songs that KISS has recorded).
The Mad Dog riff is just two bars in a regular (in popular music anyway!) 4/4 time signature. Simply put: just count four beats and do it again. The riff starts with an open E-string.
When you compare this to the riff in Flaming Youth, which consists more or less of the same notes, there are a couple of interesting things.
The Flaming Youth riff doesn’t get to the open E-string until the second note because the riff starts on F double sharp (That’s two frets up on your guitar). It sounds pretty much the same as the Mad Dog riff except for the solo section: the last beat (last two notes) are not present in the F.Y.-riff. So when you count 2 bars of Mad Dog (4 plus 4), then leave out the last beat, what do you get? 4 plus 4 minus 1 = 7. This is shown in the first bar of the Flaming Youth transcription. The example starts were the guitar solo nears its end at 1:33. The 7/4 riff is played 7 times in a row (only one repeated 7/4 bar shown here!) before the turnaround that ends the solo and leads into another chorus. Here we come across 2 bars in a 3/4 time signature before the song returns to 4/4 (of which only 1 bar is shown). It’s the part were Peter is hitting his drums hard and constantly and which leads us into the part were the song breaks down to just the calliope (explained later) and drums (kick drum and hi-hat).
Even if you don't like the song at all it is pretty interesting because how many KISS songs do you know that have a 7/4 time signature? Another song that’s known for its 7/4 time signature is Pink Floyds no. 1 hit “Money” from their 1973 album Dark Side Of The Moon. Bob Ezrin would enter the Pink Floyd picture as well but not until 1979 when he produced Pink Floyd’s The Wall album, which would become a mega-hit.
For Flaming Youth Bob Ezrin brought in a calliope which is a musical instrument, played with a keyboard. It produces sound by sending steam through whistles. The calliope is also known as a "steam organ" or "steam piano." To this day Ezrin still thinks it was a good idea to add this instrument to the song. Both Paul and Gene seem to not like it that much. I like it (but that’s just me). This image below somewhat reminds me of the Psycho Circus wagon.
Another thing worth mentioning is the fact that the guitar solo in the song was not played by Ace Frehley. It was Dick Wagner who was invited to do some guitar work on the album when Ace wasn’t around (apparently because of a card game he had to attend). Wagner played on albums by Lou Reed and Alice Cooper to name a few.
The only time that KISS performed Flaming Youth live on a tour consistently, was during their first European tour and some early dates on the US-Destroyer tour of 1976. It was a slightly different version. After the guitar solo the 2nd verse and chorus were repeated (in the recorded version the song breaks down a bit); then came the intermezzo (which is the well-known “Mad dog-riff”) ; the chorus (first part without lyrics); the ending was like the recorded version (“Mad dog-riff”) but instead of fading out, the intro of the song came back again. This stretched the song for an additional 30 - 40 seconds compared to the recorded version!
And now: pick up your guitar, on your knees and pray, and hold your head up high!
fan 
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it's just cool stuff you know 