Lick It Up Cover Conspiracy - Proof?

kisswah · Post by **kisswah** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:22 am

I put the 3 photos on top of each other.
Vinnies face is the same.

On image 2 you can see a womans hand and a metal rod holding the mannequin.
Also the mannequins waist has been severly retouched and slimmed for the cover.

On image 3 Gene is wearing a white shirt that Eric is wearing on the cover. Never noticed that. So that could have been the first photosession, where Vinnie was present and they used his face from there.

Case closed?

lickitupanim.gif

dylanfree · Post by **dylanfree** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 5:58 am

kisswah · Post by **kisswah** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:11 am

On the last 3 sides of the coin it was talked about that Vinnie was not present at the Lick It Up photosession and replaced by a mannequin.
I took the 3 photos and stacked them on top of each other to see if Vinnies face matches. Then I realized Gene & Eric wearing different clothes.
That's all.

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:24 am

Great job putting all the pics together! Makes it really easy to look at everything with one glance.

What looks like a pole really makes me wonder if they actually used the mannequin. In any event, this is still one of my favourite album covers. Ironic that I've always loved it for its simplicity, when in fact it seems that it was a very complicated endeavor behind the scenes!

C · Post by C » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:29 am

That was Gene's 1983 pink/purple shirt.

PeterChrissmas · Post by **PeterChrissmas** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:36 am

This is some interesting stuff...
Looking at this now, It really makes me wonder why I didn't notice the strange stuff happening with Vinnie on this shot. Vinnie also looks a bit out of scale to me.. sized up.
Nice job with the file... I'm sold.

kisswah · Post by **kisswah** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:45 am

C wrote:That was Gene's 1983 pink/purple shirt.

wow

C · Post by C » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:49 am

Yes that's the one!
it has white buttons but you cannot see them well on the last pictures but even Gene looks like a mannequin with that oversized shirt

PeterChrissmas · Post by **PeterChrissmas** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:50 am

Wearing that shirt was a real bad move for Gene... It looks like someone threw a blouse into the Gorilla Pit at the Zoo...

Fasterpdiddy · Post by **Fasterpdiddy** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:55 am

Dennis Woloch has already debunked the mannequin theory. There's enough photos that prove Vinnie was at the shoot too. It's just bad cutting and pasting.....

C · Post by C » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:55 am

Here :

I can totally picture Gene, "HEY VINNIE WHY DON'T YOU WEAR MY PINK SHIRT, IT LOOKS GOOD ON YOU"
I bet that Gene still has that shirt with his Skull necklace and zippered LIU pants (that he used until 1987) around his collection.

kisswah · Post by **kisswah** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:01 am

Fasterpdiddy wrote:Dennis Woloch has already debunked the mannequin theory. There's enough photos that prove Vinnie was at the shoot too. It's just bad cutting and pasting.....

link?

C · Post by C » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:02 am

Dennis stated this on a Facebook comment

kissjrj · Post by **kissjrj** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:03 am

...and, no one is talking Vinnie's wig?

C · Post by C » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:09 am

Same used by Mark St. John here

maybe even here, yes it really looks like same wig

Ace's Silver Suit · Post by **Ace's Silver Suit** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:11 am

As a side note, Gene wore his pink pirate shirt at least once during the Euro Animalize tour! He put a vest over it - it looked awful!

C · Post by C » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:12 am

Ace's Silver Suit wrote:As a side note, Gene wore his pink pirate shirt at least once during the Euro Animalize tour! He put a vest over it - it looked awful!

True, he used live a couple of times.

Tommyr · Post by **Tommyr** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:30 am

Somebody's got way too much free time......

C · Post by C » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:36 am

I think it started because Peter Arquette throw the rumor, i do think Vinnie was there.

Fickdich · Post by **Fickdich** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:46 am

Ace's Silver Suit wrote:As a side note, Gene wore his pink pirate shirt at least once during the Euro Animalize tour! He put a vest over it - it looked awful!

Gene looked awful for most of the 80s.

TheWolf · Post by **TheWolf** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:52 am

My god.

Why not just get 4 people that work together in a room with a photographer and take a few goddang photos and pick one, touch up to pro levels?

Unbelievable. The LIU and Animalize stories are totally crazy.

C · Post by C » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:55 am

True, but maybe it was not easy back then, remember photoshop did not exist, Dynasty cover was a composition as well but the
original picture it was good enough to me.

banks · Post by **banks** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 8:03 am

What I don't get is why was it impossible to just take a picture of four guys standing. A mannequin, a wig for a person who wasn't balding at that point, endless cutting and pasting, making Gene's fingers extra long etc. etc. Someone went through an awful lot of trouble to make a cover that doesn't look great.

Wiped Out 78 · Post by **Wiped Out 78** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 8:16 am

kisswah wrote:a metal rod holding the mannequin.

With a power cord plugged into the wall? I don't think so.

kissjrj · Post by **kissjrj** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 8:18 am

In that pic of Mark St. John in the studio, he looks like a Bay City Roller.

Tommyr · Post by **Tommyr** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 8:31 am

kissjrj wrote:In that pic of Mark St. John in the studio, he looks like a Bay City Roller.

LOL! Nice!

kisswah · Post by **kisswah** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 8:33 am

Wiped Out 78 wrote:
kisswah wrote:a metal rod holding the mannequin.
With a power cord plugged into the wall? I don't think so.

I agree.

Australia1980 · Post by **Australia1980** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 9:38 am

kisswah wrote:On the last 3 sides of the coin it was talked about that Vinnie was not present at the Lick It Up photosession and replaced by a mannequin.
I took the 3 photos and stacked them on top of each other to see if Vinnies face matches. Then I realized Gene & Eric wearing different clothes.
That's all.

You did a great job with this, kisswah.

KISS needs to hire more competent people. For instance, the wizard who put together this magazine spread of the Animalize sessions.

No Gene? No problem!

Strutter67 · Post by **Strutter67** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 9:47 am

And on FB they showed other photos proving Vinnie was at the photo shoot. Conspiracy debunked. Vinnie was probably wearing Gene's shirt. Yes Vinnie was wearing a wig and supposedly Mark wore the same wig a year later, lol

kisswah · Post by **kisswah** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 9:54 am

Strutter67 wrote:And on FB they showed other photos proving Vinnie was at the photo shoot. Conspiracy debunked. Vinnie was probably wearing Gene's shirt. Yes Vinnie was wearing a wig and supposedly Mark wore the same wig a year later, lol

I would love to see more photos of the shoot.

l_468ca9717ec04a31974d6f0e5b437957%20%281%29.jpg

Strutter67 · Post by **Strutter67** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 10:00 am

kisswah wrote:
Strutter67 wrote:And on FB they showed other photos proving Vinnie was at the photo shoot. Conspiracy debunked. Vinnie was probably wearing Gene's shirt. Yes Vinnie was wearing a wig and supposedly Mark wore the same wig a year later, lol
I would love to see more photos of the shoot.

l_468ca9717ec04a31974d6f0e5b437957%20%281%29.jpg

Lemme see if i can find the FB post. It was a few days ago

C · Post by C » Sat Feb 06, 2016 10:20 am

might be the jacket

Sam · Post by **Sam** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 10:47 am

Wiped Out 78 wrote:
kisswah wrote:a metal rod holding the mannequin.
With a power cord plugged into the wall? I don't think so.

Mannequin? No. Animatron? Yes!

We're through the looking glass.

tomwabe · Post by **tomwabe** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 1:29 pm

The mannequin theory is clearly ridiculous - in the unlikely event of the guitarist not being present or arriving late at a costly cover shoot - then at a push you might use a slim, young photographer's assistant or management employee to try out some compositions...

Mannequins don't have thin, stick like stands - that is very obviously a photographic lighting stand seen at a distance - this would never be an issue on a shoot like this where the the background is to be removed by airbrushing.

What you do have on your rolling gif. is a series of images comped together for the band to make a final selection from. I've done this many times for bands - what you hope for when going through the contact sheets is that:

1. the band - who are always vain and only ever look at their own face when choosing the most effective band image, will all like how they individually look on a single photo-frame. This never happens.

2. each member of the band approves at least two or three images of themselves - that way, as the comping artist, you have more to play with in terms of believably fitting 'approved' heads onto the band member's body on the over-all best photo. (You generally 'build' on top of an image where at least two members think they look OK.)

Then you have the worst case scenario... one member of the band becomes fixated on a single image. In the case of 'Lick it Up' we have probably the two single all time worst examples of the full -spectrum control freak that fixates in this way - Vinnie Vincent might have only been in the early stages of this debilitating complaint - but Paul Stanley, who was unquestionably the unofficial stylist at this crucial unveiling of the unmasked band, doubtless decided that there was only one photograph of the be-wigged chipmunk-ette that befitted such a momentous image. V.V. really wasn't a 'looker' at this stage - he looks appalling in the promo vids and stills from the same time-frame. Indeed he looks - wig or no wig - very little like the man pictured on the cover of 'Lick it Up' at all!

So - we have a single image of V.V. so monumentally lucky and atypical - the planets all aligned in one single frame - that it had to be used in any and all of a series of possible permutations....

OR - we have another possible conspiracy theory - what if that guy isn't actually V.V. at all....

C · Post by C » Sat Feb 06, 2016 1:32 pm

tomwabe wrote:
OR - we have another possible conspiracy theory - what if that guy isn't actually V.V. at all....

Bobby Goldsboro !!!

tomwabe · Post by **tomwabe** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 1:34 pm

C...
I think you might have something!

kissjrj · Post by **kissjrj** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 2:05 pm

This man went from playing a "demon" in front of the camera to playing Tom Jones.

Pieter Kriss · Post by **Pieter Kriss** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 2:36 pm

Strutter67 wrote:
kisswah wrote:
Strutter67 wrote:And on FB they showed other photos proving Vinnie was at the photo shoot. Conspiracy debunked. Vinnie was probably wearing Gene's shirt. Yes Vinnie was wearing a wig and supposedly Mark wore the same wig a year later, lol
I would love to see more photos of the shoot.

l_468ca9717ec04a31974d6f0e5b437957%20%281%29.jpg

Lemme see if i can find the FB post. It was a few days ago

It doesn't exist. All the images from said photo session have the same Vinnie face stuck on a mannequin.
The animation at the top of this thread does a stellar job of demonstrating this.

C · Post by C » Sat Feb 06, 2016 2:42 pm

Pieter Kriss wrote:
It doesn't exist. All the images from said photo session have the same Vinnie face stuck on a mannequin.
The animation at the top of this thread does a stellar job of demonstrating this.

Tarantulabelt · Post by **Tarantulabelt** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:16 pm

Guys, you're forgetting the most obvious case of, "Mannequin on a KISS cover".
Look at ACE. See that pole behind him? HE WASN'T THERE. Probably too busy playing cards.

But it all seriousness, Vinnie is not a mannequin. That photo there it shows his, "arm dangling" clearly shows the bend of an arm in there. It looks like an arm isn't there because the sleeve is open at the bottom and the photo is cropped above it. It's clear that Eric must've said it as a joke and 7+ years went by (judging from the timeline) and it was remembered as a truth. Paul, Gene, and Vinnie have talked about the album and shoot in some form or another, why didn't they ever bring it up?

False memories are a real thing, it's how I remember watching professional live Creatures footage with Vinnie when I was 7 but never saw it again (no not talking about what's released). Because it didn't exist. I was creating a false memory because you don't remember the event itself, you remember you remembering the event, and that's where the changes happen.

120 Decibels Jr. · Post by **120 Decibels Jr.** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:47 pm

Pieter Kriss · Post by **Pieter Kriss** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:59 pm

C wrote:
Pieter Kriss wrote:
It doesn't exist. All the images from said photo session have the same Vinnie face stuck on a mannequin.
The animation at the top of this thread does a stellar job of demonstrating this.

Recollections (especially 33 year old recollections) are famously unreliable. The photographic evidence points to no Vinnie.
As far as I have seen, all three images from the Lick It Up sessions have the exact same Vinnie head pasted on a mannequin. I'm happy to look at other photographic evidence. IF these guys were in the same room, there are many many more pictures. None of them have surfaced yet.

Tarantulabelt · Post by **Tarantulabelt** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 4:20 pm

You gotta be super unbiased and non-emotional for this. I mean, it's way cooler to think that Vinnie wasn't there. That's why conspiracy theories are so interesting! It funner than ordinary life.

But I don't think theres enough photographic evidence one way or another. All we really have are two or three photos where Vinnie's face looks the same. Could have been the only good photo of his face, or he could be good at keeping the same face. We've all seen those videos of celebrities who had to take a couple dozen photos with fans and their faces never change.
The shirts and bodies don't look like mannequins to me, especially that one where the arm is dangling. The fabric is thin but you can see his forearm in it.

But we have the guy who was actually there saying he WASN'T a mannequin compared to a guy that SAYS Eric said it was a mannequin with no tangible proof.

PitViper · Post by **PitViper** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 4:23 pm

Tarantulabelt wrote:Guys, you're forgetting the most obvious case of, "Mannequin on a KISS cover".
Look at ACE. See that pole behind him? HE WASN'T THERE. Probably too busy playing cards.

But it all seriousness, Vinnie is not a mannequin. That photo there it shows his, "arm dangling" clearly shows the bend of an arm in there. It looks like an arm isn't there because the sleeve is open at the bottom and the photo is cropped above it. It's clear that Eric must've said it as a joke and 7+ years went by (judging from the timeline) and it was remembered as a truth. Paul, Gene, and Vinnie have talked about the album and shoot in some form or another, why didn't they ever bring it up?

False memories are a real thing, it's how I remember watching professional live Creatures footage with Vinnie when I was 7 but never saw it again (no not talking about what's released). Because it didn't exist. I was creating a false memory because you don't remember the event itself, you remember you remembering the event, and that's where the changes happen.

I've never heard that. Are you serious about the Ace and DTK photo shoot?

Tarantulabelt · Post by **Tarantulabelt** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 4:24 pm

PitViper wrote:
Tarantulabelt wrote:Guys, you're forgetting the most obvious case of, "Mannequin on a KISS cover".
Look at ACE. See that pole behind him? HE WASN'T THERE. Probably too busy playing cards.
I've never heard that. Are you serious about the Ace and DTK photo shoot?

No, I'm just messin'!

kisswah · Post by **kisswah** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 5:48 pm

tomwabe wrote:The mannequin theory is clearly ridiculous - in the unlikely event of the guitarist not being present or arriving late at a costly cover shoot - then at a push you might use a slim, young photographer's assistant or management employee to try out some compositions...

Mannequins don't have thin, stick like stands - that is very obviously a photographic lighting stand seen at a distance - this would never be an issue on a shoot like this where the the background is to be removed by airbrushing.

What you do have on your rolling gif. is a series of images comped together for the band to make a final selection from. I've done this many times for bands - what you hope for when going through the contact sheets is that:

1. the band - who are always vain and only ever look at their own face when choosing the most effective band image, will all like how they individually look on a single photo-frame. This never happens.

2. each member of the band approves at least two or three images of themselves - that way, as the comping artist, you have more to play with in terms of believably fitting 'approved' heads onto the band member's body on the over-all best photo. (You generally 'build' on top of an image where at least two members think they look OK.)

Then you have the worst case scenario... one member of the band becomes fixated on a single image. In the case of 'Lick it Up' we have probably the two single all time worst examples of the full -spectrum control freak that fixates in this way - Vinnie Vincent might have only been in the early stages of this debilitating complaint - but Paul Stanley, who was unquestionably the unofficial stylist at this crucial unveiling of the unmasked band, doubtless decided that there was only one photograph of the be-wigged chipmunk-ette that befitted such a momentous image. V.V. really wasn't a 'looker' at this stage - he looks appalling in the promo vids and stills from the same time-frame. Indeed he looks - wig or no wig - very little like the man pictured on the cover of 'Lick it Up' at all!

So - we have a single image of V.V. so monumentally lucky and atypical - the planets all aligned in one single frame - that it had to be used in any and all of a series of possible permutations....

OR - we have another possible conspiracy theory - what if that guy isn't actually V.V. at all....

Yep. Your story is probably what happened.
Still interesting to see how much got airbrushed back in the day, even if it was tidious to do so.
(Paul's watch, Vinnie's neck & waist, Paul's hair ...)

PeterChrissmas · Post by **PeterChrissmas** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:20 pm

Tarantulabelt wrote:You gotta be super unbiased and non-emotional for this. I mean, it's way cooler to think that Vinnie wasn't there. That's why conspiracy theories are so interesting! It funner than ordinary life.

But I don't think theres enough photographic evidence one way or another. All we really have are two or three photos where Vinnie's face looks the same. Could have been the only good photo of his face, or he could be good at keeping the same face. We've all seen those videos of celebrities who had to take a couple dozen photos with fans and their faces never change.
The shirts and bodies don't look like mannequins to me, especially that one where the arm is dangling. The fabric is thin but you can see his forearm in it.

But we have the guy who was actually there saying he WASN'T a mannequin compared to a guy that SAYS Eric said it was a mannequin with no tangible proof.

I hear you and agree... The whole mannequin part is hard to prove and also (for me anyways) isn't the point. I am more interested in the fact that the cover (and other pics from the session for that matter) is so cut up.. and not that it may or may not be a mannequin.

He is missing an entire arm though... and I never noticed it!

Just to play devil's advocate, Vinnie was notoriously difficult for the band to deal with and was cited many many many times as being uncooperative. I could easily see him missing a photo session. At the same time, I'd think that G + P would've loved to talk about how Vinnie didn't show up for the Cover shoot.... Who the hell knows. Whatever the case...It is interesting.

dogmatic · Post by **dogmatic** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:50 pm

Mannequin stand?

It's his shirt collar and leather straps from the belt dangling behind him. That is all.

shandi777 · Post by **shandi777** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:18 pm

C wrote:
Pieter Kriss wrote:
It doesn't exist. All the images from said photo session have the same Vinnie face stuck on a mannequin.
The animation at the top of this thread does a stellar job of demonstrating this.

Case closed for me.

sicksickphil · Post by **sicksickphil** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 9:38 pm

kisswah wrote:
Strutter67 wrote:And on FB they showed other photos proving Vinnie was at the photo shoot. Conspiracy debunked. Vinnie was probably wearing Gene's shirt. Yes Vinnie was wearing a wig and supposedly Mark wore the same wig a year later, lol
I would love to see more photos of the shoot.

l_468ca9717ec04a31974d6f0e5b437957%20%281%29.jpg

how long is VV's left arm ?