I really am not holding out for anything ever happening with this guy. I honestly believe that the main reason he stays such a recluse is because of the box set thing. I mean, would you go to a convention, guitar clinic, or anywhere you might run in to someone that would call you on STEALING from them? And lets not distort facts here, he did STEAL from people. Maybe when he finally realizes that he's never going to get a dime from Gene or Paul he'll relent and do something, but before he does anything I think he should give a public apology to the people he stole from and return their money.

Does anyone know the dollar amount that he took for the box set that never surfaced? And when exactly did it happen?

All true, although there are other ways to make money without showing your face.
It'd be nice if he uploaded some vids on youtube, and disable comments if he wished.
Getting hits/views can earn you money

Found this on another message board.

"Vinnie Vincent and his wife came to the Atlanta KISS Expo years ago. He signed autographs for everyone then later came back and posed for photos wearing his KISS makeup.

What Vinnie and his wife did was get people signed up in his fan club and pre-sold a collection of all of his demos and releases for $140. A friend sent in his money and got nothing but excuses for a year. Other fans got bit, too. Then Vinnie sort of disappeared from the fans' view. "

How was there no legal repercussions from this?!

There were no repercussions because we were all scattered to the 7 winds and no one knew who each other were to organize. This was coming to a head in 1998 or 1999 and the internet was not as developed as it is today. If Vinnie did today what he did in 1996 through 1998 he would be crucified because of the way that folks can quickly get news out globally. I can't verify this at this time but I have heard and read references of approximately 1000 units being sold of the Vinnie Vincent Archives at $125 per unit. Many of us thought when we purchased them that they were complete and ready to ship only to receive written confirmation otherwise. As you dig deeper here Holeripper you will find other discussions and details on this topic. As you have time dig through the Archives here and enjoy yourself.

Kev

He does this over and over again. Lucky no one bought the namm guitar.

except the INTERNATIONAL BUYERS

I am curious if he ever even had permission from Chrysalis to do the box set. I don't believe he actually owns the rights to the Invasion material does he ?

i guess he owns the demos. but yeah the label paid for it so it may still be theres. i think it depends. also the kiss stuff would be real risky to put out as well.

I can't but believe that Vinnie's intentions were innocent. Hopefully we could some day learn what really happened. I think it must come down with Vinnie's bad sense of business and judgement. I can't help but think that the box must have contained lots of Creatures and LIU era material. For this reason alone his project was born dead - had Kiss / record company anything to do to stop it or not.

Kiss did stop it.

'holeripper', what a great name
I want some to have the member name of 'tear-em'-a-new-asshole'

poserboy71 wrote:Kiss did stop it.

That makes perfect sense, if true. I'd like to learn more about this.

are you sure kiss stopped it? vinnie never said that. But surely vv knew he wouldn't be able to publish kiss out takes with out licensing it. He had enough material without the kiss demos. no way is kiss the reason this didn't come out. And if it was he should have cleared that up with kiss before taking payment and steeling his best fans money.

Detroit wrote:I can't but believe that Vinnie's intentions were innocent. Hopefully we could some day learn what really happened. I think it must come down with Vinnie's bad sense of business and judgement. I can't help but think that the box must have contained lots of Creatures and LIU era material. For this reason alone his project was born dead - had Kiss / record company anything to do to stop it or not.

I used to have a complete list that he'd published on his website of what he planned on including in the box set. From memory, the only KISS items that I recall were his "original" demo of "Killer", with him on vocal; the original demo of him and Gene working on "I Love It Loud" while it was still being called "Loud & Proud", and some of his unused guitar solos from the Lick It Up album.

If anything, it was quite an amazing list in that it finally revealed bands and songs from his past.

My recollection was that it was initially $120 or $125. ($100 for the set, and the remainder for shipping). Then he justified raising the prices because the set was growing and would include even more. Almost from the beginning, the excuses would grow. Then they kept "adding" more, which I believe gave the customer the hope that it was going to be an amazing set. I even remember one of the letters that included some new song information, Vinnie wrote "I Know You'll Love it" and signed it. Eventually the letters, excuses, and release dates slowed and finally stopped.

Having run my website for a while, I was put in touch with various people around the world, and would communicate. To my knowledge, only one person ever received a refund, and that was because they got a lawyer and made some threats. I remember one fan wasn't even a fan of his, but instead of Felix Cavaliere, and only bought the set because of the few unreleased songs on there that Vinnie promised.

Another person I communicated with was Vinnie's original webmaster. He stated that he always thought that the set should have been done one disc at a time.

Personally, I always felt that his intentions were pure, that he truly did intend to put this out. Perhaps he didn't get the number of purchases that they'd expected, and by then had already used some of the money that they'd received. If anything, he could have tried anything to help get his fans what they were owed, even if it was CD-'s or cassette tapes of the recordings. Instead, he went into hiding.

Thanks.
Even if he spent the money he could have sold one of his many guitars to repay fans. I see no excuses on not repaying fans. Not paying fans back was a very stupid act that partly ended his career. He complains kiss didnt pay him yet he didnt pay hundreds of fans.

Plus he sent some inconsiderate letters to fans towards the end.

Maybe he felt some kinda weird revenge fucking his fans since he couldn't fuck Kiss.

Not the good kind of fucking either......

Yeah I think pinkwiz is onto something.