by Luke Baumgarten & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & I & lt;/span & t's hard to assign numbers to things in general, but musical performances are especially difficult. How can you assign a number to, like, a Garth Brooks tour? Do you compare him to Hank Williams? The Beatles? Springsteen? What baseline would we use? Should we compare Ropin' the Wind-era Garth to later Garth? No, that's preposterous for any number of reasons.





Tribute bands, though, are something else. Insofar as they actively try to become the band they pay tribute to, it's pretty easy to assign them a score. That's what we're going to do here. Two tribute bands are coming Saturday. We're going to judge them. (We apologize for not thinking of this in time to warn you about that truly awful AC/DC tribute that rolled through The Blvd. a month or so ago.)





the ORIGINAL KISS ARMY & r & & r &


SOUND-A-LIKE (10 POINT SCALE) & r & 7 & r &


Can't really capture Gene's larger-than-life voice. It's a je ne sais quoi -type thing, but it has something to do with how many women he slept with, that tongue surgery and how tight his pants were.


& r & LOOK-A-LIKE (10 POINT SCALE) & r & 6 & r &


Well, they've got the makeup down and everything, but that's not so tough. The only easily comparable body part, Jim Seda's tongue, looks a little short to pass for Simmons', frankly.


& r & PRESS (5 POINT SCALE) & r & 0 & r & None that we can find, though the 15-odd bands calling themselves "The Kiss Army" makes parsing difficult.


& r & CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS (5 POINT SCALE) & r & 0 & r &


One heckuva nice quote from a soccer mom, sadly, fails to meet our criteria.


& r & PRODUCT ENDORSEMENTS (5 POINT SCALE) & r & 5 & r &


Gibson Guitars, Dean Markley Strings and, hilariously, Mehron Makeup.





& r & the SEX PISTOLS EXPERIENCE & r & & r &


SOUND-A-LIKE (10 POINT SCALE) & r & 8 & r & Frontman "Johnny Forgotten" sounds exactly, exactly like John Lydon (Johnny Rotten). The Experience have the Pistols' well-rehearsed three-chord sloppiness down pat.


& r & LOOK-A-LIKE (10 POINT SCALE) & r & 9 & r & When "Kid Vicious" does the Billy Idol lip curl, he could pass for Sid, but the real kicker is Forgotten, who's a bit heavier and more unfortunate-looking (he's wall-eyed), but who could easily pass for John Lydon.


& r & PRESS (5 POINT SCALE) & r & 2 & r & Some fairly positive reviews from some really crappy mags


& r & CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS (5 POINT SCALE) & r & 3 & r & Kind words from Steve Jones, one of the two Sex Pistols no one cared about


& r & PRODUCT ENDORSEMENTS (5 POINT SCALE) & r & 0 & r & None, so far as we can tell.





& r & FINAL SCORE & r &


the ORIGINAL KISS ARMY & r & 18 & r & & r &


the SEX PISTOLS EXPERIENCE & r & 22 & r &





The Original Kiss Army at the Big Easy on Saturday, Sept. 23, at 8 pm. Tickets: $10. Visit www.ticketswest.com or call 325-SEAT.





The Sex Pistols Experience at The Blvd. with Scatterbox and Lack of Respect on Saturday, Sept. 23, at 9 pm. Tickets: TBA. Call 455-7826.