Osaka, Japan March 1977Photographer unknown
Osaka, Japan March 1977
Photographer unknown
In 1977 KISS made their trip to the land of the rising sun for a series of record-breaking concerts and a general level of hysteria even they weren't prepared for. While on that brief tour Paul used at least one guitar by the brand Greco. Exactly what kind of relationship Greco had with the band at the time is unclear but based on the fact that both Paul and Ace played Grecos for parts of the shows and that the 1977 Music Life Special devoted to the tour had a prominent Greco ad they were probably sponsoring the tour to some extent. The Music Life Special also features a few comments and stories about the band members' actively searching for Greco guitars because of their reputation and Paul supposedly bought a total of eight guitars, two of them Greco MR-1000's, during a visit to a record store. This kind of product placement is evidently not uncommon in Japan. (Thanks to Alain for translations from Japanese.)
Greco was a long-running player in the Japanese instrument market having started under that name as early as 1960 and was—and actually stil is—a brand of the Kanda Shokai corporation. Originally their designs, while indebted to American guitars, were far more original than what later appeared and their real copying of designs didn't really begin until the mid-70's after several big-name touring acts (Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd among them) had visited the country. The MR-1000WR (for wine red) that Paul played was originally a custom guitar built for Mick Ralphs of Bad Company, the factory version of it appearing in advertisements for the first time in 1975. Not unlike a lot of Paul's guitars it had a mahogany body with a maple top and a three-piece maple neck with an ebony fingerboard.
The MR-1000 seems to only have been used for the first few dates on the tour. The only dated evidence I've seen puts it at one of the shows in Osaka, either on March 24 or 25.
Since it was a one-off for a single—or at most a couple—of shows, the MR-1000 is completely absent after the shows on Osaka.