Paul Stanley

REVIEW: Ace Frehley – Trouble Walkin’ (1989)

Part 4 in a series on Ace Frehley!  Missed the last part, Second Sighting?  Click here!

TROUBLE WALKIN_0001

ACE FREHLEY – Trouble Walkin’ (1989 Megaforce Worldwide)

Gone was the Frehley’s Comet moniker, and gone was multi-instrumentalist and talented singer Tod Howarth.  I believe he toured with Cheap Trick after the Comet, on backing instruments and vocals.  In his stead came Richie Scarlet, certainly no slouch, and an alumnus from an earlier version of the band.  Not only did Scarlet write some of Ace’s best stuff, but takes a lead vocal on the album Trouble Walkin’.  Also back was drummer Anton Fig!

On top of all that, producer Eddie Kramer was back working with Ace again, and they have great chemistry together.  Certainly all the elements were in place for a great solo album.  The critics and fans were pretty much unanimous in their praise of Ace’s latest.  Little did they know it would be his last solo album for 20 whole years!

Trouble Walkin’ was Ace’s heaviest solo album to date.  Take “Shot Full Of Rock”, the opener.  It is scorching from start to finish, but especially on the ripping guitar solo.  It has a great chorus to boot, and a fine lead vocal from the Ace.

Frehley has a knack for selecting great covers, and his take on The Move’s “Do Ya” is superior to the original in some respects.  As he has with other covers, Ace makes it his own.  I think Ace does very well when rocking up poppier, melodic material and “Do Ya” is no exception.  I always hoped it would be a bigger hit, but it wasn’t really.

“Five Card Stud” is co-written by Marc Ferrari of Keel.  It’s not an exceptional song, but it does boast a suitably heavy riff, and plenty of tasty Ace licks and solos.  It might not be the best song, but the guitar work makes it worthwhile.

This is followed by the weirdest song of all:  “Hide Your Heart”, a song written by Paul Stanley, Holly Knight and Desmond Child.  It had been demoed years before for Crazy Nights, but not used. Bonnie Tyler was first to record the song, then Robin Beck and then Molly Hatchet!   When Kiss recorded it for Hot In The Shade, they released it as a single mere weeks before Ace’s album came out.  By the time Kiss’ album came out (the week after Trouble Walkin’) the song had been released by no less than five different artists.  The common thread to some of those versions seems to be Desmond Child.  Obviously, Ace knew people would compare his version with Kiss’.  Gene Simmons spoke to him on the phone to warn him that Kiss were releasing it as their lead single.  Ace’s version, while harder, just is not as good.  That’s not to say it’s bad, because Kiss’ version is awesome.

TROUBLE WALKIN_0006“Lost In Limbo”, a Richie Scarlet co-write, closed side one on a pedestrian note.  Side two began with a better song, the title track.  This would be a good time to mention that Peter Criss sings backing vocals!  You can’t hear him, but he showed up.  That’s Richie Scarlet saying “Take it, Ace!” and singing the bridge.  This one’s a solid Ace rocker, guitar and cowbell heavy!

My favourite song is “2 Young 2 Die”.  It’s just so heavy!  I used to think Peter Criss was singing the lead vocal, because it’s so raspy.  It is in fact Richie Scarlet, though Peter is on backing vocals again.   This is an outstanding song, rhythmic and bass-driven.  Anton’s drums are tribal and dramatic.  The guitar solos are all over the place, but all of them are ear candy.

TROUBLE WALKIN_0003“Back To School” is a a fun song, and you can’t mistake who’s singing (screaming) with Ace on the chorus:  one of the biggest Frehley fans on the planet, Sebastian Bach himself!  He’s joined by Peter Criss, and Dave “Snake” Sabo and Rachel Bolan, also of Skid Row.  This one is more hard rock than anything else, but damn catchy.

I’m not sure if “Remember Me” is really live, but it’s mixed to sound that way.  A crowd is mixed in, and Ace says good evening to “Club Remulac, in France!”  It is important to remember that “Remulak” is home planet of the Saturday Night Live characters, the Coneheads.  Appropriate since this song is sung from the perspective of a space traveler, advising Earthlings to get some world peace happenin’.  Good song, though, kind of lazy and light.

The album closes with “Fractured III”, and much like its predecessors, it’s an instrumental.  The thing about the Fractured series is that they do sound all interconnected.  They all sound related at the hip, or the heart, and that’s cool.  I like all of them for different reasons.  “Fractured III” might be the hardest, most electric of them to this point.

After this, Ace seemed to lay dormant for a number of years.  In 1990 there was a rumour that Kiss were working on a reunion with Ace, Paul, Gene and Eric Carr which of course never happened.  A few years later Ace turned up on his Just 4 Fun tour, playing a Kiss-heavy set of classics.  Later came the Bad Boys of Kiss tour with Peter Criss, and finally the inevitable original Kiss reunion.  During the reunion, there were some interesting Ace Frehley releases, and we’ll be talking about those things next.

As for Trouble Walkin’?  Solid.

4/5 stars

WTF Search Terms: Rock and Roll edition

ELVIS UH

WTF Search Terms VI:  Rock and Roll edition

Welcome back to WTF!  Click here if you missed the last one.  This edition collects some musical Google searches that somehow led people here to this blog.  Enjoy these head-scratchers and WTFs!

This first guy’s obviously an idiot.

10.  steve morse sucks

9. is paul stanley loosoing his voice?

8.  i wouldl like to hear mob rules (why, how polite!)

7. life+it+up+kiss

6.   black sabbath paranoid deluxe edition where is the 3 disc (right there.)

Photo0610

5.  phrase from what tv show – it’s the final countdown!! (Arrested Development.)

4. puff daddy’s embarring habit

3. new kids on the block poster greatest hits

2. real elvis videos tumblr hornny holes

And this week’s winner:

1. marilyn manson with butt plug

Like the WTF’s?  Then come back soon, or better yet, subscribe!

WTF SEARCH TERMS: “Runny James Dio”

WTF SEARCH TERMS Part II: “Runny James Dio”

Welcome to the second installment of WTF Search Terms.  If you missed the first one, click here.  If you didn’t, then remember these two things:

1. Each of these are real search terms, typed in by real people on a search engine like Google.

2. Somehow, each of these search terms led them to ME!

So here’s 10 more for this installment!

  • A week isn’t a week unless I get hits from people looking for stuff like this.  I’m still assuming that people don’t know how to spell the word “lesbian”.

lebrain sex

lebrani nude 1

  • Here’s a good one:

why is here i go again not on reissue of slide it in

Because it’s not on Slide It In.  It’s on 1987, sillypants.

  • This guy can’t spell the singer’s name, nor the name of the site he’s looking for.

you too runny james dio neon nights

  • Here’s a selection that led people to some of my Kiss reviews:

just how bad is peter criss’ ’78 solo album?

was peter criss’ ’78 solo album really that bad

why did paul feel unwanted and alone in the carnival

patty stanley stripper

jean simmons with a moustache

  • And finally, if this guy had his way, we’d all be speaking Anglesh:

hmv dvd prices iron maiden maiden anglend

See you next time for more WTFs!

Anglend

Sh*t LeBrain’s Dad Says: Gene Simmons’ Beard

Happy birthday Dad!!

We were in Kincardine, Ontario, on Queen street, or “the main drag” as my dad calls it.  We were in this crappy clothing store called Sandy’s that’s not there anymore.  But this time, they had a Kiss T-shirt for sale!  I never saw any cool band shirts in Kincardine before.  We spent much of each summer there, and when I was younger the place seemed kind of dull.  Finding a Kiss shirt there, well obviously I had to get it.  It was 1992, a Revenge shirt.

My dad asked, “Did you find a shirt, son?”

“Yep,” I answered.  “This one is cool, because it has the new Kiss member on it.”  [Eric Singer]

“Yeah,” my dad said with a disapproving smirk.  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that bearded guy before…”

BEARD

REVIEW: Criss – Criss (1993 EP)

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CRISS – Criss Special Limited Edition (1993 EP, TNT Records)

At long last, Peter Criss was releasing new music, for the first time since 1982’s Let Me Rock You, over a decade prior.  Tellingly, it was a mail-order only release, on a small California label called Tony Nicole Tony Records.  It ran me over $40 Canadian (with shipping) to order it.  It was a limited edition, all copies to be numbered and signed by the Cat himself.

An angry letter and six months later, I finally received my Criss EP to find that the hyped signature was just printed on.  Yes, it was numbered (mine is #2408), but for $40…come on.

I overlooked the sad artwork of Peter’s face, half painted in his old cat makeup, and hair bleached blonde.  I cracked the seal, put the disc in and hit play.

I was struck immediately by the poor production.  The drums sound awful.  For a solo EP by a drummer, I was hoping for better sounding drums than this.  Peter’s singing was OK, but the lyrics?  He does this section near the end of the the first song, “The Cat”, that was just…stinky.

Listen to this one now.
Gene and Paul went up the hill to fetch a pail of water,
Gene fell down and broke his crown,
And Paul came tumbling over.

And then his does this weird high pitched shriek that is so embarrassingly terrible, that I couldn’t believe it made it only to the album.  Well, it could only get better from there.

Nope.

The same awful sounding drums, rapping, and another awful lyric:

Planes, trains and limozines,
So what? What does it mean?
We’re burning down like Mercury,
God bless the Killer Queen.

This time the singer isn’t Peter, but a fellow with a mohawk called Mike Stone.  This same Mike Stone would later end up in a band called Queensryche.  And if anything was worse than Peter’s shrieking on track one, it’s Mike Stone’s singing on track two.  And the song sucks, too.

“Good Times”, an electric ballad with a soulful vocal from Peter, is pretty good.  It has the vibe of something that would have fit onto Peter’s 1978 solo album, without the schlock.  OK, one good song.  At least there’s one.

But then Mike Stone rears his ugly mohawk again, on a song called “What You’re Doing”.  No, not the Rush tune.  It’s not a bad song, but Stone’s truly awful singing renders it unlistenable.  Finally, Peter saves this drowning EP with an acoustic remake of “Beth”.  It must be remembered that up to this point, an acoustic version of “Beth” had never been released.  It was presented that way in the Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park movie, but until this EP, you couldn’t buy it like that.  So this is cool, and slightly different from the version that later ended up on the Cat #1 album.

I have no doubt this is very rare today, and I’ve never seen another copy.  If you can find it, great.  But you may not need to listen to it.

1.5/5 stars

Part 179: The Phantom of the Opera, and Paul Stanley’s Autograph

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RECORD STORE TALES Part 179: 

The Phantom of the Opera, and Paul Stanley’s Autograph

I seem to have lost my ticket, so I don’t know the exact date.  I do know however that I saw Phantom of the Opera at Pantages around October of 1999.  As you probably know, that was a big deal to us Kiss fans.  Paul Stanley was playing the titular Phantom.

My memories of the performance are good.  I recall there being a lot of longhairs and leather jackets in the crowd.  I remember that Paul couldn’t keep that edgy scream out of his voice, but he still did a remarkable job with the material.   I also remember he did a total rock star bow at the end of the show.

PAUL CREDITS

Having Paul play the Phantom was a stroke of genius.  It pulled in thousands of people, like me, who otherwise would not have gone to Toronto to see the show.  And it was a quality show.  Paul had the vocal range to do it, just not that classic training, and he was a bit rough around the edges.  But who cares?  He was so popular they had to add several more weeks of performances to his stay.  In fact I missed the chance to see him initially, it was only when they added the additional weeks that I got a ticket.

Now, you’re probably asking yourself, “OK, so what about that autograph?  Did you meet Paul?”

No.  But DJ Donnie D did.

I worked with this guy, DJ Donnie D.  (Yeah, don’t ask.)  Donnie went to see Phantom a few weeks after me, with his girlfriend (now wife).   While in Toronto, walking down the street, he spotted a familiar figure.

“I know who that is.  That’s Paul Stanley,” he told his girlfriend.  “I have to ask for his autograph.”

He approached Paul who was kind, and signed their stuff.  But Donnie went one step above and beyond the call of duty.  He got me an autograph too.

He came into work on his next shift, and surprised me with it.  “I had to get it for you,” he said.

I was blown away, I was jumping up and down I was so excited.  How cool is that?  I’m telling you right now, in my 12 years at the record store, I worked with some of the best people I’ve ever run across.  Donnie was one of them.  Thanks Donnie!

PAUL AUTOGRAPH

Next time on Record Store Tales…

Part 180:  Google Rules

REVIEW: KISS – Kissin’ Time in San Fransisco (1974/1975 bootleg)

KISSIN TIME FRONT

KISS – Kissin’ Time in San Fransisco (1974 or 1975 bootleg , Black Diamond Records 1994)

Early Kiss, live Kiss at least, was the best!  They were young hungry punks, a garage band in makeup and heels, playing with an intensity that they never equaled even on later triumphs like Kiss Alive! or Love Gun.  It was a ferocity on stage, made doubly impressive when you remember that they were weighed down by those costumes.

This widely available bootleg recording showcases exactly what early Kiss was about.  Recorded shortly after the release of their second album, Hotter Than Hell, it actually sounds pretty good for 1974 or 75.  You may be familiar with some of these recordings.  “Deuce” for example was on the Kiss eXposed video.  “Parasite” was later made available on the Kiss My Ass VHS and DVD.

What’s astounding here is just how good Peter Criss used to be.  I don’t mean technically.  I mean in that way that a good rock drummer just slams you in the guts and doesn’t let up.  Peter Criss plays like a savage.  The two best moments are “Watchin’ You” and “Parasite”.  He absolutely demolishes his kit, he’s relentless, and it’s so damn fun to listen to him, young and powerful, laying waste.

Gene’s bass is very loud in the mix, and while Gene was also no virtuoso, it’s nice to hear his compositional abilities on bass. Especially in early Kiss, Gene wrote and played some very cool basslines, melodic and solid.  It’s a side of Kiss that is often ignored by the critics.  Gene was heavily influenced by bands like Cream and I think you can hear that.

The setlist is pretty standard, with every song later getting showcased on the aforementioned Kiss Alive!  These versions are without the spit n’ polish that Eddie Kramer put on that disc, live as it was on that night.   In a lot of ways, I prefer these versions.  What they lack in audio fidelity, they make up for in sheer adrenaline and barbarism.  Paul’s as confident as ever on stage.  His stage raps are fully-formed and cocky.  His “Do you believe in rock and roll?” rap is present on “100,000 Years”, with Peter Criss hammering out a consistently tribal backdrop.

The CD is padded out by a bunch of unrelated (and often misspelled) bonus tracks.  “A World Without Heros” is an instrument demo from The Elder, widely circulated.  So is “The Difference Between Men & Boys”, which can be found under different names.  “Young and Wasted” is a Lick It Up demo (not from 1971 as stated on the back, who are we kidding?).  Lastly, “(We Want To) Shout It Out Loud” is from the Wicked Lester album.

4.5/5 stars

Part 153: Russian Imports

SAM_1771

RECORD STORE TALES Part 153:  Russian Imports

One of the weirder items that we used to see regularly were these Russian import discs.  Their status as official releases was very questionable, the quality was cheap at best, and the guy that sold them wanted top dollar for them all.

His name was Serge, and he was a Russian model.  Seriously.  He gave me his business card one time.  He was a model, and he had the perfect Fabio hair and everything.  On the side, he’d bring CD’s over to Canada from Russia. They would usually come without jewel cases, just the CD and the paper cover art, so he could transport more of them.  The discs often ended up terribly scratched because of this.  He’d bring over “greatest hits” releases from everybody.  Springsteen, Abba, Bon Jovi, even bands that didn’t have greatest hits releases like AC/DC.  Often the Russians would throw on “bonus tracks” from live or solo albums.

The guy was a real pain to deal with, and most of the stuff he brought over was obscure European dance, trance, techno stuff that nobody had heard of over here.  He’d assume he was going to get a lot of money for them, because they were big in Europe.  But if nobody had heard of them in Canada, and they sat on my shelf for a year, no, I’m not paying top dollar for it.   So, eventually Serge stopped coming in.

I bought two albums from him that I’ve never played, but bought just “for the collection”.  One is a Kiss disc called Hit Collection 2000, the other by Europe, called Best Ballads.

Hit Collection 2000 is on a label called “DJ’s Club”.  It does not have the official Kiss logo, just a poor attempt to copy it.  There are some spelling errors on the back — I don’t know where “Detrot Rock City”  is.  The tracklist itself is pretty weird, containing newer songs like “Psycho Circus” and “I Finally Found My Way”, along with one track from each of the four Kiss solo albums.  There are three songs from Dynasty, and three rare live cuts from the Psycho Circus Live Australian disc.  This one came sealed but I didn’t even bother to open it.  Even Serge’s sealed discs often ended up scratched to pieces, I don’t know how that happens because these are clearly factory sealed.

The Europe album, Best Ballads, is notable for not depicting keyboardist Mic Michaeli on the front cover, even though he plays on the majority of songs.  The album contains ballads from Europe’s first monumental self-titled disc through to 1991’s Prisoners In Paradise.  The Russians picked some cool songs this time:  “Words of Wisdom” and “The King Will Return”, from the first album, “Dreamer” from Wings of Tomorrow, and “Coast To Coast” from Out of This World.  As usual there are three “bonus tracks”; “Under the Influence”, “Lord of the Manor”, and “Elsewhere” from Joey Tempest’s 1995 solo album A Place to Call Home.   Not that you would know this from the liner notes, since there are none.  Just a paper sleeve.

In the end I don’t think we missed Serge when he decided not to deal with us anymore.  A lot of his product sat on the shelves.  In fact I tried selling my Kiss Hit Collection CD back to the store last year, and they refused to take it.  Lesson learned!

Part 152: Carnival of Lost Souls

SAM_1775

RECORD STORE TALES Part 152:  Carnival of Lost Souls

The Year:  1996

The Place:  Dr. Disc, Hamilton Ontario

The Guilty Party:  Me

Remember when the original Kiss reunited back in ’96?  It was a huge deal.  Everybody was talking about it.  What very few people were talking about was the studio album that the previous Kiss lineup (with Eric Singer and Bruce Kulick) had completed prior to the reunion.  That album, Carnival of Souls, was shelved to avoid confusion.

It was, however, leaked.  Or, at least most of it was.  It revealed a new, grungier Kiss ready to take on the likes of Alice in Chains and Soundgarden.  Not a bad album in fact, and some songs such as “Hate” and “In My Head” were downright vicious.  A buddy of mine, Len Labelle, hooked me up with a poor-sounding cassette.  It was better than nothing.

Both Gene and Paul pooh-poohed the idea of a release.  You’d read things like, “We don’t know when it’s coming out,” or “We have no plans to release it right now.”  But I was digging that tape and I wanted a CD, dammit!

T-Rev, Tom and myself were at a record show in Hamilton, and we stopped at a local Dr. Disc.  I went over to the Kiss section.  I saw two discs, both at $30 staring me in the face:  the ultra rare Japanese import Chikara, a greatest hits album, and a bootleg copy of Carnival of Souls…

I had a limited budget and could only buy one.  I chose Carnival of Souls.  I’ve never seen a copy of Chikara again.  And Kiss officially issued Carnival 9 months later, rendering my bootleg obselete.  I can’t give it away, today.

It was a bad call, Ripley!  Bad call!

So what about this bootleg that I bought?  Well, it has a few notable features.

  1. The title is wrong.  The title on the bootleg is Carnival of Lost Souls.
  2. The wrong lineup is on the front and back covers.  They show the original Kiss, in makeup.
  3. Even though it says it’s “the complete 11 track version” on the front cover, Carnival of Souls has 12 tracks.  Missing is “I Walk Alone”, the lone Bruce Kulick lead vocal.
  4. The songs are in the wrong order, and most have the wrong titles.

For example:

  • “Hate” = “Hate (Is What I Am)”
  • “Master & Slave” = “Tell Me”
  • “Rain” = “I Think It’s Gonna Rain (Down On Me)”
  • “It Never Goes Away” = “It Never Ends”
  • “In the Mirror” = “(Take A Look) In the Mirror”
  • “I Confess” = “You Confess”

At best, this is now just a weird oddity that sits in my closet, unlistened to, unwanted, unloved, for the rest of eternity.  There’s $30 I’ll never get back again.  Yeah, like I said, it was a bad call!

SAM_1779

REVIEW: KISS – Double Platinum (foil embossed CD reissue)

Next in line of my reviews from Record Store Excursion 2012!  Check out the video below if you missed it.  This one bought at HMV, in their 2 for $25 sale.  What I came for was Japanese imports, which they apparently don’t carry anymore.  Why?  

MIKE AND AARON GO TO TORONTO

KISS – Double Platinum (1978, 1997 foil embossed reissue)

For the record, until Record Store Excursion 2012, I’d never seen this before.  It’s a pretty cool, pretty accurate CD reproduction of the original foil embossed LP.  As far as appearances go, it’s superior to the usual jewel case version, and it’s even superior to the 1997 Japanese edition, which I also have.  The cover is fragile, prone to scuffs and fingerprinting, so I’ve kept mine nice and safe in a sandwich bag.

I like that its embossed, not just flat cardboard.  I like that the faces inside the cover are also embossed, just like the original LP.  The photos don’t really do it justice.  I wish I knew the story behind this.  In all my years at the record store I never saw one, even though the year on the back clearly states 1997 (the same year as the other Kiss remasters).  It even still has the same crappy 1997 liner notes by Robert V. Conte (who?).

I first heard this album back in 1985 or 1986, and it was my first exposure to songs like “Hard Luck Woman” and “Makin’ Love”. For years I would often recommend this album as one of the first Kiss albums for people to get. It is still an excellent introduction despite the fact that the market has been flooded with approximately 15 different compilations (rough guess) since then.  It’s also still an excellent introduction even though most of the material has been remixed.  (A lot of people can’t tell the difference anyway.)  There’s also one “new” song, a disco-ish remake of “Strutter” called “Strutter ’78”.  For me, these were the original versions that I heard!

The technical reasoning for the remixing was to make the band’s uneven catalogue sound more alike, when presented together in this fashion. The material produced by Bob Ezrin (Destroyer) sounded leaps and bounds different than the other stuff, so it was remixed to bring it to Ezrin’s level.

“Strutter ’78” was re-recorded with more compression on the drums. I still think it’s a great track, but it lacks the fire of the Kiss original. It’s more sleek. “Hard Luck Woman” has been remixed to highlight the acoustic guitars, leaving the band out until later in the song. “Rock Bottom’s” intro is presented here without the song itself, and it does work in that form, serving now as an intro to “She”. “Black Diamond” lacks the slow-down ending, and I kind of prefer this version: Instead, at the end, the song starts all over again and goes into a fade.

My only complaint about Double Platinum was always in regards to the CD version. Since the original pressing of the LP had the Kiss logo embossed on silver foil, I felt the CD reissues were cheap and didn’t do it justice, even the Japanese, which just has a dull paper cover. The domestic jewel case CD is just printed in silver ink.

Where did this come from?  What’s the story?  No idea.  Comment below!

5/5 stars