Happy Birthday, first to my generation’s Elvis – Mr. Costello to you – who turns 56 today:

…and to Miyabi Natsuyaki of Buono! and Berryz Koubou – she whose T-shirt on the “Yuke! Yuke! Monkey Dance” single cover inspired this blog’s name – who turns 18 today:

Apparently, it’s also Gene Simmons’ birthday today, but given recent developments on his part, I’d rather kick his mother in the cunt instead for what she did 61 years ago…

Fourth Blogging Anniversary, that is…

I almost forgot to post something today, but I have a good excuse: Today was also my fiancee’s bridal shower, and guess who had to schlep gifts back and forth in his car? Yep…

I should note that for the past few weeks I’ve been – on top of planning towards the wedding and subsequent move into mine and my wife-to-be’s new apartment – finishing up the novel (yeah, still… but then again if I didn’t have to hold a day job it would have been finished already), working on a screenplay for Script Frenzy, working on a couple of reviews for this blog (they’ll be up this week), and working on my guitar.

And last night, boy, did I work on my guitar… I got this thing (Epiphone Les Paul) a few months ago, but I never changed the strings until last night. Such was my Saturday night:

And to keep things J-pop related, here’s another part of what helped keep me sane, especially today:

Besides, I couldn’t figure how to equal or better the live MoMusu and Stooges clips from last year! But what I can do is (even though I didn’t get this finished until after midnight when the 11th became the 12th) update a list I posted two years ago on my second blogging anniversary at MotokoAoyama.com, which would make this “A List That Took Four Years To Make”:
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OK, let’s review:

For the first Cake Day in 2008, I posted two MiniMoni baked-goods-related videos – and a naughty pun that Brother Ray Mescallado appreciated about the kind of “pie” two lucky bastards were getting from Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji at the time – at this blog’s predecessor MotokoAoyama.com, and a YouTube clip of Reina Tanaka working in a restaurant for a TV skit at So Hot She Shits Fire.

For the second Cake Day in 2009, I posted a different kind of baked good: my smoked paprika chicken thighs recipe here at TGML, and some “cheesecake” (i.e. some bikini shots of Reina) over at SHSSF.

For the third Cake Day, I didn’t know what to do. I cook, but I don’t usually bake (my sole baking attempts have been a couple of instances of buying Pillsbury Snoopy Christmas Cookies and following the package directions), and I could never top my blogging BFF and fellow Cancerian VeePinku’s Yuke Yuke Monkey Cake. Then my fiancee Tara came to the rescue with something she makes on the regular…
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Last week, I decided to go a little old school, pull out my old KISS albums (even though I have them on more recent formats as well), and spin those old favorites on my turntable. After a few hours, though, I stopped. And I blame what KISS has become lately and how much it has bugged me of late for that.

Last year, the coincidental back-to-back release of Ace Frehley’s fourth solo album Anomaly and KISS’ first studio album in 11 years, Sonic Boom found themselves in my CD player and in review form here on TGML. Granted, Ace’s album was the one I was more interested in, and it got a well deserved five-star review here because of the contents. But I found myself compelled to spring twelve bucks for the KISS album in spite of what was an iffy track record in the wake of their post-Dynasty releases, and I felt compelled to give an honest review of the album that I too, still hold to six months later (In short, Paul’s songs are the strongest, Gene’s are a small improvement on his post-’78-solo-album auto-pilot output, and Tommy Thayer can emulate Ace’s soloing style well, having imitated him in a KISS cover band years and years before, but can’t sing worth a fuck.)

A few weeks ago, after a little overindulging in the first two KISSology DVD collections, I decided to man up and add the third one, since it was loaded with footage from the reunion gigs done by the original lineup. Out of curiosity, I took a peek into the DVD’s commentary tracks done by Paul and Gene – and got immediately pissed off. So pissed off that I ejected the DVD from my player and shelved the set along with the first two volumes. What pissed me off? A lot of commentary downplaying Ace’s and Peter Criss’ role in the success of the Reunion Tour.

I suspect that Paul’s part of the commentary in question sounds somewhat forced compared to Gene’s tongue-wagging. Furthering this theory is something Paul said a little more off-the-cuff in the same set’s commentary track: That Paul was all for bringing Ace and Peter back into the fold, while Gene was rather reluctant. This should not come as any surprise to longtime fans of the band. Gene was the one most reluctant to record a new album after the Psycho Circus debacle – a debacle spurred by the absence of Ace and Peter on all but three cuts on the album – and on only one of those – Ace’s sole songwriting contribution to the album – did they play their assigned instruments (a session player filled in for Peter on the rest of the album, while Thayer played uncredited guitar solos). [And with the exception of noting that Sonic Boom’s relative quality made up for how shitty Psycho Circus was in my review of the former album, the only time I’d thought about Psycho Circus in recent times was when Vee referenced it in a recent post at Pink Wota – and in conversation she agreed with me that Psycho Circus was a lame album, too!]

Gene also falsely accused Ace – who in reality honored his five year contractual commitment and chose to step away and decompress before restating his solo career – of “shooting himself in the foot again” in his second book Sex Money KISS by not participating in what became the Alive IV: Symphonic KISS album. In short, Gene is out to make himself look good and the rest of his associates (at least the ones who aren’t willing to kiss his ass) look bad for the sake of his own ego:

Despite a post-Hollywood, self-proclaimed “refocus” on KISS around the time of Revenge’s creation, Gene Simmons is still interested in putting his ego and interests ahead of the group. Granted, at times, he is willing to make himself the butt of a joke – witness his first Dr. Pepper Cherry commercial, in which his son Nick interrupts his characteristic bombast, as well as many of the setups portrayed in his A&E TV series – as long as it’s for a profit. It’s highly doubtful a blooper like this would have ever made an installment of KISSology, even as a hidden Easter egg:

I am of completely mixed emotions about the band that first led me to want to pick up a guitar back in 1978. All of the classic-era albums are on my laptop and iPod, but only a few random tracks from the albums since then are there. I went AWOL from the KISS Army and started waving the Black Flag bars, but I still owe the band that much credit. But I will say without a shadow of a doubt that I will run, not walk, when Ace Frehley – the man who directly influenced my choice of instrument – comes around my neck of the woods on tour, as opposed to seeing KISS themselves live because I don’t want to see someone else wearing Ace’s makeup and playing his songs and solos.

NOTE TO LONGTIME READERS: Reviews coming of a few albums over the next week. I had to get this shit out of my system first. Thanks for your patience.

2010 is barely two days old, and already there’s new music to look forward to. Nothing on the Western music front yet, as far as I know. But by the time this post is less than a week old, a new Shonen Knife album will be on my desk. A new Koda Kumi album and new Buono! album will follow next month, followed by a new Morning Musume album the month after that – the latter just in time to define the final months of my bachelorhood. And there’s also singles from MoMusu, AKB48, Buono! and SCANDAL to deal with during that time period as well. The last time I recall looking forward to a new non-J-pop release at the beginning of the year, it was The Stooges’ The Weirdness album, which was scheduled within days of Morning Musume dropping Sexy 8 Beat – and those two albums dropping within weeks of each other early in 2007 made the rest of that year quite the anti-climax. By the end of the year, while I was trying to sum up the year in albums at MotokoAoyama.com, I was also planning to propose to my girlfriend.

Oh yeah, there’s that little interruption.

Truth be told, I’m already planning ahead, and not just for that. I’ve already anticipated that there’s going to be a short break in blogging action around the last week of June and going on for at least another week. Which only means one thing: I intend to stay as busy as possible, trying to post as much as possible here and at So Hot She Shits Fire (and whenever I can at My Sweet Meetan), while also going into final preparations for the wedding, getting the last scenes folded into Here Is The Wonderland in the immediate weeks to come, thus finishing that long-in-the-making first draft before plunging into the second, which should only take a minuscule fraction of the time it took to complete the first draft. And also upping my guitar skills.

What?

Yeah, I got a new electric guitar over the Christmas holidays. I don’t think I will be discussing it much here – this blog is meant for serious music discussion, and personal ramblings about trying to re-master the pentatonic scale or getting a better handle on sweep picking don’t really belong here, so there may be a little place somewhere where I’ll let those out of my system. (Updates about my personal life don’t belong here either, of course. I might refer to them in vague here or in “conversation” at SHSSF, but that’s another story, and I already have places for that.)

This, in a nutshell, is as personal as I intend to get, and I’m keeping it in topic: 2010 is going to see a lot more activity here. Beyond that, I’m not hard to find, as the list of “personal” links that has always existed here and at this blog’s predecessor will attest. With one of the series that I hinted at back in November (the Best Albums of 2009 series) out of the way, the other one will be starting next week to formally kick off blogging activity here at TGML for 2010. For now, I’m going to spend the rest of the weekend decompressing from New Year’s Eve/Day.

Other than that (and my wedding), I don’t know what’s going to take place in 2010. Hell, I didn’t know when 2009 started that Morning Musume were getting ready to announce their American debut and that Ron Asheton was going to be transferred from the Stooges to Rock N’Roll Heaven’s Helluva Band either.

Stay tuned. Things are only going to get insane here. But in a good way, of course.

SLAYER
World Painted Blood
(American/Columbia)
Available on CD, 180-gram LP, iTunes and AmazonMP3
SUNN O)))
Monoliths and Dimensions
(Southern Lord)
Available on CD, 180-gram double LP, iTunes, AmazonMP3 and eMusic

First of all, the Slayer record is a Slayer record. You’re either going to buy it or you’re not. They’ve been the most consistent band in terms of personnel (only the drum chair has gone through turmoil a few times), and ever since founding member Dave Lombardo resumed his place behind the aforementioned instrument, fuggedaboutit. Nothing is ever going to out-heavy their classic Reign In Blood, but this came so close that it was breathing down that album’s neck.

If you want heavier than even that, here’s your new favorite band: Sunn O))). Live, they’re just two guys with robes, downtuned Les Pauls letting out droning riffs, and a shitload of vintage tube amps turned up to 20 (they’re probably the only band I know of that has their own branded earplugs!) and ready to reconfigure your DNA after the first two chords. While that’s a set up that some armchair amateur wannabe critics love to mock (do a search for the band on YouTube and you’ll see quite a few parody videos), it makes for some intense music. With this new release, the band adds to their studio sound with a female choir, horns (including Sun Ra Arkestra veteran Julian Priester), strings, and sometime Mayhem lead vocalist Attila Csihar. Best listened to in a dark room late at night – or when it’s morning and you don’t want it to be morning yet. And don’t be surprised if it puts a smile on your face. This was my first Sunn O))) album ever, and it won’t be my last. And if that’s not convincing enough of an endorsement of this album for you, let Anthony Fantano from the video blog The Needle Drop explain further:

ACE FREHLEY
Anomaly
(Bronx Born)
Available on CD, double-LP, iTunes and AmazonMP3

It’s amusing how Gene Simmons must have thought that laying Wal-Mart’s money on the line would result in Kiss’s best album ever in the hype that led up to Sonic Boom (which did make it into Billboard’s Top 5, despite the fact that, as noted when I reviewed the album, it’s a rather weak effort that’s only a shade or two better than their previous two studio releases, the boring Carnival of Souls and the quick-buck-fake-reunion exercise Psycho Circus). As revealed a month prior to Sonic Boom’s artistic bust, Ace Frehley had something more valuable to lay on the line with his first solo studio album in twenty years: his balls and his word. And he delivered simply by putting the music first. The result? A reminder of the one element that attracted a great deal of people to Kiss in the first place – as well as of the fact that you can stick a six-figure salary, a few Les Paul guitars, and a Space Ace cosplay kit into the hands of a former hair-band failure turned Gene Simmons lackey, but he’ll never play, sing, or write even a fourth as good as one Paul Daniel Frehley. Or in other words, this was a repeat of how badass Ace’s first solo album in more ways than one – he outshined his (now-former) bandmates yet again.

From the Detroit Free Press:

No fun? Yes, fun!

The list of other bands to be inducted at ceremonies in New York on March 15 couldn’t provide much more contrast with the Stooges: artsy progressive rockers Genesis, Swedish pop kings ABBA, harmonizing rockers the Hollies and ska-reggae star Jimmy Cliff.

James Williamson, the other Stooges guitarist (he played guitar on Raw Power while Ron Asheton played bass) added his own view on the long-overdue induction on his Facebook page:

“Tonight I’ll be raising a glass to an awful lot of people…secretly I believe we were chosen to balance the choice of ABBA getting in…I do take some pride in getting in over KISS, but am saddened that the great singer/songwriter Laura Nyro wasn’t selected although she was hardly ‘rock and roll’, but then she`d have to stand in line on the point.”

KISS
Sonic Boom
(Kiss Records [North America]/Roadrunner [elsewhere])
Available as a 2CD/DVD set in North America and as a single CD elsewhere.
Rating:

Kiss fans have had every right to be skeptical over the past decade or so. The band’s last studio album, Psycho Circus, was really a “reunion” album with Ace Frehley and Peter Criss that had very little Ace Frehley and Peter Criss on it. They embarked on a “farewell tour” at the turn of the century that turned out not to be a farewell after all. And – most damningly – after the reluctant-to-repeat-himself Ace Frehley chose to depart the band in order to decompress before resuming his solo career, Gene Simmons made the controversial decision to replace the influential guitarist with ex-Black & Blue guitarist and sometime Simmons lackey Tommy Thayer without initially telling the public. (Peter Criss, “the most miserable man on the planet” according to Simmons, was already on the shitlist of his ex-bandmates during the so-called farewell tour and was replaced by Eric Singer.) Follow all that up with Simmons claiming in his autobiography that there was no longer a market for a new Kiss studio LP, and it’s understandable to think why an album called Sonic Boom might easily be dismissed – like some fans who heard a leak of the album on the heels of the release of Frehley’s Anomaly album already did – as sonic bunk.

But in the wake of Paul Stanley recording a follow-up to his 1978 solo album (and touring behind it) and Frehley working on Anomaly since 2007, it probably doesn’t take an Einstein to presume that Simmons was full of shit when it came to the Kiss Army wanting new material rather than another repackaging of back catalog.

In advance press when the album’s recording was announced, Stanley – who took the producer’s chair for the project – boasted that the album would have no ballads or outside writers, and would hark back to the band’s “glory days” both musically and sonically. Similar claims (sans the no-ballads comment) had been made about Psycho Circus. Here we go again?
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ACE FREHLEY
Anomaly
(Bronx Born Records/RED Distribution)
Available on CD, 2xLP, iTunes (with bonus track), and AmazonMP3.com
Rating:

I picked up the guitar because of this man back in 7^th grade. There were a few others that were pushing me in that direction (Rick Nielsen and Pete Townshend come to mind), but Ace Frehley and his smoking guitar (onstage, literally, thanks to his fertile imagination and the breeding ground KISS’s early stage shows provided) lit the fuse. Granted, that guitar stayed in my hands a couple of years down because of the likes of Johnny Ramone, Steve Jones, Greg Ginn, etc., but by that time (1982), Ace was already walking away from the band.

Ace’s self-titled 1978 solo album is an underrated, five-star classic that has never gone out of print. His post-KISS output – two albums and a live EP under the Frehley’s Comet moniker and a “second” solo album, Trouble Walking – were welcomed by fans happy to hear from the “Space Ace” but were not as consistent as they should have been. Still, even though he didn’t record anything since 1989, he still kept playing, touring on a regular basis to the delight of diehard fans and being an almost regular presence in Guitar World magazine and its then-sister publication Guitar School. (At one point during this period, Ace rebutted some comments Gene Simmons had inaccurately made to the same magazine about Frehley’s guitar skills in his post-KISS work).

Of course, Ace participated in the reformation of the original KISS lineup, making the band one of the biggest concert draws for the next five years. But the band only did one studio album in that time (Psycho Circus, which only really had Ace on two songs – Tommy Thayer played the rest of the solos). The group then stayed in back catalog land with their set list, something that didn’t completely please Ace. He left KISS for the second time after what was supposed to be their farewell tour, taking a little time off to recharge, explore a few other artistic avenues (including acting), and get sobered up (insert smartass remark incorporating the phrase “being driven to drink” and the name “Gene Simmons” here if so inclined).

When talk of a new Ace Frehley solo album, twenty years after Trouble Walking, came to pass, fans had reason to be skeptical. Ace had been talking about putting out a new solo album for years, especially after walking away from what was rapidly becoming an oldies act (albeit one that puts asses in arena seats rather than state fair bleachers). There was also talk that the album was going to “go back” to the style and attitude of the ’78 album. Thankfully, none of it is talk.

Anomaly is indeed everything it has been promised to be. Much of the album is the same five-star quality rawk and then some that Ace delivered 21 years ago: Out-of-the-box rockers (“Foxy and Free”, first single “Outer Space”), generous helpings of Frehley brand humor (“Pain in the Neck”, “Sister”, iTunes-exclusive track “The Return of Space Bear”), an Ace-ified cover version (Sweet’s “Fox on the Run”), and a closing instrumental in Frehley’s “Fractured series” (“Fractured Quantum”). Added to the mix this time around are a couple of introspective tracks and two more instrumentals. On “Too Many Faces”, Frehley appears to address with his lyrics the kind of second thoughts he was having near the end of his second tenure with KISS, while on the acoustic-based “A Little Below the Angels” he references his bouts with alcohol and (for the second time, counting “Rock Soldiers” from Frehley’s Comet) his related DWI and reckless driving incidents. He delivers a bit of lyrical inspiration with “Change the World” and “It’s a Great Life”. The two instrumentals, “Space Bear” and “Genghis Khan”, are two fine excuses for Ace to stretch out with his much-lauded guitar skills. His vocal skills, once a self-admitted weak point, sound much more confident than ever.

Ace didn’t miss a beat with Anomaly. Like the recent return-to-action albums from the Stooges, New York Dolls, and Mission of Burma, it was worth the decades-long wait. Five out of five stars.

(Special side note: Check out a podcast interview with Ace about the album from PodKISSt.com here!)