Has It Been That Long Already?
Yep, it’s been that long… it actually has been five years since I started blogging (this site started in 2007, and I apparently miscalculated last year… fuck it!) Time to update the annual list of what I’ve been through since I started blogging:
Two webhosts (only one of which I recommend, Bluehost)
Four laptops (Don’t get me started…)
Three iPods (I finally upgraded to a 120GB model!)
One iPad
Morning Musume and AKB48 both making their American concert debuts – and way fucking overdue to return to these shores on a regular basis… no excuses, please, just book the dates and get on the plane! And yes, I know AKB were just in DC last week…
Twenty-one Morning Musume singles
Nineteen (soon to be twenty) personnel changes in Morning Musume
Two personnel changes in C-ute
No personnel changes in Berryz Koubou
More personnel changes in AKB48 than anyone can keep up with… (and I’m not even going to bother trying to anymore!)
Seven and a half Morning Musume albums (the “half album” being the 7.5 Fuyu Fuyu EP)
Twenty-one Berryz Koubou singles
Five and a half Berryz Koubou studio albums (the “half album” being their misnumbered (3) Natsu Natsu Mini Berryz)
Eighteen C-ute singles (all of their major-label releases)
Six and a half C-ute albums (I still consider 2 mini ~Ikiru to Iu Chikara~ to be an EP)
Seven Koda Kumi studio albums (I lost track of compilations and singles!)
Four Ayumi Hamasaki albums (Go ahead and yell at me, Vee…)
Two albums and three EPs from Maki Goto
Three albums, two EPs, one best-of, and four guitar tab books from SCANDAL
Three post-Whiteberry EPs from bands led by Yuki Maeda (One Yukki, two The Husky)
Nine Stooges albums (two of those being the remastered editions of their Elektra albums, another being a 180-gram pressing of Raw Power, and counting 2010’s 2CD and four-disc deluxe reissue of the original Bowie mix of Raw Power and the Raw Power Live album released last Record Store Day)
The entire Koharu Kusumi solo discography
The entire Buono! discography to date
The entire AKB48 singles discography to date
Six New York Dolls albums (three of those being vinyl editions of the first three studio albums)
Eight Puffy AmiYumi albums
Five Mission of Burma albums (and a new one on the way)
Three Panic! At The Disco albums
Three Meat Puppets albums
Three Cannibal Corpse albums and two DVDs
Three Deicide albums
Five Hank III albums (counting the Assjack album and the overdue legit release of the This Ain’t Country sessions as Hellbilly Joker) – and Hank III finally getting to say “fuck off” to Mike Curb.
Two copies of Flyleaf’s first album (one autographed)
Three autographed Sick Puppies CDs
One guitar autographed by Iggy Pop and the Asheton Brothers
One Asheton brother being transferred from the Stooges to Rock N’ Roll Heaven’s Helluva Band (I’m sure Ron is trading Mike Watt stories with D. Boon!)
James Williamson rejoining the Stooges
The Stooges finally making the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame (Next targets: The New York Dolls, Black Flag, and The Minutemen… and that’s a fucking vow and a promise from me!)
Lux Interior being transferred from the Cramps to Rock N’ Roll Heaven’s Helluva Band
Captain Beefheart succumbing to Multiple Sclerosis after several years… and the original version of Bat Chain Puller finally being released by the Zappa Family Trust a year later!
A Sex Pistols reunion
A Public Image Ltd. reunion
Malcolm McLaren, the former Sex Pistols “mis-manager” dying of cancer… followed by Johnny Rotten NOT singing “Celebration” or “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” (good on ya, Johnny…)
A fIREHOSE reunion (!!)
Seven books autographed by Henry Rollins
One book autographed by Sen. Arlen Specter
Three e-mails from Henry Rollins
Two e-mails from Jello Biafra
Three day trips to New York where I spent over $700 combined in one store (Virgin Megastore) alone
One day trip to New York where I didn’t spend any money in any record stores (Virgin Mega closed two years prior!)
Four visits to Apple Stores where I spent $0 (and wish I had been able to spend several times what I spent at Virgin)
One visit to an Apple Store where I finally bought something (my iPad!)
Six day trips to Philadelphia
Three day trips to Syracuse, NY
One Stooges concert
One Bon Jovi concert (goddamn motherfucking fuck!)
Two Flyleaf concerts
Two Evanescence concerts
Two Sick Puppies concerts
Two 3 Doors Down concerts (Which makes four times I’ve seen my fiancee’s favorite band, versus zero times I’ve seen my favorite band… that’s gotta be corrected quick-fast)
Two opening sets prior to 3DD by Hinder (Most boring band not named Nickelback or Daughtry, by a long shot)
Two Breaking Benjamin concerts (and unfortunately, although they played well as always, the sound at the second sucked! What was up with that, Ben?)
One Michael Angelo Batio personal appearance
One missed Puffy AmiYumi concert (goddamn motherfucking fuck!)
One missed Morning Musume concert (yes, that concert!!)
One missed Mike Watt & The Missingmen concert (which I made up for on April 2, 2011!)
Six 100-count spindles of CD-R’s
Two Palm Treo 680 smartphones
Three Blackberry smartphones (never again!)
One iPhone
Four SD cards
Three phonograph needles (I’ll be needing a fourth soon.)
Morning Musume CDs finally being released in the United States (until a certain “label” dropped the ball… REAL indie labels like Matador and Merge, the opportunity is now…)
Ten WordPress themes
Seven domain names (on top of the previously mentioned ones, there’s TGML’s URL, the one for the Meetan blog, and a second one for the Reina blog)
Two different Reina Tanaka/Robert Fripp header graphics at MotokoAoyama.com (Vee improved on the original)
Ai Kago finally making a comeback… then blowing it… then joining her fellow ex-W in the world of MILFdom.
One W album that’s gone the way of the original version of SMiLE
The original version of SMiLE going the opposite direction of W3: Faithful (and in a big way… five CDs PLUS double vinyl and two 45s? Got it!)
One Guns N’ Roses album finally being finished, handed in, and released!
Ace Frehley beating his ex-bandmates to record stores with new material… and not having to sell out to Wal-Mart to do it!
Four of the many Mike Watt-related albums that were recorded during this blog’s and its predecessor’s lifetime finally seeing release… and getting sneak previews of a couple of them from the man himself the day before hypenated-man came out!
Two animes with Reina Tanaka doing voice work
The return of most of my favorite O.G. MoMusus
Three knocked-up MoMusus
Two instances where I bitched about Nozomi Tsuji getting knocked up
Three instances where I remarked about what a lucky bastard Taiyo Sugiura is
Three snarky remarks made by me about Avril Lavgine
One snarky remark made by “Reina” about Jamie Lynn Spears
One snarky remark made by me to “Reina” about Beyonce Knowles
Countless snarky remarks about American Idle
More American Idle contestants losing their recording contracts
Five Reina Tanaka photobooks… and a sixth finally on the way!
Two tires
Three illnesses
Three NaNoWriMo wins
Three book projects (two simultaneous, one on hold)
One published short story (”The Man In The Hummer” in Deliver Us From Evil, available from Jaded Silence Press)
One novel coming out on my own book label next month!
All four versions of American Wota
All three versions of International Wota
No getting the Sunn O)))-themed IW 4.0
One nomination at the IntlWota Awards
The debut of IdolMinded
Two jokes stolen from Jeff Dunham
One joke stolen from Nothing Nice To Say
Three times I got under the skin of Tony Brummel at Victory Records… that I know of. (Might as well make it four: How does it feel to lose Silverstein AND Bayside on top of Hawthorne Heights and Atreyu, baldy? I hear Aiden’s next…)
Seven (or was it eight by now?) times my partner at My Sweet Meetan, Chris (CK) went to Japan
Reina Tanaka’s 18th birthday
Reina Tanaka’s 19th birthday
Reina Tanaka’s 20th birthday
Reina Tanaka’s 21st birthday
Reina Tanaka’s 22nd birthday
My 40th birthday… I stopped counting after that.
Mike Watt’s 50th birthday… and counting
Iggy Pop’s 60th birthday… and counting – face it, he’s one unstoppable motherfucker, for which we should all be grateful.
Several boxes of CD sleeves
Countless mouse and camera batteries
Five new electric guitars, all named after J-pop idols
Five effect pedals (two formerly owned by essential brother/up and coming guitar shredder/fellow MoMusu fan Maxxxwell Carlisle!)
Several packs of Ernie Ball Slinky guitar strings… and then I wised up late last year and switched to D’Addario .10′s, except for the Dean MAB3 I named after Erena Ono which will still get .09s!
A year and a half of experimentation with different kinds of guitar picks before I finally settled on 1.50mm Dunlop Tortex Sharps (heavy and pointy is best, it seems… – I could probably do a whole blog post on that subject!)
Countless VitaminWaters
Countless instances where I took to heart David Peel’s adage that “fuck” is not a dirty word
A year and a half of lost blog archives (Don’t trust your webhosting to anyone who stage-names himself “Vikki Stixx”… or for that matter your real estate matters)
Not enough trips to Starbucks or Sonic (yeah, N.E. PA got one of those in 2008!)
Two coffee pots
One K-Cup machine (about fucking time I got one of those… the aforementioned second coffee pot is now on reserve duty)
More money spent at CDJapan than at Gallery of Sound
Not as much money spent on vinyl since 2008, at least I don’t think so… but then again I’ve still taken that option whenever offered)
Virgin Megastore going out of business in 2009
Five Record Store Days (counting the forthcoming one this Saturday, which I’ll be honoring)
And one girlfriend, since upgraded to fiancée and then to wife on 6.26.10
Les Paul Would Still Be Proud…
In honor of Les Paul’s 96th Birthday, some of my favorite players of his signature axe:
Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols:
Robert Fripp:
Two for one here… Ace Frehley and Slash!
Neil Young:
Jimmy Page:
Zakk Wylde, here playing with the man who should be Idol:
The Stooges’s Straight James Williamson, here doing a warmup gig with the band Careless Hearts before rejoining Iggy and company:
Randy Rhoads:
And while I’m not one to be posting my own guitar wanking on here, today I can make an exception and share something I did this morning on my own Les Paul, nicknamed after my favorite MoMusu:
Les Paul Birthday Riffin’ by thegroovemusiclife
And to finish off, a now-classic beer ad (not a beer I would ever drink, though) featuring Les himself.
Dear Whiners: Stop Bitching About The Rock Hall of Fame Already!
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees’ list for 2011 officially came out yesterday, although it started to leak the night before (Handsome Dick Manitoba had caught wind of Darlene Love being one of the inductees and proudly announced it on his Facebook page).
No beef with any of the nominees here. Tom Waits? Interesting left field choice – most people probably know Tom from songs that he’s written that other people have covered (“Downtown Train” as done by Rod Stewart, “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” via The Ramones, “Ol’ 55” on the Eagles’ first album) than for some of his eclectic (but never out of print) solo albums like Small Change and Swordfishtrombones. Neil Diamond? I’ve heard a few whines from people who can’t get the image of him in the remake of The Jazz Singer, his 70’s adult-contempoary-leaning material or his regular, Vegas/revue-like concert performances out of their mind, but he’s a stellar songwriter with an undeniable track record – and his Bang Records material definitely qualifies as rock, as it did when it was first released in the mid-60’s. Alice Cooper? Not just Al himself, but the entire original band? Influential to both metal and punk, a real no brainer.
As usual when the nominees and inductees are announced, of course, there’s going to be a serious amount of whiners over who got picked and who got passed over. And nobody is whining more than fans of Kiss and Rush.
Let’s get Rush out of the way first. Their time will come – but it can wait. King Crimson and Yes, both of whom blazed trails that Rush were barely starting to copy when they recorded their first record, haven’t been inducted yet, and both bands are long overdue to get in. Hell, King Crimson still blaze trails every time they put a fucking CD out! Rush shouldn’t get in until the two bands that INVENTED progressive rock get in first. Simple as that.
Kiss, on the other hand… a few years ago, I would have agreed with the complaints about their being left out of the Rock Hall. Now, I couldn’t care less.
Quite frankly, Kiss and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame do not deserve each other.
Yes, I first picked up a guitar (as did hundreds of thousands of other kids, many of whom have become guitar heroes themselves) because of Ace Frehley. I owe him that. His 1978 solo album and his most recent album Anomaly are both pure genius, and the man’s talent as a guitarist and songwriter is both underrated and impeccable. And Paul Stanley is a blueprint for rock frontmen and quite a good songwriter himself.
Beyond that… forget it.
Kiss started out as a band, but once their glory days stated to peak around 1977-78 with all manner of merchandising, that’s when things started to crumble. Gene Simmons started paying less attention to his songwriting and bass playing and more attention to the topic of what can he slap the band’s (or in recent years, his own) name on to make a buck?
Yesterday, when the RHOF inductees were announced, Gene Simmons made an announcement of his own: He announced the release of… a new Kiss Kasket. One with the “scab” members of the band, space deuce Tommy Thayer and kitten Eric Singer, plastered on it along with Paul and Gene.
A lot of Kiss fans were pissed off at that development… until they heard that Kiss didn’t make the cut for the RHOF again.
Admittedly, the first Kiss Kasket was a punchline that fans were more than ready to forgive Gene Simmons for. Shameless as it was (and still is), Gene’s tongue-in-cheek remarks about the product seemed to have lightened the levity of the situation… at least until Dimebag Darrell was assassinated on 12.8.04, which led Simmons, in a rare show of generosity, to donate a Kiss Kasket to the Abbott family for Dime to be buried in. (Of course, Gene had to get a bit revisionist a few years down the line and boast that the band’s faces were tattooed on Dime’s chest – even though it is public knowledge that only Ace’s face is there!)
I would sooner argue that Ace Frehley should be inducted – as a solo artist. He’s been eligible since 2003, 25 years after his first solo album came out. He was the most influential and most talented member of the band, and his solo albums have been cause for celebration amongst rock fans every time he puts a new album out.
The new Kiss Kasket is an insult, though – and now, so is any idea that Kiss should be in the Rock Hall. The Marketing Hall of Fame would be more fitting. Gene Simmons and the Kiss Army should take a Kiss Kasket and bury the idea of Kiss getting into the Rock Hall for good.
And speaking of those armchair quarterbacks who complain about who’s ever been inducted or nominated… “Rock and Roll” is a very broad musical term, but from the complaints of most of these self-appointed experts, you would think there had to be a minimum amount of distortion on the electric guitars before something could qualify as rock, or that using horns, keyboards, or a different style of lead vocal were disqualifications. None of this is true. Look at many of the early, almost obligatory inductees to the Rock Hall: Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf… none of these artists were plugging solid-body electric guitars into Marshall stacks. Shit, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis played piano, not guitar, and they still rocked.
One should also be reminded that Rock and Roll, as wide of a genre is, is still part of a wider genre called pop music. Many writers of the day considered the likes of Elvis and the Beatles, and their contemporaries, to be pop artists (same thing with Frank Sinatra years before Elvis) – rock was still an almost verboten term to most people. Yet, who are the first three legendary artists your average rock icon will give props to? Right.
Rap music came out of rock and roll – so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Grandmaster Flash and Run-DMC have been inducted in recent years, or that the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J have been nominated. Yet some people will run to their computers and whine about their inclusion, Whether they admit it or not, it’s often for closeted racist reasons – I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these same idiots buy into the “birther” conspiracies that have been thrown at President Obama since day one.
“If I had a say in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame…” the typical rant goes every time a nomination or inductee list is announced. And then said ranter proceeds to reveal why they should never have a say! That, my friends, says it all.
Happy 4th!
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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Happy 3rd Cake Day, International Wota!
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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Should I Tell KISS to Kiss My Ass?
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.
BEST ALBUMS OF 2009: #9: ACE FREHLEY “Anomaly”
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.
REVIEW: Ace Frehley “Anomaly”
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 7th 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!)
