# -4 Ace Frehley (Lead Guitawh)“Ace did nothing.” – Gene Simmons
“Aack.” – Ace Frehley
What makes Ace Frehley’s solo album a solid piece of work, as opposed to deeply troubling (Gene Simmons), tolerable (Paul Stanley) or a crime against music (Peter Criss), is the fact that Ace alone seemed to be trying to make a decent record, as opposed to celebrating America, his lovers and Jiminy Cricket (Gene Simmons), phoning in an album he probably didn’t particularly want to do (Paul Stanley) or getting his revenge against the rest of the band, America and the KISS Army (Peter Criss).
The rock and roll of the Ace solo album exceeds the rock and roll of the other three solo albums, plus Dynasty, plus Unmasked, plus most of Love Gun. Of course, when you cut the old time music, the disco, the Crystals covers and the creepy Disney tunes, there are more songs on Ace Frehley than on those five albums combined. Even though there are only nine songs on Ace Frehley.
Ace’s album, though, would rank pretty low on the scale of KISS albums. Its success is mostly rooted in the fact that the other albums are so terrible (Peter), weak (Paul), and weird (America’s #1 Reality Show Star). The rockers don’t rock that much even here. The best song is a cover of a band no one knows. The second best song is an instrumental. “Rocket Ride” from the leftover songs of Alive II is better than anything on here.
“Ace did nothing.”
Was Ace dumb? This question has plagued KISS scholars for 1.5 generations, along with “Is Paul, Uh, ‘You Know’?”, “Why Peter?”, “Why, Peter?” and the acclaimed “Could an Evil Clone of Gene Simmons Be Worse than the Real Gene?”
No doubt that Ace is something less than the sharpest tool in the shed NOW (c.f. “Aack.”) It’s impossible to confirm or deny long-heard rumors that Gene Simmons sold Ace’s brain to the devil in exchange for the rights to “The Love Theme from Kiss.”
At his base, Ace is from a place called space and was constantly faced with being replaced. By a series of talented-but-derelict (Vinnie Vincent), faceless (Mark St. John), acceptable (Bruce Kulick) and kindergarten-aged (Tommy Thayer) roadie-cum-guitarists.
Gene Simmons claims that the solo albums were his and Paul’s concession to Ace and Peter’s frustrations and desire to leave the band. Leaving aside the fact that “Gene Simmons” and “concessions” only belong in a sentence with the phrase “percentage of the”, one is left to wonder whether Peter (depression, horror, depression) or Ace (confusion, disinterest, confusion) had the stronger feeling about his finished product.
Now, the songs:
“Rip it Out” kicks off the album with a… bang. One guesses. I’m not personally that huge a fan of Ace’s singing. The guitar on this song, as on the rest of the record, is nothing special.
It’s odd for having been written by Ace and “Larry” and “Sue” Kelly, of the famous rock and roll Kellys. This brother and sister, or husband and wife, or completely unrelated songwriting team, or set of songwriters who did not work together, is something of a mystery.
Its first line, “now I know, you been cheatin’ and lyin’ all the time,” also reminds me how annoying it is that archetypal New Yorker Ace has dropped his g’s through the entire career.
Case in point: “Speedin’ Back to My Baby.” Co-written with wife/sister/unrelated female/or male/ Jeannette Frehley, this song is boring. The guitar parts are decent, the rhymes are terrible, it’s a better preview of what’s coming on Unmasked (q.v.).
“Snow Blind” um seems to be about drugs. It’s anyone’s guess why noted teetotaler Paul “Ace” Frehley would write about such a lurid subject. The song is ok, it, along with a few other songs on this album, is in the vein of Ace’s “Tough Ace” singing persona. His other persona is “Confused, Disinterested Ace.”
“Ozone” also features the long O sound found in “Snow Blind.” Not particularly memorable, and not particularly sensible. “Ozone” sounds a whole lot like “I’m in Need of Love” to me, so much that I won’t write a separate entry for that song.
The title of “What’s on Your Mind?” shows that, counter to longtime Simmons claims, Ace CAN form a complete sentence and cause it to be written down. In this case, the more difficult question type of sentence. Ace often sings to what seems to be a woman with whom he’s romantically involved; a silly idea given that Frehley long ago lost the concept of object permanence.
Supporting the idea of a possible girlfriend/wife, however, is that Ace’s romance songs are extremely, extremely vague and don’t seem to be addressed to a real person. That rings true to me.
Side 2 of Ace Frehley starts out with a cover a song by British glam rockers Hello. I’ve listened to their version, and Ace definitely improved on it. It’s a catchy tune, and sort of fun. And most people think Ace is fun, with one notable very angry exception, who has his own TV show. Why hasn’t Ace guest starred on that? Aack.
New York Groove was later featured on one of those Grand Theft Auto games, in the original version. It has been a live staple for KISS (during the six stretches when Ace was in the band) and Ace Frehley/Frehley’s Comet. We don’t mention Frehley’s Comet much around here.
Ace changed the lyric from “with a lady sitting by my side” to either “wicked lady” or (most probably) “naked lady.” If you lived through the seventies, which I kind of did, you believe this as an anecdote rather than an embellishment.
I already said I wasn’t going to talk about “I’m in Need of Love.”
“Wiped Out” is a dumb take on the surf classic “Wipe Out,” with a Napoleon XIV intro. I wonder if you get frequent flier miles for detox? The guitar in “Wiped Out” is pretty cool.
David Letterman’s drummer/Ace Frehley band(s) collaborator/the guy who played drums on all of Unmasked and all but the crappy Peter Criss song on Dynasty Anton Fig gets co-writing credit for this one. The drum intro in the surf song is a lot better. Sorry, Anton. You were once my favorite Australian. Ish. Actually, I just learned that “The Thunder from Down Under” refers to the fact that Anton Fig is South African. Parse that.
I also found this:
http://au.yamaha.com/en/artists/drums/phil_collings/Really? Your name was Phil Collings, and you decided to become a drummer? Try to be a little less on the nose next time, buddy.
Anyway, that leaves us with one song, “Fractured Mirror,” which is the second best song on the Frehley album (and thus the second best song on the solo albums). It gets in your head and stays there. Ace may or may not be a Nazi-loving drug addict as his former boss says, or he may be a fun-time wastrel Naz… never mind. He’s a good guitarist with a very interesting style. Imagine if David Gilmour were born backwards.
Nine songs. Don’t put yourself out, Ace.
"Ace did nothing."
This completes the solo album reviews. I’ll do a bonus review of the four crappy songs on KISS KILLERZ sometime in the nearish future!
