"SPEEDING BACK TO MY BABY!" to keep the lights on between seasons join us as we dig up the episode from season one on ACE FREHLEY and his 1978 solo album released simultaneously with the other members of KISS. [20 mins of new content for the intro]

Update: Ace Frehley has passed away on October 16th, 2025 at the age of 74. RIP Ace, we didn't mean to dig this episode up the same week you passed. 

Ace Frehley is the first solo album by American guitarist and former Kiss member Ace Frehley, released on September 18, 1978, by Casablanca Records.[1] It was one of four albums released by each separate Kiss member as a solo act, but yet still under the Kiss label, coming out alongside Peter Criss, Paul Stanley, and Gene Simmons.

Ace Frehley contains the cover hit single "New York Groove", which was originally written by Russ Ballard and recorded by Hello in 1975. The song would prove to be a major hit for Frehley and boosted sales for its parent album. The album would also prove to be the most successful of the four Kiss solo albums.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Frehley_(album)

Transcript

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I went to the goth tiki bar in Denver again, hell or high water, and I ordered a drink with a special light-up Frankenstein monster head glass, and they made me leave my shoe in a plastic bag at the bar as a safety deposit. I saw that. So was it just one shoe or both shoes? Just one. I don't know what to say to that. Like, they leave a shoe as a deposit so they don't take the fucking cup. Yeah. I guess that makes sense, I guess. Yeah, I'm not walking through downtown Denver with one shoe. So you kind of got yourself a cool Frankenstein glass, but instead do you Got your shoe back. I mean I question your decision-making skills dave. I was wearing my nice work boots There's no way I was going to uh, take the frankenstein glass for that You probably get the frankenstein glass and like tv or something I probably couldn't it would probably be cheaper than uh, one of those work boots Probably so I found like uh this list um one thousand albums to listen to before you die Yeah, and i'm trying to see how many albums i've actually listened to Not many probably most of them a lot of those lists are pretty um don't go that far out of the expected territory some of them are like When you get into the newer shit, i'm like I I didn't listen to that arcade monkey. Why the fuck would I listen to arcade monkeys? Maybe that'd be your new favorite group. You'd never know Arctic monkeys. No, I don't think so Arcade fire, I think I think I was mixing arcade fire and arctic monkeys together Yeah, of the 2, I'd rather listen to Arctic Monkeys. I don't think I'm familiar with either. Arcade Fire is like a, I think they're a Canadian band. There's like ten of them. They're the most 20teens era indie rock band I can think of. And I'm not really a fan. I don't know. Kings of Leon has them pretty close. Yeah. I actually saw Kings of Leon open for Bob Dylan and Lincoln. That oddly makes sense. Yeah. It was kind of a weird mix though. Like no one, everyone was looking at like, what the hell are they doing here? You know all the Yeah, i'm sure all the boomer all the boomer parents who were there weren't weren't fans But I mean like some of their choices are kind of like like they only had like one who scared you album What album do you think it is? Zen arcade no New day rising warehouse songs and stories i'm like what? Yeah, i'm like that's not the song that's not the album I would have picked Yeah, you know, so I mean So it's kind of It's kind of a weird mixture of stuff but it goes all the way back to like, nineteen fifty and then Like go uh, 1955 it starts with like sinatra and then goes to like modern like night I think 20 16or so Yeah. Oh, so this is wild. So a comedian I like on Blue Sky, Rex King, posted that about historical overlaps that you don't realize. The example she used was Tennessee Williams probably listened to the Ramones. When you stop and think about it, yeah, probably. But then Todd in the Shadows quote posted, Devo had released 2 albums when Sinatra released New York, New York. And that's wild. That is kind of Sinatra's later than people realize. It's just, I don't know. He's not my thing. I associate him with, like, just because of the way his music sounds with, like, the forties. Yeah. I mean, he's not my jam, so. Speaking of things that aren't your jam Today, we're revisiting the Ace Frehley episode, doing a rerun because hopefully we don't do too many of these, but A few highlights that people may have missed every now and again would be fun. Yeah. Well, the highlight is this was my first episode. I think this was our first episode with the guy, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. You guys asked me to do it and I was like, okay, I'll do it. And I, you're like, well, what, what do you think you'd want to do? And I told you, if you really want to like find something for me to talk about, I said, find something that I would. hate and then i would that'll probably get me really talking and steve knew from like band practice how much i disliked the band kiss so then that was kind of what led to him choosing this album But originally you were gonna choose another album. What was the album you were originally gonna choose? I can't remember so we were originally gonna do the like the the disco album dynasty and I know I was going back and forth between the 2 for a little bit and then I I ended up picking the ace freely episode because I was genuinely curious what your guys's like reaction to it would be because A lot of people consider it to be like the best of the kiss solo albums. I thought well, maybe uh, Maybe these guys would like this and I was completely wrong I did like I did like the cover of new york crew But yeah Well, I I listened back to it today, uh to get ready for this like recap and You know, I have a lot of like good memories of like cruising down the highway listening to it and stuff like that And I think the first time I listened to it. I was like, like, and so like at that time I thought oh, yeah, the the riffs on this are really cool. There's some like really interesting instrumentation on it. But listening back to it now, it's kind of half baked, really, like, I think there are a lot of like great ideas for songs, but it was clear that he didn't have a whole lot of inspiration for like song themes. I mean, they're all like half-assed love songs or whatever. Um, one of the better songs is about doing drugs, but I guess that makes sense. Well, who who most of the new music forecast was it gene simmons? Uh, I think it was mostly paul stanley and gene simmons and then Ace freely would contribute like a song once in a while. He originally didn't sing at all In fact, uh, he hated his singing voice And he didn't really want to sing until the other guys like encouraged him to do it And I think he first sang I want to say it was on the love gun album was the first time he sang one of his own songs And you know, when I was listening back to it today, it's like, yeah, he is not a gifted vocalist. Yeah. I remember your assessment was he just kind of wanted to jam out and they were probably like, Oh, you got to do more than that. You know, Gene Simmons probably like, Oh, you got to do more than just, you gotta, you gotta contribute a little more than that. I think the first song he sang was one called shock me and it was actually like a uh actual thing that happened Uh, like water got on the stage while they were playing one time and he he literally got shocked and He was so nervous about singing on a song for the first time that he like laid down on his back in the studio and Yeah, I mean, he's clearly not as good of a singer as the other guys. Even Peter Criss? Is he a better singer than Peter Criss? Peter Criss is actually a pretty good singer, I'd say. I just don't really particularly care for the songs that he sings. But yeah, the reason why I asked who wrote the songs was, like, maybe so many of the songs on this feel half-finished. is because, like, he didn't have to, like, write a lot of songs or finish a lot of songs for Kiss, or if he wrote another song for Kiss, he could always count on, like, Paul or Gene to wrap up, you know, like, all of the unfinished songwriting stuff. So this, while left to his own devices, the best song is the cover because it sounded complete. He figured out how to make his voice fit in it, which would make sense if, like, all the songs on the record were indeed half-baked. Yeah, because I find myself, I was enjoying the music of it, but I didn't enjoy a lot of, like, the lyrical themes I thought were kind of half-baked. Like, he must have been going through a breakup at the time, since, like, half the songs are about getting a breakup. Nobody knows how to write about, because that's the vast majority of rock lyrics. Or he was just like oh what sells records breakup songs, dude It could also be just as shallow as that. Yeah um, so I've seen interviews where he's like where he fucking started laughing like a fucking maniac oh the the late night interview he did where he pisses off, uh gene simmons and paul stanley because he just like obnoxiously loud is Probably the funniest thing to ever come out of like the whole kiss like universe or whatever That was hilarious Yeah, and then it pans over to Gene Simmons he just looks like appalled that somebody is taking the attention away from him pretty much and I guess, uh, Gene Simmons, like when they were taking a break in between shots, like he went back and told their manager that he needed to like tell ACE to shut up and their manager was like, why he's doing a great job. Yeah. This one is kind of like, this is our first, I think, yeah. Our first episode with a guest, our first negative review of something. And that like the first handful of episodes with just Steve and I, it was Steve and I were just bringing different albums that we liked, and we were each positive on the other guy's album, so this was like a departure. At this time, too, we were recording 2 episodes at a time with guests, and then we'd release them for our part. So this was recorded on the same day that we did the B50Two's album, which we were much more positive on, which, granted, is one of the best new wave albums that is out there. So it makes sense that that one was more positive. A slight caveat, I would say that we were pretty negative about the Paul D'Anno solo album. I think we found it endearing, but we didn't really like it. Yeah, yeah, we were negative on that. I was misremembering. Yeah, no, we were negative on it. That album did suck. Yeah, we were sympathetic to Paul and were confused by it, but yeah. Was this the first one? Do you think it was me egging on the overtly negative negativity on it? It could have been. Yeah. Probably. Well, when I'm hating on something, I can be overtly negative. i don't know it it was just to me it was just terrible because i remember honestly it's almost like i blocked it out because i couldn't tell you a single thing i couldn't really tell you a single thing about it except for i remember uh uh bring back my baby don't mean maybe and then uh i remember uh I remember Dave didn't necessarily hate New York Groove. I thought it still kind of sucked. I was just like, yeah, I could. I mean, it was like the one like polished turd out of the whole toilet bowl, you know, full of turds. So it was when you polish a turd, it's still a turd, you know. This is not even the worst album we've done though. I will say that. Yeah. Yeah. I know, but you know. Yeah. What would that one be? Pyromania? Pyromania. Yeah. Pyromania was probably, probably the worst. I think the worst one is Iced Earth. I think that when I had listened, like we recorded the, like we had recorded the Pyromania one after Iced Earth. And when we did the Pyromania one, I said that. I thought it was the worst record I've listened to from beginning to end. And that is probably true. Like I would say, I'd say Primal Mania was probably a little worse than Iced Earth, but that's hard. Another thing about the Kiss episode I think is funny to mention is this was back before I got banned from Reddit. So I would post our episodes in like the banned subreddits, like whatever band we're reviewing. And even though it was negative I still put it in the kiss subreddit and I was expecting to get some heat if we got some fucking heat Like just plus shooters Yeah, like some kiss fans would be like I think at 1 point we described the album as like corny or whatever and somebody was like Like I've never heard this album described as corny. This is a badass rock and roll album or you know stuff like that. Yeah and you know Like I said, I enjoyed it a lot when I was younger maybe in the context of the time Maybe it sounded badass like, you know, if it was a album that was like early on in your in your uh music experience, I guess but you know thinking about it and in context with the rest of the solo albums i think everybody was kind of hungry for one of those albums to be good so this to this one was like oh yeah this one this one's great and i think people are just kind of hyping it up because Like all the other albums are pretty lackluster, which will visit at some point. I think I think a lot of people were looking for What album they just come off of when they did this one? I think it was there Let me look this up here. I think it was their prog rock album that they attempted. Oh No, that was the 81. So that was like a long time after that. This one this one came out in the seventies, right? Yeah, this one was 78. So, let's see Oh, yeah, so not dynasty was the one right after the solo albums It looks like it looks like the album they did before it was love gun, which is arguably one of their better albums It seems like you can argue anything really Because to say that kiss has a good album is an argument and in and of itself Oh another thing that I I don't think I brought this up in the actual episode But uh when I bought the the record for ace or when I bought ace really's solo album, uh, that was When I was going record shopping with my dad and uh So we picked out our albums. I remember like we got back home and like We put on one of his records then we uh, then we put on my ace freely record And we were sitting there Just chilling and he turns to me and he just goes the vocals suck And my dad he never liked kiss, uh, and So that did not surprise me. Although I was thinking since kind of in the same vein as uh, When I introduced this album to you guys, I thought oh maybe he liked this one because it's a little more It's a little more rocking than an average kiss album and uh, nope He did not he did not like that Vocals suck. Yeah, he's not wrong. I thought the tone sucked too. Like I remember his guitar tone was terror was shit as well like I remember like it just being really tinny and stuff and that might have just been uh, not not to besmirch your sound system too because sometimes like a like just you know you never know what they were going for with a system so i could listen to it on a different system and see if it sounds different as well but i thought his tone sucked on his guitar like all the solos sounded like similar You know, so I don't know. I might have to listen to, I, I, I'm not going to, I say I'm not going to because I'm not because fuck that I have more time. I have a better shit to listen to. But my goal someday is for that to be like a special that we do to raise money for a charity or something. I don't know, make Sean listen to the other Kiss albums for charity. I don't know. Actually, I was thinking we do the ice earth. Oh, that's a That's one of Dave's fantasies as we listen to the Gettysburg trilogy Like a live show or something like where we record it in front of a live audience that i would i would do that that'd be fun actually it'd be kind of fun to do a live show where we'd all make fun of the people that was my big oh and uh but that was kind of my biggest memory was that i remember and then i remembered freaking out when you were like You're like I know you hate kiss. But what if it was just one 4th of kiss and I knew exactly As soon as you said that I knew exactly what fucking album you were picking out And I I was I thought you were going to do the gene simmons album You're gonna do the fucking gene simmons album. Actually. The only one I have on vinyl now is uh, the ace freely one Oh, did you get rid of gene simmons? I don't think I have his Oh, I thought you had all 4 I got I got all 4 on cd. But the only one I have on vinyl I think is the ace really one Oh, okay Because like the way it goes is like Paul Stanley sounds the most like a kiss album. I remember not liking it when I listened to it, but that's probably just because I didn't like his What's the word I'm looking for His belvety approach to songwriting I guess like it reminded me of like a vegas lounge or some shit, you know Gene simmons album is just weird like beatles-esque songwriting but without any of the pop sensibilities any of the likability And then peter chris sounds like lounge music. So, all right. So yeah, that was our Thoughts on an album that we reviewed in season one. Here's the intro so go, fuck yourself. You wanted the best and you got a podcast. Welcome to Side One, Side B with Dave and Steve. I'm Steve And I'm Dave, And joining us today is Sean. He is our bandmate in The Illiterates and we've been friends in the scene, for I don't know like a decade, something like that, Something like that, probably, yeah, And I'm so fucking happy to be here. Thank you for bringing me here, and, uh, you'll find out why i'm so happy to be here in just a few moments. they've already seen the title, so i think they assume why you're already. oh joy. so today we are bringing in a record, and i am agonizing sean by not telling him what it is until the last minute. but we also have a bit of a curveball with this release. so

I thought it would be a good idea for me to start by talking about my connection with KISS, because these guys are probably like: 21:35

why does he have most of the KISS records if not all of them. You do, I do. I do have most, if not all, of them. Dude, have you been checked out lately?

I was going to say why, but you're about to tell us: 21:56

Okay, sorry, Go ahead. So my musical journey started with the rap to nu metal, to thrash metal pipeline, And the basic gist of it is all the guys in the big 4 of thrash. maybe not slayer, but all the other ones are big kiss fans. They've all done Kiss covers. A lot of bands that I respect have done Kiss covers and were influenced by Kiss. So because of that, I ended up wanting to seek out their stuff, And I was a teenager at the time And I know Dave's planning on talking a little bit about this, but I think Kiss, I think their tactics worked on me as a teenager. like it was like it did for like seventies teenagers kind of in the same way, Cause they were kind of fun to collect for, like it was kind of fun, Like they had a lot of vinyl records out there that were cheap and easy to find. Uh, I was able to collect their CDs pretty easily And back then, uh, I thought the rock that they made was, uh, was pretty interesting to listen to. And, uh, I think that's kind of faded over time, but I kind of see them as like a Pokemon starter band, if that makes sense. Like, do you guys have like a, like a band like that in your thing, where it's like? yeah, I know they're not respected, but they're part of my musical journey when I was younger or something. No, I only listen to good bands. All right, Dave, do you have a reasonable answer to that? I don't know. I, in one way, i don't believe in guilty pleasures. you know you like what you like and that's fine. um, that's why i phrased it that way. yeah, but, uh, i also have insufferable music, nerd taste. um, so, yeah, so even, uh, even as far back as i don't know, like 16, 17, uh, you didn't have like a starter band that got you on your path. you were. i mean there was a time when i, when i was a teenager, when what was on the radio was Creed. so I listened to Creed, but then I realized that was bad and never looked back. So Well, you know, that's kind of what happened with me and Godsmack. I used to really like Godsmack and then I was like, oh, they're doing ads for the Navy, so I should probably stop listening to them. well, i'm sure there are some listeners that relate to that, so i guess i'll move on from that question. yeah, well, i mean i could say, uh, there was a point in my life where i liked corn. uh, and i actually went to go see corn and the family values tour when they were in omaha. um, But it was funny because they were playing with Ice-T Or no, Ice Cube, sorry. And Ice Cube actually, like, blew him off the fucking stage. Oh, that doesn't surprise me. He did way better And I think I kind of lost interest after that. That might be kind of equivalent. I mean I still have like a soft spot for Kiss, Like I'll occasionally listen to their stuff, But usually these days, if I do, it's the live album, because all their better songs are on the live albums and they play them with more energy. Well, and That's kind of one of the things that, like, one of the main reasons I don't like Kiss is. I think they're incredibly overproduced, Like there's it feels plastic.

I guess my answer to that is: 25:12

I always felt like they were generic cock rock stuff, Like they were the creed of their day. yeah, or Nickelback. there's kind of a thing with them too, like they kind of market themselves as like pure evil, with like the demon makeup and the tongue and the fireworks. and then, when you listen to them, they sound like a fourth rate cheap trick imitator. I like cheap trick. cheap trick is good, but you know they just sound like generic power pop, but with this evil energy. like if I there were bands around their time that sounded evil. And like if you're going to try to present yourself as evil, make music that fucking sounds evil, Yeah, Yeah. So it's like you know, like the time they're doing their shit. you know you had like, by the way, Gene Simmons, not on the podcast. I know that was a flaw. I know that was a flawless impersonation, but you know, yeah, Like, I invited him but he didn't show up. He could storm out, like you did for Terry gross. Yeah, at about that time. you know, like you had, like bands that sounded like chaos. you know you have, like suicide out of new york with their 11 minute haunted oregon songs about a guy killing his wife and going to hell where they're screaming with a lot of reverb echo. and you know, like, yeah, you can make stuff that sounds evil and kiss just sounds, sounds like the shitty beatles basically. are they any good? they suck, it's just not a clever name then. so i guess i agree with all that. but at the same time i don't think kiss were always that way. i think they had kind of an evolution. so once you get past that and they start getting into their ridiculous, like tabloid phase, i think part of me just liked the drama that surrounded kiss. it's almost like listening to a reality show. I mean, yeah, it is funny. Yeah, it's like. I get that. it's like the McDonald's of music, but I like McDonald's for some reason. I don't know why I always, OK. so I always thought Kiss was more about the iconography more than the actual music, Like they actually had comic books, posters or action figures, anything that made a buck. And Gene Simmons has not been like. you know he's been very transparent about it, But it's just again. I feel like it was never about the music with him, maybe in the beginning, maybe like in some area in his life, when he was- I think they're from New York- when he was living in New York, And I'm probably going to get a bunch of hate comments for that. anyways, you know with the reaction we got in the iron maiden subreddit to me posting the link to our diano episode. uh, it's gonna be interesting when i post this in the kiss, because i mean none of us are making like overtly positive comments. to me, this is like i like them for nostalgia reasons. they're not somebody that i put on because i think they're amazing. you know One thing that's funny is like in in punk circles, when people will like criticize the misfits for marketing, for merchandising too much, they'll compare them to KISS. So like KISS is like a uh, like a negative comparison point in a lot of the, a lot of the circles I run in, And I I remember they had a album that came out in the nineties. uh, Psycho Circus. yeah, me and dave were talking about that one earlier. just say what you're about to say. because i i think. uh, i think i know what you're gonna say. well, it was just. it was so fucking generic and they were just trying to be of the time and it sounded like a shitty kiss record. it was horrible. was that around the same time they put out a first person shooter video game based off of that. i think it was called kiss psycho circus. maybe. yeah, it would have been. it was not a good game. well, and i was not a good album. Well, I was telling Dave earlier that that album is so deceptive because they build it as an original for Reunion and there is only one track that all 4 of them actually play on. The rest are all session guys with Gene and Paul. They let Peter Criss sing on one song. There's no artistic passion in Psycho Circus at all. I prefer, when they were trying to be a grunge band in the album, that they scrapped in favor of that over that album. That's another thing that kind of bugs me about. Kiss is, I've never listened to one of their songs all the way through, except I want to rock and roll all night when I played through it on Guitar Hero once. But yeah, like, I've never listened to like their stuff and I know the name of all the members. I resent that. I have to know the name of all the members because they're that like, culturally ubiquitous and I don't like their music. Yeah, I guess I said Psycho Circus sucked as an album, but I've never actually probably listened to a whole album. I have listened to some songs by them, just what was on the radio, But every time I'd be like fuck. this song sucks and those are probably their better songs. so I do have a favorite Kiss song. it's Black Diamond, and I like it because the replacements covered it and played it better, because it was a bunch of drunk 19 year olds playing it as sloppy as possible on the poor quality recording equipment, and that made it sound better, which is kind of what leads to my theory that I think they're overproduced, and that's their main problem. Well, and it's funny you bring that up because I think the reason I got into KISS, like I mentioned earlier, is because all of my favorite bands were fans of KISS, And it's like Anthrax, Megadeth, have both done better covers of KISS songs than KISS did themselves, And so I think there's a lot of legacy of KISS songs that were given their due because better bands covered them. nirvana did a cover of a kiss song. which one was that? do you love me? yeah, that's right. it was fucking awful. i was gonna say the melvins did go in blind, which was fantastic, i think. or chris noah selich and even said it was awful because they were drunk at the time. and it's just like. do you love me? there's a lot of like live drunk nirvana like goof covers. yeah, so so when the the puddle of mud guy did the nirvana cover years later, that was terrible. um, i wonder if he was just channeling his inner kurt cobain for that song. maybe he's secretly a genius. i think we discovered that the puddle of mud guy is secretly a genius. you guys with me on that? no, no, all flexo bender. no, the cats agree. the funny thing is like the puddle of mud guy doesn't actually have a bad voice. i think he was just really off that day and he probably was trying to sing it in a key that he could not sing hit. yeah, i'd actually seen video of him performing a song before that was not to be a defender of puddle of mud, but i think that's what happened that day.

I just don't understand how they recorded that and then they were like: 32:03

oh, this is good, Let's press upload on this one. Yeah, let's not try another. take or come back a different day when he's feeling it more. You know, like man, his face was so fucking red. well, anyway, i think we've. uh, i think we've covered enough. uh, background info. so uh, i'm gonna ask you next. you guys probably primarily hate gene simmons and probably, to a lesser extent, paul stanley. yeah, it's especially gene simmons. i have the same level of all, so it doesn't matter. so if i was to say, how would you feel about kiss if it was one 4th of kiss? oh, you're gonna do the one of the albums where it was like they fucking did you? are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, they all did their own fucking album one time. Is this what you're doing to me? Which one Simmons, Chris? What I think is the best one? Ace Frehley? Okay, Because I would not buy the Gene Simmons or the Peter Criss one. Oh, I've heard the pre. Like my friend who's a fan of Kiss, he fucking hated the Peter Criss one. Oh yeah, it's like crushed velvet pop songs, and I actually feel for the guy because he got in a car accident before he did that album, so he had to rush it. so I give Peter Criss a little bit of a pass on that. Gene Simmons, on the other hand, you would expect that motherfucker to make heavy metal like the likes of which you'd never seen, with the way that he looks on the cover of it and the way he portrays himself. but it's like we said earlier. it was the shitty Beatles. it literally had a Disney show tune on it. wait, what was the show tune? oh uh, i want to say is, when you wish upon a star, we will confirm that and if i was wrong, i will correct myself. it's not like. it's not like an awesome disney show tune. cover like when suzy and the banshees did trust in me from jungle book. it's weird and creepy. no, it was. uh, yeah, not good. so But yeah, I ended up picking the best one. in my opinion, I like this one a lot because I think out of all of them, Ace Frehley was the one that actually kind of had more of an artistic vibe. Like every single time they tried to do their stupid branding stuff, he was always against it, Like the guy just wanted to play guitar. And this album- I listened to it before this episode And I'm not going to pretend this is the greatest album of all time, But I think perhaps you guys might appreciate some aspects of it. We will see To be determined. So, just to describe it real quick, I have a copy that still has the innards. So I was going to sign Sean up for the KISS Army, but I don't think it exists in the same form. I already joined one army, I don't need another one. I think it's funny that the KISS fan club has the same name that BTS stans have given themselves, giving KISS something in common with K-pop. I mean they were the K-pop group of their day, That's. I mean. you know, they were more about spectacle than they were about music. If we make fun of K-pop too much, we're going to have people much more. I got the poster which, if you're watching the YouTube version, I'll put a picture of it up right now. That is fabulous. If we make fun of K-pop too much, though, we're going to have people much more annoying than KISS fans coming after us. So probably stop that right there, and then it's got its place. yeah, we love k-pop, we love it. yeah, but what do you guys think of baby metal? oh, it's awesome. yeah, because i don't want to hear it from baby metal fans. it exists, it does. so i also got the uh, the insert for, so you can buy all the all the amazing kiss merchandise here. so we got, um, you know, join the ranks of the kiss army, enlist now, all for only 5 dollars per year. And I did the inflation calculation? That'd be 24 dollars per year today. Is there? is there a join now And Gene Simmons will personally come over and stick a finger up your butt. Is there is there a picture of Gene Simmons, like Uncle Sam, saying I want you to pass out in the bed of your truck With a can of Natty Ice? My assumption is that is in his solo record, because most of this stuff is geared towards Ace Frehley. So you guys want a necklace with a signature on it. I mean people won't know what that is. which out of any of those I would do- the necklace with his signature on it, because people wouldn't know what that is, while everything else is recognizably Kiss. How about the Kiss comic book that just says Kiss Marvel Comics on it? Is that the one where they put their blood in it? I don't know. It just says Kiss Marvel Comics. Yeah, So do you ever hear about that? I did, I did yeah, Okay, But you can go ahead and tell the story if you want. Oh yeah, So, supposedly they released a comic book with Marvel and they actually went down to the printing press and put some of their blood into the ink. So if you get a comic book that has the kiss. it has their dna in it and you could clone gene simmons- the fact okay- and a printer. though for it to be enough blood for it to be anything, they would be dead. oh well, yeah, i'm sure it would kill the cells. maybe, uh, maybe in the year 10000, uh, some scientists will find a way to reconstruct it and then they'll have the perfect kiss tribute band in the year 10000. What I hope is that Scientist discovers this episode and uses that as his inspiration to bring Kiss back, And I hope that never happens. I would rather live in the Warhammer 40K universe, where people are constantly being sacrificed to keep an immortal corpse alive, than that I'd rather start a shotgun tasting business Man. these guys are just really looking forward to this one. OK, so before we, before we get into it, I'm going to talk a bit about the lineup. We have Anton Fig on drums. He was the late night guy who's been on like a ton of session stuff. Yeah, yeah, I've. He's been in a. Yeah, So the fucking other members didn't even play on their own, like other members' albums. I thought that was weird. That makes it better, I think. Yeah, I like the gimmick actually, And the Melvins actually did it in the nineties too, Although one of their members, like, didn't even. well, i listened to it. like buzzo said, he didn't try, but i appreciated the the noise it was. but sup y'all, future steve here. so just to clarify what i'm talking about here in the melvins basically just took this idea of releasing solo albums and instead put out 3 solo eps under their names. so we had king buzzo, dale crover and joe preston. And I'm specifically talking about Joe Preston's EP, where Buzz Osborne said he didn't think that he really put any effort into it. Quoting from CMJ News Music Weekly here, the whole idea to do Kiss-esque solo albums was a joke that went out of control. Joe did his as a homework assignment. He wasn't into it at all. We couldn't believe that he wasn't interested in this. That was the beginning of the end for him. It's terrible. His heart wasn't into it and he was a dumbass for doing that. He did it in about an afternoon. So just to clarify, and I ended up listening to it and personally I thought it was okay, Noise, rock. Maybe he'd just throw it together, but it was interesting to me. It's worth listening to. We'll probably do these someday, because they're interesting. Anyway, back to the podcast that we recorded weeks ago. Anyway, so the next guy, Will Lee on bass, not familiar. Carl Tallarico on drums, not familiar. And then they have a number of background vocal credits probably not worth going into. They have an address for the Kiss Army fan mail. so go ahead and mail P.0. Box for Canuga Park, California, and if you get something back, let us know. Oh, so what do Ace Frehley, Peter Frampton, Frank Black, Bob Dylan, and Cyndi Lauper all have in common? Is it Anton Fig? It's Anton Fig. recorded by Eddie Kramer at the mansion oh he recorded Led Zeppelin yeah yeah same dude and for some reason Jimi Hendrix and for some reason this is the only album that got a hit out of all 4 of them and they didn't as the next producer they went with the guy that produced Peter Criss's which is the one that had the worst sound so you just kind of good choices i mean all around i don't understand like they make terrible business decisions but they still ended up like stumbling into being millionaires but branding yeah um yeah that's the one thing they're good at brand product placements So anyway, we're going to go back into side one. There are 5 tracks. We have Rip It Out, Speeding Back to My Baby, Snowblind, which is not the Sabbath song of the same name. Is it about cocaine? It's about cocaine. Ozone and What's On Your Mind. Those are songs that Ace Frehley wrote and we're about to listen to. And then you're going to listen to us talk about us listening to it. I do try to do all of these with an open mind. Woo! All right. Any final comments before we put this sucker on? Why are you doing this to me? Because you specifically told us to pick something you'd hate. Hey. Don't use my words again, sweet motherfucker. All right. We'll be back after listening to side one. from side one. Dave, what's on your mind? What's on your mind was the only song off this side that I didn't hate. Maybe it's because it took me that long to get past the lyrics and the choices for the vocal melodies and just listen to the music itself. But yeah no like there are some moments across the whole thing that was okay but then like the songs were too long and the lyrics were like spinal tap quality you know like tonight i'm gonna rock you tonight uh on that level anytime there's a rhyme coming up it was super choreographed and the most basic possible thing like i like at 1 point when he rhymed baby with maybe i was like i would just rather hear girl and world at this point just Just rhyme girl with world. That's better than this. I got a big kick out of you guys reacting. Yeah, they are terrible lyrics. I never said the guy was a poet. Actually, I don't know what you're talking about, Dave. I said a lot of disparaging things at the beginning. I think I'm now converted. I am a Kiss fan. Oh the brain slug worked this this half album really no fuck this shit It's so fucking bad. Oh my god Uh rip it out. Fuck you watch me cry. What the fuck solo kind of sucked It was too long ending solo was not great speed back to my baby it What? At some point, someone else sang. That was nice. No, it wasn't. I said annoying backup vocals. Fuck the backing vocals. It was so annoying. Back to my baby. Oh, my God. And then Snowblind was okay until Ace Frehley fucking started in. And then Ozone. Ozone was the worst song on the side. The dumbest fucking chorus ever. Ozone. Ozone. Fuck you. And that was too long. It was 5 minutes. Why was it 5 minutes? The acoustic added some dynamic at the beginning and then he fucked it up. Like it just was this whole side. I don't know if it's this going to continue on with the album. It was very try hard. It was like not good. Like all of his solos were like the same. His guitar tone was garbage in every fucking solo. It was and they were too long. Yeah. There was 1 point where I did say, fucking in. Yeah, I remember. Just fade out. Just fade out. So this is going to be an R-rated podcast, right? Yeah, yeah. We've sworn in the other ones. We have the explicit label. Okay, because I got to be me on this shit. Yeah, no. The vocal melodies, though, I really feel like I need to circle back to that. I'm going to piss off another big fan base if they actually listen to this. I'd be very surprised. Yeah, if any Swifties listen to this we love you kill me my mom probably yeah some of her songs are okay at least compared to this um but like it reminded me like the vocal melodies reminded me of like bad blood so you think you got bad you know it's just like that basic well he had the he had this it was the same with his guitar solos his singing all had the same tonality for every song it was not nothing was changed up no variation yeah i like a lot of non-traditional singers like i like you know like i like talking heads david byrne goes off key a lot sometimes on purpose sometimes he's figuring it out he's dynamic yeah he knows what he knows how to control it knows what he's doing with it i like pair ubu uh who will do an episode on later david thomas does like his weird yelp thing which is amazing and i love it but like this was just maybe maybe that's i i guess i would have to listen to a regular kiss album but that i don't want to do that yeah uh I feel like if you didn't like this, I don't think anything would turn you around. Because maybe having different singers breaks it up from the monotony. I don't know. I don't get why he thought this layout of the side one was good. This was the best-selling one, and it went platinum. Are you fucking kidding me? What year did this come out? 78. Well, at least it was before I was born. Pass me the sleeve. I'm going to There was a lot of good music that came out in, like, this went platinum. Let's listen to the Bee Gees. I would rather listen to the Bee Gees. So, I'm getting some mixed signals, but I'm sensing you guys didn't really get much out of this. I thought it was wonderful. No, I liked some of the crunchy rhythm guitar on that very last song. Okay, so there was, yeah, I liked the intro to the, and then he ruined it by talking. Yeah. So I have a much more positive opinion of this album. All right, let's hear it. So let's tell you how you're wrong. Artist objective scene. Anyway. No. This is objectively bad. Alright, so when it comes to my listening, I think I tend to prioritize the music before the vocals, so his lyrics and his singing, like, never bothered. Maybe that's because I'm a big Megadeth fan and I grew up listening to Dave Mustaine and his terrible lyrics, which admittedly aren't to this level. but i like the lyrics to peace cells honestly no i mean yeah i guess you know dave dave uh dave has some cringers not all cringers right so for for me it's like i i really like rip it out to me was a really good like driving song back when i was like a like a pizza delivery guy so um that that one was always kind of my my pizza delivery guy playlist i have never really liked speeding back to my baby it's too fucking corny uh snow blind horrible yeah uh i've always skipped that one uh snow blind i i really do like it's almost got like a almost like a sabbath type vibe and i almost wonder if he's like i'm gonna do my own snow blind with blackjack and hookers i mean yeah well i mean sabbath probably did snow blind with sabbath and hookers but better so ozone yeah i don't hate it and uh what's on your mind i think is a decent song okay so not exactly i you know it's not the glowing endorsement of it but when i was a kid i really enjoyed listening to this and as an adult analyzing it um i mean it still ticks that like nostalgia portion of my brain but at the same time i'm getting so much joy watching you guys react to how bad this is I would rather listen to this than Love Gun, for example. Oh, yeah. No, that's my favorite song by Kit. My original idea for something similar to this was called The Musical Masochist, where I would torture my friends with bad records I've bought. Dave said, I don't want to do all that. And I said, all right, well, we're going to do some of that. I actually didn't intend this to be like a masochist record, actually. I was legit curious because, you know, you mentioned that you enjoy less traditional singers. So I thought maybe in this context you would, but I think you probably wouldn't mind these vocals if there were substance to the lyrics, I'd assume. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's fair. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know. They're pretty bad. So musically, you didn't get anything out of it either. Musically, it was okay until you started doing more. Yeah. Some of the intro riffs were good. Let me see. I had it written down. I did like the bluesy rock for speeding back to my baby until he started talking. I'm seeing a theme here. yeah rip it out it was okay uh it was just very generic love song again i hated the lyric watch me cry what the fuck anyways uh ending solo was pretty cringy and i hate that word so i can't believe i said just said it uh and then what's on your mind like i said lyrics suck but the music was okay It felt like he was doing a solo record and he's like, I want it to be balls out and like the best fucking thing ever. And it just was, eh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know enough, uh, kiss thisography to really be, uh, a connoisseur or like, you know, like, yeah. And that's, uh, Part of the reason why I was very curious to see your guys' take on this is because you don't have that attached to it. So you guys really got to, like, cut right through it and go, what the fuck? You know, it was really interesting to see. I have second-guessed and been embarrassed by my own lyrics before. Nah, they're good. So, yeah, we actually accomplished something with this. So I think that's a net positive. What do you think, Sean? Sure. Sure, sure. Maybe. I'm seeing the NOM helicopter, like, fading in and out behind me. All right. A little PTSD here. Side 2. Fuck, there's another side. Side 2. So we got 4 songs, so That means they're longer? No, I think on an average they're shorter, so you guys have less No, they are longer. So side 2, New York Groove is a Hello song that's from the glam rock band Hello. I think if you guys are going to like anything on it, it'll probably be that one. It's not the one that he wrote. I do like seventies British glam. I'm in Need of Love. Wipeout is weird and Fractured Mirror is an instrumental. So you guys think he's gonna turn this side around sure yeah yeah yeah i mean yeah you didn't think diana would turn his side around he did yeah you know i i doubt it all right we're uh we're off to the new york groove we'll see you on the other side i hope it's shorter Oh, God, you woke me up. I was so fucking bored at that last song. Hey, at least it was one you could sleep to. Oh, my God. You know, I thought that one might have had a chance because the entire time you've been saying, this song has been fine until it's really happened. It had its moments. It was too long. Yeah, I think that's probably fair to say about all of these. The synth part was pretty okay. Yeah, synth part was okay. And I say that as a, like, I'm biased because I like synths and music, so Anyway, sorry. Yeah, synth part was okay. Some of, like, the psychedelic sounding stuff was alright. Really, though New York Groove, the first song was actually decent because it was a cover song. And I realized that too, like the weakness in the vocals before that was just like him writing the most bland vocal melodies. So when he was singing to a melody that someone else had already wrote, it was fine. Yeah. Yeah, I actually dig that song. I could hear like i could hear a new york dolls version of that that i would really like too so like yeah even though it didn't exist yeah i think uh i'm probably going to edit it out somewhere but i think i previously said somewhere that it was a new york doll song and i think i was just wrong about that but maybe i wasn't and i just couldn't find a google search on it or it's an example of the mandala effect and i'm from another universe where the new york dolls covered it so yeah it could be I thought that that was the only song that was probably listenable. Yeah. I said it was okay, and I'm just surprised it was a hit. Anyways. Yeah, it did remind me of like some kind of, I don't know, like mid-seventies. It sounded nothing like him, so that's the only reason it was okay. Yeah. Anyways. I'm in need of love. Boring. What the fuck? generic cock rot bullshit like most of kiss it too and i just wrote so fucking bad oh jesus christ do you think that ace freely and you have the common experience of uh masturbating in a starbucks yes probably that doesn't sound like okay because he likes to love himself well he's gonna need a love he's gonna need a love but he's only got a hand I don't know if they had Starbucks back then, but they did. They were in New York, and Ace Frehley probably used their services. You're like the only ones that's going to get that joke. Sometimes you write jokes for yourself. I know. And if you want to get that joke, buy our albums. There you go. Go buy our EP. We complain about our mayor on it. Wiped out? It had its moments. It was too long, but it had its moments. I really liked the groovy interplay between the rhythm section. So I said this, it sounded kind of rush, like rush, like that weird thing it was doing where it was kind of like not a normal 44 time. It was kind of going off key. Yeah. But then still shitty lyrics. He rhymed out, without, without. Oh, God. And then the wipeout fakeout at the beginning was fucking dumb. And he couldn't even do the fucking drum fill right. Anyway, sorry. But the vocal melodies didn't detract from the song this time. They were fine. The lyrics sucked. The song was a little too long. But yeah, other than that, that song, I'm damning it with faint praise. It was the second best song on the album and the best one that wasn't to cover, so Yeah, yeah, I'll say that. I'm glad that you brought up Rush because I wanted to bring up the fact that I think it was actually around this time Rush and Kiss were touring together. Rush was the support for Kiss. And could you imagine? I can't picture that in my head. Oh. And it happened. Okay, so yeah, maybe Rush was an influence on that song. Yeah, I think Because it sounded like early Rush, like, uh, I think they toured together. I want to say it was for fly by night. And I think that would have been around 75. So, yeah, they were definitely aware of each other. Geddy Lee talked about doing cocaine on that tour. So Geddy Lee probably did cocaine with Ace Frehley. That's kind of cool. Makes sense. Yeah. Fractured Mirror, the instrumental. had its moments too long too long uh boring church bells at the beginning how original when it got to like the the weird kind of slightly off-key welchie synth stuff that was that kind of woke me up that was interesting but yeah yeah i'd rather listen to the tubular bells Dave, don't you know that Adam Wakeman played that keyboard part? Oh, okay. No, not really. Making fun of our comments. Oh, yeah. Who's Adam Wakeman? He played keyboards on Sabercadabra. Oh, wait, I don't care. No, I'm just kidding. Dave made a comment that Ozzy played keyboards on a song that Ozzy definitely played keyboards on, and somebody corrected him. oh okay people people explain stuff to us in the comments sometimes they mansplained you yeah and i completely encourage that please correct us especially if we're wrong but also if we're not wrong because that's engagement give us engagement and we will enjoy getting your engagements so i i can't wait for the fucking hate mail that i'm gonna get for hating on kiss oh i know we're gonna get so much engagement that's the only thing that matters All attention is positive attention. My perceptions aside too, I think Dave, you mentioned this as well, is this is the better side. The songs, for me, none of the songs on this album had good lyrics. I've always ignored the vocals, even back in the day when I really enjoyed this album. I think instrumentally, this album has a lot of really interesting moments that really helped shape my guitar playing. And I also think I really enjoyed the idea of some guy. He was already famous and he just took a stab at the vocals. It might not have been a successful experiment, but you know, he, to me, this is an album of a guy trying his best. And I think, you know, it inspired me despite not being a great vocalist myself to, to do it for myself. So in the end, I think I have this album would thank for that. yeah sorry i on it oh no please don't apologize i've been thoroughly enjoying this well i was gonna on it anyways but i i apologize that it was so influential Well, you know, it led me to bigger and better things. And these days, now I'm listening to Eminem right now and trying to figure out why he attacked Moby. So those are my musical priorities. That was odd, wasn't it? I think it was a whole beef they had. Like Moby said something about Eminem and then in the press. He did. It was the mildest of criticisms. Like it was kind of like, hey, maybe you should just like make your lyrics less homophobic. That'd be kind of cool because you're pretty talented. And Eminem's like, fuck you! And then he drew a picture of him choking Moby. And Moby said that he, like, screwed up on it. And he turned it over and drew another picture of him choking Moby, but he got, like, both of them. And you can find it online. You can duck-duck-go it. And you can see a picture that Eminem drew of Moby that he got framed. God. But, yeah, I would, like, I would listen to this over anything with Gene Simmons on it. That is my review. My review, I would never listen to it again. I might go try to, if anything, because I thought New York Groove was okay. If I was going to listen to it, I'd probably try to find the original. The original is good. As I heard it, I was like, I've heard this somewhere. Well, all right. So we solved world peace by reviewing this album. And I think we all give it an ace freely out of ace freely. whatever that means whatever that means or i give it 4 poos out of 4 poos all right for the shitty no yeah i was gonna say all right um we'll do our normal plugs for our own music because that includes sean's plugs we're the illiterates check us out on our band camp um steve you have additional stuff to plug yes you can go to my website killrockmusic.com k-i-l-r-a-v-o-c-k music.com and there you can find all of my music including the illiterates and me and dave's band lucid fugue which is our unlistenable music that we put out and inflict on people yes i think that's it so unless john you have any other projects you want to plug no i guess i'm all in the same projects you guys are yeah except for uh lucid fugue and all that other stuff just just the illiterates you'll be on the and friends album coming up soon All right. Well, I think we're probably not sure what the schedule is going to be going forward because we got a lot of backlog and we're going to have like guests in a lot of the upcoming ones. And I imagine we're going to sort those around. So let's talk a bit about the our upcoming projects. I'm planning on bringing in Samson, which we've already talked about. The Judgment Night soundtrack, where they paired up a rapper with a alternative artist of the time. The first Slipknot album that they consider a demo these days that doesn't feature Corey Taylor or like any of the lineup that's in the band now, except maybe like one person. And Dream Theater's very first album that didn't feature James Labrie, because I know Dave's a big fan of Dream Theater. Dave, what albums are you planning to bring in in the future? Okay, yeah. I'm planning on bringing in the B50Two's first album soon to show just how far in advance we record these things. I am planning on doing a big black album in memory of the recently late, great Steve Albini. Very influential artist for me, and also just an awesome dude who I think the world is worse off not having anymore. I also am planning on just dropping in like a big double punk compilation that I have, because I think that would be kind of a fun way to do just a lot of different things. And I kind of want to do the compilation before I bring individual albums by some particular artists anyway. And then at some point in the near future too, we're going to do Ubu's first album, Modern Dance, because I want to get back to art punk to some degree, just not the live double album for that. So, yeah, those are things to look forward to. All right. Oh, Sean. Oh, and I'm going to bring in an R.E.M. album, and I'm going to bring in Pixie's album. That sounds awesome. Well, Sean, I have good news for you. You still haven't listened to a Kiss album all the way through. What? Yeah, that's technically a solo album. I mean, that's kind of a Kiss album, but, you know. I think I'm good. I think I've had enough Kiss for my lifetime. All right. Well, that's it. Unless you torture me again. Well, it depends on what you ask for going forward. Oh, yeah. We're also going to do Iced Earth's Glorious Burden because we want to do some Traitor Metal. Yeah, although we might wait a while for that. That might be an election season episode. I do want to thank you for choosing the comfortable straps while you strap me down to listen to fucking Kiss today. So the velvet chains. Yeah, with some padding. Yeah, I watched Clockwork Orange for inspiration. Except instead of prying your eyes open, you don't have to pry the ears open. They're just always open. It's like the sex dungeon version of the Clockwork Orange. All right. Well, your KISS Army membership is in the mail. That was Ace Frehley and Dave. All right. Catch you on the flip side. Bye. Like that. Some producer with computers fixes all my shitty tracks. I am Steve. I am Steve. I am Steve. I am Steve. I am Steve. I am Steve. I'm rocking the suburbs. Keep saying that, Sean. I am Sean. I am Sean. Sean is me. Me, Sean. Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean. Keep going. Yeah, yeah. I'm singing Ben Folds. Okay, that should be good. All right. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. I'll count in, and then I'll do my intro. Hi, Dave. My name is Steve. Hi, Steve. I'm Dave. Who's this guy? This guy is Sean. Maybe he should introduce himself. Hi, I'm Sean. What a stupid name. Anyway. What a dumb fucking name. Side One, Side B is a Floof Goof Studios production. Please check out the description for more information about the guests and the album reviewed. You can find us on blue sky under the names, kill rock music. That's K I L R a V O C K and Dave under beast master general. You can find us on Instagram under kill rock music, S W S and Dave underscore diction. And you can also find our regular contributor, Sean under the name boozer slug. You can find Steve and Sean on threads with the same usernames as Instagram and Check out our post-punk band, The Illiterates, our experimental group, Lucid Fugue, and Steve's solo project, Kill Rock, on most major streaming platforms. You can visit Steve's website, killrockmusic.com, for easy access. That's K-I-L-R-A-V-O-C-K music.com. And if you want to check out Dave's past band, Gong Farmer, and their album, Pop Dada, you can do so on Bandcamp. Thanks. Vocals suck.