Has little to offer the casual fan.
Published by: Simon and Schuster
Having a passion for rock biographies and Kiss made this a very eagerly awaited release in my calendar.
One of my least favourite and enjoyable parts of biographies are the first chapters covering the subject’s early years, but luckily these are brief and we skip to Ace - or as he was known then - Paul Frehley hitting his teens.
Ace’s love of the band Cream gave him his vision of how to live his life and being a roadie for Jimi Hendrix was his first taste of stardom. Some years of directionless bands pass by before the introduction of Kiss and a fateful audition brings about rock n roll history in the making. If you’re looking for the dirty on Paul and Gene then you will be disappointed, only Gene’s early hygiene issues and how lonely the man was are in any way revealing, while Paul is shown as a man who keeps him self to himself. For the most part Ace spends much of his time in some state of intoxication with Peter Criss and has had to ask friends to help him with his memory of events to complete this book.
It is clear at the start of Kiss that all four guys had their say in most decisions and ideas regarding the band, with Ace designing the distinctive Kiss logo. The question of how live is ‘Kiss Alive’ is made clear, but I will not reveal the answer here! By the time the band hit the big time with ‘Destroyer’ their audience had changed so much that Paul Stanley even had to tone down his onstage profanities to suit the younger audience, brought up on a diet of Kiss candy and dolls. Bob Ezrin’s production work on ’Destroyer’ has Peter and Ace under pressure in regard to time keeping and Gene and Paul seem to belittle their contributions, beginning the eventual demise of the original line up due to in-band differences.
Ace Frehely’s solo release being the most successful of the solo albums gave the man the confidence to contribute more to the Kiss repertoire, but his increasing addictions were at odds with his creative input. Little is mentioned of Peter Criss’ departure or of the ‘Unmasked’ album release, not to mention the 1980 tour of Australia. Ace recalls his departure after the release of the controversial ‘Elder’ album and makes mention of many drug related stories of little interest, while new drummer Eric Carr takes up a few lines as a footnote!
The solo years are covered, though not in any great detail, even missing out the demise of Frehleys Comet before the inevitable reunion tour is announced. We rush through this before we discover Ace hitting his eventual replacement Tommy Thayer and before long departing again with Peter, with history repeating itself. So really this is more a read for Kiss fans and has little to offer the casual fan wanting to read the story on the hottest band in the world.
Ray Paul
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