No regrets? A better title for Ace Frehley’s memoir might be No Consequences. Parts of Frehley’s life play out like an episode of COPS, except that the fuzz show up at a multimillion dollar mansion rather than a tenement. Cars are wrecked. Bottles of booze are chugged. Drugs are snorted. World class tools like Gene Simmons are annoyed. And in the middle of this, Space Ace manages to convince every kid with heavy metal dreams to pick up a guitar.
Slipknot performed as part of this past weekend’s Athens edition of the Sonisphere festival. It was their their first show since the untimely passing of Paul Gray last year, and, therefore, their first show with former guitarist/current bassist Donnie Steele. And I think a lot of people were wondering how they would handle the transition; obviously, the band needed to pay tribute to Gray, but how would Steele appear on-stage? Would he Gray’s costume, the way Tommy Thayer basically pretends to be Ace Frehley when he plays with Kiss, or otherwise be given his own mask, the way Vinnie Vincent was given his own character when he was in Kiss?
Well, the answer is, “Neither.” The ‘Knot opted instead to have Steele stand off-stage, while Gray’s empty outfit stood by the drumer riser, scarecrow-like, for the duration of the show. And that might seem like kind of an odd decision, but, really, there’s no good or “right” way to handle a situation like this; there was going to be a certain amount of tension in the air no matter what, y’know?
You can check out more footage from the show, and the band’s complete set list, at Metal Insider. Meanwhile, there’s still no official word on whether or not there’s gonna be another Slipknot album, but I would bet a lot of money in favor of it happening.
Tomorrow sees the release of Crowbar’s new album, Sever the Wicked Hand, on eOne (you can pre-order a physical copy here or a digital copy here, and watch an EPK for the album here). To celebrate, Crowbar main man Kirk Windstein offered to tell MetalSucks readers fifteen things they did not already know about him. And far be it from us to say “no” to Kirk Windstein! And so, enjoy a rare intimate look into the mind of Kirk Windstein, directly from the man himself…
15) I’m addicted to diet soda and sparkling water! I’m always drinking one or the other.
14) I like to wake up no later than 7:00 a.m.
13) I love Journey.
12) My first arena concert was Van Halen, “The 80′s Invasion,” on the Women and Children First tour.
11) Ace Frehley is the reason I play guitar.
Ten more things you didn’t know about Kirk after the jump!
Five heavy hitting heavy hitters — Alice in Chains, Hatebreed, Austrian Death Machine, Steel Panther and Dethklok — all released new records last week. Solid 2nd and 3rd week performances from Three Days Grace, Muse, Megadeth, Five Finger Death Punch and others made it an all-around big week for metal. Let’s see how everyone fared after the jump.
Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 12:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
I found the following quote from a recent interview with Gene Simmons to be (inadvertently) hilarious:
“This is electric church, and no one on that stage — me or anyone else — wears the makeup and platform heels by some kind of birthright. This ain’t Europe; just ’cause your dad was king doesn’t make you the king. You’ve got to earn it. And when you defile KISS, you should be thrown out.”
Gene is referring to dudes like Ace Frehley, Peter Criss and Vinnie Vincent, of course. But I have to wonder what he thinks they did that was worse than this:
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 12:45pm by Vince Neilstein
Last Tuesday was a huuuuge week for new metal releases. Megadeth, Black Dahlia Murder, Shadows Fall, Living Colour, Dying Fetus, Porcupine Tree, Every Time I Die, Thrice and Ace Frehley all released new albums, and all charted in the Top 200! After the jump, let’s look at where they all ended up.
News about Ace Frehley never ceases to amuse. There was the breaking press release announcing his brand new, straight-outta-1996 website, complete with animated gifs and Photoshop 101 text effects. And now there’s his first-ever video blog, a snapshot into the mind of this hopelessly out-of-touch legend. Watching this video is kind of like listening to my mom tell me she joined Facebook; there’s no way they really grasp the entirety of what they’re doing, but it’s a cute effort. Says Ace:
“By the way, that is me on MySpace and Facebook, and if you don’t believe me you can go to AceFrehley.com and you’ll find the link. It’s not brain surgery. (laughs) Hey, keep those photos, messages and all those great little anecdotes coming, because I do read them from time to time whenever I get a chance.”
Have you guys seen Ace Frehley’s website? Shit is fo’ real. 1996 called, and it wants its website back. Words like “geocities,” “angelfire” and “AOL hometown” come to mind, fresh on the cutting edge of the Information Superhighway. It’s all here, folks: stock astronomy imagery, cheesy photoshop text effects, animated .gif icons, mystery navigation… the mind boggles.
We know this because we got an email announcing that he’s released the artwork for his forthcoming album Anomaly, his first since 1989′s Trouble Walkin’. We left a message with 1989 seeking comment, but it has yet to return our call.
