Ace Frehley to reunite with Paul Stanley on new covers album 'Origins, Vol. 1'!!

Yesterday it was announced that legendary guitarist Ace Frehley will be releasing a new album of covers this April, titled Origins, Vol. 1. This will be Frehley's first covers album and his seventh studio solo LP overall, following on from 2014's successful Space Invader lp, which debuted in the US Billboard Top 10 albums.

The album sees Frehley covering several classic tunes from the likes of Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and Cream, with guest appearences from Slash, Lita Ford, John 5 and more. However, the most surprising and welcome news is the announcement that Frehley's former Kiss bandmate Paul Stanley will be appearing on the album, singing vocals on the Free song Fire and Water.


This news came as a major shock to Kiss fans, as the Spaceman and the Starchild haven't exactly been on the best terms recently, if the headlines seen on rock websites across the internet are to be believed. However, both Frehley and Stanley have maintained that, while they certainly have their differences, they remain, in Stanley's words, 'family'.


In addition, the album will feautre newly-recorded versions of Kiss classics which were originally penned, but not sung, by Frehley. Cold Gin and Parasite are tracks which were written by Frehley during the early days of Kiss, but ended up being sung on record by Gene Simmons, as Frehley was not confident in his singing ability at the time. However, in the years since, Frehley took lead vocal duties on many Kiss songs and later began a successfull solo career, where he continues to perform such tracks, among other tracks.

Of further interest to the more hardcore Kiss fans is Frehley's decision to cover Kiss' Rock and Roll Hell, a track from the 1982 album Creatures of the Night, which was penned by Gene Simmons, aledgedly based on Frehley's then-iminent departure from the group. It should be cool to here Frehley's take on that hidden gem of a track!

Read more on this story and see the album's track lisiting over at Rolling Stone.

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Edit - 13/06/19

Thanks for reading this article! Please check out Sound Mouth, my brand new blog covering the latest news in rock and metal - soundmouth.blogspot.com

The Darkness release new Christmas song, 'I AM SANTA'

British rockers The Darkness, who I personally think are one of the most underrated bands ever, have just released the video for their new Christmas single, titled 'I Am Santa' Its a great song to listen to to get you into the Christmas spirit a little early!

This new song will be available soon on the deluxe edition of the band's latest album 'The Last of Our Kind', which is still one of my favourite albums of 2015!

Most of you will hopefully remember the band's classic 2004 Christmas hit 'Christmas Time (don't let the bells end)' which reached number 2 in the UK back then, criminally being denied that coverted UK Christmas no.1 spot! Maybe this new song will finally give The Darkness what they have deserved for so long. Either way, I Am Santa is a lot of fun so check it out:

I AM SANTA on youtube!

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Download 2015 Line up announced: Kiss, Motley Crue, Slash, Enter Shikari

This just in! Three of the biggest names in rock have been announced for Download next year; Kiss, Motley Crue and Slash Ft. Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators as well as Hardcore band Enter Shikari, who I know nothing about! However, Kiss and Crue are two of my favourite bands ever and I'm a huge fan of Slash's solo stuff, particularly his awesome new album 'World on Fire'. All four bands will be perfoming on Sunday 14 June 2015.

Gene Simmons broke the news last Tuesday by simply tweeting the poster showing the four bands, but the tweet was later removed. The fan site 'Kissin' UK' did confirm the news on their twitter account, but they too later removed the tweet! We were then left to guess if Gene was trolling or if he wasn't supposed to post the news yet and was told to remove it. But now the news is official, with Download themselves confirming the line-up today.

Motley Crue are currently in the middle of their 'Final Tour', which at present is going across the US and Canada, with some Asian dates booked for early next year. This Download appearance could prove to be the only UK date on the tour, but we'll see when the Crue announce the rest of the dates for the tour.

Slash comes to the UK this November in support of 'World on Fire', and I'll be catching him on one of the dates, so check back here soon for a review of the gig.

You may remember that late last year I made a post on this blog after Gene Simmons said that Kiss would be touring the UK in 2014, but of course that plan was sidelined and the band toured the US with Def Leppard (I am extremely envious of you if you saw that tour by the way!). However Gene Simmons did personally tell me via twitter after that US tour was announced that Kiss would return to the UK soon, saying, in his trademark all-caps, 'RELAX DUDE. WE WILL COME'. Looks like he's making good on his promise!

Before I go, here's a picture to summarise my reaciton to this news:

Anyway, follow me on twitter guys: @danj_101! Thanks for reading!

Metallica-'The Lords of Summer' First Impressions

Last night Metallica premiered a brand new track live in Colombia. The song is titled 'The Lords of Summer' and some amateur footage has unsurprisingly found it's way online. Check it out:

The song seems to be very much in vein of stuff from 'Death Magnetic' ('Tallica's last album, 2008) in the sense that it sounds like good old fashioned thrash. It even has a guitar solo, so no need to worry about the four horsemen returning to the 'St. Anger' sound any time soon, as if they ever would!

The opening riff was my personal highlight of the song, sounding very thrash and reminiscent of the band's classic 80's material, particularly the '..And Justice for All' era.

However, it's worth bearing in mind that whenever Metallica have premiered songs far ahead of an album's release in the past, the final product has often ended up sounding very different. Still, things are looking very positive so far and I'm eager to hear more!

Metallica's next album is due in 2015.

Follow me on Twitter: @danj_101 \m/

Saxon, 53 Degrees Preston (15/02/14) Review

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing New Wave of British Heavy Metal legends Saxon live for the first time at 53 Degrees in Preston, UK.

The warm-up band were Stormzone from Ireland who took to the stage at 8pm and played for about 40 minutes. I hadn't heard of Stormzone before they were announced to be the opening act for Saxon, but I was highly impressed. Their charismatic singer, John Harbinson, provided brilliant vocals and the dueling solos of guitarists Dave Shields and Steve Moore were formidable to say the least. I had only listened to one Stormzone song before going to the gig ('Three Kings', as seen below) but I would certainly check them out again!

During the 20 minute interlude between bands, I moved away from the bar into the main standing area to prepare for Saxon. They came on stage at around 9pm and played for two hours, opening with 'Sacrifice', the title track from their latest album.

Despite the fact that some members, including front-man Biff Byford, are now in their early 60s, Saxon made it clear last night that they are still a heavy metal force to be reckoned with and can blow any modern metal bands right out of the water! The band played a good mix of both classic and newer material with a huge amount of energy that was clearly rubbing off onto the crowd, who sang along throughout the show.

After ending their main set with their signature anthem 'Wheels of Steel', Saxon returned to the stage to play a three song encore consisting of 'Crusader', 'Denim and Leather' and 'Princess of the Night'.

Overall, last night was a stunning gig with both bands putting in tremendous performances. If you get a chance to see either band any time soon, don't pass it up!

Follow me on Twitter: @realdannymoore

Edit: 13/06/19 -

Thanks for reading this article, especially if you're visiting in 2019! This was actually the first gig I had ever been to back when I was 15, so its fun looking back at it now, although it is slightly bitter-sweet considering that 53 Degrees is now closed indefinitely.

I have just launched a new music blog, covering all the latest developments in rock and metal, including weekly UK chart updates as well as festival and awards coverage. The blog is called Sound Mouth and you can check it out here. I also plan to launch an accompanying podcast in the near future, so look forward to that. Thanks again for reading!

Kiss UK Tour Confirmed for 2014!

Rumors have been circulating on the net for a while, but in an interview published yesterday on the Classic Rock magazine website, bassist Gene Simmons confirmed that KISS will be embarking on a tour of the UK in 2014!

In the interview, the Kiss co-founder likened the UK to Middle-Earth, saying it is "like the Hobbit world, a magical kingdom". Fair enough.

This will be Kiss' first UK tour since 2009's Sonic Boom Over Europe Tour and I for one am hugely excited as this will be my first chance to see Kiss in concert (I only just became a fan this year)!

Despite being mega-superstars in the US during the 70s, Kiss didn't achieve much success in the UK until the 80s, particularly during the 'no-make up' era, during which they had three top 10 albums (Lick It Up, Crazy Nights and Revenge reached numbers 7, 4 and 10 respectively) and the single 'Crazy Crazy Nights' reached number 4 in the UK single chart in 1987.

Aside from the news of the tour, the interview is still pretty interesting so give it a look if you're into Kiss.

Read more by clicking here!

Run-D.M.C. and Beastie Boys-Together Forever Tour Research Project

If you are a fan of Golden-Age hip-hop, you may have heard Run-D.M.C. and the Beastie Boy's 1987 'Together Forever Tour'. I had seen several interviews with the two groups in which they mention the tour but I was never able to find out much else about it until I recently came across a TV ad from the time listing USA dates for the tour. With this info, I decided to create a Wikipedia page which you can see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Together_Forever_Tour

I've also seen an interview video made while both groups were on tour in the UK. The YouTube uploader claims it's from 1987 which tells us that the tour went to more countries than just the US.  However, the video could be from Run DMC's Raising Hell Tour which the Beastie Boys supported them on in 1986.
The video is here:

And here is the tour ad I mentioned:

The video only shows USA dates so I'm not sure if they toured other countries together or not.

Here's another interview with the two groups in which the tour is specifically mentioned:

If anyone has any extra information on the tour then please let me know in the comments and hopefully we can build a decent Wikipedia article on this seemingly missing part of both groups' history.