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.

Follow me on Twitter @daniel_bb8

Also, check out my band's Facebook page: www.facebook.com/embersofeve

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!

Follow me on Twitter: @danj_101
                   

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.

Music Pick-ups- Jan-June 2013

Since '13' was just released and we're almost half way through the year, I thought I would do a run down of my music purchases for this year so far. Enjoy!

CDs
AC/DC-Back in Black
Iron Maiden-Iron Maiden
Dio-Diamonds: The Best of Dio
Queen-Made in Heaven
Iron Maiden-Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Black Sabbath-13

DVDs
This is Spinal Tap
Iron Maiden-Maiden England '88
Guns n' Roses-Use Your Illusion II: Live in Tokyo 1992

Other
Iron Maiden 2013 Calendar

In case your'e wondering, I bought 13 on Friday so I helped it get to it's well deserved No.1 spot on the UK Album Charts. Last year I got 11 albums (10 CDs, 1 vinyl), let's see if I can beat that this year!

Btw, here's my Iron Maiden calendar review which I posted earlier this year:

Maiden Don't Mime!

I have another funny metal video for you guys this week. As you may know, in 1980, Iron Maiden performed on Top of the Pops totally live rather than miming like most acts on the show. Well in 1986 they were asked to mime for a similar German show and they just decided to have a bit of fun with it.

The band members all swap instruments while performing 'Wasted Years' and seem to be having a great time! Adrian doesn't swap instruments for some reason, maybe it's got something to do with the fact that he wrote the song...

Anyway, this is a hilarious video for Maiden fans! Check it out:

Metallica - Seek and Destroy Live - Funny Jason Newsted Moment

So it's been way too long since I last made a post on this blog, and even longer since I made a music related post (!) but hopefully I can make it up to you guys with this funny video from YouTube.

It's taken from some live footage of Metallica performing (the incredible) 'Seek and Destroy' in 1992. James passes the mic to Jason for him to take a line in the chorus and...well let's just say James doesn't seem too happy with Jason's reaction.

If you're a Metallica fan then there's a good chance you've seen this but in case you haven't, check it out now!

(You may also want to click the video title to bring it up bigger on YouTube)

Froggy Fresh drops new track, 'Mike's Mom'!

Froggy Fresh, previously known as Krispy Kreme, has just released his brand new track which is easily his heaviest and most emotional track to date.
For those of you who don't know, Froggy Fresh is a hilarious fictional rapper portrayed by Tyler Cassidy whose lyrics and videos are some of the best original music on YouTube right now. I consider him to be the Spinal Tap of hip-hop!

However, the comedy isn't as up front with his new song, 'Mike's Mom', which takes on a more serious subject matter; murder and revenge!!!

Check it out here:

Maiden England '88 Coming to DVD, CD and Vinyl!

Just announced today was the impending release of Iron Maiden's 1988 concert video, 'Maiden England' which was filmed during the 7th Son of a Seventh Son World Tour and is coming to DVD soon. About time!

The show was originally released as a VHS/CD double pack in 1989 but has never been released since. March 25th 2013 will see the concert come to DVD, CD and Picture Disc Vinyl that will all feature extended versions of the show which have never been seen or heard by fans since the concert took place.  On top of this, a second disc, packed with bonuses, will be included.                

Oddly, there's no plans for a Blu Ray release at the moment but I still can't wait to get my hands on that DVD!                                       

It's also worth mentioning that these re-issues will all have new cover art, taken from the promo posters for the ongoing 2012/13 Maiden England World Tour, which is based on this video and the Seventh Son Tour.                                      

                                        

Black Sabbath '13' Announced!!!!

The title and release month for Sabbath's new album and my most anticipated album of 2013 has just been announced!
It's called '13' and is due for release in June. It will be the band's first album since 1995 and the first with the original line-up since 1978's 'Never Say Die', so that means Ozzy Ozborne is back on record with the band! Aditionally, this album sees Sabbath's return to their original label; Vertigo.
The album will also have a supporting tour which will begin this April in New Zeland with more dates due to be announced in the coming months.

Read more here:
www.blacksabbath.com/news

Steve Harris British Lion European Club Tour

Steve Harris and his solo/side project British Lion will be embarking on a European tour and performing in clubs across Febuary and March of this year.
Performing a clubs again will be a step down in show scale for the bassist, who will be touring Europe with Iron Maiden just a few months later, but it looks set to be a series a fantastic and very unique experiences for  fans of Harris and Maiden!

The tour starts at the Porto Hard Club in Portugal on 21st Febuary and ends on 30th March in Manchester.

Check this link for more info:
www.steveharrisbritishlion.com

Iron Maiden 2013 Calendar Review

Today I bought the new Iron Maiden calendar from HMV and so I decided to make a video review for my YouTube channel and also post it here. Enjoy!

I also finally bought AC/DC - Back in Black for those who are interested.

AC/DC Storm the UK Rock Charts!

It's been a few weeks now since the AC/DC discography became available on iTunes and it definitely looks like that decision has paid off. This week, the top 10 in the UK Rock Singles Chart has been populated entirely by AC/DC, with Back in Black taking the No.1 spot while also reaching 27 on the main singles chart. On top of this, there's only 5 non-AC/DC tracks in the top 20 rock singles!

As I write this, the artist page for AC/DC on the Official Charts website hasn't been updated with this info so I included these print screens for proof.

Here's the top 5. Damn advert!

And some more (No.6 was Shoot to Thrill):

AC/DC - Now on iTunes!

AC/DC's entire back catalogue has now been released on iTunes for the first time ever! You can get all of their studio and live albums plus the 1984 EP, ' '74 Jailbreak '. The brand new album 'Live at River Plate' is on there too.


Two exclusive collections have also gone on sale. The first (AC/DC: The Collection) features all 15 studio albums while the second (The Complete Collection) also includes the live albums. They are priced at $99.99 and $150 respectivly.

Iron Man 2 hit Number 1 in the UK charts in 2010 based on CD sales alone and it didn't even feature any new tracks, but the option for legal downloads will help increase their sales even futher in the near future.

The Essential Run-D.M.C. Released!

The brand new compilation album 'The Essential Run-D.M.C.' was released two days ago on October 30th. Even though I saw the album on AllMusic on the release day, I only just relealised that it was a new release today! *facepalm*.
Anyway, this is a 2 disc set making it the longest and most comprehensive Run DMC compilation to date.
Jason Nevins' 1998 hit remix of 'It's Like That' is omited this time but 'Christmas in Hollis' is included. This means that, like Ultimate Run-D.M.C., there are two tracks on this album which can not be found on any studio releases from the group (the other track is 'Here We Go').
It looks like this could be the best Run-D.M.C. compilation out there however, it lacks the DVD which was included with Ultimate Run-D.M.C. but if you just want the music, you can't do much wrong with this.


Check it out on AllMusic: http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-essential-run-dmc-mw0002421267

Video Highlight- Jam Master Jay & Grandmaster Flash Performances

Today marks ten years since the death of the legendary DJ Jason Mizell a.k.a, Jam Master Jay.
This video features performances from both JMJ and fellow DJ Grandmaster Flash on MTV (when it wasn't just pregnant 16 year olds). I'm not sure exactly what year this video was filmed in, but I'm assuming that it's from somwhere between the mid 80's and the mid 90's.
Enjoy the video and RIP to Jam Master Jay!

Iron Maiden picture disc vinyls released!

Today both 'Iron Maiden' and 'Killers' have been re-released as the first in a series of picture disc vinyl albums. Between now and Febuary 2013, all 8 Iron Maiden albums from the 80's will be released on this format, icluding the double live album 'Live After Death'!
Thankfully, they have decided to go with the original cover for Iron Maiden rather than the 1995 'remastered' version. Not that I Don't like the '95 version, I just prefer the original.
'The Number of the Beast' and 'Piece of Mind' will be out in November.


All of the albums look awesome and you can find more information here:
http://www.ironmaiden.com/vinyl/