I’m going to dispense with the Buttkickin’ Halloween etc. crap for a moment. Because my heart is entirely broken. Ace Frehley died today. Paul Daniel Frehley (1951 – 2025) and Kiss was my entry drug into the world of hard rock and heavy metal. When I was 7 I received both Kiss Alive II and…
Though you may be pure of heart and free of sin And though you have been chosen to begin And yet you must be worthy of the prophecy But seek and you shall find your destiny Loneliness will haunt you Will you sacrifice? Do you take the oath Will you give your life Under the…
Step up! No one leaves ’til the night is done The amplifier starts to hum The carnival has just begun… You wanted the best? You got… a buttkickin’ title track from an otherwise crappy album. Look, I make no apologies for being a Kiss fan, and by “fan” I mean “actual fan of the music”,…
Yeah yeah, I’m way behind in everything here. Hokeyboy sucks nuts. I know. I’m about a third of the way into my write-up on the New Orleans Marathon, and I want that up as soon as possible. Bear with me gang. Until then, you can feast your eyes on this exciting piece of awesomeness: November…
Put on your party hats and goat-skin leggings, guys and gals, because we’re celebrating today! That’s right! We’re talking Hokeyblog’s third birthday — three years ago today, we went live with an album review of Beatles For Sale, which got the attention of absolutely nobody, given that I had zero promotion, SEO, Q-rating, Alexa ranking,…
In order to shake off the stench of commercial disappointment that accompanied their three previous albums (Unmasked, Music From “The Elder”, Creatures of the Night), Kiss was now at the biggest crossroads of their career. After being increasingly viewed as a dated relic of the 1970s, their album sales continued to suffer. One more flop…
Destroyer was Kiss’s larger-than-life effort to keep momentum rolling after the multi-platinum success of their landmark 1975 live album Alive!. After releasing three studio albums to middling results, the band bet the farm on an album that endeavored to replicate their “live concert” experience, and successfully at that, even if the amount of actual “live…
Kiss’s 1976 LP Rock And Roll Over is one of the most celebrated albums by die-hard Kiss fans, held in high relief as the sweet spot at which everything seems to be in synch: great production values, strong songs, iconic Kissography, and the entire band performing and recording together with minimal intrusion from outside songwriters…
In a lot of ways, you have to admire the sheer chutzpah that Kiss exhibited by dubbing their 1981 concept album Music From “The Elder” with that moniker. Almost immediately that title elevates the material to something of a new plateau; I mean, it’s not just another dopey album or anything like that. It’s the…
Legendary Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley — the original and ONLY Spaceman, as far as this fan is concerned — had been an integral component of the band’s success since its inception. As Kiss’s lead guitarist, his licks, riffs, and solos gave their music much of its memorable character and tenor. Frehley wasn’t a perfectionist, nor…