Frehley's Comet

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Frehley's Comet
General information
Genre (s) Hard rock
founding 1984
resolution 1989
Last occupation
Ace Frehley
Guitar, keyboard
Tod Howarth (from 1987)
John Regan
Jamie Oldaker (from 1987)
former members
Drums
 Anton Fig (until 1987)
Guitar, vocals
 Richie Scarlet (until 1985)
Keyboard
 Arthur Stead (1984–1985)
Keyboard
 Rob Sabino (1985-1986)
Drums
 Billy ward (1987)

Frehley's Comet was a musical group formed by Ace Frehley in 1984 , which released three albums in the late 1980s. Until then, Frehley was best known as a guitarist and founding member of Kiss .

history

Ace Frehley was the group's most successful musician with his Kiss solo album, released in 1978, making it number 26 on the Billboard 200. In addition, the single New York Groove became a veritable hit, which led to Frehley wanting to be better considered as a songwriter for Kiss. This claim led to friction within the group, and alcohol and drug problems were also partly responsible for Frehley's leaving the group in 1982. In 1984 he founded Frehley's Comet and recorded some demos with Eddie Kramer , who had already produced the Kiss solo album, and with the help of producers Vini Poncia , Chris Kimsey and Tony Bongiovi.

The group made their performance debut in November 1984 at "SIR Sound Studios" in New York . One of the earliest known live recordings is a bootleg ( Back in the Groove ) that was recorded on March 9, 1985 at the New York club "L'Amour" and on which three tracks, namely Dolls , Stranger in a Strange Land and We Got Your Rock , which can also be found on the band's first studio album. The cast of Frehley's Comet at the time included Frehley, John Regan, Richie Scarlet, Arthur Stead, and Anton Fig . A previously signed record deal with Bronze Records expired when the label went bankrupt, but Frehley managed to secure a deal with Atlantic / Megaforce .

Albums

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Frehley's Comet
  US 43 06/20/1987 (23 weeks)
Live + 1
  US 84 03/12/1988 (9 weeks)
Second sighting
  US 81 07/09/1988 (7 weeks)

Frehley's Comet

This album was recorded at Right Track Studios and Sound Ideas Studios in New York City, as well as Master Sound Studios (Astoria, NY) and Bear Tracks (Suffern, NY) and was released in 1987. It was produced by Eddie Kramer and Ace Frehley. Although it was an album by the group , the name Ace Frehley was placed on the cover , presumably for marketing reasons, so it looked like Frehley's solo album, entitled Frehley's Comet. Frehley's Comet contained ten titles, the first of which, Rock Soldiers , Frehley's drunkenness after he was kicked out of Kiss (particularly the April 1983 police chase that saw him drunk in his DeLorean on the Bronx River Parkway in New York went in the wrong direction and thus caused an accident). It also contained the song Into the Night , written by Russ Ballard and made famous by the television series Miami Vice .

The track Breakout was written with Eric Carr during Frehley's time at Kiss , where the song was called Heaven . The basic pattern of the song was used by Kiss in 1992 for the title Carr Jam 1981 , but the guitar tracks were re-recorded by Bruce Kulick . The title Calling to You originally comes from the band 707, in which Tod Howarth had played, but there he had the title Megaforce . For Frehley's Comet it was completely revised and then re-recorded. It concluded with the instrumental piece Fractured, Too , which was the acoustic continuation of the instrumental Fractured Mirror from Frehley's 1978 solo Kiss album.

The band's debut album reached number 43 on the Billboard 200 on June 20, 1987 and stayed in the charts for 23 weeks.

Live + 1

In 1988 the band released Live + 1 , an EP with four live tracks that were recorded on September 4, 1987 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago . The CD also contained the studio track Words Are Not Enough . Live + 1 was produced by Ace Frehley, John Regan, Tod Howarth and Scott Mabuchi, reached number 84 on the Billboard 200 on March 12, 1988, and stayed in the charts for 9 weeks.

Second sighting

Frehley's Comet's last album was Second Sighting . For Anton Fig, Jamie Oldaker sat on drums, who was best known for his work with Eric Clapton . The album only reached number 81 on the Billboard 200 and lasted only seven weeks and was produced by Ace Frehley and Scott Mabuchi. It contained 10 tracks, including one instrumental ( The Acorn is Spinning ). As singles were Insane and It's Over Now decoupled.

Video

At about the same time as Second Sighting , a VHS video entitled Live + 4 was released containing tracks recorded at the Frehley's Comet concert on March 19, 1988 at Hammersmith Odeon , London (Queen Caroline Street, W6 9QH) were. In addition, the cassette contained the video clips for the titles Into The Night and Rock Soldiers from the debut album and Insane and It's Over Now from Second Sighting .

End of the band

In the months following the release of Second Sighting , the band toured as opening act for Iron Maiden, among others . The last concert of Frehley's Comet took place on August 2, 1988 in New Orleans , shortly afterwards Howarth left the band, a little later Jamie Oldaker left as well. From mid-1989 the name Frehley's Comet was no longer used and the band, which now included Richie Scarlett (rhythm guitar) and Sandy Slavin (drums), was only called Ace Frehley Band .

Although John Regan was involved in the album Trouble Walkin ' , Anton Fig was back on the drums for the recording and Richie Scarlet was part of the group, the album was no longer released as a product of Frehley's Comet, but as an album by Ace Frehley. The album, produced again by Eddie Kramer (with Ace Frehley and John Regan), never reached the charts despite (then) well-known colleagues ( Sebastian Bach and Dave "Snake" Sabo from Skid Row and Peter Criss ).

Trivia

  • Fractured Mirror experienced a total of three acoustic sequels, namely Fractured, Too on Frehley's Comet , Fractured III on Ace Frehley's album Trouble Walkin ' (1989) and Fractured Quantum on Anomaly (2009). The song was also covered by Panteras Dimebag Darrell and John 5 .
  • John Regan produced two compilations with music from Frehley's Comet, with the 1997 album Loaded Deck containing two previously unreleased songs, namely One Plus One and Give It to Me Anyway .

Discography

Albums

EPs

  • 1988: Live + 1 (Atlantic / Megaforce Worldwide; 781 826-2)

Video albums

  • 1988: Frehley's Comet: Live + 4 (Atlantic Video; 50131-3)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Billboard chart information on allmusic.com
  2. ↑ Information on Frehley's Demos (kissfaq.com)
  3. ↑ Charts US Charts US Ace Frehley
  4. ↑ Information at "kiss related recordings"
  5. ^ Frehley's Comet Chart History
  6. ↑ Live +1 Chart History
  7. ^ Second Sighting Chart History
  8. ↑ Information about the Live + 4 video on kissfaq.com ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Information: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kissfaq.com
  9. ↑ Julian Gill: The Kiss Album Focus - Kings of the Night Time World (1972-1982) , 3rd edition, 2008, ISBN 0-9722253-7-4
  10. ^ Spacewalk - A Tribute To Ace Frehley; Triage Records 1996
  11. ^ Art of Malice, 2010
  12. ↑ Loaded Deck ; SPV 1997; SPV 085-18872 CD