Clang & Clatter

Epiphone has just announced a new Ace Frehley tribute model Les Paul. From the press announcement:

Epiphone is proud to announce our tribute to Ace Frehley, one of rock’s most influential guitarists, with the Epiphone Limited Edition Ace Frehley “Budokan” Les Paul Custom Outfit. As the lead guitarist for KISS (and the original designer of the famous KISS logo) Ace Frehley is renown around the world as one of the Les Paul guitar’s most exciting ambassadors as well as one of rock’s greatest showman. Ace single handedly inspired a generation of guitarists to pick up rock and roll’s most powerful axe. Now, Epiphone makes this iconic guitar available to players everywhere.

This looks like a pretty sweet piece of gear. The only thing missing is the fake drop-out smoking pickup. It will be limited to a run of 1000 and comes with a custom hard case, a certificate of authenticity, and a photo of the Space Ace himself. So if you have a few thousand dollars to spare, go get yours today.

Read the full announcement here.

IckMusic’s got me shufflin’ on Friday with the Friday Five!

Well it looks like it’s classic rock and metal day for me for the Friday Five. Only one song out of the five was released after I was out of elementary school, and the Zeppelin tune came out before I was born. iTunes shuffle is definitely interesting if nothing else.

Kansas - “Opus Insert” (Leftoverture, 1976)
Kansas’ fourth album Leftoverture launched the group into the stratosphere, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a song that is more of a classic rock radio staple than “Carry on Wayward Son.” “Opus Insert” is chock-full of tight vocal harmonies and thematic shifts, trying (a little too hard perhaps) to be in equal measures grand, progressive, beautiful, and AOR-radio-friendly. Yet I have a hard time finding too much fault in that.

Ace Frehley - “Snow Blind” (Ace Frehley, 1978)
Easily the most popular of the KISS “solo” albums, Ace Frehley’s release remains to this day the most listenable of the albums and the one that has stood the test of time. “Snow Blind” is a solid song from a solid album by the spaceman that still stands up after all these years and is probably better than anything he has released post-makeup.

Led Zeppelin - “Bring It On Home” (Led Zeppelin III, 1969)
It’s difficult at times for me to objectively analyze songs that I have heard literally hundreds of times. At some point they simply become part of a musical history that becomes comfortable and familiar. And while some of these songs become tiresome due to overexposure, “Bring It On Home” manages not to fall into that category. I love the main guitar riff and its accompanying harmony part, the groove Bonham lays down, and the complex bottom end provided by Jones. Songs like this one help make III one of my favorite Zeppelin releases.

Accept - “Turn Me On” (Balls to the Wall, 1984)
The sexually-charged Balls to the Wall was my introduction to Accept, and while I was drawn to the music, I could never quite make out some of the true song meanings due in part to the band’s German-to-English lyric-writing process and the often unintelligible growl/scream/squeal of vocalist Udo Dirkschneider. Already a fan of the Scorpions by this point, Accept had a similar draw for me with their decidedly German-feeling flavor of metal and tasteful guitar solos. “Turn Me On” is probably not the strongest track on the album—the weak link interestingly enough being the chorus in this case—but it’s difficult to pick out a bad track on the entire album.

Styx - “Great White Hope” (Pieces of Eight, 1978)
Sounding as much like anything off the prior release The Grand Illusion, “Great White Hope” could easily be “Miss America, Part 2.” While I tend to like the Young or Shaw tunes more than the DeYoung-penned ones, it’s hard for me to get too excited about this one.

Kind of a “meh” way to end my Friday Five, but it is what it is.