yrgl

They are both fine musicians who’ve been on my rock n roll radar since the mid-80’s. Thayer was in 80’s outfit Black n Blue and his connection with Kiss stretches back to 1985 when ‘the bruisers’ supported Kiss on the ‘Asylum’ tour. I purchased their self-titled album back at that time on the strength of the ‘Hold On To 18’ track because it rocked. It still does. Simmons also produced some of their albums. In what could be a page torn directly from the Rock Star film script, Thayer even played the role of Ace Frehley in the Kiss tribute band Cold Gin. He had also been working as part of the Kiss organization for some years. Right place, right time. Looking back, he was an ideal fit for Frehley’s silvery cape – though I will never be able to swallow this decision. Calling him ‘The Spaceman’ – and Singer ‘The Catman’ is wrong. Again, those personas belong to Ace and Peter. End of argument. To preserve the integrity of the band they really should have given new identities to both Singer and Thayer. Why didn’t Vinnie Vincent take on Frehley’s persona in 1982 ? The same reason Eric Carr, in 1980 – never slipped into the cat suit, that’s why. In the past couple of years, Thayer has been performing the tune ‘Shock Me’ (Ace’s signature tune) on the live tours – complete with guitar solo. Is nothing sacred with Kiss anymore ? I guess not. This is something which is totally unacceptable. Thayer is only following orders, but making his live vocal debut, on the very song Ace made his vocal debut on in 1977 is something I find offensive, shameless and one of the low points of their career. Why not shoot rockets from your guitar neck as well ? Sure enough, this is copied too. For heaven’s sake where are the new ideas ?! The fact that an average teenager can walk into a Kiss show in recent years – completely unaware – and ‘think’ they are seeing Ace Frehley and Peter Criss up there is dishonest. Is it fraud ? Not sure – but I will label it ‘clever deception’. But you see it isn’t people like me or the die-hards who are being caught out. Again, it is the casual or curious fan – some who (although being able to identify the four iconic faces) are totally oblivious that it’s Thayer and Singer on all the images, up on that stage, in the videos and worst of all – on some of the merchandise packaging.