Lost Ace Frehley demos up for auction

A long-lost acetate demo recorded by Ace Frehley before he co-founded Kiss has gone up for auction on eBay.

The three-track disc was laid down by Frehley’s psychedelic rock band Molimo in 1971, before the guitarist went on to world acclaim – but after an exhaustive search of record label RCA’s vaults, it was thought to have been lost for ever.

The acetate was discovered by record collector Chris Reisman as he worked his way through a barn full of vinyl in upstate New York. Now the auction has reached $3550 with 18 bids secured and just over a day remaining.

Reisman, who has a history of discovering rare material, tells the Village Voice: “This guy had a barn full of 20,000 records. I went up there every Tuesday for a month and in the last shelf was a corner full of test presses and acetates. It was in there. At the time I had no clue what it was – I just bought them all.”

He didn’t discover the truth of his purchase until he’d asked a friend who owns a record store to listen to the acetates. “He said two of the three were interesting but not great,” says Reisman. “But the other one, after a lot of cross-reference, was the acetate the Kiss community had been talking about for 30 years.”

The auction also includes another set of recordings by Molimo under the title Tomorrow Morning, laid down after Frehley was a member of Kiss.

Reisman says: “It’s one step short of finding and unreleased Kiss album with Kiss songs that never came out. The cool thing about it is you can tell it’s Ace playing guitar.

“It sounds like he’s playing the same amp, but he’s just very immature about it. His playing is all over the place. But that’s where the charm lies.”

Not only is one-time online news editor Martin an established rock journalist and drummer, but he’s also penned several books on music history, including SAHB Story: The Tale of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, a band he once managed, and the best-selling Apollo Memories about the history of the legendary and infamous Glasgow Apollo. Martin has written for Classic Rock and Prog and at one time had written more articles for Louder than anyone else (we think he's second now). He’s appeared on TV and when not delving intro all things music, can be found travelling along the UK’s vast canal network.