Biography
Edward "Ace" Annese is a native of Brooklyn, NYC, born there May 12th, 1962, and living there until late 1969-early 1970, when the family moved to College Point, Queens. His family then moved to Smithtown NY in Long Island's Suffolk County, where he attended junior high and high school, before the family (including 2 younger sisters) finally migrated to the town of Bethel, CT. After moving back and forth to Long Island, NY and CT (Danbury), he abruptly quit his retail management job and trekked cross country by car in an epic 6-day journey that nearly was derailed by car problems and a sketchy situation involving a former high school pal. Upon arriving in San Francisco, it became clear that his former friend was coming unhinged due to drug use and Ace was forced to essentially excommunicate his friend and rebuild his life.
Ace then became entrenched in the San Francisco music scene, picking up where he left off in NY & CT by working with numerous local bands as manager/booker/promoter, and DJing at notorious clubs like Terminator and Bondage-a-go-go, among others. While out clubbing one evening (as he often did - and still does), he ran into fellow intrepid soul (and expatriate NYer), Hugh Kinniburgh, who was filming for his burgeoning underground TV program, Reality Check TV in early 1993. Since then, the pair formed an alliance, and with the nearly-simultaneous addition of Danny Shipman, have formed the core of Reality Check TV since that time. The 4th member, David Dragon, joined several years later, resulting in the classic line up of the "Four Who Have Fun".
Since then, the "Biggest Little TV Show in the World" has produced nearly 750 episodes featuring interviews with some of the biggest names in Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Punk Rock, Professional Wrestling & Sports, Pop Culture and Adult Entertainment. Billing itself as the "Ultimate Video Fanzine", Reality Check TV has earned the respect of its peers and become friends with many of its interviewees over the years.
More recently, RCTV has licensed numerous archival clips featuring interviews conducted by Ace for film and TV, contributing to 'PUNK', the EPIX cable TV documentary series produced by Iggy Pop and John Varvatos, and 'Punk's Not Dead', the award-winning 2007 documentary film, and episodes of E! True Hollywood Story, among others. Reality Check TV has co-produced/edited and/or done post-production on several documentary films featuring archival interview footage and/or commentary by Ace on camera, including 'Band Vs. Brand and the forthcoming 'Bay Area Godfathers (Parts 1 & 2)', due to be released in Spring 2020.
