A KISS goodbye

I was already in a melancholy mood when I learned of the Oct. 16 passing of Ace Frehley—best known as the original and iconic Spaceman lead guitarist of KISS.

Like a lot of guitarists from my generation, the album KISS Alive!—especially Frehley’s fiery leads on songs like “Cold Gin” and “Black Diamond”—was the catalyst that made us want to play. To those of us of a certain age, he was the archetypal lead guitarist of the time, rooted in the blues as filtered through 1960s rock innovators like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. (Jimi Hendrix, probably the most innovative of them all, was harder to copy.)

Ace, with his Les Paul Custom—that was the definition of lead guitar for preadolescent me.

Aside from the kid-friendly costumes and makeup that drew a lot of us then-elementary and middle schoolers to KISS, the music was simple and accessible, and Ace’s solos were part of that. There was no pretension to high art; it was rock ’n’ roll, and it was fun. KISS’s image may have horrified 1970s parents (well, at least my 1970s mom and dad), but they were relatively innocent. For a kid who got picked on for being “in the orchestra” (repeating the frequent slur would get me thrown out of the Young Republicans if I were either of those), learning to play the “God of Thunder” riff on my viola was a kind of armor.

By the time I got a guitar, I was 14 and way too cool for “kids’ music” like KISS. By then, I’d heard enough early Clapton to realize how much everyone who followed took from E.C.’s style with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and Cream, right down to the thick sound of the overdriven, hornlike Les Paul. You could argue that Jeff Beck was more unpredictably expressive and Jimmy Page a better arranger and producer, with wider influences, but of the three, Clapton was the one who set the template. Then there was Hendrix, Robert Fripp (especially with David Bowie), Mick Jones of the Clash, Adrian Belew and so many others who came to define, for me anyway, what playing an electric guitar was really about.

But I never threw out those old KISS vinyl records. A few years ago, I found a vintage turntable at Goodwill and threw on KISS Alive!. The lyrics were cheesy, the sound was muddy, the vocals weak—but the songs and riffs themselves hold up. Take away the cartoon costumes, and they wouldn’t have been out of place on a 1977 punk compilation. And while Gene Simmons’ character actually spat flames as part of the act, Ace was the one breathing fire into the music.

KISS, it turned out, had staying power—shedding their makeup in the 1980s and then (stroke of genius) putting it back on when they started to age out of the rock ’n’ roll look. Frehley was part of some of those reunions but ultimately never fully integrated with the more business-focused Simmons and Paul Stanley. I like to think part of that was because he never really bought into rock as simply an ATM; it was a way to be someone you weren’t at home—to cut loose, to get loud and have people love you for it. That glorious naïveté is what inspired me as a kid and, like so many others, opened a door to music that I’ve never bothered to close behind me.

Thank you, Ace — I hope the guitar gods held the door open so you could carry your axe and amp onto the next stage of the journey.