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REALLY Funny Ace Frehley KISS / Les Paul story.

sickboy79

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Apr 2, 2002
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5,161
Pretty cool that you got one of Ace's guitars!!! That's awesome. You can definatly see his "screwdriver" route in your pic. What year is that Paul???
 
D

Doug H

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Very cool! Looks just like the one on the inside of Alive II.... :hmm
 

Zhangliqun

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Jul 16, 2001
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5,204
All that trouble to put in a middle pickup when I don't recall ever even hearing him use the NECK pickup...
 

abalonevintage

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Dec 31, 2002
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I'm sure it was just looks! Hahahahha. Maybe he didn't care he had cut through the wire.....or maybe even notice.

-eric
 

outlaw1969

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Sep 25, 2003
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615
That is a little bit suprising, considering he never used the middle or neck pickups. In fact, he would buy 2 pickup models and stick a fake plastic pickup in the middle of the two existing ones. I have heard this repeatedly, but found someone that had documentation of it recently.





http://www.acelp.homestead.com/history1.html




The whole site talks about him and his guitars, pretty interesting reading for any KISS fan. I am just listing the page that talks about how he never used anything except the bridge humbucker and the part about the "fake" middle position pickup on his early Les Pauls. As much money as he has you would think that he would just have someone install the damn thing for him correctly, or stick another fake one in there. Another interesting thing that the guy talks about is how completely simple his smoking guitars were first rigged, etc.

I hear from some of my friends up in New York that Ace is now attending "meetings" near the Bronx ( his old neighborhood) and away from his Connecticut home. He has a beard and moustache now, too!!!!!!




;)
 

abalonevintage

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Dec 31, 2002
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Thanx, GREAT read!

Also, why did Ace have to modify any guitar! As big as KISS was you would think Gibson would have been all over the "sunburst-3 PU-Custom" deal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-eric
 
C

chumbucket

Guest
One of Ace's buddies wrote a book a few years back and it covered a lot of this stuff. Ace fancied himself a handyman and took apart everything he owned. His buddy said that Ace's garage was loaded with junk that he took apart to modify or fix and could never get to work again.
 

abalonevintage

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Dec 31, 2002
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3,186
"And the bridge pickup aint a Superdist."

VERY good eye!

The guy I got the guitar from has a chapter in the ACE book!!!!!!!

-eric
 

jtg116

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Joined
Aug 9, 2002
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154
Ace (Paul) was our local neighborhood guitar hero!
A story that my old bass player told me was that in shop class he hacked up a Strat to make a new shape. This guy was a menace with a hacksaw.
But we didn't have the cash back then to bring things to a luthier. I find out now that most of the big guys were techs back then in 48th st., but it wasn't well known that guys could actually make these things work better without them not even being broke!!!. Ace was in Kiss for a good while and I would still see him take the train home. The rumor spread around that when he joined Kiss they paid him $150 whole dollars a week!!!
The mind is a terrible thing to waste and recollections are highly flawed but I thought this a good time to put in my 2cents.
Also, I'm including a scan of my schools' literary review, it seems that he drew the cover, and I thought he went to a school a couple of miles away, maybe a friend enlisted his help.
Sorry, but I can't figure out how to post the pic
 
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EvLectric

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Feb 11, 2011
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308
Eric, I've met you before, I'm a friend of Brad Henty's. I've known J. H. since elementary school. Please tell me he didn't sell you the extra stuff, & he just let you photograph it. Not what I wanted my first post used on, but. I know that's where the 77 custom came from, and that Ace got a bit tweaked he sold it. I just don't want him to tweak him further. BTW, I've known of J's relationship with Frehley since the beginning, & I've never used it to meet Ace or anything of the sort. I just don't want to see J making bad decisions regarding his choices. I can't pm since this is my first post, hence doing this here. If you can pm me back, that's fine with me.
Everette Bigbee
 
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abalonevintage

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Dec 31, 2002
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3,186
Hi Everette! Glad to see you around! Maybe you should call Jimmy. I'm sure he would love to hear from you.

I know that's where the 77 custom came from, and that Ace got a bit tweaked he sold it.

Perhaps....But Jimmy never got paid for that computer he got Ace, so it all worked out fine. :salude
 

EvLectric

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Feb 11, 2011
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308
Hi Eric! I actually saw Jimmy in a store yesterday, but I hadn't seen your reply yet, so I didn't ask him about it. Oddly enough, he's never brought up the computer part of that story. He had said to come by the house sometime soon, so I might just have to take him up on it. I'm going to edit his name out now since I know you've read the post. Cheers!
Ev
 
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