 During
my friendship with Ace, he would call me at work and
we would just chat, or he would call me with a question
on his gear. I repair guitars for a living, and work
at a place that also fixes amps and related gear. He
had a lot of problems with the laney amps, and I figured
out that the cabinets weren't properly wired, causing
them to quickly go through tubes or just blow the output
transformers. We went out to lunch together one day,
and I was telling him about a guitar I was working on,
when he said that he had an old Gibson Les Paul Junior
that he wanted to use, but it needed a lot of work.
I told him that I would make it like I thought he would
want it. I completely stripped it of parts, and pulled
out the frets. Then I leveled the fingerboard, and refretted
it with Dunlop 6000 fretwire. (It's the largest size
they make.) With a new set of tuners, new bridge and
tailpiece, and a new hand cut graphite nut, the guitar
played like a dream. I didn't see Ace for a month or
two when it was done, so I had some fun playing it,
photographing it, and showing it off.
 Around
the same time, I had 2 guitar straps made. They were
just like his old KISS ones, with the lightning bolt,
but these had glitter bolts. One was for me, because
Fractured Mirror was starting to play out more, and
the other was a Christmas present for Ace. (He used
it all through the rest of the solo tours, and into
the KISS reunion - along with a duplicate I later had
made for him.) Ace was very happy with my work, and
the next assignment was his #1 guitar, the cherry sunburst
Les Paul. He wanted it to play as good as the Junior.
Again, I stripped it of it's parts, pulled out the frets
and went to work. I also had to clean up the wiring
attempts from previous pickup installations. I upgraded
some of the parts, (of course I saved the old ones!)
and I delivered the guitar to Ace's hotel room the before
a show in Spring Valley, NY. He had called me that day
very excited to get it. When I got there, he was like
a kid waiting for his present. He sat on the bed and
played it every way he could think of, and then looked
up and had a big smile on his face. "It's perfect"
he said. Richie Scarlett was there too, and he and I
showed each other some Hendrix licks while Ace was on
the phone. I took some great pictures that night of
a happy Ace with his "new" guitar. My payment
for doing that work, was his very first KISS costume,
the eagle shirt, worn at The Coventry (look at the bonus
clip on KISSOLOGY). While I had the guitar, I took some
pictures of it surrounded by the original LOVE GUN outfit.
It was sort of a reunion. I've done some guitar tweaking
for him here and there, picked up and delivered the
amp heads so they could be gone over, can you imagine
meeting up with Ace and he has a car load of amps for
you?
 The
last guitar I did for him was another Les Paul. Gibson
had given him a new one, but it was just a standard.
Well, he wanted me to make it just like his #1. That
meant tuners, (Grover Pearl Button ones that are hard
to find), installing a middle pickup as well as all
new pickups, (his middle and neck pickups were not wired,
just so you know), and a refret. It was a big job and
required many hours of work, but it came out awesome.
I also made him a custom pearl truss rod cover that
I hand engraved a planet with stars into. I also carved
his name into the inlay at the 12th fret. He was very
happy with this one. When Kiss got back together and
they were on the cover of Guitar World, he was holding
this guitar in the picture. (You can see the pearl truss
rod cover.)
Like I said before, Ace rejoined KISS and I never heard
from him again. But, it was a fun time hanging with
him, going to the shows, and doing the work for him.
We had some great times together and I have some great
memories. I'm still doing guitars today, and it's been
23 years. Guitarists from KISS tribute bands seek me
out to have me set their guitars up, refret them, and
make them smoke. It's something I love to do.
|
