There are several years of my life that all I remember is KISS. From about the middle of 4th grade to the end of my 7th-grade year, I lived, breathed and worshipped the self-proclaimed, “hottest band in the land” with a furor that I imagine some people might feel for Jesus or maybe really good video games. My parents were well versed with my obsessive behavior, having already endured their youngest son wearing nothing but a Batman Halloween costume for nearly a year and a half after the October holiday. It didn’t bother them that I was so fanatical. If anything I think it amused them. At the height of my KISS fanaticism in 1978, my whole family went to see KISS and AC/DC at the Capital Center in Landover Maryland. They bought me posters, records and magazines so I could cover every inch of my bedroom wall with pictures of my heroes. Best of all, my mother bought a cloth mannequin at Tyson’s Corner and spent the next week constructing a near perfect replication of Gene Simmons in his Love Gun costume that now sits and scares the shit out of anyone that goes into her downstairs living room. My family did its part in helping to make the four members of KISS very rich men.

My brother, however, was not fooled. At every given opportunity he would inform me that KISS sucked. He was not alone. It seemed that everyone told me that KISS sucked. By the time the band released 1979’s “Dynasty”, I didn’t have to be convinced any longer. They were awful. On that day I decided that KISS was no longer worthy of my adulation, my friends and I took all of our records and proceeded to smash them into little bits. The posters came down and the memorabilia went into the trash. KISS was dead to me.

The capitalist orgy carried on despite my defection with varying degrees of success over the years. I submerged into punk and beyond and they went pushing rope soft. Members came and went as founding members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley kept the machine going with the usual tales and sounds of excess associated with a successful life as a profitable musical commodity. The book, “KISS & Tell” written by former Ace Frehley associates Gordon Gebert and Bob McAdams has got to be the funniest rock and roll read ever put to paper. I have about 15 friends that I can crack up instantly by just mentioning the book. If half of this book is true, Ace Frehley is one seriously fucked-up dude.

I still find it hard to believe that space Ace is going to be in Richmond at the National this Friday night. I’m giddy with excitement. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves as a guitar player. No one will mistake him for Andrés Segovia but if you want trashy Jimmy Page ’70s rock riffage Ace can’t be beat. Despite being the most drug-affected member of the original band, he was also the group’s most important component because without Ace, KISS sucks. Apparently clean and sober, the 57-year old guitarist has been getting good reviews on his first solo tour since re-quitting the band that made him a legend in 2002. He has the good sense to rely on KISS favorites (“Parasite”, “Love Her All I Can”, “Deuce”, etc.) and solo hits (the chart topping, “New York Groove”) and in an intimate setting such as the National, any true member of the KISS Army will want to see this instead of what passes as KISS today.

As Sun Ra would say, “Space is the place”.