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Ace Frehley 1951-2025
With the passing of 'The Spaceman' it seems that suddenly everyone is a KISS fan. It would be very easy to be cynical about that but I hope that his family are feeling the love. I'm a fan and I have been for a long time in one form or another. In the southern hemisphere summer of 1980 KISS came to New Zealand. I was too young to really be into their music at that time but KISS' marketing and PR team were kicking huge goals. One of the boys who lived next door had older brothers and therefore access to a portable record player and some LPs. They might have been his as I remember he was a bit spoiled! I spent ages enthralled by the covers of Dynasty and Unmasked. KISS were rock stars and cartoon characters rolled into one. I always thought that Ace's makeup was the best, and that his wardrobe was too. Then, probably that Christmas, someone got KISS makeup. It wasn't me but I remember wearing it all day. The result is that I no longer have eyebrows to speak of! A few years later KISS released Crazy Nights and that was the first album of theirs that I owned. Yep, I know that Ace isn't on it. Not long after I started to go back through their catalogue and became more than a casual fan. Ace didn't play complicated guitar, but it was flashy, loud and fun. His solo records are very strong, and he was rocking right up until the end.
KISS - Shock Me (live 1977) - https://youtu.be/5R2gAcEJ2xQ
Ace Frehley - Rock Soldiers - https://youtu.be/1II4NX_4tlc
KISS - 2000 Man (unplugged) - https://youtu.be/PC9xjboGmsk
Chris Brown - 1961-2025
Yesterday I went to the funeral of one of my friends. I first met Brownie in 2001 when I was a student teacher and he was my supervisor. From 2002-2004 he was my boss. Pretty much all the good stuff in my teaching career was as a result of his influence. Brownie was so chilled in the classroom that he was almost asleep. Not much fazed him and he genuinely loved working with young people.
As well as mentoring me into becoming a half decent teacher, Brownie and I played music together at every opportunity. We backed students when they were wanting to record their own songs or at live performances and in musicals. We swam together regularly before school. A senior teacher once asked Chris how well he knew me and his reply was that we showered together twice a week!
In 2005 I was struggling a lot both personally and professionally. Brownie saw this and asked me to play guitar for a production he was also performing in. I had to learn songs that I would never have learned in a pink fit but it was a welcome distraction, a lot of fun, and helped sort me out.
Brownie introduced me to my very good friend George and we played in the band, in a number of forms, for quite a few years. He would stand to my right on stage, rock solid on the bass, yelling out notes and smiling when I got something right! One day, when we'd finished a run of Midnight Oil songs he remarked at the amount of time I had spent trying to actually get the same sounds on guitar as the Oils have. I guess he listened a lot more closely than I thought. He was also the guy that, on tour, washed his underpants in the bottom of the shower stall.
One time I asked Brownie how he'd learned to play the harmonica so quickly (we'd needed it for one or two Midnight Oil songs). His answer was that he played every day whilst driving to and from work until he got it right. That made me laugh long and hard.
It's hard to deal with when someone dies before their time. Although Chris had been unwell for a while, the funeral upset me a lot more than I thought it would. Afterwards I spent some time listening to this song. Brownie and I would almost blow a gasket trying to keep singing the high backing parts at the end of it.
Midnight Oil - One Country - https://youtu.be/Mz3HShQkdd4
That's all for this time.
The Woozle
