Ace Frehley’s book: No Regrets. A Review

December 21, 2011December 28, 2025 Rilaly1 Comment

Ace Frehley has No Regrets. It’s the title of his book. He has no regrets, apparently, about wasting whatever God-given talent he was given, and he has no regrets about doing little-to-nothing to make his “right place right time” moment in history a little better. That’s great Ace, you stuck your middle finger right up into what Gene and Paul have been saying about you, but what about those young fans who defended your legacy for much of their young lives? Do you have No Regrets about all that?

The author of this piece was a fan, a HUGE KISS fan, and more specifically an Ace Frehley fan. Like the Beatles’ fans of the 60s, we all had our favorite member of KISS, mine was Ace Frehley. Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton was my favorite person and Ace was number two. I still have a soft spot in my heart for the man, but Ace Frehley’s new book No Regrets has even tainted that.

Ace Frehley states that he is clean now, and like so many other rock bios that adorn the shelves of bookstores across America, Frehley takes the vantage point of an outsider commenting on his past debauchery. Alcohol and drugs were the way Frehley dealt with the ups and downs of stardom, but he has No Regrets about this. As comedians in the past (Pryor and Carlin) have done, Ace chooses to laugh at his lifestyle choices. He chooses the “now that I’m clean” theme to detail for us the hilarity of being so out of control that you don’t know what you’re doing. As a lifelong Ace Frehley fan, I found many of the Ace Frehley stories funny, troubling, and disenchanting, but Ace has No Regrets.

The “breath of fresh air” arrives when Ace details for us the tale of KISS. Ace is more honest and forthcoming about the formulation of KISS than any of the other members have been to this point. The reader begins to realize that Ace is going to be the first to tell the story of KISS without a marketing plan. There is no KISS mysticism attached to this version of the story, the KISStory, such as the stories faithful KISS readers have been inundated with by Paul and Gene. This is the KISS story as told by “the fun and spontaneous member”. This is the more “real” version of the story. Unfortunately, the more “real”, Ace Frehley version of the story substantiates many of the charges Stanley and Simmons made against Ace’s apathy and his poor work ethic. The No Regrets book also substantiates the charge that Ace wasn’t particularly elemental in the formulation of the eventual KISS product, that he was basically just along for the ride, and that he has No Regrets about any of this.

In one particular story, Ace says that the producer of the KISS album Destroyer, Bob Ezrin, began pushing Ace to come up with guitar solos for the songs on the album. Ace complains that Ezrin’s pushing proved counterproductive, because Ezrin didn’t understand the spontaneous nature of artistic creation. This, for me, is the most illustrative moment in the Ace Frehley story, because I understand the spontaneous nature of artistic creation, and I know how much downtime musicians have between albums. They might be touring, doing promo spots, and other forms of promotion, but there’s still a lot of time to sit around and fiddle with the guitar to create solos. If Ace entered the studio with around ten to twelve solos, it’s possible none of them would’ve fit the songs perfectly, and that’s where the whittling and tweaking come into play. To listen to Ezrin and Ace’s characterization of this confrontation, Ace walked into the studio with no solos, or any ideas for solos, and Ezrin expected him to come up with one to fulfill his contribution to the song.

At that point in his career, Ace Frehley was one of most revered guitar players, known for his creative solos. Ace’s lone contribution on a majority of the KISS songs was a brief solo between verses, and he couldn’t even come up with that by the time KISS’ Destroyer album came out? At this point in the story, I would’ve been mentally lambasting Gene and Paul for presumably leaving out some necessary details of the story. That’s not the case here of course. This is Ace telling the story. As I said, it’s all troubling and disenchanting, but he had No Regrets.

The question that this reader has for Ace, on this particular issue, is, “How much time, between albums, did you have to work on these spontaneous solos?” Spontaneity can be tough to generate on the spot, of course, but how much better would those solos be if by the time he entered the studio, he had a pallet from which to choose? Talented artists, of which I think Ace is one, know better than to do nothing for months and then expect some sort of divine inspiration to strike when they need it. Most who depend on spontaneity for a living know that they have to constantly hone the muscle. Artistic creations take time, devotion, and discipline.

I’m not a blind fan don’t get me wrong. I recognize KISS music for what it is. I don’t put it on par with Monet or Picasso in the world of art, but even KISS music takes a degree of involvement, work ethic, and commitment. Ace Frehley was a significant part of a group that put out products that many of us spent our allowance on, but Frehley thought Bob Ezrin pushed his artistic sensibilities a little too hard, because Ezrin didn’t understand the gentle process of artistic creation. In this gentleman’s disagreement, we have the artiste named Ace Frehley who many have charged, and Ace basically substantiated in his book, had a very poor work ethic and chose to party when he wasn’t in the studio versus Bob Ezrin. Ezrin, to that point, worked with Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, and Lou Reed. Ezrin also produced albums for a wide array of artists including: Pink Floyd, Hanoi Rocks, Deep Purple, and many others before and after Destroyer. Even fan boy here, who wants to take Ace’s side in this episode, cannot side with him. My educated guess, based on the characterization of Ace Frehley by others, and by Ace Frehley in this book, is that he arrived in the studio totally unprepared, and Bob Ezrin got mad at him for it. Ace then got mad at Ezrin for getting mad at him about it. Yet, Ace Frehley has No Regrets.

Few have questioned Frehley’s God-given gifts, but he apprently did little to formulate and finesse the gifts that were given to him. What were you doing between albums Ace, other than touring? The answer: Sex, drugs, and alcohol. No Regrets. You read Ace detail this portion of his story, and you realize that Ace may have been paying a little bit too much attention to his press clippings. He may have been listening to those adoring fans that put him on a pedestal. He may have thought there was a degree of mysticism to his art that couldn’t arise as a result of a request from a meager human, but it had to be waited for in the manner of some divine artiste. Say what you want about Gene and Paul, and many have (Ace does in this book in good ways and bad), but Gene and Paul knew there was nothing divine about what they were doing. They simply worked their tails off for the legacy they eventually achieved (and I cringe a little taking Simmons and Stanley’s side here).

Ace chastises the KISS bassist Gene Simmons throughout the book as a man who took the KISS product a little too seriously throughout the process of building it. Ace talks about how he couldn’t do it. The movie KISS Meets the Phantom is an example of the “KISStory” that Ace admits he basically sat out. He looks good in hindsight for having sat that one out, because the movie is generally considered a bomb. Ace talks about how he didn’t enjoy making the album “The Elder”, and how he generally sat that one out too. Ace then talks about how he wasn’t much of a part of the making of the album Destroyer either. The latter is a little more painful to him, as evidenced in his words, but this may be due to the fact that Destroyer is generally considered to be KISS’ best album. Hindsight shows Ace regretting that he wasn’t a greater part of the successes, but he doesn’t mind telling us he had little to nothing to do with that which is generally considered less successful artistically and financially. How convenient.

Ace condemns Gene as a business man who has no friends. He says Gene needs to cut loose and have a beer every once in a while. To be fair to Ace, he does thank Gene and Paul for everything they built, and he’s not as negative as I thought he would be. I read where Gene leveled Ace in many areas, and I expected the return fire to be explosive. He pounded home the point that Gene has no friends by saying that the Gene Simmons Roast only had comedians in it (and family members), but he doesn’t have as many negative things to say about Gene as this review and others may lead one to believe. The point he’s trying to make is Gene isn’t very fun, warm, or an extreme joy to be around. Ace knows Gene better than most, and he makes an informed analysis, but I don’t really care that much. I met Gene once, and he was very nice, but who cares? Gene could argue that he devoted his life to an enterprise that a lot of people really enjoyed. Whatever talents in life Gene was granted, he made the most he could out of them. When the final epitaphs are written, the idea that Ace had a ton of friends, and he was a fun-loving, good time rock-n-roll dude, sometimes at the expense of his dedication to his craft, will prove a testament to his character, but Gene’s dedication to his craft, at the apparent expense of human relationships, will prove just as vital to his legacy. As Ace once sang, it was, “Two sides of the coin, which one should I choose.” Thanks in part to No Regrets, many hardcore Ace Frehley fans now know which side he chose, and it did some damage to his legacy.

Those of us who were Ace Frehley loyalists for much of our life, have one quick question for Ace. The question is based on the fact that we defended Ace among our friends and those who informed us what Gene and Paul said about him. Why would you write this? Why would you tell the world that you didn’t have as much play in the formulation of this KISS product as we thought you had. Why would you tell your biggest fans that you were basically along for the ride, for much of the time? Why would you say that other than some minor artistic differences, there’s no real huge story to your departure? Or, that you simply got sick of it?’ We know nothing lasts forever, and some of the times good things need to die. Most of us would agree with you that KISS overstayed their time on stage, but your notes on how little it meant to you when it meant so much to us, when we were kids, was a little deflating.

Ace does mention the fact that he may not be alive if he were still in KISS, but it’s clear that that was totally on him by that point. The only one who encouraged Frehley into greater debauchery, Peter Criss, was long gone by the time he quit, and Paul and Gene were basically dry as stated time and again throughout the book. Did Ace envy the success Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash had with his autobiography? Did he know that his story was similar, and he wanted a piece of that pie?

In a promotional interview for this book, Ace did on The Today Show, Ace talked about how proud he was to add published author to his list of accomplishments. That’s great, some of us thought, and it’s a laudable goal for any high school dropout. The question is what did you accomplish? What did you publish? Was it a novel, a short story collection, or a bio that detailed for the American public a dossier of artistic accomplishments? What this published author managed to have published was a tome of a wasted opportunity, a waste of talent, and a largely wasted life. My guess is that Frehley saw all of acclaim and sales that went to Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash and realized that his story was similar. It’s as entertaining as Slash’s was, and it’s received as much praise, but at what price?

The reader is left with the idea that Ace led a blessed and lucky life, but when it came to actually working, and finessing that gift to even greater heights, Ace got artificially turned on and tuned out. Ace will undoubtedly receive a lot more praise for being “more real” with his story, but those of us that considered ourselves true fans wish he had been a little less real to keep the myth of Ace Frehley alive. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun (and in spots a funny) read, stories of debauchery always are, but it’s also a little sad and disenchanting.

Are You Superior?

October 15, 2011October 18, 2021 Rilaly3 Comments

I met a guy who didn’t mind dressing me down psychologically. Yet, he probably wouldn’t admit it, even if I called him out on it. Dressing people down in such an obvious manner is uncouth, and it suggests that the purveyor is superior while doing it. I could feel him doing it as walking down the aisle toward him. I was smiling, and I felt him analyze that smile. I could tell that he perceived smiling as a weakness. When he looked at the shirt I wore, the manner in which I walked toward him, and the way I greeted him in a nice manner, I could tell he was scoring me on an analytical chart, and I could tell I wasn’t do well. As much as I hate to admit it, his superficial analysis of me affected our initial interaction. My natural insecurities took over, and I felt inferior to him in a way that I spent weeks trying to redefine.

This loathsome character is anecdotal evidence of a strange psychological phenomenon in our every day conversations. He’s anecdotal, because most of us don’t examine others in such an obvious manner, but do they psychologically dress us down in a more subtle, less obtuse manner? Do they score us on their personal analytical charts without intending to do so during our casual conversations? They probably don’t know why they do it. If they did, they likely wouldn’t attribute it to a search for superiority, but they do know that they’re searching for something that will give them some intangible, hard to describe feelings of superiority.

If an individual is muscular in a noteworthy manner, or gifted in the athletic arena, they already know the feeling of superiority, as most of us grant physical traits superiority. For the rest of us, this search is not as simple. How do we compare to others? How do we stack up? It’s often difficult, and fruitless, to stare into a mirror and gain true, objective definition, so we do it on the backs of others through our day-to-day interactions to try to gain some information about our identity.

The searches may occur in the first few moments we begin speaking to them, and it often involves scrutiny of our physical appearance. Are we well groomed? Do we brush our teeth? Are all of our nose and ear hairs trimmed? Do we have a socially acceptable hairdo? How much did we pay for that hairdo? How much did we pay for the clothes we wear? Do we wear fashionable clothes? If clothes make the man, what kind of men are we? Some say it’s all about the shoes. Others say that by creating a pleasing dimple in our tie, by denting that tie with the thumb in the tying process, we can create quite a first impression. Most people don’t speak in terms of superiority or inferiority in polite company. Yet, those same people worry about the first impressions they make. What are impressions, but an attempt to define ourselves among our peers?

Is it all about the clothes, or do we make a better first impression through a confident posture, the way we sit, the manner in which we hold our head when we talk, or whether or not we look our counterpart in the eye? Do we have a tongue stud? Are we tattooed or non-tattooed, and who is superior in that dynamic? It’s all relative.

First impressions can be difficult to overcome, but some suggest that what we say after the first impression has greater import. If we have a noticeable flaw we can garner sympathy or empathy, through an underdog status, with what we say in the follow up impression we provide.

To further this theory, some believe that if we notify our counterpart of our weakness –say in the form of a self-deprecating joke– it will redound to the benefit of a strong follow up impression. The subtext involves the idea that doing so will end their search for our weakness, and the feeling of superiority they gain will allow them to feel more comfortable with us. This, we hope, might result in them enjoying our company more.

Comedian Louie Anderson turned this into an art form. Moments after taking the stage, Louie Anderson informs his audience that he’s overweight in the form of a well-rehearsed joke. The first impression we have of Louie is that he is overweight. When he addresses that first impression up with a quality, self-deprecating joke it disarms us. We thought we were superior to him, based on his physical flaw. By acknowledging that flaw, Louie takes that feeling of superiority away from us, and he gives it back to us with his definition of it. That re-definition of our superiority allows him to go ahead and manipulate us in all the ways a comedian needs to manipulate a crowd. The distraction of our physical superiority is gone, and we’re now free to enjoy the comedic stylings of Louie Anderson.

The problem with a successful follow up rears its ugly head when we begin to overdo it. When our self-deprecating humor works in the second stage of impression, we attempt to move into the more personal third and fourth stages of getting to know our counterpart better. In these stages, we begin to feel more comfortable with the person on the receiving end, and we let our guard down. The problem we encounter, partially due to our insecurity, is that these people might not be as entertained by us as they were in the second, more self-deprecating stage of impression. As a result, we might begin to fall back on the more successful, second impression to lessen the impact of our attempts to be more personal with them. “Of course I’m nothing but a fat body, so what do I know,” is a qualifier that we insecure types add to an insightful comment we make that they don’t find as entertaining. When that proves successful, and our counterpart begins laughing again, we begin committing to this qualifier so often that we become it in their eyes. They can’t help thinking this is who we are, because it’s the impression we’ve given them so often that it becomes part of what they think of us. One way to test if we’ve fallen prey to this progression is to remove that successful, qualifier that we have been adding to the tail end of our jokes and stories to gain favor with them. If we have been adding it too often, the recipient of the qualifier might add, “That’s true, but aren’t you fat?” to the tail end of our story for us.

Some of the times, we commit to these additions to complete the rhythm of a joke or story, but most of the times we do it to insert some element of superiority or inferiority. Thanks to certain situation comedies, and the effect they’ve had on the zeitgeist, some jokes, stories, and thoughts feel incomplete without some element of superiority or inferiority attached to it. I used to be a qualifier, until I realized that too many people were exploiting my qualifiers for their own sense of superiority. It was so bad, at one point, that I couldn’t say anything halfway intelligent without someone adding, “That’s true, but aren’t you fat?” at the tail end of it.

***

It’s my contention that most of us are in a constant search of indicators of superiority or inferiority. If our counterpart is religious, we may feel superior to them because we’re not. If we are religious, we may want to know what religion they are, and we may base our feelings of superiority on that.

“They’re all going to hell,” a friend of mine whispered when we passed a group of Muslims. When I asked why she thought this, she said, “They don’t accept the Lord, Jesus Christ as their personal savior.”

I’ve heard Christians use that condemnation many times, but I rarely heard someone use it as a weapon of superiority. I realized some time later that this was all this woman had. She hated her job, her kids hated her, and she was far from attractive, or in good shape. She needed that nugget of superiority to help her get through the day, and to assist her in believing that she was, at least, superior to someone in some manner.

On the flip side of the coin, a Muslim friend of mine seemed forever curious about the American way of life. She would constantly ask me questions about the motivations I had for doing what I did. I didn’t mind it at the time, for I didn’t mind jokes about how Americans seem to be driven by sex, violence, and other “unclean” motivations. I also didn’t mind that some of her questions involved me, as I didn’t mind being self-deprecating. It didn’t dawn on me until later that she was searching for points of superiority. She saw the Muslim religion as a clean religion from which she gained a feeling of purity. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, until she used that as a weapon of superiority against me.

The search for where we stand in this chasm of superiority and inferiority can be a difficult one to traverse, so we often attempt to answer our questions on the backs of others. It’s a shortcut around introspective examination and self-reflection. Some feel superior to another, based on another’s religion, their politics, their race, or their education level. Some even gain feelings of superiority based on the manner they use to brush their teeth. Those who brush their teeth top to bottom are not doing it in the manner advised by the American Dental Association, but do those of us who brush our teeth in circles find vindication and validation from our dentist? Others base their comparative analyses on the manner in which they shave their pubic hair. If one person leaves a strip and another shaves Brazilian who is superior, and who is inferior, and where does the person that lets it all grow wild stand in that dynamic? We all have some positions of superiority and inferiority, and most of them are relative.

This modern battle for psychological definition often calls for the subtleties and nuance of guerrilla style warfare. The age of standing toe to toe occurred in the days of duels, and The Civil War, are over because most modern field generals would never risk their troops in toe-to-toe battles that former battalion leaders considered the gentleman’s way to fight. On that note, no one of the modern age would ever ask their counterpart if they think they’re superior for that might involve some sort of equivocation that details the strengths and weaknesses of both parties in which no one is a winner and no one a loser. No, the battle between two modern day, psychological combatants, more often than not, involves a never-ending battle of guerrilla warfare-style pot shots.

***

Long before my mind’s eye was opened to the comprehensive nature of this conversation, I met a kid named Walter in high school. A decent description of Walter is that he was at the bottom of the teenage boys’s totem pole. He was the rabbit and the ground squirrel at the bottom of the food chain. An indecent way of describing Walter is that he was a target for every other boy who feared being in the crosshairs of every other boy. In this indecent description, I was superior to Walter. If I was above him, I was clinging to the divider by my fingernails.

Walter did all the things boys like. He never let a slight go by without reply, and his replies were feckless screams of indignation. Teenage boys love nothing more than knowing they can get under another boy’s skin, and there’s nothing the subject can do about it. It makes them feel superior to drive another boy crazy, and it gives them a greater sense of superiority when that kid acts as if he’s being attacked by a hive of hornets.

It would’ve been so easy to join the pack of jackals, as I saw an overwhelming number of my peers (those of us clinging to the border that divided us from Walter) join in on the barrage against Walter. The fact that I did not was based on sympathy and empathy. I knew what it felt like to be on the other end of a barrage. If Walter dominated the bully charts, I was in the top five. I thought we rabbits and ground squirrels should stick together and advise one another on how to deal with these awful moments in our lives. Not only did Walter fail to heed my advice, because why would he, I suffered from almost as much abuse as he did, but he joined the barrages against me to take a step up on me in this superior vs. inferior world.

‘Et tu, Walter?’ I wanted to yell, ‘but I refrained.’ You gave me ample opportunity to ride you, like a horse, to the promised land, but I refrained. Did I expect gratitude, respect, or appreciation from Walter ? Did I expect him to recognize me as one of the goodfellas who chose to refrain? If you knew Walter as well as we did, you knew he had a no-one-gets-out-of-here-alive mentality. I knew that, but I thought he might consider the numerous times I refrained. Not only did he fail to value, or even recognize my efforts for what they were, he apparently thought less of me for doing it.

I don’t remember if I wanted Walter to recognize my previous efforts of refraining, or if Walter joining a barrage against me fueled some competitive animosity I gained for him, but I joined in on the next barrage against Walter. The funny thing was Walter didn’t react any different.

For those, like me, who might feel guilty about cashing in on those opportunities to nuke another person for the purpose of gaining superiority, there is no reward for refraining. Even the most inferior will take any opportunity they can find to make another look bad. They enjoy it without reflection or feelings of empathy or solidarity, especially when they consider the new target to be superior in some way. Others don’t enjoy this, as we have intimate knowledge of the embarrassment that can accompany looking bad in front of others. We also feel some empathy for those who expose flaws that can be easily corrected. We hold our fire. In a perfect world, others would value such judiciousness, and they would return it. For various reasons, including the idea that most people do not know when we’re refraining, it is not valued. Some may even consider any refraining a display of inferiority on our part.

In a perfect world, our interactions would involve others recognizing inferiority and superiority in a gentlemanly manner. We would wait for enemy fire before firing, to win the battle off the field as well as the one on it. The problem with refraining too often, or only firing in self-defense, with those we battle in psychological warfare, is that most enemy combatants do not view refraining as an order to hold your fire. One would think that in the absence of pot shots, the other party would recognize any cease and desist order. In my experience, they don’t. They sense weakness, and they open fire. Something about the human condition suggests that even the most empathetic and sympathetic souls stay vigilant. Every once in a while, we need to fire off a few rounds just to keep our enemy combatants hunkered down behind shields. Are we superior, are they inferior? We don’t care. We just want to keep them level with us, as we learn that the individual with their mind’s eye open to the psychological games we all play must keep firing, if for no other reason than to remind all of our opponents of the arsenal we have at our disposal.

If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy the personal experience that drove it: Are You Superior? II

I Hate Guitar Solos!

August 20, 2011March 1, 2018 RilalyLeave a comment

A Cool Kat walks into the auditorium’s bathroom. He has a wife beater on that’s frayed at the collar, his jeans have a whole in the knee, and he has tattoos that suggest (in Asian characters) that he has some kind of duality or inner strength about him. The Kat also has a perpetual snarl on the face, and he doesn’t so much as give me a passing glance as he steps to the urinal near mine. His reproductive organ is medium sized, and non-threatening, so I say, “What do you think of all these solos?”

“Solos?” the Kat asks. It’s loud in this bathroom. The metal band of no name, plays over his right shoulder, so I assume he couldn’t hear me.

“Guitar solos, drum solos, they even had a bass solo out there for the love of all that’s holy,” I said. “I paid hard-earned money for this show. I don’t want to watch some self-indulgent, over paid rock star get his nards off playing a solo for ten minutes. I want to hear songs, music, and structure.”

“You ain’t where it’s at Daddy-O,” the hipster, Kat says. I always wanted to be called Daddy-O, so it took me a second to get over that fact that this guy was attempting to belittle me in a manner that insinuated I was old.

“You know these guys don’t care what you think don’t you?” I said. He shrugged and looked forward. I didn’t know if I was trying to convert the incontrovertible, but I leaped headlong, “They don’t care whether or not you understand the intrinsic value of what they’re doing up there!” As the kids say, I was hating on the hip Kat, but I had had this bug crawling up my 50% polyester/50% cotton slacks for as long as I could remember. This kid just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. “They don’t whisper to their band mates, ‘Look at that kid over there on air guitar. He really gets it. If he had a guitar right now, I’ll bet he’d be hitting the right chords and everything. Jimmy, the road feller, go get that kid, give him a guitar and get him up here. That kid’s got the goods.’ That’s not going to happen my friend.”

“Let’s say that one of your dreams did come true,” I continued. “Let’s say you ran into one of your gods on the street, or how about a backstage pass. Let’s say your dream came true, and you got a backstage pass where you could finally tell this guitarist how much he’s meant to your life. You could say, ‘dude, that eighteen minute solo you played out there dude, that was the bit dude!’ You want to know what they’d say to you? They’d say SECURITY! They would rather run into a five foot seven cockroach than a fan that they have to talk to.”

“I just like the group Daddy-O,” the Kat said, “and I enjoy hearing them play music.”

“Then quit applauding solos,” I said. “It’s not music. It’s self-indulgence. Spread the word.”

We’re only encouraging them to do more solos when we applaud, is something else I would’ve loved to say to the hip Kat. In their heads, I’m sure most of these guitar players are saying, they think I’m a guitar god. When, in essence, we’re just trying to show that we understand the complications involved in strumming or picking a guitar string…We don’t. Some of us don’t think it’s as complicated as rock journalists purport it to be, but most of us don’t care one way or another. We just want to hear the songs, but we’ve been conditioned to clap. If we don’t clap, people will stare, and they’ll know that we don’t know that that guy can pick his guitar strings in a manner no one has since Moses stepped down from Mount Sinai. It’s like when a reference comedian drops a joke about how Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination started World War One. Everybody just laughs themselves silly. One percent of the audience probably gets the joke, but no one wants it known that they don’t get it, and that they’re not intelligent enough to understand culture, history, or a super cool and ridiculously complicated Brian May guitar solo.

We don’t want the guy next to us to think that we don’t appreciate an eighteen minute guitar solo that involves seventeen different chord changes, the bowel movement facial expressions that appear to biologically accompany higher note sections of solos, and the inevitable pause that occurs halfway through where people feel compelled to cheer him onto another seven minutes.

“Dude, when I went to Clapton the other night he played an eighteen minute solo!”

Don’t you frigging hate that? I would’ve asked for my money back.

“What the fog? No way man, Clapton is god dude!”

Give me song structure. Give me 1^st verse, refrain, 2^nd verse, refrain, and a succinct solo that is conducted as a bridge to freshen our palette before we get onto the 3^rd and 4^th and 5^th repetition of the refrain that leads us to the fade out. (If you’re Paul McCartney, go ahead and add 12 to 14 more repetitions of Hey Jude before the fade out. At that point in their career, it appears even George Martin couldn’t edit them.) My point is if the solo, or interlude, is an integral part of the song’s structure I have no problem with it. I’m not against instrumentation in a song. I’ve tried listening to the Counting Crows. They have too many lyrics. They don’t let the music do the talking. They don’t let the music breathe in the songs I’ve heard. I prefer a nice mixture of lyrics with music. I ascribe to Mike Patton’s belief that vocals should, at best, be used as nothing more and nothing less than another instrument in a song.

As I told the hep Kat though, it’s our fault that we are inundated with solos when we attend a rock concert. We understand that these fellas need a break in their 90 minute extravaganzas, but how much time do they need to get a glass of water, get a hit on the bong, a swig on the Jack, or a snort on a line of ants? Does it take eighteen ear splitting, headache inducing, and Noriega surrendering minutes?? I paid money to watch this show. Go vain glorify yourself in the backroom where I don’t have to listen to it.