🎸 Spaceman and the Riffs That Never Fade
Ace Frehley wasn’t just the Spaceman of KISS — he was the cosmic outlaw who made rock feel infinite. His riffs still echo in every amp that hums and every dreamer who dares to plug in.
Remembering Ace Frehley (1951 – 2025)
There are guitarists who play notes, and then there are those who bend the universe. Ace Frehley was the latter — the interstellar architect of tone, swagger, and showmanship who helped build one of the loudest legacies in rock history.
As the original lead guitarist and co-founder of KISS, Frehley didn’t just shred — he launched. In full Spaceman regalia, silver makeup glinting under the stage lights, he turned every solo into liftoff. His riffs didn’t just ring through arenas; they became anthems of escape for every kid who ever felt like they didn’t belong on this planet.
When you strip away the pyrotechnics and the smoke, what remains is pure electricity — the sound of a man channeling energy through six strings and a Les Paul that glowed as bright as the stars he sang about. Ace wasn’t just a character; he was a cosmic outlaw with a grin and a tone that could melt steel.
The Man Behind the Mask
Beneath the paint, Ace was human — beautifully flawed, wildly creative, and unflinchingly real. His solo career proved that his identity was never limited to KISS. Songs like “New York Groove” still pulse with that city-street confidence — gritty, rhythmic, unpretentious. It’s a track that could only come from someone who’d lived every high and low of rock’s roller coaster and still found his groove on the other side.
In interviews, he was funny, raw, and occasionally unpredictable — a true reflection of the era he helped define. Ace was never afraid to say what he felt, even if it rattled the establishment. Maybe that’s why his fans loved him so fiercely. He was real, and in rock ’n’ roll, real is rare.
A Legacy Written in Light and Feedback
From his iconic smoking guitar solos to his unspoken influence on generations of rock and metal players, Ace Frehley’s DNA runs through modern music. You can hear it in the swagger of Slash, the tone of Joe Perry, the showmanship of countless arena bands that followed.
For Gen-Xers, Ace wasn’t just part of KISS — he was the reason kids picked up guitars in the first place. He represented possibility: that someone a little weird, a little wild, and completely themselves could take over the world armed with nothing more than a dream and a distortion pedal. And now, as the amps go quiet, the echo of that dream remains.
The Spaceman Lives On
It’s easy to say rock stars never die — but in Ace’s case, it feels true. His riffs are still orbiting. His laughter still hums in interviews and backstage stories. His fingerprints are on every pick-slide and power chord that ever made a crowd lose its mind.
He once said he wasn’t sure where the Spaceman came from — maybe outer space, maybe the Bronx, maybe a little of both. Wherever it was, the energy he brought to this world was bigger than any stage could hold.
Rest easy, Ace. You took us higher than we ever thought we could go.
The Spaceman has returned to the stars — but his riffs will never fade.
The Lords of Dogtown: When Rebellion Learned to Ride
Before rebellion became a hashtag, it lived in the sun-cracked streets of Venice Beach. The Z-Boys didn’t just invent modern skateboarding — they invented an attitude. Lords of Dogtown wasn’t about fame or money; it was about freedom, creativity, and carving your own line through life. From busted boards to backyard pools, these kids turned drought into art and chaos into culture — proving that real rebellion doesn’t destroy, it creates.
How a handful of kids from Venice Beach turned drought, grit, and boredom into a cultural revolution.
Before social media turned every subculture into a hashtag, rebellion lived in the cracks of America’s forgotten streets. In the mid-’70s, Venice Beach, California — a sun-baked, half-abandoned neighborhood locals called Dogtown — was one of those cracks. It was raw, dirty, and absolutely alive.
Out of that concrete chaos came the Z-Boys — a crew of scrappy teenagers with homemade boards, saltwater in their hair, and an attitude that would change everything. They didn’t have sponsors or followers. What they had was hunger — to move faster, fly higher, and tell the establishment to shove it.
When the California drought hit and drained suburban swimming pools, the Z-Boys saw opportunity where everyone else saw emptiness. They dropped into those empty pools and re-invented skateboarding — carving vertical walls like surfers on asphalt waves. They weren’t just skating; they were creating a new language.
From Survival to Style
The beauty of Dogtown wasn’t perfection — it was improvisation. Most of these kids came from broken homes or no homes at all. Skateboarding wasn’t a sport — it was survival, expression, and defiance rolled into one. Guys like Tony Alva, Jay Adams, and Stacy Peralta didn’t wear corporate logos; they wore scraped knees and chipped boards like badges of honor.
They didn’t wait for permission or funding — they built ramps out of trash wood and used the city as their playground. That’s the essence of Gen-X before we even had a name for it — take what’s broken, what’s left behind, and make it yours. No filters. No algorithms. Just gravity and guts.
The Surf That Never Died
For most of the Z-Boys, skating was an extension of surfing — and surfing was an extension of rebellion. They took the flowing rhythm of the ocean and translated it to the streets. Every pool carve was a protest against conformity, every grind a middle finger to the mainstream.
The 2005 film Lords of Dogtown didn’t just tell that story — it bottled that lightning. It showed how creativity can explode from the most unlikely places, and how freedom often starts where the rules end. The soundtrack — with tracks from Hendrix, T-Rex, and Social Distortion — was more than background noise. It was a love letter to a generation that refused to be boxed in.
The Blueprint for Rebellion
Look around today, and you can still see Dogtown’s fingerprints everywhere. The DIY culture that birthed punk rock, garage bands, zines, streetwear, and even YouTube creators — all trace back to the same philosophy:
Make something from nothing. Dogtown wasn’t about profit; it was about purpose. They didn’t chase clout — they chased connection. And maybe that’s why it resonates so deeply with us at CommonX. Because in a world obsessed with metrics, we’re chasing the same thing they were — truth, grit, and the freedom to build something real.
Legacy in Motion
What those kids started on cracked concrete has rolled through every creative space since. From Tony Hawk’s 900 to the explosion of street culture, Dogtown proved that authenticity beats polish, and courage beats comfort. The Z-Boys didn’t just carve lines in pools; they carved a roadmap for creators, rebels, and dreamers who refuse to be told “stay in your lane.”
And that’s the CommonX way too — we’re just doing it with microphones instead of skate decks. So here’s to the Lords of Dogtown, the barefoot prophets who showed us that rebellion isn’t about destruction — it’s about creation. They didn’t follow trends.
They were the trend.
by Ian Primmer, Co-host -CommonX