When you’re wearing lightning-bolt makeup, dressed like a glitter-loving alien and you’re setting off smoke bombs on stage, does it really matter what kind of guitar you play?

If you’re Ace Frehley, Kiss’s original lead guitarist, it’s a Gibson Les Paul or nothing at all. On the group’s earliest albums, most notably on tracks such as Cold Gin and Shock Me, Frehley relied on a 1973 tobacco sunburst Deluxe with three full-sized humbuckers.

Throughout his Kiss years, Frehley, an economical, melodic soloist, experimented with various Les Pauls (and smoke bomb contraptions, which tended to ruin pickups), but he was particularly fond of a 1959 sunburst that he used on his 1978 solo album which featured the how-catchy-can-a-riff-get? hit, New York Groove.