I see your point regarding his songs but I don't see it as a shortcoming. Sometimes the arrangement is such to allow more space and emphasis on the vocals and verses. Too busy if he were to fill all of the space with the riff in the verses. Pretty common songwriting move actually. It is similar to call and response. Harmonic rhythm is commonly spared down in the verses.
He was not. Most of his "tapping" came from Jimmy Page from the "Heartbreaker" solo. His solo spotlight from Alive! copies that to a great degree. Ace was, in many senses, a very no frills like lead player.
From what I've seen it's Gene on rhythm and the solo was a whacked out blast of noise courtesy of Kramer/Ace, lots of effects/panning, it's probably Ace but it's hard to tell, it's even crazier than the Strange Ways solo.
Ace is not a fine tuned songwriter. He writes a killer riff and then goes with it. Bridges, harmonies, and other parts of the arrangement are secondary. The primary focus is the riff and that's okay. Paul and Gene do enough with the quirky or involved songwriting; sometimes you just want to rock and Ace provided those songs in spades (thank god).
Shock Me, one of my favorites on Love Gun and one of my favorite KISS songs. Love the cool, cocky delivery of the song, love the chorus, great in the pocket drumming by Peter, one of Ace's finest solos, and an alltime classic.
Shock Me- This is an A list song in my book. What great song for Ace's vocal debut. I compare Ace's vocal style to someone like Keith Richards. Not a great voice but works with the songs he writes and exudes a feel you wouldn't get from the other members of the band. Classic solo by Ace here and glad he was given almost a minute to let loose. Peter's playing behind the beat which just makes it that much better. Again a lot drummers would just bash out the song but not Peter. My second favorite track on LG behind I Stole Your Love.
Shock Me's riff is an example of twisting a blues boogie riff into hard rock territory. Ace learned from the Stone's and Humble Pie.
I'm not saying this because I'm a fan of Kiss but that is the funniest music-related interview ever recorded. Starting with Ace and then Gene's reactions. "I've got a pipe backstage I'd like to have you work on it" "Tell me about it!!!!"
I agree and this is where it would have been great for Ace to write with Gene and/or Paul. If there had been enough mutual respect there could have been more years of great songs. In a way it's hard to argue this before Love Gun because they made six good to great albums. But for me the songs get really problematic starting with Dynasty, where I would argue that Ace could have grounded Paul's songs and Paul could have made Ace's songs much better because Ace immediately ran out of song writing gas after his solo album. Look at Dark Light. A pretty forgettable demo with dumb lyrics that became a near classic with some song writing help.
Re the "Shock Me" Alive II solo, actually Ace is tapping. He would tap with his pick rather than dropping the pick and tapping with his fingertip. But it's still tapping. And tapping is a way of doing a hammer-on. It's just that you're doing the hammer-on with your picking hand rather than your fretting hand.
Here's where I got this. In Behind The mask under the Almost Human entry Gene says: "That's me on guitar. On other songs where you think it's Ace or Paul on guitar, it's me. War Machine and Plaster Caster, that's me on guitar and bass." I will note he doesn't say lead guitar, but I assume that's what he's talking about. He doesn't say this about X-Ray Eyes. I think I made that assumption because the leads in X-Ray & Human are more noise than notes.
First, IMHO "Shock Me" is a quintessential KISS song, and I have almost nothing to add that hasn't been already said. The one thing I will add is to expound upon your point above a little more from a personal perspective. I will try to be brief cuz I could go on for days... This may be somewhat hyperbolic, but this song may be "ground zero" for Ace's influence on budding guitar players. I was 12 in 1977, and, as many other of the older folks in this forum have said previously, there was no internet--basically you had to forage for info about KISS, like going to the grocery store and perusing through various magazines, such as "Creem" which IIRC actually covered them quite a bit. So, when this album dropped, me and my best friend at the time had no idea Ace was singing a song on it. When we heard his voice, and literally I don't remember even hearing him speak before this (maybe a few lines on The Paul Lynde Halloween Special), it was a revelation, 'cuz his voice sounded exactly the way you expected it to sound. It was so utterly cool.
The first Frehley's Comet is far and away the one I'm most familiar with and it's a good album. But that album came out in 1987, so after his 78 solo album he had only six more song writing credits until 1987. Forgetting about quality, that lack of material alone qualifies as running out of song writing gas in my opinion. Now take into account that I'm not a big fan of his two self written songs on Dynasty and though I like his quirky contributions to Unmasked they are hardly top shelf songs and Dark Light was pretty spotty before other writers got a hold of it. So either amount of writing or quality of songs, I think it's fair to say that Ace ran out of gas after 1978.
I think Ace's songs on Dynasty and Unmasked are rather good actually! Dark Light has great riffs and one of his best solos ever! And who says the lyrics on the demo were in any way finished???