Boston, Massachusetts December 14, 1975
Photographer unknown
As noted in the section on Paul's matching Les Paul Custom, the sudden and explosive success of Alive! seems to have gotten the band into Gibson's good graces. In December of 1975 they were no longer handed budget models, they got custom high-end Gibsons. Like Paul's, Ace's Les Paul Custom was black, had chrome-plated hardware—including chrome-plated tulip-style tuners—and his name on the truss rod cover; unlike Paul, Ace chose to replace both pickups with DiMarzio Super Distorsion and remove the pick guard. Ace first showed up with this guitar in mid-December 1975 and then promptly forgot about it which is a little odd. The Les Paul Custom model would be the one that he used for the longest time in his first tenure with KISS, but here in 1975 it didn't quite "stick" for some reason.
The most reasonable explanation for this is that Ace was such a sucker for new and exciting things, and in late 1975 he also got his hands on the aluminum neck Travis Bean. So even though he probably cherished the Les Paul Custom—to get slightly ahead of the story, it would stick around for quite a while—the Travis Bean was a much more interesting "toy" so he reached for it more. And once the infatuation with the Travis Bean had run its course there suddenly appeared yet another Les Paul Jr. for a while.
The Les Paul Custom eventually made it on stage towards the end of March and into early April 1976. If the reader wonders how we can identify the Fort Wayne photo as a Les Paul Custom, it's the binding on the neck and the headstock. (The same holds true for the Boston photos from December 1975. Binding on the neck and headstock, and rectangular inlays mark it as a Custom.) According to the customs papers for the European tour in May and June, this Les Paul Custom was one of three guitars Ace brought with him but so far there is no evidence that he used it. Unlike Paul's Custom, it has never even been photographed backstage during this time.
It appears that the black Custom fell out of favor after that short run in March and April. It's not present in any of the live photos we have during July 1976, and it's not even present in David Tan's backstage photo of the guitars from Dayton, Ohio. This is quite remarkable because it shows up both on and off stage just days after that. At the same time the Ibanez Destroyer disappeared so for some reason—possibly some polite suggestions from Gibson—that particular had become guitar non grata. Having made its return, the black Les Paul Custom suddenly appeared to be something of a favorite. This is also when we can first really identify Ace's name inscribed on the trussrod cover.
For the appearance on the Paul Lynde Halloween Special, Ace brought two guitars. One was a natural Gibson Explorer with a black pickguard that was never used live. The second was the black Les Paul Custom. Here—on October 20, 1976—the Custom looked just like it had during the end of the Spirit of '76 Tour.
About a month later during rehearsals in Reading, Massachusetts, the black Les Paul Custom had gotten a white pickguard. We can see it both during the video shoot for "Love 'Em and Leave 'Em", and later during the dress rehearsals. This version then got a larger role during the 1976-77 Winter Tour, and for the most part it seems to have been used for the encores or possibly just for the closing number "Black Diamond".
The remainder of the 1976-77 Winter Tour saw the black Les Paul Custom have essentially the same role. That held true right through the band's first trip to the Land of the Rising Sun.
When the CanAm Tour in support of Love Gun starts, there is a black Les Paul Custom in the ranks but it's a three-pickup instrument with an unmarked truss rod cover. So was this a new guitar or had Ace modified the 1975 black Custom for three pickups to match the Cherry Custom? In cases such as these guitars can sometimes be identified by the idiosyncrasies of the pearl inlays, but there aren't really a photo similar to this one of the two-pickup black Custom. The closest we get is the Waring Abbott shot backstage in Houston in August 1976. There is a minor detail in the 1st fret inlay that seems to suggest that this was the same instrument, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.
This three-pickup black Custom took on the same role as the two-pickup had previously had. It seemed to be used mainly for the encores and it doesn't show in too many photos over the course of the tour. It's most likely there from the start of the tour but there's a dearth of photos from the first couple of shows. The one photo that may show it has to be considered inconclusive at best.
For the Show of Shows/1977-78 Winter Tour things remained pretty much the same. The Cherry Custom was the clear number one and the three-pickup black Custom came in for the encores here and there. (You can see it in the bootleg from Largo.)
And then, after two full tours, the three-pickup black Custom changed. When the band returned to Japan the pickguard had been removed. This coincided with the second three-pickup Standard Smoker gaining a pickguard so it's not too far-fetched to think that it was just moved from one guitar to the other. This look is obviously the one that most fans will recognize from the Barry Levine solo album promo shots.
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