Professor of Rock

Coming up, we’re celebrating the birthday of legendary KISS guitarist Ace Frehley with this classic episode from 2024.
In this one, we dig deep into the catalog of one of rock’s greatest party bands—KISS—highlighting 5 essential tracks that help tell their wild story. From outrageous moments like concert car crashes to the band’s unexpected clash with disco, these songs capture the chaos, creativity, and larger-than-life spirit that defined KISS.
But this time, the stories aren’t just coming from me… we’re handing the mic to the Spaceman himself. Ace Frehley shares rare insights into these iconic songs—revealing which ones he loves, which ones he doesn’t, and what was really happening behind the scenes.
It’s a fun, revealing look at the band that taught the world how to rock.
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Let's throw it back!

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were lovers who had been trying to make it in music for years. After some fiery arguments, years of failures and poverty, Stevie decided to quit music for good. One night she put all that pain into a song she called Landslide. Almost over night after writing that classic she and Lindsey met Fleetwood Mac and they were asked to join up. They recorded the white album with song of their own to add and the rest is history. How Landslide changed all of that.
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Sometimes the most memorable songs aren't the ones that scale the charts, but the ones that defy all logic. I’m talking about tracks that stop you cold …Dead in your tracks and make you ask, "What the hell did I just listen to?" Like Angine de Poitrine. Today, we're celebrating 8 of Rock's Strangest Songs that broke every rule in the book. Including the Peter Gabriel who ruled 1986 with an iconic record, only to wait 6 years to put out a follow-up because his new song Digging in the Dirt sent him into utter madness as he delved into the minds of the truly demented to write a song that seems harmless, but lyrically isthe strangest, creepiest song of its time. We've also got the story of Frank Zappa who woke up his 14-year-old daughter Moon Unit at 3 AM to record a monologue of 80s Southern California slang over a heavy guitar riff. Then there's the tale of a 60s artist Napoleon XIV who wrote a song about going insane that was so controversial it was banned nationwide,. And we’ll dive into a family band, The Shaggs, foretold by prophecy, attempting to play rock and roll without ever having actually heard what rock and roll was supposed to sound like!

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Coming up, we turn the spotlight on 10 songs that embody the period of the Rock Era when disco was on its last leg, and rock was making a comeback!. It’s our latest Dated countdown.
Songs that are distinctly of their time….including one song, Pop Musik, that got its pre-chorus from a perfume bottle, another one, When You’re In Love With a Beautiful Woman, that may never have been recorded if the writer hadn’t stalked a famous band’s manager into the restroom, pitching it at the urinal.
Plus a #1 hit that rocketed to the top of the chart after being synced in one of the most controversial scenes in tv history, plus Ring My Bell, a song that has been banned from casinos because every time it’s played it’s musical vibrations make slot machines and black jack tables pay out by 10X plus the naughty Rod Stewart song that got me kicked out of church as a toddler when I sang it during a prayer and the song Babe that Dennis DeYoung wrote as a private song for his wife’s b day present that was never supposed to be heard by the public but hit #1…

These stories and more as we get into details about 11 DATED songs from 1979, next on Professor of Rock.
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The story of the biggest tv soundtrack of the 1980s: Miami Vice from the Theme by Jan Hammer to the two Glenn Frey tracks You Belong to the City and Smuggler’s Blues… cowritten by frequent Eagles collaborator Jack Tempchin who tells the story of writing them. Get ready for a showstopper we’re going back to 1985.
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