And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records

by Harris, Larry

  While our relationship with Warner Brothers had been touch and go to this point, near the end of April 1974, Warner asked (and paid) us to put two of their bands on our label. The company had finally come to realize that certain bands—for reasons related to their type of music, their band members, and/or their management—just did not fit within their organization. But Warner had contracts to fulfill. Placing these bands with us killed two birds with one stone: contractual obligations were met and the artists were gotten rid of with no hard feelings. One of these artists was Marc Bolan of T.Rex (“Bang a Gong [Get It On]”) fame. Neil and I had both followed Bolan’s career to some degree (it was impossible not to), but we didn’t become huge fans of his until we met him. Marc had lived a fast, hard life. He’d enjoyed (probably a bit too much) the spoils of stardom, but he impressed us no end with his renewed vigor and earnest commitment to living a clean life and recapturing the status he’d enjoyed in years past. In retrospect—knowing that Marc would die just a few years later—it’s easy to view this as an example of signing someone on the way down (even though we’d been persuaded to do so), but neither of us had seen it that way at the time. Casablanca was nothing yet, and Bolan gave us credibility in the rock arena, as he was considered by many to be a member of the English rock elite. Marc was an extremely nice guy. He only visited the offices a handful of times, usually with his girlfriend, a pretty woman with refined features and a café-au-lait complexion. Despite his stature in the biz, he was easy to work with and not the least bit elitist. To this day, I can’t imagine what caused Warner to want to get rid of him.

  • April 5, 1974: Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie, is published.

  • April 6, 1974: Two hundred thousand attend the California Jam. Performers include Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, the Eagles, and Black Oak Arkansas.

  • April 8, 1974: Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth’s long-standing home run record.

  The other artist was Fanny, one of the first all-female rock bands. Despite their pioneer status, Fanny is never mentioned in any of the latter-day “women in rock” documentaries. Roy Silver, Fanny’s manager, was a major character in the business (he also managed Jackson Browne). He had a flair that was definitely different. We became involved in various ventures with him, including a new restaurant concept. Roy’s restaurant, aptly called Roy’s, fused Asian and American cuisines. It became popular with industry types, and it featured a private room—not much more than a large booth with three walls and a curtain—where sex or drugs were almost guaranteed upon entry. Since Neil (or maybe it was the company; I can’t recall) was a big investor in the restaurant, we were asked to have our expense account meals there whenever possible.

  Roy had many close friends in the music business, including Bob Gibson, Gary Stromberg, and Stewart Levine, all of whom worked with us in various capacities. Neil hired Gibson and Stromberg’s firm to do our publicity, which caused a rift with Warner—its PR department took the hiring as a slap in the face. But Neil hadn’t done it because he thought Warner was incompetent; rather, he’d wanted to make sure we had the attention necessary to generate as much press for our artists (especially KISS) and our company as possible. With Warner being so large, we had some concern that a new subsidiary label like ours would be a low priority. Shortly after hiring Gibson and Stromberg, we began to hear rumors that we would no longer be getting any help from the Warner PR department. I’m sure it did not sit well with Warner that we were paying Gibson-Stromberg with Warner money. Bob Regehr, the head of Warner’s PR, was not pleased with us, and things got sticky between us and his department. Make no mistake, this was his department: Mo Ostin and Joe Smith did not make Regehr do anything he did not want to do.

  The one cool thing that his PR people came up with was a black T-shirt that had the name “KISS” spelled out on it with hundreds of rhinestones. The band’s road crew had made their own shirts using this design. Someone from Warner must have seen them at the Casablanca launch party and made the shrewd observation that a mass-produced version might be good promotional merchandise. Unfortunately, they only produced a few hundred of the shirts, which almost immediately became collector’s items. I was able to send some out to contacts in the radio biz, but because of the limited supply, not everyone got one. The shirts were snug, so they definitely looked best on women. Even though I was fairly trim at the time, I could never wear one. When we told the Warner people that we would need more shirts, they explained that they cost almost $20 apiece to manufacture (a fortune in those days); all the rhinestones had to be hand applied, and there was no way they were going to spend more money on them.

  With the excitement surrounding KISS and all the publicity, airplay, and concerts, we thought the album would sell like hotcakes. But for some reason, we were stuck at about one hundred thousand units. Looking into the problem brought us more conflict with the Warner promotions department. Buck Reingold was given a tape from an unknown source of a conference call in which the head of promotion, Gary Davis, told his field staff to ignore the product of the custom labels and only work the Warner-owned artists. This really pissed us off, because part of our deal with Warner was that they would help us promote our product. We knew that alone we had very little pull at Warner, so we distributed copies of the tape to Warner’s other subsidiary labels. After enough complaints from the likes of Chrysalis and Capricorn (who meant a lot more to the bottom line at Warner than we did), Davis was looking for another gig. We also ferreted out the real reason the KISS product was stuck in sales limbo: it was back ordered to the tune of over one hundred thousand units. Warner Brothers claimed that they were having some manufacturing problems, so they were only pressing their albums and not the custom-label product like ours.

  Although our tenuous relationship with Warner was weighing on us, there was plenty of exciting news at the office. In June we’d signed the Hudson Brothers, a musical trio out of Portland. Mark Hudson would go on to become a very successful songwriter, Brett Hudson became a movie and TV producer, and Bill Hudson married Goldie Hawn, with whom he fathered actress Kate Hudson. The Hudson Brothers came with the added bonus of a deal with CBS Television to produce an hour-long summer replacement series featuring the band. The Hudson Brothers Show was already in production, with a premiere date of July 31. Neil became friendly with the show’s producer, Chris Bearde, who had helmed the incredibly popular Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour for the previous four years. We also got to know the Hudson Brothers’ manager, David Joseph. These were good people to know, as they would provide us with several key artists for our roster in the years to come.

  But one opportunity that we were presented with turned into a low-light of my career—I struck out in spectacular fashion. During this time, former ATI booking-agent-turned-manager Ira Blacker pitched me a band he was representing. Ira had been KISS’s booking agent, but he had left ATI to form his own management outfit, I Mouse Limited. We’d enjoyed a good relationship during his short time with KISS, and he wanted to give us first dibs on an act he was representing: a Canadian trio hailing from Toronto who had developed a strong following that far outpaced their bar band status. They weren’t much of anything yet, and Ira even admitted that outright, but he was making a strong case for them nonetheless. At Ira’s behest, I traveled to Canada to see them perform live.

  The trip was doomed from the beginning. The flight from LA to Toronto should have taken five hours, but it took closer to ten. The plane had mechanical difficulties at the gate at LAX, the weather during the flight was terrible, and I was developing a nasty case of the flu. To compound matters, the club where the performance was happening was a dark, dingy place called the Colonial Tavern, which had a threadbare sound system that couldn’t come close to keeping up with the band.

  Despite the venue and the flu I was fighting, I could appreciate the fact that the trio gave the high-energy type of performance that Ira had promised. Their downfall in my eyes was their look. They were ugly. I say this with a great sense of amusement,
because the members of KISS (behind the makeup) were some of the worst-looking guys I’d ever seen. Nonetheless, Ira’s group just didn’t cut it visually. They were all gangly looking, and their front man, the bassist, had a huge hook nose that Barbra Streisand could only aspire to. On a visual level, these three Canadians simply couldn’t compete.

  I flew back to LA and gave Neil my impressions. Neil was always so positive about everything that I almost felt compelled to sell him on this band, but something held me back. I told him, “I thought they were decent. They have energy, but their songs are only OK. I just don’t think they’re the band for us, at least not right now.” Had we been a little less cash poor, I would have taken a flier on them, but there wasn’t enough money in the Casablanca coffers to afford a ham sandwich, to say nothing of another recording artist. After hearing my spiel, Neil said, “Look, you’ve seen them and I haven’t. I have faith in your judgment, Larry, so whatever you decide, we’ll do it.” I was deeply grateful that Neil held my opinions and abilities in such respect, but my practical side couldn’t ignore the incredibly tenuous position Casablanca was in. We couldn’t afford to fail. I decided not to make an offer.

  I called Ira to let him know that we were passing on his band. He took the news well, and, like the pro he was, he had them signed to Mercury Records in an instant. He did a masterful job of pulling the wool over Mercury’s eyes, too, calling in favors with a distributor in New Jersey, who told Mercury that the trio’s first album was the most-requested import he handled. A nice bit of fabrication on Ira’s part, but it worked.

  This was my first big decision on which act to sign, and as the years went on, the wrongness of my choice just grew and grew. Even now I cringe just looking at these words: The band I chose not to sign was Rush.

  And to highlight the quality of Neil’s character, never once, ever, did he tell me I blew the deal. That’s exactly why so many of us were willing to run through walls for him.

  As our problem with Warner was becoming apparent, a really messy situation was coming to the fore between Neil and Beth due to Neil’s infidelity with Joyce Biawitz, KISS’s comanager. I had first noticed there was something more than business between them at KISS’s showcase the previous year in New York. It probably didn’t help matters that the weekly magazine for the touring industry, Performance, ran a blurb saying that Neil and Joyce were seen “looking very cozy together” at an LA concert by one of our former Buddah artists, Melanie.

  During the summer of 1974, Neil rented a beach house in Malibu to take full advantage of being in LA. Everyone would go out there on the weekends to hang out, get high, and have fun. On one particular weekend, near the end of the summer, Gail and Dominic Sicilia came out from New York to visit. Gail was the music director of WOR-FM, a Top 40 hybrid station that leaned more toward a younger demographic and came off as more hip than other Top 40 stations. Dominic was a brilliant promoter and entrepreneur who had worked for us at Buddah as a creative director and also managed the band Stories.

  Gail was very good friends with Beth Bogart and Nancy Reingold. However, she knew things that the two sisters did not, as she was present at all sorts of music events. Dominic would also tell her what was going on, so she knew about Neil’s various trysts, though she’d always kept mum on the subject. That weekend, Joyce was also at the beach house. Gail couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. She told Beth about this and the many other affairs Neil had had with people Beth knew—his former secretary, and on and on. Beth blew up. She felt betrayed and embarrassed, and rightly so.

  Beth and Neil argued about it for weeks, and Neil promised to be good, but Beth finally kicked him out of the house. He stayed at my Hollywood Hills hacienda for a few days while he looked for a place to rent. Neil took the breakup very hard. Each night, he cried himself to sleep. He knew he would see the kids less, and I believe he still really loved Beth—I think he always did. After Beth kicked him out, he was always trying to be around her twin sister, Nancy, so he could maintain the family connection. Neil never admitted publicly that Beth had thrown him out. He would always tell people that he, not she, had chosen to end the relationship.

  Neil eventually found a furnished house to rent in Beverly Hills. It was a stern and imposing home, much bigger than he required, but he needed the prestige of a Beverly Hills address. The company was paying the rent, anyway—so what the hell.

  I felt bad for both of them. It was hard for me to hear negative things about Beth, as I’d always really liked her, but Neil needed a sounding board, and I was it. I don’t think Neil ever got over the divorce, but he did start dating a few months later. He met and began going out with Lucie Arnaz, daughter of renowned TV stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and a talented actress and singer in her own right. Lucie was married, but she was separated from her husband. Soon after they started dating, Lucie invited Neil to her mother’s house for dinner. Neil came to the office the next day acting like he had gone to the Mount and seen God. All he could talk about was meeting the redheaded legend and how wonderful she was. He was also perplexed. He couldn’t decide whether he should continue going out with Lucie (he was very taken with her), because if he did he would risk losing Joyce. He went back and forth, mentally listing the positives and negatives of the situation. I don’t remember why he stopped seeing Lucie. I guess he just decided that Joyce would be better for him, especially since she would do anything for him—anything—while Lucie probably would not.

  Then one day, as Neil and I were returning to Casablanca after a meeting at Warner Brothers, Neil said to me in a very emphatic manner, “Whatever you do, and whatever anyone says, do not leave my side, no matter what.” I had no idea what he was talking about. Then we walked into Neil’s office, and I saw tall, gangly, tough-talking Hy Mizrahi and his girlfriend. Along with Artie Ripp and Phil Steinberg, Hy had been one of the original partners in Buddah. Hy began to scream at Neil that he owed him money, and he ordered me to leave. I said no and stood my ground, at which point Hy pulled open his jacket and revealed the handle of a .38 revolver. Neil made a move toward the panic button discreetly located in the fireplace behind his desk, but Hy told him if he pushed it he would shove him up the chimney. Someone from the outer office yelled that they had called the police. Hy and his girlfriend (I think having her there made him more macho) took this as their cue to leave, though Hy continued to threaten us as they departed.

  Neil was shaking, and with good reason. He told me Hy allegedly had Artie Ripp beaten up in a parking lot because Artie would not give in to his demand for a kickback. As soon as Hy left the office, Neil called Arnold Feldman, who had been our accountant for years and was rumored to have connections to the New York Mafia. Neil related to Arnold what had happened, and by that evening two really tough-looking Italian fellows had flown in from New York to act as Neil’s bodyguards. I, on the other hand, had no one to protect me, so I went out and purchased a handgun, which I kept at my house. A little while after Hy had left our offices, Buck Reingold, who was not lacking in confidence himself, returned from an errand. When Neil and I explained to him what had happened, Buck became livid and asserted again and again that if he had been there he would have kicked Hy’s ass. And he probably would have.

  A few days later, we discovered that Hy had also threatened Art Kass, prompting Art to contact Hy’s old partner, Phil Steinberg. I had never met Phil, but from what I was told, you did not mess with the man. While working at Buddah, I once asked about an empty office that no one ever used. I was told that it was being saved for Phil, who would be coming back from Mexico after the heat over some alleged crime had died down. In any case, Phil loved both Art Kass and Neil, and I guess he was none too happy with Hy. Phil called Hy, but he couldn’t get him on the phone, so he left a message with his girlfriend, saying that if Hy ever bothered Neil or Art again, he would find Hy and break him into little pieces. I guess Hy believed this, or maybe Arnold Feldman’s acquaintances got to him. He called Neil a few days later to apologize profu
sely.

  7 Steppin’ Out and Comin’ Home

  Meeting with Mo—Farewell to Warner—All alone—

  Gribbit!—Building the Casbah—Mauri—Meeting Candy—

  Lemon Pledge and cocaine—Brian and A.J.—

  Fanny and “Butter Boy”

  August 1974

  Warner Brothers Records

  3300 Warner Boulevard

  Burbank, California

  As the summer of 1974 wore on, our battle with Warner came to a head. It was time for a face-to-face with someone at Warner who could make big decisions. In August, Neil and I arranged for a meeting with Mo Ostin, cochairman of Warner Brothers. Despite the “co” designation, Mo was the top man in the company. No one questioned that.

  Mo was a short, balding fellow who was a good fifteen to twenty years older than us. He had become head of Warner many years before as a colleague of Frank Sinatra’s. As the story goes, Warner had offered Sinatra his own label, Reprise. He’d placed all of his buddies with the label, including Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. Frank had needed someone to watch out for his interests, and that person was his accountant, Mo Ostin. During this period, Reprise became very powerful, driven by the popularity of Frank, Dean, and company, and it proved to be the mainstay of the entire Warner family. Mo artfully worked his way into the position of boss. He did very well for himself, especially when the Warner/Elektra/Atlantic merger came together.