And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records (6 page)

A week or so later, Neil and I took the band to several magic shops around New York City to get ideas for KISS’s stage show. None of us really had any idea of what we were looking for. Neil was fascinated by the stuff on display, and he kept pointing to things or picking them up and saying, “Larry, come over here and look at this!” One thing that particularly caught his eye was flash paper. Magicians use it all the time to create little fireballs from the palms of their hands. Neil fell in love with the stuff, and for the next year he used it at any meetings involving KISS. We’d be meeting with the Warner people, DJs, promo men, or rack jobbers—any audience, really—and he would suddenly say, “KISS is magic!” and unleash a burst of flash-paper flame. It never failed to impress. He did it so often that I started to predict it—“Oh no, here we go again.” Once you’d seen the man behind the curtain a dozen times, the trick lost a lot of its gee-whiz factor. KISS incorporated a couple of flash-paper effects into their shows for the next year, then they moved on to bigger, more impressive displays.

At the end of December, KISS played a few last small gigs in the New York area and, in a crafty move, a private performance was set up at the Fillmore East, the legendary if short-lived New York concert hall. The invitation list was restricted to members of the local and regional press as well as some New York–based Warner Brothers employees. Prior to this January 8, 1974 show, someone from Warner—which, as a company, was skeptical about KISS’s makeup gimmick—called Neil and asked him to tell the band to drop the makeup. Neil “got” KISS, and he knew that their look would be vital to their, and our, eventual success, but he wasn’t in a position to flat out tell Warner no. So he dutifully obliged, making a halfhearted attempt to convince Bill Aucoin to go along with Warner’s wishes. It was obvious Neil didn’t believe in the pitch he was feeding Bill. When Neil wanted to convince you of something, he convinced you of it. His smile would never waver as he told you in a bright, enthusiastic voice how fantastic this new artist or song was. He wasn’t obnoxious about it; he was steadfast and incredibly effective at removing all doubt. But he was convincing no one here—not me, not himself, and certainly not Bill, who responded with an emphatic no. Neil quickly and, if I had to guess, gladly told Warner of the band’s decision.

The KISS members were working with Bill and Joyce to craft their appearance and show in front of video cameras. We knew that to become successful KISS would have to use television effectively, and the only way to make sure they would come off as an exciting performance band on a real television show was to get them to feel comfortable in front of the camera. Bill and Joyce’s experience in television was therefore the perfect complement to the band’s already over-the-top presence.

As for the rest of us, just prior to Christmas, Neil and his family, our partners Buck Reingold and Cecil Holmes and their families, and I hopped on a 747, settled into coach class, and headed off to California to begin what was to become the journey of our lives.

Our arrival in LA was littered with good omens: the weather was fair and warm, and we were greeted at the airport by three limousines, one for each family. Being odd man out without a family of my own, I rode with Neil, Beth, and their kids. I spent my first month or so in LA living with them at the property they had bought in Bel-Air, a very exclusive section of Beverly Hills. Cecil and Buck bought houses in the San Fernando Valley—an area less exclusive than Bel-Air, but still far too expensive for me. I felt both excited and dislocated; I hadn’t had time to look around LA beforehand for a place to rent, and I was in no position to buy a home.

Arriving at Neil’s new house—a spacious, two-story domicile set against a hillside across from the Bel-Air Country Club—we were met by Milt Friedman, the owner of a local rental car company. He presented us with seven Mercedeses courtesy of Warner Brothers. One for each of us, plus the wives. The vehicles would become a familiar sight in the Casablanca parking lot, so much so that Joe Smith, the co-chairman of Warner Brothers Records, would often joke about the irony of “all these Jewish New Yorkers driving German-made cars.” He was certain that wasn’t kosher.

Living with Neil, Beth, and the kids was fun for me, and it made LA feel much more like home; it was like I had a family, even though I was just borrowing Neil’s. It was during this time that I saw firsthand how family-oriented Neil was. He adored his children and doted on them every chance he got. He even brought the New York winters of his childhood to LA for them one Christmas by renting some of the large snow-making machines used on movie sets to create a winter wonderland in his front yard.

He and I were both early risers, and helping him to get the kids fed and off to school each morning helped ease my transition from New York to LA. Beth was a joy to be around, too. She was the complete package. She was beautiful by any standard—a prepossessing woman with an olive complexion, a stunning face, and large, intelligent eyes. Beth would also not hesitate to give her opinion on a vast array of subjects. With her combination of beauty, confidence, and wit, I thought she was just about perfect.

A few days after we arrived, Alison Steele, our good friend and renowned radio personality from WNEW in New York, called to say she was in town and asked if she and a couple of friends could come over to say hello. Neil said yes without hesitation, despite the fact that the furniture was still in transit and the house was almost empty. Alison arrived not long thereafter with her two friends in tow: David Janssen and his fiancée, Dani Crayne. The New Yorker in me couldn’t help but note how very LA the whole scene was. Here I was hanging with the star of
The Fugitive,
the wildly popular TV show; its final, climactic episode in August 1967 had garnered the highest ratings in television history to that point. David and I quickly segued from making polite conversation to sitting on the bare wood floor of an unfurnished Bel-Air living room smoking a joint. I was getting high with Dr. Richard Kimble—amazing! Despite the bizarre situation, I found David and Dani to be very friendly, and we were to see them again at various events we staged through the years.

The fact that our arrival in LA occurred in December was a bit of a blessing. Not only did it allow us a delightful change of weather, but it was also good timing in terms of business. In December, the music industry generally shuts down for two to three weeks for the holidays, and this industry-wide vacation gave us time to get things together at the offices we had rented. Neil had filed the paperwork with the State of California to incorporate Casablanca Records a few weeks earlier, on November 27, 1973, but there was tons of work for us to do before we could officially open our doors for business.

We set ourselves up in a twentieth-floor apartment at 1155 North La Cienega Boulevard—a stopgap measure until we could find a more permanent home. Toward that end, we hired a woman named Briana, whose working knowledge of Warner, LA, and the music business in general was advantageous for us New Yorkers. She helped us find some ideal office space, and she furnished the place and installed the telephone system in short order. We hired two or three people to answer the phones and deal with some administrative duties, but it was a bare-bones operation to start, with most of the substantive support being provided by Warner Brothers.

Our first permanent offices were located at 1112 North Sherbourne Drive, just off the Sunset Strip, in a converted two-story house with a three-room guesthouse in the rear. The two houses were connected by a kitchen and a shared, gated yard. Neil, Cecil, and I had our offices in the main house, while Buck took the guesthouse, happily making full use of the relative isolation to do what he wanted without being bothered. Buck could carry on with women at all hours without his wife, Nancy, finding out. He was the only one of us to have an assistant—coincidentally, also named Nancy (Sain)—and although she worked in the guesthouse, her presence apparently did not hinder Buck’s impressive womanizing at all. Despite the fact that Buck’s wife was Neil’s sister-in-law, Neil didn’t seem to mind. Hell, he practically encouraged it. Maybe this was because of the times we were living in, or because Neil was no saint himself, although he was nowhere near as unfaithful to Beth as Buck was to Nancy.

The front entryway served as our reception and waiting area. It could accommodate about four people, including our receptionist, Lisa Sepe, who was one of the most naturally beautiful and sweet women I have ever met. She was only about eighteen years old, tall, well built, with long, thick, naturally blonde hair. She had a music industry lineage; her father had been Barry White’s longtime road manager. (We’d soon use Barry to produce the second album Casablanca released, Gloria Scott’s
What Am I Going to Do?
) The kitchen and dining room were used as office space, as was a sunroom on the other side of Neil’s office. The sunroom was initially used by Neil’s secretary, but it would later become the hub of the production and international departments. The basement of the main house was our mail room, which was run by a kid named Kenny Ryback, who also served as our all-purpose gofer. We had no parking lot, so after the driveway filled with cars, people found ample parking on nearby streets.

The offices were decorated to look like Rick’s Café in the Bogart film, with high-back cane chairs, rattan sofas, and palm trees. Neil even had a near-life-sized stuffed camel named Bogie installed in his office. After a while, the nails began to come out of the finely crafted cane chairs, and you’d rip your clothing if you weren’t careful. Middle Eastern rugs were laid out generously throughout the house, and anyone who wasn’t paying attention to where they were walking was likely to trip over them. An inordinate amount of greenery adorned the space; while certainly impractical, the plants did give the office an oasis feel and reinforced the whole
Casablanca
vibe.

Having our offices so close to Sunset Boulevard afforded us proximity to many of the local radio stations and music retailers without the added hassle of being on such a busy thoroughfare. It didn’t hurt that clubs like the Whisky and the Roxy were just down the block. Another of our frequent gathering places was a popular LA club called Pips. It was a nice dance club, but its real drawing card was the backgammon room in the back. Backgammon was extremely popular at the time, and high-stakes games were played at Pips almost every night. In order to get into Pips, at least one person in your party had to be a member of the club. I don’t recall what the membership dues were, but they weren’t cheap—maybe a few thousand dollars. Buck was the first to join, and Neil and I were ready to get our checkbooks out, but then we found out that Pips was refusing to allow Cecil to join because he was black. The checkbooks immediately went back into our pockets. Cecil was our brother, and we wanted no part of any club that wouldn’t accept a member of our team. It was a sickening reminder that abject racism still percolated close to the surface in an allegedly enlightened time. Buck stayed on at Pips as a member, mostly for the women, but Neil and I never returned.

Once we were settled into our offices, I began to look for a house, and I eventually found a place to call my own. It was a small, two-story, two-bedroom house that was hanging—and I do mean hanging—over the side of a cliff near the famous Hollywood sign. Its proximity to such a drop-off caused me some trepidation: I was afraid I would fall off the deck into the abyss below while I was stoned one night. Despite being surrounded by the metropolis, the house was very peaceful and quiet. I found its sense of relative isolation very relaxing. I hired a painter to redo the interior of my new place, and while I waited for him to finish I stayed on with Neil and Beth. I had little money for anything else, so the house had virtually no furniture except a waterbed, which Beth Bogart and Nancy Reingold had helped me select from a nearby Wonderful World of Waterbeds superstore.

During our trip to the waterbed store, Beth mentioned to me that I should not feel hesitant about having a girl visit me in their home. Nancy jumped on her, insisting that it would be totally inappropriate for me to have sex in Beth and Neil’s house. As the two women argued about this, I realized that although they were twins (as were my older sisters), their opinions and values varied wildly. I felt much closer to Beth.

My house also contained a leopard-print sofa bed, which I had brought with me from New York, and the dresser and rolltop desk I’d had when I was a kid. So my little home was decorated in a very eclectic, no-taste bachelor style. The entryway was upstairs, and it opened into a kitchen that was separated from the living room by a long countertop. There was no furniture whatsoever on this floor of the house. Absolutely none. And I liked it that way, because when I was home—which was not often—all I wanted to do was to go to bed and mellow out. If I did have a female visitor, I did not want to be able to offer her anywhere to sit but my bed, because I hoped that this would make it easier for me to get laid. The entire back of the house was glass, providing a breathtaking view of the valley below. The final perk of this cliffside isolation: I could grow my own weed in large flower pots hanging on the deck.