For the love of
Casablanca!
This is all very interesting, but why this site dedicated to Casablanca
Records? Well, it began when I started to buy any Casablanca singles
simply for the sleeves to serve as replacements for my KISS picture
sleeves which I didn't want to get damaged and worn...
Soon enough I had a
bunch of Casablanca singles laying around without sleeves. At some point,
no doubt in an attempt to take my mind off my impending university deadlines,
one of these naff 1970s singles ended up on my turntable - it was Lipps Inc.'s
'FunkyTown'. Of course it was, and still remains, a ridiculous song, but it
was interesting to place the KISS releases in their proper context and among
their contemporaries.
The next single I put on happened to be Donna Summer's 'Hot
Stuff'. Now this had a bit more class and a bit more quality to it, and I
was interested to note that this 7" was released just a few short weeks before
KISS' "I Was Made For Lovin' You", The catalogue numbers were concurrent;
'Hot Stuff' had the code CAN
151 while "I Was Made..." was CAN 152. And so
began my quest to complete the entire UK Casablanca Records 7" release
catalogue. I'm a long way off completing the list, but my interest in the history of the record
label that gave the world KISS has resulted in this web-site. Whether
it proves to be valuable as a Casablanca reference point is doubtful, but it
was fun attempting! More importantly perhaps, it gives me a good reason to
talk inanely about my passion for all things KISS!
Starting from scratch, the founding President of Casablanca,
Neil Bogart, built up his company from a
small label into a formidable empire towards the latter half of the 1970s... at least for a time.
Of course, Casablanca Records existed deep into the 1980s, but by that time
Neil Bogart had sold up his stake, and the back-bone of Casablanca's output
- disco - had died an ignominious death in the UK charts. Casablanca was now
owned by American giant
Polygram, with the European distribution handled
through its sister company
Phonogram.
Sadly, Neil Bogart was to die young in 1982 and was unable to see his newest
projects (Boardwalk
Records and the Boardwalk
Entertainment Co.) take off to any great
extent. In many ways, Bogart's death seemed to reflect the end of an era in
the music industry itself. The majority of the material that Casablanca
Records released throughout its hey-day has not aged well, indeed, it was
mostly pretty disposable stuff even at the time, but some quality really
does stand out. Of course, bias tells me that KISS was the brightest star in
the Casablanca firmament, but the classic Donna Summer albums still hold up
today and her very finest material is still being released on disco and pop
compilations, as well as a recent (Feb 2001) cover-version of 'On The Radio' that went
Top 10 in the UK, TV adverts ('Love To Love You') and movie soundtracks
('Hot Stuff' from 'The Full Monty') 20-odd years after their
initial release.
Neil Bogart's empire also took in handling distribution
for other labels (Oasis, Chocolate City, GTO Records etc) and into movies
and TV work. With this in mind, the original Casablanca logo was altered in
1977 to include the legend "Record and Filmworks" (see page top), and it is
now that the filmcrew are added to the scenery. In 1978 Casablanca and Motown teamed up alongside Columbia
Pictures to release the ultimate 70s disco
movie Thank God It's
Friday
"Thank God
It's Friday" bombed on release, but has since been shown on TV plenty of
times (it aired most recently in the United States in March 2001), and it was Donna Summer's
interpretation of Paul Jabara's 'Last Dance' that proved to be the monster
hit and eventual Grammy Award Winner. Other notable chart-placings went to
Pattie Brooks' "After Dark" and Love And Kisses title-track "Thank God
It's Friday". The story line to the movie is pretty thin and
simplistic, but this only served to reflect the vibe of the period. Two
teenage girls ('Frannie' and 'Jeannie') in a desperate bid to raise cash for an impending KISS concert
decide to take on the challenge of competing in a dancing competition at
their local disco - a disco that happened to be frequented by the likes of
The Commodores (with a very dashing Lionel Richie!), Diana Ross, and the
First Lady of Lust; Donna Summer playing the role of 'Nicole'. Needless to say, the two girls win the
cash by the film end, but after all this, they decide that KISS is for kids
and they are now fully-fledged 'Disco Queens'. It was never explained
what they did with their winnings, but it is likely that they spent it on
uppers and downers supplied by disco-friend 'Jackie'!!
Those of you who are interested, and I guess you must be seeing as how
you've made this far (!), the packaging to the movie soundtrack to "Thank
God It's Friday" is what you'd expect from late 1970s Casablanca Records -
it's plush, with a lot of effort involved to make an interesting package, and
contains all the slight elements of cheesiness that makes Casablanca releases so
fascinating to buy. Unfortunetely, the UK version of the LP does not
include the name of the artist who designed the front and back covers.
Those of you who are aware of the later artwork used for the 1980) KISS album
(actually released via Mercury in the UK) 'Unmasked' and ex-KISS sticksman
Peter Criss' first real 'solo' album 'Out Of Control', will be able to spot the artwork a mile off as 'TGIF'
bares all the hallmarks of those albums - glitzy comic-strip. Though
'Unmasked' and 'Out Of Control' were by different artists (Victor Stabin and
T.R.Schoor respectively), 'Thank God It's Friday' is in much the same vein
as their later Casablanca counterparts. In many respects, Thank God It's
Friday simply served to highlight the excesses of Neil Bogart, his company,
and the whole period itself.
The short bio on Neil Bogart and his record label, featured on getmusic.com,
states that;
"In an industry known for its excess, perhaps no one followed
the creed of over-indulgence more than Casablanca Records' head Neil Bogart.
Wild stories circulate about the lavish promotional parties thrown for
Casablanca's acts, and it is Neil Bogart who is credited with the late-70s
industry push towards pure promotion regardless of the qulaity of the
product. Yet, it is also Neil Bogart who was saddled with a substantial
amount of the blame when his parent company, Polygram, nearly went under
after the post-disco crash of 1979... When the giant conglomerate Polygram
Records bought a share of Casablanca for $10 million, they thought that it
was a steal. But what they didn't realize was that the company was losing
money at a fever pace. Neil Bogart was spending money like water and
shipping records out to distributors who were already overstocked. The joke
at the time was that Casablanca was shipping Gold and returning Platinum.
Neil Bogart would press a quarter of a million records of an album that was
already losing money... The lavish spending and idiotic business
techniques caught up with both Neil Bogart and Polygram in the end. when
the bottom fell out of the disco market, Neil Bogart was replaced as
Casablanca head, and Polygram went well into the 80s just trying to get back
into the black...."
And yet, despite this, Neil Bogart and Casablanca Records with all their
excesses, still figure heavily in the music market of the 1970s. Casablanca
did indeed spend perhaps too much time and effort on obscure acts now only
to be found in the 'where are they now?' lists (such as Teri DeSario,
Patrick Juvet and 'Brenda'), but KISS and Donna Summer were themselves
obscure once! It was only with Bogart's sheer devotion to the Casablanca
cause that these acts won through in the end (note that Bogart himself took
over the production reigns of the 3rd KISS album 'Dressed To Kill' which,.
not coincidentally, spawned the first KISS hit 'Rock And Roll All Nite').
Furthermore, so what if some of the acts were naff, all labels have good and
bad. Acts such as Captain and Tennille, or Patrick Juvet, may no longer be
storming the charts today, but they were there when the time was right. It
is only pop music after all, it doesn't actually mean anything. May
I refer you to my preface page once again? For
bringing the world Donna Summer, and KISS in particular, I thank Neil Bogart
and Casablanca Records from the bottom of my heart for making
life so fucking F U N !!