And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records

I love cocaine.

Well, let me rephrase that: I love the idea of cocaine. If pop culture has taught me anything about Sweet Lady Nose-Toot, it’s that it is always a great way to get any party started; a couple of quick lines off the floor of a rest-area toilet lid and in no time at all, you’ll be spinning an endless number of Giorgio Moroder 12-inch, white-label promos in assless leather chaps while a 12-year-old Thai lady-boy wearing only angel wings gets a nosebleed and passes out under Truman Capote’s ball sack.

And, even more tempting, don’t forget all that unwashed disco-trim you’ll be soaking in! Hedonistic honeys in humid hot pants will do the most unspeakable of sexual acts for just a little snort off of your flaccid shaft. Talk about a “blow” job!

This all still happens, right? Like, in New York? Please don’t let me be the only jerk-off standing around in assless leather chaps here …

Okay. So even if it doesn’t happen too much these days, I can at least take it for granted that the ’70s were a guaranteed winter wonderland! Please, don’t take that from me, too, because if a time machine ever gets invented, I’m bringing a stack of 20s, a jar of penicillin and, as my own personal tour guide, AND PARTY EVERY DAY: THE INSIDE STORY OF CASABLANCA RECORDS, written by Larry Harris, one of the founders of the notorious major label, with Curt Gooch and Jeff Suhs.

For those who don’t know, Casablanca was the greatest record label of all time, releasing music from such era-defining acts as the aforementioned Moroder, Donna Summer, Village People, Parliament, Angel, KISS and Meadowlark Lemon. They were the ultimate hit-making factory of pop music, fueled completely by a never-ending supply of pussy ‘n’ blow, usually in that order. Of course, the fact that Harris and partner Neil Bogart has a mystical sixth sense for upcoming pop-culture fads and catchy pop hooks, well, maybe that had a little bit more to do with it … but I’m sure the coke did its job.

Although Harris protects his completely honest, nice-Jewish-boy persona, he’s also shockingly cavalier about his entire run at Casablanca, from pants-throb-inducing nights at Studio 54 to bribing disc jockeys with a little China White, all the way down to the ego-driven collapse of the disco empire that Casablanca so painstakingly built, seized brick by seized brick. He lays it all down on the line as he does another line, which is why this is one of the best music-industry books I’ve read in quite a while: Everything you thought that went on behind the doors of Casablanca is finally confirmed, and it’s a satisfying realization of all your beats-per-minute, dance-fever daydreams.

So you can see why I need to take this book with me. I’ve got my plan all worked out: Travel back to 1976 L.A., make friends with Larry, work my way into the inner circle, write a song called “Stonewallin’” for the Village People, overdose on the Sunset Strip while face-down in Bianca Jagger, be forced into a scream-therapy psychiatric rehab clinic by my employers, become a follower of Baba Ram Dass, sell out and go to work producing whatever Don Henley is excreting and, finally, write an autobiography of my debaucherous life and times called JUS’ A TASTE OF THE KID: THE DOWN ‘N’ DIRTY WORLD OF LOUIS FOWLER, MUSIC BIZ SURVIVOR.

Sorry, alternate-timeline Larry Harris … looks like you’ll just have to find something else to write about. —Louis Fowler

Buy it at Amazon.

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