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By BRUCE MEYERUnited Press InternationalThere’s something admirable about anything done superlatively well, even it’s as crassly commercial as promoting a rock *n’ roll band. And when it comes to that dubious profession, there are few around with as much skill or style as Neil Bogart.Bogart is the former head of Buddah Records, who recided he could do better on his own and split to form his own company. Casablanca Records (Bogart—get it? I.And, since the name of the first band Bogart signed was Kiss, it just naturallyled to a kissing contest. Actually, Bogart didn’t come up with the original idea—credit for that goes to a couple of promotion types at Warner Bros., Casablanca's distributor. But it was Bogart who made the idea work.Marathon kissing contests were held ail over the country and the winners were flown to Chicago for the finals. Grand prize was an eight-day trip to Acapulco and a trip to see/ Kiss perform.Now, this whole thing could have been really obnoxious in the hands of the ordinary publicity hound, but Bogart has his head on exceptionally straight. The final contest was held in the indoor mall of a gigantic suburban shopping center — pure, unadulterated Middle America. All proceeds from donations by the gawking cr.owds and sale of variousKiss paraphernalia (posters, albums, etc.) went to a children’s hospital. Bogart spent four days with a microphone in his hand like Jerry Lewis at a telethon, and in the end. upwards of $10,000 was raised for the kids.The winners were a couple from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., who after keeping their lips together for 113 hours (with five-minute breaks every hour), asked that the prize trip be converted to cash so they could help rebuild the burned-down house of a friend.So lots of folks did ail right.And since Kiss is one of the finest hard rock *n’ roll bands to come out of New York City (or anywhere) in a long, long. time, that publicity will be all right, too.
Newspaper Details
Pampa Daily News
Pampa, Texas, US
Fri, Jul 05, 1974
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
SE 19 Sep 2018
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