Hollywood — it’s amazing how, in this city of fantasy, people really don’t have that much imagination when it comes to style. Oh, there’s the Rodney’s crowd — but that’s been so overmediaized (and Ben Edmonds will glorify them further in a future article) so I’ll leave it be for now. People in El Lay mostly wear studded jeans suits, wildly patterned shirts, exposed hairy chests, and medallions. Very Bob Guccione. So it was interesting to see what they would come up with for a costume party when Neil Bogart tossed a major production for his newly formed Casablanca Records and its first group, Kiss, at the Century Plaza Hotel this past month.

Wearing costumes didn’t work at all for the Pointer Sisters party in New York — people are just too cool for that back in that jaded, cynical town. But here, somehow it was fun — the (you’ll pardon the expression) vibes are so good in L.A. etc. etc... it was different, and

it worked. People gambled at the party, they watched the original Casablanca film, listened to a sedate orchestra play “As Time Goes By,” and looked at the costumes. Original gendarme costumes from the movie were on the backs of the Warner’s promotion men, Garry George came as Rommel the Desert Fox, Neil Bogart swore that his white

tuxedo jacket and black pants were the exact ones worn by Bogey in The picture (when one disbelieving cynic said that there were probably six of them that could be rented in Hollywood, Bogart came up with a certificate from a museum) — it was that kind of a night. There was a King Farouk, a Carmen Miranda (but this one obviously was a costume, not just another drag queen), a stuffed cornel (that was a prop, not a person in costume), and lots of white suits. Bob Gibson got his at Mike Bain — a store noted previously selling Steve Paul thousands of dollars worth of blue tie-dyed suede outfits a few years back and Alice Cooper all of his new-look golfing sweaters this year — Mo Ostin’s looked very Our Man In Havana. Hugh Masekela Came dressed as a Nazi, and Iggy Stooge came as himself. (Not very Casablanca, but nobody seemed to mind.) CREEM personalities Ben Edmonds and Barry Kramer wore fairly conservative drag — velvet jackets and no makeup, and Joe Smith looked like he walked off anivy league college campus. The women who got in the 1940s spirit did so elegantly and simply; Mrs. Joe Smith, Beth Bogart, Joyce Eizwitz and others wore fox boas, trimmed and veiled hats, Joan Crawford shoes and clinging crepe dresses.

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The forties theme stopped, of course, when Kiss took to the stage: a high energy New York-bas^d band if there ever was one. Some of the industry people assembled were heard to mutter that the music was .too loud (something I cannot believe people still say in 1974 — who do they think are buying the records???) — and when the drums levitated eight feet off the stage Alice Cooper whispered to me, “Some people will do anything to get attention.”

The night after the Casablanca party, Dick Clark presented his first annual Music Awards broadcast on ABC-TV. I don’t know "if you saw it, but it was with great frustration that I sat through it. Dick Clark is nobody’s fool, and he obviously had to get together an extremely middle-America-oriented show in order to infiltrate more music on TV, probably; but it seemed strange not to properly acknowledge the fact somewhere during the hour and a half that 3A of the money made by the music industry is done so by musicians under 25 years old. Instead he had such music

business personalities onstage as Phyllis Diller, David Hartman, Karen Valentine, Sandy Duncan, Ronald Reagan.

Well — who cares, really. The gig was a good idea because it does present some sort of public alternative to the in-industry Grammy Awards. For a first time show it was slickly and professionally done. But it was strictly show-biz, right down to the clothes. I never saw so much matte jersey in once place and at one time as was on that stage that night. Holly’s Harp — a fabulous dress store on Sunset Strip — should have gotten a credit at the end of the show, for they were amply represented — at least 8 times, including the amazing faux pas when Vicki Carr presented an award to Roberta Flack and both were in Holly’s floor length coral exact same gown. (Holly’s swears it wasn’t their fault, they never yvould have done such a thing, Roberta got hers at their Bonwit’s boutique.) Actually, it was one of the few moments of surprise and amusement in an otherwise lackluster parade of dresses. The only real exception of course was the magnificent Diana Ross — reed-thin and glorious in red chiffon, with red feathers in her hair and trailing down her back. But Diana really was the only glamorous one, and to add insult to injury — although of course totally predictable — the POP category was presided over by plastic princess Helen

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Reddy.

A long overdue word about Helen Reddy. Now she never could have happened out of New York, but her particular brand of predictable performance succeeded in Los Angeles, where mediocrity still can reign supreme. This is a woman who on TV and recording is so lacking in style, color, wit or energy as to make her a serious threat, if you take that sort of thing seriously.

Odds & Ends: Billy Dee Williams was justly named to the international Best Dressed List this year... Cher bought over $1000 worth of Charles Jourdan shoes while in New York recently... Joni Mitchell’s gown glittered at Avery Fisher Hall and Radio City, scenes ot her most recent New York concerts... Martin Mull said Bob Dylan’s clothes had a “certain... je ne sais quoi”... Michael Sklar is now making 3-dimensional Walt Disney rings... Alice Cooper is alive and well on the Mailbu golf course, wearing all white cableknit sweaters and a Jan... Watch for David Bowie to make an attempt at a comeback here this spring.. . Did you see the April Movie Mirror? 0