THE KISS-OFF
My initiation into KISS world had nothing to do with the music. As if it ever did.
I found myself in New York on a Monday night in October of ’74 after returning from one of those excessive and expensive junkets to London that rock writers used to avail themselves of. A photographer I knew had invited me to go out to dinner, but first we had to stop by a panel for NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) that he had to shoot. I said yes, not because I was enticed by the rather provocative title—“Superstar or Superstud and Homosexuality in Music: Is it a turn-on or a turn-off?”—although I probably should have been. No, I was more interested in the blinis and caviar at the Russian Tea Room, a hot spot at the time that Yoko Ono used to regularly frequent, always sitting at one of the front tables.