BY ILONA SAARI
Kathleen Kaiser with Burton Cummings getting his gold record..
“UP IN THE MORNIN’ AND OUT TO SCHOOL THE TEACHER IS TEACHIN’ THE GOLDEN RULE AMERICAN HISTORY AND
KATHLEEN
PRACTICAL MATH YOU
KAISER
TO PASS…”
STUDYIN’ HARD AND HOPIN’ … “HAIL, HAIL ROCK’N’ROLL.”
ROCK-IT WOMAN! For many of us growing up, we dutifully followed that Chuck Berry lyric as we headed off to school. For Kathleen Kaiser, however, the important part was “hail, hail rock ‘n’ roll.” She loved school, but rock ‘n’ roll music was her passion. By age eleven, she was devouring teen music and movie magazines and became a pen pal through the pen pal page in “Teen Screen.” Her “pals” were British who introduced her to the Beatles long before anyone in America had ever heard the name. They would send her articles and early records which hadn’t been released across “the pond,” while she sent them “surf” music by Jan & Dean, et al. When her local DJ at KDEO radio station in San Diego became stymied about this British group’s “bug” name, she called in to explain how John and Paul were influenced by Buddy Holly & The Crickets (another “bug” name) and named themselves “The Beatles” in their honor. She was fifteen. Soon after, Kathleen was given a two-minute teen talk show, five days a week on the station. She never looked back, eventually convincing the British Beatles Fan Club that San Diego needed its own branch. She became its president and marketed the branch tirelessly. When she failed to get them to include San Diego in its American tour, she staged a publicity stunt at Balboa Park Bridge that culminated with her being driven home in a police car. This taught her the first rule of life and PR: there are consequences to one’s actions. 12
OM — July 2020
Anxious to be on her own, Kathleen yearned to move to Los Angeles where the action was. But she was only 17 and her parents were adamant that she go to college. She enrolled in San Diego State, but dropped out at the “legal” age of 18 and moved to West Hollywood (she did go back to college some years later, getting a degree in fashion design). She had a bushel of odd jobs, including a working/living stint in Manhattan in 1967. But her life took a dramatic turn when she returned to Hollywood and was hired by “Teen Screen,” the very magazine she had devoured at age 11. In ‘68, she met publicist Michael Goldstein who had created the first national rock’n’roll PR firm. He hired her to run his west coast office. Kathleen’s PR career was about to take root. In the early ‘70s, she traveled the world for Japanese music publisher Shinko Music with acts such as the Rolling Stones, but also had time to write three books on rock’n’roll in America, plus monthly columns in music publications. She worked on publicity for artists such as Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Elton John, The Who and CSN&Y. She also worked for the Japanese music industry, living part-time in Japan. But like a GPS on acid trips, her career took her down more roads than Abbey as she embraced the new digital revolution. By 1993, Kathleen opened Kathleen Kaiser & Associates (KKA), a trade show marketing and production firm which, for the past 25 years, has focused on cutting-edge digital technologies. It has launched new products, international
