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June 6 - June 13, 2004 |
A remarkable story worth telling
Legendary Los Angeles DJ Rodney Bingenheimer immortalized in Mayor of the Sunset Strip
By Angela Baldassarre
Originally Published: 2004-05-16
Though most of us have never heard of Rodney Bingenheimer, his is a story worth telling, and one that director George Hickenlooper did terrifically in the documentary Mayor of the Sunset Strip.
Bingenheimer is the famed Los Angeles-based DJ who got his first job as a body double for Davy Jones of the Monkees thanks to his tiny, elfin looks and pageboy haircut. He did catering for the Doors, lived with Sonny and Cher, and helped introduce David Bowie to the United States. He briefly owned a club and got a show on KROQ, a small radio station that became the most influential rock station in the country. He's still there breaking new bands, although he's consigned to the wee hours of Sunday morning.
In the film plenty of stars show up to pay tribute to Bingenheimer - Courtney Love, Coldplay, Debbie Harry and Brian Wilson, among others. Some owe a lot of their success to his radio show. Others can't really remember how or why they know him; they just do. A measure of his celebrity comes up during our phone interview when he interrupts our conversation for a courier who shows up at his door with a case of vintage Coca Cola bottles sent to him by best friend Nancy Sinatra.
Tandem talked to Rodney Bingenheimer from his home in Los Angeles.
So how does it feel being on the other end of the interview process?
"Yeah it's weird. I'm the guy who usually does the interviews or reviews people, now I'm being reviewed."
How did this film come about? Who approached who?
"Well, Chris Carter, who plays in a band called Drama-rama - they have that song, 'Anything Everything' - they're from New Jersey, and I convinced them to come down to L.A. And of course their song, was the first song I played by them, and I played it constantly and it became really big. And it's still one of the most requested songs. So Chris thought, 'I should do something for Rodney, to kind of pay him back.' And he had this idea to do this book, and of course the publishers want to hear all the stories about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But I'm not gonna reveal any of that stuff. So we were turned down. Then he went to an art opening for Ron Wood. Wood thought he was very colourful and very cool looking, and Chris started talking about Rodney, and Ron Wood goes 'You mean Rodney Bingenheimer? He was the sixth Face,' 'cause one time I played bass in Rod Stewart and the Faces on Top of the Pops in England, I filled in for Ronny Lane. And then Ron started getting the idea, you should do a documentary. And Chris thought it was a great idea, and he got in touch with George Hickenlooper. That's how it got started. We actually were turned down all these publishers. Nobody ever heard of me outside L.A. (laughs)... but little do they know."
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