Rodney Bingenheimer is a legendary Hollywood radio DJ famous for hosting the long-running Rodney on the ROQ show on the Los Angeles rock station KROQ. He is known as The Mayor of the Sunset Strip, a nickname given to him by actor Sal Mineo, and was featured in a documentary of the same name that explored his life and his formidable contributions to popular music. He was also a double for Davy Jones on the TV series The Monkees.

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When Bingenheimer arrived in Los Angeles he soon became so well known around Hollywood that actor Sal Mineo dubbed him “The Mayor of the Sunset Strip.” He formed close friendships with the cream of the LA social scene including many top pop stars of the day such as The Byrds and Sonny & Cher, for whom he was a live-in publicist. In his own words, Bingenheimer “became the talk of the town because I had the perfect Brian Jones ‘do’ (hairstyle).”

Many events and incidents contributed to Bingenheimer’s notoriety—he and Sonny Bono were reportedly asked to leave the Hollywood restaurant Martoni’s because of their hippie appearance (prompting Bono to write the song “Laugh at Me”), Bingenheimer brought Brian Wilson to the legendary recording session for Tina Turner’s lead vocal on the Phil Spector classic “River Deep, Mountain High,” and he was namechecked in a song by the all-girl band The GTOs on their Frank Zappa-produced LP Permanent Damage.

In the late Sixties he was hired by Nik Venet to do publicity for Linda Rondstadt’s group The Stone Poneys, but he became so disenchanted by the LA music scene during this period that he moved to London. It was there that he discovered the nascent British glam rock scene and met emerging stars David Bowie and Rod Stewart.

It was Bowie who suggested that Bingenheimer return to Los Angeles and open a new music club. Originally called The E Club, it opened in October 1972 at 8171 Sunset, near his various West Hollywood apartments,and Bowie was one of the club’s first guests. It subsequently moved to 7561 Sunset and was renamed “Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco.” In this guise it became a favorite hangout for many rock stars (and a favored haunt for young female groupies) and through the Disco Bingenheimer introduced much of the Los Angeles music scene to glam rock.

The English Disco also featured occasional live performances, including now-legendary appearances by The New York Dolls and The Stooges in 1973, and it was here that Iggy Pop staged his infamous concert on 11 August 1974, during which he performed an improvised “play” called Murder of the Virgin (in which he was whipped by guitarist James Williamson, who was dressed in a Nazi uniform) and which climaxed with Iggy repeatedly slashing his chest with a knife. In October 1974, Jerome T. Youngman and the band Punk performed here with fellow Detroit band Mighty Quick.

Speaking of this period, David Bowie later recalled:

“Alone in LA, Rodney seemed like an island of English ‘nowness.’ He even knew British singles and bands that I wasn’t aware of. Rodney singlehandedly cut a path through the treacle of the Sixties, allowing all us ‘avants’ to parade our sounds of tomorrow dressed in our clothes of derision.”

When the club closed in 1975, it was thought that Bingenheimer was so disenchanted with the stylized dance genre disco that he abruptly abandoned his “English Disco,” so as not to be associated with the popular movement. The real reason was less provocative, as Bingenheimer would later clarify:

“English Disco didn’t close down because of the oncoming ‘disco’ movement...it really closed down because of a disagreement among the owners.”

‘Rodney on the ROQ’

Due to his far-reaching connections within the burgeoning Hollywood music scene, Bingenheimer was given a show on the then relatively unknown Pasadena FM and AM radio station KROQ, called Rodney on the ROQ, which began in August 1976 and continues to the present day, albeit with some changes in time slots.

His radio show strongly influenced the emergence of the Los Angeles punk scene in the late 1970s and was at odds with the prevailing country-rock style that dominated the West Coast music scene at the time. The show featured the latest punk and New Wave releases from London and New York, alongside “anybody brave or stupid enough to put out a record in Los Angeles,” and Bingenheimer later summed up his programming philosophy:

“I was always anti-Eagles, anti-beards. Within a few months I was playing four solid hours of punk.”

Bingenheimer is one of the very few DJs on commercial radio in Los Angeles who has autonomy over what he plays. As a result, he has been the first to play many up-and-coming bands, including The Runaways, Blondie, The Ramones, Social Distortion, Van Halen, Duran Duran, Oasis, The Donnas, No Doubt, Dramarama, The Offspring, The Go-Gos, The Germs, The B-52s, X, The Vandals, Buck Brothers, the Sohodolls and others. Many bands, such as Lippy’s Garden knocked on the parking lot door of KROQ’s old studio in Pasadena and handed Rodney a copy of their music. A Lippy’s track was played before they left the tiny Pasadena parking lot.

So it became known in Los Angeles that if he found a track he liked such as Agent Orange’s 1979 hit “Bloodstains,” he would play that song within the hour. In 1978 guitarist Eddie Vincent and drummer Tad of The Hollywood Squares gave Rodney a copy of their just released 45 single at his studio door. Within minutes Bingenheimer introduced the mysterious group to his wide listening audience and played “Hillside Strangler.” The song promptly charted in Record World’s New Wave Hit Parade.

In 1995, Bingenheimer introduced a segment to his show entitled “American in London,” co-hosted by Liza Kumjian-Smith, focusing on news and releases from upcoming British bands, which brought Brit Pop to the US and broke many UK bands such as Coldplay, Doves, Muse, Pulp, and more recently the Arctic Monkeys, among others.

Although his show has now been relegated to a midnight to 3:00 a.m. slot on Sunday evenings, it still has a fair amount of power to make or break new artists in some genres. In 1998, he interviewed the Toronto band Chicklet when they dropped by the station while on tour. This was his first live air interview in years as Bad Religion was said to be his last prior to this occasion.

Bingenheimer was also responsible for three Rodney on the ROQ compilation albums on Posh Boy Records.

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