Very seldom do I get a pro to photograph me at work, but Debbie Leavitt was there on Josie Cotton Day, without Josie Cotton. These are her proof sheets, not actual prints.
Album | Everything Album |
Category | All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
PJ Harvey in the Assistant Program Director's office in 1995. I think that giant black shape overhead was a robot. With ears.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 90s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
My very first tee shirt. If we wanted our own tee-shirts, the Joqs needed to pay for them. So if you got one, I must like you.
I wish you had a color photograph so that you could see how hideous these curtains were. Always drawn, they hid all kinds of secrets. Here, Dee Dee and Johnny Ramone, at this point were seven albums into their career. Subterranean Jungle interview.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
He was rumored to have a chandelier goldfish bowl, and sure enough, during a party, I found it. It was actually a terrible interview that day — I was sent all the way to New Orleans for a Nine Inch Nails interview with faulty equipment. I shall restrain myself from identifying the engineer who furnished a bad DAT recorder. I think his name was Paul. To make matters worse, because I had to use Trent’s studio gear, they edited out the part in which I asked him about Marilyn Manson.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 90s, All, Events |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Jennifer Beals, eventually a Yale graduate, could carry herself well in an interview. Aside from Return of the Jedi and Terms of endearment, Flashdance was the highest grossing film of 1983. She impressed me so much, I asked her to take her bra off under her shirt like she did in the movie. It looks like she's dipping me!
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Album | Everything Album |
Category | All |
Taken | February 16, 2019 |
Uploaded | February 18, 2019 |
I think this was for the True Stories album, as David moved closer to a solo career. Always an impeccable dresser. Pasadena control room.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Steve Wozniak, Apple computer innovator, had millions to throw a party, so he did it twice. Their stage manager was concert legend Bill Graham, who was a dick. My ex-girlfriend worked for him for years. He was pained to see me onstage at all, let alone speaking before Oingo Boingo to a crowd of over 100,000.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Events |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Surfers in general are easy to speak with. Unlike many though, Jack Johnson is articulate. Even though he did not grow up listening to KROQ, he was generous about my influence on him.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Events |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
My wonderful visit to NYC with hosts Allegravita. This young lad made it a funny shoot. Very cold and I forgot my gloves on a train.
Album | Everything Album |
Category | All |
Taken | December 18, 2018 |
Uploaded | January 16, 2019 |
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | February 18, 2019 |
It looks like I am failing to engage Suzanne Vega in conversation. At least I tried, backstage at the 1992 KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 90s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Album | Everything Album |
Category | All |
Taken | February 16, 2019 |
Uploaded | February 18, 2019 |
This was a group actually grateful for their success. This was when they were touring extensively with groups like Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, and INXS. Animotion was from Los Angeles.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Whadday know. Amazing who you run into in the KROQ control room. I can't figure out why Bonnie Raitt was there, other than to sniff something with our program director. I'm sure he did her the courtesy of actually playing her album for a week. She was sweet.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
I have discarded these awards if they had no meaning for me. This one did, because I feel I have a relationship with the band. U2 I will always remember because of their Jed The Fish interview for their Pop Mart tour. This award was for the following album.
How many women do you know who put on boob makeup? It works for her. Here I am trying to climb on top of her in the KROQ lobby in Pasadena. Isn't she beautiful?
Album | Everything Album |
Category | All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Between Kevin and Bean and Jed The Fish, we had a pretty good award run until Album Network, the trade publication, was bought by Clear Channel. I guess our competition couldn't bear to see us sweeping up awards, so they just bought the magazine. Now they are called I Heart. Do you think I Heart is a good name for a radio group?
The Ramones were seven albums into their career when Dee Dee and Johnny Ramone visited the Pasadena studio in 1983. Never afraid of the hard work it takes even an established band to live on, I did tons of appearances with them, sometimes nights for in a row. Maybe you saw them at Knott's. Johnny lived in Los Angeles for several years and I would regularly see him at gigs I announced.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
One of the few distinguished examples of Duran Duran ephemera signed by the entire band, Capitol Records gave me this for my support of the first two albums. Funny thing, the label actually had unpaid interns promoting the band. I think his name was Danny, and he brought me my first copy of 'Duran Duran' in the summer of 1981. Money well spent?
Eddie Money and Bryan Adams
Backstage
Day on the Green
SF CA
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All |
Taken | March 27, 2019 |
Uploaded | March 30, 2019 |
And Scott Mason was there too. Nice to have an engineer along on a beach remote. Even better if he’s the Chief Engineer. That was our bitty microwave truck to get the signal back to Burbank in 1991. I don think we played John Wesley Harding since, but he was a quick wit.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 90s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Darkwave industrial rock artist Meg Lee Chin allowed me to both produce one of her tracks and play drums for her on occasion. I never got to know her in part because we were each handled by managers.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 90s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
One of the bands I had forgotten I interviewed, Big Country, except for this Debbie Leavitt photo. The Scottish must find it oppressive in the US these days, particularly if they smoke.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All |
Taken | March 27, 2019 |
Uploaded | March 30, 2019 |
photo by Debbie Leavitt
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All |
Taken | March 27, 2019 |
Uploaded | March 30, 2019 |
Don't be fooled by the smile. This was torture for David Byrne, and he's only smiling because the interview was over. He is one of the truly fascinating artists I have ever spoken with, and I am a huge fan. Not necessarily of the Red Momo album, which he was there to promote, but his work continues. I can't say that about all the greats. Sometimes being a fan does not serve the discussion.
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Taken | March 9, 2019 |
Uploaded | March 10, 2019 |
Darrell Wayne organized this Pasadena Hilton event in 2006, where all the gory stories were told. Darrell hired me in 1978.
During the Whammy tour, if you took a photo backstage with the B-52s, you had to wear a hat, a wig, or otherwise be goofy. Their last time out with Ricky Wilson, left.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
This was the night I was hired at KROQ. It was the first time I had seen the band, and I was sitting in my Ball Road apartment GLOWING because I had finally seen the greatest Rock and Roll band in the world. The phone rings at 1:15 a.m., it's Darrell Wayne asking if I could get to Pasadena by two. "Sure," I said. And later I climbed those back stairs for the first time.
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Taken | March 9, 2019 |
Uploaded | March 10, 2019 |
Here I am wishing I had a piece of Brody Dalle of the Distillers. Soaking wet with sweat and just off the stage, nothing could be a whole lot better. She knew she was what girls call gross but rubbed up on me anyway. #hot
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Events |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Years away from his gig as a late night talk show host, Jimmy Fallon has always been good natured. Here I am trying to have a conversation with people talking to me in my headphones. Hey Jimmy, do you remember me?
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Events |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
This is one of my oldest memories of KROQ. This is the parking lot where I climbed the stairs the night I was hired. Original logo. From left, Brett Kahlen, Chuck Randall, driver, chick dj I don’t remember, Mike Raphone, me being prophetic about the station’s prospects, Darrell Wayne in nice red pants, Larry Woodside, hairy dj I don’t remember, and the late Al Ramirez. He always looked like he was sneaking away from something. Let me know about the ones I missed.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Events |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Undoubtedly the only straight people with our hands on each other that night, I did not think of her as a comedienne. I thought she was just funny as hell. Ahh, the gays always loved her.
Album | Everything Album |
Category | All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Where’s Josie? This is the day I asked her what her real name was, and she said, “Well, basically Josie Cotton is my name.” A dedicated bimbo. Pasadena control room. A fake protest was staged outside the Pasadena studios. None of the protesters were angry. Gleaming Spires, the Sparks offshoot, was in the studio. Leslie Bohem and David Kendrick.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Events |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Now this was audacity that could never happen today. KROQ took 200 listeners to Hawaii. Twice. The first time the GoGos played and Richard got hired. The next time Oingo Boingo played at Aloha Stadium. April Whitney, R, next to Freddy Snakeskin. Then Danny Elfman, Steve Bartek comically peering in over Vatos. Dale Turner in the shades looking at me, behind him Kerry Hatch and Richard Gibbs in the striped shirt. The hotel was very angry.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All, Events |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
At 8 weeks. I could take her anywhere at this age. She just went into a little bag, poking her head out, impressing people (girls especially).
Category | All |
Taken | March 29, 2005 |
Uploaded | April 20, 2019 |
Just after the album, the band came to the Pasadena studio.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |