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On the couch with RUN DMC...

Rodney Bingenheimer’s first question would be why does Jed The Fish get to hang out with Mila Jovovich. Kind of trying to not be attracted here, but the Reid Fleming shirt probably sabotaged me from the word go. At the time, it was fashionable to be clean and sober, but I actually did it to save myself. NA keychain. Mila came by the Burbank studio so she could be the movie star who was in Blue Lagoon. The 2000’s had Paris Hilton, and the nineties had Mila. But Hilton wasn’t really in a movie. Here she’s pawing my flab. What a face.

I was probably heading off after announcing Dramarama. This was before we had two stages.

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.

I would have loved talking with the band I was introducing, but I was having too much fun seeing everyone again. The 2014 crowd seemed to have heard of Jed The Fish.

photo Debbie Leavitt

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.

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.

Baseball shirts were a thing. Jed The Fish, Pasadena KROQ control room. There were carts everywhere. Similar to the old 8-track cartridges, these had a continuous loop with a stop tone (to stop the machine the last time someone played it) just before the beginning of each recording. So when you plugged it in to play it, it was always ready. It was quite a reliable system, which is why the cart machines such as ITC existed for 50 years. Hassle recording the cart in the first place, but I did it for the Go-Gos, who gave me a demo lacquer of “Cool Jerk.”

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.

John Frost was a legendary promotional announcement producer and sound designer. There’s another photo of him floating around here somewhere. Here we are mugging in front of a giant cart rack. He called me Jed The Pudding Fish.

At least I stood up for this one. Erasure with Jed The Fish.

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. Firstly, I loved Butch Vig, and Shirley Manson was an easy person to know. Although she was quite offended ten years later during an Inland Invasion Jed The Fish interview when I forgot the title of her latest single (Bad Boyfriend).

This was a crazy, barely legal short wave club I belonged to in the 2000s. This is the organization that led me into Class B fireworks (Class A is military, Class C is fireworks stand). Their most notorious members -- The Neckbolt Brothers -- would egg people on to break FCC rules, which of course apply to KROQ as well. Had I followed this path, I might have lost my broadcasting priveliges. I made my mom's chili and won 3rd place.

Backstage at the Bowie Glass Spider tour, the most amazing guitar player Adrien Belew, entertains KROQ DJs Lewis Largent and Jed The Fish, Dodger Stadium, 1987. This was the tour Peter Frampton played guitar as well.

What was cool about Emily is she had good judgement about who to let in to visit. Fan after fan would ask to see the DJ, and it was actually possible until 2001. There was no way we could see everyone, or we would never be able to work, but Mle would know which exceptions I would appreciate. Bless her heart! I think this was in my kitchen.

We were lucky enough to be invited to a party at record mogul Jimmy Iovine’s house, and a certain KROQ DJ behaved poorly when speaking to Fred Durst. Our boss reprimanded her, saying “Save it for on the air,” not to his face at an exclusive party. Billy Corgan also thought she should “be a good party guest.” Hard to believe you could get in trouble for talking shit to Fred Durst.

Elvira and I did a string of appearances together. This one was in Hollywood at a gay club called The Circus. She was on-air for KROQ in 82-83. Always a riot to work with. And of course look at.

KROQ DJ Tami Heide, signing a tee shirt at an event.

We were toast after visiting with each fan for 10 seconds, but they were fun. The KROQ Calendar appearances went on for a while, and we all did it just because we were supposed to. Great fun. We had a wonderful promotions person, Amy Stevens.

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.

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.

Warner Bros. obviously remembers the November 1989 interview as a harrowing experience for David Byrne. It was. I asked questions about creativity, which are the most difficult for an artist to answer. At One point, he replied with a distressed whine. "I - I - I don't know," uptoning on the last syllable.

Oh, I did my best guys, but when I was set to pick her up for a B-52s concert at the Forum, her mother introduced me to her boyfriend and the date was over. Intercepted!

Way before I was Jed The Fish, my mother remarried and I moved to Arizona. I was an object of ridicule in Laguna Beach, but once I lived in a town of 35,000, I was conferred star status, because I was from LA. I kept explaining I was NOT from LA, I was from Laguna Beach. "Yeah, sure, you're from LA," I heard back. I had some experience doing light shows, so I did one for a high school dance at the first opportunity. The art department liked the concept, and with the guidance of teacher Robbie Robertson and other students, we created one of the first multi-media events. Our only mistake was not making it interactive.

Massive Attack is a band I have long supported out of passion. I'm sure, had they achieved gold record status, they would have acknowledged me, so they did what they could.

This the approval art for the record labels

You can see John Dolmayan checking me out to make sure I was OK before he went crowd surfing, unbeknownst to me. Later he said I was supposed to take a solo during Sweet Pea, something I would not even do on drugs. Serj began leading the audience in a chant, "Jed The Fish on drums, Jed The Fish on drugs," and a few minutes later I was glad John came back. Somehow he had known I was a drummer long before that.

PJ Harvey in the Assistant Program Director's office in 1995. I think that giant black shape overhead was a robot. With ears.

As you see, Fish is my real middle name. I was 17 when I took and passed the exam for the First Class Radiotelephone Certificate. Issued in Long Beach. This enables one to do technical work on TV and radio transmitters. I just got it to exceed the requirement for a Third Class license. As I had no interest in this, I allowed it to expire. I framed the license, and it became a chopping surface for nasty drugs in the KROQ control room in Pasadena on Los Robles Blvd.

My second semester at USC, my video project was a discussion on the riveting subject of Los Angeles TV advertising. Not what about the advertising, does it suck or what, merely the ads. Harry Shearer, left, took me aside and gave me some much-needed advice. He said afterwards, "Look, when you have celebrity guests, you roll out the red carpet, have a green room, drinks, etc. Even though it's not a drama, you give them a script." My response was to offer him a joint. Right, Mal Sharpe, in glasses, Peter Bergman.

Here was the evolution of the Fishface Outline font adorning this site. The taped on numbers on the KROQ control room cart machines. ITC was our choice of cart machines. Certain songs came from private collectors such as Freddy Snakeskin. If it weren’t for these manually-recorded records, many songs would not have made it on KROQ. You would have done without Barbie and the Kens