ALL

The dawn of professional CD players. You cued them up by hand, almost like vinyl. Sony “Digital.”

I bet you have one of these yourself. Really a memory of the passion we have for music.

Fat Boy Slim platinum award, detail.

When we were on a listener vacation to Hawaii, Danny and buddy Jed The Fish had truly a blast. Partying in one of the suites at the Reef, a few days later 300 KROQ listeners went to see Oingo Boingo at Aloha Stadium.

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.

Locked in a cheesy trailer at the KROQ Weenie Roast with then-newcomers Foster the People, I do my best to scramble their name. They were in a good mood.

Did I mention that people said I was going on a cruise with the Cure. It was definitely not a cruise. When you can’t sleep because due to bad weather you feel like you’re on Viper, it’s a CROSSING, not a cruise. At the time, Robert Smith refused to fly. Lewis Largent, Scott Mason and I were in what you call steerage, whilst each band member had their own suite. This is the satellite uplink from, well, in the Atlantic near Greenland. From left, Simon, Lol Tolhurst, and Robert Smith of the Cure.

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

This guy is as genteel as Peter Gabriel. Steven Patrick Morrissey, in his solo years. When Johnny Marr was playing with the Smiths, he grabbed a drumstick and bashed his guitar with it during The Queen is Dead. He then threw it right to me. A security guy was --I thought -- trying to grab it from me, but assured me that unless I immediately took it to my car, it would indeed wind up snatched.

From left: Poorman (what a name) Van Johnson, Dave Gahan, April who couldn’t keep her clothes on, below her Martin Gore, whose guitar skills are vastly overlooked, Alan Wilder, Freddy Snakeskin (never one to push forward for photos), Andy Fletcher, Jed The Fish below Andy, some schleb who ripped off KROQ, and long time WB promoter Chris Crist.

Although this is the bitty Fender model -- and I doubt Tom ever played it -- to have this in my studio still making sound is amazing. Sadly, the 'soul power,' written in silver Sharpie, rubs right off with very little effort, you get the idea. Rock's best guitar player of the 90s? Come on! That's why KROQ even bothered to call it 'Roq of the 90's.' I haven't been gentle with it.

He was always such a genteel person. Shortly after this interview in 1982, he led a crowd of people from the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach across PCH into the Pacific Ocean. His last encore song that night was I Go Swimming, to be release the next year. Here, he's like a scraggly-headed vampire.

L-R, Tad, Kevin, Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Corolla, bottom, Lightening. I took this photo before I met Lisa May, and initially told her it was meant to be a KROQ Morning Show photo. She nodded, and I was embarrassed, because I knew what she was going to tell me before she said it. Kevin he acted surprised before he changed into costume. A golden era for the Morning Show.

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.

DMode I began playing on KROQ because the producer was Daniel Miller, of The Normal (TVOD, Warm Leatherette, 1978). Mike Zampelli from Zed Records/LBC brought the single New Life to Pasadena with a dozen or so other records he wanted me to play on the Jed The Fish import show. Not a huge response but the band showed promise. Once Speak and Spell arrived, everyone on KROQ was playing it.

I think this was for the True Stories album, as David moved closer to a solo career. Always an impeccable dresser. Pasadena control room.

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.

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

Outdoor event in Pasadena. Our crowd was so loyal back then.

I was Student Body President, 1972 at Casa Grande Union High School, Arizona. The year before, my step-brother Bill Koenig was. Many K-ROQers came from the Copper State, and that's when I became a broadcaster.

DJ appearance at Sandpiper Square, Solana Beach. The chic facing me is so very 80s. Me? I look like I just went to see a dealer.

On the couch with RUN DMC...

This the approval art for the record labels

This the approval art for the record labels

Jed The Fish and Dusty Street at a party in Santa Monica. Photo Debbie Leavitt.

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

This the approval art for the record labels

You never know if someone's a (relative) one-hit wonder, so you must take care of everyone. The Proclaimers, Scottish bothers Craig and Charlie Reid stopped by for an interview when we were playing I'm Gonna Be. Kevin Weatherly actually had more than one shirt, before he started looking buff in polos. Just outside the KROQ Control Room.

This was the Weenie Roast which was also called a luau. Tami Heide look on as we discuss various form of torture. This was the year Michael F. Glass and I did the event artwork.

I must have met with Richard Butler a half-dozen times, and we always had laughs. One night before a show at the Forum he asked if I had decent seats, and I said, yeah, not bad. When he came onstage and saw me dead center in the front row, his eyes jumped out of his head. Later he said, he remembered me saying I had decent seat, but he never expected me to be right under his nose whilst singing. I explained that, yes, I can always get free seats, but if I really want to see, I always purchase tickets. On this occasion, I actually asked Goldenvoice if I could buy front row center and they let me, knowing I never ask such things. Note long-time Music Director Lisa Worden on right, left below me is Assistant PD Gene Sandbloom, who today runs Roq of the 80s.

We did a ton of beach remote broadcasts, which were difficult from a technical perspective: we had to hear ourselves, we had to communicate with the person running controls at the studio, and we needed to make sure the audio was good, which was not easy. Since I usually could not hear the music at all, I had to hope I was back-announcing the right record. Even with today’s tech, PD Kevin Weatherly hates them, because it’s almost never a controlled situation.