AROUND THE STATION
![Psychedelic Furs singer Richard Butler and Jed The Fish](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/Psychedelic-Furs-Richard-Butler-avoiding-camera-cir91.jpg)
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.
Categories | 80s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Sting in the Pasadena control room with Jed The Fish, cir.1984](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/Sing-interview-cir84.jpg)
The day I asked him about the lyrics for Hungry For You. The part in question says “Mais non pouvons faire ce que nous voulons.” I asked him why the line said must I pooo poo fester on the poo poo lawn. The way he corrected me indicated it was a serious question. Very English, he said, “No, no, no...,” dramatically descending in pitch. This was before their September 6, 1983 appearance at Hollywood Park, Synchronicity Tour.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Jed as KROQ Music Director](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/Jed-as-KROQ-Music-Director-cir79.jpg)
For a short time in 1978-79, I was actually the KROQ Music Director. I had only heard about the station less than a year before. It was my responsibility to gain the trust of the record company promotion people, wary of giving us product because so much of it had been stolen by former KROQ DJs. Four scoundrels stealing albums meant I needed twenty meetings with promotion people. One of my first “adds” as MD was to begin playing Dire Straits, which I hated but knew would be successful. Devo’s first album was a no brainer.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Jed’s First Class License](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/FCC-1st-Class-Radiotelephone-endorsement-noted-for-cocaine-use-cir72.jpg)
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.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Jed doing Out of Order](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/Jed_the_Fish_being_Jed_the_Fish.jpg)
Off-the-cuff fizzlebutt sound effects for Out of Order, my Westwood One syndicated radio show. Ron Harris thought to give you a behind-the-scenes video.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Djjedthefish.com 0039 A](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/djjedthefish.com_0039_a.jpg)
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Taken | March 9, 2019 |
Uploaded | March 10, 2019 |
![Emily Guzman, long-time KROQ receptionist and programming assistant](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/INXS_0101_a.jpg)
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.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | February 14, 2019 |
![91X DJ Mike Halloran, Prodigy concert](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/91X-personality-Mike-Halloran-cir97.jpg)
91X personality and smoker Mike Halloran at a 1997 Prodigy concert at the Spruce Goose in Long Beach, Ca.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Was (Not Was) with Jed The Fish](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/Was-Not-Was-cir81.jpg)
These guys were as weird as their music. Accomplished jazz musicians, they almost created the group as an insult to the music industry. Very fun to talk to, they relished their mystery. Mystery is something missing from today's art in general. Movies especially. So here I am destroying it. Their real names are Don Fagenson and David Jay Weiss. There was a certain elegance to physically exhibiting an artist's product. There I am with it in my hands. No more.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Jed The Fish in the Burbank KROQ control room](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/Jed-in-Burbank-studio-cir87.jpg)
The ancient Sony CD players on the right, the ponytail — up — and the visor. It was amazing that we had an extra oscilloscope at all, and that it was in the control room a miracle. It told us if the signal was in phase, important to avoid cancellation (bad sound). As in most control rooms, a music log and a program log to keep track of played commercials. Koss headphones. Turntables to the left.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Sparks with Jed The Fish in Pasadena stairwell](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/Sparks-at-Pasadena-studio-cir83.jpg)
This is the band I was most chummy with. We would get together at Farmers Market, their old hang, and I remember they would talk to their stalkers. Girls would go to FM to see them. They told me it’s important to approach them to humanize the relationship. You want them to know the impact they can have on your normal life just being famous. Not just being a quest. At Ron’s house one night, they played me Interior Design. It was an album devoid of bass parts. Some upper bass synth, but that’s it. I tried in vain to help them justify it. It was a tough listen, because I liked them so much. Rock needs bass if not guitar.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Jennifer Beals from Flashdance and Jed The Fish](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/Jed-and-Jennifer-Beals-from-Flashdance.jpg)
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 |
![KROQ cart machines](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/KROQ-cart-machines-and-CD-player-cir85.jpg)
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
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Jed and QE2 captain](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/Cure-Atlantic-crossing-w2FQE2-Captain-cir92.jpg)
I got to meet the captain of the QE2. People said, "Oh, Jed, you're going on a cruise!" An Atlantic crossing is no cruise. Waves the size of hills made it feel as though we were sleeping on Viper. Robert Smith of The Cure at that time refused to fly to America.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 90s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Peter Gabriel at KROQ Pasadena in 1982](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/Peter-Gabriel-interview-cir81.jpg)
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.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Bonnie Raitt with Jed The Fish in the studio, cir. 1982](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/Bonnie-Raitt_-interview-cir82.jpg)
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 |
![Jed The Fish with John Hiatt, cir.1979](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/W2FJohn-Hiatt-release-interview-for-_Slugline_-cir79.jpg)
This guy wound up doing 22 studio albums and he is a famous songwriter. John Hiatt is still one of the most popular singers and writers for other artists.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 70s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
![Title coming soon](https://7m00cd.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/grand-media/image/djjedthefish.com_0010_a.jpg)
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | February 18, 2019 |
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