KROQ EVENTS

Me in tights and tard sitting in a wheelchair in my USC dorm room. My theater major roommate was Gary Wissman, who became an accomplished theatrical stage set builder. Because of affirmative action, I was turned down at every other station I applied to, who all said I was the most qualified for the job, but sorry. A friend Robyn suggested I try KROQ. Before I started the name Jed The Fish.

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.

Muscle shirt, no muscles. INXS drummer Tim Ferriss is the clowner-arounder of the band, and I love that they didn't always send Michael Hutchence for interviews. Fun guy.

KROQ clock. An hourly guide for when to play commercials (green areas), play jingles, and most importantly, talk. They don’t remain the same for long. Circa 1994. Kevin Weatherly, program director.

L-R, Asst. PD Gene Sandbloom (creator of the names for KROQ events) and I can't even tell which Ramones showed up that day -- Markie? Ritchie? -- random promo guy, Program Director Kevin Weatherly in the light shirt. Back on the left, Image Master John Frost, preparing to vomit, Sherri Trahan, Richard Blade, Tami Heide, and Jed The Fish in my favorite U2 shirt.

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.

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

Once established as Talking Heads members, Chris and Tina ventured out with a solo project. Tom Tom Club had an instant hit with Genius of Love, and I was still wearing free tee-shirts. This was their first son.

We had whiteboards in the Burbank control room. Notes for the jocks and Kevin and Bean. Evidently on this day, I was overdressed. Andy Fletcher in the Burbank control room.

Girl harvesters Depeche Mode with three winners at varying stages of innocence. I'm sure at least one wound up at the Sunset Marquis that evening. A truly legendary KROQ group -- and a favorite of Richard Blade's -- they did perhaps the most concerts for us. If guys thought they were gay, it was just fine with them.

Martin looks fairly normal with a leather vest and checkered shirt. It seems I was intent on being anything but normal.

He was always very kind. Chrissie, on the other hand, was harsh. Somewhere along the line, she developed a habit of refusing to shake hands, which she told me one time getting reacquainted at the Weenie Roast. When, at the end of the interview, I reached out to shake and she was offended. Don't you think of Ray Davies of the Kinks as mild mannered? What on earth was a household like with the two of them.

91X personality and smoker Mike Halloran at a 1997 Prodigy concert at the Spruce Goose in Long Beach, Ca.

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.

Jed The Fish in the KROQ Control Room, Pasadena, 1983. The ubiquitous Sennheiser 421 microphones.

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

Rick Rippey was my producer for 12 years, in my opinion my best years. He encouraged diabolical ideas. Suggests things in just the right way to inspire me. Burbank KROQ control room. Now THIS guy could fix any piece of equipment put in front of him. Note the overbridge, which he and Scott Mason installed. It allowed the cart machines to be places directly over the control board for smoother workflow.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Silly grin. Jed The Fish, Pasadena KROQ control room. Turntables!

One of my true heroes, Zappa wasn't especially kind when I interviewed him. I honestly was not great at it. He insisted I got into radio to get laid, and actually it was because even as often the best qualified journalism graduate, the news stations were obligated to not hire white men. I simply did not know what else to do. When you meet your heroes, you're often let down. This did little to diminish my admiration and enthusuasm.

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.”

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

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.

In probably the best shot of the Pasadena control room, a 28 mm lens reveals Devo judging the Rhino Devotees album, for which KROQ listeners submitted their own versions of Devo songs. With phenomenal luck, two of my own made the album. Rhino at the time was known for their wacky, Dr. Demento tastes. Richard Bronson and Harold Foos went for the Warner Bros. payday. I would. The reason in 1978 I was so excited about working at KROQ, is that it was the home of Devo.

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.

A rare photo of early 1980s KROQ Program Director Rick Carroll to the right of Lou Reed. Jeff Naumann, in the blue shirt, was a promo guy for Virgin in the 80s. Oh, my god. He got so yelled at by Lou that day when he asked him to sign his copy of Metal Machine Music. "Don't you EVAH, EVAH, show me a picture from my past AGAIN!!" Evidently Lou was a little sensitive in early sobriety. In a private moment, he looked at me and could tell I was having problems. He gently assured me if I went to a meeting it would make me smile. Awww!

I know, how many photos of me in the Pasadena control room can you stand. But there I was with INXS shortly before the first US Festival in 1982. Great smile on Michael Hutchence.