ROCK OF THE 2000’S
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 |
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 |
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.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
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!
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
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.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Getting away with murder, Part Two. The second and last of two annual trips with KROQ listeners to Honolulu. I love it when Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo grabs me by the hair.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All, Events |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
In those days, Danny always had a jovial mood for the camera. It was a time I will never remember. Honolulu, Hawaii 1983
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Events |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
This reminds me of when I got in trouble with a girl I'd just broken up with. She got so mad at me she emptied a vacuum cleaner bag into my car, two weeks in a row. You see, the girl I'm with is her sister. I always liked hanging out with Joan Jett. I was in the studio with The Runaways one time when Kim Fowley was producing. On another production, Kim, directing me on the synthesizer, told me to do my dog urine.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
I can only describe my ridiculous hair as a follicle fountain. Depeche Mode has been in the station more times than I can count. Andy Fletcher is probably the member least like a tempermental artist.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
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.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Rodney and I both took credit for supporting Adam Ant. This was probably the day of a show at Perkin's Palace. Since I arrived in 1978, this mural was the only permanent evidence of the radio station's existence. I would describe his mood during my interview that day as charmingly pretentious. The now-defunct Independent Media Center describes Old Town Pasadena in 1981 as “a burnt-out bastion of dive bars, porno parlors and low-end department stores and thrift shops.” Welcome, ADAM ANT!!
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
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.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
Warren Zevon I miss. Alcoholism. Just adore his music. To Warren's right is KROQ Music Director Larry Groves. Larry was Program Director Rick Caroll's Music Director. He was known for the saying, "Ricky don like it." That's what he would say to promotional people to signal that he had played it for the Program Director, and it got a thumbs down. I call that KROQ logo the party hat logo. 1985. I just added banjo to Werewolves of London, so if you have me dj for you you get mutations like that.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
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 |
Kate and Fred stopped by for an interview after I had carved a jack-o-lantern in the KROQ control room. It was a sad time for the band with Ricky having passed just months before. They did not tour for the album. Warner Bros. Promotion person Paul V. was outraged at my criticism of the album.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
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 |
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 |
The KROQ mural in Pasadena. Tony James, left flat-footed by Billy Idol’s departure from Generation X, had to start a new band. No doubt inspired by the outrageousness of Malcom McClaren and his bands, they went big. Love Missile F1-11 was their only real hit. I bet they wish they had boobs.
Album | Everything Album |
Category | All |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
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 |
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.
Album | Everything Album |
Categories | 80s, All, Around the Station |
Uploaded | January 15, 2019 |
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 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 |