David Bowie was mentioned in three articles of the August 1997 issue of Bikini Magazine. For information on ordering a subscription to Bikini, call 1.800.851.7784.
K-ROQ radio legend Rodney Bingenheimer has been Los Angeles' preeminent rock & roll scenester for the last four decades. Randy Bookasta turns on the mic.
In pursuit of the vibes of Sonny & Cher and the Beach Boys, Rodney Bingenheimer arrived in L.A. in the mid-'60s as a teenager, quickly falling in with his heroes. Rodney landed stints as Sonny & Cher's gopher, a stand-in for Davy Jones on The Monkees, a columnist for Go magazine (where Edie Sedgewick used to type his column), a radio promoter at Mercury Records, and the proprietor of his own short-lived but legendary glam hang-out called Rodney's English Disco.
It was at his club, some 20 years ago, that my father - Gary Bookasta, founder of L.A.'s modern rock station K-ROQ - approached Rodney with the idea of capturing the essence of the English Disco on a weekly radio show. He was christened "Rodney on The ROQ," given a Sunday night slot, and has been there ever since. Yet instead of the glitter rock that was so popular at the club, Rodney unleashed the punk likes of The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and Blondie - for the first time on commercial radio.
K-ROQ soon followed Rodney's ears and changed over to an entire new wave and punk format, influencing radio across the country. Rodney was the first to play The Clash, The Runaways, The lam, The Go-Gos, Adam and the Ants, Van Halen, Redd Kress, Duran Duran, the Smiths, the Bangles, Elastica, Oasis, and on and on. His playlist is still fresh, mixing the latest British sensation with Henry Mancini, Black Flag, and whatever girl-group he's enamored with at the moment.
Bikini: Lets talk about David Bowie, 'cause he was instrumental in your career....
Rodney: I was working at Mercury Records, and when Bowie came to town I took him around. We went up to Hollywood Boulevard, went to Hamburger Hamlet, went over to UA Records - they were interested in signing Bowie - and I brought him to different radio stations. Then myself and a friend, Tom Ayers, took him over to RCA and met people there. We threw this party for David at this house, he played on the water bed, I introduced him and stuff, then he went back to London. A few months later who ends up in London but myself? I did at Mercury anymore, so I was a free agent. I hung out around London - and went to the sessions every night for Hunky Dory.
Bikini: How long did you stay in England?
Rodney: A year.
Bikini: So with the influence of London, you came back to LA. and opened Rodney's English Disco?
Rodney: Right. David (Bowie) and I would go to clubs and we'd see people dancing to "Little Willy" and "Papa Joe" and "Coco" by the Sweet, then you'd hear Suzi Quatro and Gary Glitter and Slade, and David said, "You should open a club and play this kind of music." And I did that with Tom Ayers - and we did very well.
Bikini: What were some of your most memorable moments there?
Rodney: The girls mainly. The girls would come in with their platforms
and hot pants and mini skirts and tube tops, and boas and a lot of legs.
We'd take pictures of everybody and have a slide show going, Led Zeppelin
would show up ... we threw a party for T. Rex there, and Bianca Jagger,
Suzi Quatro....
Neighbor of the beast known as The Whiskey A-Go-Go, Jonathan Cotte has seen 30 years of rock & roll unfold right outside his window. And it wasn't all pretty.
In the spring of 1967, when I arrived in Los Angeles fresh from St. Petersburg, Florida, I rented I small bungalow-style apartment just off of Sunset Boulevard. It was freshly painted, airy, and seemed like a nice quiet street to begin Law School at UCLA. A few nights after I moved in, after a long evening, at the library, I went to bed. And when I was woken up a few hours later, I knew my life was never going to be the same again.
Suddenly I heard what sounded like two cats fighting below my window. I got out of bed and went to my balcony, where I saw a couple having sex in my garbage bin. I also heard loud, shaking music coming from the purple establishment directly to the east of my apartment: The sign read Whiskey A-Go-Go. I was living next door to perhaps - though I didn't know it then - the most (in)famous rock club in the world.
For the rest of that summer, I watched the kids stream out of the club, stumbling down Sunset Boulevard, whistling and singing and tripping their asses off. I also, however, heard some of the best music ever - for free: The Byrds, The Doors, Buffalo Springfield, The Who, Joplin, Hendrix, Zappa, Them, Love, Dylan, The Dead, Jefferson Airplane, etc. By the end of that summer, not only had I dropped out of law school, but I'd seen Jim Morrison urinate on my lawn, Grace Slick pass out on my stairs, Pete Townshend throw a beer bottle through my kitchen window, and had watched as the girls did their thing to get in the back door and backstage.
I had become fascinated with watching this decadent lifestyle play out, like my very own movie, right below my window. I'd stay home on weekends, like most voyeurs, just waiting for the rock show to end and the real show to begin. After a few years, as the '60s vaguely faded into the '70s, things got even wilder. I had my own car repoed, the thought of graduating evaporated, and glam had taken over the Whiskey. Marc Bolan of T. Rex was now knocking on my door, drunkenly thinking he was at his hotel - then sleeping on my couch and leaving cigarette burns all over the carpet.
I once helped David Bowie into a dress in the parking lot before one of his shows, his hand leaning on my shoulder as he put his high heels on. He gave me a small, yellow pill and a kiss on the check. I heard the best show that night, drinking Coors Lite and sitting on my balcony watching all the groupies hovering by the back door hoping for a chance to service Ziggy.
Then, slowly the '70s became the '80s, and I quickly entered my 40s, but I still couldn't abandon the intoxication of my director's chair on the balcony. I watched the big hair bands, in their tight purple spandex, prancing their way in and out, followed by their equally big-haired groupies with their chests up to their chin. Sex was bigger than ever. Instead of finding passed-out rock stars on my lawn, used condoms began ending up in my mailbox, on my driveway, and even on my balcony. one night I was awakened at four in the morning, after a Motley Crue show, to a girl who was - as far as I could tell - being serviced by Tommy Lee with a drumstick. (To this day, I've never heard sounds like I heard that night.) Finding bags of cocaine, bras, and underwear became a Saturday and Sunday morning ritual. One morning, after a rather riotous Guns N' Roses show, I found a hair-
dryer, three bottles of Thunderbird, three pairs of leather g-string underwear, and one small handgun in my bushes!
Then one day I woke up - 48-years-of-age, unemployed, fat, and balding - and stumbled out of bed to find the name NIRVANA scrolled across the Whisky's marquee. I realized then, staring at the name, that not only had I been in this apartment for 25 years, seen and heard a 100 years worth of stuff, thrown my life away for a lifestyle I wasn't even a part of, but had actually never been into the Whisky.
I decided to go that night, to see this little band Nirvana, and to get an inside view of what had been fascinating me from the outside all these years. I went to the show that night, banging and slamming with all the kids, and was blown away by this band from Seattle. It made me feel a little better about myself, my life. After the show, turning the corner and making my way up to my apartment, I saw a kid on the balcony of an apartment across the street staring down at me. He yelled, enthusiastically, "Did you just see Nirvana, dude?!"
"Yeah," I yelled back.
"You're gonna be a part of history - you just wait and see!"
he said, ducking back into his room I smiled and promptly threw my cigarette
and beer can onto his front lawn.