Mayor of the Sunset Strip

If it hadn't already been used, a perfect alternative title for a movie about Los Angeles DJ, Rodney Bingenheimer might have been Almost Famous.

Listen to how Alice Copper describes Bingenheimer: `He was accepted by the Rolling Stones, he was accepted by The Beatles, he was accepted by The Beach Boys…' This slightly unflattering choice of words is significant. Not `was friends with,' not `hung out with,' not `partied with,' but `was accepted by.' One critic called the documentary Mayor of the Sunset Strip the greatest rock & roll movie ever made. I'd have to watch Stop Making Sense and The Velvet Goldmine again before I could make that commitment, but in my opinion, Mayor isn't even about rock & roll. It's about fame, or the proximity to fame. It's about acceptance.

Rodney Bingenheimer's greatest achievement is that, for a generation, he introduced the most influential artists in modern rock to America radio. His second greatest accomplishment was his ability to be accepted. So many larger than life personalities try to force themselves into the spotlight. Meanwhile, quiet, shy, unassuming Rodney Bingenheimer has lived at the edge of the spotlight for his entire adult life.

Pamela Des Barres (who appears in the film) is arguably the world's greatest groupie. Bingenheimer is probably a close second, despite the handicap of being male (being a groupie, like being a fashion model or porn star, is one of the few pursuits in patriarchal society where being male is a handicap). But, while Des Barres is a pop icon, published author and happily married to former rocker Michael Des Barres, Bingenheimer is single, lives in a modest home with tattered furniture and has a once-a-week, 3 hour late-night radio show.

George Hickenlooper's Mayor of the Sunset Strip is a thought provoking look at Los Angeles and the thin but often uncrossable line between `the famous and the not so famous.' From its opening it seems to ask the question, why is one of the most influential men in American radio not a household name, when so many less deserving souls (cough-Carson Daly-cough) are. From the first frame of the film, I found myself sizing Bingenheimer up to come up with an answer. He's a short, skinny, funny looking guy. He's got what you'd call `a great face for radio.' However, he doesn't have a radio voice and after twenty years on the air he has not developed a radio persona. Perhaps this is why he will never reach the heights of Wolfman Jack, Kasey Casem or Rick Dees (yes, I just used `heights' and Rick Dees in the same sentence. No small feat). He lacks the authority of a Kurt Loader and perhaps was just born too early to take advantage of MTV, the network that can make less-than-handsome music aficionados like Matt Pinfield into TV personalities.

Over the span of the film, we see Rodney with the likes of Oasis, No Doubt, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Coldplay and Cher (who Rodney says was like a mother to him, although she looks remarkably younger than he does. Hmmm …). Many of these artists and many more credit Rodney with being the first to play their music on American radio. In photo montages we see old stills of Rodney with Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan, to name a few. We see film clips of Rodney with Jerry Lee Lewis, The Mamas and the Papas and John Lennon. The list is so impressive; if you saw it out of context you'd swear the pictures were fakes. The diminutive Bingenheimer often looks matted into the footage like Woody Allen in Zelig or Tom Hanks in Forest Gump.

Before the credits roll we will see Rodney betrayed by his best friend. We will see his unrequited love for a young girl who insists they are `just friends.' In one humorous and painful scene, we see his estranged family searching the house for pictures of Rodney in desperate attempt to look less estranged. Throughout the film two seemingly opposing questions dominate: With all these famous friends, why isn't Rodney more successful? And, why did all the famous people gravitate toward him to begin with?

In the end, perhaps the fact that Rodney Bingenheimer couldn't parlay his access to the rich and famous into wealth and fame is not the tragedy of Rodney Bingenheimer. Perhaps the fact that we find anyone who doesn't cash in on their proximity to fame tragic is the tragedy of America. Rodney Bingenheimer is our inner geek, the star-stuck autograph hound in all of us. Hickenlooper's film holds up a mirror to a celebrity obsessed culture, a culture fixated on something 99.9999% its members will never experience. Perhaps this is the tragedy of all our lives. After all, as bad as we may feel for Bingenheimer, the fact remains: WE are watching a movie about HIM, a movie in which he is hanging out with David Bowie, and we are not.

Rodney Bingenheimer. I hadn't heard his name before this film, but the friend I went to a pre-screening had. I am not originally from Southern California, but my friend is. I never knew the influences people can have over a scene. I am so glad there are people like Rodney out there. In this world of corporate takeovers and the almighty dollar, I am happy there are people who stick to their guns like Rodney. He is one of the last Djs in America that doesn't have a corporation make his playlist and his life reads like a history of who's who in the rock world. He has been everywhere, with Elvis, with John Lennon, with the Beatles eating up shrimp that should have been saved for the Doors. He was Davy Jones' double on the Monkees. He was in "Rock and Roll High School!" He exposed a lot of music in the punk and new wave eras, that might have not been heard otherwise. He played the Sex Pistols when no radio station would touch them. He took a chance on a weirdo named Bowie. He still takes chances, like playing a local (SD) act called Sin Sin 77, which I will have to check out now!

It is hard to believe at times that so many famous people would seek out Mr.Bingerheimer as a friend, but he comes off in the film and in real life (I was lucky enough to meet him and hear him speak after the film...peaks of being close to LA!) as a sincere person who is in it for the music. He likes people and is almost a reflective elflike Warholesque character. He is an introvert and that is what makes this documentary so intensely real, he makes no pretenses, what you see is what you get.

I didn't know at the time of seeing this pre-screening for free, that Rodney was going to show up along with the director, George Hickenlooper (great names!) but it was a rare treat. A local indie station hosted the evening, gave out CDs and tee shirts...what a great night. I had to run home and write everyone to go see this film and get a rare glimpse into the life of someone who lived in the Hollywood rock scene most of his life and has had such a wonderful influence on modern radio. Now if they would only play Rasputina on K-Roq, that would be something!

Can't wait to go up to LA to one of Bingenheimer's "English Disco" nights. I hope he actually gets Wednesday nights on K-roq because he should get more time then a night owl time on Sunday. But it sounds like his audience is young. Why the corporate machine doesn't grab on to the idea that many young people, such as myself, want to listen to new and different music and try to market radio more towards us, like, umm, giving Djs the right to play their own playlists?

I am so glad to know Rodney's story and see all the old footage of Hollywood and rock bands. It is truly an unique and valuable one! This is a must see and is Oscar worthy in my book!

As a co-star in this movie I am duty-bound to make a correction, namely, that RODNEY was NOT dropped off at Connie Stevens' house by his mother. This was a fabrication introduced by the director, and voiced by Kim Fowley.

I agree with several people: the movie should be re-cut (it's possible, because the raw footage is still in storage) and the crap (the too- "dark" stuff) removed...and made much longer. So much was never seen...

and this was supposed to be a pro-RODNEY movie (and not an anti-Kim Fowley picture). It could have been a GREAT documentary instead of just a GOOD one...

Trivia: Originally, this movie was supposed to have been offered via Paramount Pictures. What would have happened IF it had, one wonders?

THE MAYOR OF SUNSET STREET (dir.George Hickenlooper) provides a provocative and in depth analysis of Rodney Bingenheimer, one of the most influential pop-music media figures of the last 40 years, yet for all of his power and influence, the man seems lonely, adrift, and somewhat shattered. Hickenlooper overwhelmingly makes the case that Rodney was at the very epicenter of what was 'hip' for many decades. However, by the end of the film, one wonders how such close access to wealth, celebrity, and mass adulation would gain Rodney so very little. It is both sad and ironic that a man who's impeccable taste brought joy to millions of music fans would end up in such a melancholy situation. THE MAYOR OF SUNSET STREET is a strikingly original portrait of a rather doleful individual.

As an Angeleno, I was a long-time listener to KROQ, but gave it up the day grunge came to town. I used to listen to Rodney back when he was on at a decent hour. He was so weird and you always felt like you were terribly cool and on-the-edge for listening to him. It is too bad KROQ abandoned Rodney's kind of music in favor of the crap they play today.

But on to the movie itself. I thought it was excellent in its own right, which had the classic tragedy theme. Looking at it that way, this movie could not have been better.

But from a music standpoint there was something lacking. Rodney is Rodney because of the music, his love of the music, his ear and knack for the music. There was plenty in this movie about the musicians but very little about the music they play. I would have liked a few comments along the lines of, "Oh, the first time I heard the opening riff of such-and-such a song," or "Man, when I saw so-and-so play for the first time at the Whiskey!" There is a curious lack of talk about the actual tunes in this movie. One DOES come away with the feeling that it was just celebrities that Rodney loved and not the art they created...and I know this is not the case.

But back to the "tragedy" that was this movie's real purpose. It was so excruciating to watch some of these scenes. A truly great movie in this respect. The encounters with the family, the dumping of his mom's ashes, the freak-out with Chris Carter, the horrible, horrible side-story of the 50-year-old wannabe rock star. This movie was positively Shakespearean! And knowing what a tragic landscape Los Angeles really is, I loved that this was conveyed so well in this film; the Denny's, the stripmalls, the ugly apartment buildings.