Film - Mayor Of Sunset Strip

[nikki akinjinmi]

Hello,

I have just watched a really strange film, on More 4, called the Mayor Of Sunset Strip, the mayor being a person called Rodney Bingenheimer (?). I would have posted it up here but came upon it by chance. I have been away on holiday and feel a bit out of the loop, so to speak. So apologies if anyone has already posted the information.

It seemed very surreal to me - I saw Annabell Lwin of Bow Wow Wow, David Bowie, Nancy Sinatra, to name a few of the many people who make an appearance. It's a sad film about fame, the music industry and loneliness, I suppose. The subject of the film, Rodney Bingeheimer (friend to the stars) seemed to me like an Andy Warhol/ or a Zelig type character. At first I thought it was a spoof documentary.

Has anybody seen the film? I know that it was shown a few years ago at the London Film festival, but I was not able to catch it at the time.

[Adam Blake]

Yes, I've seen it. I thought it was absolutely mesmerising. The Warhol comparison is apt, I think, except that Rodney has no real talent other than his boundless enthusiasm. He is a genuine American eccentric and I think a rather touching character. Pathetic, maybe, but also remarkably resilient for someone who seems so frail. I thought that Kim Fowley, on the other hand, came across as an unspeakable monster who should be locked up in a dark dungeon and never let out. But maybe that's because I have a daughter.

[c hristian]

oh, alright, I'll bite, since you are over here , twisting my arm.

What happened in the Bowie part? Was he just singing , or talking? What did he say? Isn't this about a time in his life where he was on too much cocaine to be taken seriously anyway? well, let me know.

Nancy Sinatra too please.

[Adam Blake]

Rent the movie if you haven't seen it. It's fascinating. There are those on this forum who feel that Bowie should never be taken seriously, with or without cocaine, but I'm not one of them. In the film, though, he does seem wired but he himself says he's jet-lagged. Hmmmm....

[Charlie]

In 1972, I went to the States for three weeks to record interviews for a Radio One series, The Story of Pop.

In Los Angeles one afternoon, Martha Reeves agreed to talk to me in her hotel room - it was around the time that she was working with Richard Perry on a horrifyingly expensive album that gave Martha a debt to MCA that she could never hope to earn back. Of course I mainly wanted to talk about her Motown years, and she was very gracious, not at all bitter.

We got on so well that I asked her what she was doing that evening, and she said nothing really, so I said, shall we go to Rodney Bingenheimer's place on Sunset Strip. She said fine, we agreed 7.30. I got there early, stood outside, and waited. And waited.

Martha, if you're reading this, where did you go, what happened?

I never did find out what the club was like inside.

It was a question of going in with Martha Reeves on my arm, or I wasn't going in at all.

[Adam Blake]

Oh Charlie, that's beautiful! Martha Reeves!!
Maybe she saw how you were dressed from the limo window and ordered the driver to drive on. Maybe she was doing you a favour. Sooner or later, you'd have had to go home to South London older and wiser for the experience...

[nikki akinjinmi]

Rent the movie if you haven't seen it. It's fascinating. There are those on this forum who feel that Bowie should never be taken seriously, with or without cocaine, but I'm not one of them. In the film, though, he does seem wired but he himself says he's jet-lagged. Hmmmm....

Hmmmm...indeed. Looking at the body language between Rodney Bingenheimer and David Bowie, it looked to me as though Rodney had some sort of hold over David Bowie, and that Bowie almost had a need/ like he was obliged to be there. Maybe it was the presence of the camera...or other influences..

Adam is right if you get chance to see the film do so. Deborah Harry, Phil Spector, Johnny Marr (yes he of The Smiths), Cher, Noel Gallagher, No Doubt and loads of others including Brian Wilson appear in the film.

Speaking of Brian Wilson, there is a scene in the film when Rodney, who works at a radio station called KROQ - I think that's what it is called - asks Brian Wilson if he has heard a Ronnie Spector (or could be a Ronnettes' version of one of his songs). Brian indicates that he has not heard it/ or does not remember the Ronnie Spector/ (Ronnettes?) recording so Rodney plays him the record, and as it plays it Brian just starts to smile. (I thought this was a nice moment in the film).

Charlie, Rodney's club has long since closed, and the site is now functioning as a Karate Club. I wonder what would have happened had you gone in that club....

[nikki akinjinmi]

I thought that Kim Fowley, on the other hand, came across as an unspeakable monster ...

Forgot to add this. I cannot recall the name of one of the participants, but I was surprised that he wasn't in jail.

[Charlie]

In Los Angeles one afternoon, Martha Reeves agreed to talk to me in her hotel room -

She said fine, we agreed 7.30.

Two things wrong with this, on reflection

Impossible and improper at it may seem, it was my hotel room, not Martha's. I was visiting, she lived in LA at the time.

It was all above board, although I can't remember where producer Johnny Beerling was. Must have been out doing an interview on his own.

And it was 10.30 or 11.00, not 7.30. Nobody went to meet at Rodney's place at 7.30, what was I thinking?

In my nervousness, that's probably the time I did actually arrive. But then I went to to Tower Records for the next three hours, unable to buy anything because I wasn't going to show up for a date with Martha clasping a bunch of albums under one arm, was I....

[Adam Blake]

I thought that Kim Fowley, on the other hand, came across as an unspeakable monster ...

Forgot to add this. I cannot recall the name of one of the participants, but I was surprised that he wasn't in jail.

Quite apart from the self-satisfied, smug way in which he virtually confesses to being a paedophile - an allegation passionately pursued by what you sense is the very bitter experience of Cherie Currie - you know that bit where he says he wants to rip open your spine and gouge your eyeballs and eat your entrails and all that business? Look at his expression. He's not f*cking kidding...