Rodney Bingenheimer
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Rodney Bingenheimer, born December 15, 1946 in Mountain View, California, is a radio disc jockey on a well-known Los Angeles rock station, KROQ. He has been a fixture in rock and roll circles since the mid-1960s, when he was a double for Davy Jones on the television show The Monkees.
In the early 1970s he owned a nightclub called Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco, located on West Hollywood's Sunset Strip. It was a favorite hangout of many rock stars and essentially introduced much of Los Angeles to glam rock. At the height of the American disco era, Bingenheimer was so disenchanted with the stylized dance genre that he abrubtly abandoned his English Disco so as not to be associated with the popular movement.
Due to his preponderent and deep connections within the burgeoning Hollywood music scene, Bingenheimer was given a show on KROQ, called Rodney on the 'Roq, which began in 1976 and continues to the present day, albeit with some changes in time slots.
Bingenheimer is one of the very few DJs on commercial radio in Los Angeles who has autonomy over what he plays. As a result, he has been the first to play many up-and-coming bands, including Blondie, The Ramones, Van Halen, Duran Duran, Oasis, The Donnas, No Doubt, Coldplay and others. Many bands, such as the quirky Lippy's Garden, merely knocked on the parking lot door of KROQ's old studio in Pasadena and handed Rodney a copy of their music. If he found a track he liked, he would play that song within the hour. Although his show has now been relegated to a midnight to 3 a.m. slot on Sunday evenings, it still has a fair amount of power to make or break new artists in some genres.
He is the subject of the film Mayor of the Sunset Strip by director George Hickenlooper.