Mayor of the Sunset Strip
	Directed by George Hickenlooper
	Released on March 16, 2004
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	Find it at GEMM
FLP-10459 cover [high resolution scan]

R odney Bingenheimer is the black, bobbing pawn on the chessboard known as the Sunset Strip. He served rock royalty and, improbably, reached the other side to become a kingmaker as a radio deejay on KROQ. This documentary purports to tell his story but, alas, even here poor Rodney is a pawn. Despite the feelgood movie trailer, director George Hickenlooper doesn’t want you to feel good about Bingenheimer; he wants you to feel bad for him. Hickenlooper casts Bingenheimer as a tragic figure, unloved and used by everyone around him. The cameos from stars who have crossed Rodney’s path are neither illuminating nor that interesting. David Bowie and Cher come across as decent human beings, which could be honesty or practiced artifice. (Bingenheimer bobs in and out of the camera’s eye while Cher recounts their history like a servant meekly approaching a queen.) Mick Jagger dismisses him as a groupie, a brief phone conversation with Sid Vicious is predictably incoherent. There is, however, something so marvelously marginal about Bingenheimer in this film that you can’t help but see him as a sort of lovable underdog. He is at once painfully shy and supremely well connected, lucky in lust and unlucky in love. Kim Fowley, who could be considered the co-star of this film, is the more intriguing figure in terms of charisma and history, but it’s unlikely that even Fowley’s own mother would find him a sympathetic figure. Bingenheimer’s life, by contrast, seems to be 15 minutes of fame spliced from 5-second encounters with the famous, rich with pathos yet impoverished by a personal failure to make lasting connections with anyone. Hickenlooper at least gives Rodney a happy ending, dressed in black and surging back into the surf of the Sunset Strip, a lonely soul and a quiet hero.

TRACK LISTING

1. LET’S FIND OUT ABOUT RODNEY
2. Brian Wilson: RODNEY ON THE ROQ
3. X: LOS ANGELES
4. The Byrds: MY BACK PAGES
5. IT WAS A REAL EYE OPENER
6. Leon Russell: WELCOME TO HOLLYWOOD
7. David Bowie: ALL THE MADMEN
8. T-Rex: GET IT ON (BANG A GONG)
9. Alice Cooper: SCHOOL’S OUT
10. WHAT KIND OF MUSIC IS THIS?
11. The Ramones: I WANNA BE SEDATED
12. The Smiths: LONDON
13. HE PICKED THIS SONG
14. Dramarama: ANYTHING, ANYTHING (I’LL GIVE YOU)
15. Ronald Vaughan: JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT
16. Blur: PARKLIFE
17. I STALKED HIM
18. Hole: MALIBU
19. Starsailor: GOOD SOULS
20. Chris Martin: YELLOW
21. WHO IS RODNEY BINGENHEIMER?
22. Marizane: MAYOR OF THE SUNSET STRIP
23. Rodney & The Tube Tops: I HATE THE ‘90S

CREDITS

David Bowie --
Cher --
Alice Cooper --
Michael Des Barres --
Pamela Des Barres --
Dramarama --
Kim Fowley --
Davy Jones --
Courtney Love --
Johnny Marr --
Ronald Vaughan --
Brian Wilson --
X --

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