Susanna Ho s Rodney Bingenheimer

THE POP STAR AND THE MENTOR

SUSANNA HOFFS AND RODNEY BINGENHEIMER

Bangles Cofounder • KROQ DJ/Legend

photographed by JEANEEN LUND at THE RECORD PARLOR

IN THE 2003 documentary Mayor of the Sunset Strip, Bingenheimer—a diminutive misfit from Mountain View, California—is depicted as a near-Zelig, turning up in Sonny and Cher’s entourage and auditioning for the Monkees before becoming a pivotal figure in L.A.’s glam- and punk-rock scenes. He championed David Bowie to a skeptical local demimonde and put X, the Go-Go’s, the Runaways, and many other Hollywood rockers on the map via his radio show, “Rodney on the ROQ.” How influential was Bingenheimer? In 1981, Susanna Ho s, then 18, hand-delivered her unknown band’s first single to him. He gave it airplay, a contract with IRS Records followed, and in 1985 the Bangles scored a triple platinum album and the worldwide smash “Manic Monday,” written by Prince. Today, Bingenheimer moves among us, past his star on the Walk of Fame, in a replica of the cobalt ’67 GTO he piloted through his days and nights on the Sunset Strip. —M.W.