Poorman's 15 Minutes of Fame

“So I started answering the phone, and about a week later they hired me as receptionist. And about two weeks later, Rick Carroll let me go on the air and start doing the News on the air. And then they started paying me, and I became promotions director. It was about, I don’t know, a month later, they hired me as promotions director. [How old were you?] I was 18. [Wow.]” — April Whitney (Former KROQ DJ)

“[On creating the poster for Friday the Thirteenth Part VIII, Jason Takes Manhattan] It’s really cool because that poster got banned in New York, so that’s a cool little thing. [Why was that? What got it banned?] Because I took the ‘I Heart New York’ poster and had him slashing through it, coming from behind so his mask is kinda replacing the heart. And the city goes, “Uh, well this is our iconic image for our city, so this poster is banned.” Which is great. You always wanna be banned.” — Rick Lynch (Visual Artist, Movie Poster Designer)

“What I was doing at first when I came here, I was playing disco music, and then I was playing country music for a while because you had to like in 1980. And then in 1981, I was managing a club in Universal City and one of my DJs said you got to tune into this radio station at 106.7, it’s called KROQ. They got all these crazy guys on there, Dusty Street, Freddie Snakeskin, Jed the Fish. They got the greatest names, there’s even a guy called Poorman. And I started to listen to KROQ.” — Swedish Egil (DJ, The Godfather of Dance Music in L.A.)

“I mean, his son got him a Diet Coke the day before, and he said, “That’s the stuff, I dig that stuff!” Although he didn’t use the word ‘stuff’. And he, you know, he was just regular Brian. And the next morning, he was gone.” — Mark London (Brian Wilson Graphic Designer, Wilson Family Friend/Assistant)

“You know, I’ve been lucky to be around some really great bands over the years, and it’s such a hard thing to do. I’ve always done it for the love of it and just to show up and and do my best. And, everything that I’ve done, man, it’s been fun.”
— Nick Zeigler (Drummer, Mary's Danish, The Leonards, Forty Nineteens)

“In my lifetime, I remember like two jazz explosions. One was back in the George Benson, Grover Washington Junior days that I can remember. And then I would say twenty years ago with, The Wave in Los Angeles and smooth jazz, and you could fill in the blanks. You can definitely say that jazz, you know, since its onset has gone through all kinds of different iterations.” — Eric Marienthal (Grammy Award-winning Saxophonist)

“Promoting unfortunately, these days, you know, it’s not like in the sixties when you used to walk into Capitol Records and you used to get a deal, you know, record deal. Those days are gone. You know? The record company is gone. It’s just so much. It’s all Internet work right now, artist by artist. We all have to, you know, write the music and then promote the music, And it’s, like, so crazy to do that, but, it takes it away from working with the music to concentrate on finishing music, and then you have to concentrate on calling or sending the song out to this and that. You know? So it’s really hard these days, but, we have to keep on playing that rock and roll, you know, whatever it takes. [What year did you start in music?] Oh, when I came from Italy, in the sixties.” — Tony Valentino (Lead Guitarist, Founding Member, The Standells)

“Most people that make surfboards, they don’t have any idea about aqua dynamics whatsoever. They just copy everybody’s stuff and say, I know what’s going on. But whereas I’ve done a lot of research in it and I’ve experimented and stuff, and I actually do scientific research on how to make them perform better. [And the way they look, you’re heavily influenced by race cars. Right?] Yes. I used to race cars and boats when I was young before I started making surfboards, and my boat held the world’s champion in the speed record.” — Lance Collins (Founder of Wave Tools Surfboards)

“We have Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp, it’s a really cool thing. You know, these people from all over the U.S. or world come and you know, I’m a counselor and we’re called, you know, the council. Then they have headliners, they call it. Like, the last one was Stewart Copeland and Robbie Krieger and Skunk Baxter, or they’re doing one pretty soon with Rob Halford and Alice Cooper. And what you do is, you know, you get a group of five people and you get them ready to jam, you know, with the rock stars, you know, or the A list, you know. So it’s kinda like, it’s an adventure.”
— Tommy Black (General Manager, The Viper Room)

“It’s kinda weird, isn’t it? Like, we thought 50 was over the hill. And then, yeah, here we are still plugging away. And I guess it’s just the music must keep us alive, you know, for the next show.”
— Al Jardine (Co-founder, Rhythm Guitarist, Vocalist of The Beach Boys)