1029 Off My Rocker: Kenny Weissberg hits all notes in rock memoir! VIDEO INTERVIEW

Today’s Guest: Kenny Weissberg, Boulder, Colorado DJ, bandleader, Kenny & The Kritix, San Diego concert promoter, author, Off My Rocker: One Man’s Tasty, Twisted, Star-Studded Quest for Everlasting Music

 

Watch this exclusive Mr. Media interview with Kenny Weissberg, Boulder, Colorado DJ, leader of Kenny & The Kritix, San Diego concert promoter and now author of “Off My Rocker: One Man’s Tasty, Twisted, Star-Studded Quest for Everlasting Music,” by clicking on the video player above!
 

Mr. Media is recorded live before a studio audience that demands stretch limos from here to there, classic Ms. Pac-Man videogames, payment in cash, white Marley-covered flooring, use of my private office, a seamstress, hairdresser, two dozen dethorned roses a day, and a douchebag – oh, wait, I’m sorry, that’s just Gallagher… in the NEW new media capital of the world… St. Petersburg, Florida!

Off My Rocker: One Man's Tasty, Twisted, Star-Studded Quest for Everlasting Music by Kenny Weissberg, Mr. Media Interviews
Order ‘Off My Rocker: One Man’s Tasty, Twisted, Star-Studded Quest for Everlasting Music’ by Kenny Weissberg, available from Amazon.com by clicking on the book cover above!

As a writer, I know the importance of a good opening.

I think the best one I ever wrote was at the start of The Profit Zone. I didn’t understand a lot of the economic theory my co-author was describing, but I did encapsulize one of his primary views pretty simply:

Market share is dead.

KENNY WEISSBERG podcast excerpt: “At my 8th birthday, I said to my friends and my parents, ‘I’m going to be a disc jockey!’ They laughed. Years later, in Boulder, Colorado, I kind of fudged how much radio experience I had… Okay, I lied! I talked a good game and less than a month later, my friends — who was the morning DJ at KRNW — left his job and recommended I take over for him. I didn’t know what I was doing; I had never been IN a radio station before! I faked my way through the first 6-hour shift and became a natural at it.”

Kenny & The Kritix. Boulder, Colorado, Kenny Weissberg, Off My Rocker, Mr. Media Interviews
Promotional poster for Kenny & The Kritix, 1982

So when I started reading Kenny Weissberg’s new autobiography, Off My Rocker, I was looking for a compelling reason to go on. (After all, I had never heard of Kenny.) Other than us both growing up in New Jersey, I couldn’t make a connection. He was a long-time FM radio disc jockey in Boulder, Colorado. (Never been there.) He fronted his own band there for a while, Kenny & the Kritix. (Never done that.)

And while I’ve been to San Diego, the waterfront venue there in which he later made his reputation as a concert promoter, Humphrey’s, was not on my radar.

So when his book opens on the day of December 10, 1967, he needed to win me over quickly.

He did.

The first story in Off My Rocker is about Kenny and two pals cutting class at the University of Wisconsin to buy tickets to see Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. A few weeks later, Kenny and his friends are outside the Factory on the day of the show waiting for the doors to open, only to discover that Redding and his mates died in a plane crash on the way to the gig. It was jarring and sad, but all-consuming to a reader.

If you love rock ‘n’ roll, have an interest in learning about life behind-the-scenes in the music business, you’ll find this entire book irresistible.

Kenny Weissberg WebsiteFacebookTwitterGoodreadsYouTubePinterestOrder Off My Rocker from Amazon.com

Kenny Weissberg, Bill Murray, 1978, Off My Rocker, Mr. Media Interviews
Bill Murray (l), and ‘Off My Rocker’ author Kenny Weissberg in 1978 in Boulder, Colorado (Photo courtesy of Kenny Weissberg. All Rights Reserved.)

 


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Kicking Through the Ashes: My Life As A Stand-up in the 1980s Comedy Boom by Ritch Shydner. Order your copy today by clicking on the book cover above!

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