During a scene in High Fidelity, three record-store clerks muse wistfully about how great it would be to date a musician: Perhaps a private joke could be included in the liner notes, or maybe even a picture of them could appear somewhere in the background, out of focus. Look closely at photos of the L.A. music scene over the past 30 years, and many will feature gnomish gadfly Rodney Bingenheimer, the subject of George Hickenlooper's affecting documentary Mayor Of The Sunset Strip, looming Zelig-like on the corners of the frame. Though proximity to fame has brought some residual benefits to Bingenheimer, including major groupie action and a telling friendship with Kato Kaelin, the sum of his schmoozing hasn't amounted to much more than a souvenir collection.
Catching Bingenheimer on the downward slope, Hickenlooper (Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse) needles him in ways that are alternately illuminating and discomfiting, especially when he forces some abrupt turns toward the maudlin. Yet through Bingenheimer, the film not only gets the last word on the peculiar allure of celebrity, but also captures a fascinating shadow history of West Coast rock, which owes no small part of its livelihood to Bingenheimer's influence as a tastemaker. He's like the bizarro David Geffen, a music mogul without a percentage.
Cued to a soundtrack that condenses the highlights from the Bingenheimer playlist, Mayor works best when it stays light on its feet and follows his personal Walk Of Fame like a stargazing Hollywood bus tour. Once hired as Davy Jones' body double for his Dutch-boy bangs and slight figure, Bingenheimer became the mascot for the Sunset Strip scene in the late '60s, when his ingratiating personality endeared him to many famous musicians. In the mid-'70s, his connections earned him a spot as a DJ on L.A.'s powerful KROQ radio station, where he championed the likes of X, David Bowie, Oasis, No Doubt, and Coldplay. To some extent, the road to stardom led through him, which opened up a mutually exploitative relationship: Bingenheimer happily granted celebrity, so long as he was able to bask in its reflected glory.
As he plumbs more insistently into darker territory in the film's latter half, Hickenlooper uncovers the meager spoils of Bingenheimer's success: a dingy apartment, a beat-up Chevy Nova, a small coterie of fringe-dwelling buddies, and a painful connection to his late mother. In these moments, it's hard to shake the creeping sense that Bingenheimer is being used once again, punished for making another ill-advised grab at the spotlight. Mayor Of The Sunset Strip gets what it needs from him—an eccentric and colorful backstage guide to the L.A. scene—and then deposits him on the ass-end of fame.