Kim Fowley, who died recently at 75, was hardly the most successful sleazeball music promoter on the Sunset Strip during the era of Rodney Binghenheimer’s English Disco (the amusing Wikipedia article about that glam rock institution is one of the few that hasn’t been leveled into Wiki blandness).

But Fowley was one of the more distinctives ones. At 6’5″ and square-jawed, he was played in The Runaways movie by Michael Shannon, who also played the evil but formidable General Zod in the last Superman movie. Fowley once reflected upon his career:

I then realized what my father had said earlier, in the ’50s: “You’re not Jewish, you’re not in the Mafia, you’re not black, and you’re not a hillbilly. Why the **** do you think you can be in the music business?”

Reading Fowley’s obituaries, it’s interesting to note that what successes Fowley had promoting teen groups in the 1960s, such as “Popsicles and Icicles” by the Murmaids, were often due to songs by session musician David Gates, who later formed Bread and made a bundle during the Seventies mellow singer-songwriter era. The working relationship between Fowley and Gates is memorable because of their distinctive personalities, which I first noticed in a 1990s People “Where Are They Now?” feature. Few have ever walked away from Sunset Strip insanity more decisively or successfully than Gates. From Wikipedia:

According to a 1996 article in People, Gates has remained married to high school sweetheart Jo Rita since 1958. Together they raised four children: three lawyers and a cardiac surgeon.[7] Gates, who studied the cattle ranching business while touring with Bread, purchased a 1,400 acre cattle ranch financed by royalties he earned during his time with the group.

And getting totally off topic, here’s the bass player in The Runaways reflecting upon why she found her Harvard Law School classmate Barack Obama as annoying as she had found Joan Jett.