A Visit With The Doctor- 25+ Years Of Deeeeeee-Mentia! -By Terry DuFoe- I never liked going to the doctor. It was more than once that I found myself hiding under the bed when it came time for the usual immunizations and check-ups. Considering all of the times that I ducked appointments I had never dreamed that the day would come when I would travel 500 miles to keep an appointment with my doctor. Before you decide that it is time that I model one of those nifty little white coats with straps I will honestly admit that I have always enjoyed things that were slightly off the wall. In fact one might say that I was suffering from an acute case of musical dementia. It was back in 1985 that I first heard the words "Wind up your radio, I'm Doctor Demento with mad music and craaaaazzzy comedy from out of the vaults and off the walls!" and my life has never been the same. A day had not passed that I could face my dull and meaningless life without a dose of the good Doctor's medicine. It would be a long 11 years later that I knew I had to speak to the good Doctor himself in order to fully understand the symptoms of musical dementia. This was one doctor's appointment I was not going to miss! The Doctor Demento Show is a free-wheeling, unpredictable mix of musical parody and zany comedy that highlights demented artists like Spike Jones, Tom Lehrer, Stan Freberg, Allen Sherman, Monty Python, and Frank Zappa. Along with a steady mix of warped classics like Sheb Wooley's "Purple People Eater", Barnes & Barnes "Fish Heads", Bobby (Boris) Pickett's "Monster Mash", Benny Bell's "Shaving Cream", & Napoleon XIV's "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!", the Doctor plays new songs sent in by undiscovered artists and comedians. Some of those undiscovered artists turned out to be Demento listeners: Bill Mumy ("Lost In Space"), and "Weird Al" Yankovic. Those who've listened carefully to the Doctor's show have undoubtedly realized that somewhere between his lively larynx and elegant top hat there resides the mind of a seasoned musicologist and dedicated scholar...a world-renowned record collector and music historian, whose lifelong passion for music of all kinds is reflected in his weekly selection of "rare records and outrageous tapes" for the Dr. Demento Show. It was while working free-form radio as a DJ at L.A.'s legendary KPPC-FM that Barret Hansen from Minneapolis became Dr. Demento when asked to do a program of rock rarities in 1970, as listeners demanded more moldy oldies like "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvis and "Tip Toe Thru The Tulips" by Tiny Tim. The rest became musical depreciation history with current syndication in 100 radio markets, numerous releases on Rhino, his own anniversary special on Comedy Central, roles in the feature films "UHF", "Lobster Man From Mars", "Doc Mo She'and the Heavy G Force", and the T.V. show "Bobby's World" where he appeared in animated form complete with top hat and tails. The Dr. can now be seen on "The Weird Al Show" on CBS. For this exclusive interview I traveled to Lakewood, California to visit with the good Doctor to discuss my musical diagnosis over Pepsi's at Coco's restaurant. When I arrived for my apppointment I was informed by a cocky gum chewing waitress that -"The Doctor IS IN!" (From a 1996 interview) OUTRE: I understand that you have been prescibing heavy doses of musical comedy for the past twenty five years now? DR. D: Yes, actually going on twenty six now. OUTRE: When will we mark your twenty sixth anniversary for the Doctor Demento show? DR. D: It was sometime in October 1970 when I did my first radio show. I didn't keep track of things, I didn't keep a diary or anything like that at that time but, I know it was a Thursday night in October 1970. OUTRE: Were you in radio pretty much all of your life? DR. D: No, that was really the beginning of my professional radio career when I was already 29 at that time. I had done radio on and off before then, I was very active in my college radio station. OUTRE: Does your personal musical taste range much further then the comedy and parodies you play on the Doctor Demento show? DR. D: Oh yes. OUTRE: I heard that you like classical music. DR. D: Yeah, I was a classical music major in college. One thing, if you listen to the show you notice that I play a lot of different kinds of music. What they have in common is that most of what I play is funny or bizarre in some kind of way, but it can range through all the different types of music, from classical to country and lots of things in between. So in that way it represents my over all taste in music. OUTRE: Do you listen to demented music at home with your wife Sue? I know that many people don't like to do at home what they do for a living. DR. D: Right. Well of course I listen to new things that come in and sometimes I'll be rummaging through old things looking for things that are appropriate to play. So I do a lot of that and sometimes it's hard to say when the listening that's definitely related to the show stops and listening for pleasure starts. They can be mixed in together in no particular order. OUTRE: Did the format for the Doctor Demento show spring from your days in college radio at Reed College in Portland Oregon? DR. D: Ah, it certainly had it's germination in my college days and even before that. I suppose you could say it started when I was four years old and my dad brought home a record by Spike Jones. This would be at the time when Spike was at the peak of his career in the forties, so all the gun shots and all the noise and chaos and the liveliness of it certainly excited me. So, that planted the seed of the taste for funny music that has never left. At various times my primary interests lay elsewhere. I was a classical music major in college as I mentioned, then I got very interested in folk music, traditional music and especially blues and African American things. At UCLA I indulged my passion for the roots of rock by writing a master's thesis on the evolution of R&B in the forties and early fifties. It was also at UCLA that I received a masters degree in Folk Music Studies. I had a brief fling as a rock 'n roll roadie for soon -to-be- famous L.A. bands Canned Heat and Spirit of which I produced a demo for the latter. (Note* After dragging heavy amps up the back steps of the Fillmore and finding himyself setting in a cockroach-infested laundromat with a boxful of dirty clothes the band members had asked him to wash he decided it would be a great idea to go back to UCLA and get his master's degree.) OUTRE: You had mentioned that your parents purchased Spike Jones records that influenced you as a child, but were they interested in funny music? Or did they have taste in other areas? DR. D: Yeah, my dad brought home the Spike Jones records like "Cocktails For Two" and eventually had quite a few of those. They both certainly had interests in serious music first. My folks were the kind of people who had season tickets to the symphony, went to the art museum a lot, and read voraciously. Intellectuals you might say, that's what my folks were. OUTRE: I know that Spike Jones was a major influence on your life. Did you ever meet the man? DR. D: No, I'm afraid not. I've managed to meet a good many of the surviving members of his band. I just talked to Sir Frederick Gas yesterday. He's retired and lives not to far from here. OUTRE: How's he doing? DR. D: Oh, o.k.. He's lost most of his sight but he still has the rest of his health and he's just a great guy. OUTRE: I hear that Spike Jones didn't have much of a sense of humor off stage? DR. D: I heard that from many people that knew him. It was kind of a morbid, sarcastic sense of humor perhaps but, he was very serious about his work and some people say that about me to. OUTRE: Would you say that Spike Jones was the originator of funny music? DR. D: Oh no, he just did it better! Perhaps more elaborately. I mean The Hoosier Hot Shots "I Like Bananas Because They Have No Bones" were around before he was and there's a lot of similarity in what they do. The funny noises and taking old songs that used to be serious and making them lackadaisical fun. OUTRE: I know from time to time you have even played old cylinder recordings. Is all of the records you play on the Doctor Demento Show from your own collection? DR. D: Ninety nine percent of them. Well, that's counting things that people have sent me. People wanting to be the next "Weird Al" Yankovic. OUTRE: Knowing that you do play old 78's and rare cylinder recordings have you ever received complaints about the scratchy sound? DR. D: That has happened occasionally. That's a fact of life in commercial radio. Probably the more contemporary the station the better they accept it. OUTRE: How many recordings or records do you have in your collection? DR. D: It's around a quarter million. OUTRE: Talk about a storage nightmare! You can't keep a collection of that size in your home can you? DR. D: Not all of it. A lot of it's in the home. Some of the rest of it's in storage facilities. (Note* The floor of his former residence actually gave way once due to the weight of his collection creating a sunken living room that he never had before. When he moved, it took three tractor - trailers to move it all.) OUTRE: Do you pay large amounts of money for rare records like most collectors? DR. D: I don't relate to people who pay hundreds of dollars for rare records just because it's on colored vinyl or something. I usually pay five to fifty cents at junk shops, salvation army, and goodwill centers in the L.A. area. OUTRE: Do you attend any record conventions? DR. D: Not as much as I used to but now and then. OUTRE: What do you think of vinyl versus CD's in comparison of sound quality? DR. D: No question that the CD sound is superior and their much easier to work with in radio. While you still have to be careful of them they don't have to be babied quite like vinyl does. On the other hand, I miss the full size art work. All my life I'm used to watching records spin which you don't really do with CD's. We send our radio shows to our affiliates on CD's. OUTRE: Is there any records that you have been searching for to play on your show that you can not find? DR. D: Not that many because the thing with these funny records, there's no big book I can open up that tells the name of every funny record that there is. It's not like say, collecting The Beatles. You can open a book and read about every Beatles record they ever made so you know what rarities your going to be searching for. I guess there are some things that I have only on tape that I'd like to find a real record of like the Spike Jones record that was released only in Australia. I still don't actually own a copy of it. (Note* Can anyone help the good Dr.?) OUTRE: Of all the records that you have played during your career what are your Dr. Demento favorites? DR. D: It changes everytime. I always get the biggest treat out of hearing some thing new if I really like it or if I sense it's gonna do well on the show. That's a big treat. OUTRE: Do you consider Allan Sherman to be one of the great innovators of novelty songs? DR. D: Yeah sure. He was certainly the reining parodist of his day. "Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh." Is the one that seems to have made the biggest impact and gets the most request still to this day but, he did lots of good stuff. Some of it might be a little dated most of it still comes across today pretty well. OUTRE: What is the most requested song on your show? DR. D: Oh, "Fish Heads" by Barnes and Barnes. "Dead Puppies" by Odgen Edsl's is a close second. OUTRE: Of course one of the members of Barnes and Barnes is a.k.a Bill Mumy of "Twilight Zone" and "Lost In Space" fame. DR. D: That's right. OUTRE: How did that come about that you got involved with Bill? DR. D: Once again Bill and his partner Robert Haimer sent me a home made tape in 1978 called "The Vomit Song." I wrote back to them and said, "It's brilliant but I can't use it on the air. Do you have any other material?" A month later they sent "Fish Heads." This was when Bill was in the 10th grade and had been experimenting with recording equipment. They had been making these funny songs for oh, five years or so before they got around to sending me one on tape. Actually, their first album "Voohaba" was just reissued on CD and in the liner notes Bill Mumy tells in much details the entire story of Barnes and Barnes. How the two of them just became friends in grade school and did lots of various things together including making pretend comic books and things like that-that started in Junior High School and then they started putting funny songs on tape. OUTRE: Did you realize that the recording was made by child star Bill Mumy when they sent you the tape? DR. D: No, the tape just said Barnes and Barnes. OUTRE: You actually appear in the "Fish Heads" Barnes and Barnes video which can be seen on "The Doctor Demento 20th Anniversary-Collection" on Rhino video. How did this appearance come about? DR. D: Well uh, I did get to know them after the song became popular on the show and when they decided to make a video of the song they thought I'd be nice to play the homeless person! The guy who I did the scene with is of course even more famous then me now. OUTRE: Bill Paxton. DR. D: Right. That was actually the first time he was ever on film of any kind. He also was kind of the co-director of the piece. OUTRE: That video was big on "Saturday Night Live" wasn't it? DR. D: Oh, it was played a couple of times, so I mean it was fun to do. It was just done in an afternoon. We got in a car, got in Bills car and just drove around until we found an abandon warehouse that looked just right. OUTRE: Was that done here in the L.A. area? DR. D: Yeah, the building has since been torn down but it was right off Alameda Street, near Little Tokyo, and it was just what it looks like an abandon warehouse. OUTRE: Is it true that you discovered "Weird Al" Yankovic? He was a listener of the show wasn't he? DR. D: Yes, that's right. Well, he listened to the show, heard some of the funny things I played especially when I started playing tapes that young people had created and sent in. Sixteen year old "Al" thought to himself, "I can do that." So he sent me a tape. OUTRE: Did you have any idea back then that he would be what he is today? DR. D: No, but his stuff was interesting and stood out from the very beginning. It took him a long time, many stages to become what he is today. He was not an over night discovery. I mean first there was the one song I played on my show, then there was a better song I played on my show, then there was something that a record company noticed and put out on a record, then there was something that was good enough to get him a major record label deal, then there was MTV, so it all happened in stages and his latest album "Bad Hair Day" has actually been his biggest seller ever. So, that's been another step in his career. It's been 14 years now since he signed with a major record label and he's still obtaining new heights so to speak. OUTRE: Do you think the popularity of MTV in the 80's was perfect timing for "Al" to become noticed. DR. D: In that sense yes. He was able to get in on the ground floor at MTV and he returned the favor to me. OUTRE: You must have appeared in nearly all of "Weird Al's" videos. DR. D: Oh half. OUTRE: How can we spot you in those videos? DR. D: Well ok, in "Ricky," I'm one of the dancers in the scene at the end, easy to spot in my tux. In "I Love Rocky Road" I'm the cashier in the ice cream shop. "I Lost On Jeopardy" I'm an assistant director, you see me in front of a monitor. In "Eat It" you have to look closely, you can see me in a picture on the wall. OUTRE: O.k sort of a Alfred Hitchcock type cameo. DR. D: Right, yeah. They wanted to use me but, that was the night I had my wedding reception. It just happened to be the night so I was otherwise occupied. In "Headline News" you see me among the parade of people that are leaving at the end. In "This Is The Life" I'm just in the crowd, there's a crowd in the night club and if you look closely you can just spot me I'm one of the revelers in the night club. I guess that's just about it. OUTRE: You also appeared in "Al's" movie debut which was "UHF". DR. D: In "UHF" I'm seen in one of the promos. Michael Richards is Stanley Spadowski of course, pre-"Seinfield" one of the things that helped make his career so to speak. OUTRE: Was this your only movie cameo? DR. D: Actually, I had a longer scene in "UHF" but, there's not much market for 3 hour youth oriented comedies, so lots of stuff got cut. In a movie called "Lobster Man From Mars" I am the off-stage narrator. That's shown on cable t.v. now and then or you can rent it, it's a science fiction spoof. In a forth coming movie called; "Doc Mo She'and The Heavy G-Force", I play a doctor, a crazy physician. It's a comedy about Rap music. I wear a wig that makes me look a little like Emo Phillips . OUTRE: Of course you would know how Emo Phillips looks because he's been on your radio show. Is he that crazy in person? DR. D: Pretty much. OUTRE: I think it's quite unusual type-casting to have you portray a crazy physician in the movies when you have been The Doctor Of Dementia on radio and Rhino Records and Video. How did you arrive at the name Doctor Demento when you originally called yourself "Pemento Demento"? DR. D: Well, it has to do with being demented. It started at the first commercial station I worked at 26 years ago, KPPC in Pasadena which has long since gone to radio heaven but, that was kind of our freak station in L.A. where the people could and did play anything they pleased. It's probably best remembered for being the station that introduced Hendrix to L.A. radio and Cream and groups that were on the cutting edge at the time, in the 60's. They hired me to do a oldies show. It started out just being a show that was kind of regular rock-n-roll oldies except concentrating on the scarcer things that you didn't hear quite as often. Like instead of playing "In The Still Of The Night" by The Five Satins I'd play the flip side or I'd play like little known do-wop records that had soon to be famous people on them or something like a do-wop record with the man who became known as "Sly" of Sly and The Family Stone singing on it. There were funny records in it from the beginning and eventually they kind of took over because that's what I got the most requests for. In one of my early shows I was playing "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvus when a secretary at the radio station stuck her head in the studio and heard a little bit of that and said,"You got to be demented to play that shit on the radio!" That's what she said so one of the other disc jockeys over heard that and he just kind of adapted that and started calling me "Doctor Demento" who without advance warning introduced me on the air as Doctor Demento and it stuck. The disk jockeys name who was responsible for this was Steven Siegal (not the actor) and he soon after became known as the Obscene Steven Clean. I started as a part of his show. OUTRE: Of course the image we see as Doctor Demento today consists of tux, top hat, and beard but did you ever consider wearing the standard white medical coat? DR. D: Oh yeah, well it was my first manager who thought of the top hat and tails. I do have a medical coat, in fact I wear it in "Doc Mo She' and The Heavy G-Force". I have no idea when that's going to come out or, it may go straight to video but, it is there. OUTRE: Do you hear from celebrities who listen to your show? On your "Doctor Demento 25th Anniversary Collection" on Rhino you actually have celebrities singing like: Art Carney wailing as Ed Norton in "Song of The Sewer" and Leonard Nimoy in "Highly Illogical." DR. D: Oh, sometimes. OUTRE: Can you drop some names for us? DR. D: Well let's see, I guess the most famous person who ever just called to request a song was Milton Berle. OUTRE: Really! What did he request? DR. D: I was afraid you were going to ask that, I should have wrote it down somewhere. I remember another famous person who called was Stanley Kubrick and he wanted to hear a song by Bessie Smith. Milton Berle I think asked if I had one of his own records from early in his career. OUTRE: That sounds like Milton. DR. D: Yeah that's right. OUTRE: Your show is syndicated on over 100 stations throughout the country and has even been heard on Armed Forces Radio. Where is your show recorded at? DR. D: At the studios of KSCA which is right up the street from where your staying, but I only go in there on Sunday. (Note* This has changed as the Dr. is now recording in his personal home studio as KSCA went to a ALL Spanish format) OUTRE: Your from Minnesota right? DR. D: Originally yes. OUTRE: Why did you move to California? DR. D: To go to UCLA. To go to grad school at UCLA. I went to under-graduate school at Reed College in Portland Oregon, that's where I did my first radio at the campus 10 Watt station KRRC at nineteen years of age. I started there with a half hour weekly blues show and worked my way up to student manager. The "Musical Museum" shows I did in my last two years there probably bore a passing resemblance to the Doctor Demento show you hear today. I say "probably" because I don't have tapes of any of those shows. I came to UCLA to study folk music, they had a program at that time in which you could get a masters degree for studying traditional folk music which was my main interest at the time so, I was drawn like a moth to a flame by the UCLA folk music studies program which they no longer have but, it was going strong in the 60's so, I got my masters degree in that. I eventually gravitated into the record business here in L.A., went to work for a company called Specialty Records that had been prominent on the R&B scene in the 40's and 50's and wound up putting together 35 compilations, reissues of things on LPS, some of them you can still get on CD compilations. Then I kind of stayed in L.A. I gravitated from that into radio. I actually started doing the Doctor Demento show while I was doing Specialty Records as my day job and so that kind of confirmed that I would stay here for a while. OUTRE: Did you have any idea at the time that the Doctor Demento show would remain on the air for as long as it has? DR. D: No, I tend to take things one day at a time, always have. OUTRE: Do you consider yourself to be lucky? Dr. D: Yes. OUTRE: Did you always want to be a D.J.? DR. D: It was always something in the back of my mind. When I was a kid I used to play D.J. In fact, before I ever got into radio I used to play records for the dances at my school. Only once or twice did we actually hire a professional D.J., they could get me for free. So when they didn't have a live band they would have me. OUTRE: You are still playing records for schools with the lectures and live shows you do at college campuses. Is that right? DR. D: Sometimes for colleges yeah. Well, now I do a video program of which is more fun to watch. So generally if it's promoted right it's always fun and if it's promoted right it will draw a big crowd. OUTRE: What are some of the videos you have in your program? DR. D: Oh, "Fish Heads" of course, Spike Jones, usually some historical things from the 30's and 40's, always a couple of "Weird Als," and it can change from time to time. OUTRE: What does your wife Sue think of the hectic schedule that you keep? DR. D: Well, we got married after I was already established. So, obviously she knew that. She had another career when we got married but, things had changed, I mean her industry kind of down sized and moved their whole operation to St. Louis ultimately, so now she and I together run "The Demento Society" where she's involved pretty much full time in Dementia. OUTRE: What career did she leave to enter the land of looney tunies? DR. D: She worked for The Union Pacific Rail Road. She was in the training department which they now do in St. Louis. OUTRE: About how many members do you have in "The Demento Society" which is the official Dr. Demento fan club? DR. D: Oh, about 3,000. OUTRE: "The Demento Society" publishes a news-letter that informs your members about the world of dementia including where to buy demented discs like "Zacherley's Dead Man's Ball" by John Zacherley. You also release demented songs that are unavailable elsewhere through "The Society" called "The Basement Tapes". These CD's are available to members only and fills a definite gap if you can not receive the show in your area. Can you tell us a little about them? DR. D: Well we do one every year and the CD comes with the membership package which includes a membership card, button, bumper sticker, and autographed photo in addition to "The Society News". OUTRE: Are the artists that appear on "The Basement Tapes" listeners of yours who have contributed material? DR. D: Yeah, there songs that people have sent me. Many of them are things that have been released on CD but are available only where the person works, like for instance with a group like Faust & Lewis who did "Bald Guys" a couple years ago on "Basement Tapes #3" or "Bulbous Bouffant" by Radio Free Vestibule which was on "Basement Tapes #4". So the Vestibules made their CD and you can get it by mail order or when the Vestibules do a gig which usually means it's in Canada. They'll sell it at their gigs but your never going to find that in a local record store, in Phoenix or Los Angeles. OUTRE: I know that you have some pretty bizarre albums in your collection including "Silence In Stereo" that have absolutely nothing in the grooves. Then of course we should not forget ole Alfred E. Newman burping his way through "It's A Gas" not to mention "The Best of Marcel Marceau" which is also silent except for a sudden burst of applause at the end. Discs that you have by recording artists Lee Harvey Oswald and Elmo Madwell, the Singing Mayor of Muskogee are considered odd ball rarities but, is there any topics that you will not air or use in yourcollections because they are too risque? DR. D: Well the collections generally represent what is played on the air, and so I wouldn't put anything x-rated on there because I know people buy them for kids. Of course there are things I play on the show that many people would consider inappropriate for children but I figure most people who listen to this show are probably open-minded. OUTRE: You even have a Rhino release for children called "Dr. Demento Gooses Mother" which includes "April Showers" by Al Jolson, "It's In the Book" by Johnny Standley, and a chorus of sheep that croons a tune in "Baa Baa Black Sheep" by The Singing Sheep which reminds me of The Singing Dogs on that old Christmas record. DR. D: Yes, right, but to finish the previous question. I wouldn't play something that's racist. I play somethings that certainly push the envelope that some people might consider inappropriate but I think the things I play generally enrich the world with laughter. OUTRE: What are some of the most controversial recordings you have aired? DR. D: Oh I mean some people object to a song like "Boobs A Lot" for instance, (Do you like boobs a lot?) they will find it to be sexiest. There have been a couple of things I played that have been misunderstood, "Dead Puppies" by Ogden Edsl (Dead puppies aren't much fun.) for one. I hear from some of the militant animal rights people about that. OUTRE: One song that comes to mind is "The Rodeo Song" by Gary Lee and Showdown (Well, it's 40 below and I don't give a F. I've got a heater in a truck and I'm off to the rodeo.) On one of your LP collections you featured a censored version of the song. DR. D: I mean that's an open and shut case. The F word is just something most stations won't tolerate on their air-waves, at least not on a record. I mean maybe if somebody blurts it out by accident or something like that. I mean like I once played "The Cheese Shop" by Monty Python which has an F word in it and I forgot it was there and it was no big deal because it was just an accident but by gosh we did cut it out before we broadcast the network version of that show. OUTRE: I thought the FCC had new rules that were not as strict as before? DR. D: Well, you can't really say for sure that they are more lax on their rules. I mean it seems like they let things go by that they didn't before but, they've never made the statement we're go to be more laxed on our rules. The FCC basically moves against the station or an air personality when they get complaints about that personality. When they get complaints they review those complaints and if they feel the complaints are justified, then they move. OUTRE: How did you become associated with Rhino Records? DR. D: Well, I was one of the first to play their stuff. I mean the first album they ever did was Wild Man Fisher ("Young At Heart") so I was obviously one of the relatively few people to play that on the air. They did a lot of funny stuff in their early days, that was their specialty when they first started the company. Of course now they've grown, and grown, and grown and their a big business now, their a major label but, they still do funny stuff now and then. I guess they decided a compilation with my name on it would sell and some of them have done quite well. OUTRE: What albums have you done liner notes for other then your own? DR. D: Well,the "Weird Al- Permanent Record Box Set" was a natural. I just did some for the "Stan Freeberg Presents The United States Of America- Vol. II". Rhino will often ask me to do it when they think it's a artist somewhere within my domain and I'm doing some now for a Tom Lehrer CD that Rhino will put out next year. So that's my current project. OUTRE: It will be great to have a new release from the man who gave us "Poisoning Pigeons In The Park." On your "Basement Tapes" you often release "Weird Al" unheard or alternate material. How do you legally do this without entanglement with his record label? DR. D: Well it's always been things that his record company does not have the rights to. OUTRE: So you release material that was recorded before he signed with his record label? DR. D: Right that's correct. "Al" has always bent over backwards to recognize what I did for him. OUTRE: Who are you playing right now that we need to watch out for as the next "AL"? DR. D: Oh, I don't know if I'd hang that mantel on anybody but, The Vestibules stuff is very good. They've actually been around for ten years so it's not like they're babes in the woods. Their fairly well known in Canada, at least in Montreal. I don't know if their next album is going to be as good as this one "Sketches, Songs, and Shoes" but, lets hope so. The arrogant worms "Carrot Juice Is Murder" have now done three CDS , and they've grown up nicely. It must be something in the water up in Canada. It seems to produce more funny people per capita then this country does. OUTRE: I think their cold a lot, they have to laugh! DR. D: That could be, yeah. OUTRE: I very much enjoyed your special on Comedy Central with live performances by Bobby (Boris) Pickett "Monster Mash" and others in this one hour special that aired in October, 1991 to celebrate your 20th Anniversary. Will there be any more shows on Comedy Central like "Doctor Dementos 20th Anniversary Celebration? DR. D: Well, write them letters, it's up to them. OUTRE: How can people contact "The Demento Society" or send you funny songs that they have recorded on tape? DR. D: You can request songs by calling: (310) 633-8863 (310-ODD-TUNE). You can contact me at "The Demento Society" P.O. BOX 884, Culver City, CA. 90232. OUTRE: How does one get your show on the air in their area? DR. D: If your on the net they have a program called Real Audio. There are two stations that broadcasts the show which have plugged into that Real Audio program over the internet, if you get the software, which is actually Shareware. You can down load it for free. You can hear the show through your computer sound system. It sounds like AM radio, it's not stereo. In fact, it sounds like maybe bad AM radio but, you can at least hear it. That's the best suggestion I have. Other then that you can badger your local stations into maybe picking up the show because we offer it. We have no way of demanding the local stations carry it, we don't have the budget to pay stations to carry it so, we have to rely on a station taking the plunge and deciding that my show is more worth carrying then the many other feature syndicated shows that are out there. OUTRE: What kind of fan mail do you get? DR. D: Requests obviously. Where can I get such and such a record? Most of our fan mail is actually asking for a catalog or wanting to join "The Demento Society". OUTRE: You have been quoted as saying ( in reference to your music,) "It's very necessary these days, and as they say in Los Angeles, necessity is the mother of dementia." Have you ever heard from listeners who you have brought out of depression or perhaps touched their lives? DR. D: Oh yeah, sure. Well lets see we have Whimsical Wendy. We actually wound up inviting her up to the taping recently. She's 21 years old but, she's had a couple of strokes, which is not a disease that normally strikes young people but, she is brain damaged. I mean she can read and write a little bit and she can talk but, she's brain damaged, there's no two ways about that. She has become very devoted to the show and we've gotten letters from her care givers saying that how it is the high light of her week and how it's really helped her to have the will to live, when she had the second stroke. That was after she discovered the show and she said it was one of the things that really helped her pull through. Other then that it's pretty much private things that people have said. We have many letters saying that the show has enlightened peoples lives who are in prison for this and that. OUTRE: If you were not the Doctor of Dementia what would you be doing? DR. D: I'd be teaching at the college level, or I might be a free lance writer. You know it's a scrappy way to earn a living but, there are people that do that. OUTRE: Glad you used the word scrappy instead of crappy! DR. D: I might have persevered with being a rock critic. That's kind of the future I saw for myself for a year or two in the 60's after I started to get published a little bit. I'm in the fourth issue of "Rolling Stone" with a couple of record reviews. So for a year or two I wrote record reviews pretty regularly for "Rolling Stone." OUTRE: It is good that your wife is involved with your career as much as she is. DR. D: She likes comedy music almost as much as she likes Sting. She is a Sting fan. We went to see him a couple of times and I pulled a few strings and got to meet him and she got to shake his hand and she's been able to talk of little else for the last week. OUTRE: One of the perks of the business. DR. D: Yes. OUTRE: I understand your a Frank "Dancin' Fool" Zappa fan? DR. D: Yeah, well he was a guest on the show four times and even before there was a Doctor Demento show I would go and see performances by The Mothers Of Invention. I was certainly one of the earlier fans of that band. He was like Spike Jones in a way, a very serious, very dedicated musician. He was the most absolute workaholic I've ever met. I guess Spike was that way too but, Frank Zappa certainly was. You could hardly conceive of that man relaxing. Frank Zappa always had interesting things to say, he was not a easy person to interview. OUTRE: Why is that? DR. D: Well, because he was so serious and so intense and I won't say he was paranoid but he did kind of feel half the world had it in for him sometimes. Especially the music business and he sometimes I think felt that I was trying to put one over on him or something, or get him to say something that he'd regret later. So he'd choose his words very carefully and sometimes just not give answers that were very interesting just because he didn't want to talk about this or that. Other times I'd get him on subjects that he felt keenly about and he would be very eloquent. He was an eloquent man when he wanted to be. OUTRE: As you play humorous music or parodys which Frank dabbled in, do you think he should have felt more comfortable with you then say perhaps another interviewer? DR. D: I think the first time I talked to him was relatively early in his career before he'd gotten into so many scrapes with record companies, and lawyers and that, and the first interview was just more about records that he had found that he had brought and loved and we played them, that was pretty much it. Later on of course I had to ask him other things, you know I would have to ask him about controversies he'd been involved in. OUTRE: Do you find that most musicians are easy to interview? DR. D: Musicians range from being great interviews to being tongue tied. It can depend on so many things, like their personality. Frankie Avalon was nothing in person like I thought he would be. I had Frankie and Annette on the show when they were doing "Back To The Beach" and Frankie was very shy and reserved. OUTRE: You have had some of the great cartoon voices like Daws Butler and Mel Blanc on your show. Do you feel that voice artists were easier to interview then musical recording artists? DR. D: Well Daws was a fine interview and so was Mel Blanc. I got to have him on the show before he passed, and Daws of course is gone now to. I was lucky enough to interview all 6 members of Monty Python. OUTRE: Since you have interviewed so many greats of the industry, have you ever considered writing a book? DR. D: Yeah. OUTRE: Well, are you? DR. D: Well, I'm pretty busy doing what I do. The book kind of comes out week by week on the radio show. OUTRE: How do you choose what to play on the air? DR. D: Well, the first thing I do is I look at all the requests, and enter them all into the computer whether they come in by phone, over the net, or by mail they all get put into the computer. I kind of look that over and look for things that deserve to be on the air and haven't been on the air in a while. Then of course there's new things that have come in. OUTRE: Do you have a internet web page? DR. D: The official Doctor Demento web page is coming soon! In the mean time there are other interesting sources about the show and its artists on the net that have no official connection to the Doctor Demento show. You can find answers on where to get records and stations that carry the show etc. on "The Doctor Is In" maintained by Jeff Morris and you can access a dementia news group at rec.music.dementia to post short articles. OUTRE: Do current news topics influence what is played on the show? DR. D: Yeah, it's interesting how some news stories inspire a whole lot of songs and others don't. O.J. (Simpson) inspired a whole bunch of course to the point where it got kind of tiresome. The O.J. songs really ran the gamut, from songs that were passionate in defending him to songs that just assumed he was guilty for every motive that you can imagine including a racist, but those two types I avoided. Only one of the O.J. songs really wound up being a hit and that was one that was just about being addicted to watching the trial on t.v. Before that the Gulf War inspired a whole bunch, mostly in the nature of thinking up imaginative ways of destroying Sadam. OUTRE: What about Lorena Bobbit? DR. D: That inspired a good many. "Lorena" by Doodoo Wah-Basement Tapes Four. OUTRE: Is there any Rhino releases that are scheduled for the future that we don't know about yet? DR. D: Well, the Tom Lehrer CD that I mentioned earlier, look for that in maybe February or March. It is his studio recordings which have never been on CD. There are three CDS available of his live work but, the studio versions have never been on CD so, Rhino decided to put those out. Then the other one I'm writing notes for now is really not demented but, it's music that I've been involved with since before The Doctor Demento Show. It's for one of the bands that I was a roadie for, Spirit and some of their music from the 70's is going to be out on a CD next year. I just talked to Randy California who was the lead guitarist and still is. There was a message from you and the message from him all in the same batch. OUTRE: You talked about free form radio earlier. That really doesn't exist any more does it? DR. D: Nope, Not even in college radio very much. OUTRE: How do you feel about that? DR. D: Well, it made it easier for me to start my career having a station around that would tolerate people like me. It would be much harder for somebody like me to start a career now, so I owe a debt of gratitude for that. It's part of the realities of commercial radio, especially FM. In the sixties you could buy a FM radio station in a large city for maybe a million dollars. It was still a lot of money but, that made it within reach of small entrepreneurs who would take chances. I think the last time a station changed hands here in L.A. was 40 million. When you spend that kind of money for a radio station your going to want to follow formulas that have been proven to get a sure return on your investment. OUTRE: We have noticed that you are actually singing on some of the songs that you feature in your collections. DR. D: "Shaving Cream" if that's what your referring to, that was a song written of course by Benny Bell many years ago but, it's easy to make up new verses to so I made up new verses. Then there's the "Astrology Rap" and that was written by a friend of ours and Barnes and Barnes helped out on it and I'm not sure that was a very successful experiment but, I got talked into doing that. OUTRE: I am sure that doing a rap for a record is much different then hosting a radio program. Did it make you more nervous then doing your show? DR. D: Oh no, it's basically the same but, with a record you can always do it again if it doesn't go right. In fact in most records there are numerous takes until they get it right. I guess national t.v. still gives me butterflies a little bit. Other peoples radio shows are pretty normal to me. OUTRE: There are a few Doctor Demento copy cats out there. DR. D: A few, in college radio. OUTRE: How do you feel about that? DR. D: More power to them. OUTRE: But, your still the originator. DR. D: Yes. OUTRE: I heard there were rumors of a Doctor Demento talk show? DR. D: At one point there was a thought of doing that but, the syndicator couldn't quite place a talk show on the stations that carry my regular show and it was to complicated to place different facets of what I do on two different stations, so I guess that's why they decided not to go for it. Maybe some day. OUTRE: Why does some stations have you on in the mornings? DR. D: The majority of our stations carry it Saturday or Sunday evening but, there are a number of them that are convinced that it's a morning show. They figure they have a goofy morning show Monday through Friday so, they'll put another goofy show on Saturday or Sunday morning. OUTRE: You are now syndicated through a company called On The Radio. Do you have a long term contract with them? DR. D: Well, contractual details are kind of my business. I'm happy with them I'll put it that way. OUTRE: Do you have more freedom with On The Radio then you did with your former syndicator Westwood One? DR. D: No, it's the same. No neither one has tried to influence my programming a whole lot. OUTRE: You make sure it's that way right? DR. D: Yeah. I mean they both have reminded me, hey you don't play songs with the seven dirty words. The president of Westwood One hated the song "It's A Gas" so he asked me not to play "It's A Gas". For some reason he could not stand that song! OUTRE: Did you object to that? DR. D: Well, I figured that I had a good deal there and there was plenty of other good songs to play. I didn't go to war with it, maybe I should have. The guy who runs On The Radio doesn't care, just so it's entertaining and radio stations carry it. It's been a while since I've had a radio station really object to something I play. I guess the stations tend to be looser now. I guess I have to thank Howard Stern for that. OUTRE: Have you ever met Howard? DR. D: A couple of times. He was very nice to me. He said he listened to my show when he was a kid and I guess in some ways I was kind of an influence on him. OUTRE: What type of stations are you on? DR. D: We aren't on many college stations anymore because On The Radio doesn't give the show out for free, I wish they would, college stations don't have any money, we're on a few but not to many. Having said that we're on stations with quite a variety of music formats and a couple of primarily talk stations. In Miami we're on a AM talk station. In Chicago I'm on both AM and FM, simulcast. FM is stereo but the advantage of AM is if it's a powerful station you can hear it a long distance after dark so that helps me get into some areas that I might not otherwise be heard in. OUTRE: Do people recognize you on the street? DR. D: When I talk. OUTRE: Have you ever considered using a different voice on the air? DR. D: Well, once I did a little bit of a show on helium, that was kind of weird. OUTRE: Can I ask how old you are? DR. D: Well, I'm 50.... how old am I? I'm 55. OUTRE: What do you think the future of radio is going to be like? Do you think DJ's are being phased out? DR. D: I don't know about that but there are fewer of them because so many stations are carrying syndicated formats. Especially in smaller markets where so many stations instead of hiring people locally are just pulling their entire days programming off a satellite somewhere but, most stations have somebody to say what they're listening to and to do some of the ads and things like that. There's work for fewer DJ's and the ones that are successful at it go nation wide like Howard Stern and on a smaller scale yours truly. OUTRE: Did you ever have a desire to become a recording artist yourself rather then a radio host who introduces recording artists? DR. D: I suppose if I was more of a singer or a musician, it's something I might have wanted to do. I mean if I'd learned to play the piano better I might have become a serious musician, not a funny one. I kind of think that I might have if I hadn't been seduced by the record player. My dad was a pretty good musician and they started me taking piano lessons when I was six years old and if I'd really kept up with it and been devoted to it but, I kind of got seduced by the record player. I was not patient enough to practice the same little passage from something that Mozart wrote when he was six years old over and over and over again until I got it right, when I could go over to the phonograph and press a button and hear Toskaneenee or Spike Jones. OUTRE: Are you ok in knowing that people will always remember you for the funny records that you play on the radio rather then for the rich educational back ground you have in all forms of music? DR. D: It's the way that they remember. I've been able to make peoples lives more pleasant and so if they remember me for that, that's more then most people get remembered for. -END-