There have been many notable music promoters in San Diego over the decades, but few have had the impact of Kenny Weissberg. The Point Loma resident is perhaps best known for the 23 years \u2014 beginning in 1983 \u2014 that he spent promoting concerts at Humphreys by the Bay. However, he is one of the few to have seen all sides of the music biz, having lived a life immersed in music, with time as a disc jockey, journalist and even frontman for his own successful group, Kenny & the Kritix. Weissberg recently penned his autobiography, “Off His Rocker,” detailing his illustrious career. It\u2019s a fun, warm, conversational read, chock full of terrific anecdotes. Weissberg has worked with many big names in music and the autobiography\u2019s stories, featuring the likes of Whitney Houston, Anita Baker, Fats Domino and other stars, are captivating reads that really give an idea of both the situation and the performer were really like. Born in 1948, Weissberg grew up in New Jersey, following his muse across the country before stopping in Boulder, Colo., putting in 12 years as a radio DJ and music critic and getting the offer to come to San Diego and book shows in 1983. He said he considers the book to be a logical extension of his adventures.
\n“Before I moved here, I was a journalist, I\u2019ve always kept journals and taken notes on every concert I\u2019ve been to in my life, every movie that I\u2019ve seen,” he said. ” I\u2019m sort of obsessive along those lines.
\n“When I moved here in 1983, I stopped writing, but I didn\u2019t stop logging in notes on shows that I\u2019ve seen,” he said. “I had to learn this new profession at Humphreys. So, I stop playing music. I stopped writing.”
\nThe catalyst for his putting it all into book form came from personal tragedy, he said. “My mother was dying in 2005 and she had always wanted me to write a book about my life,” Weissberg said. “But I said, \u2018I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s too clich\u00e9. It\u2019s too trite.\u2019 “On her death bed, literally, she said to me, \u2018When are you going to write your \u2018 And I replied, \u2018I\u2019ll get around to it.\u2019 Then she went into a coma and died three days later. So that last thing she had said to me was that,” he said. “And I literally came home after she died and sat down and started formulating ideas for the book.”
\nLooking back on his amazing career has given Weissberg clear perspective on the last 40 years. “My absolute favorite, mind-blowing transition was from having a degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin to showing up in Boulder and becoming a free-form disc jockey,” he said. “I allude to it in the book, but at my eighth birthday, I announced to all my friends and family that I was going to be a DJ because I had a love affair with AM radio on the East Coast in the late \u201950s.” “I ended up getting this job in radio and I would look forward to waking up at 5 a.m. every morning so I could get to the station by 6,” he said. “I couldn\u2019t wait for the next day to begin. That was probably the most passionate I\u2019ve ever been about anything. But the gutsiest thing I ever did was putting a band together at 32 when I had never been on stage before.”
\nThough Weissberg no longer books concerts, he said he\u2019s keeping busy and there may be more books in the future. “I\u2019m working on this now, but probably the hardest thing for me in this whole process is that it\u2019s such an honest memoir,” he said. “I did change the names of people that I was negative about. I even called a bunch of them. “I always thought in the back of my head, \u2018This is weird. What if (so and so) sues me?\u2019 I did see lawyers,” Weissberg continued. “Writing a memoir had an overriding fear for me to be as honest as I was. So I think I\u2019d like give fiction a try.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There have been many notable music promoters in San Diego over the decades, but few have had the impact of Kenny Weissberg. The Point Loma resident is perhaps best known for the 23 years \u2014 beginning in 1983 \u2014 that he spent promoting concerts at Humphreys by the Bay. However, he is one of the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":257658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Notable Point Loma music promoter pens autobiography","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}