Harvey Kubernik
The sections ons andsera jazz and newer music from thes and more recently were particularly bad for me in that respect, since I'm not familiar with that music.
If some explanation had been given, even a sentence or two on the big names saying who did what and why that was important, it could have been an interesting hook to get started exploring that era's music.
As it was, it was more like listening to your tipsy uncle rambling about people you've never heard of for pages at a time without being able to get a word in edgewise.
But even the sections on the music I know and like were hard to follow and contained very little in the way of actual information.
You'd be better off reading biographies or even Wikipedia articles of the bands you're interested in, because at least those would have some semblance of organization.
A lavishly illustrated insiders look atyears of music and culture in Laurel Canyona ZIP code with its own playlist.
Sonny amp Cher, the Doors, the Monkees, the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne Crosby, Stills, Nash amp Young the Eagles, Carole King, and others cultivated their immortal sounds in this L.
A. based musical fraternity. Written by a longtime Canyon resident who knows them all, Canyon of Dreams traces the history of the community and its enduring legacy.
Taking a deeply personal approach, it uses a multiplevoice narration based on exclusive interviews with the areas musical elite.
Because of their close connection with Kubernik, some of these are speaking openly for the first time.
New in paper, Interesting, but ultimately a triumph of style over content, Lovely to look at and browse through, but the writing was mainly verbatim anecdotes, and just didn't flow or provide much in the way of a narrative.
And quite shallow in the way it treated each of its subjects, Disappointing, really. This is a beautiful, deeply satisfying book, It is a coffeetable book filled with pictures and oral history about the Los Angeles music scene in the's and's.
Laurel Canyon is the mountainous area just above West Hollywood, aminute drive from the Sunset Strip, an easy commute from where protohippies lived, created music, made popular history at the various clubs and recording studios.
Lets see: Frank Zappa, Brian Wilson, The Doors, the Monkees, Love, The Byrds, Crosby Stills and Nash,Jackson Browne, The Mommas and The Poppas, Neil Young, Buffalo Springfield, Joni Mitchell, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Donovan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, among others, lived in Laurel Canyon at one time and changed the musical world.
I read this immediately after finishing Electric Eden, Rob Youngs seminal tome on English folk music, acoustic and electric.
The contrast is striking The Brits made ethereal music, usually with no thought of commercial potential, and remained total amateurs, drifting into obscurity.
In Laurel Canyon, the longhairs went down the mountain to sell their wares, working with the best engineers and record producers in America and achieved riches and immortality: You remember a pop song from thes ands Its likely produced in Los Angeles by one of the above strivers.
Americans do commerce and hedonism, often at the same time, New York produced the Velvet Underground, San Francisco the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, and L, A. everyone else. I really enjoyed this book due to the artwork and illustrations, I thought the actual storytelling was a little disjointed but I thoroughly liked my experience,
One thing I wish there were more pictures of houses and places in the Canyon, and a map would have nice.
Having been to Laurel Canyon recently I was able to see certain streets and understand the flow of Laurel Canyon drive from Sunset to Mulholland.
If I'd never had taken that trip I wouldn't have understood the layout or the mystique it helps create around the area.
I can't wait to go back, It's true, the Canyon itself seems to pulsate with a different vibe, It's palpable even to me, and I've no creative bone in my body, Laurel Canyon is truly a remarkable place, This is a MASTERPIECE for readability, exhaustive detail amp research, ACCURACY and Context, I've known Harvey since we attended College together and am AMAZED for his accomplishments!, . . No One can top the Information amp Historic Tableau that Harvey establishes with THIS Masterpiece! Period! This book is about the photos primarily.
A nostalgic look at the countercultural camelot that settled in just above L, A. for awhile, in the late sixties and early seventies, Bittersweet look back at the Ladies Of The Canyon and their gentlemen friends, Beautiful coffee table style book of the decadeslong music history of the Laurel Canyon, especially focusing on the midsixties and seventies highlighting groups such as Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Still amp Nash, Mamas amp Papas and many many more.
It's not for sitting reading through but rather diving in and reading short sections at a time, If you are a fan of music of that era, don't miss this book, Just skimmed this, but it's full of great pictures of the scenesters of Laurel Canyon in the sixties.
Frank Zappa, David Crosby, Cass Elliot, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, and Charles Manson make appearances, I was mainly looking at it for the Monkees stuff, as Peter Tork and, even more so, Micky Dolenz were important characters in this story.
Michael Nesmith is
given a few shoutouts, too, and mention is made of his influence as much as Gram Parsons or the Byrds, but less recognized as a countryrock pioneer.
Makes you wish you were there, Enjoyed the trip to Laurel Canyon from beginning to end, Learned a lot about musicians/bands I've been listening to for years and something about a few I've never known much about.
Like rock Read it, Great illustrations and insight from lots of good sources, But Kubernik errs on the side of overwriting, He makes the rookie journalist's mistake of inserting a variety of attributions when "said" would do the job and stay out of the way of the quote.
Why didn't an editor catch this
,
mess of a book but lots of gems, This book was a big disappointment, The text is rambling and incoherent, and the texttopictures ratio is far too high to make it worthwhile for the pictures alone many of which I'd seen elsewhere.
A lot of the text is direct quotes from musicians and other music industry professionals reminiscing on the topic at hand, but it is presented as huge chunks of undirected rambling, sometimes repeating information already discussed a few paragraphs earlier, jumping randomly between different topics and bands, tossing in irrelevant information, and often ending up as more namedropping than anecdote.
An example from p.:
In ', Lou Adler moved to Orange Ave, off Hollywood Blvd. and became very involved with The Crickets, The Everly Brothers, Snuff Garrett, and Liberty Records because Jan amp Dean were on Liberty.It was especially irksome when it would be a whole lot of namedropping and I didn't know half or more of the names.
Adler met D. J. Art Laboe when he first started working with Jan amp Dean,
"I had gone to his events at Scrivner's as a customer," Adler reminisces, "You would bring him records, We used to have groups play roller rinks, Phil Spector and the Reddy Bears did roller rinks, In East L. A. I grew up on RampB and jazz, I was into pop music and went to jazz concerts, One of my first big dates was going to Ciro's, I took a nurse. I was working at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital and going to Los Angeles City College,
"For me at three o'clock in the morning I was at Pink's Hot Dogs eating a hot dog, a hamburger, and a tamale.
But I should be credited for bringing meals from the Villa Capri to the recording studio, "
The sections ons andsera jazz and newer music from thes and more recently were particularly bad for me in that respect, since I'm not familiar with that music.
If some explanation had been given, even a sentence or two on the big names saying who did what and why that was important, it could have been an interesting hook to get started exploring that era's music.
As it was, it was more like listening to your tipsy uncle rambling about people you've never heard of for pages at a time without being able to get a word in edgewise.
But even the sections on the music I know and like were hard to follow and contained very little in the way of actual information.
You'd be better off reading biographies or even Wikipedia articles of the bands you're interested in, because at least those would have some semblance of organization.
A lavishly illustrated insiders look atyears of music and culture in Laurel Canyona ZIP code with its own playlist.
Sonny amp Cher, the Doors, the Monkees, the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne Crosby, Stills, Nash amp Young the Eagles, Carole King, and others cultivated their immortal sounds in this L.
A. based musical fraternity. Written by a longtime Canyon resident who knows them all, Canyon of Dreams traces the history of the community and its enduring legacy.
Taking a deeply personal approach, it uses a multiplevoice narration based on exclusive interviews with the areas musical elite.
Because of their close connection with Kubernik, some of these are speaking openly for the first time.
New in paper, Interesting, but ultimately a triumph of style over content, Lovely to look at and browse through, but the writing was mainly verbatim anecdotes, and just didn't flow or provide much in the way of a narrative.
And quite shallow in the way it treated each of its subjects, Disappointing, really. This is a beautiful, deeply satisfying book, It is a coffeetable book filled with pictures and oral history about the Los Angeles music scene in the's and's.
Laurel Canyon is the mountainous area just above West Hollywood, aminute drive from the Sunset Strip, an easy commute from where protohippies lived, created music, made popular history at the various clubs and recording studios.
Lets see: Frank Zappa, Brian Wilson, The Doors, the Monkees, Love, The Byrds, Crosby Stills and Nash,Jackson Browne, The Mommas and The Poppas, Neil Young, Buffalo Springfield, Joni Mitchell, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Donovan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, among others, lived in Laurel Canyon at one time and changed the musical world.
I read this immediately after finishing Electric Eden, Rob Youngs seminal tome on English folk music, acoustic and electric.
The contrast is striking The Brits made ethereal music, usually with no thought of commercial potential, and remained total amateurs, drifting into obscurity.
In Laurel Canyon, the longhairs went down the mountain to sell their wares, working with the best engineers and record producers in America and achieved riches and immortality: You remember a pop song from thes ands Its likely produced in Los Angeles by one of the above strivers.
Americans do commerce and hedonism, often at the same time, New York produced the Velvet Underground, San Francisco the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, and L, A. everyone else. I really enjoyed this book due to the artwork and illustrations, I thought the actual storytelling was a little disjointed but I thoroughly liked my experience,
One thing I wish there were more pictures of houses and places in the Canyon, and a map would have nice.
Having been to Laurel Canyon recently I was able to see certain streets and understand the flow of Laurel Canyon drive from Sunset to Mulholland.
If I'd never had taken that trip I wouldn't have understood the layout or the mystique it helps create around the area.
I can't wait to go back, It's true, the Canyon itself seems to pulsate with a different vibe, It's palpable even to me, and I've no creative bone in my body, Laurel Canyon is truly a remarkable place, This is a MASTERPIECE for readability, exhaustive detail amp research, ACCURACY and Context, I've known Harvey since we attended College together and am AMAZED for his accomplishments!, . . No One can top the Information amp Historic Tableau that Harvey establishes with THIS Masterpiece! Period! This book is about the photos primarily.
A nostalgic look at the countercultural camelot that settled in just above L, A. for awhile, in the late sixties and early seventies, Bittersweet look back at the Ladies Of The Canyon and their gentlemen friends, Beautiful coffee table style book of the decadeslong music history of the Laurel Canyon, especially focusing on the midsixties and seventies highlighting groups such as Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Still amp Nash, Mamas amp Papas and many many more.
It's not for sitting reading through but rather diving in and reading short sections at a time, If you are a fan of music of that era, don't miss this book, Just skimmed this, but it's full of great pictures of the scenesters of Laurel Canyon in the sixties.
Frank Zappa, David Crosby, Cass Elliot, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, and Charles Manson make appearances, I was mainly looking at it for the Monkees stuff, as Peter Tork and, even more so, Micky Dolenz were important characters in this story.
Michael Nesmith is
given a few shoutouts, too, and mention is made of his influence as much as Gram Parsons or the Byrds, but less recognized as a countryrock pioneer.
Makes you wish you were there, Enjoyed the trip to Laurel Canyon from beginning to end, Learned a lot about musicians/bands I've been listening to for years and something about a few I've never known much about.
Like rock Read it, Great illustrations and insight from lots of good sources, But Kubernik errs on the side of overwriting, He makes the rookie journalist's mistake of inserting a variety of attributions when "said" would do the job and stay out of the way of the quote.
Why didn't an editor catch this
,