Laurel Canyon Quotes

When I got home I mixed a stiff one and stood by the open window in the living room and sipped it and listened to the groundswell of traffic on Laurel Canyon Boulevard and looked at the glare of the big angry city hanging over the shoulder of the hills through which the boulevard had been cut. Far off the banshee wail of police or fire sirens rose and fell, never for very long completely silent. Twenty four hours a day somebody is running, somebody else is trying to catch him. Out there in the night of a thousand crimes, people were dying, being maimed, cut by flying glass, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People were being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry, sick; bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear, angry, cruel, feverish, shaken by sobs. A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness. It all depends on where you sit and what your own private score is. I didn't have one. I didn't care. I finished the drink and went to bed.

He said you were on the scene when that Laurel Canyon homicide went down.” “I’m lucky that way,” I said. “So are you two square again?” I halted, mid-ripping open the cookies, and stared at him. “Well, he’s pretty square,” I said. “I’m just a rectangular guy.” With latent triangular tendencies.

I am a big believer in the notion that 'the truth is out there', but don't expect it to be delivered to you in a tidy package by any mainstream media outlets.

LAUREL CANYON PERCHED DIRECTLY ABOVE LOS ANGELES, one of the most expensive collections of winding hills and valleys in the country. Luckily, there were roads that twisted up and down the tortured ridges, or the only things that would have been there were hippies, backpackers, prairie dogs, and the occasional mountain lion dining on the aforementioned hippies, backpackers, and prairie dogs. Unfortunately, because of those roads and the billion-dollar real estate, the most common life-forms were douche bags, plastic surgeons, fading film producers, and labradoodles.

The money was rolling in. I wanted to make smart decisions with it so I went out with a realtor for one day, and found a pad in Laurel Canyon and bought it. Pretty soon, Graham unofficially moved in. We spent that spring and summer just the two of us together. We’d grill on the patio for dinner and go see shows every night and sleep late in the mornings. GRAHAM: Karen and I spent whole weekends high as shit, rich as hell, playing songs together, and not telling anybody where we were or what we were up to. It was our little secret. I didn’t even tell Billy. People say that life keeps moving, but they don’t mention that it does stop sometimes, just for you. Just for you and your girl. The world stops spinning and just lets you two lie there. Feels like it, anyway. Sometimes. If you’re lucky. Call me a romantic if you have to. Worse things to be.

As Unterberger duly notes in his expansive, two-volume review of the folk-rock movement, “much folk-rock was recorded and issued by huge corporations, and broadcast over radio and television stations owned for the most part by the same or similar pillars of the establishment.

Carl Franzoni perhaps summed it up best when he declared rather bluntly that, “the Byrds’ records were manufactured.” The first album in particular was an entirely engineered affair created by taking a collection of songs by outside songwriters and having them performed by a group of nameless studio musicians (for the record, the actual musicians were Glen Campbell on guitar, Hal Blaine on drums, Larry Knechtel on bass, Leon Russell on electric piano, and Jerry Cole on rhythm guitar), after which the band’s trademark vocal harmonies, entirely a studio creation, were added to the mix. As would be expected, the Byrds’ live performances, according to Barney Hoskyns’ Waiting for the Sun, “weren’t terribly good.” But that didn’t matter much; the band got a lot of assistance from the media, with Time being among the first to champion the new band. And they also got a tremendous assist from Vito and the Freaks and from the Young Turks, as previously discussed.

That was just one curious shift that occurred in the local music scene. The folk-rock movement, as it turns out, didn’t really last very long in its original incarnation. To the contrary, it quickly splintered into three distinct new genres: country-rock, psychedelic rock, and the ‘introspective singer-songwriter’ school of folk-rock most closely associated with former mental patient James Taylor. None of those musical genres, notably, posed much of a threat to the ‘establishment.’ The navel-gazers eschewed social concerns in favor of focusing on tales of personal anguish, the acid rockers largely preached the mantra of ‘turn on, tune in, drop out,’ and the country-rockers largely stuck to traditional—which is to say, quite conservative—country music themes. Following

Ricky Marigold was his name up at the commune. He was seventeen, had run away from home in Pacoima and was a righteous grasshead. He wasn't a bad kid, just fucked up. He was for: love, truth, gentleness, getting high, staying high, good sounds, pleasant weather, funky clothes and rapping with his friends. He was against: Viet Nam, the Laws with their riot sticks, violence, bigotry, random hatred, nine-to-five jobs, squares who tried to get you to conform, grass full of seeds and stems, and bringdowns in general. He met Jack Gardiner on the corner of Laurel Canyon and Sunset, across from Schwab's where the starlets went to show off their asses. He saw Jack Gardiner as a little too old to be making the scene, but the guy looked flaky enough: lumberjack shirt, good beard, bright eyes; and he seemed to be friendly enough. So Ricky invited him to come along. They walked up Laurel Canyon, hunching along next to the curb on the sidewalkless street. "Gonna be a quiet scene," Ricky said. "Just a buncha beautiful people groovin' on themselves, maybe turning on, you know." The older man nodded; his hands were deep in his pants pockets. They walked quite a while, finally turning up Stone Canyon Road. A mile up the twisting road. Jack Gardiner slipped a step behind Ricky Marigold and pulled out the blade. Ricky had started to turn, just as Connie's father drove the shaft into Ricky's back, near the base of the spine. Ricky was instantly paralyzed, though not dead. He slipped to the street, and Jack Gardiner dragged him into the high weeds and junk of an empty lot. He left him there to die. Unable to speak, unable to move, Ricky Marigold found all the love draining out of him. Slowly, for six hours, through the small of his back.

Danny and the Memories was the band at the root of Crazy Horse. They were a vocal group with Danny Whitten, Ralphie, Billy, and a guy named Ben Rocco. When I recently saw their old video of "Land of a Thousand Dances" on You-Tube, I realized that is is truly the shit. You know, I looked at it maybe twenty times in a row. Even though Danny was amazing and he held the Horse together in the early days, I did not know how great Danny was until I saw this! The moves! What an amazing dancer he was. His presence on that performance is elevating! He is gone, and no one can change that. We will never see and hear where he was going. I am telling you, the world missed one of the greatest when Danny and the Memories did not have a NUMBER ONE smash record back in the day. They were so musical, with great harmonies, and Danny was a total knockout! I am so moved by this that it could make me cry at any time. This is one of those many times when words can't describe the music. Danny and the Memories eventually transformed into the Rockets; they were playing in this old house in Laurel Canyon, and I somehow connected with them while Buffalo Springfield was at the Whiskey. We had a lot of pots jams in the house. Later on I saw Danny and the guys at somebody's house in Topanga. After that I asked if Danny, Billy, and Ralphie would play on a record with me. We did one day, practicing in my Topanga house, and it sounded great. I named the band Crazy Horse and away we went. The Rockets were still together, but this was a different deal. At that time, I thought Danny was a great guitarist and singer. I had no idea how great, though. I just was too full of myself to see it. Now I see it clearly. I wish I could do that again, because more of Danny would be there. I have made an Early Daze record of the Horse, and you can hear a different vocal of "Cinnamon Girl" featuring more of Danny. He was singing the high part and it came through big-time. I changed it so I sang the high part and put that out. That was a big mistake. I fucked up. I did not know who Danny was. He was better than me. I didn't see it. I was strong, and maybe I helped destroy something sacred by not seeing it. He was never pissed off about it. I wasn't like that. I was young, and maybe I didn't know what I was doing. Some things you wish never happened. But we got what we got. I never really saw him a sing and move until I saw that "Land of a Thousand Dances" video. I could watch it over and over. I can't believe it. It's just one of those things. My heart aches for what happened to him. These memories are what make Crazy Horse great today. And now we don't have Briggs, either, for the next record, but we have the spirit and the heart to go on. And we have John Hanlong, taught by Briggs, to engineer this sucker. It will rock and cry. Please let's get to this before life comes knocking again.

Toward an Organic Philosophy SPRING, COAST RANGE The glow of my campfire is dark red and flameless, The circle of white ash widens around it. I get up and walk off in the moonlight and each time I look back the red is deeper and the light smaller. Scorpio rises late with Mars caught in his claw; The moon has come before them, the light Like a choir of children in the young laurel trees. It is April; the shad, the hot headed fish, Climbs the rivers; there is trillium in the damp canyons; The foetid adder’s tongue lolls by the waterfall. There was a farm at this campsite once, it is almost gone now. There were sheep here after the farm, and fire Long ago burned the redwoods out of the gulch, The Douglas fir off the ridge; today the soil Is stony and incoherent, the small stones lie flat And plate the surface like scales. Twenty years ago the spreading gully Toppled the big oak over onto the house. Now there is nothing left but the foundations Hidden in poison oak, and above on the ridge, Six lonely, ominous fenceposts; The redwood beams of the barn make a footbridge Over the deep waterless creek bed; The hills are covered with wild oats Dry and white by midsummer. I walk in the random survivals of the orchard. In a patch of moonlight a mole Shakes his tunnel like an angry vein; Orion walks waist deep in the fog coming in from the ocean; Leo crouches under the zenith. There are tiny hard fruits already on the plum trees. The purity of the apple blossoms is incredible. As the wind dies down their fragrance Clusters around them like thick smoke. All the day they roared with bees, in the moonlight They are silent and immaculate. SPRING, SIERRA NEVADA Once more golden Scorpio glows over the col Above Deadman Canyon, orderly and brilliant, Like an inspiration in the brain of Archimedes. I have seen its light over the warm sea, Over the coconut beaches, phosphorescent and pulsing; And the living light in the water Shivering away from the swimming hand, Creeping against the lips, filling the floating hair. Here where the glaciers have been and the snow stays late, The stone is clean as light, the light steady as stone. The relationship of stone, ice and stars is systematic and enduring: Novelty emerges after centuries, a rock spalls from the cliffs, The glacier contracts and turns grayer, The stream cuts new sinuosities in the meadow, The sun moves through space and the earth with it, The stars change places. The snow has lasted longer this year, Than anyone can remember. The lowest meadow is a lake, The next two are snowfields, the pass is covered with snow, Only the steepest rocks are bare. Between the pass And the last meadow the snowfield gapes for a hundred feet, In a narrow blue chasm through which a waterfall drops, Spangled with sunset at the top, black and muscular Where it disappears again in the snow. The world is filled with hidden running water That pounds in the ears like ether; The granite needles rise from the snow, pale as steel; Above the copper mine the cliff is blood red, The white snow breaks at the edge of it; The sky comes close to my eyes like the blue eyes Of someone kissed in sleep. I descend to camp, To the young, sticky, wrinkled aspen leaves, To the first violets and wild cyclamen, And cook supper in the blue twilight. All night deer pass over the snow on sharp hooves, In the darkness their cold muzzles find the new grass At the edge of the snow.

The hills cast a shadow on themselves, bruise-blue turning to forgetful black. High up, [...] rocky outcrops crawl with manzanita, shedding their curling, crimson barks. Bay laurels rim the logger-made meadows. Canyons thicken with orange madrone peeling to creamy, clammy green. Coast live oaks [...] gather on the crags. And down in cool ripatian corridors smelling of silt and decaying needles, redwoods work a plan that will take a thousand years to realize [...]

We discussed how Laurel Canyon has only one way in and one way out—single ingress and egress, is what they call it—which means that not only would the road be swarmed with cars trying to evacuate, it would also be impossible for emergency vehicles to get in.

As the story is usually told, the 1960s countercultural movement posed a rather serious threat to the status quo. But if that were truly the case, then why was it the “pillars of the establishment,” to use Unterberger’s words, that initially launched the movement? Why was it ‘the man’ that signed and recorded these artists? And that heavily promoted them on the radio, on television, and in print? And that set them up with their very own radio station and their very own monthly magazine? It

As was the custom with big events in the mid- to late-1960s, particularly in the northern California area, Altamont was drenched in acid. And as was also the custom at that time, that acid was provided free-of-charge by Mr. Augustus Owsley Stanley III, also known as The Bear. At the so-called “Human Be-In” staged in January of 1967, for example, Owsley had kindly distributed 10,000 tabs of potent LSD. For the Monterey Pop Festival just five months later, he had cooked up and distributed 14,000 tabs. For Altamont, he did likewise. Also present that day, and featured in the Maysles brothers’ film gyrating atop a raised platform near the stage, was the King of the Freaks himself, Vito Paulekas.

Vito Paulekas.

High up, beyond his sight, rocky outcrops crawl with manzanita, shedding their curling, crimson barks. Bay laurels rim the logger-made meadows. Canyons thicken with orange madrone peeling to creamy, clammy green. Coast live oaks like the one that crippled him gather on the crags. And down in cool riparian corridors smelling of silt and decaying needles, redwoods work a plan that will take a thousand years to realize.

morning when I left. I checked my car for a GPS tag and yet somehow Creighton’s following me up Laurel Canyon Boulevard.” “Maybe it

Your own name isn’t half-bad. Bet you don’t know what Loretta means.” Rachel folded the dough over, then glanced up with a teasing grin. “Your momma and me picked it, mainly for the meaning.” “It’s a variation of Laura, isn’t it? Laurel wreath or something?” “That’s the common meaning. But in your ma’s name book, there was another.” “Well? Give over.” Loretta waited, watching her aunt. “What’s it mean? Flat-chested and scrawny?” Rachel threw back her head and chuckled. “Flat-chested and scrawny? Loretta Jane, I swear, no one can say you have too high an opinion of yourself. It means little wise one.” The color washed from Loretta’s face, and she planted her feet on the floor to stop the chair from rocking. “It means what?” “Little wise one.” Rachel’s smile faded. “You feelin’ peaked? What’s wrong?” Loretta set her sewing aside and pushed to her feet. “Nothing, Aunt Rachel. N-nothing.” Glancing dazedly around the room, Loretta pressed the back of her wrist to her temple, a feeling of unreality surrounding her. “I, um, think I’ll get a breath of air.” After hurrying from the house, Loretta struck off across the yard to lean on the fence, her favorite spot because it afforded her a view of the rise. Little wise one. Still numb with shock, she stared off into the distance, remembering the night Hunter had recited his song to her. The People will call her the Little Wise One… She studied the rise, truly believing, for the first time, that she and Hunter were destined to be together. She tried to remember all the words to his song. They came to her in snatches. Between them will be a great canyon that runs high with blood. A silly legend, she had once called it. Now she knew better. Too much of it had already come to pass for her to scoff. A canyon of blood. Loretta curled her hands into fists. Hunter would return to her. She didn’t know when, or how, but suddenly she felt certain the song, once the bane of her existence, had become her greatest hope.

turned the car around and it floated quietly down Lookout Mountain to Laurel Canyon. He took a right and drove to the canyon market, where he bought a six-pack of Anchor Steam. Then he took his beer and his questions back up the hill to Mulholland. He drove to Woodrow Wilson Drive and then down to his small house that stood on cantilevers and looked out across the Cahuenga Pass.

I should go out on the radio with it. Must be a slow day for the media—getting more what’s-happening calls from reporters than I am getting service calls from citizens. They all want to do something on the first one, the actress on Mulholland. You know, a death-of-a-Hollywood-dream story. And they’d probably jump all over this latest call, too.” “Yeah, what is it?” “A citizen up in Laurel Canyon. On Wonderland. He just called up and said his dog came back from a run in the woods with a bone in its mouth. The guy says it’s human—an arm bone from a kid.” Bosch almost groaned. There were four or five call outs like this a year. Hysteria always followed by simple explanation: animal bones. Through the windshield he saluted the two body movers from the coroner’s office as they headed to the front doors of the van. “I know what you’re thinking, Harry. Not another bone run. You’ve done it a hundred times and it’s always the same thing. Coyote, deer, whatever. But listen, this guy with the dog, he’s an MD. And he says there’s no doubt. It’s a humerus. That’s the upper arm bone.

We walked down to the corner and crossed the street to the cab. Collins gave the driver some directions and we turned into the Boulevard. We went eight or ten blocks toward Los Angeles, turned and headed uphill. At Sunset Boulevard we turned again and went to a street called Laurel Canyon. It seemed as if we climbed up Laurel Canyon forever. It was dark and the road wound upward toward the dark sky. In two hours it would be time for dawn, but Collins said it was foggy and probably wouldn’t

Passing a road called Laurel Canyon, I remembered a folksinger with a record named that and near-expected her to show up with a basket of sunflowers. Or Neil Young would amble toward me in a fringed leather jacket. Or J. D. Salinger himself, who’d become my mentor and order up poems from me like so many diner pancakes…. (What hurts so bad about youth isn’t the actual butt whippings the world delivers. It’s the stupid hopes playacting like certainties.) At one point a town car glided up, and my heart bounded like a doe as the window silently slid down. But it was a wrinkled lady in tennis whites, asking in bad Spanish if I was Luz from the agency.

We investigate, we prepare, we execute. We find them, we take them down, and then we piss on their ancestors’ graves.” 25 The Chateau Marmont was a bohemian old pile on Sunset, near the foot of Laurel Canyon.

Photographer Man Ray, for example, is a compelling suspect given that the posing of Ms. Short’s body appeared to mimic the Minotaur, one of his better-known photographs.

As the middle child of the Laurel Canyon Adams Family, Whit was surprisingly chill on the subject of ampire-vays.

fact that his father secured representation for him from a member of the Queen’s Counsel.