Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon

Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops, and the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream

De: David McGowan

Narrado por: Bill Fike

The very strange but nevertheless true story of the dark underbelly of a 1960s hippie utopia. Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s was a magical place where a dizzying array of musical artists congregated to create much of the music that provided the soundtrack to those turbulent times.

Members of bands like the Byrds, the Doors, Buffalo Springfield, the Monkees, the Beach Boys, the Turtles, the Eagles, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Steppenwolf, CSN, Three Dog Night, and Love, along with such singer/songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, James Taylor, and Carole King, lived together and jammed together in the bucolic community nestled in the Hollywood Hills.

But there was a dark side to that scene as well. Many didn't make it out alive, and many of those deaths remain shrouded in mystery to this day. Far more integrated into the scene than most would like to admit was a guy by the name of Charles Manson, along with his murderous entourage. Also floating about the periphery were various political operatives, up-and-coming politicians, and intelligence personnel - the same sort of people who gave birth to many of the rock stars populating the canyon. And all the canyon's colorful characters - rock stars, hippies, murderers, and politicos - happily coexisted alongside a covert military installation.

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A lot of information , albeit somewhat scattered

I like the premise of this book overall. However, his overall presentation of these historical and sensational facts are a bit unsatisfying.

He is touching and I mean tiptoeing from one murder to the next , or it was suicide and so on...so quickly, my head is spinning. We are getting the most basic facts including a name, the band they played with, the age of death and whether it was ruled a murder or suicide .

It leaves me wanting more info and having to seek google . There was one in particular murder he mentioned, "Jan Doe 59". He stated she was a "Jane Doe " murdered in 1969 by way of 159 stab wounds. That's it. That's all he said. So , now I'm left having to google this person , something that I feel I should not have to do when reading a book like this.
But the part that bothers me is she is not a "Jane Doe" any more. In fact, her name was Jeet Jurvetson And in 2016, they had a positive ID from her sister in Canada , who confirmed it with a DNA sample. She was 19 and the theory is that she possibly fell victim to one of Manson's crew.

A simple google search would have been useful on his part to make sure his info accurate and updated. It makes me question how many more of these " outdated " facts is being retold .

The other thing I noticed and don't really care for , is his sarcastic tone and Facetious way in which he writes these accounts. It's done purposely, and I'm don't know why because it's not funny, in fact, it's rather annoying.

Other then that it's a decent account of the 60s counterculture and nefarious characters who inhabited it.

Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon, etc.

This is a must read or listen to book. The man who narrated it was fabulous! Makes you wonder a lot about the hippie movement, the US government & the music I grew up to! Please read or listen to this book as Tom McGowen won't be writing anymore now that he's dead. Awfully young to be dead, ey?

Irritating Narrator

I liked the story and whole conspiracy theory thing, just for entertainment, but the narrator's constant and very noticable substitute of the letter "F" for the letter "P" was so distracting and irritating I wanted to reach through the speaker. I assume this is an old trick to avoid microphone pop, but it is supposed to be unnoticeable and there are plenty of other ways. Oh well, "S##t HaFFens".

intriguing idea that is never approached.

The idea is cool: a music scene that explodes into public a consciousness and purports to represent “counter culture,” but is actually coordinated by members of the ruling class and military-industrial complex. This book, however, never really gets around to speculating on how or why this would happen. I understand McGowan’s shying away from such ideas, especially with some of the players still alive. For me, McGowan not attempting to peer around the curtain just inhibits the story’s potential.

I found the book interesting for the first couple chapters, but it quickly became tedious and depressing. It became simply a record of deaths and depravity surrounding entertainers who have ever lived in, or around, or driven through Laurel Canyon and/or who’s parents were in the military. Speaking of the which, the majority of celebrities named in this book are/were baby boomers, and enlistment was very popular with their parents’ generation (WWII), close to 1 in 10. So, to me it doesn’t seem surprising that many of them came from military households.

McGowan really shows prolific research for this thing, which is pretty impressive. I just wish he was willing to venture into what exactly he thought went on.

A lot to process

There is a lot of information in this book. Some of it seems more likely, while some seem like there is a stretch taking place. That being said, there is still enough to make you think about stuff.

The narrator is also good.