Hotel California Documentary on 70s Music Scene in L.A. and Laurel Canyon

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

I was born in the wrong decade. I got hooked on the early 70s L.A. music scene... not the music per se, but the history of the scene. Check out this documentary Hotel California: L.A. from the Byrds to the Eagles. It gives a decent overview of who emerged from the Laurel Canyon music scene (CSN, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Frank Zappa and eventually those fucktards in the Eagles).


Musically speaking, if I could go back and time and live whenever... I'd pick NYC in 1950-51 and San Francisco in 67-68. I'd love to get beamed to NYC in the early 50s to catch a glimpse of Coltrane and Miles Davis and the rest of the jazz greats of that era. I'd love to fall down a rabbit hole and emerge in San Francisco in the late 60s for obvious reasons (pure liquid sunshine by Owlsley and the Grateful Dead as the house band for different acid tests). By I've been slowly gobbling up as much history of the music scene in Los Angeles in the early 70s. Man, I'd love to hang out in the Hollywood Hills in 1973-74 for the blow and to catch a glimpse of rock and roll bands (that currently fill up the classic rock dial) at the height of their powers. Other eras I'd love to live in for a few months would be... NYC in the late 70s for punk, Detroit in the early 60s for Motown, and Minneapolis in the early 80s for the American new wave scene. Unfortunately, I lived in Seattle in the post-grunge era in the late 90s, which was in the middle of a neo-post-punk renaissance. I clearly missed the boat. I was born in the wrong decade.

I'm also currently reading... Laurel Canyon: Inside Story of Rock-n-Roll's Legendary Neighborhood. As soon as I'm done, I'll try to write a review.