Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & The Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream

by David McGowan, Nick Bryant (Foreword)

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Music, Conspiracy Theories, True Crime, Politics, Crime

446 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 4, 2014

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 5 out of 5]

***If this review disappears. I’ve been compromised. Send in the...well, hell, there really isn’t anyone to send to save me.***

”There is no doubt in my mind that this book will not be warmly received by all readers. In our celebrity-driven culture, calling into question the character and motivations of so many widely admired and respected figures from the entertainment community is never a good way to win popularity contests. And when those revered figures are overwhelmingly viewed as icons of various leftist causes, it is definitely not the way to win fans among those who consider themselves to be liberals, progressive or leftists. But while my sympathies lie solidly in the leftward flanks of the political spectrum, there are no sacred cows in either this book or in any of my past work.”

Prepare to have you mind blown.

I started reading this book very late at night, and after reading the preface and about half of the first chapter, my hair was standing up on the back of my neck. “Danger, Will Robinson!” was running through my brain on a continuous loop. It was so quiet that late at night I could hear the synapses crackling in my brain. Paranoia started rampaging through my mind like Godzilla ravaging Tokyo. (Seriously, no drugs involved here folks.) I thought to myself, I bought this from Amazon...there is a paper trail a mile wide saying...yes, Jeffrey D. Keeten bought this book.

Shit!

I don’t want to die. I’ve got too many fucking books to read. Who is going to read these piles of books sitting around my house if I have what is referred to as a...premature death? So maybe I shouldn’t write a review. Maybe I should not involve all of those innocent bystanders on Goodreads. Those hearty, few friends and followers who still read my reviews...all...what two of you? Okay, okay, so the body count won’t be that high if the Christians In Action (CIA) actually decide that a nobody like me shouldn’t be posting my thoughts on a book that reveals some very insidious and incendiary behavior by the very people who are supposed to be protecting us from foreign enemies.

But the CIA isn’t supposed to be working in the US?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Okay, let me wipe the tears away from my eyes so I can form some more pixels into words.

The 1960s counterculture movement was an intelligence operation managed by the CIA.

What? No way, man!

LSD was a product of a CIA program studying how to control people. Timothy Leary was a painfully obvious CIA asset. These drugs were being manufactured for distribution on the street to turn the anti-war movement into navel-gazing morons. The CIA wanted the face of the anti-war movement to be dirty, drugged out hippies, not professors and clean cut kids whom the American public might actually take seriously. Charles Manson was part of this program. Well...probably...truth is a difficult commodity to come by whenever someone is looking into a CIA program. Finding proof is never good for your health.

You’re out of your fucking mind, Keeten.

Am I? Imagine my raised eyebrow. I’ve read enough about this to begin to believe that, as crazy as any of this sounds,...it starts to make sense. The first step is to understand the agenda of the CIA.

David McGowan’s research revolved around all the strange activities that have happened in Laurel Canyon for the last several decades. The shadow looming over the sunshine and surf is coming from Lookout Mountain Observatory. The California music scene originated here, and it was primarily driven by kids of career military men. They migrated from Washington DC, and somehow all ended up in Laurel Canyon and started “producing” music that would become the driving force behind the counterculture movement. Okay, I’m going to say something shocking that will be very upsetting to many of you, especially those people who have defined their lives by the music of the 1960s. Three Dog Night, Frank Zappa, the Doors, Love, the Beach Boys, the Byrds, Gram Parsons, Buffalo Springfield, and many more were all musicians/bands created by the CIA.

This is going to be the part that feels like a gut punch.

They couldn’t play their instruments for crap. Studio bands produced the records.

Oh come on, not the Lizard King...not Jim Morrison! ”So here was a guy who had never sang, who had ‘never even conceived’ of the notion that he could open his mouth and make sounds come out, who couldn’t play an instrument and had no interest in learning such a skill, and who had never much listened to music or been anywhere near a band, even to just watch one perform, and yet he somehow emerged, virtually overnight, as a fully formed rock star who would quickly become an icon of his generation. Even more bizarrely, legend holds that he brought with him enough original songs to fill the first few Doors’ albums.”

What was really irritating to me was I couldn’t resist putting the Laurel Canyon produced music on while I was reading this book. I have to hand it to the CIA; those SOBs could really write some great, fucking music. That alone kind of blows the mind. Okay, so Brian Wilson was the real deal. The guy can write music, but for most of his life, he has been a mental basket case, as if he has received too many signals on his antenna from the mothership (LOM).

So where did the hippies come from? ”Vito and his Freakers were an acid-drenched extended family of brain-damaged cohabitants.” Vito Paulekas and his wife had a similar situation as the Manson family. They engaged in sex orgies, free-form dancing, and drugs. They started dressing oddly, growing their hair out, and became the blueprint for the flower children. They were cool, and middle class kids started emulating them. These freaks would go to concerts and be the main attraction. Someone had to take attention away from David Crosby/other made up bands and the badly performed music they were making on stage. I do think, over time, these guys did learn how to make music, but in the early days they needed a distraction, and lovely people who looked like they had dropped in from outer space, dancing like fiends, was a pretty good diversion.

Come on, man. The hippie movement was real. I smoked dope, got laid, and didn’t take a shower for six months at a time. It was very real, especially everytime I raised my arm and a noxious cloud emerged. Welcome to being a manipulated low level asset of the CIA...Mr. Moonbeam.

Chapter three: The Laurel Canyon Death List is pretty sobering. I mean, this place is by far the most dangerous place on earth. The number of premature deaths, suicides, and bizarre murders that have happened to residents of this area borders on the ludicrous. Some of the suicides were simply ridiculous, but then if you’re a cop getting a late night phone call from a breathy, deep voice explaining the whys and wherefores of a short life or long future, you might just decide that suicide is the best way to wrap up a sticky case.

So why kill the very musicians and peripheral people who were perpetrating your agenda? I don’t know. David McGowan was not especially clear on this, except to say that they knew too much. Some lived long, normal lives, while many others were cut down in their twenties. I do understand that the CIA would see all of these people as expendable, but at same time, these were sons and daughters of the very people who protected and served us in the military.

David McGowan shared all the information he had gathered. Some of it was loosely threaded together, but he lets you draw your own conclusions. I’m still not sure I really grasp exactly all the nefarious things that were going on inside the Canyon, but I do believe that the CIA was involved in creating a counterculture movement that they could control. I think the moral of this story is to do our best not to be manipulated by the right or the left into being their stooges by being a distraction from the people who are really trying to make social change. Riots...are a distraction. Hippies...are a distraction. Trump...is a distraction. They all make the CIA smile.

One last freaky thing to reveal.

RIP David McGowan, who died a premature death shortly after the publication of this book. He had an aggressive form of lung cancer that took him quickly.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/

[Marti · Rating 3 out of 5]

As strange as this book reads, the surface details are all true. But what is overall message? Though it goes through many strange twists and turns to get there; as far as I can tell, it is that the musicians who congregated in Laurel Canyon did so for reasons that did not really have anything to do with music. Instead, they tended to come from extremely privileged backgrounds and parents who were high ranking military officials who were also likely involved in espionage (people like Stephen Stills and Peter Tork who happened to find themselves in Latin American countries at a time just before democratically elected leaders were toppled by the CIA -- and Stills was in Vietnam before the war there escalated).

The author seems to be suggesting that the wild lifestyles promoted by these artists (many of whom did not actually play on their records) was an attempt by the CIA to exert mind control over young people in an effort to divert them away from more serious anti-war efforts. David Crosby (descended from original Dutch Settlers to New York as well as John Jay and Alexander Hamilton), Peter Fonda (whose family came over with Crosby's Van Rensselear ancestors on the same boat) and Jim Morrison (son of a high ranking Naval officer who displayed no interest in music until he became a rock star) also exemplify this theory.

And yes, a large number of these people died or were murdered in mysterious circumstances or the houses where these happenings took place burned down. I might not have trouble believing they were assassinated by our government if there had been more proof (the author suggests that they may have known too much and their deaths made to look like suicide or murder/suicide). If true, it would be easy to see why nobody would want to talk about this stuff. Therefore, all we have are a series of documented facts that point to a pattern of sinister influence in Laurel Canyon. There was no shortage of macabre and disreputable people around including Vito and the Freaks, Charles Manson, "The Process" (an EST-like cult) and a whole host of Crowley-esque disciples. What is less well known is that Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld were in residence at a RAND corporation think-tank located on a secluded hillside in the midst of all this (and supposedly J. Edgar Hoover was a customer at a gay brothel located nearby).

There is also much made of certain dates which have occult significance like the fact that Tom Mix died on October 12, Alistair Crowley's Birthday. Mix had once owned the "Log Cabin" (future home of Frank Zappa) and Spahn Ranch (where the Manson Family lived). The Log Cabin burned down on Halloween, 1981. This was 22 years to the day after Houdini's estate located nearby burned down. Houdini himself also died on Halloween in 1926. Spooky! Parts of it also read like a giant game of "Six Degrees of Separation." For instance, how to connect comedian Phil Hartman and Charles Manson? Well...Hartman designed the CSNY Logo and was the brother of John Hartman, a label exec with David Geffen. John Hartman got his start in the music business with Colonel Tom Parker. Tom Parker worked with Tom Mix in the 1940s. In addition to the aforementioned Spahn Ranch connection, Phil Hartman also attended high school with Squeaky Fromme.

So what does all this prove? Well, nothing really. But if true, all these coincidences are strange. Then again, we are talking about California (where there are frequent wild fires and houses burn down all the time). There are other perfectly plausible explanations as to why all these people would end up in the entertainment capital of the United States and why those living in the fast lane tend to turn up dead a lot.

I don't know whether to give this book 1 star for lack of proof that would really tie all this stuff together or 5 stars. After all, this was one hell of a page-turner (to paraphrase Austin Powers, conspiracy theories ARE my bag). There are obviously a lot of things left out of this review, but off the top of my head, I wondered why Danny Sugarman, who who lived on Wonderland Avenue and later married Fawn Hall (who was Oliver North's secretary) and Rodney Bingenheimer (who knew everyone mentioned in this book) were left out of this saga.

I am definitely adding it to my "Classic Trash" shelf along with my Brian Jones conspiracy books and Hollywood Babylon.

***July 18, 2020: I am updating my review from five years ago, to recommend a book I recently read by Tom O'Neill called Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, published June 25, 2019. It covers some of the same ground. However, O'Neill provides documented proof of his assertions. He was not able to tie all of it together, but where there is smoke, there is fire. It certainly makes a lot of the unsubstantiated claims in "Weird Scenes" seem a little more plausible.

[Red Dirt Report · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in the summer of 2008, a few weeks after writing a 40th anniversary review of the psychedelic cult film Head, featuring The Monkees, I got a weird email from a reader who suggested I check out a website by a guy named Dave McGowan and his recently-launched online investigative series Inside the LC: The Strange But Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation.

Naturally curious, I checked it out and fell into the proverbial “rabbit hole” from which I have yet to return. McGowan’s research on the rock music scene that artificially “sprang” from the countercultural Los Angeles-area enclave of Laurel Canyon was absolutely shocking.

“The story of the scene that played out in Laurel Canyon from the mid-1960’s through the end of the 1970’s is an endlessly fascinating one” and that while most folks know about San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury scene, Angelenos, of which McGowan is one, “remain ignorant of the even larger music and counterculture scene that played out in the Hollywood Hills.”

And a 2008 radio interview I conducted with McGowan on a local pirate radio station proved even more revealing for me. Rock stars like Frank Zappa, John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, Arthur Lee of Love, Jim Morrison of The Doors, Peter Tork of The Monkees, David Crosby (The Byrds) and Stephen Stills (Buffalo Springfield), who collaborated with Crosby, Stills & Nash and many others get a serious look. So do the actors and directors who hung out and lived and partied in Laurel Canyon – a place that also happened to be home to the military’s Lookout Mountain Laboratories, a place that was a studio that created classified motion pictures involving atomic-bomb tests and – likely much more - between 1947 and 1969.

While that may not seem so unusual in the midst of the Cold War, many of the names above were linked or directly involved in the military, through family members or personally.

As McGowan notes: “How is it possible that not one of the musical icons of the Woodstock generation, almost all of them draft age males, was shipped off to slog through the rice paddies of Vietnam? Should we just consider that to be another of those great serendipities? Was it mere luck that kept all of the Laurel Canyon stars out of jail and out of the military during the turbulent decade that was the 1960’s? Not really.”

McGowan suggests that these Sixties-era megastars weren’t touched by “The Establishment” because they proved to be useful tools in their efforts to water-down or co-opt any efforts of a truly grassroots movement that could have emerged and brought real change and an earlier end to the meat grinder in Southeast Asia. Perceived anti-war anthem "For What It's Worth" takes on a whole different meaning - figuratively and literally.

McGowan notes how so few of the Laurel Canyon artists really demanded an end to the war, killing so many of their peers. Jim Morrison? ‘Fraid not. Mr. Mojo Risin’s dad, U.S. Navy Admiral George Stephen Morrison was the man in charge of the naval ship, the U.S.S. Bon Homme Richard, which was involved in the very Gulf of Tonkin incident that led to escalation of the Vietnam War. In fact, McGowan includes a photo of a clean-cut Jim Morrison on the bridge of the infamous ship with his dad in early 1964. Just a few years later he would be asking the world to ‘break on through to the other side” and to “light his fire.” All the while, he largely ignored the politics of the day and had seemingly no musical training or interest. How convenient.

And while Peter Tork, for instance, worked the coffeehouse folk scene in Greenwich Village and was friends with folkie Stephen “The Sarge” Stills, a guy who boasted he had spent time in Vietnam, likely before troops were sent there in the mid-1960’s.

And Tork? What was he allegedly doing before landing a gig as a doltish, bass-playing Monkee on the hit NBC TV series in 1966?

Tork, writes McGowan, “’migrated to Connecticut then Venezuela,’ which was, I suppose, a typical migratory route for folkies in those days.”

I looked into this and sure enough, Tork (then known as Peter Thorkelson) was in South America for a month or so, allegedly visiting family. But was he really? Or was he on some sort of “secret mission” as his pal Stills has implied in the past? Oddly, I have found no official biographical book on Tork and he is decidedly the most mysterious Monkee of the quartet.

And while the mid-20th century spawned many creative people who came from military-linked families, primarily due to the World Wars and the ongoing Cold War, it is strange to see how many of these Laurel Canyon musicians (Zappa, Stills, Phillips and others) and actors (Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Peter Fonda and others) directly descended not only from military families from the East Coast but in some cases from elite families who first settled early America and/or were involved in secret societies.

And sure, we’ve heard rumors about Charles Manson and his songwriting abilities. All true. And members of the Beach Boys (primarily surfer/drummer Dennis Wilson) were among Charlie’s besties. This Wilson brother would die under mysterious circumstances as well, dying while swimming in 1983. Indeed, the canyon has some dark and winding roads – many of them leading to mysterious “suicides.”

… or possible human sacrifices to the Dark Lord. McGowan, in his chapters “Vito and His Freakers: The Sinister Roots of Hippie Culture” and “The Death of Godo Paulekas: Anger’s Infant Lucifer,” we are introduced to debauched guru and self-described “Freak” Vito Paulekas, along with his wife Szou and his disturbing companion Carl Franzoni. These guys helped get The Byrds (a largely untested, musically-limited band which was as much or more of a manufactured act than the derided Monkees, at least in the early years) off the ground by doing spasmodic, freakish dance moves on the dance floors of clubs that sprouted overnight on the Sunset Strip. That freewheelin' behavior cloaked something far more ominous.

Paulekas shows up in the underground film Mondo Hollywood and likely had allowed Satanist and suspected snuff-film creator Kenneth Anger to feature the three-year old Godo as his “Lucifer” in a film he was working on. It is then that Mansonite and former Grass Roots (a different “Grass Roots,” later renamed Love) guitarist Bobby "Cupid" Beausoleil becomes the Luciferian replacement.

“Calling themselves Freaks, they lived a semi-communal life and engaged in sex orgies and free-form dancing whenever they could," writes McGowan, describing Vito and the Freakers.

And when Vito split, Manson happened to show up in his place, because, as McGowan writes, “It makes perfect sense, in retrospect, that Charles Manson and his Family came calling just as Vito fled the scene, and that a Mansonite replaced the freak child (doomed Godo Paulekas, said to have died after falling through a skylight while tripping on acid) as the embodiment of Lucifer. For the truth, you see, is that in many significant ways, Charles Manson was little more than a younger version of Vito Paulekas.”

Hollywood being Hollywood, is it really all that much of a surprise that all the signs point to the Laurel Canyon “peace and love” folk-rock and singer-songwriter scene was likely entirely manufactured? We know drugs were rampant, occult activity commonplace and a bloody trail of corpses that shocks to the core.

Chapters on The Byrds’ troubled Gene Clark and (later) Gram Parsons, along with iron-fisted tyrants like Frank Zappa, Stephen Stills, Arthur Lee and Captain Beefheart; and sex maniacs (and likely incestuous pedophiles) including various Beach Boys and “Papa” John Phillips, all seem to point to something much more hidden and sinister going on in Laurel Canyon. After all, these perceived peaceful hippies had a rather violent, authoritarian streak about them - quite counter to the image one usually conjures when imagining the happy vibes emanating from the Mamas and the Papas as they perform "California Dreamin'" on a TV variety show.

Even the death-obsessed and positively evil Process Church of the Final Judgment played a role in Laurel Canyon and surrounding areas. Just ask one-time cape-wearing David Crosby or any number of lesser-known “musicians” who came even later. For all the ocean breezes, bikini babes and daisies and so forth, the ever-present Southern California sunshine couldn’t possibly pierce the darkness hanging over Laurel Canyon.

Later chapters touch upon New Wave and punk music’s Copeland brothers (which includes Police drummer Stewart Copeland) and the family’s connection with intelligence agencies and another (inexplicably, perhaps) going into illusionist Harry Houdini’s possible link to the early days of Laurel Canyon.

Sure, there could be a lot of coincidences (the writer of The Association's '66 cult-and-drug-flavored hit "Along Comes Mary," Tandyn Almer, just so happens to split L.A. and die in the spooky D.C. suburb of McLean, Virginia, where Morrison, John Phillips, Mama Cass Elliot, Peter Tork and others hung out in their early years), with all these covert ops, serial killers running around and funding that seems to come from nowhere. After all, who paid for all of this for so many years?

McGowan, I should note, is a very personable writer with a breezy and even humorous writing style. I would be giving Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon an excellent rating if it were not for a few editing and spelling errors. I did like the inclusion of a foreward from conspiracy writer Nick Bryant (The Franklin Scandal) and his comments on this book having a healthy sprinkling of the "military/intelligence complex."

And McGowan puts you there in the canyon. I only wish all the photographs he used in his online series, featured at The Center for an Informed America, were here as well. While I was quite familiar with McGowan's wide body of conspiracy research and I had already read a lot of this Laurel Canyon information before, reading it again – and some new nuggets – was well worth it, particularly as I continue my research on my book focusing on the rock music created and/or released in 1966.

To learn more - and I mean more - go to www.davesweb.cnchost.com. And like me, you'll tumble into a rabbit hole from which you will likely never return.

- See more at: http://www.reddirtreport.com/rustys-r...

[Still · Rating 5 out of 5]

EDITED January 3, 2025
Kicked It Up A Star

If you love Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon despite it being nothing but innuendos and horseshit based on 4th person removed rumor mongering you owe it to yourself to read this Babylon-lite take on renowned residents of Laurel Canyon.

The author’s a conspiracy prankster.

What he finds suspicious is that whoever gained Pop Culture relevance in the 1960s and met with financial success and at one time or another resided in Laurel Canyon had familial connections to Counterintelligence, OSS/CIA, Armed Forces, all the way up to the White House.

He finds it odd that bands who’d never previously played musical instruments or even knew one another were suddenly recording for major recording companies, receiving enormous airplay across the nation, selling records in greater numbers than Elvis or Sinatra at their peak, and making tons of money - for quite a while.

The premise seems to be that the entire 1960s-mid to late 70s youth culture movement - that hippie dream of sunshine, psychedelics, rock & roll, and free love- was an MK-Ultra type counterintelligence program with the government financing and assembling bands who’d be the new heroes of the new, American long-haired youth.

They chose corporate American interests (big media, broadcasting companies, etc) to sell back to impressionable young hippie wannabes the hippies’ own visions of a counterculture paradise


Was the entire Pop-psychedelic/Folk Rock counterculture era just another tentacle of MK-Ultra?

You mean all those legendary rock & roll greats didn’t actually play their own instruments on their hit records - it was all studio sessions musicians?

You mean those peace-loving, anti-corporate rock & roll idols of the 60s & 70s weren’t altruistic at all but just a buncha cry baby rich kids?

You mean not one of those lauded rock & roll band members was ever drafted by the military at the height of the Vietnam War? Not one?

You mean some of those musicians hung out with Manson because he had good drugs and hot chicks?

You mean the Boomers have lost all Pop Culture cred in the tall grass of of government manipulation and farmed out fraud?

The horror!
Most of us figured that out decades ago.

Despite the author’s tendency to overwrite and weigh down the text with countless digressions, this is an intensely entertaining book and a cockeyed chronicle of an era when people of a certain age thought they’d discovered their own rock & roll Neverland only to be sold some worthless real estate in their impressionable, young, drug addled brains.

However occasionally laughable some of the author’s claims, this is a well-researched book with scholarly references, a bibliography and index.

Recommended!

[Bill LaBrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most controversial parts of this book touch little on the central question it asks: Was the culture of the time we know as the "Sixties" really just one massive government psy-op intended to derail opposition to the Vietnam War and popular calls for real social change?

If the answer is "yes," this book would be a shocking revelation suggesting our entire world isn't what we've long thought it to be. Bummer.

But far more likely to offend are McGowan's assertions that bands like The Doors and The Byrds weren't real bands at all, and almost none of the musical "greats" of that era were substantially different from those fakest of all fakers, The Monkees. Ultimate outsiders like Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart were undercover toadies working for the status quo. Most of the legendary bands sucked at live performance, and owed their popularity to a troupe of outrageous dancers paid to show up at gigs.

What GAUL! Who the hell does he think he is? It was a legendary time of peace and freedom, man! The Doors! The Doors! I could hear the baby boomers keeling over and falling on their favorite bongs as I paged through the most provocative chapters.

It was with some personal interest I read this tapestry of biographical sketches, historical vignettes, digressions, and leading questions asked with dramatically-raised eyebrows. My mother and father were almost -- though not quite -- part of the "scene." They were living only one canyon over from Laurel when I was born in 1968. They long remembered the massive influx of unwashed and drug-addled young searchers and the resulting Sunset Boulevard riots in '66. At the time, my father was an impresario trying to get a young ingenue (my mother) into the LA music free-for-all. They spent time in the clubs McGowan profiles -- places like Whiskey a Go-Go and Pandora's. Hell, they might have crossed paths with some unsavory characters like Vito Paulekas and Elmer Valentine -- or even Charles Manson himself. It was a wild time, though the real wildness lasted for only two years or so.

What McGowan does best is dig. Here, he's dug up a stunning set of coincidences where bloodlines and story arcs intersect in stupefying ways. What's the likelihood so many of the heroes of that scene came from patrician families with backgrounds in military intelligence and weapons research? Why were obvious murders swept under the carpet as suicides? Why no major drug busts in the Canyon? Why so many home fires conveniently destroying all evidence? Who was paying the bills for the extremely-rough or even talentless before they rose almost inexplicably to near-instant fame? How did the "counterculture" get national TV and radio exposure during a time when media was at least as tightly controlled as it is today, and at least as beholden to "the establishment?" Why so many "activist" figures who toted handguns and had a history of traveling from one global hot-spot to another before suddenly picking up guitars and singing about peace and love?

McGowan’s assertion: This can't all be explained away with the dreamy word "serendipity." It was all too weird. Someone -- or a group of someones -- was pulling the strings, and with some end in mind.

Weird Scenes is a document of a time when an unprecedented convocation of young people from elite military and intelligence backgrounds gathered with their poorly-tuned guitars in one small part of Southern California, concentrated in a single canyon beneath mountaintop covered by a secret, self-contained government movie studio, and changed the music world forever. This much we know to be objectively true. And in itself, it's stranger than fiction.

Some annoyances: McGowan uses satire and sarcasm to excess. It's enough to undermine his serious argument. There are too many Oh yeah. Right. Uh-huh. Surrrrre . . . flourishes in response to the “official” accounts. Such things are at best seasonings, not a full course. He tends compare the artists' lifestyles to that of an average American-Joe strawman. Musicians aren't average Joes. Even the ones who aren't presumed CIA assets tend to do things Middle-America would see as "weird." Also, McGowan's digressions are charming and entertaining but often don't really support the main premise. What they really do is add page count. It's OK, Dave: As a fellow author I've been there myself.

Nowadays -- just as back then -- all of mass media is an ad for something. The sudden, inexplicable rise of the Laurel Canyon phenomenon should force anyone to question what it was really advertising, and who was paying the tab.

I'd recommend Weird Scenes to the conspiracy-minded as well as those interested in the culture and music of the time, though readers in the latter group should be prepared to witness a few sacred cows slaughtered.

[Curt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love a good conspiracy theory, however this is not a good one. Conjecture and coincidence do not make a theory. Disjointed and reaching. There were many interesting ideas but no real connections and where were the covert-ops promised in the subtitle.

[Avis Black · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat amusing, but the author should have done more research. He assumes that the fact that a lot of Laurel Canyon musicians in the 1960s had fathers who had been in the military is a conspiracy. Actually, this has to do with the fact that the US Army drafted 10 million American men for World War II, and when these men formed families and had their first wave of kids, these kids were born in the 1940s, and hit adulthood in the late 1960s. These were, as you likely guessed, the first wave of the Baby Boomers. A LOT of the older Baby Boomers had fathers who had been in the military because of Uncle Sam, not a conspiracy. Of COURSE a lot of rock musicians had fathers who had been military, because a huge amount of other young people their age--who were not rock musicians--did too. It's demographics, not a conspiracy.

Secondly, the author thinks it's a conspiracy that some of these rock and roll fathers were in intelligence. Sorry to say this, but average men with average intelligence, upon being drafted by the US military, tend to end up as grunts in the ranks. The US military is not a democracy. They give
you tests to assess your innate ability, and if you have brains, you tend to be given the smart guy jobs, such as working in intelligence. Many well-known rock musicians have a higher-than-average IQ and creativity, and it's likely their fathers did too. Other jobs reserved for smart guys are staff jobs, but the army has always liked to reserve these for West Point graduates so the army gets staffers who know what they're doing from day one. Intelligence is where you tend to end up if you're a smart guy who has no previous military training, in other words, a recent civilian draftee.

Thirdly, the author thinks it's a conspiracy that so many of these rock musicians ended up in Los Angeles. Well, many of them were brought their by their fathers, who moved there either during or after World War II. During the war, LA had a major population expansion because it was the most important US mainland military base for the Pacific War. As the war geared up, LA became the equivalent of a great big company town with the US government as the main employer. Los Angeles was also, in the late 1940s, seen as a wonderful place to live and raise your children. It was still cheap and a not overgrown place to live, had good weather, and an aura of glamour because of Hollywood. Many ex-servicemen, after having had a taste of the place, decided to stay there after the war to raise their families. Again, this is not a conspiracy, but demographics.

The author does give you a bit of interesting musical history, if you can ignore his constant harping on his hobbyhorses. One of these is the fact that a lot of the 1960s musicans did not play their own instruments, but were mainly vocal groups supported by the Wrecking Crew, a bunch of studio musicians employed by the major labels. Well, guess what, this is still true today. From the beginnings of rock and roll until now, many of the biggest names and sellers are basically singers with studio back-up musicians. We even have rap, in which the 'musicians' don't even sing, much less play an instrument. Playing an instrument well needs good genes and hard work, and it's not a accident there are many singers out there who have not mastered one. Real talent in music, finding a lone musician who plays well, sings well, and who can write good songs, is incredibly rare.

McGowan says a lot of the 1960s groups sounded fine in the studio, but tended to suck on stage, and from what I've found while prowling old videos on Youtube, this is true. In the beginning of the book McGowan says he became disillusioned by many of his 1960s idols the more he learned about them. It's not too surprising to find your idols are made of sand and fall apart at the first touch, but wiser people realize it's smarter not to mindlessly worship idols at all.

[Paul Christensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A popular revisionist work implying that the Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, music scene of the late 1960’s was engineered by the CIA to divert rebellious youth from the anti-war cause.

I found much of it unconvincing, however there are two points in the author’s favour:

1. The sheer amount of musicians in the Laurel Canyon scene whose parents worked in military intelligence. Jim Morrison’s father was literally the commander behind the Gulf of Tonkin ‘incident’ that was the casus belli for America’s entry into Vietnam, and in fact most of these ‘L.A.’ musicians were actually from northern Virginia (home of the Pentagon, CIA etc.)

2. The uncanny, lightning-fast speed with which the L.A. scene (starting with manufactured group The Byrds) were promoted by the corporate media.

Outside these points, however, everything is very murky and nebulous, and as the book lacks footnotes it’s hard to check McGowan’s sources.

Also, he seems to labouring under the misapprehension that hippies were all Gandhi-style pacifists, and that when a musician owned or enjoyed guns there’s some sinister double standard at work, meaning they’re not who they say they are.

In reality, the ‘pacifism’ of the hippies is itself a media fiction…many genuine hippies believed in violence in self-defence. My novel ‘Greybeard’ concerns an elderly hippy who goes on a killing rampage in Germany when his grandson is murdered by Merkel’s hordes, which isn’t exactly a far-fetched scenario.



Much of McGowan’s writing reads like some kind of dark gossip column, whereby he delights in showing what degenerates most of these people were.

Admittedly, most of the music is forgettable. With the exception of ‘Californa Dreaming’, Love’s Forever Changes, and ironically, Charles Manson, it’s dreary stuff. Only the most slovenly, beer-gutted boomer crying demented tears of nostalgia over the memory of his first joint could possibly find pleasure in the likes of Frank Zappa, or Crosby, Stills and Nash.

If the scene really was engineered by the CIA, they could have picked better songwriters, lol.

NB - McGowan's essay ‘Wagging the Moondoggie’, (https://centerforaninformedamerica.co...) is better reasoned and structured than this rather rambling book.

[Carla Remy · Rating 3 out of 5]

02/2020

More bands in this canyon rock scene than I knew could not play their instruments very well. Those excellent session musicians loosely known as The Wrecking Crew played on the records. And the labels happily sold and promoted the faces (and voices). As was always typical. This book points out the coincidence that so many of this scene have high level family connections to the military. I just thought, wow, well connected rich kids. I think it was about money, selling records. But there could be involvement by the CIA, Secret Service, Mafia or Satanists. Maybe not all of them. But some of it could be true.

[Ionfarmer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is unreadable. I pulled the plug at 5%. It comes at you with the promise of a good evil hippie conspiracy and in the process of recalling the past, kicks over the slide projector, puts the slides back in out of order and upside down, forgets to focus the projector, and then begs you to connect the dots on ridiculous conjecture. And I like ridiculous conjecture.

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A real grass-roots cultural revolution would probably have involved a bunch of starving musicians barely scratching out a living playing tiny coffee shops in the hopes of maybe someday landing a record deal with some tiny, independent label, and then, just maybe if they got really lucky, getting a little airplay on some obscure college radio stations. But that’s not how the sixties folk-rock ‘revolution’ played out. Not by any stretch of the imagination.”

No, not even close.

I have a neighbor who is well into his 60s now, retired from a professional career in education. In his youth he spent a number of years knocking around the Phoenix area in various rock bands hoping for that big break. Of course it never happened and, finally, reality set in and he embarked on his career in education. He enjoyed most of his time in music and doesn’t regret any of it. One of the things he told me is one of those universal truths everyone should take to heart. “It’s not who you know that makes it for you. It’s who knows you.”

In the early 90’s I was one of those struggling, not quite starving, musicians playing in tiny coffee shops, getting paid in tips and hoping that one day someone might recognize our talent and pull us out of our wretched existence as accounting clerks for a fancy-schmancy resort in Scottsdale. Of course that never happened. No one knew us. Finally I tossed my guitar picks into an ashtray and went back to school for an accounting degree to go along with my old English degree. But who cares?

This book takes a look at the whole, weird and creepy, Laurel Canyon scene of the mid to late 60s. We’ve seen most of the approved and authorized bios of bands like The Byrds, The Mamas and the Papas, Buffalo Springfield, The Doors and so on. We take it on its face that Laurel Canyon was home to a pool of incredibly talented young artists who, seemingly out of nowhere, got together and started a cultural revolution through music that spoke to a generation. Instead, David McGowan blows that shit aside and gives you the real scoop on the whole Laurel Canyon scene. Turns out that these hippies and artists weren’t exactly unknown nobodies strumming guitars and writing earnest songs of change, but rather a bunch of privileged, well-off children from families with long pedigreed connections to, not just the entertainment industry, but to the military industrial complex. Bands like The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield formed in “cabins” in the Canyon and somehow within a few months had record deals and television appearances, often before they had their own instruments or could even play at a competent level. That’s okay though. Session musicians like the famous “Wrecking Crew” did the heavy lifting in the studios while artists like David Crosby and friends got high, wielded pistols and chased teenage girls around the pool. Managers and producers from both the entertainment industry and organized crime created the revolution by means both cynical and nefarious. Freak squads led by Vito Paulekas and Carl Franzoni helped to fill the clubs where these new bands played. Celebrities like Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper added the endorsements and gravitas. Magazines and TV did the rest. Outsiders like Charles Manson and Beausoleil helped supply the kicks. And wasn’t it strange that for such long-haired anti-establishment, down with the Man, attitudes these very same artists got the full endorsement and push by established and the conservative print, television, record label and entertainment industry. And how exactly did all of them, to a person, avoid the draft while so many other kids their age had to go? Could it be those family connections they didn’t like to speak of in their interviews with TIGER BEAT, CREEM and ROLLING STONE?

And then there are a whole lot of violent and mysterious deaths to spice up the action. This book manages to trace various degrees of separation to bizarre murders, suicides, arsons, mind control experiments and despair that extended well into the 70s and after.

Is all of this true? Is any of this true? I guess that’s for the reader to decide. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It appealed to my innate cynicism regarding anything to do with show business and the music industry. I’ve always been one of those guys who secretly roll their eyes and tune out when some chrome-topped boomer starts waxing on about Woodstock and his generation and how they changed the world before they cut their hair and built their stock portfolios and hedge funds and voted for politicians like Reagan, George W and Trump.

On a final note: David Crosby passed while I was reading this book. I’ve never read anything about the music scene that didn’t paint David Crosby as an intolerable and arrogant prick who poisoned every band and relationship he was part of. This book is no different. His death was followed by all kinds of tributes and accolades to his musical genius. I was in a bar with some friends when one of them, he’s in his mid-60s, raised his beer and said “Hey everyone. To David Crosby. What a loss.” I didn’t say anything and raised my beer to join them. I figured it was best to just be polite and keep my mouth shut about this weird and wild book I was reading. That’s just how I was raised.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't believe I've said OMG so many times while reading a book. It's well written and easy to read. His little humorous, sarcastic quips make it fun. There is a lot of information in this book to digest. David McGowan has connected all the dots and leaves the reader to decide what to believe. There seems to have been many strange things happening in the hippie/music culture in Laurel Canyon during the 60's and 70's. The only thing that would have improved the book would have been photos & documents. I'll be going through the selected bibliography and filmography looking for more good reads. I hope the research will be continued. Check out the author's website: Center for an Informed America http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/

[Cav · Rating 1 out of 5]

Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon was a disjointed, rambling mess... I came across the book by chance, and decided to see where the author would take the writing.
I had previously read and enjoyed Tom O'Neill's epic book Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, and wondered if the writing here would dovetail with the writing there.

Author David McGowan was born and raised in Torrance, California, just twenty miles south of Laurel Canyon. He graduated from UCLA with a degree in psychology and has, since 1990, run a small business in the greater Los Angeles area.

David McGowan:


The book is a revisionist/conspiracy work, that implies that the music scene in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles in the late 1960’s was "engineered" by the CIA to dissuade rebellious youth from the anti-war cause.
(Whew, lad, that's a spicy conspiracy).
The author says:

"The question that we will be tackling is a more deeply troubling one: “what if the musicians themselves (and various other leaders and founders of the ‘movement’) were every bit as much a part of the intelligence community as the people who were supposedly harassing them?” What if, in other words, the entire youth culture of the 1960s was created not as a grass-roots challenge to the status quo, but as a cynical exercise in discrediting and marginalizing the budding anti-war movement and creating a fake opposition that could be easily controlled and led astray? And what if the harassment these folks were subjected to was largely a stage-managed show designed to give the leaders of the counterculture some much-needed ‘street cred’?
What if, in reality, they were pretty much all playing on the same team?"

The "proof" for such wild claims presented here closely resembles the popular meme of the frantic guy connecting strings together on a wall of newspaper clippings:



A series of tragic events in a highly populated area where many creative types lived during a culturally-transformative time; combined with musicians coming from military families apparently constitute some type of compelling evidence, asserts the author:

"...If, for example, just a few prominent Laurel Canyon musicians happened to come from military/intelligence families, then we could probably safely write that off as an interesting but largely inconsequential aberration.
But if an uncanny number of the leading lights of the Laurel Canyon scene grew up in such an environment, then that is clearly a meaningful pattern. And if a few of the new breed of stars happened to have violent death intrude upon their personal lives, then that would be a tragic but largely inconsequential fact. But when it becomes clear that violent death surrounded the entire scene, with whole families at times dying off under suspicious circumstances, then that again is a distinguishing pattern—and one that has been all but ignored by other chroniclers of the scene."

Unfortunately, alarm bells also rang here for me early on, when the author says that he holds strong leftist political sentiments, but assures the reader that he will leave politics out of the book. Sadly, he did not. He launches into a quote about the war in Vietnam being a "crime against humanity" in almost the next paragraph. Oh boy...

Now I'm admittedly somewhat a fan of intriguing mysteries, secret plots, and/or conspiracies. Especially if they are well-evidenced. Sadly, this one was not. The case forwarded here relies on no more than a string of coincidences that all share roughly the same location. I kept waiting for the author to tie all these people together in a coherent plot, but he never did...

As well; the writing did not pass muster, either. I found the author's style to be all over the place. McGowan frantically rattles off countless different famous people, locations, and events, with little-to-no regard for continuity... The author also drops in many superfluous asides to his writing frequently; saying things like "Are we supposed to believe...?", "Ya, sure...", and other snark remarks.
The book also seriously lacks a narrative flow. McGowan machine-guns names, places, and events at the reader for almost the entire duration, without ever tying the events together in anything that resembles a coherent storyline.

If what McGowan asserts was true, and the 60's "counterculture" scene was actually a product of the American Intelligence community to dissuade/discredit, and/or overturn anti-war sentiment, then history shows that this was actually a piss-poor plan that achieved roughly the polar opposite of what it was supposed to.
Now I'm no public relations mastermind, but it seems to me that if I wanted to create pro-war sentiment as a top-down propagandist, I would probably endeavor to enhance or amplify this sentiment, and not oppose it...

Historically speaking; propaganda works by the top-down dissemination of a simplistic, often jingoistic interpretation of a complex, nuanced issue; combined with repetition. Joseph Goebbels famously said: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it..."

Finally, and most damningly, the base case laid out here completely fails to show a proposed mechanism of action that would support the author's assertions. The writing here is quite literally a frenetic lumping together of many misfortunes and famous people; circa southern California in the 60s. How is it all connected, and how did it work?? WHO KNOWS...


**************************

Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon was a jumbled mess. The writing style was terrible, the base case laid out here was completely unconvincing, and the book was way too long (the audio version I have clocked in at a hefty ~14 hours).
TBH, the author sounds like he's a borderline schizophrenic. Sadly, I read that he died of cancer in 2015. How sad. RIP.
I would definitely not recommend this one.
1 star.

[Bob Schnell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do you like classic rock, conspiracies, Hollywood, UFOs, serial killers, the occult, spy stories and militarized mind control? Then this is the book for you. "Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon" takes an interesting approach to those strange years between the 1960s and 70s , especially as they played out in the area of Los Angeles known as Laurel Canyon. The problem with this book is that it tells a lot of stories of mysterious and macabre happenings but shrouds everything in accusatory tones that never manage to accuse anyone. Every suicide is "alleged", every cause of death is "reported to be"and all events are "supposedly" what happened. Information sources for this book include emails from people David McGowan never met, anonymous postings on his website, a lot of rock musician biographies and even movies such as "The Trip" and "Head". Not exactly the usual criteria for a non-fiction book. Maybe we should call it "speculative non-fiction".

What really got my goat was that the author never even attempted to contact the survivors of that scene to get their take on it. He mentions people like Peter Tork, Michelle Phillips, Eric Burdon and John Kay often enough but there isn't a single interview with them. He could have also consulted the LAPD or the local archives for material but no mention is made of those sources. What Mr. McGowan has is a collection of facts, a lot of coincidences and hearsay but no conclusion to tie it all together. I enjoyed it as a book of stories about people and places that interest me, but whatever journalistic leanings the author had just left me shaking my head.

UPDATE: I just discovered that the author passed away from cancer last month. I will not say "allegedly" or hint at any nefarious machinations, though he most certainly would have done so himself. RIP Mr. McGowan, I hope you've found the truth you were seeking.

[Aaron Singleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book every fan of rock 'n roll music from the 60's and 70's in particular should read. It is a history of sorts, a hidden history of murder, torture, mind control, sex, drugs, the occult, gov't spooks, and money, all within the cozy confines of Laurel Canyon.

From the very first page you are presented with facts you will doubt. Once you verify they ARE facts, you'll be off and running, sometimes scared. McGowan paints a picture of the LA music scene of the 60's you have never seen before; one crawling with government "agents" and snitches, with musicians who come from a long line of career military families or American royalty. You will be shocked to learn that many of your favorite hippy musicians were gun-toting control freaks or in possession of an alternate personality who believes he is a gov't assassin, or... Well, you get the picture.

I have to say that after reading this book, I was a bit melancholy. I suppose that knowing many of your heroes were fakes and plants will do that to one.

Besides the music industry and its strange ties to gov't agencies like the CIA, Dave also explores the strange history of Hollywood from the silent era and Houdini to the Manson family. The connections are endless, baffling. Do yourself a favor and read this book. And by all means verify what is written therein independently. Only then will you understand the power of the dark side...

Update: The writer and researcher Dave McGowan died recently from cancer. He was an original thinker, a man who could find the weak point of any argument in seconds, a meticulous researcher, a father, a brother, a son. I did not know the man, but I got to know him through his work and felt a kinship. So, Rest in Peace, Dave, and thank you for your work.

[Stephen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Failed to make his point.

There is a lot of guilt by association in his "accounts", the author seems to be attempting to connect military intelligence to the Laurel Canyon scene, while overlooking and glossing over the much stronger connection to the occult.

[boo909 · Rating 1 out of 5]

He's collated a wonderful trove of pretty well known coincidences (and widened his net to take in some extremely tenuous ones) but alas (one of his favourite words annoyingly), it's just that, there's no corroborating evidence to support, the theory he's built around them, he's not interviewed anyone of any note, there are lots of "seems", "I feels" and "It goes without sayings", he's basically just collated a lot of stuff (some of it discredited now) of off Wikipedia and constructed a far fetched theory based on it. He has some good points and if he was at least a half a competent writer he could have made this into something interesting even without the evidence but, alas, he's incapable of that, which is a shame because there could very well be a few valid points buried in here a amongst the sarcasm and snarkiness, is he a CIA mole set up to discredit the theory? I can't think that anyone would publish this, unless that were the case so perhaps his sheer amateurism proves his point, who can tell? Certainly not David McGowan.

I read this off the back of O'Neill's Chaos (which I thought made some compelling points and at least made you think), expecting a similar well researched book on a related subject, you won't get that here unfortunately, as personal as Chaos was, this comes across as a personal vendetta, the constant insulting asides about even the most insignificant players ("Carol, alas, perhaps weighed down by her enormous breasts,managed to drown in barely a foot of water"), the generalisations (to paraphrase, most of them were "terrible musicians that couldn't play live"), just completely undermined his argument, why focus on this sort of obvious bullshit if there was actually a case to be made, it really read like an extended Reddit post.

I would like to see someone with the chops to a actually take this on, there's possibly something here to look at, not such a broad ranging conspiracy as McGowan has laid out but it's worth a look and it would be nice to see someone with an ounce of intelligence have a butchers.

5 stars for the idea, 1 star for the execution (I mean he actually put quite a few words together one after the other, that's got to be worth a star hasn't it?). Probably not going to bother with any more of his books unless anyone recommends otherwise.

[Dirk · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, after WWII the US Navy decides to undergo a massive social mind-control experiment involving the non-consensual recruitment of top naval officers’ children who were then subject to either domestic violence or great privilege, or both depending on a complex system of naval algorithms, exposing the progeny to childhoods reeking of weird deaths, suicide and mental illness, in-turn constructing hyper-creative/self destructive artistic types with a penchant for communal living in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles who would then form “psychedelic” bands intended to distract teenagers from protesting the Vietnam War which ultimately created a large group of “hippies” who were prone to getting hit by cars, dying in motorcycle accidents, going to prison, overdosing, being murdered by occultists and having their houses burned down.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

There really isn’t a unifying thesis here other than outrageous coincidence, shady goings-on, and vague tie-ins with the military and intelligence communities. I kept waiting for the point, or the crisis moment, and it isn’t there. I’m rating this book four stars anyway for being wildly entertaining, full of crazy stories and information I never knew (surprise me and I’m your fan forever), and giving me a hundred rabbit holes to follow.

Tom O’Neill’s recently released Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties looks like a great companion piece to Weird Scenes, and I’m reading it next.

[Tom Fogleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding book. I first read the story online at the beginning of 2014. I purchased the book as soon as it came out. Most books covering the Laurel Canyon music scene give a glorified, idealistic setting to the burgeoning hippie scene. This book doesn't. It shines a light on the many unsavory aspects of the developing scene. It highlights items that get glossed over or underreported. For example, how many people would guess the scene had numerous military connections? How many people would know of Charles Manson's presence throughout the scene? Probably not many. McGowan doesn't tell what to think about it. He gives the reader the information allows you to come to some of your own conclusions. He peppers his story with dry humor and a touch of sarcasm when something seems unusual. Many of these stars are major names. Quite a number of them are in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Sure, it's a bit of a lurid tale of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. It also shows some of the darker aspects of that lifestyle, like death, pedophilia and the occult. Subjects that aren't typical of what people think of that lifestyle. An outstanding if unknown account of an important juncture in both pop culture and American history.

[Angie and the Daily Book Dose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading this guys blog posts several years before the book was published. The book itself is full of interesting facts and anecdotes about the area surrounding Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles. The book is a fun read if you are a lover of history, conspiracy, and musical biography. At times the author jumps around a little. The book might have benefited from a little more editing, but over all for what it's worth I really did enjoy the conspiracy aspect of it all. For all things to converge in one place and one time, kinda interesting, kinda creepy.

I am waiting for a definitive book on the Wonderland Murders, which are mentioned several times in the book. Someone out there write one!

[Pete daPixie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just like the back roads of Laurel Canyon, David McGowan's 'Weird Scenes' meandered, twisted and turned through serendipity and conjecture. I found it difficult to really engage with a narrative that was loaded with references to 'other accounts' or 'some reports'. I do not doubt for a moment that Laurel Canyon and L.A. became the epicentre of the drug fuelled hippie dreamland that became twisted in some very dark scenes inside the goldmine, but too many mysteries and rumours remain, with too few provable facts to hang onto this narrative.

[Eryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended!! Excellent study on the dark side of the Aquarian Age (circa 1960's). Blown away by the ties he makes and some of the research here. A must read for anyone into this era of history!!

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recently I went to an evening with Pattie Boyd (wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton) and famed Laurel Canyon photographer of the 1960s and 1970s Mr. Henry Diltz. Henry was SO NICE. All smiles, we (as his audience) spent a long time going through slide after slide of all of his photos with Crosby Stills Nash and Young, with Joni Mitchell and with other famous bands of that era coming out of Laurel Canyon. I was just coming off of finishing up this book on the dark, seedy underbelly of that scene so this was a weird contrast. The sunny facade of the Mamma and the Papas and their feel good music for example is in strict contrast to what author David McGowan presents in this book as to what was really happening during this time.

There are 2 things with this book: lots of factual data on many deaths of many people during this time both suspicious and otherwise pure homicide. Charles Manson gets mentioned a lot. Other nasty topics like rock and roll's dip into the dark magic, incest and snuff films are mentioned. Of course a lot of this information is speculation and cannot be definitively proven so to speak. So the 2 things I was referencing is in regards to the fact that David takes factual events and then weaves them with speculation. This aspect of the book is difficult since you can't really tell fact from fiction. Beyond that David has a grand conspiracy as to the CIA involvement in Laurel Canyon mainly because so many of the artists during this era had parents who were in the military, many in high ranks. There was also a secret military base during this era in Laurel Canyon so David is making broad sweeping assumptions that something sinister was at play with these bands beyond making songs. This part of his theory was very weak and too much conjecture for me to believe.

Bottom line is that there is no doubt that dark things were happening in this era of LA beyond the feel good music. If you want a 'guilty pleasure' book that is in a similar vein of Hollywood Babylon you should pick this up (Kenneth Anger gets multiple shout outs in the book too).

[Christopher Bevard · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, and there's some interesting historical info here. As a whole, it's just all over the place, digressing as often as it stays on track, and attempting to connect seemingly disconnected incidents together with varying degrees of success.

My main complaint is just that I don't really get what the thesis of this whole thing was going for--that the so-called counterculture and youth culture movements of the 60s were somehow a product of the intelligence community? Is anyone really surprised by that possibility? Maybe I'm jaded - I just didn't feel like there were any real revelations here, as the occult and drug connections that many of the people mentioned here were supposedly part of isn't really news anymore--or at very least, it's not hard to believe. Would really benefit from objective editorial eyes.

[Xanxa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Told in an engaging conversational style, this book takes us behind the scenes at this lesser-known heart of hippiedom. Most of us have heard of Haight-Ashbury but until my husband got hold of this book, I'd never heard of Laurel Canyon.

The author does warn readers that many of the anecdotes included in this book will tear down the fabric of the hippie dream, revealing the more sordid and disturbing private lives of some beloved musicians and influencers of the 60s and 70s.

It begins decades before, dealing with other famous and notorious figures from the entertainment industry who lived in the Canyon before it became a haven for rock stars and their entourages of managers, promoters, dancers and other hangers-on.

One of my heroes, Frank Zappa, has his life deconstructed and analysed. Also featured are many well-known names from Harry Houdini, Beach Boys, Mamas and Papas, right up to the punk and new wave scene of the late 70s and early 80s. Charles Manson also appears, lauded as a talented musician as well as a charismatic cult leader.

It delves into politics and military too, revealing connections between Governmental figures and these hedonistic thrill-seekers that the average music fan would never have imagined.

I had to look up some of the references, because a lot of it revolves around US cultural figures and incidents. I don't mind doing this, because it enhances my knowledge and helps me to place unknown people and events into their proper context.

Only read this book if you're prepared to find out unsavoury details about much-loved stars of music and movies.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the most basic idea presented here is true: that media and entertainment are (and have always been) orchestrated by hidden, powerful influences far more than we know. I read this book while taking McGowan's ideas with a grain of salt; for me, some of his points fell flat, some were bordering on nonsense, and some were intriguing (and convincing) enough to have me thinking about them for days. Could have benefited from a little more explanation and a little less snark - at times I couldn't quite get the point that was being made with a particular explanation, no matter how many times the author danced around it with "Coincidence? I THINK NOT." Overall an enjoyably unnerving read, especially for those who are interested in the 60s counterculture and LA music scene.

[Smiley III · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for if you live in this world, and want to know more about Jim Morrison's dad being the naval commander behind the Gulf of Tonkin incident (yes, that one!). Great help if you weren't aware of all the ties the Manson family had -- not just with Dennis Wilson, either -- with all these hippie-dippy folks, most of whom carried guns (like David Crosby) or at least liked them a lot (like David Crosby). Read about "Papa" John Phillip and the other kids of the Complex who descended on Laurel Canyon when there wasn't much there and made all this stuff happen ... on the bright side, Bob Dylan comes off good 'cause he isn't even mentioned. It's a weird world.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is pretty ridiculous. The facts are interesting and probably true but the author tries to weave them together in a very far fetched way. He makes a lot out of the fact that a lot of these Laurel Canyon musicians had parents in the military. That’s not a surprise to me because WW2 was happening around the time they were born. Everyone was in the military then! And sometimes a car accident is just a car accident not a plot by the CIA to take out a drunk hippy.

[Richard Haynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

One to read if you were captivated by the Laurel Canyon musical bands. Gives one a lot to think about for sure.