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  • Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon

  • Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops, and the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream
  • By: David McGowan
  • Narrated by: Bill Fike
  • Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (89 ratings)
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Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon cover art

Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon

By: David McGowan
Narrated by: Bill Fike
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Summary

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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What listeners say about Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon

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Smashed the Fourth wall

An absolute mind expansion of a listen thats smashed the fourth wall - superb narration.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Well researched

The claims of this book are incredible... The fact that it is well researched, with names and dates so accurately. Leads one to be believe it is fact. Wow!

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4 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing and Inciteful

A fascinating read. As soon as I finished the book I went on the hunt for a another by this author.

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4 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

bad style, speculative content

Listening is a bit like grading year 10 essays: no narration, just a boring listing of events and characters, name dropping, mor listings, evidence is scarce (the fact that soandso many people lived next to soandso many others does not exatly prove anything). Interspersed with adolescent expressions of unnecessary irony "oh, wait for it!" "does anyone really think..?" ... to be followed by more triring lists of who happened to have met some of the same people in some of the same places - as if that meant anything. No analysis, no interesting background, nothing. It's half boring, half annoying.

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

Fascinating trip down the rabbit hole

Got through this in a couple of days
Very enjoyable
Fascinating read
Highly recommended this work

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Simply jaw dropping stuff.

If you consciously decide to wipe away all the preconceived MSM preamble about famous pop, rock and film stars, you will appreciate that nothing or nobody is famous accidentally, not without someone deciding their fate beforehand. A remarkable tome.

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2 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Could have been much better

There are things in this book that are undeniably true, like the links between military and naval intelligence with most of the residents of Laurel Canyon, or the fact that the young musicians and actors seem somehow to have escaped the draft without any consequences. But the writer often goes off on a tangent when describing events or characters with only a very tenuous link to the main participants, and then he rambles on for such a long time that you forget what he was talking about. A lot of the joining of the dots only results in circumstantial evidence that would have been laughed out of court. Above all, the knowing, sarcastic tone of the book begins to grate after a while. There are only so many times you can hear 'You'll never guess what', and 'Would you believe it' without wanting to scream. This book could have done with a good editor who could have separated the wheat from the chaff and got rid of all the inconsequntial fluff and made it a solid work of research. Even now I think if the David McGowan's estate can be persuaded, someone can knock this book into shape, if only for the important information it contains.

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1 person found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Get the foil on

Great book although evidence seems mostly rumours and theory. The weirder the theories around the CIA the more likely they are actually accurate

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

-You need hippies....

...is not a statement I hear much, if ever,
After listening to this, pop over to the Sheep Farm for more tasty nonsense.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Wow

Some speculation, but mostly eye opening information. I can hardly believe acts that I’ve listed to and enjoyed over the years are involved in such a culture.

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