Thursday 10 December 2020

Laruel Canyon (Wow, I Spelled That Wrong, Nice!)

I thought I'd treat myself to another streaming service (I have Netflix already) and so I signed up for Crave - which is, I think, a Canadian company but has a lot of "big hitters" like HBO and, well, there is very little if any crossover to Netflix so it's kind of like all the things Netflix doesn't have.  Ok, not all but some... you know?

About a day in I realized it didn't have that many things I wanted to watch and so couldn't really justify the cost to myself, but they have a week's trial anyway, so one of the things I did watch was a two part documentary about Laurel Canyon and the music that came out of there in the mid sixties.  It's all a lot of music I really like and connect with and I knew some of the stories (think Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills, Nash and Young, Buffalo Springfield, Mamas and Papas, etc etc) but I also learned some things I hadn't really gone that far into.

There's another documentary about the place, time, and folks on Netflix, but it was a bit more music based than story based, but they did compliment each other nicely. 

I miss that music.  I miss the energy that came from and through them.  I wasn't alive at the time, so I don't know what it was like to be discovering that music as it came out or what it was like to either be part of that scene or removed from it or even against it.  I once asked my parents about Woodstock (they weren't there, or even remotely people who would have considered going to it) and from what I recall they said something about how those weren't "their kind of people"  or something like that.  So I've always reminded myself that the sixties wasn't all hippies, and it wasn't all "peace, free love" and whatever.  I wish I could have lived through some of what the documentaries showed.... all these creative, musical people just hanging out in each others living rooms with guitars and making music and creating magic.  Of course I don't know if or how I would have fit in but still... I can long for a time and place I don't know.

At least one of the musicians they interviewed talked about how for just a couple of years it was a really magical place, like the renaissance or something, and man, I sure love the sound and the music that came out of it, and I don't know if or when we'll see something gel like that again.

No comments: