The canyon contemplates what it had been and what it was in fact becoming as the end of the '70s loomed. "Your ballroom days are over, baby," Jim Morrison had warned, "night is drawing near..."
Brilliant capture of that cultural inflection point. The Gary Kellgren portrait - becoming "completely dissolute" even while still producing at the Record Plant - perfectly crystallizes the canyon's late 70s paradox. Still functioning professionally but spiritually hollowed out. Saw something similar hapenin tech booms where success metrics keep climbing while the underlying culture corrodes.
Fabulous writing about my hometown and glam to punk! I am on the last chapter of the book BTW, I am a slow reader these days but I absolutely love your writing Michael. I saw Michael Des Barres in the 80's at the Roxy. My girlfriend and I decided we would dress glam and in the bathroom Pamela DesBarres and Melanie Griffiths approved our gear as we said we wanted to be groupies like the GTOS. Off we went to the front of the stage and Michael stops mid song points at me and says "I love your boa." That was a defining moment for our short lived groupie stage. I missed out on Rodneys English Disco. I was a few years too young but I wanted to be just like those girls Lori and Sable and Pamela hanging out with the rock stars. Then there were The Runaways, that was amazing...Cherie and Joan Jett in platform boots! L.A. was amazing. I got in on the punk scene in clubs in the valley Godzillas and Perkins Palace in Pasadena. Then the whole new wave/power pop scene and all the great bands coming from the UK playing the Hollywood Palladium. Music was cool all the way through the brit pop shoegaze scene when all those Creation Records bands were touring the States...playing at the Whiskey, Roxy etc. To me Disco didn't kill it, rap/hip hop did.
This is great, Michael. I've ordered your 1973 book and already have your Laurel Canyon book. Any other suggestions in terms of your writing on the history of rock 'n' roll?
Thanks! And thanks especially for ordering What You Want Is in the Limo, hope you enjoy. You might like my most recent book, Delta Lady, the memoir I wrote with Rita Coolidge, who was all over the L.A. music scene in the '70s--Leon Russell and Stephen Stills wrote songs about her, she was Graham Nash's girlfriend (some credit her for breaking up CSN, but I'm not so sure), plus her epic eight-year marriage to Kris Kristofferson before she broke through her cover of "(Your Love Is Lifting Me) Higher."
Yes, I have Delta Lady and have read it. Thought it was great, and will hopefully be using it to write a post on Rita at some point. I hadn't known all the relationships and connections she had. I especially liked the voice and tone of the book, very relatable.
Thanks, keep in mind that was filmed at NBC studios in Burbank--the wild audience reaction is a measure of how popular glam was in L.A. back in the day. (Note that Bolan switches out his vintage Les Paul for a stunt guitar before brings down the whip in the finale...)
I was skimming when I saw Frank's name and had to skim to read (now I've saved... it's getting past my self-appointed bedtime) - that was the Nikki Sixx I knew.... he and his band moved in downstairs from me on Clark St. in late 79, and they were the WORST neighbors (as you can imagine.). I worked at the Whisky a GoGo at the time, booking the "local bands night" and Nikki would be the one to call to get bookings. One day, when I had no slots to give and he was being insistent, I HAD TO pull the "you don't know who I am, do you?" and he said, "Yeah, Theresa, you book the locals night." I replied, "I live in apartment 306." Dead silence. Three of the Crue lived in apartment 206. They threw girls out the window into the pile of topsoil below (left there for the landscaping project for the building behind us). They KNEW they were bad neighbors.
Anyhoo... now your storytelling is paralleling the timeline of my own memoir.... I may have to take a hiatus from you. I've done that with books that cover the same time/experience. It's kind of a bummer because I have 3 friends who published their memoirs during this writing period and they're all "did you read my book?" and they're all 3 in mine... so, nope. I finally DID read Mike Campbell's because Benmont kinda pressured me - but it was good, since I committed all my Heartbreakers stuff to page, gave Benmont a copy of my rough draft ("so Mike and everyone else writing about 1973-1980 knows I'm NOT copying them" - that's what friends are for, right?)
And Gary Kjellgren.... my first rock n roll jobs involved babysitting (the actual rock stars - not their kids) at the Record Plant.... oh what a scene that place was.
This hit me as one of those rare cultural essays that actually shows the mechanism, not just the mood. The canyon isn’t treated like a postcard—it’s treated like a living system drifting out of its original tolerances. I loved the way glam arrives as an “import” that doesn’t replace the singer-songwriters so much as exposes how ready L.A. was for theater, surface, and reinvention… and then how quickly the economics and chemistry of the decade harden everything underneath the myth.
The Weepah Way section is especially vivid—platforms on steep streets, promo records as social currency, vodka-watermelons cooling like a ritual, and cocaine described not as transgression but as infrastructure. By the time you get to punk/disco and that sense of the camera iris closing, the Morrison line lands exactly right: not melodrama—just the end of a certain operating mode.
Brilliant capture of that cultural inflection point. The Gary Kellgren portrait - becoming "completely dissolute" even while still producing at the Record Plant - perfectly crystallizes the canyon's late 70s paradox. Still functioning professionally but spiritually hollowed out. Saw something similar hapenin tech booms where success metrics keep climbing while the underlying culture corrodes.
Fabulous writing about my hometown and glam to punk! I am on the last chapter of the book BTW, I am a slow reader these days but I absolutely love your writing Michael. I saw Michael Des Barres in the 80's at the Roxy. My girlfriend and I decided we would dress glam and in the bathroom Pamela DesBarres and Melanie Griffiths approved our gear as we said we wanted to be groupies like the GTOS. Off we went to the front of the stage and Michael stops mid song points at me and says "I love your boa." That was a defining moment for our short lived groupie stage. I missed out on Rodneys English Disco. I was a few years too young but I wanted to be just like those girls Lori and Sable and Pamela hanging out with the rock stars. Then there were The Runaways, that was amazing...Cherie and Joan Jett in platform boots! L.A. was amazing. I got in on the punk scene in clubs in the valley Godzillas and Perkins Palace in Pasadena. Then the whole new wave/power pop scene and all the great bands coming from the UK playing the Hollywood Palladium. Music was cool all the way through the brit pop shoegaze scene when all those Creation Records bands were touring the States...playing at the Whiskey, Roxy etc. To me Disco didn't kill it, rap/hip hop did.
Wonderful trek down memory lane: Rodney's and rock n roll Ralph's! Thanks.
Thanks!
This is great, Michael. I've ordered your 1973 book and already have your Laurel Canyon book. Any other suggestions in terms of your writing on the history of rock 'n' roll?
Thanks! And thanks especially for ordering What You Want Is in the Limo, hope you enjoy. You might like my most recent book, Delta Lady, the memoir I wrote with Rita Coolidge, who was all over the L.A. music scene in the '70s--Leon Russell and Stephen Stills wrote songs about her, she was Graham Nash's girlfriend (some credit her for breaking up CSN, but I'm not so sure), plus her epic eight-year marriage to Kris Kristofferson before she broke through her cover of "(Your Love Is Lifting Me) Higher."
Yes, I have Delta Lady and have read it. Thought it was great, and will hopefully be using it to write a post on Rita at some point. I hadn't known all the relationships and connections she had. I especially liked the voice and tone of the book, very relatable.
And btw, that T. Rex video was a gas. The backup singers were a hoot to watch.
Thanks, keep in mind that was filmed at NBC studios in Burbank--the wild audience reaction is a measure of how popular glam was in L.A. back in the day. (Note that Bolan switches out his vintage Les Paul for a stunt guitar before brings down the whip in the finale...)
Yes, I saw that. He was a stitch, quite the showman.
Your storytelling transports me. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you! Always great to read of your work promoting women in the music business--
Thank you! That made my day 🤘🏻🤘🏻
In case you missed, you might enjoy my post on women professionals in rock during the 1970s. https://michaelwalker404649.substack.com/p/when-rock-met-the-girl-boss
I was skimming when I saw Frank's name and had to skim to read (now I've saved... it's getting past my self-appointed bedtime) - that was the Nikki Sixx I knew.... he and his band moved in downstairs from me on Clark St. in late 79, and they were the WORST neighbors (as you can imagine.). I worked at the Whisky a GoGo at the time, booking the "local bands night" and Nikki would be the one to call to get bookings. One day, when I had no slots to give and he was being insistent, I HAD TO pull the "you don't know who I am, do you?" and he said, "Yeah, Theresa, you book the locals night." I replied, "I live in apartment 306." Dead silence. Three of the Crue lived in apartment 206. They threw girls out the window into the pile of topsoil below (left there for the landscaping project for the building behind us). They KNEW they were bad neighbors.
Anyhoo... now your storytelling is paralleling the timeline of my own memoir.... I may have to take a hiatus from you. I've done that with books that cover the same time/experience. It's kind of a bummer because I have 3 friends who published their memoirs during this writing period and they're all "did you read my book?" and they're all 3 in mine... so, nope. I finally DID read Mike Campbell's because Benmont kinda pressured me - but it was good, since I committed all my Heartbreakers stuff to page, gave Benmont a copy of my rough draft ("so Mike and everyone else writing about 1973-1980 knows I'm NOT copying them" - that's what friends are for, right?)
And Gary Kjellgren.... my first rock n roll jobs involved babysitting (the actual rock stars - not their kids) at the Record Plant.... oh what a scene that place was.
Great stuff!
Thanks!
This hit me as one of those rare cultural essays that actually shows the mechanism, not just the mood. The canyon isn’t treated like a postcard—it’s treated like a living system drifting out of its original tolerances. I loved the way glam arrives as an “import” that doesn’t replace the singer-songwriters so much as exposes how ready L.A. was for theater, surface, and reinvention… and then how quickly the economics and chemistry of the decade harden everything underneath the myth.
The Weepah Way section is especially vivid—platforms on steep streets, promo records as social currency, vodka-watermelons cooling like a ritual, and cocaine described not as transgression but as infrastructure. By the time you get to punk/disco and that sense of the camera iris closing, the Morrison line lands exactly right: not melodrama—just the end of a certain operating mode.