“There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear”
Join me now, if you have the time, as we take a stroll down memory lane to a time nearly four-and-a-half decades ago – a time when America last had uniformed ground troops fighting a sustained and bloody battle to impose, uhmm, ‘democracy’ on a sovereign nation.
It is the first week of August, 1964, and U.S. warships under the command of U.S. Navy Admiral George Stephen Morrison have allegedly come under attack while patrolling Vietnam’s Tonkin Gulf. This event, subsequently dubbed the ‘Tonkin Gulf Incident,’ will result in the immediate passing by the U.S. Congress of the obviously pre-drafted Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which will, in turn, quickly lead to America’s deep immersion into the bloody Vietnam quagmire. Before it is over, well over fifty thousand American bodies – along with literally millions of Southeast Asian bodies – will litter the battlefields of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
For the record, the Tonkin Gulf Incident appears to differ somewhat from other alleged provocations that have driven this country to war. This was not, as we have seen so many times before, a ‘false flag’ operation (which is to say, an operation that involves Uncle Sam attacking himself and then pointing an accusatory finger at someone else). It was also not, as we have also seen on more than one occasion, an attack that was quite deliberately provoked. No, what the Tonkin Gulf incident actually was, as it turns out, is an ‘attack’ that never took place at all. The entire incident, as has been all but officially acknowledged, was spun from whole cloth. (It is quite possible, however, that the intent was to provoke a defensive response, which could then be cast as an unprovoked attack on U.S ships. The ships in question were on an intelligence mission and were operating in a decidedly provocative manner. It is quite possible that when Vietnamese forces failed to respond as anticipated, Uncle Sam decided to just pretend as though they had.)
Nevertheless, by early February 1965, the U.S. will – without a declaration of war and with no valid reason to wage one – begin indiscriminately bombing North Vietnam. By March of that same year, the infamous “Operation Rolling Thunder” will have commenced. Over the course of the next three-and-a-half years, millions of tons of bombs, missiles, rockets, incendiary devices and chemical warfare agents will be dumped on the people of Vietnam in what can only be described as one of the worst crimes against humanity ever perpetrated on this planet.
Also in March of 1965, the first uniformed U.S. soldier will officially set foot on Vietnamese soil (although Special Forces units masquerading as ‘advisers’ and ‘trainers’ had been there for at least four years, and likely much longer). By April 1965, fully 25,000 uniformed American kids, most still teenagers barely out of high school, will be slogging through the rice paddies of Vietnam. By the end of the year, U.S. troop strength will have surged to 200,000.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world in those early months of 1965, a new ‘scene’ is just beginning to take shape in the city of Los Angeles. In a geographically and socially isolated community known as Laurel Canyon – a heavily wooded, rustic, serene, yet vaguely ominous slice of LA nestled in the hills that separate the Los Angeles basin from the San Fernando Valley – musicians, singers and songwriters suddenly begin to gather as though summoned there by some unseen Pied Piper. Within months, the ‘hippie/flower child’ movement will be given birth there, along with the new style of music that will provide the soundtrack for the tumultuous second half of the 1960s.
An uncanny number of rock music superstars will emerge from Laurel Canyon beginning in the mid-1960s and carrying through the decade of the 1970s. The first to drop an album will be The Byrds, whose biggest star will prove to be David Crosby. The band’s debut effort, “Mr. Tambourine Man,” will be released on the Summer Solstice of 1965. It will quickly be followed by releases from the John Phillips-led Mamas and the Papas (“If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears,” January 1966), Love with Arthur Lee (“Love,” May 1966), Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention (“Freak Out,” June 1966), Buffalo Springfield, featuring Stephen Stills and Neil Young (“Buffalo Springfield,” October 1966), and The Doors (“The Doors,” January 1967).
One of the earliest on the Laurel Canyon/Sunset Strip scene is Jim Morrison, the enigmatic lead singer of The Doors. Jim will quickly become one of the most iconic, controversial, critically acclaimed, and influential figures to take up residence in Laurel Canyon. Curiously enough though, the self-proclaimed “Lizard King” has another claim to fame as well, albeit one that none of his numerous chroniclers will feel is of much relevance to his career and possible untimely death: he is the son, as it turns out, of the aforementioned Admiral George Stephen Morrison.
And so it is that, even while the father is actively conspiring to fabricate an incident that will be used to massively accelerate an illegal war, the son is positioning himself to become an icon of the ‘hippie’/anti-war crowd. Nothing unusual about that, I suppose. It is, you know, a small world and all that. And it is not as if Jim Morrison’s story is in any way unique.
During the early years of its heyday, Laurel Canyon’s father figure is the rather eccentric personality known as Frank Zappa. Though he and his various Mothers of Invention line-ups will never attain the commercial success of the band headed by the admiral’s son, Frank will be a hugely influential figure among his contemporaries. Ensconced in an abode dubbed the ‘Log Cabin’ – which sat right in the heart of Laurel Canyon, at the crossroads of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Lookout Mountain Avenue – Zappa will play host to virtually every musician who passes through the canyon in the mid- to late-1960s. He will also discover and sign numerous acts to his various Laurel Canyon-based record labels. Many of these acts will be rather bizarre and somewhat obscure characters (think Captain Beefheart and Larry “Wild Man” Fischer), but some of them, such as psychedelic rocker cum shock-rocker Alice Cooper, will go on to superstardom.
Zappa, along with certain members of his sizable entourage (the ‘Log Cabin’ was run as an early commune, with numerous hangers-on occupying various rooms in the main house and the guest house, as well as in the peculiar caves and tunnels lacing the grounds of the home; far from the quaint homestead the name seems to imply, by the way, the ‘Log Cabin’ was a cavernous five-level home that featured a 2,000+ square-foot living room with three massive chandeliers and an enormous floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace), will also be instrumental in introducing the look and attitude that will define the ‘hippie’ counterculture (although the Zappa crew preferred the label ‘Freak’). Nevertheless, Zappa (born, curiously enough, on the Winter Solstice of 1940) never really made a secret of the fact that he had nothing but contempt for the ‘hippie’ culture that he helped create and that he surrounded himself with.
Given that Zappa was, by numerous accounts, a rigidly authoritarian control-freak and a supporter of U.S. military actions in Southeast Asia, it is perhaps not surprising that he would not feel a kinship with the youth movement that he helped nurture. And it is probably safe to say that Frank’s dad also had little regard for the youth culture of the 1960s, given that Francis Zappa was, in case you were wondering, a chemical warfare specialist assigned to – where else? – the Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood is, of course, the longtime home of America’s chemical warfare program, as well as a facility frequently cited as being deeply enmeshed in MK-ULTRA operations. Curiously enough, Frank Zappa literally grew up at the Edgewood Arsenal, having lived the first seven years of his life in military housing on the grounds of the facility. The family later moved to Lancaster, California, near Edwards Air Force Base, where Francis Zappa continued to busy himself with doing classified work for the military/intelligence complex. His son, meanwhile, prepped himself to become an icon of the peace & love crowd. Again, nothing unusual about that, I suppose.
Zappa’s manager, by the way, is a shadowy character by the name of Herb Cohen, who had come out to L.A. from the Bronx with his brother Mutt just before the music and club scene began heating up. Cohen, a former U.S. Marine, had spent a few years traveling the world before his arrival on the Laurel Canyon scene. Those travels, curiously, had taken him to the Congo in 1961, at the very time that leftist Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was being tortured and killed by our very own CIA. Not to worry though; according to one of Zappa’s biographers, Cohen wasn’t in the Congo on some kind of nefarious intelligence mission. No, he was there, believe it or not, to supply arms to Lumumba “in defiance of the CIA.” Because, you know, that is the kind of thing that globetrotting ex-Marines did in those days (as we’ll see soon enough when we take a look at another Laurel Canyonluminary).
Making up the other half of Laurel Canyon’s First Family is Frank’s wife, Gail Zappa, known formerly as Adelaide Sloatman. Gail hails from a long line of career Naval officers, including her father, who spent his life working on classified nuclear weapons research for the U.S. Navy. Gail herself had once worked as a secretary for the Office of Naval Research and Development (she also once told an interviewer that she had “heard voices all [her] life”). Many years before their nearly simultaneous arrival in Laurel Canyon, Gail had attended a Naval kindergarten with “Mr. Mojo Risin’” himself, Jim Morrison (it is claimed that, as children, Gail once hit Jim over the head with a hammer). The very same Jim Morrison had later attended the same Alexandria, Virginia high school as two other future Laurel Canyon luminaries – John Phillips and Cass Elliott.
“Papa” John Phillips, more so than probably any of the other illustrious residents of Laurel Canyon, will play a major role in spreading the emerging youth ‘counterculture’ across America. His contribution will be twofold: first, he will co-organize (along with Manson associate Terry Melcher) the famed Monterrey Pop Festival, which, through unprecedented media exposure, will give mainstream America its first real look at the music and fashions of the nascent ‘hippie’ movement. Second, Phillips will pen an insipid song known as “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” which will quickly rise to the top of the charts. Along with the Monterrey Pop Festival, the song will be instrumental in luring the disenfranchised (a preponderance of whom are underage runaways) to San Francisco to create the Haight-Asbury phenomenon and the famed 1967 “Summer of Love.”
Before arriving in Laurel Canyon and opening the doors of his home to the soon-to-be famous, the already famous, and the infamous (such as the aforementioned Charlie Manson, whose ‘Family’ also spent time at the Log Cabin and at the Laurel Canyon home of “Mama” Cass Elliot, which, in case you didn’t know, sat right across the street from the Laurel Canyon home of Abigail Folger and Voytek Frykowski, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here), John Edmund Andrew Phillips was, shockingly enough, yet another child of the military/intelligence complex. The son of U.S. Marine Corp Captain Claude Andrew Phillips and a mother who claimed to have psychic and telekinetic powers, John attended a series of elite military prep schools in the Washington, D.C. area, culminating in an appointment to the prestigious U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis
After leaving Annapolis, John married Susie Adams, a direct descendant of ‘Founding Father’ John Adams. Susie’s father, James Adams, Jr., had been involved in what Susie described as “cloak-and-dagger stuff with the Air Force in Vienna,” or what we like to call covert intelligence operations. Susie herself would later find employment at the Pentagon, alongside John Phillip’s older sister, Rosie, who dutifully reported to work at the complex for nearly thirty years. John’s mother, ‘Dene’ Phillips, also worked for most of her life for the federal government in some unspecified capacity. And John’s older brother, Tommy, was a battle-scarred former U.S. Marine who found work as a cop on the Alexandria police force, albeit one with a disciplinary record for exhibiting a violent streak when dealing with people of color.
John Phillips, of course – though surrounded throughout his life by military/intelligence personnel – did not involve himself in such matters. Or so we are to believe. Before succeeding in his musical career, however, John did seem to find himself, quite innocently of course, in some rather unusual places. One such place was Havana, Cuba, where Phillips arrived at the very height of the Cuban Revolution. For the record, Phillips has claimed that he went to Havana as nothing more than a concerned private citizen, with the intention of – you’re going to love this one – “fighting for Castro.” Because, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of folks in those days traveled abroad to thwart CIA operations before taking up residence in Laurel Canyon and joining the ‘hippie’ generation. During the two weeks or so that the Cuban Missile Crisis played out, a few years after Castro took power, Phillips found himself cooling his heels in Jacksonville, Florida – alongside, coincidentally I’m sure, the Mayport Naval Station.
Anyway, let’s move on to yet another of Laurel Canyon’s earliest and brightest stars, Mr. Stephen Stills. Stills will have the distinction of being a founding member of two of Laurel Canyon’s most acclaimed and beloved bands: Buffalo Springfield, and, needless to say, Crosby, Stills & Nash. In addition, Stills will pen perhaps the first, and certainly one of the most enduring anthems of the 60s generation, “For What It’s Worth,” the opening lines of which appear at the top of this post (Stills’ follow-up single will be entitled “Bluebird,” which, coincidentally or not, happens to be the original codename assigned to the MK-ULTRA program).
Before his arrival in Laurel Canyon, Stephen Stills was (*yawn*) the product of yet another career military family. Raised partly in Texas, young Stephen spent large swaths of his childhood in El Salvador, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, and various other parts of Central America – alongside his father, who was, we can be fairly certain, helping to spread ‘democracy’ to the unwashed masses in that endearingly American way. As with the rest of our cast of characters, Stills was educated primarily at schools on military bases and at elite military academies. Among his contemporaries in Laurel Canyon, he was widely viewed as having an abrasive, authoritarian personality. Nothing unusual about any of that, of course, as we have already seen with the rest of our cast of characters.
There is, however, an even more curious aspect to the Stephen Stills story: Stephen will later tell anyone who will sit and listen that he had served time for Uncle Sam in the jungles of Vietnam. These tales will be universally dismissed by chroniclers of the era as nothing more than drug-induced delusions. Such a thing couldn’t possibly be true, it will be claimed, since Stills arrived on the Laurel Canyon scene at the very time that the first uniformed troops began shipping out and he remained in the public eye thereafter. And it will of course be quite true that Stephen Stills could not have served with uniformed ground troops in Vietnam, but what will be ignored is the undeniable fact that the U.S. had thousands of ‘advisers’ – which is to say, CIA/Special Forces operatives – operating in the country for a good many years before the arrival of the first official ground troops. What will also be ignored is that, given his background, his age, and the timeline of events, Stephen Stills not only could indeed have seen action in Vietnam, he would seem to have been a prime candidate for such an assignment. After which, of course, he could rather quickly become – stop me if you’ve heard this one before – an icon of the peace generation.
Another of those icons, and one of Laurel Canyon’s most flamboyant residents, is a young man by the name of David Crosby, founding member of the seminal Laurel Canyon band the Byrds, as well as, of course, Crosby, Stills & Nash. Crosby is, not surprisingly, the son of an Annapolis graduate and WWII military intelligence officer, Major Floyd Delafield Crosby. Like others in this story, Floyd Crosby spent much of his post-service time traveling the world. Those travels landed him in places like Haiti, where he paid a visit in 1927, when the country just happened to be, coincidentally of course, under military occupation by the U.S. Marines. One of the Marines doing that occupying was a guy that we met earlier by the name of Captain Claude Andrew Phillips.
But David Crosby is much more than just the son of Major Floyd Delafield Crosby. David Van Cortlandt Crosby, as it turns out, is a scion of the closely intertwined Van Cortlandt, Van Schuyler and Van Rensselaer families. And while you’re probably thinking, “the Van Who families?,” I can assure you that if you plug those names in over at Wikipedia, you can spend a pretty fair amount of time reading up on the power wielded by this clan for the last, oh, two-and-a-quarter centuries or so. Suffice it to say that the Crosby family tree includes a truly dizzying array of US senators and congressmen, state senators and assemblymen, governors, mayors, judges, Supreme Court justices, Revolutionary and Civil War generals, signers of the Declaration of Independence, and members of the Continental Congress. It also includes, I should hasten to add – for those of you with a taste for such things – more than a few high-ranking Masons. Stephen Van Rensselaer III, for example, reportedly served as Grand Master of Masons for New York. And if all that isn’t impressive enough, according to the New England Genealogical Society, David Van Cortlandt Crosby is also a direct descendant of ‘Founding Fathers’ and Federalist Papers’ authors Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.
If there is, as many believe, a network of elite families that has shaped national and world events for a very long time, then it is probably safe to say that David Crosby is a bloodline member of that clan (which may explain, come to think of it, why his semen seems to be in such demand in certain circles – because, if we’re being honest here, it certainly can’t be due to his looks or talent.) If America had royalty, then David Crosby would probably be a Duke, or a Prince, or something similar (I’m not really sure how that shit works). But other than that, he is just a normal, run-of-the-mill kind of guy who just happened to shine as one of Laurel Canyon’s brightest stars. And who, I guess I should add, has a real fondness for guns, especially handguns, which he has maintained a sizable collection of for his entire life. According to those closest to him, it is a rare occasion when Mr. Crosby is not packing heat (John Phillips also owned and sometimes carried handguns). And according to Crosby himself, he has, on at least one occasion, discharged a firearm in anger at another human being. All of which made him, of course, an obvious choice for the Flower Children to rally around.
Another shining star on the Laurel Canyon scene, just a few years later, will be singer-songwriter Jackson Browne, who is – are you getting as bored with this as I am? – the product of a career military family. Browne’s father was assigned to post-war ‘reconstruction’ work in Germany, which very likely means that he was in the employ of the OSS, precursor to the CIA. As readers of my “Understanding the F-Word” may recall, U.S. involvement in post-war reconstruction in Germany largely consisted of maintaining as much of the Nazi infrastructure as possible while shielding war criminals from capture and prosecution. Against that backdrop, Jackson Browne was born in a military hospital in Heidelberg, Germany. Some two decades later, he emerged as … oh, never mind.
Let’s talk instead about three other Laurel Canyon vocalists who will rise to dizzying heights of fame and fortune: Gerry Beckley, Dan Peek and Dewey Bunnell. Individually, these three names are probably unknown to virtually all readers; but collectively, as the band America, the three will score huge hits in the early ‘70s with such songs as “Ventura Highway,” “A Horse With No Name,” and the Wizard of Oz-themed “The Tin Man.” I guess I probably don’t need to add here that all three of these lads were products of the military/intelligence community. Beckley’s dad was the commander of the now-defunct West Ruislip USAF base near London, England, a facility deeply immersed in intelligence operations. Bunnell’s and Peek’s fathers were both career Air Force officers serving under Beckley’s dad at West Ruislip, which is where the three boys first met.
We could also, I suppose, discuss Mike Nesmith of the Monkees and Cory Wells of Three Dog Night (two more hugely successful Laurel Canyon bands), who both arrived in LA not long after serving time with the U.S. Air Force. Nesmith also inherited a family fortune estimated at $25 million. Gram Parsons, who would briefly replace David Crosby in The Byrds before fronting The Flying Burrito Brothers, was the son of Major Cecil Ingram “Coon Dog” Connor II, a decorated military officer and bomber pilot who reportedly flew over 50 combat missions. Parsons was also an heir, on his mother’s side, to the formidable Snively family fortune. Said to be the wealthiest family in the exclusive enclave of Winter Haven, Florida, the Snively family was the proud owner of Snively Groves, Inc., which reportedly owned as much as 1/3 of all the citrus groves in the state of Florida.
And so it goes as one scrolls through the roster of Laurel Canyon superstars. What one finds, far more often than not, are the sons and daughters of the military/intelligence complex and the sons and daughters of extreme wealth and privilege – and oftentimes, you’ll find both rolled into one convenient package. Every once in a while, you will also stumble across a former child actor, like the aforementioned Brandon DeWilde, or Monkee Mickey Dolenz, or eccentric prodigy Van Dyke Parks. You might also encounter some former mental patients, such as James Taylor, who spent time in two different mental institutions in Massachusetts before hitting the Laurel Canyon scene, or Larry “Wild Man” Fischer, who was institutionalized repeatedly during his teen years, once for attacking his mother with a knife (an act that was gleefully mocked by Zappa on the cover of Fischer’s first album). Finally, you might find the offspring of an organized crime figure, like Warren Zevon, the son of William “Stumpy” Zevon, a lieutenant for infamous LA crimelord Mickey Cohen.
All these folks gathered nearly simultaneously along the narrow, winding roads of Laurel Canyon. They came from across the country – although the Washington, DC area was noticeably over-represented – as well as from Canada and England. They came even though, at the time, there wasn’t much of a pop music industry in Los Angeles. They came even though, at the time, there was no live pop music scene to speak of. They came even though, in retrospect, there was no discernable reason for them to do so.
It would, of course, make sense these days for an aspiring musician to venture out to Los Angeles. But in those days, the centers of the music universe were Nashville, Detroit and New York. It wasn’t the industry that drew the Laurel Canyon crowd, you see, but rather the Laurel Canyon crowd that transformed Los Angeles into the epicenter of the music industry. To what then do we attribute this unprecedented gathering of future musical superstars in the hills above Los Angeles? What was it that inspired them all to head out west? Perhaps Neil Young said it best when he told an interviewer that he couldn’t really say why he headed out to LA circa 1966; he and others “were just going like Lemmings.”
To Be Continued …
No comments? This is astounding research and information. The connections are unreal and the ulterior motives of the hippy movement are slowly coming to light.
There are several comments throughout the site, but this website was only created in 2016, after the author’s death. The material was written between 2000 and 2015, but the original Center for an Informed America website did not permit comments. If you’re looking to discuss the material, there’s a study group on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/groups/davemcgowanstudies
Many of the stars of the generation that came after the Second World War were the children of people who had served in the military. Authoritarian parents whose work nevertheless obliged them to bring their children to faraway places raised people who were birth culturally curious and dismissive of older societal norms.
I don’t see the conspiracy.
Barrack Hussein Obama was the grandson of an FBI agent who moved to Hawaii in order to keep an eye on the communist movement in Hawaii, and Frank Marshall Davis. Their daughter got caught up in the movement, and with Frank Marshall Davis himself. Some conspiracies theories say that Davis is Obama’s actual father.
Where on earth did this clown come from? He hates everything and if he can’t imply everyone in Laurel Canyon is descended from the evil military, he will just slant his comments to appear as such. Most of his info is pretty well known and benign. Maybe I should withhold judgement until I read some more. Nah, you can see where he’s coming from a mile away. I don’t have the time to waste.
Bu
The fact that Scott Morrison was involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident that launched his son’s career as a musician is all you need to know.
Interesting article but unless you mention The Tavistock Institute in this, readers won’t have a complete picture.
Awesome work! Great music history! I grew up through all of this and watched as this music/ culture movement changed the world. Music is power.
After wondering for years, why did some bands write ‘hit songs’ and become hugely successful, while others with equally stellar talent and great writing, go nowhere?
The answer might be presented here.
All these ‘successful’ bands were generally promoted by media (aligned with U.S. intelligence) to create the disharmony between American citizens, which allowed the corporate, military industry to pillage the treasury with little to no oversight.
Keep us fighting each other so that they could stay in perpetual power, doing what the Founders would describe as treasonous activity.
OMG, the whole counter culture is a complete lie!!!! Before I read this article, I thought I was awake to the whole MK Ultra/industrial complex thing. I’ve even come to believe (over time and numerous in-you-face coincidences) the moon landing was a hoax. But DAMN, who knew our whole childhood was orchestrated
🙁
Major General Smedley Butler was right, war REALLY IS a racket…
Pluto (planet of death, transformation and rebirth, of power and the corruption of power, and of all things buried, from scandal and secrets to wealth) aligned in conjunction with Uranus (planet of chaos, breakthrough, technology, disruption and the unexpected) in the mid-1960’s (roughly 1964). Becoming the catalyst that is what made the 1960’s the 1960’s. Sexual revolution, civil rights, the revolutions for independence of many countries in Africa, the feminist movement, the exposure of the intel communities for their nefarious work, etc.
In 2012 to 2015 this cycle experienced a square; a ninety-degree angle between these two planets, causing a revisit of many of the same themes and archetypes. The Arab spring (revolution for democracies in the middle east), gay rights, the transgender movement, the wokeness movement, the corruption of the intel communities against their own government, etc.
Laugh at the planetary realities, but they are what causes history to rhyme if not to repeat.
I’m going to have to re-read this so I’m clear on all these connections. Almost unfathonable at first reading.
RIP Dave McGowan
Hi,
Alissa, I take it from just now perusing the thread that you are Dave McGowan’s daughter?
I spoke with him by phone shortly before he passed and before I evacuated Laurel Canyon for the final time headed toward Malibu then Ojai CA then exit stage right in the nick of time in 2019 . My family moved there in 1965 from New York and my father was Terry Melcher’s business partner and associate at Columbia Records ( check out The Byrds Mr Tambourine Man’s “liner notes” ) and signed The Doors then opened Elektra Records’ first LA office and also “discovered” and managed Jackson Browne, Taj Mahal, The Doors and other well known singer/songwriter/rock folks, too numerous to mention.
Prior to this he “launched” the career of Bob Dylan at Columbia Records in 1961 and conducted the first known “interview” for Dylan in 1961 – which can still be found in a simple web search.
When I shared with your father ( 2004 or so?? ) some of my anecdotal remembrances of the people and the times in Laurel Canyon circa 1965/70+ and beyond, he was quite interested and mentioned even possibly including some of my stuff if there were to be later editions ( revisions? ) to his seminal work in his “weird scenes” book.
He “laughed” when I shared my reluctance to even speak by phone regarding specifics and the delicate nature of the topic, as he seemingly shared my circumspection for the sanctity and privacy of any “communications” even back then.
Geez, were we right to be cagey? or what.
As for me? I am among other things “of the time” featured on a Doors track “marching” on “The Unknown Soldier” ( an overdub ) brought to “Sunset Sound” aged 12? ( or possibly 13 in 968 ) by my then next door neighbor and mentor Paul Rothchild ( their producer ) and remain to this day “the unknown soldier” though I worked for labels as an adult.
I knew ( or have known ) most all the folks discussed in his book – owing to the manor into which I was born.
Not sure how interested you might be at this late date or if your interest in the topic approaches that if your dads. If so? I’d welcome the opportunity to chat.
The influence of one particular three letter agency in the promulgation and development of the “LC scene” and the “counter-culture” that it helped create and promote, can not be understated.
In my experience.
Best Regards,
M. James
There are 22 segments to this story that connects to all kinds of things that you would think are totally disassociated. Like Manson murderers, Satan worshippers, mk ultra, Jean Garlow’s death and the murder of her husband. That website has stuff about Lincoln’s death 9-11,
The best way to control the opposition is to lead it Lenin
“Also in March of 1965, the first uniformed U.S. soldier will officially set foot on Vietnamese soil”
Marines are not soldiers. They are United States Marines.
Ulterior motives of the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex.
As Algo-Rhythm stated….. The Tavistock Institute.
Research both of these and you’ll be in the direction of the who, and why.
I see the problem with the world in these commentors. some saying oh I dont see a conspiracy…The close your eyes and keep being degenerate sheep types….They probably see no conspiracy in covid and wear masks still, they probably see no conspiracy in 9-11, they probably are quite ready to eat shit and drink piss….Dumb fucking retards…keep watching tv morons..
Two to add: First, Buddy Holly was murdered by Jewish and Italian mafioso who controlled the music industry that Holly threatened by producing his own music. Look up Frank Rizzo’s testimony to the cops after he was arrested and the deaths of Iowa and Florida journalists and witnesses who wrote about Holly’s murder. Holly wanted to produce his own music, and that was a huge threat to the profits and control the criminal element wanted. Buddy’s murder was connected to Operation Chaos, I believe, which also connects lots of the murders and events you cover. Second, Sharon Tate was not murdered by the Manson gang. She survived and I’m not certain anyone was murdered at the Melcher place. You can see video where her “sister’s” earlobe on a talk show is the same as hers would have been had she lived, which she likely did. Tate’s father was head of military intelligence or CIA turds there or some damned thing in San Francisco, he donned disguises and worked “undercover” in the “hippie movement” the agency made happen. Sharon’s “funeral” made no sense if you look at the younger sister who couldn’t have been the sister they claimed she had. She posed as her own sister after her ?murder.” You can see her wry smile in the pictures of her supposedly cut up and dead. It’s not a Black Dahlia horror carved smile. It’s a quiet little smile of a young woman playing.
We just came out of Ww2, so just about every boomer had someone connected to the military. Vietnam was not an attack on a nation, but a defense of S. Vietnam. The Tonkin Gulf incident was a screw up in communication and N. Vietnam wanted to take over the South. The North already had supply routes and agreements with China and the USSR to take over the country. I think this author is just mudding up the waters.
It’s my guess all these Laurel Canyon singers/writers were MK-Ultra’d…Manchurian’s that were directed to that particular location to carry out the wishes of the Tavistock Institute to degrade the morals of the youth of our country.
They succeeded.
Some of the commentors are funny, like “I don’t see the conspiracy”. Truly amazing how ignorant some are of the military industrial complex and it’s scientific work on psychological abuse (also known as mind control/MK Ultra/Naomi/Monarch/etc/etc/etc/etc stemming from the work in Germany WW2 continued by many of the same “scientists” shipped out around the world with help from The Red Cross and Vatican and military industrial complex). These people’s parents were not innocent low ranked soldiers in the army returning from the war. It’s stated very clearly who they were.
I mean come on, most of this information is on wikipedia or can be found with just a little effort. Can’t see the conspiracy…lucky to see anything with that amount of wool hanging over the eyes.
Interesting! Young people need to understand that its not strange for so many people in this era to have military backgrounds as there parents generation endured ww2 so yes a huge percentage of the population where involved in the war thats what happens when the whole world is at war .
I just got “turned on” to this article from a Substack comment – I am hooked. It IS an amazing piece of research, cannot wait to read the rest of it.
On his original site he also posted great photos…
Do you mean the links to his personal site with photos of his vacations? All photos associated with his features were transported over…
While in those days, just after WWII, everyone’s father was a veteran. The “Coincidence” of this group, at this time, in this place, is not lost on us. Can’t wait for the next installment.
Is that site still up?
No, everything from the original site was transferred here.
Interesting how the study group on FB is no longer available…
This is very INTERESTING thank you for sharing 😊👌🏻❤
Fascinating …. so was it cosmic forces that made it happen, or was there a plan?
Like how the CIA used the rap industry to sell its crack thru urban America. I’m not saying the hippie movement revolved around drug dealers but I’m saying the hippie movement was evolving around drug dealers.
Whenever the military is in the picture, there’s an agenda and a plan. You can’t tell the public what to do, but you can seduce them into doing it instead.
Well …The plan is pretty obvious for anyone with basic intelligence knowledge …
When you’re about to fight a pretty unpopular , dubiously lawful war , and know you’ll face resistance , possibly a contestation movement by those about to get conscripted ….You take the initiative and create a totally crafted movement out of the whazoo the leaders of which are all firmly held by the powers that be …Several advantages advantages arise from such a tactic , the ability to raise dark money , for you know… operations ….through the wholesale of drugs in this case , the ability to use the crafting of popular songs as pattern layouts for encrypted messages to other agents abroad , you can lure potential communist agents into investing manpower into the “peace movement” to spot them out …In won’t go into all of the advantages but there are thousands of operational bonuses .
There are many canyons in LA. Laurel is neither “geographically or socially isolated.” I was at Zappa’s home. The living room was nowhere near 2,000 sq ft. The hippie movement was full grown well before these people migrated to Laurel canyon. LA was a music mecca from the Sinatra/Bing Crosby era. David Crosby was NOT star of the Byrds, it was Roger McGuin. Musician flocked to LA for the well established industry, great weather, starlets and easy drugs. This story is bullshit.
Maybe they weee all secret agents of the US government. If so they weee assigned their roles and dutifully carried out whatever they were supposed to do.
Mind control was the plan
Thank you again Alissa for keeping the amazing work of your father alive. He is truly missed by all who were lucky enough to know of his work.
Wow…I am an Indian immigrant, 53 years old, who has loved America and made it my home. Ever since 2016, I’ve been waking up to the dark underbelly of this land that I loved and still love so much. I am always learning and seeking truth.
I am a Christ follower and I see history and what is playing out today, with more than just my rational mind. I perceive a battle has been raging over this nation from its inception. The pilgrims on the one hand who stepped foot on this land and made a covenant with God, and dedicated themselves and their descendants to the Gospel and the glory of God, and the free masons who formed the govt and military.
Satan always comes to humanity an an angel of light and that is what these political and bureaucratic families have been doing in America and in other nations, the CIA being their main mechanism. And now all these things they called conspiracy theories are coming together more and more, People are connecting the dots. Will America be saved? Will we truly be a shining city on a hill proclaiming liberty to the inhabitants of the world, or will be be strangled of all goodness with only a shell of wokeism, is the question.
I sure miss Dave.
Dave McGowan wrote some of the most interesting articles I have ever read, I miss his stuff.
Glad I found this site. I wanted to quote (with attribution) Dave in an article in Breitbart about David Crosby, and I knew the Laurel Canyon book is a great source. I cited the book and linked to this website.
I have the note you sent along with that book right here on my desk. I hope somebody checks the link and finds the terrific writings of Dave McGowan, one of the most important modern historians, and fun to read. I have learned a lot from him, and haven’t read everything yet.
Alissa, your dad was a great writer and historian, love him. It’s great you keep his memory and writings alive!
I meant to say, I wrote a comment about an article. I didn’t write the article!
Alissa, Wes died the year after Inside the LA came out? From what? Did it have anything to do with this book? It wouldn’t surprise me.
Sorry, I meant Dave McGowan. Got him confused with Wes Penre.
He died on November 22, 2015 of lung cancer. Plenty of people think it was murder. I can’t say that I necessarily agree, considering that he smoked heavily from the age of 15, worked in construction in old buildings riddled with asbestos, and took generally shit care of his physical body.
This is such amazing work. Soul crushing as it is, the truth is the ultimate goal. If there’s one thing that the world needs more of, it’s truth. And the truth never had a greater ally then Mr. David McGowan in my opinion.
I agree with you except I felt that it was not so crushing. I felt more alive than ever after reading this information, knowing I was never a part of it and have lived by life, for the most part, in truth I was one of the many they duped. Took advantage of so many troubled children, these musicians. I really hope they got what they wanted out of life because most of them are going to end up burning in HELL. They are the ones who got their souls crushed, not me, Praise God.
Laurel Canyon also features in the first of Chandler’s “Big Four” novels: “The Big Sleep” dealing with the takeover of crime and culture in LA…
A lot of check boxes there for me. I’m a musician in LA but not at that time. I played for latter day hippy parties and taught piano in the Canyon. I got to play with Jackson Browne at a benefit and played with Robbie Krieger, his teacher Billy Wolfe, and John Densmore when those surviving Doors sat in at a gig what a trip! Speaking of trip of course the LSD part could be expanded upon I just read the one article so far maybe the author did that. I’d just add in the category of unintended consequences: not all became mynah birds, some went mad, others enlightened spiritually and/or information-ally about it because you can only fool some of the people some of the time. Aspects of it did fool me especially when I was too lazy to keep up with things when my side was in charge. I sometimes think of the scene in the Dylan movie where he’s talking to Allen Ginsberg at a “happening” with thousands of people, one of them saying.. “What if we’re wrong?…
Went to school with Robbie Krieger (he was “Bob” to us at Menlo School near Stanford) and Bill[ie] Wolff. Back in 1964, We got bored and fotmed a jug band called The Back Bay Chamberpot Terriers that had a brief life entertaining our student body as well as the girls at Castilleija [?] and Sacred Heart. Bill was a great influence on Bob – who took up the guitar after developing an interest in Spanish Flamenco to the point where he imitated it by detuning ia ukulele to the bottom four strings of a guitar.
Thereafter, he, George “Keoki” King, and Pete Leanse went on a Christmas vacation to Puerto Vallarta where Bob purchased a Jaun Ramirez P. peg-turned guitar.
After we all graduated in June of 1964, we spent the Summer in Los Angeles. Bob and Bill pursued their music ambitions and I mostly surfed – of times with Ronnie Krieger – but gradually fell away from them
Bob and Bill were headed to UCSB and I to UCLA and I did not see them until a year or so later when Bill approached me as I was standing in line to register for classes one semester. (They leveraged a conversation with me into an advantageous place in line.) with them was a polite and relatively quiet guy named Jim who I eventually realized was Jim Morrison.
Sorry to ramble, but I wanted to get this all down to before the grey fog of senility hid it from me forever.
Hi Alissa,
I’m reading the articles here after reading Dave’s book on Laurel Canyon – which is absolutely fascinating by the way. Could you tell me if there are articles here that didn’t make it into the book? I’m happy to read these again, just wondered if there were any not in the book.
Best regards,
Dave
Honestly, I have no idea! It’s been so long since I’ve read either the article series or the book, but I think most of it went to publication. Really can’t say for sure, though. Sorry I’m absolutely no help at all! You could try asking in the Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon Facebook group and see if anyone there knows.
Wow! I am a huge fan of David McGowan after reading one of his essays in ‘You’re Being Lied To’. Thank you Alissa for making this work available.
Where are the pictures Dave included in here?
Everything that was on the original website was transferred to this one. Some of the installments in this series do have photos.
Please bring back the photos from the original site!!!
Everything from the original site was transferred over. What photos are you referring to?
Fascinating just totally fascinating!!!
Alissa
Count me in as one who doesn’t believe ALL the photos are here that were at the original site.
And no I’m not talking about Dave’s vacation photos. I mean the photos that he had on the Laurel Canyon story originally. I read that series as he was completing it.
The original LC story beats the book hands down.
Thank you for posting your father’s work. These stories are especially relevant today, considering who is “coming out” against truth and free speech.
My jaw is sore from hanging in a shocked stupor. I not only live not far from Laurel Canyon, but have connections to many of these people. I am rethinking everything I thought I knew about them.
I am also shocked and flabbergasted by the entire set of articles. I just finished part 10 …. Wow….can’t wrap my head around the amount of information here. I had to let go of every preconceived notion I had about the hippie and Hollywood culture in LA..I am now reading the links.
What isn’t mentioned here is that most likely, none of these musicians were willing accomplices in this or aware that it was going on at all. They were just living there lives like all of us.
I’ve heard that how it works is that children who are intended to be celebrities / culture influencers are put under certain amounts of mind control as children. It fractures they’re personality to some extent and opens up a space in there for other thought projections / entities. For example he mentions Gail Zappa hearing voices her whole life. The total result is of them being influeced unknowingly to do certain things and in certain ways. Though I think the creator has a higher plan for them, so it’s not all black and white.
This is one of those great cosmic dualities in life. One one hand you have this music scene being orchestrated for nefarios purposes. On the other hand you have young artists taking psychedlics for the first time in ages, and all the profound implications of that. So it’s somehow a dark thing and a soulful, beautiful thing at the same time.
I can acknowledge that the plan did work. And that flooding the scene with acid threw people off too much to maintain a focus on all the activism that had been happening. Look how quickly the 60s movement ended. Had it been mushrooms instead of acid, I think it would have been very different. But it happened the way it happened. There weren’t people growing big quantities of mushrooms to bring to the parties. I like to celebrate those times for their good parts and try to learn from their bad.
About THEM..? After stumbling on Dave McGowan and Miles W. Mathis ( Miles often ref’s Dave’s work ) I’ve found myself wondering if *anything* we experienced in our formative years was organic?
Born in 1959 ( I’d have been a 10 y.o during Woodstock ) hardly on the peer pressure level it must have been for [actual] baby boomers, the ages of the LC participants. For “late boomers” ( I prefer Generation Jones ) as in keeping up with, it was more akin to second hand smoke. Still, under the relentless influence of the 24/7/365 American Pop Cult machine, many of these “artists” have nonetheless left an indelible impression.
Now armed Dave’s dogged research ( and my own realization that NO, people born up UNTIL 1964, almost 20 years *after* WWII ended are NOT baby boomers ) I find myself finally breaking free from this synthetic, choreographed psychological driving experiment. It is so liberating..! JFTR most actual Boomers wouldn’t afford ANY credibility to say Ram Jam “Black Betty” (1977) as having anything to do with “their music”.
After decades of feeling out of the loop, or simply “not all that sophisticated” I can finally openly admit Bob Dylan truly sucks. His lyrics, like so many of the era were intentionally vague, word salad Rorschach ink blots we all *thought* they were. Yes, many of those “hits” ( forced onto local DJ’s by record exec’s controlled by CIA handlers ) really WERE as cr@ppy and mindless as we suspected. Btw, Miles suspects neither Like A Rolling Stone or All Along the Watchtower were actually written by Dylan himself. Go back and listen (1) last time, NOTHING like the balance of his material. He was installed into the Folk scene vice the LC scene.
I’ve scrapped almost entirely my 70’s vinyl. Now that I’m truly free of it I can pursue the passions that spring from organic, natural music scenes like Gypsy Jazz and Western Swing etc. Anything pre-MK. Or the result of indy efforts outside their sphere of influence. Thank you Dave, thank you so much. Hopefully wherever you are you’re listening to Andres Segovia far above the hellscape created for us.
If feeling beholden to “classic rock radio” seems like being in a prison, that’s because it is.
Why else is your jaw sore
When you think of the Hippie Culture, you think of LSD–or should. LSD was a drug whose funding came from the CIA. It was intended as a “truth serum,” something of immense use for those involved in counterintelligence. But, of course, it had to be tested. Did these military/intelligence families have parents/children who took LSD? Look into Manson. There’s a connection to the CIA. They wanted to know about mind-control effects of drugs. Yes, the Manson “Family.”
The CIA has been the source of tremendous evil, both in this country and abroad. Kennedy was right: “Shred it into a thousand pieces and scatter them in the wind.”
My brother just sent me this article and I can only say I’m gobsmacked. Totally disillusioned to hear about the family backgrounds of the musicians who provided the background to my youth. I went to high school from 1966-1970 at Laurel Canyon and Mulholland Drive. Good thing I never went looking for underage trouble in the canyon at the time, and only used it to get to the beach.
Ohmigosh, it’s ALL a huge psyop!!!
Ummm, yeh—nope!
Look at the “Beat Generation” that preceded the “hippy” thing by a decade. Chuck full of guys who had served in WWII. Jack Kerouac (sp) had been in the Merchant Marine, hauling trucks and tanks to Murmansk. His main sidekick, Nick Cassidy, in his Beat Biography “On the Road” was based on a vet.
For crimany’s sake, The Hell’s Angels were a bunch of ex-flyboys and screwed up veterans looking to hit the open road and raise a little hell after flying bombing raids or slogging thru European and Pacific Island blood baths..
The folk-music scene of the late 50’s and early 60’s was the prototype for the farm-like costumes of the early back to the earth hippies (restyled Beatnik “hipsters”).
It featured Appalachian themed music and dress and “folks” like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and so on.
Pete was a nostalgic “Wobbly” Labor Union Socialist and Communist his whole life. More influenced by Yellow Journalists of the twenties like Upton Sinclair then Lenin and Marx.
Joan Baez, the most legitimately talented musician and singer of the “folk” genre was the well-educated daughter of a physicist who worked on the Atomic Bomb program.
Hmmm, Commies and atom bombs.
Howwww convenient.
These connections the author hints at were the natural outcome of the American cycle of war and peace that enlisted entire generations in Great Patriotic causes. And the weariness and excess (see F. Scott Fitzgerald, the “Great Gatsby” etc) that followed.
The rejection of rigid wartime “Conformity” gave us the Roaring Twenties and the Beat Generation/Hippy movements.
Interestingly, the COVID LOCKDOWNS and the WOKE movement are the most Conformist reaction we have seen yet. Probably because the China Bug was the most existential threat we have seen since the Atomic Scare of the fifties.
Dave McGowan was a man among men. A down to earth guy whose laser sharp focus and brilliant logic could dissect a situation and expose the bullshit instantly. I loved him for what he did. He was dying from stage 4 cancer. I was at a Gary Null retreat in Texas in August 2015. I emailed him about Gary’s cancer treatment and how it was working for people who were at the retreat. Gary answered my email. He was resigned to what was going to happen to him. He thanked me for the concern but was not interested. Gary Passed on Nov 22, 2015 – the day of the JFK hit. I will always remember him.
Nothing has changed. These pigs still control/manipulate much of our culture. There are so many people in the media, on Youtube, and of course celebrities who are NOT the people they pretend to be. If the media is hyping some movie/person/music be very cautious. Beyonce comes to mind, but there are so many more.
Dave’s writings were a major part of my wake-up campaign back in the early 2000s. Love his tongue n’ cheek humor while slamming us with the shocking truth. Over the years, I have posted several of his items on my blog. It was a sad day to learn he passed and I send my deepest condolences to you, Alissa, and all the family. Thank you for keeping his work alive. RIP Dave.
Wow, What a Long Strange Trip It Has Been’! I participated in this culture, heard much but not all of this about the Canyon families, at 70 now, seems that truly ‘There are no Conspiracies but There Are No Coincidences’ is so true! Peace brothers and sisters!
I’d like to know how the intelligence agencies programmed talent.
Laurel Canyon ‘talent’ is highly over rated
Sounds like the Morrisons could have been the instruments used by the shadow government, aka Deep State, NWO, et cetera, to sow discord and start massive class warfare among families in the United States.