HARVEY KUBERNIK IN HIS CANYON OF DREAMS
I certainly tend to agree that, in the infamous words of no less an authority on all things Laurel Canyon, Calif., as Frank Zappa, most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read.
True, in a market already too glutted with 40th anniversary re-servicings of everything from Woodstock to The Rolling Stones' Altamont misadventures, one would hardly be blamed in passing by yet another study of Los Angeles pop culture from its equally distant, if golden age.
Somehow though, veteran Southern California rock historian Harvey Kubernik's bountiful new Canyon of Dreams book is the joyous exception to the patchouli-drenched rule: It is both lush in layout and deep in detail, of not only the musicians, but the arrangers, club owners, publicists and even architecture behind an era roughly stretching from Art Laboe to Slash. Or, as the author himself tells me, "We needed a print ride from 1914 to 2009. I took the challenge."
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