"Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon"
So I read McGowan's book. It's a pretty good read, the book flows easily and has a good pace.
But he really toned down the conspiracy angle. Most disappointingly is that he made no effort to put the story together at the end, to do any synthesis. The end of the book was interesting about the Alcala trials, but it was largely off topic and mostly seemed to be there as a plug for one of his older books. So, I'm not sure why he didn't try to paint a more complete picture of the conspiracy.
I had put down some thoughts on his premise here, which was based on some interviews I'd heard with him, and based on his writings. Basically, the idea is that the 1960s Laurel Canyon hippie scene was a miliary psy-op, to discredit the anti-war movement. I tried to put it together how the Laurel Canyon location got selected for the psyop, and one big question I had was how much McGowan addressed this.
In one of the early chapters, he did the most exploration of the conspiracy angle, and he did address why they set up in Laurel Canyon (the old military connection). As far as the musicians, he actually seemed to say that some of the artists were witting covert military intelligence operators, such as Steven Stills, David Crosby and Frank Zappa. I got the impression that McGowan ascribes a lot to the mind control program of the CIA, and that many of the musicians were programmed agents, run by creepy, nefarious, mysterious, bohemian handlers.
I suppose since many of these people are still alive, like Stills and Crosby, McGowan had to be careful what sort of accusations he could lay on them. I suppose...
So, the big picture is that the weird Laurel Canyon music and film scene was likely part of a military/CIA plot with several goals:
1) to start a movement of distraction away from the Vietnam war
2) to discredit the anti-war movement
3) to deal drugs and promote drug use
4) a center of occult activity
But the book primarily deals with the strange origins of many of the musicians and the many deaths and odd turns of fate of people who were associated with Laurel Canyon in the 1960s. And there was a wide reach of connections, to Elvis Presley, to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
The Doors were always one of my favorite bands, and I wish McGowan had written more on them. While he hinted that Morrison's (and even Presley's) death was faked, he never explored those topics, much to my disappointment.
But he really toned down the conspiracy angle. Most disappointingly is that he made no effort to put the story together at the end, to do any synthesis. The end of the book was interesting about the Alcala trials, but it was largely off topic and mostly seemed to be there as a plug for one of his older books. So, I'm not sure why he didn't try to paint a more complete picture of the conspiracy.
I had put down some thoughts on his premise here, which was based on some interviews I'd heard with him, and based on his writings. Basically, the idea is that the 1960s Laurel Canyon hippie scene was a miliary psy-op, to discredit the anti-war movement. I tried to put it together how the Laurel Canyon location got selected for the psyop, and one big question I had was how much McGowan addressed this.
In one of the early chapters, he did the most exploration of the conspiracy angle, and he did address why they set up in Laurel Canyon (the old military connection). As far as the musicians, he actually seemed to say that some of the artists were witting covert military intelligence operators, such as Steven Stills, David Crosby and Frank Zappa. I got the impression that McGowan ascribes a lot to the mind control program of the CIA, and that many of the musicians were programmed agents, run by creepy, nefarious, mysterious, bohemian handlers.
I suppose since many of these people are still alive, like Stills and Crosby, McGowan had to be careful what sort of accusations he could lay on them. I suppose...
So, the big picture is that the weird Laurel Canyon music and film scene was likely part of a military/CIA plot with several goals:
1) to start a movement of distraction away from the Vietnam war
2) to discredit the anti-war movement
3) to deal drugs and promote drug use
4) a center of occult activity
But the book primarily deals with the strange origins of many of the musicians and the many deaths and odd turns of fate of people who were associated with Laurel Canyon in the 1960s. And there was a wide reach of connections, to Elvis Presley, to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
The Doors were always one of my favorite bands, and I wish McGowan had written more on them. While he hinted that Morrison's (and even Presley's) death was faked, he never explored those topics, much to my disappointment.
posted by spooked at 10:05 PM
4 Comments:
frank zappa was an outspoken hater of government in general - i can't believe that he was a willing participant in any govt psy-op.
Didn't the late Gram Parsons live there also?
Along with Elvis and MORRISON, Parsons was a heavy user of Smack and other chemicals. For those who believe the PTB are behind so many bad things (although most religions use a Trinity in their Theosophy, we'll leave THAT for another time), maybe McGowan WAS onto something with the faked deaths notion.
I never cared for Zappa one bit. He seemed annoying and random to me. The book paints him as quite a dick. His dad worked for a major US chemical weapons development lab.
And yeah, Gram Parsons was part of that Laurel Canyon scene. DM spends some time on him, though I don't remember the details.
I like the review of McGowan's book here. I agree that he didn't summarize what he thought all the reasons for setting up Laurel Canyon were. He does state at times that it started the Hippie movement to divert the anti-war movement. he also implied that it spread drug use amongst many, especially musicians. The upcoming book, Drugs as Weapons Against Us: The CIA's Murderous Targeting of SDS, Panthers, Hendrix, Lennon, Cobain, Tupac and other Leftists, makes similar points in a more direct way.
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