Bob Yodels Up the Canyon Part Five – The Review

Looking back, the musical and lifestyle Centre of the Universe that came into being in the mid ’60s wasn’t heralded by an anthem grown and harvested locally.  It was heralded by an edited 10 page-long poem written by a boy from Wisconsin, and set to music played by young and mostly forgotten studio musicians and recorded in New York.

In August of 1965 THIS is the song that Echoed in the Canyon from Sunset Strip to the San Fernando Valley. This is the song that fueled the moment.

It couldn’t be more ironic ….

Bob Yodels Up the Canyon Part Four – You Had to Be There

For no discernible reason, when it comes to music, I have constantly found myself in the right place at the right time.

Not in terms of my own, personal, trajectory through the music industries obstacle-ridden path or being able to overcome its many hidden pitfalls, false promises, and mustache twirling villains, but of being in the presence of popular music’s odd and unpredictable turning points and occasional legendary upheavals.

No, I wasn’t in Liverpool or London or the Brill Building/Folk Scare/Hip Hop eras of New York City, but the ones a little closer to home and then, in Canada.

One of these strange little coincidences took place in Southern California, on the Strip known as Sunset, and in the Canyon known as Laurel …and therein lies our tale …and the reason I feel that Echo in the Canyon is a poor assessment of the time and place, lacking in both passion, and connective tissue.

Segarini – Heartache Tonight

We were sitting on the patio of Hamburger Hamlet…me and two guys I had run into over the last little while at the Whisky and other hang-outs on Sunset, as well as the front bar at the Troubadour on Santa Monica Blvd. Good guys, fun loving, and could keep up with me shot for shot, beer for beer. We had met when both their duo, Long Branch Pennywhistle, and Rand Bishop and I, had worked on the soundtrack for a film called Vanishing Point

The three of us decided to write a song together, bought a case of beer, grabbed our guitars, and headed to the apartment of a girl they knew….

Segarini: The Martha Reeves Incident

Cameron Carpenter, our Toronto Music Maven, is out of commission for this week and possibly next, or rather his laptop is, sooo, unable to find a fill in writer for today, I am once again going to spin a tale from the archives of columns I have written over the years.