The late great Dave McGowan speaks with me about Laurel Canyon, the music and the myth, Charles Manson, the films stars of the era, and the mysterious military installation, Lookout Mountain Laboratory. Bands like The Doors, Love, The Byrds, The Monkees and Frank Zappa and the Mothers would all rise from the same scene and give birth to a Southern California hippie subculture that may not have been as organic as it appeared.
Dave himself describes the central thesis of his book Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & The Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream this way, “the music and counterculture scene that sprung to life in the 1960s was not the organic, grassroots resistance movement that it is generally perceived to be, but rather a movement that was essentially manufactured and steered. And a scene that was supposed to be all about peace, love and understanding had a very dark, violent underbelly that this book attempts to expose.”

For more information on Dave McGowan go to: https://centerforaninformedamerica.com

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