Customer Reviews

Riot On Sunset Strip

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It's amazing how many music styles melded on one stretch of road in one city during just a two-year period! This is not an ordinary road but the main one - Sunset Strip (actually Sunset Boulvard) - and not just any city. It's HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA!

Sure there were hard rock bands - the image you get from both the title and the cover photo of this fascinating book - but there were also the Beach Boys, The Mamas and Papas, Petula Clark and lots of small comedy and folk clubs. This was the music I gravitated to during 1965 and 1966 and I found lots to reminisce about on as I read and looked through this book. Of particular interest to me was the section on Teen TV shows which emanated from the LA scene. Though, growing up in the Philadelphia area, I was more of an American Bandstand viewer, we did get Lloyd Thaxton in the afternoon and, of course, Shindig! in the evening. Then there was the T.A.M.I. Show film - which still has never been legitimately been released on home video - and it was filmed there. Fiore devotes a large section to this and I learned things we "kids" on the East Coast never knew. Just looking at the picture, and reading the captions, was an experience.

I can certainly recommend this - as a memory jogger - to anyone who was a teen in 1965-66 and it'll definitely be a must for anyone who watch Rock and Roll television in Southern California in the 1960s.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

I loved this book because of the way it put me right on the Sunset Strip in the mid 60s, making me feel like I was sitting at Canter's Deli with Gene Clark and then dancing to The Byrds at Ciro's later that same evening. I also love the argument it makes about San Francisco's elitist attitude about its own 60s bands, versus those of L.A. Ask me to choose between The Grateful Dead and Love, between Moby Grape and The Byrds, between any SF garage band and The Seeds or The Music Machine, and I'm going with the Hollywood "cream puff" act every time. The book also makes you feel the tragedy of the collapse of the Sunset Strip nightclub scene, after the police effectively shut it down because some influential people in town didn't like the idea of the Strip being a place for teenagers to hang out and dance to groovy music. You get to know what a magical time and place the Strip was in 65-66, and it makes you want to be there. The only complaint I have is that at times Priore is too expansive, too exhaustive - it's hard to care after a while when he gives you countless details about every band who happened to be around the Strip through the mid-60s. That's a minor quibble, though, because if you don't want to read all that detail, you can skip over those sections. Otherwise, this is a great book which definitely and delightfully puts you in a cool time and place. And I love the Sunset Strip mid-60s street map at the beginning of the book.

This book has everybody from The Beach Boys,Jan&Dean,Johnny Rivers,The Byrds,Love,to Frank Zappa&The Mothers of Invention. For the most part,Priore gives the reader a comprehensive history of the Los Angeles music scene. From surf to psychedelia,it's all here packed with interesting anecdotes and pictures. There are a couple of points to quibble about. First,a few of the picture captions mis-identify some important L.A. figures.There is a picture that is supposedly Johnny Rivers but clearly is not. In the section of the book that chronicles the Byrds,he states that producer Gary Usher had his Sagitarius partner Curt Boetcher singing lead vocals on the songs "Natural Harmony"&"Draft Morning" when in actual fact it was Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman. Still,it's a fun book that will be even better if they correct these aforementioned mistakes for later printings.

In 1965 and 1966, the city of Los Angeles saw a sudden burst of rock groups playing in venues on the fabled Sunset Strip. These were bands that included such legendary outfits as The Byrds, The Doors, Love, The Seeds, The Turtles, The Mammas and the Papas, The Standells, and so many others. They appeared with the unexpected suddenness of a comet, then vanished just as swiftly. In "Riot On Sunset Strip: Rock 'n' Rolls Last Stand In Hollywood" writer, television producer, music and pop culture historian Domenic Priore provides an illustrated history of that remarkable time that saw a unique musical scene come into existence and the fall apart at the Monterey Pop festival as a kind of tragic finale to the fabled Summer of Love. Profusely illustrated, "Riot On Sunset Strip" is a fascinating read that is informed and informative, making it an ideal addition to personal, academic, and community library 20th Century American Music History reference collections and supplemental reading lists..

A few mistakes in the photo captions but the author's heart is in the right place and the text is scholarly and quite engaging. Loved it!

Priore's book on the Strip isn't bad at all. Highly entertaining in fact. As long as you're on board with his agenda of everything from L.A. in the mid '60s was brilliant and everything from San Francisco was crapola then you're in for a treat as his research was extensive. The garage rock chapter unearthed tons 'O bands I'd never heard of and even if he doesn't really tell you anything you didn't already know about The Beach Boys, Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Doors, etc he still puts you right in the center of all the action in Hollywood circa '66-'67. Rock 'n' roll may not have died after that but he convinces you that his rock 'n' roll did.

Ah, where do I start!

Growing up as a teenager in L.A. (actually the much-maligned San Fernando Valley) in the mid 60's, there's hardly anything in this book that I'm not totally familiar with. What's wonderful about this book is that almost everything that went on is compiled in one place in an encyclopedic form. While I am familiar with all of this (I was there for the '66 riot at Pandora's Box), I'd forgotten much of the detail. This helped bring it all back!

The Sunset Strip in the mid 60's was truly a magical place and time, the confluence of a radical change in society,technology,art, music,film and consumerism. For those who lived it, nothing will ever take its place. This book (along with several others out right now) captures this minute sliver of time (it was only, maybe, 2-3 years) when this quantum leap took place.

If you have any interest in 60's music, especially L.A. music, get this book. It's actually a long read, and maybe not for everyone, but it's wonderfully comprehesive in describing the evolution of this period. Only occasionally does it get a little politically preachy, but all in all, it's a great resource and well worth the investment.

This is a zineish braindump with a huge quantity of facts and photos (and some unchallenged opinions), but not much of a narrative thrust. If you're up for that sort of thing, this would be hard to beat. However, once they paid for all the photo rights, there was apparently no money left in the budget for proofreading.

I agree with the author's premise that the music from SoCal is far superior to that of San Francisco from the same era and enjoyed reading the book. I give it only 3 stars because the editing was so poor and it became paragraphs of listed facts at times that stopped the flow. Several of the photo captions are incorrect, i.e. Stephen Stills is not Richie Furay, Denny Doherty isn't John Phillips, etc. I would have preferred a
listing of bands, like the clubs in the back of the book.
But reading so much about The Leaves, Seeds and Standells, plus Arthur
Lee and Love was great. The tie-in with the animated shows of that period was gold. Not living in the area at the time, I was aware of "Where The Action Is" and Lloyd Thaxtoon in the afternoons, plus Shindig and Hullabaloo at night. But I had no idea there were so many more shows like them locally. The youth today should be so lucky.
But riot or no riot, that scene would have ended anyway, as Sgt. Pepper
was released in 1967 and the industry was changed almost overnight. It
makes me wonder what might happen to an area of successful youth clubs today if a bunch of boomers decided to just start hanging around, blocking traffic and not spending money. I'm sure the club owners would complain to some form of local government. Because the riots in 1966 had more to do money and not some vast right-wing conspiracy as Priore wants
you to believe.

This book is a great in-depth tribute to the people,places and atmosphere
that made the Sunset Strip the 'place to see and be seen' Great photos..and tid-bits about all the clubs..who played there and how the local Government felt and acted upon the whole scene..also provides a list of all the clubs and their addresses..Don't pass this book up!