AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #372: ‘CITY OF ANGELS’

A GUEST POST by JONNY THE FRIENDLY LAWYER (aka fiktiv)

JC writes…………………..

This was meant to appear last month, to commemorate the fact that myself and Rachel were heading to Los Angeles, and in particular to Santa Monica, where we were to be the houseguests of Jonny (JTFL aka fiktiv) and Lisa (aka GTFP) for the best part of 2 weeks.  It was a trip that had been long in the planning – it was supposed to have happened a few years ago but the COVID restrictions put paid to that, and then a few other things prevented it being rearranged until June 2024.

My bout of sudden illness and hospitalisation ended our hopes this time around.  We had looked about trying to head over sometime later this summer or perhaps the autumn, but after a couple of transatlantic FaceTime chats, the decision was taken to leave it till next year.

There is no way I want to sit on this ICA for that amount of time.  Jonny put a lot of time and effort into planning things for our time over there – for example (and I only found out about this afterwards) is that the evening of my birthday would be spent at a gig at the famous and historical Greek Theatre in LA, where Elvis Costello was performing…..and the seats were just about the best in the house.  I’ve no doubt that his and Lisa’s ideas for the rest of our time over there would have seen us pop by a few of the neighbourhoods mentioned in the ICA.

Fingers crossed for third time lucky.  Here’s Jonny…….

The Villains are coming to L.A.!

In anticipation of that historic visit here’s a welcome-to-the-coast ICA.  There are way too many great songs about Los Angeles to choose from—the wonderful weather out here, famous streets (Ventura Highway, Blue Jay Way, Mulholland Drive), the culture (Celluloid Heroes, Nobody Walks in LA, Left My Wallet in El Segundo) and so forth.  There are countless songs simply called “Los Angeles.”  So, as to not get lost in the stars, I’m limiting this compilation to tracks titled after particular neighborhoods in the City of Angels.

1.         Santa Monica –  Everclear

I think of myself as a New Yorker, and I don’t see that ever changing.  But I’ve lived the past 33 years in Santa Monica—twice as long as I lived in New York and more than three times longer than I lived in Manhattan.  And I’m here for good.  As Best Coast sing, “We’ve got the ocean, got the babes, got the sun, we’ve got the waves.   Why would you live anywhere else?”

2.        Pacific Palisades –  Ash

The Palisades is a town on the coast immediately north of Santa Monica.  It’s where GTFP went to high school (classmate: Susanna Hoffs), 10 years after Sparks’ Russell Mael was quarterback of the football team.   Not sure how a Northern Irish outfit came to write about the Palisades–it’s like a band from New Jersey singing about Bellshill or something.

3.        Malibu –  Hole

Let’s continue north to the next town.  Everyone’s heard of Malibu, right?  It’s impossibly beautiful, with the mountains on one side of Pacific Coast Highway and shockingly expensive beach homes on the other side.  I imagine that when out-of-state or foreign folks think of California they’re picturing Malibu.

4.        Redondo Beach – Patti Smith

Now we’ll head the other way south down the coast to Redondo, just on the other side of Venice.  I cycle through it a couple of times a week.  I’m on the lookout for dolphins but my riding buddies are keeping track of the surf.  They have more terms for waves than Inuit folks have for snow.  A reggae-ish number with tragic lyrics by the punk high priestess, from way back in 1975.

5.        Hollywood –  Runaways

Folks have been singing songs about Hollywood forever but this one’s my favorite, belted out by an 18-year-old Joan Jett.  Everyone knows what happened to Jett and the Currie sisters and Lita Ford.  But I like that bassist Jackie Fox, who co-wrote the song and sings the pretty background vocals, ditched the band when she was still a teenager, went to college and eventually to Harvard law school (classmate: Barack Obama). 

6.        North Hollywood – Van Hunt

There are distinct parts of Hollywood: Hollywood proper, East, West and North Hollywood (there’s no South Hollywood).  West Hollywood has the clubs (The Whiskey, Troubadour, The Roxy, Viper Room), East Hollywood is racially diverse, except for the massive Scientology facility there. North Hollywood is where it creeps over the Santa Monica mountains into the San Fernando Valley.  The Valley is to L.A. what Jersey is to NYC.  I like how people out here are dedicated to their discreet little patches.  This song by neo soul merchant Van Hunt was in heavy rotation in the house while my son was getting ready to swap the SaMo sunshine for Chicago winters.

7.        Bel Air – Lana Del Rey

I came late to the LDR party but got there in the end thanks to my daughter.   Jane does her best to make sure I don’t only listen to music recorded in 1979.  Bel Air is a super posh residential neighborhood just west of the UCLA campus.  It’s filled with zillionaires with Beyoncé level money.  Some of GTFP’s parents’ friends live there and they threw us a party when we got engaged.  Cost more than our wedding.

8.        Beverly Hills –  Weezer

You probably already know about Beverly Hills, part of the so-called “Platinum Triangle” (with Bel Air and Holmby Hills, where the Playboy Mansion is).  I worked there for a few years.  I didn’t really like it, but at least it has its own distinctive personality.  Weezer‘s song gets the call because it’s got that fat wah-wah solo halfway through.

9.        Laurel Canyon –  The Church

In the 60’s, Laurel Canyon was LA’s bohemian hideout.  It’s where celebrated hippies and freaks like Zappa, Jim Morrison, Joni Mitchell, the Byrds, Gram Parsons and numerous other suede/denim longhairs lived.  It’s smack in the middle of town, in the hilly part of the city separating West Hollywood from the Valley.  Nepomusician Jakob Dylan did a film about it a couple of years ago.  Not a great flick, but a bit of it was shot at TrueTone Records—the best guitar shop in the city.  No idea why an Australian band wrote a song about it in 2014.

10.  Silverlake – Eagles of Death Metal

Silverlake was hipster central when this song was recorded, and EoDM take aim at that crowd pretty mercilessly.  But it used to have a great scene centered around a club called Spaceland, where bands like the Sugarplastic, The 88, Baby Lemonade, Silversun Pickups, Foster the People, the Wondermints and others reinvented power pop.  Hipster ground zero has since shifted east to more affordable places like Eagle Rock and Highland Park, so Silverlake is fun to go to again.

It’s going to be a great visit.

Bonus Track: Best Coast – The Only Place

Bonus video:  As mentioned, there are countless songs titled Los Angeles but, in the end, there’s really only one that counts.  My cover band got to play it at the notorious Viper Room on the Sunset Strip a little while ago.

fiktiv