“Echo in the Canyon” (1960s Laurel Canyon music scene documentary): May 24, 2019

Saw it today - entertaining and satisfying doc. Makes me want to pull out the original records, so I think it was successful.

 

Made me want to make my own mix of the originals and include so many more bands that were overlooked.

 

It was interesting but too much of the current people and not enough about the 60s acts and it was also limited to who they talked about. I did think that Jade woman was really cute with great dimples. Looked her up and she looked better on screen than any pictures that I found. I'd maybe give it 2 1/2 stars out of four.

 

Reminds of my long-simmering "Easy Rider" project.
The original dialogue, music with new period tunes and
background noise. Only 30 years in the making. Lulz

 

Saw Echo in the Canyon at a screening tonight, the new documentary from ex-Capitol exec/producer Andrew Slater, and I was disappointed. Rather than being a film that celebrates the music of the singers and songwriters in the Laurel Canyon of the 1960s, to me it's about a bunch of whiney 30/40-somethings (including co-filmmaker Jakob Dylan) singing their own versions of classic rock songs, with occasional interviews with the people who originally created that music. I loved the historical stuff with Roger McGuinn, Michelle Phillips, David Crosby, Lou Adler, Graham Nash, John Sebastian, Ringo Starr, and several others, especially commentary by Tom Petty (this was his last interview before his tragic death 2 years ago). But it basically felt like an excuse to sell a covers album by contemporary artists.

I would've welcomed an in-depth historical documentary about the 1960s music scene in that area, but that's not what this film is. I get that they made this film for a young contemporary audience and felt that's the context they had to take for commercial success. But being kind of a student of documentaries, I felt like this one was unfocused and wandering, with an ambiguous message that went all over the place.

I was also surprised by the significant people not in the film: no Carole King, virtually no Neil Young (despite many conversations about him), no Mickey Dolenz or Peter Tork, no Joni Mitchell, and even nothing from musicians that still live in Laurel Canyon like Eddie Van Halen. Brian Wilson is barely in the film for a few moments, and while he didn't live in Laurel Canyon, he certainly was part of that '60s scene. I feel like it was a missed opportunity for a more traditional historical retrospective that went back to the roots of the area and covered why so many musicians settled there, then went into more detail about the many important songs written in that area. What we got was a lot more about the echo than the canyon.

The two biggest surprises for me: first, the film has a bunch of clips from an obscure 1969 film called Model Shop with Gary Lockwood driving all over LA, and the historical footage there is absolutely remarkable and very nostalgic, showing a Hollywood long gone: Wallach's Music City, tons of record stores, restaurants, hippies on the street, the Whiskey A-Go-Go, and all that stuff. Quentin Tarantino has said this obscure film was a big influence for his current Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Second surprise: Michelle Phillips says the Mamas & The Papas song "Go Where You Wanna Go" resulted from her then husband finding out about an early affair she had (not with Denny Doherty), and his musical response was "go where you wanna go, do what you wanna do, with whomever you wanna do it with... B****!" (The B-word for a female dog.) That's a story I had never heard.

Today’s folkies salute their elders — and betters — in a flawed documentary homage

 

I agree that it overlooked an awful lot and too much focus on the Jakob Dylan's covers band. I went to the Gene Clark "No Other" tribute concert in which a short documentary on Gene Clark was presented first and then the band followed covering his album. This was a terrific event and was done in extreme good taste in honoring Gene Clark and his landmark album "No Other". When I went to the screening of Echo's in the Canyon I was expecting something similar but with much more emphasis on the documentary aspect of all the bands that were influencing and interacting with each other along with period film clips of interviews and performances, but this was not the case and therefore my disappointment. Still worth a watch once it is on Netflixs which it will be.

An Ex-Byrd’s Album Is Given New Flight

 

Your opinion of this movie is very similar to the one I posted further back in the thread. The main difference is that you appreciated the "Model Shop" clips a lot more than I did so I'm guessing you're familiar with L.A. during that time period whereas I'm not. The parts of the movie that were actually about the canyon's music scene back then were great but they had to share too much time with the current day people who showed very little connection to the Laurel Canyon history.

 

It has been announced for Blu-ray.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Echo-Canyon-Blu-ray-Lou-Adler/dp/B07T3JPQ79

If it's truly only 82 minutes run time then no bonus material?

 

Echo in the Canyon started out as a music project that was a collaboration between Jakob and Andy Slater. Originally it was going to be a record featuring duets between Jakob and various other musicians.

It evolved and they came up with the idea of featuring songs from the canyon during that era and then once under way it was decided to document the Jakob Dylan el al performances on video.

After that it became a movie and they decided to make the documentary portion.

This is a case where the soundtrack came first and the movie came after!!

 

Yes, I see your point. I visited LA in 1975 and remember the way it was then, and I moved here in early 1977 and have lived here until today. I caught a glimpse of that world, enough to say that the Model Shop film shows some amazing sights that don't survive today, so those moments were very cool for me. But at best, there's maybe 30 minutes of good stuff in this movie, which is not enough for me.

We were told there were "hours and hours" of interviews shot, so I would bet they could double every interview segment if they wanted to. Those I would watch. The modern-day concert... not so much.

BTW, Jakob Dylan and the producer told us at the screening that because of the high costs of music licensing -- they even have a moment from Help with "You're Gonna Lose That Girl," where we hear the song and see the Beatles -- they only expected to barely break even, if that, on the film. The soundtrack album will most likely make up for that.

My guess is that the documentary maybe cost $2 million over their 3-year shoot, but then the music rights most likely were in the $6 million-$10 million range. Even though the Beatles clip was only :30 seconds, I could believe it might cost as much as a million bucks. Just the song, half that -- but showing the four of them... that's big bucks.

 

Yes, licensing costs were obviously a huge obstacle in showing archival footage and using the old songs. I can accept that. Since that was the case, I would have been quite happy to see more interview segments with the artists instead. That would have been much more interesting and more in keeping with the concept anyway.

 

Run time refers to the feature itself, does not include timing on the extras. Extras haven't been announced yet.

 

I had to chuckle to myself over the ending, a certain singer guitarist who was playing guitar in the studio, but I guess he’s too full of himself to be interviewed, at least he’s stayed consistent over the years as being the ultimate jerk.

 

Or let's say "distant and enigmatic," at the least. I was surprised by that, too. There was a lot of "hey! Is that who I think that is?" when that shot came up. I think they begged him to be interviewed, but it didn't happen. [You'll have to see the movie to know who we're talking about.]

 

speed

 

As life goes on I realize more and more.... "the longer you live, the more the truth changes".

 

Saw it a few weeks ago but don't remember who you're talking about. I guess it didn't make a big impression.

 

N.Y.

 

well, slater made this doc, yes? he wasn't known for his negotiating skill. had i known he was going to make this i would have impressed upon him the importance of more factual contributions from those that were there from the time. but i was distracted by trying to cash in a deal memo from him, not worth the..whatever.

he always was a 'fan" though. so, good for him.

no one made this thing expecting to make money but no one paid nearly that ^ much for synch rights either.

 

They implied the opposite, that the sync rights were several times higher than the budget for the actual film. My impression was that the film budget was somewhere around $2 million (spent over 4 years), and the sync rights were north of $5 million (30+ songs including a Beatles track and a clip from Help).

If you have precise budget info, I'm all ears. I would agree that Andrew Slater might well be a terrific music producer and record label exec, but it takes a very specific set of skills to know how to produce and edit a documentary. What I saw was disorganized and muddled, and the reviews reflect that. Here's a few more:

'Echo in the Canyon' review: A '60s musical flowering gets plucked by Jakob Dylan's vanity project

How ‘Echo,’ the ’60s Rock Doc of the Moment, Gets Lost in the Canyon (Opinion)

'Echo in the Canyon' Film Review: Documentary Takes a Hazy Look at a Key Moment in Rock History

All these reviews cite the same problems I saw. I think it was a genuinely sincere effort, but I would've liked it a lot more if Jakob Dylan had told the story of the music of that era, and not made it all about how that music affected him. I get that that's the story he wanted to tell, but to me, 50 years from now, I hope people will remember the original music and not what Jakob Dylan had to say about it (and his cover versions).

 

I have budget info...the film cost about $4.0M overall. My brother is involved in the project. But I don’t know what the allocation was as far as production costs vs licensing.

 

I wonder how much sense it makes to NOT license a song that could introduce an artist to a lot of fans. Even a lesser known Beatles song.

 

Same here .... ultimately forgettable.
I thought it was adequate, but nothing more. The conversation time of those who were there was fine, but once the camera was off them, it was just somebody's vanity project. My biggest criticism is that Jakob is neither a compelling personality or musician ... leaving the project cloaked in dullness. The brief visuals of the landscape of the area was stunning, though.

 

I'll bet we see it show up on BD...