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

Wow, that's more than I would have expected. I would be very curious to know if that included music licensing or not. If they did, 30+ songs for that kinda dough is incredible. I think $50K-$100K per song is more typical, and :30 seconds of a Beatles song plus the Beatles appearing in a clip can't go for less than $500K. Hell, "Tomorrow Never Knows" alone cost $250K when it was used in Mad Men some years ago, and that was only a TV show. I seem to recall the 30+ songs used in the Wrecking Crew documentary were $3 million dollars just for the songs and publishing; the film itself only cost about $500K, but the music was 6 times more money. I would be surprised if this film was cheaper.

 

Which is exactly why rights fees for music in this country are ridiculous. Elsewhere, there are set amounts, not whatever the hell someone feels like charging.

 

Brian playing his piano in his sandbox was in bel air. not laurel canyon.

i bet this doc sucks. lol

 

http://albumlinernotes.com/site/mob...ernotes.com/Marilyn_Wilson_Comments.html#2853

MARILYN WILSON: "When we talk about Pet Sounds, all I picture is our Laurel Way house, and how all he did during that time was create a mood. Like with the sandbox in the living room. Why would you want to do that? Simple – he wanted a certain feeling. So then, when he had the piano in the sandbox, what he wanted was to section off a part of the formal dining room. He had a runner along the ceiling, like a curtain rod, and he wanted to close off the sandbox like a room.

 

I didn’t suck, really. Uneven? Sometimes. But a lot to love, too. Like listening to Tom Petty talk about these artists.

 

I agree -- it didn't suck, but it was disappointing and extremely uneven.

 

Yup, 1448 Laurel Way, which is in Beverly Hills.

 

I believe the movie is a little misrepresented, it isn't about the Laurel Canyon music/art scene, but a tribute documentary to a few select bands that Jaycob Dylan and friends discovered through collecting old 60s albums. The ultimate goal was a live concert and tribute album performed by Jaycob and friends along with an interesting short documentary showing Jaycob and his friends research for this tribute concert and album. This research was in the form of viewing a few period film clips and a few select interviews of a few artists they admired who lived there and not the entire conglomerate of artists of all types that made up the Canyon Community. This documentaries focus is more on the leading up to and the making of their live concert and album than truly focusing in on an historic overview of the mid 60s in the Laurel Canyon music and art scene. To go into the movie thinking it is a tribute to the whole Laurel Canyon music scene will create disappointment. You will ask yourself where is Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, Spirit, The Monkees, The Doors, Love, Tim Buckley and so on just to name a few missing musical artists in this overall artistic scene. Laurel Canyon was not just jangle rock and a few teen idol bands.

 

Caught it over the weekend here in Seattle, with Jakob and his band in attendance. As others have said, the film itself was rather uneven. Jumped around a lot. The transitions between original songs/in-studio remakes/live performances were rather jarring. And yes, lots of factual issues (which, let's be honest, can mostly be chalked up to 50-year-old memories). Seemed to leave out a lot of key figures from that era too, including Joni Mitchell and Love. (Interestingly, the band played a version of Love's "No Matter What You Do" after the screening.) And for all the talk about (and clips from) Model Shop, not one mention of Spirit. I can understand some of the absences (like the Doors and the Monkees). The film seemed to focus almost entirely on the period between 1965-1967 (so just before the Doors really hit the scene), and seemed mostly to be about bands that were more "self-contained," playing their own instruments and/or writing their own songs. Granted, the Monkees sometimes qualified for that, but they definitely weren't part of the organic scene that kind of developed around that time and place.

The post-screening mini-concert was nice. Included the aforementioned Love track, a couple Mamas & Papas songs, Buffalo Springfield's "Questions," and finally a really nice version of Petty's "The Waiting".

 

What about The Turtles?

 

Is rock dead? Watching this you'd have to say yes.

Seeing Jacob Dylan and company sleepwalk through rote and sanitized scrubs of 60's tunes is quite a chore. And so against everything this flick claims to celebrate. Not one ounce of inspiration, sweat, grit, creativity or lust for life inhabits this.
Any studio footage (playing and interviews) was so reverent it was like looking upon people in church. The actual bits of interviews and old footage was not a lot in time or substance. I did like the discussions of whom ripped off whom.

Who thought having four people with zero chemistry sit on a couch to flip through albums was compelling footage? It was hard to tell if Beck was real or a mannequin most of the time.

All time bottom five music documentary for me.

 

Overall, I too found it disappointing. Someone needs to do an in depth doc on that scene. So much to explore.

 

Yeah, there's some distorted emphasis that give undue weight to artists like Joni Mitchell, who was certainly there but hadn't yet made much of an impact to the general public in the late 60's. One thing I appreciate about Tarantino's OUATIH is Paul Revere and the Raiders so central in the aesthetic radar. I remember them then as being a lot bigger than they are remembered now. Being on "Where The Action Is" almost everyday didn't seem to hurt their popularity.

 

This one is much better IMO:

 

Good find! I saw "Echo..." when it first opened in NYC. At the end of the film Jakob and band marched out in front of the screen and played a couple of songs. The film, as an overview of the times (unfortunately I'm old enough to remember!) wasn't all that bad. The remakes of the songs did pale when compared to the originals. I guess Jakob was trying to say that in some way the music lives on. I wish they had gotten a bit more into the "how" of the music (evolution of the songwriting, recording inspiration in the studio). But that's just my personal preference as a guitar player.

 

The best part of the doc was when Crosby said what the ‘real reason’ he was kicked out of the Byrds. I was laughing my head off.

It was a good watch and done in the right spirit. Sure I think some choices were odd but it was cool.

I will say though I don’t think I’d enjoy hanging out with that modern dinner party crew at the house with all the records. Wow. You’d think they’d be more interesting! Check the house for a gas leak!

 

I am in the middle of watching again, this time on Netflix. I agree wholeheartedly. That dinner party "rehearsal" stuff is pretty stilted. They seem a bit befuddled by it all.

I still enjoy the majority of the movie, but I love that music; and love LA from around those times. So, it's cool, even if its not everything it might have been.

 

I wonder why the full concert didn’t make it as an extra on the Blu-ray ? Hopefully a super deluxe edition is around the corner

 

Totally agree!

 

Fun, loving tribute but I didn't learn anything new.
I suppose the Clapton interview on The Bust fleshed
things out a bit, but that's all.

This is a story much bigger than one film can hold.
But, many of us already know much of it.

 

Young Mr. Dylan's heart was in the right place but I found it disappointing overall as a fan of
that scene. No mention of Arthur Lee? Not even from Beck? Perplexing. Sebastian, McGuinn,
Clapton, Ringo and Tom Petty came off well in the interviews. The other Boomer stars else made me feel
a little bit sad inside here. And Fiona Apple fit in here about as much as a walrus would at a soccer match.

 

Wow. I saw this a couple months ago and loved the hell out of it. I went to Amazon to buy the bluray just now and scrolled to the reviews to see if there were any bonus features included. What I saw was one-star review after one-star review. That bad, huh? So I came to this thread to see what y'all think. You rate it a bit better than the Amazon reviews, but not much. I see a few people here liked it as much as I did.

Anyway, I loved it and can't wait to watch it again. I didn't care much for the covers, but it was nice to hear the songs in a different light.

 

I enjoyed it. I know it's not the definitive documentary of the era but I thought it was well done. I liked the covers too!

 

While I enjoyed watching it, I thought it was very narrowed featuring only a handful of groups. Seriously, no P.F. Sloan either? I don't think this west coast sound would have been what it was without that guy.

 

Lots were left out - The Association for instance. People who are seldom interviewed like Richie Furay and Terry Kirkman and Al Jardine and John Densmore and Peter Lewis for instance might have brought a bit more interesting and sober perspective (maybe no one needs to hear from David Crosby repeating the same stories again for awhile?) In retrospect, this entire film plays like an extended trailer for the documentary that should have been made. It's not bad, and I enjoyed Jacob's performances. But 82 minutes - Where's the rest of it!?