History

Rock history fades on the Strip

Hyatt Sunset StripThe last bastions of incivility are disappearing from of one of traveling rock and roll’s mightiest icons — the Hyatt West Hollywood, Laurel Canyon author Michael Walker blogs. The hotel itself is staying, but the remodel going on now is stripping the facade of the balconies where "Led Zeppelin and entourage hurled bottles of Dom Perignon, Zeppelin drummer John Bonham teetered and singer Robert Plant crowed 'I’m a golden god!' (immortalized in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous.)" Instead of the balconies, "ripped out like so many meth-rotted teeth," expect a wall of translucent glass.

On topic: The 1966 Sunset Strip "riot" that followed enforcement of a 10 pm curfew and closure of Pandora's Box at Sunset and Crescent Heights, and which inspired the Stephen Stills and Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth," is recounted by Cecilia Rasmussen in her L.A. Then and Now column in the Times.


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