One Day At A Time

John Phillips - Wolfking of L.A. (1970)

I wonder what the consensus on the Mamas and Papas was back in the day. They are very much the epitome of a sunshine pop act, but their does seem to be quite a bit of substance in the songs of John Phillips. Enter then: Wolfking of LA. - an album which gets a little bit better each time I listen to it. I also have to wonder at what point did he christen himself the wolfking of anything and was there perhaps any sort of ceremony involved? The recording for this took place in his big-ass drug mansion in Bel-Air. But he was far from faded at this point. The thing is, these tracks, which chronicle certain aspects of Los Angeles (Topanga Canyon, Malibu) are just fantastic. His lyrics branching out from optimism and reflection and instead verging on slyly cynical, impressionistic snapshots of slices of that deceiving sun-baked life. I used to dig me some sunshine pop (as recently as say...this morning), but I love the sound when people realized that it just wasn't going to pan out like they thought. Disillusioned, yet still slightly out of their minds.

Holland Tunnel

Malibu People