Those who didn't live through the early 1970s tend to romanticize them. I suppose we all do that about periods that precede our birth. I certainly do it with the 1940s and early '50s. Guilty! But today, many who were too young to experience the early '70s view it as a hippie, trippy period, and in some ways it was. There were plenty of strange looking cars thanks to American Motors, strange colors such as canary yellow, burnt orange and kelp green, and strange people, including cult murderers, drug-crazed assassins and heiresses turned terrorists.
In short, those years were a mutant extension of the 1960s without the whole-earth optimism or the home-made clothes. The chill was gone and the news seemed to grow crazier by the day (if you think today is nuts, dig the major headlines back then). Everything was rusting, technology emerged in strange places, and many young people who had tuned-out and turned-on returned home to find themselves without prospects or income.
What was Los Angeles like back then? How did a city that started so many trends, including a passion for the future, seem through the eyes o a smart stranger? You're in luck. To really get a feel for the 1970s—with its smoggy decay and seediness—here's a BBC documentary on British architecture professor Reyner Banham (above) during one of his visits to the City of Angels in 1971...
from JazzWax http://ift.tt/2flrhNp
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