The Zapple Diaries by Barry Miles

Author:Barry Miles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2016-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

Apple had offices in the famous Capitol Tower just north of the Hollywood and Vine intersection.

Chapter 9

The First Trip: LA – Bukowski

I FLEW INTO LAX on a Friday evening, too late to see anyone at the Capitol Tower, where Apple had an office. I had not forewarned anyone I was coming, so from the airport I telephoned the local underground newspapers. Art Kunkin, the editor of the Los Angeles Free Press, was out and no one seemed particularly friendly, even though they had published quite a bit of my work, so I phoned the newer Open City, where I had also published but knew no one. They were delighted to hear from someone from International Times and said to come straight on over. They were on Melrose in what looked like a converted body shop. There was a huge psychedelic mural covering the whole of the back wall, but there was something too crude, something unconvincing about it. John Bryan, the editor, laughed at my puzzled expression. The building had been used as the set for an underground newspaper in a cheap Hollywood exploitation movie about hippies, and now it was being used by a real underground paper – a brilliant Hollywood reversal. The Open City staff were wonderfully friendly, and I was immediately offered a place to stay and every kind of hospitality. I finished up with Mike Hodell, over in Silver Lake. It helped that I was in Los Angeles to record Charles Bukowski who had a regular column called ‘Notes of a Dirty Old Man’ in Open City. I had only been in California a few hours, but it seemed very foreign. I loved the climate and the palm trees and the laid-back attitude everyone had: a far cry from the speedy New Yorkers in their snow-covered streets I had left just a few hours before. I found the six hundred miles of freeways extraordinary; there seemed to be no centre to the city, and I soon found out that it was not regarded as unusual to drive fifty miles to see a concert. I spent the weekend with the Open City folks and on Monday presented myself at the Capitol Tower at Hollywood and Vine. I loved the building; it looked like a stack of singles on an autochange: twelve floors, the bottom one ready to be whisked away and played.

Apple had a large office there, but no one from London had yet been over to see them, and they were desperate for news and information. Sadly I was not able to help them much as, aside from Peter Asher, Ron Kass, Derek Taylor and the Beatles themselves, I didn’t know the other staff very well as I never had to deal with them. None the less, the American staff did everything they could to help me, hiring studio time in San Francisco, arranging car rental there, renting a portable tape-recorder for my Bukowski album. Just like the London office, ever since Paul and John had

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