Time Has Come Today: Rock and Roll Diaries 1967 - 2007

A four decade look at the life of Rhino Records co-founder Harold Bronson

Once they step behind the rock and roll curtain, whatever runs-ins a journalist might have with famous (or soon to be famous…) musicians can eventually collapse into the mundane. They’re there to sell a record or tickets, and you’re there to help them do that and not much more. If you get to snag a few beers off their rider, all the better.

 But back during the days glamorized by that largely dreadful “Almost Famous” film, there was, in general, more to it. More fun anyhow. At least that’s what we’ve read…or been told via an endless stream of rock documentaries. This was not necessarily Harold Bronson’s experience.   

 Growing up in the Westchester hood of Los Angeles, Bronson spent time listening to KRLA and KHJ, while hunting for bargains on vinyl in department stores and local record shops. By the time he wound up writing about music for the Daily Bruin at UCLA, he was experimenting with recording his own music (his Mogan David and his Winos singles are fairly collectible on the novelty circuit).  

 His diary of that period and the ensuing eras of freelancing for other publications, through the time he would work at the record shop that would eventually christen his Rhino Records label are all detailed in the bite-sized chunks that make up “Time Has Come Today” – Bronson’s latest book on the West Coast side of the music biz.

 And it’s in these extensive back pages that we find Bronson slowly circling the L.A. media pool while his university credentials begin to get him access to local heroes (like a post-Merry Go Round Emitt Rhodes) and visiting Pop demi-royalty (such as a post-Odessa era Maurice Gibb).

 But what’s quickly pretty evident here is that there’s not much blood going to these 400-plus pages of diary entries. No matter who he meets, or whatever concert he’s seeing there’s often little to no energy coming at you from the text. It’s as though he thought someone might be periodically sending mimeographed copies of his journal off to his parents or his pastor.

 For instance, Bronson gets to sit fifth row during the second date of the Stones’ 1969 U.S. tour and writes:

“Reflecting on the evening, I concluded the $12.50 I paid for the ticket was worth the price.”

After he turns down a beer from George Carlin’s wife when he lived next door to the couple:

“I’m not yet 21 and don’t drink, so I declined.”

Since this isn’t an audiobook (yet…), most of these stilted entries don’t inspire much linear attention. Which is OK by Bronson. As he points out in the preface:

“In reading The Andy Warhol Diaries, one could experience the book chronologically or as randomly read entries. I have organized Time Has Come Today so the reader can enjoy the same choice of literary experience.”

 But as much as this comes off as an anti-rock journal at times, there are plenty of worthwhile moments that illustrate what a grind or a chore the music industry can be – like when Bronson interviews an exhausted Badfinger following a 1,400 trek from Wichita, KS that results in a duff performance at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Or the small but sad tale of Love frontman Arthur Lee, hitting up Bronson for bail money following his in order to bail him out of jail for possessing a firearm as an ex-felon.

 Even sadder perhaps are the entries you’ll come across when you fast forward to the 21st century and read about the author lunching with John Densmore as the drummer is embroiled in legal battles with the rest of The Doors, or what Bronson wrote once he walked away from Rhino after it had been co-opted by the industry’s bigger fish:

 “I never felt we were appreciated by the industry or by our now-owners, the Warner Music Group. I attribute this to one overriding factor: we didn’t have hits. You would think most people who work in the industry are music fans, but rarely did I receive compliments about our packages.”

 So if you’re looking for tales of Bronson and Mark Volman doing lines off the glossy shell of a Monkees boxset, you’ll find no quarter here. Maybe those sorts of cheap thrills made it into his previous books (such as  2013’s well-received “The Rhino Records Story: The Revenge of the Music Nerds”), but if that’s the case then, it makes this outing feel more like a mild conceit. Did we really need these brief, understated details? Possibly. But then maybe this should have arrived in the form of a scrapbook, with more pictures and assorted ephemera included. Because if you’re going to tell me that you watched Black Sabbath recording “Snowblind” for their “Vol. 4” LP, I want to read something that doesn’t sound like it could slot comfortably onto the pages of Redbook magazine.

 So while being light on Light on drugs, envy, and bad behavior, ultimately what you’ll find here is Bronson coming off here as a supremely nice guy who parlayed good timing and pretty good access into a remarkable record label that most collectors have come to love. But as a contemporary of Cameron Crowe it seems, at least by way of this book, that he somehow managed to have less of a good time while the getting was good.