Season 4 Reading Series: Murder, Music, and Mystery in LA: Philip Cohen Reads from His Novel ‘Conflict in the City’

In this episode, Philip Cohen reads from ‘Conflict in the City’, a genre-blending novel set in modern LA, where young musicians chasing rock and roll dreams are drawn into a deadly mystery that echoes the noir legacy of the city’s famed detectives.

Philip Cohen

Philip M. Cohen was born in New York City and moved to Los Angeles as a young man. A musician since his pre-teens, he began writing songs and playing with bands in his teens and had a near-encounter with fame with his band The Heaters. He then became a music attorney to pay the bills, but continued to write, perform, and record music. Presently, Phil still consults on legal and business matters but spends most of his time writing and playing music, composing, recording, and performing with his two bands, Dogs and Bones and The Silver Heaters, consisting of former members of The Heaters. ‘Conflict in the City’ is his first published novel and ‘Conflict in the Club’, the second. They are both part of an on-going series dubbed “The Conflict Stories.”

About the Episode

EPISODE SUMMARY:

In this episode, Philip Cohen joins the Rock is Lit Season 4 Reading Series to share a few chapters of his novel ‘Conflict in the City’. Mixing and blending the genres of detective noir and music, ‘Conflict in the City’ takes place in greater Los Angeles, home to both classic and modern fictional LA detectives like Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe and Michael Connolly’s Harry Bosch, and music legends like the Doors, Van Halen, and The Mamas and The Papas.

It’s in this world that we find Johnny “Whoops” Watson and Billy Bates, young guitarists/singers and their band, Conflict, playing clubs in modern LA, where the days of rock’s zenith and ascendance in the 1960s and 1970s has faded, but the hopes and dreams of aspiring musicians haven’t. Conflict is struggling and chaos ensues when someone linked closely to the band is killed. Billy and Johnny become swept up in the mystery, ill-prepared as they are to confront it.

 

MUSIC IN THE EPISODE IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:

  • Rock is Lit theme music

  • [Guitar Instrumental Beat] Sad Rock [Free Use Music] Punch Deck—“I Can’t Stop”

  • The Doors “Light My Fire”

  • The Mamas and The Papas “California Dreamin’ ”

  • The Doors “Riders On the Storm”

  • [Guitar Instrumental Beat] Sad Rock [Free Use Music] Punch Deck—“I Can’t Stop”

  • Rock is Lit theme music

  

LINKS:

Leave a rating and comment for Rock is Lit on Goodpods: https://goodpods.com/podcasts/rock-is-lit-212451

Leave a rating and comment for Rock is Lit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rock-is-lit/id1642987350

Philip Cohen on Facebook: @PhilCohen

Christy Alexander Hallberg’s website: https://www.christyalexanderhallberg.com/rockislit

Christy Alexander Hallberg on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube: @ChristyHallberg

Rock is Lit on Instagram: @rockislitpodcast

 

Christy Hallberg

Christy Alexander Hallberg is the author of the award-winning novel ‘Searching for Jimmy Page’ and host of Rock is Lit, the first and only podcast devoted to rock novels.

https://www.christyalexanderhallberg.com/
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Season 4 Reading Series: Cassettes, Secrets, and Small-Town Mysteries: Matthew Fiander Reads from His Novel, ‘Ringing in Your Ears’