The La Brea Bakery: A Personal History Of Under The Big Black Sun

In the third chapter, ““...a Hundred Lives are Shoved Inside”, of Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk, by John Doe and Tom DeSavia, Doe describes the small duplex that contributed to a creative environment that allowed the band X to create the two albums, Wild Gift and Under the Big Black Sun. Furniture which had been purchased at junk stores, bathroom walls that had aluminum foil for wallpaper, and scary voodoo bric-a-brac which was put up with the intention of preventing break ins (9). Despite the small confined environment, the creative minds that put together X still managed to create a history that went on to produce, not only one but two critically acclaimed albums. The building, like many in Los Angeles, provided

A small bakery that opened up in 1989 and since has continued to grow profoundly. Nancy Silverton, founder of La Brea Bakery, and her husband started out looking for a space for a restaurant, and in the process, La Brea Bakery was created. Starting on what Russ Parsons, writer of the article “Nancy Silverton Looks Back at 25 years of La Brea Bakery,” describes as a “hopped-up mess of various businesses on a somewhat dingy stretch of La Brea Avenue,” and growing to have larger operations on Washington Boulevard, Van Nuys, and more. The history of La Brea Bakery continues to be written as each year passes, but the success of the business didn’t come problem free. In the article by Parsons, Silverton reflects on the difficulties she faced when La Brea Bakery first opened and more as the business continued to grow. In the beginning, customers were shocked to walk into the bakery and find only bread, no cakes or pastries. It quickly became clear that a bread bakery was what Los Angeles needed tough, because by Thanksgiving of 1990 there was lines out the door and wrapped around the block waiting for the famous bread. From then on, the world knew that La Brea Bakery would continue to grow and leave people always wanting