Alan Rudolph has had a long association with Robert Altman, as assistant director on The Long Goodbye, California Split, and Nashville, and as co-writer of Buffalo Bill and the Indians. His film, Welcome to LA, is set in the music industry of Los Angeles.

After spending three years in London, song composer Carroll Barber returns to Los Angeles for the recording of an album of his songs by the famous singer, Eric Wood. Wood doesn't want him in the studio, so Barber drives about the city, drinking half-pints of Southern Comfort. His agent and former lover, Susan Moore, tells him that the recording will make his music immortal. He discovers that she expects to take up with him where they left off some years before, and he is less than enthusiastic.

His father Carl, also expects him to take an interest in the family's dairy business. He moves into an apartment that Susan has arranged for him, and begins an affair with Ann, the girl who let the apartment. Her husband has been unsuccessfully making passes at their maid, Linda. Ann sends Linda to keep house for Barber and she soon demonstrates her tendency to do housework half-naked.

Meanwhile, he meets his father again, and is introduced to his mistress and secretary, who becomes yet another quarry for Barber. His infidelities finally cause Susan to break with him, and she tells him that Eric Wood will not, after all, record his songs. Barber is pulled up from his slippery philandering and drinking, and decides to take his future in the Los Angeles music world into his own hands.