Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Dec 22, 2004 15:49:14 GMT
"The Doors are basically a blues oriented group with heavy dosages of rock 'n' roll, a moderate sprinkling of jazz, a minute quality of classical influence and some popular elements. But basically a white blues band".
Jim Morrison - 'Rock A Word As Bold As Love'.
The Doors were formed around the summer of 1965 by James Douglas Morrison and Raymond Daniel Manzarek. Both were students at the UCLA, (Morrison for theater and film; Manzarek for law), and knew each other. Ray had already formed a group: Rick & The Ravens, with his brothers Rick and Jim on piano and guitar, pulsing songs like 'Louie Louie' and 'Hootchie Coochie Man'. As the legend always states, Jim and he re-met on a beach near Venice, California. Jim sang the first two lines of 'Moonlight Drive'; Ray said, "That's it!" and both "decided to get a group together and make a million dolars".
They became The Doors after a Morrison project; an early idea for a rock 'n' roll group called The Doors: Open & Closed, who would only perform two songs: 'I'm Hungry' and 'Want'. Jim and the Manzarek trio added a girl bass player (whose name has vanished) and drummer John Densmore (late of Tony Driscoll & The Twilighters) whom Ray had met at a Mahesh Yogi meditation centre.
Together, they made a demo tape at World Pacific in September 1965. Most accounts claim 6 songs, including 'Summer's Almost Gone', 'Moonlight Drive', 'End Of The Night', 'Break On Thru', 'A Little Game' plus one more, although Billy James claims 12 ('Rolling Stone' August 1971), including one 'Let's Go Insane' (possibly 'A Little Game'). Perhaps 12 were recorded but only six kept. A demo album was pressed (2 or 3 copies) and Billy, as their talent scout, kept Columbia interested. But a producer couldn't be found.
By now, Rick and Jim Manzarek and the girl bassist had gone and Robert Alan Krieger (ex Psychedelic Rangers and meditation class too) had joined. A residency at the London Fog, followed by the Whiskey A go Go came, playing mixtures of originals amongst 'Gloria', 'Little Red Rooster' and 'Who Do You Love?'. Arthur Lee suggested to Jac Holtzman he should go to see the Doors, he did and the promise of a quick record contract (quicker than Columbia) swayed the group. Recorded in late '66, THE DOORS was released in January 1967 (U.S.)
With that, and 'Light My Fire', success. A success welcoming (perhaps) an ultimate difficulty. The Doors were mixed-media; theatre, poetry and pop music; their immediate success in only one; the hit parade, pulled all those basic contradictions. The Doors existed, & were true to both 'The Celebration Of The Lizard' & 'Hello I Love You', absorbing the differences & the controversies, but not their effects. 1971; Jim Morrison left, arrived in Paris to rest & rethink. Perhaps the group had split, it certainly seemed so, until Jim's death ended that controversy to begin an other. Jim's death is shrouded in the mystery his group often compiled in its cause, its initial denial, and the unmarked grave.
THE DOORS is assertive, strident, confident, a complete capture of an individual style. THE DOORS is urban Los Angeles, where the city and its influence, (as in the Velvet Underground) makes a concrete sound. Richard Meltzer claimed them "a superimposition (of) Elvis on the Beatles. Perhaps Jim Morrison evolved into the leather chic of Elvis Presley; the singer and the sex symbol; and the Doors always stylised their roles both within the group and against the others, just as the Beatles would their 'Hard Day's Night' positions. But roles were all they took from the Beatles, the sound on THE DOORS was much removed from their influence on the Byrds/ 12 string/ 12.30 sound of '67's California. THE DOORS is a professional garageband; the sound & stance of the Seeds, the Standells and more, refined thru' Blues and folk.
'Break On Thru' is perhaps the exemplary introduction song; it's the essence of the Doors, the style and assertion of the singer and the group. 'Back Door Man' and 'The Alabama Song' do all this too; non-Doors songs slotting neatly into a Doors context. 'Back Door Man' is the outright musical idea and influence, in sound, theme and image 'The Alabama Song' is literature; Weill and Brecht as refections of Morrison/ the writer & the actor.
THE DOORS is a chain of marvellous songs, the perfection of 'The Crystal Ship', the haunting 'End Of The Night', 'Light My Fire' (of course), and 'The End'. "It started out as a simple goodbye song" - Jim Morrison, but 'The End' became a comprehension of inevitability, ("this is the end"), of loss, of the oedipal complex. It's an extensive rage, a pre-planned improvisation which haunts and holds; sparse and completely mysterious. It's a sensory image, building to a clashing climax; a drama, a play/ poem stretched into the piece the Doors could never quite approach again.
STRANGE DAYS. It seemed a move for safety. There was little musical advancement, the pattern stayed the same. But there's a mystery, a darkness, which covers all the songs. 'Strange Days', 'People Are Strange' 'Unhappy Girl' all fall on a negative side, disquiet rather than comfort.
STRANGE DAYS is a mixing of explicit statements and the bizarre. It has a perfect side (side 2); in the barrelhouse of 'People Are Strange', somehow always linking with 'The Alabama Song'; in the rocking 'My Eyes Have Seen You' with its stunning guitar; in 'I Can See Your Face In My Mind' for its indistinct image on a precise background. And 'When The Music's Over'.
'When The Music's Over' is new, but slightly deja-vu. Its beginning is simply 'Soul Kitchen', it appears as a mammoth spectrum but in parts is a backwards progression; immediate, succesful, but without the subtle care of 'The End'. It's a strange commitment, unfinal, yet completely assertive, another stretched, but excellent song.
STRANGE DAYS is a careful cohesion of readymade ideas (from THE DOORS), a constant structural reinforcement. Liking THE DOORS is loving this album. The Doors are dependable.
Inside STRANGE DAYS is the real pop/ poetry fusion, 'Horse Latitudes' is the best example, a difficult song until the habits of the Spanish conquistadors are explained (in throwing their horses into the sea from their becalmed ships to lighten the weight). With that, 'Horse Latitudes' is a rare and perfect perception. 'Moonlight Drive' is less obvious, a grasping of poetry in a non-poetical song. It appears as a new age equivalent (lyrical surrealism) to 'Endless Sleep' (Jody Reynolds). And there's always 'Television Skies'.
Jim Morrison - 'Rock A Word As Bold As Love'.
The Doors were formed around the summer of 1965 by James Douglas Morrison and Raymond Daniel Manzarek. Both were students at the UCLA, (Morrison for theater and film; Manzarek for law), and knew each other. Ray had already formed a group: Rick & The Ravens, with his brothers Rick and Jim on piano and guitar, pulsing songs like 'Louie Louie' and 'Hootchie Coochie Man'. As the legend always states, Jim and he re-met on a beach near Venice, California. Jim sang the first two lines of 'Moonlight Drive'; Ray said, "That's it!" and both "decided to get a group together and make a million dolars".
They became The Doors after a Morrison project; an early idea for a rock 'n' roll group called The Doors: Open & Closed, who would only perform two songs: 'I'm Hungry' and 'Want'. Jim and the Manzarek trio added a girl bass player (whose name has vanished) and drummer John Densmore (late of Tony Driscoll & The Twilighters) whom Ray had met at a Mahesh Yogi meditation centre.
Together, they made a demo tape at World Pacific in September 1965. Most accounts claim 6 songs, including 'Summer's Almost Gone', 'Moonlight Drive', 'End Of The Night', 'Break On Thru', 'A Little Game' plus one more, although Billy James claims 12 ('Rolling Stone' August 1971), including one 'Let's Go Insane' (possibly 'A Little Game'). Perhaps 12 were recorded but only six kept. A demo album was pressed (2 or 3 copies) and Billy, as their talent scout, kept Columbia interested. But a producer couldn't be found.
By now, Rick and Jim Manzarek and the girl bassist had gone and Robert Alan Krieger (ex Psychedelic Rangers and meditation class too) had joined. A residency at the London Fog, followed by the Whiskey A go Go came, playing mixtures of originals amongst 'Gloria', 'Little Red Rooster' and 'Who Do You Love?'. Arthur Lee suggested to Jac Holtzman he should go to see the Doors, he did and the promise of a quick record contract (quicker than Columbia) swayed the group. Recorded in late '66, THE DOORS was released in January 1967 (U.S.)
With that, and 'Light My Fire', success. A success welcoming (perhaps) an ultimate difficulty. The Doors were mixed-media; theatre, poetry and pop music; their immediate success in only one; the hit parade, pulled all those basic contradictions. The Doors existed, & were true to both 'The Celebration Of The Lizard' & 'Hello I Love You', absorbing the differences & the controversies, but not their effects. 1971; Jim Morrison left, arrived in Paris to rest & rethink. Perhaps the group had split, it certainly seemed so, until Jim's death ended that controversy to begin an other. Jim's death is shrouded in the mystery his group often compiled in its cause, its initial denial, and the unmarked grave.
THE DOORS is assertive, strident, confident, a complete capture of an individual style. THE DOORS is urban Los Angeles, where the city and its influence, (as in the Velvet Underground) makes a concrete sound. Richard Meltzer claimed them "a superimposition (of) Elvis on the Beatles. Perhaps Jim Morrison evolved into the leather chic of Elvis Presley; the singer and the sex symbol; and the Doors always stylised their roles both within the group and against the others, just as the Beatles would their 'Hard Day's Night' positions. But roles were all they took from the Beatles, the sound on THE DOORS was much removed from their influence on the Byrds/ 12 string/ 12.30 sound of '67's California. THE DOORS is a professional garageband; the sound & stance of the Seeds, the Standells and more, refined thru' Blues and folk.
'Break On Thru' is perhaps the exemplary introduction song; it's the essence of the Doors, the style and assertion of the singer and the group. 'Back Door Man' and 'The Alabama Song' do all this too; non-Doors songs slotting neatly into a Doors context. 'Back Door Man' is the outright musical idea and influence, in sound, theme and image 'The Alabama Song' is literature; Weill and Brecht as refections of Morrison/ the writer & the actor.
THE DOORS is a chain of marvellous songs, the perfection of 'The Crystal Ship', the haunting 'End Of The Night', 'Light My Fire' (of course), and 'The End'. "It started out as a simple goodbye song" - Jim Morrison, but 'The End' became a comprehension of inevitability, ("this is the end"), of loss, of the oedipal complex. It's an extensive rage, a pre-planned improvisation which haunts and holds; sparse and completely mysterious. It's a sensory image, building to a clashing climax; a drama, a play/ poem stretched into the piece the Doors could never quite approach again.
STRANGE DAYS. It seemed a move for safety. There was little musical advancement, the pattern stayed the same. But there's a mystery, a darkness, which covers all the songs. 'Strange Days', 'People Are Strange' 'Unhappy Girl' all fall on a negative side, disquiet rather than comfort.
STRANGE DAYS is a mixing of explicit statements and the bizarre. It has a perfect side (side 2); in the barrelhouse of 'People Are Strange', somehow always linking with 'The Alabama Song'; in the rocking 'My Eyes Have Seen You' with its stunning guitar; in 'I Can See Your Face In My Mind' for its indistinct image on a precise background. And 'When The Music's Over'.
'When The Music's Over' is new, but slightly deja-vu. Its beginning is simply 'Soul Kitchen', it appears as a mammoth spectrum but in parts is a backwards progression; immediate, succesful, but without the subtle care of 'The End'. It's a strange commitment, unfinal, yet completely assertive, another stretched, but excellent song.
STRANGE DAYS is a careful cohesion of readymade ideas (from THE DOORS), a constant structural reinforcement. Liking THE DOORS is loving this album. The Doors are dependable.
Inside STRANGE DAYS is the real pop/ poetry fusion, 'Horse Latitudes' is the best example, a difficult song until the habits of the Spanish conquistadors are explained (in throwing their horses into the sea from their becalmed ships to lighten the weight). With that, 'Horse Latitudes' is a rare and perfect perception. 'Moonlight Drive' is less obvious, a grasping of poetry in a non-poetical song. It appears as a new age equivalent (lyrical surrealism) to 'Endless Sleep' (Jody Reynolds). And there's always 'Television Skies'.