|
|
Post by darkstar3 on Feb 8, 2011 22:15:42 GMT
Los Angeles Free Press
The Doors At The Forum
Morrison: The Ultimate Barbie Doll
By Liza Williams
He looks like a young Medici, his head back, that throat, that throat of exquisite muscles holding the face which hardly rises in prominence from the column of throat before it is swallowed in the cherubic curls, the young prince, his heritage the wealth of the spoilers of the Orient, or the spoilers of the now more subtly called Far East. They shouted off the picadors, they crouched in their seats and growled, there in the Orange Julius stand décor of the Forum, they waited for the hero and the death.
He is so innocent, Jim Morrison, so innocent as a child who tortures the cat to examine the pain is innocent; there is only now and the urgency of feeling. He is so innocent, he is the innocent child, he is the sexuality of child, not female, the not male, the sensuality of child only, the sexuality of child, not man, not woman, not guilty, at times not even able yet to walk, toppling off high stages across the country as though we should have known better than to let him climb up there, or rather, than to have set him up there and said, run, not holding his hand, letting this wild full feeling half crazed with wonderment child free upon the ledge to fall and die for our delight, or be horned to death on the sharp points of our blood greedy eyes, dressed only in his thin bull skin pants, the child of death, the child in matador’s clothing.
“Light My Fire,” they yelled for it, light my fire, it was Their Song, light the big fire, play with the forbidden matches, we aren’t even adolescent yet, we want to light the match and burn the bed and the curtains and mummy and daddy and everything and see the beautiful flame we have never touched and only a burned child doesn’t play with matches, but we don’t want to be old enough to know that yet and he must sing that song for us, he , the baby bullfighter out there in the purple juice light and we will light our sparklers and he will set it up in flames and he isn’t real because he is a poster or a golden record or an idol or a picture to kiss at night under the covers, a piece of paper, a doll, he is the ultimate Barbie doll, and Barbie speaks when we pull her string, that’s what we want her to say because you see on the other end of the string is a piece of tape, that’s why she is our Barbie doll and that’s why he is our Jim Morrison and that why we want him to sing “Light My Fire” and stop STOP all these other strange sentences that the doll didn’t say when we bought her, these new words on the tape, she no right to new words, just do her thing which is our thing because we own her/him/the ticket/the poster/the record/the idol. He, he is made of plastic, an animated long playing record refusing us our favorite cut, the cut we want, the arm sliding over our favorite groove, the arm gone wild, the cuts strange, the record different, give her a lobotomy, give him a lobotomy, tear off his toy clothes, let’s see what’s in there, we don’t mean the flesh part under the sad black bull pants, but where the tape is, you know man, like the heart, the tape, the TAPE, man, transplanted in there from the golden record, the one we bought, the one we helped to make golden – who knows but ours may have been that copy that made it a million. He is ours and he better get to “Light My Fire” quickly or we are going to throw him out of the crib.
He is innocent, he is the innocent child, he is the child, he is not good, he is not bad, children are neither. He plays with himself, not fucks, he is neither boy nor girl, he is feeling, he is the child. He is all dressed up for the party, and it’s being catered by grownups and they are charging to get in, and they aren’t letting us play with our doll, they have got him up there away from us and they are keeping him nine years old forever, the black bull pants are strangling his balls, never mind, children don’t need balls, enough to suck your thumb, or mike, and if you piss on the stage, it’s defiance like holding your breath until your face goes blue, or yelling, doing your yelling out there in the middle of the living room, only they aren’t listening to the yelling but offering him gigantic electric trains that run by remote control, and echo chambers to hear the sound of his own screaming even louder, com’ on baby light my fire, and the snakes are crawling and the child is dying up there and it’s five o’clock in the morning and the trail of lime and salt is already prepared, and he is there, see, he, someone, a man perhaps, someone strapped in the baby carriage by the big dyke governess of music business promo media exploitation and his mother is gone away and left him and if the governess can keep him little for just another year she’s got a good thing going, and if we can see him die we can grow up, or die with him, or ignore the whole thing, or kill him ourselves, because we are all children there with our popcorn pockets full of matches and sparklers, com’ on baby Light My Fire, com’on baby.
END.
|
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 9, 2011 17:42:46 GMT
Jesus!!!!!
No wonder The Doors attract weirdos.
Or was this perhaps Ray Manzarek' night time guise as he wandered the strip in search of prey dressed in stilletos and a figure hugging black leather skirt. 'Liza' the night stalking Morrison obsessed ultimate Doors weirdo
Ray would have loved this review as it told a tale of a Morrison soft and compliant who would perhaps bow to the whispers in his ear late at night when the arena was empty.
If Jim was a plastic barbie doll then he was Michael Redgrave's doll from the 1945 movie Dead Of Night.
Not quite as compliant as many would have liked him to be.
So Ray would have had to stalk the Sunset gloom and find prey somewhere else for his perversions.
And that's just what he did. Ian Astbury was indeed a Barbie doll for him to play with and discard when it's usefullness ran out to be replaced with other willing pieces of disposable plastic until he grew bored and just hired Morrison lookalikes to drool over on stage.
Jim was wise to their tricks and saw through us, his Doors audience and rebelled against us and showed us a better way but like fools we rejected his vision and demanded more of the same and were left bereft as all we ended up with was memories.
What fools we were all back then and how we must regret thinking like that.
Who knows what wonders we might have seen if only we had been as wise as he was.
But crazy 'Liza' wanted that fire lit night after night until all that was left was a pile of ashes.
This simply shows who were the bigger fools back in 1968 and onwards. We have all done it in concert halls and arenas.
Screaming for 'the Hit' and not caring for that newer vision.
The price that we pay is to see the fire burn out and then realise how foolish we were as we stare in despair at that cold pile of ashes that was once a great artist or band.
Bloody sad if you ask me!
|
|
|
|
Post by darkstar3 on Feb 9, 2011 18:52:55 GMT
Great post, Alex! There are several articles similar to this one, but so far this one was the most severe of the lot. A majority of the articles around this period of time speak of the mass of teenyboppers attending Doors shows. Compared with some of the other articles of 1966, 1967 and the beginning of 1968 the band and Morrison were portrayed as more mysterious with lyrics that made you think. It did not take long before the press started adding gross receipt figures and ugly comparisons like the Barbie doll. For all of this articles' faults looking back now it does ring true in some aspects as we all know following Jim's death just how commercial The Doors have become. The trial certainly showed us just how far some surviving members of The Doors were willing to go just to make a buck. Considering Jim is no longer around to defend himself the sky seems to be the limit when it comes to "branding" this band. No. Listen. This Really Is A Different Version Of Light My Fire
December 16 1999
Pop Update Music Corner
By: Lou T. Katts, Assistant EditorWe all know that part of the movie, “The Doors” where Jim Morrison sees the naked Indian after taking acid in the desert. Little did we know that the band continues to practice traditional Native American customs, almost 30 years after Morrison’s death. This would be the tradition of using every part of a killed animal, to get maximum benefit from it. Use the skin, use the meat, use the bones, use the organs, use the tail, use everything fro something – even as a paper weight, or a door prize for some community event. Find something to do with the animal parts. So now the surviving, and we’re using the term survive loosely, members are doing the same thing. Sonic Net reports the last three Doors are trying to start an internet based record label to remaster and release crap from their archives. This is on top of their latest box set – The Complete Studio Recordings – which has all six of their studio albums remastered and a seventh CD of even more rarities. This band has so many rarities, the word doesn’t even have any meaning. If answering machines had been around in the 1960’s I’ll guarantee that there would be like seven Door’s releases of drunken messages left by Morrison now set to music. They use every part of the dead animal. They’ll re-release anything. Above and beyond the rights of any classic rock band, they’ll release anything. They have their two-CD “Best Of” album, which is probably now free with the purchase of any multi-pack of black lights. There’s last year’s four CD The Doors Box Set which had “Rare Out-Takes” (hmmmm. That sounds familiar), b-sides, sound checks and live crap. It also featured a disc of the band’s favorite songs, all from their studio albums, so most fans, who being fans would own all six studio albums, were paying for a disc of songs they already owned. The Box Set also featured, “Orange County Suite,” a new Doors song that had the band putting music underneath an old Morrison demo. Don’t worry if you don’t have the song though. You can find it on the “Essential Rarities” separately. I wish winning lottery tickets were as rare as this song is. And now, just to recap, we have The Doors releasing 11 CD’s worth of music in the past two years, and of those 11 CD’s, seven feature Doors music that is not only readily available to fans, but probably already owned by fans too. That leaves you, the fan, with seven expensive drink coasters, and four CD’s of stuff you want to hear. You’re being screwed. Dude. And don’t think that the archive stuff they want to release can possibly be any good. If it was any good, it would probably already be released, and if it was somehow missed the first time, but actually was good, it’s for god-damn sure that Elektra wouldn’t be releasing this over the internet. They’d be pressing it. I’d almost pay the band to just go away and stop releasing the same music over and over and over again. Can you imagine how bad it would be if Morrison had lived another five years? We’d probably have to shoot Doors releases and merchandise into space, just to leave room for the rest of us on Earth. People are strange, and the Doors are greedy. www.popupdate.com/doors.html |
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 9, 2011 20:15:16 GMT
People are strange, and the Doors are greedy. Amen to that one! It's a bit sad as the article makes it sound as if they were including Jim in that final indictment and I believe the opposite to be true. He had an almost cavalier attitude to generosity by which I mean he was nonchalant as opposed to arrogant. If it was cold it was said he would buy a coat and when it got warm he would give the coat to a total stranger. Perhaps some might think him naive in his attitude but he just valued different things to most of us. He valued words rather than dollars and to him possesions were only useful for the moment rather than for a living. The Doors were no hippies as very few would argue but their singer certainly embraced the best of that way of life. He had plenty of faults but greed was never one of them There are several articles similar to this one, but so far this one was the most severe of the lot. A majority of the articles around this period of time speak of the mass of teenyboppers attending Doors shows. Compared with some of the other articles of 1966, 1967 and the beginning of 1968 the band and Morrison were portrayed as more mysterious with lyrics that made you think. It did not take long before the press started adding gross receipt figures and ugly comparisons like the Barbie doll. It's really sad but LMF was probably the best and worst thing that happened to The Doors. Best as it brought the band to a huge American audience but worst as it pidgeon holed that band as a 'hits' band and that struggle, for me, had destroyed all that was good about The Doors by the beginning of 1969. Hello I Love You had a similar effect on Europe but LMF was the final nail in the coffin for The Doors. I may well love the long instrumental version but the cut down hit version is an anathema as far as I can see. Morrison had great respect for the song and the songwriter but began to loathe what the song stood for and eventually I believe he hated it with a passion. In Boston he was drunk and stuck the microphone inside his mouth and sang the last verse like that. When Rothchild tried to cheat the Doors customers by faking the concert at the Aquarius the day after the gig and Morrison , who would not play Paul's game, sang on the Live & Dangerous CD 'you can shove that lyric up your ass' and I believe it was LMF he was reffering to. LMF stifled creativity and gave the musical side of The Doors the idea that hits like LMF were the way forward. It's like the discussion about COTL. Was it just an accident that the song poem failed or was it design. The Soft Parade was a similar piece and that one worked rather well. So why not the COTL piece. Did Elektra pressure Ray, John and Robby to ditch COTL and go for an album such as we got with WFTS? Morrison was not a great advocate of hits and his only real hit contribution was HILY which the band, or was it just Morrison?, did not see as a worthwhile use of their time after it was suggested by Adam Holzman, Jac's son. It's a part of Doors History that is shrouded in mystery. The best of The Doors was indeed 1965 to 1968. Everything that defined the band happened in this period and most of it in 1966. The great psychedelic masterpiece Strange Days the defining moment in their History and it was downhill from there. We know that Ray pushed Morrison to the limit around mid 1968 practically forcing him to continue when he was drained and in serious need of a rest. The callousness of their producer when he said lets get as much down as we can as Jim might not be around too long shows how the direction had changed. The vision of a band that sweated art from it's pours now just another sausage on the production line. Morrison said such himself after appearing on the UK pop show Top Of The Pops in 1968. Morrison is blamed for everything bad that happened but circumstances played a major part. Jim wanted to take the band somewhere that was not on the Itinerary of the rest of the players and the record company. Elektra got greedy when Jim helped give them their first ever #1. Ray got greedy when he saw his first royalty cheque. The other two fell in with Ray when they sold The Doors heart and soul to Buick. Jim just wanted to make art and leave something as he said that would be timeless. Sadly he never got to see just how successful he was in leaving a legacy that prevails to this day and no matter what his ex workmates do to drag the name into the shit it is the music that endures. The Doors made six great albums as a fourpiece and one good one as a trio. The millstone that was LMF has been forgotten now and it is simply a part of a great legacy but let's not forget that it was not Jim's drinking that did in The Doors but more the success songs like LMF brought. Being famous was both a curse and a blessing for Jim Morrison. I don't believe in the existence of Jimbo The Destroyer anymore. It was greed and expectation that killed The Doors. |
|
|
|
Post by darkstar3 on Feb 9, 2011 21:07:04 GMT
Break On through
Page 223-225
Morrison continued drinking and partying with the result that “Celebration of the Lizard”, his ultimate masterpiece, had to be scrapped from the album. Apparently he thought that he could still capture the magic of that epic piece in the studio no matter how much he partied, or else, because of mounting pressures, he knew in his heart it was doomed from the start. The night Morrison’s powers finally failed there were a lot of people in the studio and he showed up late and drunk. He deposited his half empty bottle of wine on top of the control panel and downed the remnants of somebody’s beer. When Morrison was drunk, the others worked around him, tolerating him. Rothchild nodded briefly. The others ignored him completely and kept working. Although Rothchild had the vocal mike off because they were trying to record a rhythm part, Morrison walked into the studio and started singing into it anyway. He writhed and twisted and sang “Not To Touch the Earth,” but most of the time no one heard because the instrumental track was being played back.
Rothchild called Morrison over to listen to a roughly recorded dub of “The Celebration of the Lizard” while Manzarek tried to explain the song didn’t work. Manzarek was gentle almost apologetic, as he pointed out that the song was simply too disjointed musically. All the various elements had by then been recorded and edited into one twenty four minute version, but only Morrison was happy with it. The other Doors and Rothchild considered the cut too esoteric to experiment with any further except for the most musically accessible section “Not To Touch The Earth.” Rothchild suggested Morrison bring his notebooks over the next day so they could work and Jim replied sort of despondently, “Yeah…sure.”
Defeated the Lizard King sought refuse with his scales. He disappeared for a while and then returned with a fresh bottle of brandy and went back into the vocal booth to record “Five To One.”
Later, Morrison had this to say about the failure of “The Celebration of the Lizard”: It was pieced together on different occasions rather than having any generative core from which it grew. It doesn’t work because it was created spontaneously. I still think there’s hope for it. We should go back to the very free concept and start the whole thing over. We can play it in a half hour version. It doesn’t really interest me that much, though. It was never pushed through and I kind of lost interest in it.”
Another Morrison song was rejected at this time as well. Jim had written, “Orange County Suite” about Pamela, but after having worked on it several times the other three Doors decided it wasn’t right for the album.
Whatever Jim’ attitude toward the session had been before, it was certainly worse now.
For the band the pressure to come up with new material was now greater than ever. They had been counting on “Celebration of the Lizard” to fill one whole side of the album. Instead it failed so horribly that all but a small portion had to be scrapped.
Page 227-228
The Fillmore East March 22-23 1968
The concert included the full length version of "Celebration of the Lizard" and when Morrison performed the masterpiece that he knew then might never be on record, he created an atmosphere that had the audience holding its collective breath.
The Fillmore shows were magic. Rock theatre was all that it could be on that practically virginal Fillmore stage.
The concert ended with The Doors screening "The Unknown Soldier" film and playing live behind it. When the song ended the audience leapt to it's feet, screaming for an encore. Morrison had sacrificed his cinematic self to the cry of "The war is over!" and survived onstage to herald the good news. At the last triumphant shout, the audience in the theatre roared back at the crowd on the screen. "The Doors have ended the war!"
The reviews were stunning - near hysterical raves that made the band sound more like heroes than performers.
|
|
|
|
Post by casandra on Feb 9, 2011 21:25:31 GMT
Morrison is blamed for everything bad that happened but circumstances played a major part. Jim wanted to take the band somewhere that was not on the Itinerary of the rest of the players and the record company. Elektra got greedy when Jim helped give them their first ever #1. Ray got greedy when he saw his first royalty cheque. The other two fell in with Ray when they sold The Doors heart and soul to Buick. Jim just wanted to make art and leave something as he said that would be timeless. Sadly he never got to see just how successful he was in leaving a legacy that prevails to this day and no matter what his ex workmates do to drag the name into the shit it is the music that endures. Being famous was both a curse and a blessing for Jim Morrison. I don't believe in the existence of Jimbo The Destroyer anymore. It was greed and expectation that killed The Doors. I can not agree more with you. Jim was the face of the Doors, he was on the firing line. He received criticism as the "Ultimate Barbie Doll", which is truly obscene and perverse, while the other guys squeezed him like an orange (and they are still squeezing) until there was nothing to remove in him. In reading these articles, I'm sure he felt a great frustation that he wasn’t taken as a serious artist. To understand the whole story, I think that we should try to wonder us what they haven’t told in the last forty years. We have to read between lines, because sometimes the subconscious betrays them. We have to question everything considered like a truth. It is an exercise in research and criticism as a professional historian would do. We must try to understand the man, with his virtues and faults, and forget the myth. |
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 10, 2011 7:25:23 GMT
Break On through Page 223-225 Morrison continued drinking and partying with the result that “Celebration of the Lizard”, his ultimate masterpiece, had to be scrapped from the album. Apparently he thought that he could still capture the magic of that epic piece in the studio no matter how much he partied, or else, because of mounting pressures, he knew in his heart it was doomed from the start. The night Morrison’s powers finally failed there were a lot of people in the studio and he showed up late and drunk. He deposited his half empty bottle of wine on top of the control panel and downed the remnants of somebody’s beer. When Morrison was drunk, the others worked around him, tolerating him. Rothchild nodded briefly. The others ignored him completely and kept working. Although Rothchild had the vocal mike off because they were trying to record a rhythm part, Morrison walked into the studio and started singing into it anyway. He writhed and twisted and sang “Not To Touch the Earth,” but most of the time no one heard because the instrumental track was being played back. Rothchild called Morrison over to listen to a roughly recorded dub of “The Celebration of the Lizard” while Manzarek tried to explain the song didn’t work. Manzarek was gentle almost apologetic, as he pointed out that the song was simply too disjointed musically. All the various elements had by then been recorded and edited into one twenty four minute version, but only Morrison was happy with it. The other Doors and Rothchild considered the cut too esoteric to experiment with any further except for the most musically accessible section “Not To Touch The Earth.” Rothchild suggested Morrison bring his notebooks over the next day so they could work and Jim replied sort of despondently, “Yeah…sure.” Defeated the Lizard King sought refuse with his scales. He disappeared for a while and then returned with a fresh bottle of brandy and went back into the vocal booth to record “Five To One.” That's a bit of a distortion of the Richard Goldstein article that appeared in the WFTS songbook called 'The Shaman As Superstar'. We do not know how much effort Jim put into those early February and march sessions when they tried to record COTL. Morrison is judged on one event and not on his whole efforts. Regardless of what Morrison himself says it would seem that the song/poem was indeed important as they invested enough time in it. The failure of COTL will always be a mystery and as Casandra says we need to read between the lines a bit and the following gives us a clue. Break On through Page 223-225 Another Morrison song was rejected at this time as well. Jim had written, “Orange County Suite” about Pamela, but after having worked on it several times the other three Doors decided it wasn’t right for the album. No longer do we have the band together but the three over ruling the one. We know Jim did not like several of the songs on the follow up album TSP and we know that the Jim songs on that album were relatively free of the brass and strings that the Krieger songs favoured. Did Morrison simply resign himself to be The Ultimate Barbie doll and just do what the rest favoured. It's interesting as that after WFTS The Doors were never the same band again. Buick would soon compound that and the inevitable result was Miami. The miracle was that Jim could bring himself to work with those three to produce one of the finest albums ever made in LA Woman and an excellent companion in Morrison Hotel. In concert Jim tried to be poetic as shows like Houston in 1968 show and he was unconcerned enough about COTL as to want to perform it as often as he could which shows he still hankered after this direction for The Doors. Worn down by expectation and greed did he just capitulate and be that which he hated the most. A rock singer. The blues were a place he could go and hide on stage and Doors sets reflect this towards the end of their concert life. A band that was forged in an incredible and unique maelstrom of poetry, literature, cinema, theatre, blues and jazz had now become just another band. Little wonder Morrison never was The Lizard King again after Miami. His self made image was one that he loathed and with the three Doors and the record company simply seeking units to sell and no longer interested in the real art of The Doors it's little wonder he escaped into drink as the weight of all that expectation was on HIS shoulders not Ray, John or Robby. They had the luxury of being on the periphery of the adulation that was heaped on the leather clad demon Jim Morrison. Shamen and Superstar. The two could never go together Lost in a prison of his own device Morrison was doomed by his own success and his three band mates who once saw the same vision as he did were now willing accomplaces to the money machine The Doors had generated. It's sad and strange that nobody tried to look at things from Jim's point of view and this is still the case today. We analyse his actions from a NOHGOA perspective but we have been brainwashed by 30 years of Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore who have too much to lose if Morrison was ever revealed as something other than the crazed rock God of popular myth. Greed and avarice finally won the day and Jim Morrison was defeated and forlorn and lost in a world he did not want to understand until he could take no more. And the result was Miami and New Orleans and then Paris. Bloody sad that all of us around at the time let the man down so badly. His audience, his so called friends in the band, Jac and Elektra and probably worst of all the record buying public. We were all so overawed by the success of The Doors we never really thought about the guy who brought that success to the waiting world. We all just assumed it's what he wanted and that he revelled in that persona. But it was an anvil on his back that allowed him to dream but not to realise the dreams he had. Jim Morrison has been badly misunderstood all these years as the Jimbo of films like 'The Doors' and 'When You're Strange'. There was another Jim which had good and bad qualities but was human rather than the plastic doll persona we used for our amusement. It's only when the well runs dry that we actually miss the water and by then it's far too late. |
|
|
|
Post by darkstar3 on Feb 10, 2011 15:05:01 GMT
One thing I could never understand and still don't is the fact that The Doors performed COTL many times live but couldn't get it together in the studio to record it.
The live performances of this song were done at the same time they rejected the track in the studio. It doesn't make sense to me.
|
|
|
|
Post by casandra on Feb 10, 2011 19:30:35 GMT
One thing I could never understand and still don't is the fact that The Doors performed COTL many times live but couldn't get it together in the studio to record it. The live performances of this song were done at the same time they rejected the track in the studio. It doesn't make sense to me. Jim maybe had a secret hope that COTL could develop itself, at least in 1968, if he followed performing it live and he never gave up stop trying it. This is how other poetic songs developed, night after night, as "The End" and "When the music's over", but these songs were devised before perfoming at large audiences. For developing COTL all should be interested, and should work hard. The others had removed COTL of their minds. COTL was a gamble and, as you say Wallscreamed, they had to choose between art or sell records. At the concerts, I think he had some freedom to sing whatever song he wanted and the others followed him; when Jim wanted to sing COTL he could do it, except Light my fire, which he always had to sing it for demand of the audience. |
|
|
|
Post by darkstar3 on Feb 10, 2011 21:00:29 GMT
John Densmore: My Life with Jim Morrison and the Doors
Page 162-164
(1968- Recording Waiting For The Sun)
When Ray, Robby, and I rejected Jim’s new song, “Orange County Suite,” after having worked on it unsuccessfully several times, Jim turned to Freddie. Or Freddie got Jim loaded and…
One night, after the Morrison entourage left, I asked Paul what we were going to do about Jim. He said he would think about it that night. The next day Rothchild asked for the band to assemble in the recording room.
“Jim…you don’t seem interested in participating much in the recording of this album. What are you doing? You don’t look like a rock star anymore.”
Jim brushed back his greasy hair and stroked his stubble. He didn’t respond verbally, and the usual quiet tension in the room intensified.
“Well, I’m going back to work,” Paul said, heading for the control room. Jim got up and went into the lobby, and I threw up my hands in a gesture to Ray and Robby. Ray let out a big sigh and Robby just shook his head in frustration.
We actually got some work down that night, but the next day Jim came in and shocked us. He was clean shaven and had the stupidest haircut I had ever seen. He had apparently gathered his hair into a ponytail at the back of his head and taken a scissors and snipped it off in one fell swoop. When he let go, the little ends dropped down on each side of his face, dangling in his eyes. He looked like the boy in the Dutch Boy Paints commercial. This was the first time I noticed a little double chin coming in on that beautiful Grecian face. I thought, Oh God, grow the beard back, he’s starting to look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Another afternoon, during the Waiting For The Sun sessions, we all arrived at the Studio an hour or two late, which was now the norm. I guess no one wanted to be there, except that we loved making records. Jim always came in an hour or two after the rest of us. Around 5 pm he straggled in with his new family – Freddie, the blond guy, and a female version of Charles Manson. It was amusing when Jim’s buddies pulled up Mrs, Manson’s skirt in the vocal booth and were playfully encouraging any comers to have themselves off in her ass, but it was also disgusting and pathetic. She was clearly in a drunken, downer stupor.
What the fuck happened? We had created such a great thing and it was going sour. I told Paul Rothchild I was quitting. He sat me down and told me I was in one of the most envied and respected groups in the world. I kept thinking about what Paul had said about Jim a few nights before, after one of his binges. He told Ray, Robby and me that we were witnessing a special psychological experience, and we should get as much tape on Jim as fast as possible because he didn’t think he was going to be around long.
“There’s the Beatles, the Stones, and the Doors,” Paul was now saying to me as we sat in the studio hallway. It wasn’t enough. I would have rather been a martyr and sacrificed my future career than go in that direction. God, it was depressing. In an interview, when reflecting on our third album, Robby said, “There was a lot of Jim getting drunk and bringing drunken friends into the studio and Paul throwing them out. Scenes, heavy pill taking and stuff. That was rock ‘n roll to its fullest.” But I felt something more. The Grim Reaper.
I couldn’t see how Ray and Robby could turn the other cheek. I knew Robby could feel Jim’s pain, but he was too shy to do anything. I knew he liked success and didn’t like confrontations. I wished Ray would, or could, have stopped the madness. He was the one who put this group together. At least that’s what the press has been saying the last several years.
So I wasn’t waiting for the others to stop Jim. I walked back into the studio, took one look at Jim and his friends, and said, “I quit!” Then I threw my drumsticks down on the floor and stormed out the door. It was my statement against this insanity. I didn’t know what I’d do with myself the next morning. When I awoke, I made some herb tea, did my yoga, and cut my fingernails. Keeping them short helped me resist scratching my rash, which had resurfaced. At noon I decided to go back to the studio. I was drawn back because I didn’t know any other way to live. I didn’t want to give up the one thing that had been consistent in my life for many years: music.
I felt real stupid driving down from my house in Laurel Canyon to TT&G recording studios at Sunset and Highland. I also felt the black Morrison cloud still hanging over the place as I walked in, but, thank God, I got the same treatment Jim always got when he fucked up: silence. I couldn’t have stood being ridiculed about coming back.
I took a deep breath, walked into the control room, and said, “What song are we working on today?”
“Bruce and I are involved in a technical problem with the studio,” Rothchild said. “Probably take several hours…but in the meantime you might be interested in making an appointment with those two girls in the lobby. They’re the Plaster Casters!”
After The Felt Forum Show – Dec 14 1968
Page 183
Jim being interviewed following the show:
“The trouble really is now that we don’t see each other very much anymore. We’re big time, so we go on tours, record, and in our free time, everybody splits off into their own scenes. When we record we have to get all our ideas then, we can’t build them night after night like the days in the clubs. In the studio, creation is not natural.
I don’t know what will happen. I guess we’ll continue like this for a while. Then to get our vitality back, maybe we’ll all go to an island by ourselves and start creating again.”
|
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 11, 2011 7:23:03 GMT
This really annoys me the way the three Doors portray Morrison as out of control, drunk and indolent towards the Doors sessions.
DiCillo makes that point in his stupid movie and I for one don't buy it.
Morrison had more interest in the art than Krieger, Densmore or Manzarek but he was not at all happy with Rothchild who became, as jac Holzman says in the Elektra History Follow The Music, too big for his boots.
He began to think he was the important part of The Doors.
The 5th Door which was a description I once subscribed to but not any more.
Once Rothchild had said that he waited for the Muse to visit rather than chased a perfect track and the first two albums reflect this.
But now he wanted to make an album like The Beatles had done.
Demanding multiple takes for no sensible reason and cutting and slashing the cuts he had in search of that perfect take.
I am not defending Morrison's antics as he could be a pain in the ass when he wanted to be but simply pointing out that there was more to it than the simplistic take John Densmore has of things.
The poor little dear with the nasty rash portrays himself as an innocent victim but his words give us enough to see that he was far from innocnet and his whining in the studio was as bad as Ray's manipulations and Robby's hiding behind his laid back persona.
These three were in awe of the riches fame could bring and by 1968 forgotten what the art was about.
It is no surprise Morrison did not hang with them by the time they made album #3.
Of course Jim attracted hangers on. Every front man in History has done so but the Doors also attack Jim's closest friends who as yet as far as I have seen have not fucked him over the way the three innocents have done.
Frank Lisciandro who is attacked by Ray as a faux Door has done more to give us a vision of the real Morrison than 40 years of Ray Manzarek or John Densmore interviews.
Babe Hill must have dozens of tales of Jim at his most vulnerable but has never revealed what he knows other than a short interview in Franks book.
The Doors have gotten rich on exposing Jim Morrison as a drunken, drugged up crazy psycopath who was out of control and made their lives hell.
Morrison can't argue as he's dead but I don't buy into The Doors stories any more and think them very poor friends indeed of Jim Morrison.
Their callousness is the same as the callousness of the producer. Let's grab what we can before he pegs it.
These three betrayed the Doors worse than anything Morrison ever did and their greed is there for all to see even if John Densmore has redeemed himself a bit by fighting the worst commercial opportunities.
He still signed off on the shoe and the ridiculous portrayal of his so called mate by Tom DiCillo.
No wonder Jim got drunk. Perhaps it was the only way he could stand to be in the same room as these three.
|
|
|
|
Post by darkstar3 on Feb 11, 2011 14:21:50 GMT
On page 203 of Ray's book there is a reference to the 5th Door:
"The next night Jac brought the fifth Door to meet us. Paul A. Rothchild. The coolest, hippest, most intellegent producer on the planet."
Three weeks later we were in the studio. Sunset Sound in Hollywood. And we met the sixth Door Bruce Botnick."
Page 280-283
"We worked on "The Celebration of the Lizard" but it kept resisting us. It's time for the birthing process was not upon us. The lizard needed a longer gestation in its egg. But we did manage a very intense completion of "Not To Touch The Earth" section, including Jim's famous line...
I am the Lizard King
I can do anything
The press loved it. It was their new hook for him. Jim would now be known as the Lizard King. There was "The King - Elvis - and "the Lizard King" - Morrison. Easy, neat, a buzz phase, a no-brainer. Hell, people loved it, too. Lizards snakes and reptiles tapped right into the Judeo-Christian mind of all real Americans. And here was Jim Morrison, the beautiful, androgynous lead singer of that rock band that the press called "the Kings of Acid Rock, the "Kings of Orgasmic Rock," calling himself the Lizard King was perfect. They couldn't resist it. It pressed those damned Freudian buttons and gave the country a cold shiver right up its collective spine. Kundalini rising!
We recorded the album at TTG in Hollywood.
Unknown Soldier:
Paul rented the rifles and we called a bunch of rock writers, including Paul Williams of Crawdaddy and Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice, to come and take part in a Doors recording session...to actually write a song. The immediately cottoned to the idea, and when they to the studio and saw real rifles, they flipped. They opened and closed those bolts, pointed the weapons at everything in sight, shot each other with ammo-less clicks of hammers, and ate Suzie Qs and drank Cokes like a bunch of little kids. Writers with guns! And they were going to be a firing squad that kills Jim Morrison? Man, they loved it. The rock writers all writing at the top of their form.
The album was fun to record. The ballads were sensitive and beautiful. The rockers like "Five To One" were insane hard on, over the top crunchers and all was well with the creative process...except for Jim's drinking.
It was starting to become excessive. He would say, "I'm depressed, lets go get a drink." or "I feel great, why don't we get a drink." Too much booze and too much Jimbo. He was hard to live with when that redneck came out. That hillbilly/cowboy/honky/trailer trash creature was not the Native American inspired poet who I knew and loved. Jimbo was another personality altogether - a mean and desperate man. A man of roughness and crudeness. A man hell bent for leather quest for domination, power..and kicks. Jimbo was Felix's Frankenstein monster, the destructive golem. And he was Jim's doppleganger. An evil homunculus brewed up by the immersion of Jim Morrison in a wash of grain alcohol. And the blood secrets of the tribe. And Jimbo attracted scum like fleas to feces. Or did he seek them out? Out of some need for validation of this alter ego. A need for companionship in his dissolution. Or did they simply, serendipitously find each other? Like finding like in this holographic universe of vibrating entities. Even as Jim and I had found each other on the beach in Venice, the sunlight, in what was beginning to seem a long time ago.
This time he found Freddy and Wes. They were musicians. Wes played keyboards and Freddy played, I don't know what, probably skin flute. They lived on a ranch. Outskirts of the city. They had guns. Jim would go out there and drink and shoot the guns. It as Charlie Manson time. He was at the crossroads and Jimbo was winning.
You got to meet me at the crossroads,
Meet me at the edge of town.
Outskirts of the city,
You better come alone,
You better bring your gun,
We're gonna have some fun.
And fun they had. They were an odd trio, however. Jim would have had nothing to with these two. But Jimbo loved them. I wouldn't be surprised if Jimbo was trying to start a new band like the Doors. But this time a negative energy band. An opposite, mirror reflection of what the Doors were. An incompetent, loose, and lazy band of boozers...who couldn't really play their instruments or write poetry or sing very well. But, man...they would have been good at messing with your mind. Shit, they would have been as good as Manson.
And one day Jimbo brought his drinking buddies to TTG. To a Doors' recording session. Not a good idea. Rothchild would have none of it. No boozing in the control room, no sacrcastic asides. no loud guffaws, no mind games. Paul let them stay a couple of hours and then took Freddy and Wes aside and read them the riot act.
Rothchild had their number. They would have destroyed the whole thing. Hell, Jimbo wanted to destroy the whole thing, too. He wanted to push us as far as he could until we snapped. Until he broke us and said, "That's it! We quit. We can't take this anymore. We want to play music and you want to play mind games? What the fuck is your problem? Are you fucking insane or something? Let's just break the band up and go our separate ways." That's what Jimbo was after. Jimbo wanted to destroy The Doors. And when he couldn't, he eventually took Jim to Paris...and destroyed himself.
But we didn't know about Jimbo back then. We didn't know about alcoholism and the meanness it carries with it.
Note: As the rant goes on...there is more dislike of Freddy and Wes (a complete waste to type the dialog) and then there is Sabel a girl Ray claims Jim brought to the studio with him on vocal night. Jim was drunk but he recorded "Five To One" in one take. This story differs from what the journalists said who were there at the time Jim recorded Five To One. Their account has Jim coming in to the studio by himself. It's strange, but neither of the journalists mentioned that they pulled triggers on any guns either.
|
|
|
|
Post by darkstar3 on Feb 11, 2011 14:24:56 GMT
One thing I could never understand and still don't is the fact that The Doors performed COTL many times live but couldn't get it together in the studio to record it. The live performances of this song were done at the same time they rejected the track in the studio. It doesn't make sense to me. Jim maybe had a secret hope that COTL could develop itself, at least in 1968, if he followed performing it live and he never gave up stop trying it. This is how other poetic songs developed, night after night, as "The End" and "When the music's over", but these songs were devised before perfoming at large audiences. For developing COTL all should be interested, and should work hard. The others had removed COTL of their minds. COTL was a gamble and, as you say Wallscreamed, they had to choose between art or sell records. At the concerts, I think he had some freedom to sing whatever song he wanted and the others followed him; when Jim wanted to sing COTL he could do it, except Light my fire, which he always had to sing it for demand of the audience. Good point. I know that the band worked out the songs from their first two albums in clubs and then put the tunes on tape in a short period of time. They were certainly playing COTL to live audiences but they couldn't record it. It's a mystery to me as to why. |
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 11, 2011 17:27:21 GMT
When you take a real long look at Ray Manzarek and analyse things he has said over the last 40 years it's not hard to come to the conclusion that Ray Manzarek had a homosexual crush on Jim Morrison. This would explain his pathalogical dislike of anyone who Jim chose to hang out with other than him. It would not surprise me in the least to discover that Ray was in fact gay and had spent the last 40 years mournfully trawling Sunset Strip for Morrison lookalikes to act out his weird fantasies. The facts are indeed compelling as we come back to the original article. Ray has spent a lot of time discussing Jim Morrison's private parts and did the same with Iggy Pop who was a poor man's Jim Morrison. His weird pro drug rants and the famous 11 year old Arab boy of Blender fame point to a seriously disturbed human being. Helen points out in the WYS Critique thread that Jim wanted the footage of him swimming at the lake destroyed. Maybe Ray pushed to include that. I bet he has a copy of the infamous nude photo shoot Bobby Klien did of Jim and Pam and I bet it's not Pam he drools over. His obsession with every singer he hires for his stupid Doors drag act to have something in common with Jim. Ian Assferry was indeed a Barbie doll for Ray to play with a mould into a Jim Morrison clone with leather and an American accent. We spend so much time looking at the flaws of the singer that we miss the interesting stuff about the other three. Ray Manzarek is probably the worlds biggest Morrison Groupie and we can only speculate where that has led the guy. He is seriously weird and it would not take much to speculate to the next level at how weird he is. The almost Christ like vision of Jim walking towards him on the beach with the sun behind him seems almost sexual when Ray recites the tale of their Venice Beach meeting. In 1965 Ray invited Jim to live with him and Dorothy but when they were in bed together which one of his lodgers was he dreaming about.  Maybe Ray was pissed because his Barbie doll was seeing other people behind his back. It would explain a helluva lot of things. Maybe Jim tried to strangle Ray because he was sick of Ray's jealous possesive nature and Ray said one weird thing too many. Makes you think!  |
|
|
|
Post by darkstar3 on Feb 11, 2011 19:00:11 GMT
Owl and Bear, A San Diego Music Blog Interview: Ray Manzarek This entry was posted by chris maroulakos on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 11:00am. Owl and Bear: From Jim Morrison to Iggy Pop, you seem to enjoy backing up theatrical front men and women. What do you think it is about these bombastic personalities that draw you to them? Ray Manzarek: Well I’m such a reserved and quiet guy that they cater to my insane side that I try to keep under wraps. www.owlandbear.com/2010/02/26/interview-ray-manzarek/ |
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 11, 2011 20:53:44 GMT
The guy is a freak. Who can forget his weird mantra at a concert where he calls the band members sexy things and says he wants to shove something up Robby Kriegers ass. He is the only Door who discusses Jim Morrison's private parts with any regularity. I think he has a blow up doll of Jim Morrison at home and he sleeps with it. Whatever else he does with it I don't wanna know. |
|
|
|
Post by casandra on Feb 12, 2011 13:16:04 GMT
JIM MORRISON INTERVIEW WITH JERRY HOPKINS JULY 26 1969 In the first three albums, writer credit on every song goes to The Doors, as opposed to individuals. But I understand that in the next album individual writers will be credited. Why? In the beginning, I wrote most of the songs,the words and music. On each successive album, Robby [Krieger] contributed more songs. Until finally on this album it's almost split between us. A lot of the songs in the beginning.., me or Robby would come in with a basic idea, words and melody. But then the whole arrangement and actual generation of the piece would happen night after night, day after day, either in rehearsal or in clubs. When we became a concert group, and when we were contracted to produce so many albums a year, so many singles every six months, that natural, spontaneous, generative process wasn't given a chance to happen as it had in the beginning. We actually had to create songs in the studio. What started to happen was that Robby or I would just come in with the song or arrangement already completed in our minds, instead of working it out slowly. Do you think your work has suffered because of this? Yeah. If we did nothing but record, it probably would be all right. But we do other things, too, so there's not the time to let things happen as they should. Our first album, which a lot of people like, has a certain unity of mood. It has an intensity about it, because it was the first album we'd recorded. And we did it in a couple of weeks. That's all it took to get it down. It came after nearly a year of total performance, every night. We were really fresh and intense and together. newdoorstalk.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=int&action=display&thread=799 |
|
|
|
Post by casandra on Feb 12, 2011 15:14:00 GMT
The guy is a freak. Who can forget his weird mantra at a concert where he calls the band members sexy things and says he wants to shove something up Robby Kriegers ass. He is the only Door who discusses Jim Morrison's private parts with any regularity. I think he has a blow up doll of Jim Morrison at home and he sleeps with it. Whatever else he does with it I don't wanna know. Ray Manzarek is a very strange individual. |
|
adam
Door Half Open
Posts: 100
|
Post by adam on Feb 13, 2011 13:18:28 GMT
One thing I could never understand and still don't is the fact that The Doors performed COTL many times live but couldn't get it together in the studio to record it. The live performances of this song were done at the same time they rejected the track in the studio. It doesn't make sense to me. i'd guess here that the real reason was that COTL just wasn't commercial enough for a studio release (which to be fair it wasn't) i'd guess that this was kinda the period that could be paraphrased as jim: ok guys we've made some cash & got the attention of the world, lets use that as a platform to make a meaningfully creative third album, show people what the doors are about, ok it may not sell as well, but lets do it ray: erm i just bought a yacht..... |
|
|
|
Post by glasstecwindows on Nov 15, 2018 6:01:15 GMT
We have to question everything considered like a truth. It is an exercise in research and criticism as a professional historian would do. We must try to understand the man, with his virtues and faults, and forget the myth.
|
|
