Post by darkstar on Jan 19, 2005 13:39:22 GMT
THE DOORS
STRANGE DAYS OF POETIC DRAMA
By: Staff Writer
Pop/Rock Music Magazine – December 1968
William Blake spoke, “There are things that are known and things that are unknown; in between are doors.” Aldous Huxley titled his book on mescaline experience, The Doors Of Perception, and a then smalltime group of musicians continued the tradition by calling themselves The Doors; Opened and Closed. It later proved to be apt.
Ray Manzarek was playing with his two brothers in Rick and The Ravens and attending UCLA film school when he met Jim Morrison who was also involved in the cinema department. Upon graduation each went his separate way. They later ran into each other in Venice, California, and found they both shared an interest in rock. Morrison had been thinking of forming a rock duo with a college roommate, Dennis Jakob – a duo that would consist of a repertoire of two songs. But Morrison had been writing lyrics all the time and showed them to Ray who decided right then and there to get a rock group together. He had never heard lyrics like Morrison’s sung to rock music.
With the plans still in their heads Ray and Jim found John Densmore in one of the first mediation classes on the West Coast involving UCLA students. He was mainly a jazz drummer and didn’t particularly care for the groups lyrics but quit his short stint with the Psychedelic Rangers to step into the Doors. In 1965 six of Morrison’s songs were ready for a demo. He, Manzarek and Densmore recorded Moonlight Drive, Summer’s Almost Gone, End Of Night, and Break On Through, with a backing aided by Ray’s brothers on guitar and an unidentified girl on bass. The last three split for Redondo Beach because they didn’t like Morrison’s lyrics and along came guitarist Bobby Krieger, who had met the other three at the meditation center. He too was from UCLA and a lyricist. He had done short stints with a jug band and a folk and blues group. Krieger, not Morrison wrote Love Me Two Times and the historic Light My Fire.
Still in need of a bass player, the Doors opened a wide search but then turned to one of their own. Manzarek found a piano bass and now plays it with his left hand and the organ with his foot and right hand.
The Doors, a little rough around the edges, began practicing in a house behind the Santa Monica bus depot and made an early debut playing the film score to Manzarek’s design film, Who I Am and Where I Live. They got their first real date at a now defunct club playing blues and rock ‘n roll classics because their own repertoire wasn’t varied enough. But all they needed was the chance to play together.
Morrison began reversing his stage shy style to something more flamboyant. Their music was getting harder and faster and more their own when they were mysteriously fired. They were about ready to slip into the quiet fate of small time bands when a girl connected with Whisky A Go Go remembered their wild evenings of sound. It took her a month to locate them, and they were hired as the house band at the Whisky A Go Go to play every night. Breaking through to an elite group of enthusiasts, they began gathering a following and signed their first record contract a while later. They then broke with the Whisky and were off on the San Francisco ballroom track and national tours, all because of the notorious oedipal ending of The End. Since then, their singles and albums have caused widespread ravings and cries of obscenity. Others have labeled his show a “poetic drama of the slow, nervous calm of a madman.”
STRANGE DAYS OF POETIC DRAMA
By: Staff Writer
Pop/Rock Music Magazine – December 1968
William Blake spoke, “There are things that are known and things that are unknown; in between are doors.” Aldous Huxley titled his book on mescaline experience, The Doors Of Perception, and a then smalltime group of musicians continued the tradition by calling themselves The Doors; Opened and Closed. It later proved to be apt.
Ray Manzarek was playing with his two brothers in Rick and The Ravens and attending UCLA film school when he met Jim Morrison who was also involved in the cinema department. Upon graduation each went his separate way. They later ran into each other in Venice, California, and found they both shared an interest in rock. Morrison had been thinking of forming a rock duo with a college roommate, Dennis Jakob – a duo that would consist of a repertoire of two songs. But Morrison had been writing lyrics all the time and showed them to Ray who decided right then and there to get a rock group together. He had never heard lyrics like Morrison’s sung to rock music.
With the plans still in their heads Ray and Jim found John Densmore in one of the first mediation classes on the West Coast involving UCLA students. He was mainly a jazz drummer and didn’t particularly care for the groups lyrics but quit his short stint with the Psychedelic Rangers to step into the Doors. In 1965 six of Morrison’s songs were ready for a demo. He, Manzarek and Densmore recorded Moonlight Drive, Summer’s Almost Gone, End Of Night, and Break On Through, with a backing aided by Ray’s brothers on guitar and an unidentified girl on bass. The last three split for Redondo Beach because they didn’t like Morrison’s lyrics and along came guitarist Bobby Krieger, who had met the other three at the meditation center. He too was from UCLA and a lyricist. He had done short stints with a jug band and a folk and blues group. Krieger, not Morrison wrote Love Me Two Times and the historic Light My Fire.
Still in need of a bass player, the Doors opened a wide search but then turned to one of their own. Manzarek found a piano bass and now plays it with his left hand and the organ with his foot and right hand.
The Doors, a little rough around the edges, began practicing in a house behind the Santa Monica bus depot and made an early debut playing the film score to Manzarek’s design film, Who I Am and Where I Live. They got their first real date at a now defunct club playing blues and rock ‘n roll classics because their own repertoire wasn’t varied enough. But all they needed was the chance to play together.
Morrison began reversing his stage shy style to something more flamboyant. Their music was getting harder and faster and more their own when they were mysteriously fired. They were about ready to slip into the quiet fate of small time bands when a girl connected with Whisky A Go Go remembered their wild evenings of sound. It took her a month to locate them, and they were hired as the house band at the Whisky A Go Go to play every night. Breaking through to an elite group of enthusiasts, they began gathering a following and signed their first record contract a while later. They then broke with the Whisky and were off on the San Francisco ballroom track and national tours, all because of the notorious oedipal ending of The End. Since then, their singles and albums have caused widespread ravings and cries of obscenity. Others have labeled his show a “poetic drama of the slow, nervous calm of a madman.”