Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jan 9, 2005 23:58:07 GMT
Recording Strange Days 1967
We're sitting on a sofa in the control tower of studio one, Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood. Before us, on the other side of a huge picture window, engineer Bruce Botnick is setting up mikes and speakers. To the left, behind another window, in a dark cell of a room is Jim Morrison, waiting ...doing things with his mind.
Finally Bruce leaves the sound set, shutting off all the lights except for one row which borders right in front of Morrison's black window and a soft ball of red light clean across the room from the Doors' lead vocalist.
Bruce enters the control tower, and we're ready to launch into flight. Least, that's what we think. Paul Rothchild, the bearded producer, does a few switches and buttons, Bruce then speaks to Morrison, who tests the mikes with his famous "yeahh" grunts.
Then there's the music ... the instrumental version, of which alone could have been a Doors hit, and Jim Morrison begins singing "I Can't See Your Face In My Mind."
But it sounds awful. Morrison is coming in with a broken, warbled voice. From the control tower, Rothchild halts everything. He knows this won't get off the runway.
Bruce Botnick re-enters the sound stage, readjusts mikes and speakers and goes into Morrison's black window for a while. When he comes back out, he does some more redoing and is about ready to leave the runway when, over the mikes, Morrison asks him to shut off ALL the lights, save the red glow.
With this done, we sit in a dark control tower, looking at the blacker window in the left wall of the sound set which haunts itself in the soft darkness of the red ball. Then again, the already recorded instrumental comes on. This time the room fills with excitement as the rich voice of Jim Morrison rides over everything, loud and clear.
Wow! And, it keeps happening from here on, deep into the night as Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore keep weaving one magical blende after another. Sounds that turn us on, they redo and redo, never losing, but always adding to the spell. They keep at it, for that turn-on known as self-satisfaction. And then, when they finally have it in the can, there's still no telling when they'll want to take the trip over.
AIRPORT
We got to Sunset Sound Recorders a bit late, and we weren't sure what to expect. Would we not be admitted because the session was already in go? What were the Doors like individually and what were their recording dates like? Was the private Jim Morrison different from the public one? Was he real or was the super-earthiness put-on?
Most of what we experienced was unexpected.
As we drove into the parking lot we noticed Morrison standing by the side of a Volkswagen bus. As we got out of the car he sort of shrank away. It certainly seemed to this writer that he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. The girl who was with me, however, couldn't resist approaching him. She asked him if they had started recording yet. He answered that, yeahh, they were recording inside now. She then asked him if he wasn't going in too. Morrison said, yeahh, later.
Feeling a bit uneasy, I said something like "see ya inside" and chose to leave it at that as I maneuvered us out of the parking lot. Seconds later, as we walked on the sidewalk along Sunset towards the studio entrance, Morrison placed his chin over the gray brick wall of the parking lot and stared right at us, and yet, not at us. It was an unbelievable trip that would have drugged just about any young girl who would have happened by the sidewalk at that moment.
This is especially true when one considers that at this time the Doors had solidly established themselves as the hottest group in Los Angeles. Just the Saturday before they had stolen the show from a star-studded lineup which top-billed the Jefferson Airplane at Birmingham High School Stadium before an audience that numbered well over the expected sellout of 10,000.
If anyone doubts most of the Birmingham crowd wasn't there for the Doors, it can easily be pointed out that half the audience was gone before the Airplane was in mid-flight. This could be attributed to the fact that, as the last group, the Airplane came on pretty late. Still, the Doors were next to last and the audience waited and shouted for more. Also, a matter of days later, before leaving on an East Coast tour, the Doors sardined about 2,000 persons SRO into the Hullabaloo, while about three more full houses waited outside in an unbelievable line for the second, and last show!
With requests for the long version of "Light My Fire" snowballing into the switchboards of radio stations, the Doors were hot in a blaze of popularity. And, with his chin on a gray brick wall, Jim Morrison gazed out on a not too glamorous portion of Sunset Boulevard.
RUNWAY
Sunset Sound occupies an unimpressive building that resembles, for the most part, a dozen other recording studios that dot the immediate area.
Yet it certainly belongs several good-sized notches above most Southland tape castles, having recorded more than its share of hits.
The day HAPPENING visited the Doors, for example, the Merry-Go-Round was doing "Lovely Woman," and a Billboard hot 100 chart listed several bestsellers, underlined in red ink, such as the Sergio Mendes LP, which has been taped there.
(Clear Light, Elektra's newest offering is also familiar with Sunset Sound, Paul Rothchild and Bruce Botnick.)
Anyways, in studio one, the propellors of our musical airplane, the Doors, are already in motion. Everything's on the runway as John Densmore drums in the finishing touches to the instrumental of "I Can't See Your Face In My Mind"
Quite a bit of time and effort have already gone into this number. After the whole thing had been done instrumentally once, it was played back, backwards, as John did a thing with the cymbals. When the tape was played back properly the cymbals came in reverse with a soft scratchswoosh sound.
Now John was putting a regular drum beat on top of this.
When he was finished he left the sound stage and entered Rothchild's control tower.
We're sitting on a sofa in the control tower of studio one, Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood. Before us, on the other side of a huge picture window, engineer Bruce Botnick is setting up mikes and speakers. To the left, behind another window, in a dark cell of a room is Jim Morrison, waiting ...doing things with his mind.
Finally Bruce leaves the sound set, shutting off all the lights except for one row which borders right in front of Morrison's black window and a soft ball of red light clean across the room from the Doors' lead vocalist.
Bruce enters the control tower, and we're ready to launch into flight. Least, that's what we think. Paul Rothchild, the bearded producer, does a few switches and buttons, Bruce then speaks to Morrison, who tests the mikes with his famous "yeahh" grunts.
Then there's the music ... the instrumental version, of which alone could have been a Doors hit, and Jim Morrison begins singing "I Can't See Your Face In My Mind."
But it sounds awful. Morrison is coming in with a broken, warbled voice. From the control tower, Rothchild halts everything. He knows this won't get off the runway.
Bruce Botnick re-enters the sound stage, readjusts mikes and speakers and goes into Morrison's black window for a while. When he comes back out, he does some more redoing and is about ready to leave the runway when, over the mikes, Morrison asks him to shut off ALL the lights, save the red glow.
With this done, we sit in a dark control tower, looking at the blacker window in the left wall of the sound set which haunts itself in the soft darkness of the red ball. Then again, the already recorded instrumental comes on. This time the room fills with excitement as the rich voice of Jim Morrison rides over everything, loud and clear.
Wow! And, it keeps happening from here on, deep into the night as Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore keep weaving one magical blende after another. Sounds that turn us on, they redo and redo, never losing, but always adding to the spell. They keep at it, for that turn-on known as self-satisfaction. And then, when they finally have it in the can, there's still no telling when they'll want to take the trip over.
AIRPORT
We got to Sunset Sound Recorders a bit late, and we weren't sure what to expect. Would we not be admitted because the session was already in go? What were the Doors like individually and what were their recording dates like? Was the private Jim Morrison different from the public one? Was he real or was the super-earthiness put-on?
Most of what we experienced was unexpected.
As we drove into the parking lot we noticed Morrison standing by the side of a Volkswagen bus. As we got out of the car he sort of shrank away. It certainly seemed to this writer that he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. The girl who was with me, however, couldn't resist approaching him. She asked him if they had started recording yet. He answered that, yeahh, they were recording inside now. She then asked him if he wasn't going in too. Morrison said, yeahh, later.
Feeling a bit uneasy, I said something like "see ya inside" and chose to leave it at that as I maneuvered us out of the parking lot. Seconds later, as we walked on the sidewalk along Sunset towards the studio entrance, Morrison placed his chin over the gray brick wall of the parking lot and stared right at us, and yet, not at us. It was an unbelievable trip that would have drugged just about any young girl who would have happened by the sidewalk at that moment.
This is especially true when one considers that at this time the Doors had solidly established themselves as the hottest group in Los Angeles. Just the Saturday before they had stolen the show from a star-studded lineup which top-billed the Jefferson Airplane at Birmingham High School Stadium before an audience that numbered well over the expected sellout of 10,000.
If anyone doubts most of the Birmingham crowd wasn't there for the Doors, it can easily be pointed out that half the audience was gone before the Airplane was in mid-flight. This could be attributed to the fact that, as the last group, the Airplane came on pretty late. Still, the Doors were next to last and the audience waited and shouted for more. Also, a matter of days later, before leaving on an East Coast tour, the Doors sardined about 2,000 persons SRO into the Hullabaloo, while about three more full houses waited outside in an unbelievable line for the second, and last show!
With requests for the long version of "Light My Fire" snowballing into the switchboards of radio stations, the Doors were hot in a blaze of popularity. And, with his chin on a gray brick wall, Jim Morrison gazed out on a not too glamorous portion of Sunset Boulevard.
RUNWAY
Sunset Sound occupies an unimpressive building that resembles, for the most part, a dozen other recording studios that dot the immediate area.
Yet it certainly belongs several good-sized notches above most Southland tape castles, having recorded more than its share of hits.
The day HAPPENING visited the Doors, for example, the Merry-Go-Round was doing "Lovely Woman," and a Billboard hot 100 chart listed several bestsellers, underlined in red ink, such as the Sergio Mendes LP, which has been taped there.
(Clear Light, Elektra's newest offering is also familiar with Sunset Sound, Paul Rothchild and Bruce Botnick.)
Anyways, in studio one, the propellors of our musical airplane, the Doors, are already in motion. Everything's on the runway as John Densmore drums in the finishing touches to the instrumental of "I Can't See Your Face In My Mind"
Quite a bit of time and effort have already gone into this number. After the whole thing had been done instrumentally once, it was played back, backwards, as John did a thing with the cymbals. When the tape was played back properly the cymbals came in reverse with a soft scratchswoosh sound.
Now John was putting a regular drum beat on top of this.
When he was finished he left the sound stage and entered Rothchild's control tower.