your first time

[msqueenlizard]

hey all
i am a ucla sociology student who is currently writing a research
paper on the doors. i was wondering what everyone's first experience
hearing the doors (really HEARING them) was like. or if you prefer,
the first time you really started to feel something for jim morrison.
if you guys have some time to jot down some of your
thoughts/experiences, i would really appreciate it.
thanks
anne

[jym]

Cool, Hi Anne!
OK, here I go.

It was 1979, I was kind of trying to live out my summer of love, I was sort of a latter day unreconstructed hippie listening to Hendrix etc...But I'd been hearing these songs for a while that I remembered were from when I was a kid I just didn't know who the band was. I'd also been hearing about the book No One Here Gets Out Alive but hadn't put 2+2 together yet. I was at a mall & as my habit I went to the bookstore & there was No One Here... I bought it & started to read it, it turns out Morrison & I had a lot in common emotionally absent but authoritarian fathers, voluminous reading the subject matter was even similiar, I was even studying film making in college! So the identification with Morrison was there. I was so turned on by what I read I ran to the record store in the mall & bought the first album, took it home, & started to listen & smoke a joint, by the time I got to the instrumental part of Light My Fire it really felt like traveling, it really felt like movement of some kind, & it meant more than the hippie platitudes of Hendrix with visions of butterflys & beads, so I was hooked right there.

If you need or want more info feel free to contact me
Jim

[ensenada]

good luck with the paper!

i first heard the doors through the film "the lost boys", which had a cover of people are strange by echo and the bunnymen. I hadnt really heard the doors before that, i loved the song though. later on in 1995 when i met my first love (UUUUURRRRGGGGHHHH ) she got me listening to doors albums...the first being la woman, the the doors. they blew me away, i had never heard anything like them, and havnt since.
the music takes me to fantasy wolrds, makes me feel free, jim's voice seems to awaken something sleeping inside seriously though, there is def a deep connection between me and the doors and jim's character inparticular.
why? i dont really know to be honest, i can just associate with him in many ways and think he was one hell of an intelligent human being who laughed at authority and stood up for what he believed so vehemently....something society could learn from today.

i could probably rabbit on about this much me with a few beers and a joint

[miepie]

the first doorssong i heard was: Riders on the storm.
It was on a cd from a serie called "tour of duty".
But really getting into the doors was in 1994 when i met my late husband. At my 21th birthday we went to Paris and that was the first time i saw the grave of Jim.

Their music makes me feel happy. Even when i have a sad moment.
And, this is my opion, jim is a very beautiful guy.
He had a great charisma.
He had a beautiful voice.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Liked them in 68 with HILY ....probably heard LMF in 1967 but it did not register.....The Doors were nothing here in the UK and to be honest never really have been when you compare them to a host of Brit bands. (some of whom I like some of whom I think are shit).
It was probably 1971/72 that I really began to appreciate how bloody good these guys were when I completed my album collection and was able to hear everything properly. They were my fave band by 1970/71 but it was not until I had all the albums that I was able to really get into the band the way I wanted.
Pretty much ploughed a lone furrow through the 70s as nobody I knew liked The Doors.
Thier strength is their longevity and their ability to transcend the decades......most of the popular bands back then are considered 60s or 70s but The Doors are as relevant today as they were in 1967 or 68...they still cause a lot of fuss and controversy and are still loved and hated in equal measure...always the mark of a good band......
It can be argued that Morrison's death propelled them to legend (I argue just that) and that without his demise the band may well have went the way of Jefferson Airplane or Spirit or It's A Beautiful Day....we will never know. Personally I am glad I took the trouble to listen back in 1968....been my fave band now for 35 years...and always will be.

[othercircles]

I think it was several years ago when I saw the doors movie. My brother had a facination with them and Jim Morrison so I watched it and dug it a little.. Then a year later saw it again and recognized some of the songs from before and dug it even more.

It really took off for me though when I played "Gloria" for a friend last summer (2004) who to my surprise loved it. So i started seeking out the titles i recognized on the net. Then I promply went onto ebay and began aquiring all the LP's. One of the first ones I heard was "Close To You" and i think that was a major catalyst for my respect for Ray (the Ray of the 60's & early 70's anyway)

After I began learning how to play the songs i grew even more respect for the 3 of them.

Because I liked CTY so much, when I heard about Other Voices and Full Circle I had to get em. OV I immediately liked nearly all of it.

Morrison always seemed a bit of a novelty to me. Although like I said.. a major turning point for me in my interest in them I think was his uniquely Jim performance of Glora.

When I got Morrison Hotel that really made me realize though...... wow this guy can sing really well (with professional skill) when he wants to. :-P

[michael]

My first time was in the back seat of a Volkswagen with Cindy Holt, who later went on to becoming the Home Coming Queen. Looking back it was her that instigated and orchestrated ther entire event.

[outlaw]

Yep, with Cindy, too.

[michael]

Oh Christ I see I have been here before. I read the above and thought " damn I knew a Cindy Holt...

Her dad was a school teacher/hippie/bandmember and member of The National Guard. They had a broken down VW Bug in the driveway and she had me pull my pants down in the back seat. I must have been 5 0r 6,, the dad pulls in the driveway and I had just yanked my shorts up and he taps on the glass and says " Hello hone ymooners!" It wasn't till just a few years ago I realized he probably knew full well what was happening.

First time hearing of The Doors. I was an early teen and was doing LSD in my bedroom and had a small black and white TV on and a commercial for a greatest hits type LP came on. As I recall it showed Jim in his white striped pants and I laughed thinking the band was some goofy goody two shoes type of affair like The Letterman. Sadly I didn't get hip to The Doors until another five years or so when I read NHGOA... It's been down hill ever since.

[eks74014]

it was the early to mid Eighties... 1983 probably because I have a vivid memory of how "Alive She Cried" was the new release and not yet available at my fav. record store; saw it someplace else among the latest arrivals and it was way more expensive than the WEA midprice Doors albums I had started to collect... I was about... seven

credit goes out to my late dad for this... he had a copy of "Strange Days" which at a certain period he used to play a lot, at home but also on a tape -remember tapes???- in the car... it struck a chord and I was esp. moved by the vocals in the title song - I never knew what it was all about because being a pre-teen, the English language was new to me... besides that, it was the instrumental pieces within "When the Music's Over"... fell in love with those and I used to play that song over and over again, I wore dad's copy out and ended up buying him a new one the next Christmas... thanks, dad!

thinking about it, it must have been 1983 cos I was given the latest Michael Jackson album around the same time... "Beat It" was the big one at the time and a couple more singles off the album, so you just had to have the latest Jackson... and I now recall playing that and taking the needle off the record before the song "Thriller" would launch... being the young kid I was, that particular song freaked me out, it scared the shit out of me... in relation to The Doors and the "Strange Days": "Horse Latitudes" did not!... however, my young brain tied a link between those two scary songs for many years to come

my very first ever trip to the record store -with mum- ended with buying "L.A. Woman" and "An American Prayer" which I had seen an advert for on paper inner sleeves of albums by other WEA artists... those two were my maiden music purchases... I was about... seven

[colin56]

The first oppression has an quite different effect. As the doors have shown their
performance from first time.

[glasstecwindows]

The Doors were nothing here in the UK and to be honest never really have been when you compare them to a host of Brit bands.