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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Mar 1, 2006 10:55:11 GMT
London Fog February to May 1966 Sole surviving original flyer/mini poster possibly among the greatest pieces of rock memorabilia ever discovered. Talking of which.....We now know it was a young lady called Nettie Pena, who was a friend of Ray & Jim, who was responsible for the audio and the huge array of photos. Jim had asked her to photograph their opening night. "Jim asked me to take photographs of their first official gig at the London Fog in 1966, (February 1966 DU) Sunset Strip, Hollywood, California. I recorded their songs and took photographs while they played. I used a Mamiyaflex camera with Black and White negative film. The London Fog nightclub was dark and small. The stage was ridiculously small, approximately 6 feet by 6 feet. All the band's equipment, speakers, and themselves were packed on the stage. Their sound was electrifying that night" An incredible shot capturing Jim looking about 12 playing harmonica (mouth harp).The date of the London Fog recording is cited as May 1966. But Nettie says she recorded their songs whilst she took photos so it seems she did this several nights after the opener. So were the photos from the opening night? That would be special as it was practically The Doors first 'gig'. However it has been said by the other Doors that Jim played with his back to whatever audience was there as he had terrible stage fright. For him to be facing the audience and playing moth harp his confidence must have overcome his fright so these photos would not be opening night sadly. February to April may have seen her record the band so May 1966 may just be 'best guess'. Nothing comes easy with this lot.THE DOORS AT THE LONDON FOG February 1966 - The Doors first club engagement?
40 years ago (late February/early March 1966) The Doors began their residency at The London Fog which was their first real experience of bieng live in concert. Due to the nature of the venue which was a last ditch hangout for drunks sailors and prostitutes the band never play much to an audience except for their audition night when they packed the club with UCLA friends to get the gig. Instead of becoming depressed at this the band treat the gigs as live rehearsals and use them to define the sound that would become The Doors sound and work up the songs that would become the basis of their first two albums. Peforming four to six nights a week with four or five sets a night they hone themselves into a lean musical outfit and as they 'rehearse' Morrisons confidence grows and he starts to become the legendary front man we all know and love. Initially in his shyness he faces away from the sparse audience preffering to look to his band mates for support but eventually gains the confidence to face his audience. What an experience those gigs must have been and imagine being able to say you attended such a gig. Their set included many of the songs that would grace their first two albums but also many a blues standard such as 'Louie Louie', 'King Bee', 'Got My Mojo Workin', and later Doors B side 'You Need Meat' and of course 'Gloria' which was released by Them at around the time The Doors became a reality in the summer of 1965.
More info on the poster .... It's perfectly feasible after all the band had been there over two months so why not advertise their gigs on lamposts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a rather controversial piece of memorabilia. If genuine it would be akin to finding the Holy Grail in a yard sale. It may well be real but it could also be fake. Nice bit of fence sitting and my balls hurt.
Sole surviving original flyer/mini poster
THE DOORS
AT THE LONDON FOG
April 1966 - The Doors first club engagement
Arguably the rarest and most valuable sixties rock art in existence!
INTRODUCTION
To claim that any rock poster of flyer is the most important of it's kind in rock history invites instant controversy and repudiation. However, few would dispute that this sole surviving* mini poster of The Doors very first Hollywood club performances (particularly when coupled with it's unique history) makes it, at the very least, the most important known example of sixties Los Angles rock art. Both as rock history and as a sound investment this is a must have for the serious collector.
SPECIFICATIONS
Type: - Mini poster. Despite being flyer size the promo piece produced by the small clubs like The Sea Witch, The Trip, Pandora's Box and the others that lined Sunset Blvd., were never given away as hand outs but purely used as mini poster intended to be tacked to telegraph poles hence the use of card and very thick paper stock. Print runs were usually between 100 and 200 and most were printed on small hand operated letter press machines (an old printing process involving the use of acid etched metal plates that became virtually extinct by the mid seventies).
Size: - 10" x 6"
Stock: - Very thick (almost card thickness) uncoated linen finish art paper
Colors: - Dark blue and metallic silver
Printing method: - Letterpress method . Reverse of print shows tell tail indentations unique to the process.
Condition: - A++++. Despite being over 40 years old the print has NO PHYSICAL DAMAGE WHATSOEVER including fold marks, tares or scratches. The paper has moderate discoloration (as would be inevitable in any vintage paper stock) and the silver ink appears slightly faded towards the bottom of the art but overall the condition could hardly be better.
Performance details: - April 1966. (Resident band). The London Fog. 8909 West Sunset Blvd. Hollywood. Los Angeles.
Performers: - The Doors and 'bird in a golden cage' go go dancer, Rhonda Lane.
Artist & printer: - Unknown .
* Based on extensive research we believe this is the sole surviving example of this, the first Doors poster/flyer. It is being offered as such. Should another example surface during or within 30 days of the end of the auction, the winner may return the item for a full refund.
HISTORY
This mini poster was given personally by Jim Morrison to Gene Clark (founder of The Byrds) who had just broken with The Byrds due to a terror of flying (he was unable to tour due to this) - sort of ironic considering the name of the band. Jim Morrison and Gene Clark both lived a short distance apart in small streets off Laurel Canyon Blvd and are thought to have first met at the Canyon Country Store (which still exists today almost unchanged) . Jim was trying to get a gig at the Whisky A Go Go and probably hoped he could support Gene's new band, The Gene Clark Band. As it turned out Jim auditioned for the Whisky on May the 10th and supported The Byrds on May 16th (a newspaper ad for this event is on sale on EBay by the (it would make a nice complimentary piece). The Gene Clark Band did not perform at the Whisky until the following month. Gene Clark kept the poster and stuck it into a Kodak Photographic Paper envelope with some prints and negatives. This protection helped the poster survive in such good condition. It was discovered shortly after his death in the Laurel Canyon house he had occupied in the seventies. The articles below give more details of the London Fog and the Whisky at the time and provides the reader some historical perspective. This poster represents one the the pivotal moments in rock history and it's ownership by both Jim Morrison and Gene Clark greatly adds to it's fascination and historical importance...
[glow=red,2,300]Whisky A Go Go 40 Years Ago[/glow] newdoorstalk.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=history&thread=1357&page=1
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Mar 1, 2006 12:50:04 GMT
From Follow The Music: The History of Elektra Records
"Our first real paying gig if you could call it that was a little club called The London Fog" John Densmore.
"Like a little dive, but it was near the Whisky, so that was good. This guy who ran it was named Jesse James. Like a hustler guy. A nice guy though. Years later I saw him....he was driving a cab" Robby Krieger
"Most of the time there were about seven people in the club. The four Doors, the waitress, the bartender who was none other than Jesse James and Rhonda lane go go dancer. Now Rhonda was slightly over weight but she certainly could shimmy. She was wearing a fringed outfit, go go boots and a sort of discreet bikini 1966 style. She go goed to our music in her go go cage but it was extremely difficult for her. You could go go to Johnny Rivers do the Frug and the Watusi but unfortunately Rhonda was attempting to dance those patterned style dances to the music of a group of acid heads who had completely spaced out and gone into the ozone and were playing Miles Davis and John Coltrane and Muddy Waters and Igor Stravinsky rhythms all wrapped into one. I mean we were in our own universe and our own floating bobbing time structure to which you could not dance the Frug or the Watusi or the Swim. Poor Rhonda. She was absolutely delightful but Rhonda and The Doors never really had any kind of communication at all." Ray Manzarek
Gary James Talking With Robby Krieger Q - Do you still recall the early Doors gigs at places like The London Fog and the Whiskey A Go Go? A - Oh sure. Q - How fortunate The Doors were, that first you could play out six nights a week, and second you didn't have to "pay to play." A - It was like a real job then. It was like you could actually earn a living playing clubs, and doing original music. Today, its like a total reversal. The kids have to come up with the money to play instead of making money. It's crazy.
Rockmine: Okay ... So, in the beginning, you were playing at The London Fog. Now there's a story that you managed to con the manager into signing you because you got something like eighty of your friends in to see you. Manzarek: (laughs) Exactly, everybody we knew ... (laughs) ... Everybody we knew. We invited them all down and said listen, we're auditioning at this club on the strip and we need it, you know. We've gotta get a gig, everybody come down. What was the owner's name? Krieger: Jesse James. Manzarek: (laughing) ... what a bandit ... Jesse James ... and we got the gig because the owner thought "God, these guy's are good, this place is packed". Next night it was back to the usual seven people in the place. Three musieians, a bartender, a go-go girl and maybe two or three customers all night. What a place! Krieger: That's how it usually was. Interview with Ray & Robby at Blake's Hotel in London on the afternoon of November lst 1983.
The legendary ‘London Fog’ club (now part of rock hangout Duke’s Coffee Shop, 8909 Sunset Boulevard), where the Doors were house band, was played in the Stone movie by the Viper Room, 8852 Sunset Boulevard then owned by Johnny Depp and, yes, destined to be remembered forever as the spot where River Phoenix OD'd in 1993.
Pamela Courson used to tell a story from the very earliest day of The Doors. They were playing their first club, The London Fog. It was their last set of the night and there were only three people in the club, two drunks and Pamela. The band was incandescent. Jim raged and exploded with super-human passion, a transcendent performance. Pam was stunned. In the car she could say nothing...long after arriving home she was still speechless. Jim asked, "What's wrong baby?" Pam said, "There were three people in the club during the last set. But you burned like you were performing for thousands of people. Why did you go so far, risk so much for a tiny audience that was barely aware of your presence?" Jim looked at her and said slowly, "You never know when you're doing your last set."
"Actually how we got in was we went down to the audition and we got about 50 of our friends to pack the place out.......because it was not a very big place....about forty feet by fifteen....and they all applauded us frantically. The owner whose name was Jesse James thought 'My God' and hired us. The next night the place was empty." John Densmore talking to John Tobler 1978.
"Nobody ever came into the place....an occasional sailor or two on leave, a few drunks. They had a Go Go girl..the lovely Rhonda lane dancing on the other side and it was all very depressing. But it gave us time to really get the music together. We had to play four or five sets a night. We'd start at nine and play till two with fifteen minute breaks in between and we had the chance to develop songs like Light My Fire, When the Musics Over and The End. The End was originally a very short piece but because of the time we had to fill we started expanding songs. Taking them into areas that we did not know that they would go into......and playing stoned every night. It was the great summer of acid and we really got into a lot of improvisation....and I think that the fact that no-one else was at the club really helped us develop what The Doors became" Ray Manzarek talking to John Tobler 1978.
"We dropped other things in here and there because some of the audience were straights who'd be interested in dancing...so we'd play stuff like Louie Louie just to get by then we'd go back to our stuff" John Densmore 1978
As a non union club the band were paid a paltry $5 each for weekdays and $10 on a Friday and Saturday....of course that depended on whether the club had made enough during the week to pay them. Eventually the club went bust and the band were out of a job and had lost their free rehearsal space but as luck would have it Ronny Haran the booking agent for the Whisky had seen the band at the Fog and liked them.......the rest became history but The London Fog deserves its place in Doors History as the birthplace of what we know today as The Doors.
"The owner of the club said 'Listen you guys. You've been here four months now and I am afraid we're gonna have to get a new band'...we thought 'God what are we gonna do now'....but as the fates would have it Ronny Haran the booking agent for the Whisky A Go Go came down to see us...fell in love with Jim....loved the music and asked us 'how would you gusy like to be the house band at the Whisky?'......we said 'incredible...it so happens we are free....Our engagement here is finished.....and we went from making $5 a night to union scale of $135 per man a week." Ray Manzarek talking to John Tobler 1978
"A small, now defunct club called the London Fog, (now Duke's Coffee Shop) located between the Hamburger Hamlet and the Galaxy on Sunset Strip was the first real club date for the Doors. They played for five dollars apiece on weeknights, double on weekends, seven nights a week, four sets per night. Because at the time they didn't have sufficient original material for such a long job, over half their repertory consisted of blues and rock 'n' roll classics, such as Gloria, Little Red Rooster and Who Do You Love? Once again, a faithful core of students from the UCLA film school followed them, but on the strip, a cross section of other listeners joined them. More than anything else, the London Fog job provided them with the opportunity to play together steadily, experiment with their songs, and to develop as a working group. Jim Morrison in particular changed, progressing from a reserved stage style to his present flamboyant manner. Their music was ardently defended by a growing segment of the Strip population, but it also just plain scared a lot of people. Eventually they were fired. It's hard to believe, but at this juncture the band could have easily sunk into oblivion, disbanded, or could have at least starved a little longer waiting for discovery. But on the last night of their four months at the Fog, Ronnie Haran, the chic chick who books talent for the Whisky-a-Go-Go, came in to hear them. "I knew that Jim Morrison had star quality the minute he started singing," says Miss Haran. "They needed more polish, but the sound was there. Unfortunately, none of them had a telephone ....Morrison was then sleeping on the beach...... and all they could give me was a phone number where John 'sometimes' could be reached. It took a month to contact them again, but I finally booked them into the Whisky." Miss Haran also helped the Doors join the musicians' union, get new clothes, and organize the business side of their lives. Her tenacious insistence on using them more or less as the Whisky house band, despite management objections, was the important break the Doors needed." From Eye magazine
The Doors were always different - never schmoozer-socialites in the John Phillips vein, nor folkies like the other bands had once been. As last as mid-1966, they were still considered something of a loser-outcast band, playing in a seedy dive next door to the Whisky called The London Fog, which came complete with indifferent drunken sailors and a B-grade go-go dancer. "Her name as Rhonda Lane, and she was a little, as the Japanese say, genki - meaning substantial," says Ray Manzarek, the band's keyboardist. John Densmore remembers peering forlornly through the door of the Whisky - which he couldn't afford to get into - and seeing Love playing to adulation. "I really wanted to be in Love -they were making it," he says, "But I was in the demon Doors." Vanity Fair 2000
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Post by ensenada on Mar 1, 2006 18:46:59 GMT
dude thats some cool info...cheers
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Mar 2, 2006 10:04:29 GMT
I think it would be opretty amazing to hear Rhonda Lane's story if she is still alive.....imagine what she might be able to tell us about those days!
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Mar 10, 2006 16:14:13 GMT
"Throughout April 1966 The Doors continue at the The London Fog, honing their skills and original sound. Jim is smoking pot all day, drinking all night, he loves acid and pops speeders when he needs them often while on stage. He is still self conscious performing but the drugs and alcohol help release his unique personality as he begins to repel and attract with his antics both on and off stage. He is stirring up attention and becoming the most talked about singer in LA. The band is hungry for success and advancement and walk up to the premier club on the strip, The Whisky, between sets to see what's going on. Jim seeks out the booking agent, Ronnie Haran, incessantly and tries to convince her to come see them play. She eventually does on May 5th and invites them for an audition on May 9th at which Elmer Valentine hires them to be the house band at The Whisky although it will take several weeks to get them there as the band is by that time no longer employed at The Fog and is hard to track down! The bands last performance at London Fog will be May 7th 1966 just days before they audition for The Whisky."
Saturday May 7th 1966 40 Years Ago Today The Doors final appearance at the London Fog.
This is The Doors final appearance and the London Fog closes shortly after due to financial problems later re-opening as Sneaky Pete's on May 13th. The London Fog can be argued to be the birthplace of The Doors as we know them....without the chance to hone their skills in that crappy little dive they may well not have evolved much past an idea. Nobody can ever know for sure what would have happened without the Fog dates as many a talented act passed unnoticed during that period. Would they have made it? We can never really know.......thankfully they did so 40 years on I for one say cheers London Fog and thanks for everything!
'Morrison was still shy even fearful on stage. As he did in rehearsals Jim almost always sang with his back to the crowd choosing to interact with the band rather than the audience. Not that there was much of an audience to interact with anyway. Mostly the occasional UCLA fan but as time went by a cross section of others began to appear at the club. The manager decided the band was helping and invited them to play two more nights a week at five dollar a night each…….John was offended…’I refused because I was a working professional but Jim wanted to do it and so we did….in the back of my mind I knew it was invaluable honing of the material.’ Under the steady grind of this six nights a week job Jim Morrison began to change. He directed some of his energy outward towards the audience and then began getting the hang of it soon he started to love it. With each new night he became more expressive. Ray recalls ‘most of the time there was no one at the club so we could do anything. We had the chance to develop ‘Light My Fire’, ‘When The Music’s Over’ and ‘The End’ which was originally a very short love song. But because of all the time we had to fill onstage we started extending songs taking them into areas that we didn’t know they would go into…….and playing stoned every night. It was a great time for acid and we actually got into a lot of improvisation and I think that the fact that no one was at the club helped us develop’.
From Break On Through
"For the beginning of 1966 the marquee of The London Fog read ‘The Doors’. We had made it to The Strip. We talked the owner into booking us for a month after we packed the house with friends. Our first real gig. Underneath the name we had them add ‘The Band From Venice’. The place was a dump and a hangout for misfits but it was on the same block as The Whisky so we were game. We were hired to perform Thursday through to Sunday from 9 pm till 2 am five hours of hardcore lounge music for $10 a night apiece way below union scale….I was used to at least $15, standard scab wages for my wedding gigs but I knew The Doors had potential and felt honing down the arrangements of our songs in front of a live audience would be invaluable. There was an extra pressure to get it together that couldn’t be duplicated without people listening. But there was also the fear factor. How were we going to fill up five sets with music? We had about 25 originals including 'Light My Fire', 'The End', 'Break On Through' and about five cover songs including 'Gloria', 'Little Red Rooster' and 'Back Door Man' which meant repeating a couple. If we played them early in the evening around 9 and then again at 1am the audience would have either turned over or gotten too drunk to remember that they had heard those songs. The Management didn’t seem to notice…at first
Night after night of drunken sailors, perverts in raincoats and lounge lizards. Hour after cramped hour in a funky club with nautical décor stuck on a crows nest sized stage. Ray close enough to my drums that he nearly had to duck when I hit a cymbal crash. Robby squeezed in so tight nearby he could hit the opposite cymbal with his guitar neck and Jim perched precariously on the edge of the ten foot high stage…… ”
“Since we had a kind of bizarre carte blanche to play whatever we wanted we began experimenting. The long jazzy instrumental solos in ‘Light My Fire’ and the stream of consciousness poetry of ‘The End’ were born at The Fog. Jim's Stage presence had a ways to go. He rarely faced the audience. We had discussions about it one night after a lame set and confronted Jim with his shyness. We suggested that he try to turn around and face the people more often which he accepted with no comment. We were used to facing each other in rehearsal and Jim wasn’t secure enough to break the circle of energy.” John Densmore From Riders On The Storm
We also know at this time that Pamela Courson visited The Fog and Jim was taken with her. Its hard to establish exactly how all this happened as the two main sources are Ray and John who seem to prefer childish point scoring in their accounts to actually giving fans a decent account! But it seems that John was first to try his hand there and Jim moved in and took over. The rest was history.
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Post by strangenightvstone on Jun 2, 2006 18:26:43 GMT
I am wondering about the Ports O Call in San Pedro. I have been there, it is a spooky place, the area could pass for the 1950's. It is across the harbor from Long Beach. There are restaurants at Ports O Call, I read in a book that the first Doors concert happened there. It did not elaborate to say if Robby or John were in the band. I have a feeling based on my experience of San Pedro, that there is a hidden clue here for us to figure out. So was it just Ray and Jim in San Pedro, or all four?
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jun 2, 2006 19:47:31 GMT
First time Jim Morrison appears on stage with a band....filling in with an unplugged guitar to help Ray out as Rick & The Ravens were booked as a six piece and there were only 5..... Not exactly the first Doors concert but nontheless interesting....thanks for reminding me I just added the details to the calendar.... newdoorstalk.proboards43.com/index.cgi?action=calendarview&thread=1149277408
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Post by strangenightvstone on Jun 4, 2006 1:46:45 GMT
View of the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro. Old postcard view San Pedro Lighthouse, San Pedro Bay, Los Angeles Harbor, California, circa 1910 If only we knew what HS was having their dance there! That is a key piece of information. The Beach Boys and Canned Heat were both in the area.
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jun 4, 2006 10:25:48 GMT
I doubt we will ever really find a satisfactory answer as witnesses are hard to find and Ray Manzarek's recollections are always dependent on what he is selling that particular week. Maybe if Ray's brothers Jim and Rick or maybe the drummer Vince Thomas had kept some kind of diary but that is unlikely. Although there are some fliers advertising raven gigs so who knows..... The gig is noted by Greg Shaw as June 11th as a Sonny & Cher gig but may well have been in May when The Ravens were playing the Turkey Joint West. We know that Jim appeared on stage with The Ravens at the Turkey Joint West and 'sang' (I use the word loosely) Louie Louie but that is another date we have no real idea of. Doors History is shrouded with this kinda mist as nobody kept any real records of the fledgling band.......Densmore has no idea of the actual date he joined the band neither has Krieger. We know the demo was September 2nd because (most likely) the date is on the tape can. But little else in terms of an exact date is known of the 1965 period.
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gizmo
Door Half Open
Posts: 113
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Post by gizmo on Jun 25, 2006 17:27:45 GMT
are there pics of the old london fog (from the time the doors played there)? i don't think so but you'll never know if some tourist or lost sailor made a pic in there or from the front. i'm really curious what it would have looked like in that time. if it was such a sleazy bar as told before.
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jan 22, 2011 13:58:43 GMT
This is an utterly amazing photo. This comes from the film Mondo Bizarro which was made in 1966 and features a shot of the Sunset Strip between Clark and Hilldale showing (from left to right) the Hamburger Hamlet, unidentified shop, London Fog, Galaxy & Galaxy Overflow, Sneeky Pete's, and Whisky a Go Go. The London Fog can be clearly seen to be advertising a band from a hoarding attached to the building. Some band called The Doors it seems. Incredible."The Doors weren't very good then... The other bands didn't think a whole lot of them. Jimmy's antics were considered extreme even then. Nobody quite understood what he was up to or why he had to be so brazen at times. I know that he hated to sing. He didn't think he was any good and didn't like performing. There was always a part of him that was self-critical and questioning. As though he felt he was being a sham. It wasn't so much that he would rather do something else. It was as if he was very unhappy inside. It made him so nervous he had to get totally looped... I used to wonder what was holding him up." Mirandi Babitz
March 1966 J I M M E E T S P A M Throughout March: London Fog - West Hollywood, CA Soon the band is hired for two more nights and Jim, playing six days a week now, starts to become more expressive with each performance. Jim moves out of Ray's and into an apartment with UCLA film friend Phil Oleno.
"See Felix and Jim and I, we were getting a little bit crazy, the three of us.Too crazy. So it was difficult for the band, The Doors, to rehearse really. Jim would rather get fucked up... But Jim would have gone off if somebody had appeared somebody with magic. Or if some situation had manifested itself. But this band was what he was supposed to do. To get the basis for which he could work, and be heard. He got high just being on stage. I mean he got into places where few people get to go. He and the band, too." - Phil O'leno
The band plays stoned every night and usually on acid. The club is often slow or empty and The Doors are free to experiment and do alot of improvisational of songs leading to their unique sound. Around this time, Jim meets Pamela Courson while playing at the club. She attends almost every show and they quickly become inseparable.
April 1966 Throughout April: London Fog - West Hollywood, CA The Doors continue at the small club honing their skills and original sound. Jim is smoking pot all day, drinking all night, he loves acid and pops speeders when he needs them often while on stage. He is still self conscious performing but the drugs and alcohol help release his unique personality as he begins to repel and attract with his antics both on and off stage. He is stirring up attention and becoming the most talked about singer in LA. The band is hungry for success and advancement and walk up to the premier club on the strip, The Whisky, between sets to see what's going on. Jim seeks out the concert booker, Ronnie Haran, incessantly and tries to convince her to come see them play.
"We'd all hang out after hours at Canter's Deli on Fairfax. Every freak in town and every band in town. All Zappa's people and all the Doors. All the Byrds, Arthur Lee with his scarves, Buffalo Springfield, the Daily Flash, Sons of Adam. We'd exchange acid, stories, girlfriends and sandwiches. Morrison stood out because he was incredibly handsome and, if he wanted to, he could get very loud. Everybody attracted a different kind of hanger-on, and even then Jim was already attracting the budding little dark poets and little lost waifs."- Jimmy Greenspoon, keyboards for Three Dog Night
The group began practicing in a place called Venice in LA its a beach town with the atmosphere of a dying arcade Our first job, our first job was a Xmas party at a house of some relative of Robby. Then our first job was at the London Fog on sunset strip, it's a small club that no longer exists. The most people it could hold is about 50, on a good night. There was a bartender named George and a doorman named Sam; sometimes Joey would be at the door. A waitress named Suzy a dancer named Rhonda who danced in a little cage across from the band stand Jesse James was the owner. He was a young man who was dying of cancer and it was kind of a struggle to keep the place going." Jim Morrison to Mike Lazar & Steve Flesser University of Oswego radio interview.
DoorsHistory.com
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jan 22, 2011 14:21:10 GMT
LA Times POP BEAT
A Special Time in Rock: 1966 on the Sunset Strip A kid might jam with Jimi Hendrix or hitch a ride in Phil Spector's limo.
The summer of 1966 on L.A.'s Sunset Strip was a time when many young musicians thought anything was possible.
A teen-ager from the San Fernando Valley might wind up jamming with Jimi Hendrix, while a 14-year-old hitchhiking on Sunset Boulevard could get picked up by Phil Spector's limousine.
It's a time and place that is enshrined in American rock history as surely as '60s Liverpool remains revered in British rock--a time that has become topical again because of yet another Doors resurgence.
Although the box-office appeal of Oliver Stone's film "The Doors" waned sharply after a strong opening week, Elektra Records' "best of" Doors album, billed as the film's soundtrack, is a smash. The album has been in the Top 30 for a month, and an older anthology joined it there this week. A third Doors roundup is in the lower reaches of the charts.
In Stone's movie, the Doors seemed to launch the Hollywood rock 'n' roll scene in the '60s in a vacuum. But the group was part of a burgeoning underground movement whose center was the Sunset Strip, a stretch of Sunset Boulevard that included clubs like the Whisky, the Galaxy, London Fog, the Unicorn and Sneaky Pete's.
"The universe was changing," says Ray Manzarek, the Doors' keyboardist, of the time.
Before the Byrds played Ciro's in 1965, the pop music scene in L.A. consisted of people like Johnny Rivers, Trini Lopez and the Walker Brothers playing old-style nightclubs like PJ's (the site of what was later the Starwood rock club at Santa Monica and Crescent Heights) and Sneaky Pete's (now Duke's coffee shop at Sunset and San Vicente). The bohemian folk scene held forth at Doug Weston's Troubadour on Santa Monica off Doheny, Ed Pearl's Ash Grove on Melrose (now the Improv) and the Unicorn at Sunset and San Vicente. Bob Gibson, now head of a publicity firm called the Group, represented such acts as the Doors, the Mamas & the Papas and the Byrds at the time, and ran a nightclub called the Cheetah on Santa Monica Pier.
"The adult clubs began to die and began catering to rock 'n' roll and the new youthful audience," Gibson remembers. One of the most famous was Elmer Valentine and Mario Maglieri's Whisky-A-Go-Go, where the concept of "go-go girls" was born when, during a Johnny Rivers show, the mini-skirted lass who spun records in a cage high above the floor began dancing and audiences thought she was part of the show.
"If you had to put your finger on an event that was a barometer of the tide turning, it would probably be the Sunset Strip riots," says Gibson, talking about the confrontations that inspired the Buffalo Springfield's Stephen Stills to write "For What It's Worth." While the "riots" were immortalized in the 1967 film "Riot on Sunset Strip," there was no one particular incident--rather, a summerlong simmering tension between longhairs, police and shop owners along the street.
"The cops would hassle kids for being underage," claims Rodney Bingenheimer, who now hosts a radio show on KROQ, but was then dubbed by Sal Mineo "the Mayor of the Sunset Strip." "The Sunset Strip was like Las Vegas. People would actually walk from La Cienega to Gazzarri's at 2 and 3 in the morning. It was a 24-hour party, but it was all very innocent. It wasn't until later that the scene turned ugly and people starting taking a lot of drugs. It was still a mod thing then."
"If you had to put your finger on an event that was a barometer of the tide turning, it would probably be the Sunset Strip riots," says Gibson, talking about the confrontations that inspired the Buffalo Springfield's Stephen Stills to write "For What It's Worth." While the "riots" were immortalized in the 1967 film "Riot on Sunset Strip," there was no one particular incident--rather, a summerlong simmering tension between longhairs, police and shop owners along the street.
"The cops would hassle kids for being underage," claims Rodney Bingenheimer, who now hosts a radio show on KROQ, but was then dubbed by Sal Mineo "the Mayor of the Sunset Strip." "The Sunset Strip was like Las Vegas. People would actually walk from La Cienega to Gazzarri's at 2 and 3 in the morning. It was a 24-hour party, but it was all very innocent. It wasn't until later that the scene turned ugly and people starting taking a lot of drugs. It was still a mod thing then."
Pepper introduced Bruce to Frank Zappa, who recruited him as a drummer for the Mothers of Invention alongside Jimmy Carl Black. "Zappa would advertise what he called his 'Guambo' shows, which took place in an old warehouse at the corner of Western and 6th and 10,000 people showed up," recalls Bruce.
Bruce left the Mothers, eventually becoming a manager and producer for the likes of John Fahey, Leo Kottke and John Hiatt. As head of Takoma Records, a joint venture with Chrysalis, he put out records by the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Doug Sahm, T-Bone Burnett and Charles Bukowski in the late '70s.
Harvey Kubernik, who produces spoken-word records and performances, used to hitchhike up and down Sunset Boulevard. "Phil Spector used to pick us up in his limousine," he recalls. "Sometimes he'd have his driver take us to a club, then pick us up afterwards and drive us home. The chauffeur'd have to keep circling the house so my mother wouldn't get suspicious."
According to Ray Manzarek, the Doors had very little to do with the existing Hollywood scene when he and fellow UCLA film student Jim Morrison formed the band in 1965 in Venice. "That was show business. We were art," he says.
Manzarek recalls the band's playing at a club called London Fog, a few doors down from the Whisky. "There were seven people total in the club," he says with a laugh. "But Jesse the bartender kept telling us to play. 'No one will come in if you don't,' he'd say. We used to play four sets a night, which is when we began experimenting with the song structure. That was where we cut our performing teeth."
But less than three years later--after the riots at the Chicago Democratic Convention, the killings at Kent State and the emergence of Charles Manson--that dream was over.
"It was a special time I was privileged to live through," says Bob Gibson. "I wish I could have been more aware of it at the time. Thirty years later, I look back and say, 'What happened?' "
LA Times April 27, 1991|ROY TRAKIN | Roy Trakin is senior editor of Hits magazine
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gizmo
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Post by gizmo on Jan 23, 2011 19:09:18 GMT
fucking awesome picture from the sunset strip and the mini poster!!!!!!!!! totaly ace.
though i think that the mini posters are made round the time from the oliver stone movie. it would be a nice item to show up at that time but since there are no marks on it and it is in perfect condition it would be odd that someone takes the poster from a lamppost or telegraph pole without making a mark in it. if it would be left behind in the old london fog it would have been aged or something but not in this condition as shown.
but on the other hand, a mini poster for a band wich have never done a gig is quite a big expence for a club wich has a hard time getting custumers(investment would be a better word) so why did jesse james ,ade posters for a band who have never played for any audience?
i don't know why i have doubts by the poster, but i really think it's made around the oliver stone movie........................
and thats another proof that dead bands need a commercial thing to get their music selling again. the doors inc created another greatest hits album wich was launced with the flick, and they have been in the top 30 for a month thanx to oliver stone?
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jan 23, 2011 19:23:38 GMT
You make a good point Giz but they were not dirt poor and RKs family could easily have bankrolled it.
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gizmo
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Post by gizmo on Feb 20, 2011 19:06:21 GMT
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Post by darkstar3 on Feb 22, 2011 13:51:43 GMT
great pictures!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you. I also took photos of the Hyatt aka The Continental 'Riot' house, which used to be my favorite place to stay until the new owners gave the building a face lift, shaving the balconies off of the rooms. Before the building was changed you could stand out on the balcony which was attached to the rooms facing Sunset Blvd. I have a photo of Robert Plant standing out on one of those balconies. Jim hung from his hands from one balcony which upset the management, forcing them to move him to a balcony-less room at the back of the hotel. With all the rock n' roll history associated with that hotel it was a shame to see the building changed from its former self. When I visit L.A. now I stay at the Chateau Marmont which is a little further east on Sunset but still has it's old charm.
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gizmo
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Post by gizmo on Feb 23, 2011 18:10:04 GMT
i'm happy some buildings survived the modernisation of the world. old buidings still carry the vibes from the past, and that's what i like
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Post by kristyob on Mar 8, 2011 22:08:59 GMT
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Post by darkstar3 on Mar 9, 2011 1:01:51 GMT
WOW Kristy thats awesome! I saw this website when I was doing research but I didn't notice the resemblance of the go go dancer. You could be right. Wasn't Jim's girlfriend, Mary, (who followed him to LA) also a go go dancer? She had some occupation that caused a tiff between her and Jim. Heres what I found re: London Fog that has any photos - the rest of the entries on this venue just have text for the time being. newdoorstalk.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=calendarview&thread=182
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gizmo
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Post by gizmo on Mar 9, 2011 10:26:21 GMT
that's great to see, but now there is another question. almost halfway the page (besides the photo of the 3 go-go dancers in a cage) they are writing about rhonda lane spinning records. i haven't got a clue if that's a name wich 1 in 3 girls have, but she ought to be dancing in the london fog at that moment?
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