Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jan 21, 2005 21:10:46 GMT
England Tour 1967
A 1967 tour of England is talked about but never materialises.
Robby mentions this on the American Bandstand TV show in July 1967
Clark: Let me leap up here (to Robby), future plans - somebody mentioned you are going somewhere?
Krieger: Yeah, we're gonna go to England and our new album should be out in about September.
The Saville Theatre, Covent Garden London 1967
A tentative date in late 1967 suffers from logistical problems and does not happen.
Royal Albert Hall, Kensington London England Easter 13th April 1968
A concert at the Albert Hall was considered for an Easter weekend date but again never materialises.
23-1968
KRLA Beat
Royal Albert Hall, Kensington London England September 19th 1968
A concert at the Royal Albert Hall is shelved and the band play The Roundhouse.
Heathrow Airport September 3rd 1968
The band arrive on an Air India flight to Heathrow and are met by the Granada crew who film a bizarre sequence where each member states their name and what they do.
Jim does not play so well.
Metropolitan Police 4th September 1968
Mary Whitehouse was a UK Christian zealot who demanded we all conform to her idea of Society based on her interpretation of Christianity.
She interfered in TV, film and other art forms and had the ear of many pillars of Society. Jesus would not have been pleased.
"The Doors arrived red-eyed from an overnight flight from the US and were met by the Granada team, who stuck cameras and microphones in their faces and asked them to identify themselves as they stepped off the plane.
Ray was quiet and studious, Robby was so shy that he appeared stoned and inarticulate, John was slick and looking for aggravation, and Jim was enigmatic and almost unbelievably beautiful."
Clive Selwood (general manager, Elektra Records UK)
BBC Television Centre London. Top Of The Pops September 5th 1968
After a days rest they trundle across to the BBC Centre to record an edition of Top Of The Pops which is the premiere TV music show hosted by BBC radio DJ's.
Decades later BBC would become embroiled in the Jimmy Saville investigation as the pervert hosted TOTP and many other BBC shows.
Who introduced The Doors is unknown as the episode was taped over but Jim was not impressed as he did not like miming.
See the thread in the TV section The band mime their latest single 'Hello I Love You' for the biggest rock/pop show on UK TV.
Watched by millions of kids like me aged 12 then.
BBC had a weird system about miming. The band would record the music during a rehearsal and the band would mime to that recording during the 'live' performance.
Pretty bonkers but back then the Musicians Union would not allow bands to play live on shows like TOTP.
I saw the programme as I was an avid TOTP watcher even if I did not like much of what passed for pop in 1968.
I liked HILY and they were probably one of several bands I wanted to see that night.
It is possible that Jimmy Saville could have introduced the band as he was the main man by 1968.
I no longer recall any of that 'performance' and it seems like Granada's ruined tape it was consigned to the dustbin as BBC were so tight they constantly reused reels of tape.
Sometimes lost BBC programmes do appear. For us Doors fans the OGWT performance of the 3 man Doors and The Butts Band appearance have magically appeared much to our surprise.
So who knows?. We did not have video back then but never say never.
WE do however have a range of photos from TOTP both the rehearsal and the actual screening with Jim in his leathers.
Jim was not impressed.
"I didn't realise they turned out everyone like sausages on that show. I doubt if we'll do it again'
Jim Morrison to Melody Maker May 2nd 1970 talking about the bands TOTP experience.
## Contrary to what some believe TOTP was NOT broadcast simultaneously on BBC Radio#1.
At that point in time TOTP was still in its infancy and something that sophisticated would never have been possible.
REHEARSAL
BROADCAST
"We had played with both The Doors and Jefferson Airplane in America, which meant we already had a connection. [The Crazy World’s co-manager] Kit Lambert engineered a meeting between me and Jim Morrison in La Chaisse club in Soho a couple of days before the gigs. It was a strange meeting. Lambert bought us both drinks, then we stood at the bar in silence for about twenty minutes until Jim noticed something playing on the radio. He asked me: “Who’s that on the radio?” And I replied: “I dunno.” That was the total extent of our communication."
Arthur Brown
Chalk Farm Roundhouse, Camden, London England September 6th 1968
The Doors arrive in London via Air India on Tuesday 3rd September and are met by a Granada TV film crew.
Granada, not to be mistaken for the BBC, is an independent TV company and part of ITV based in the Manchester area.
They already had their own idea as to what The Doors were and this is reflected in the end product which insinuates Doors=Violence which is not remotely true.
They film the opening set on the 6th but when they get to their hotel they find the film unusable so have to return the next night.
The old Granada website had a page about this concert when they explained that the film from the 6th was thrown away as were any bits left after editing the 2nd show. So the idea of out takes making up the full concert was sadly a non starter
August 31 1968
Institute For Contemporary Art Gallery, London England September 7th 1968
The band hold a press conference at the ICA on The Mall in sight of Nelson's Column.
It's as bizarre as the airport with the band sitting on weird looking bean bags looking bemused whilst answering silly questions..
Some of which is included in Granada's The Doors Are Open documentary.
"Morrison was in a thoroughly pissed-off mood. The rest of the band were staying at the Royal Lancaster, he and his girlfriend had their own flat in Eaton Square. And he had already missed the soundcheck."
John Sheppard (director of Granada TV documentary The Doors Are Open)
Chalk Farm Roundhouse, Camden, London England September 7th 1968
Saturday 7th: The Chalk Farm Roundhouse Camden London, England
The Doors do two shows a night selling out all 10,000 seats of the remodelled train station's (it was a roundhouse used for servicing and housing engines and not a station hence the name) 2,500 seat concert hall.
Both concerts opening set are filmed by Granada Television for the British television program "The Doors Are Open."
(Note: The program airs on October 4th and only footage of the 2nd show is used) The concerts go extremely well.
Jim is somewhat reserved in his performances but very involved and in good voice, control, and appearance.
On the first night: The Doors open for The Jefferson Airplane. These Friday shows are attended by many London music scene artists, such as members of the Rolling Stones and Traffic.
Jim is fabulous and sober!
On the 2nd night: The Jefferson Airplane opens up for The Doors.
Jim would later state that this 2nd show on Saturday night was probably one of the band's all-time best performances.
"I remember talking to Jim backstage… he was so high I had no idea what he was talking about. I asked him a routine question and he’d say something like: “The green mountain has a great dawn coming.”
I don’t know how conscious he was of what he was doing, but he used himself as a lab rat. He was on a mission to see how far you can take the human mind… where it will go if you push it with chemicals."
Grace Slick (vocalist, Jefferson Airplane)
## and yet this is not borne out by the footage and audio.
"The audience was one of the best we've ever had. Everyone seemed to take it so easy. It's probably the most informed, receptive audience I've ever seen in my life."
Jim Morrison 1968
There is a ridiculous tale on the Internet that Granada's crew were so stoned they could barely film the concert.
The Granada technicians and camera crew were seasoned TV veterans who, mostly middle aged, probably viewed this as nothing but another job.
They weren't LSD drenched New Age hippies. They were there to make a documentary not get high. Granada were the most professional region of the ITV network and were known for making well put together programmes on rock and pop. It woukld be years before they lost that crown to my own Tyne/Tees region who were responsible for many brilliant rock/pop shows such as The Tube.
THE EXPLOSIVE JIM MORRISON
Jim Morrison lives in exaggerations- the dragged-out half stumble and the sloth-like stance on stage, the upturned, pouting face with eyes clenched shut, the ponderous but precise speaking voice which is out of the best Brando mould. James Douglas Morrison, Superstar, Poet, and idol of America's rising generation, would be a perfect target for the satirist. That apart, he is not as black as he has been painted. Already prewarned by colleagues of Morrison's erratic behaviour to ward the British press during The Doors' recent and eventful stay here, it did not cool my apprehension any to read, on my way to see Mr. Morrison, his publicist's claim that he can be civil, polite, even erudite one day; yet gross or, as Jim says, "primitive" the next. Which extreme was I about to face?
"He's been quite good today", said his British publicist at Polydor- Elektra Records, with the air of a keeper talking about London Zoo's naughtiest lion. I was ushered into a small room containing The Doors sundry people flitting back and forth with no apparent purpose. Most of them were hovering on the edge of Morrison's conversation and it was Jim, in open-necked shirt and tight black leather jeans, who dominated the room.
Among those present with some purpose were three gentlemen in a Granada Television team filming the whole Doors visit with a rare degree of dedication.
A bored-looking Robbie Krieger, Doors' guitar man, was to tell me later that they had even followed one of them to the toilet! Next to Robbie was drummer John Densmore, an active Maharishi student, colourfully attired, who was sitting cross-legged on his chair, saying little and watching the chaos that was supposed to be a press conference. In another corner sat Ray Manzarek with a polite smile on his face and a polite line in answers.
Krieger, hiding behind dark glasses and an uncontrolled growth of beard had some interesting things to say about Morrison in the short interview which came to a sharp end at the sight of a Granada man crawling along the floor and pushing a huge mike up into our faces. A camera was mean while probing the recesses of my left ear.
What of Jim's reported moods? "It depends," said Robbie, "which day of the week you get him. It is just the way he is. I think I understand him as well as anybody through being with him for three years, but I still don't understand him completely."
Morrison certainly knows how to project himself and has an actor's feel for presence. Questions are met by prolonged periods of deep thought accompanied by closed eyes and an intense expression downward. He can often take so long to answer that the poor interviewer finds he's lost track of his precise inquiry. Answers themselves, delivered in a half-stumbling tone reminiscent of Jim's movements on stage, are accompanied by intense glances skyward.
He first wished to extend his praise for the behaviour of the audience during The Doors' two London concerts at the Roundhouse. "They were one of the best audiences we've ever had. Everyone seemed to take it so easy. It was like going back to the roots again and it stimulated us to give a good performance. They were fantastic. That's all I can say. Except that we enjoyed playing at the Roundhouse more than any other date for years."
While on the subject of their stage act, I asked Jim how important the sex angle was. "Sex is just one part of my act. There are a lot of other factors. It is important I guess, but I don't think it is the main thing, although all music is a very nature-based thing. So they can't be separated. But the sex thing has been picked out because it sells papers."
How important were politics in his writing? "I don't think so far politics has been a major theme in my songs. It is there in a few songs, but it is a very minor theme. Politics is people and their interaction with other people, so you cannot really separate it from anything."
I became aware at this point that there was a hint, only a hint, about Morrison that he was reluctant to take himself seriously. The journalist faithfully transcribing Morrison's thoughts to paper would be well advised to glance up from his work for a second- and there you may see just the trace of an inward smile on the handsome countenance. Jim acknowledges that Elvis Presley along with other giants of the era, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, was an early and strong influence on him. He says: "Their influence was due to their music and the fact I heard them at an age when I was kinda ready for an influence."
Jim was courteous enough to me. But a glimpse of what the "primitive" Morrison could be like came out at the questioning of one persistent reporter who asked him first about the comparisons between him and Mick Jagger. "I've always thought comparisons were useless and ugly. It is a short cut to thinking," replied Jim, in what seemed to be too glib an answer to an off-the-cuff comment. He went into deep thought, with eyes closed and down, and finally replied, "Well, how do you see yourself?" The questioner pressed for an answer. More deep thought. "That's a rhetorical answer. You might as well ask me how do I see my left palm."
I asked him if he found the group's followers coming to him to be taught how to live. "I get incredible letters," he replied, "but they teach me how to live rather than me teach them. My fans are intelligent youngsters and very sensitive.
"On a par with Morrison's writing is his stage performance- often described as evil. Jim prefers the term primeval. "I was less theatrical, less artificial when I began," he says, "but now the audiences we play for are much larger and the rooms wider. It's necessary to project more. I think when your a small dot at the end of a large arena, you have to make up for that lack of intimacy with expanded movements."
by Mike Grant 1968
A 1967 tour of England is talked about but never materialises.
Robby mentions this on the American Bandstand TV show in July 1967
Clark: Let me leap up here (to Robby), future plans - somebody mentioned you are going somewhere?
Krieger: Yeah, we're gonna go to England and our new album should be out in about September.
The Saville Theatre, Covent Garden London 1967
A tentative date in late 1967 suffers from logistical problems and does not happen.
Royal Albert Hall, Kensington London England Easter 13th April 1968
A concert at the Albert Hall was considered for an Easter weekend date but again never materialises.
23-1968
KRLA Beat
Royal Albert Hall, Kensington London England September 19th 1968
A concert at the Royal Albert Hall is shelved and the band play The Roundhouse.
Heathrow Airport September 3rd 1968
The band arrive on an Air India flight to Heathrow and are met by the Granada crew who film a bizarre sequence where each member states their name and what they do.
Jim does not play so well.
Metropolitan Police 4th September 1968
Mary Whitehouse was a UK Christian zealot who demanded we all conform to her idea of Society based on her interpretation of Christianity.
She interfered in TV, film and other art forms and had the ear of many pillars of Society. Jesus would not have been pleased.
"The Doors arrived red-eyed from an overnight flight from the US and were met by the Granada team, who stuck cameras and microphones in their faces and asked them to identify themselves as they stepped off the plane.
Ray was quiet and studious, Robby was so shy that he appeared stoned and inarticulate, John was slick and looking for aggravation, and Jim was enigmatic and almost unbelievably beautiful."
Clive Selwood (general manager, Elektra Records UK)
BBC Television Centre London. Top Of The Pops September 5th 1968
After a days rest they trundle across to the BBC Centre to record an edition of Top Of The Pops which is the premiere TV music show hosted by BBC radio DJ's.
Decades later BBC would become embroiled in the Jimmy Saville investigation as the pervert hosted TOTP and many other BBC shows.
Who introduced The Doors is unknown as the episode was taped over but Jim was not impressed as he did not like miming.
See the thread in the TV section The band mime their latest single 'Hello I Love You' for the biggest rock/pop show on UK TV.
Watched by millions of kids like me aged 12 then.
BBC had a weird system about miming. The band would record the music during a rehearsal and the band would mime to that recording during the 'live' performance.
Pretty bonkers but back then the Musicians Union would not allow bands to play live on shows like TOTP.
I saw the programme as I was an avid TOTP watcher even if I did not like much of what passed for pop in 1968.
I liked HILY and they were probably one of several bands I wanted to see that night.
It is possible that Jimmy Saville could have introduced the band as he was the main man by 1968.
I no longer recall any of that 'performance' and it seems like Granada's ruined tape it was consigned to the dustbin as BBC were so tight they constantly reused reels of tape.
Sometimes lost BBC programmes do appear. For us Doors fans the OGWT performance of the 3 man Doors and The Butts Band appearance have magically appeared much to our surprise.
So who knows?. We did not have video back then but never say never.
WE do however have a range of photos from TOTP both the rehearsal and the actual screening with Jim in his leathers.
Jim was not impressed.
"I didn't realise they turned out everyone like sausages on that show. I doubt if we'll do it again'
Jim Morrison to Melody Maker May 2nd 1970 talking about the bands TOTP experience.
## Contrary to what some believe TOTP was NOT broadcast simultaneously on BBC Radio#1.
At that point in time TOTP was still in its infancy and something that sophisticated would never have been possible.
REHEARSAL
BROADCAST
"We had played with both The Doors and Jefferson Airplane in America, which meant we already had a connection. [The Crazy World’s co-manager] Kit Lambert engineered a meeting between me and Jim Morrison in La Chaisse club in Soho a couple of days before the gigs. It was a strange meeting. Lambert bought us both drinks, then we stood at the bar in silence for about twenty minutes until Jim noticed something playing on the radio. He asked me: “Who’s that on the radio?” And I replied: “I dunno.” That was the total extent of our communication."
Arthur Brown
Chalk Farm Roundhouse, Camden, London England September 6th 1968
The Doors arrive in London via Air India on Tuesday 3rd September and are met by a Granada TV film crew.
Granada, not to be mistaken for the BBC, is an independent TV company and part of ITV based in the Manchester area.
They already had their own idea as to what The Doors were and this is reflected in the end product which insinuates Doors=Violence which is not remotely true.
They film the opening set on the 6th but when they get to their hotel they find the film unusable so have to return the next night.
The old Granada website had a page about this concert when they explained that the film from the 6th was thrown away as were any bits left after editing the 2nd show. So the idea of out takes making up the full concert was sadly a non starter
August 31 1968
Institute For Contemporary Art Gallery, London England September 7th 1968
The band hold a press conference at the ICA on The Mall in sight of Nelson's Column.
It's as bizarre as the airport with the band sitting on weird looking bean bags looking bemused whilst answering silly questions..
Some of which is included in Granada's The Doors Are Open documentary.
"Morrison was in a thoroughly pissed-off mood. The rest of the band were staying at the Royal Lancaster, he and his girlfriend had their own flat in Eaton Square. And he had already missed the soundcheck."
John Sheppard (director of Granada TV documentary The Doors Are Open)
Chalk Farm Roundhouse, Camden, London England September 7th 1968
Saturday 7th: The Chalk Farm Roundhouse Camden London, England
The Doors do two shows a night selling out all 10,000 seats of the remodelled train station's (it was a roundhouse used for servicing and housing engines and not a station hence the name) 2,500 seat concert hall.
Both concerts opening set are filmed by Granada Television for the British television program "The Doors Are Open."
(Note: The program airs on October 4th and only footage of the 2nd show is used) The concerts go extremely well.
Jim is somewhat reserved in his performances but very involved and in good voice, control, and appearance.
On the first night: The Doors open for The Jefferson Airplane. These Friday shows are attended by many London music scene artists, such as members of the Rolling Stones and Traffic.
Jim is fabulous and sober!
On the 2nd night: The Jefferson Airplane opens up for The Doors.
Jim would later state that this 2nd show on Saturday night was probably one of the band's all-time best performances.
"I remember talking to Jim backstage… he was so high I had no idea what he was talking about. I asked him a routine question and he’d say something like: “The green mountain has a great dawn coming.”
I don’t know how conscious he was of what he was doing, but he used himself as a lab rat. He was on a mission to see how far you can take the human mind… where it will go if you push it with chemicals."
Grace Slick (vocalist, Jefferson Airplane)
## and yet this is not borne out by the footage and audio.
"The audience was one of the best we've ever had. Everyone seemed to take it so easy. It's probably the most informed, receptive audience I've ever seen in my life."
Jim Morrison 1968
There is a ridiculous tale on the Internet that Granada's crew were so stoned they could barely film the concert.
The Granada technicians and camera crew were seasoned TV veterans who, mostly middle aged, probably viewed this as nothing but another job.
They weren't LSD drenched New Age hippies. They were there to make a documentary not get high. Granada were the most professional region of the ITV network and were known for making well put together programmes on rock and pop. It woukld be years before they lost that crown to my own Tyne/Tees region who were responsible for many brilliant rock/pop shows such as The Tube.
THE EXPLOSIVE JIM MORRISON
Jim Morrison lives in exaggerations- the dragged-out half stumble and the sloth-like stance on stage, the upturned, pouting face with eyes clenched shut, the ponderous but precise speaking voice which is out of the best Brando mould. James Douglas Morrison, Superstar, Poet, and idol of America's rising generation, would be a perfect target for the satirist. That apart, he is not as black as he has been painted. Already prewarned by colleagues of Morrison's erratic behaviour to ward the British press during The Doors' recent and eventful stay here, it did not cool my apprehension any to read, on my way to see Mr. Morrison, his publicist's claim that he can be civil, polite, even erudite one day; yet gross or, as Jim says, "primitive" the next. Which extreme was I about to face?
"He's been quite good today", said his British publicist at Polydor- Elektra Records, with the air of a keeper talking about London Zoo's naughtiest lion. I was ushered into a small room containing The Doors sundry people flitting back and forth with no apparent purpose. Most of them were hovering on the edge of Morrison's conversation and it was Jim, in open-necked shirt and tight black leather jeans, who dominated the room.
Among those present with some purpose were three gentlemen in a Granada Television team filming the whole Doors visit with a rare degree of dedication.
A bored-looking Robbie Krieger, Doors' guitar man, was to tell me later that they had even followed one of them to the toilet! Next to Robbie was drummer John Densmore, an active Maharishi student, colourfully attired, who was sitting cross-legged on his chair, saying little and watching the chaos that was supposed to be a press conference. In another corner sat Ray Manzarek with a polite smile on his face and a polite line in answers.
Krieger, hiding behind dark glasses and an uncontrolled growth of beard had some interesting things to say about Morrison in the short interview which came to a sharp end at the sight of a Granada man crawling along the floor and pushing a huge mike up into our faces. A camera was mean while probing the recesses of my left ear.
What of Jim's reported moods? "It depends," said Robbie, "which day of the week you get him. It is just the way he is. I think I understand him as well as anybody through being with him for three years, but I still don't understand him completely."
Morrison certainly knows how to project himself and has an actor's feel for presence. Questions are met by prolonged periods of deep thought accompanied by closed eyes and an intense expression downward. He can often take so long to answer that the poor interviewer finds he's lost track of his precise inquiry. Answers themselves, delivered in a half-stumbling tone reminiscent of Jim's movements on stage, are accompanied by intense glances skyward.
He first wished to extend his praise for the behaviour of the audience during The Doors' two London concerts at the Roundhouse. "They were one of the best audiences we've ever had. Everyone seemed to take it so easy. It was like going back to the roots again and it stimulated us to give a good performance. They were fantastic. That's all I can say. Except that we enjoyed playing at the Roundhouse more than any other date for years."
While on the subject of their stage act, I asked Jim how important the sex angle was. "Sex is just one part of my act. There are a lot of other factors. It is important I guess, but I don't think it is the main thing, although all music is a very nature-based thing. So they can't be separated. But the sex thing has been picked out because it sells papers."
How important were politics in his writing? "I don't think so far politics has been a major theme in my songs. It is there in a few songs, but it is a very minor theme. Politics is people and their interaction with other people, so you cannot really separate it from anything."
I became aware at this point that there was a hint, only a hint, about Morrison that he was reluctant to take himself seriously. The journalist faithfully transcribing Morrison's thoughts to paper would be well advised to glance up from his work for a second- and there you may see just the trace of an inward smile on the handsome countenance. Jim acknowledges that Elvis Presley along with other giants of the era, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, was an early and strong influence on him. He says: "Their influence was due to their music and the fact I heard them at an age when I was kinda ready for an influence."
Jim was courteous enough to me. But a glimpse of what the "primitive" Morrison could be like came out at the questioning of one persistent reporter who asked him first about the comparisons between him and Mick Jagger. "I've always thought comparisons were useless and ugly. It is a short cut to thinking," replied Jim, in what seemed to be too glib an answer to an off-the-cuff comment. He went into deep thought, with eyes closed and down, and finally replied, "Well, how do you see yourself?" The questioner pressed for an answer. More deep thought. "That's a rhetorical answer. You might as well ask me how do I see my left palm."
I asked him if he found the group's followers coming to him to be taught how to live. "I get incredible letters," he replied, "but they teach me how to live rather than me teach them. My fans are intelligent youngsters and very sensitive.
"On a par with Morrison's writing is his stage performance- often described as evil. Jim prefers the term primeval. "I was less theatrical, less artificial when I began," he says, "but now the audiences we play for are much larger and the rooms wider. It's necessary to project more. I think when your a small dot at the end of a large arena, you have to make up for that lack of intimacy with expanded movements."
by Mike Grant 1968
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