Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Aug 8, 2011 20:47:02 GMT
Pop/Rock Music Magazine - December 1968 - Price. .50 cents
The Doors
Strange Days Of Poetic Drama
William Blake spoke, "There are 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; Open and Closed. It later proved to be apt.
Ray Manzarek was playing with his two brothers in Rick and the Ravens and attending the 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 meditation classes on the West Coast involving UCLA students. He was mainly a jazz drummer and didn't particularily care for the group's 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 backup 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 Robby 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 bit 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 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 defundct 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 the Whisky A Go Go remembered their wild eveings of sound. It took her another 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."
The Doors
Strange Days Of Poetic Drama
William Blake spoke, "There are 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; Open and Closed. It later proved to be apt.
Ray Manzarek was playing with his two brothers in Rick and the Ravens and attending the 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 meditation classes on the West Coast involving UCLA students. He was mainly a jazz drummer and didn't particularily care for the group's 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 backup 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 Robby 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 bit 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 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 defundct 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 the Whisky A Go Go remembered their wild eveings of sound. It took her another 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."
