Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Dec 22, 2004 21:41:11 GMT
"Tim Hogan slashes a line under his chin with his hand and announces he's got the clap "up to here." Nobody at his crowded table pays much attention. Famed groupie Sable Star is vying for the spotlight with a blond whose haircut grew out two years ago. Danny Sugerman picks distractedly at his beard.
The 9:30 show at the Whiskey is already running an hour late, and the crowded room is getting restless and hot. Camel, and obscure rock group have just finished their set and the stage is being arranged for the evening's headliner, Ray Manzarek.
Karen Fleeman, a blond girl who writes a gossip column for a music trade paper cranes her neck to check out who's in the room. "The doctor shot me full of penicillin," Tim Hogan said to no one in particular.
"Then don't get close to me," Sable Star answered. "I'm allergic to penicillin."
Hogan is a writer for Cashbox and one of the many members of the press sprinkled through the crowded room to hear the first live unveiling of Manzarek's new LP, The Whole Thing Started With Rock and Roll, and Now It's Out Of Control (on Mercury Records). The turnout at the Whiskey is solid, not especially because Manzarek is the object of that much interest, but because of the L.A network of rock people Manzarek has working with him.
Danny Sugerman is responsible for the press turnout this evening. Sugerman is a 20-year-old, born-and-bred L.A. kid.
At Sugerman's surprisingly tender age he has the heady position of being publicist-manager to Manzarek. This is a job he toiled for-indeed, would have climbed over garbage for since the age of 14. Sugerman had been grouping the Doors since he was old enough to understand rock music. He haunted the Doors' business office and eventually started answering Morrison's fan mail. Six years later Manzarek is on his own. It's opening night; there's a new album to hear; the audience is papered and packed, and Sugerman is finally a real-live "tot" Shep Gordon.
Tim Hogan smiles at an imperious, beautiful Japanese woman to his right. This is Dorothy Manzarek, who has been through all this rock madness for a long time with Ray. They have been together nine years, six of them married. She's seen him through his stint with the Doors as a top keyboard man, and through fortune and fame. Asleep at home Dorothy and Ray have a 17-month old child named Pablo Apollo.
Dressed in a full sleeved red dress with earrings to her jawbone, her hair tucked back in a pony tail, Dorothy might has well been sipping cappuccino on the Via Venetto instead of sitting in a crowded rear booth at the Whiskey.
While Tim Hogan tries to slip Sable Star his phone number, one booth over, Karen Fleeman checks out arriving semi-celebs like Mickey Dolenz and Iggy Stooge. Next to Fleeman sits Bob Brown with his girlfriend Melissa, very composed and patient. Brown is very much like the mother of the bride at this event. He's the producer responsible for Manzarek's new LP, and like Sugerman, it's a position he's worked up to for many years.
Since 1973, Brown had had the dubious position of being Alice Cooper's West Coast publicist-dubious only because Cooper was relatively inactive for the past two years and Brown's responsibilities fell more under the heading of chauffeur and general companion than actual publicist. He and his lady, Melissa, who dwarfs Brown's short, skinny frame, live in a bedroom at the Cooper house in Lauren Canyon.
Before 1973, Brown wandered for a bit before a stint in the army. Then there was a short-term publicity job for Warner Brothers Records in New York while he lived in a depressing tiny apartment in Greenwich Village. While working at Warners he got to know Alice and the people from his management company, Alive, Inc. When Warner's sacked him, Alive scooped him up. They liked Brown's style: quiet, intense, invisible when necessary, yet protective and sincere. He moved into Alice's house and vegetated for a year, making the L.A. scene with Cooper, meeting Manzarek and Danny Sugerman.
Eventually Brown got a chance to try producing, at first on the movie soundtrack of Cooper's ill-fated, "Happy To See You Again, Alice Cooper." When Manzarek started pre-production on Rock and Roll, he first hired axe-man Dick Wagner, an ex-Lou Reed sideman who helped Cooper pen some new tunes for Welcome To My Nightmare. But the Wagner-Manzarek alliance was short-lived, and pressed for a producer, Manzarek hired Brown.
Dream Come True? Now here it was, Manzarek's opening night at the Whiskey, and Brown and Sugerman were finally living out some sort of dream. On the stage Manzarek's band assembled: Suffy Walden on guitar, Nigel Harrison on bass and Hunt Sales (Soupy's son - remember him from Todd Rundgren's band?).
Manzarek puts on a competent stage show, but nothing overwhelming. He is, of course, a brilliant keyboardsman. But the sound at the Whiskey isn't very good and the stage effects are embarrassing. A lot of CO2 capsules go off, and for a long time Manzarek's keyboards look like a whale with a bad prostate condition trying to spout. Yet the audience loves the show, and a half-hour before it is over a line for the second show stretches all the way down Sunset Boulevard and around the corner.
Behind the door: Ray Manzarek lives in a two-story house perched on the edge of a street in Hollywood Hills. Inside, the brick and glass building is sparsely and tastefully furnished. The floors are shiny parquet and the garden surrounding the house is well kept. Pablo Apollo toddles around the living room with complete openness and wonder at Manzarek and Dorothy and greets all visitors without a trace of fear or apprehension. The baby is dressed and clean and one can't help but get the impression that this child is the product of an intelligent and warm household.
In a glass windowed alcove, Manzarek's baby grand piano glistens in the L.A. sunlight. There are only four of these pianos in existence: New York, Paris, Rio and here at Manzarek's. It's body of grained blond wood appears to be encased in veneer of lucite. The legs are shiny chrome.
Manzarek lounges around in pajamas and bathrobe, nursing a bout of the flu. Dorothy suggests hot buttered rum. The house is serene. Manzarek is a pro at interviews. He knows what needs to be said and how. He also likes to be expressive and sometimes gets so carried away he verges on being maudlin. But beneath the poetic waxes he's a sincere musician, one whose been there and back, and knows exactly what this business of rock 'n roll is about.
Four-sided diamond: He remembers things in terms of what happened with the Doors not in years, but in incidents; "That's when we played London. That's when Dorothy was pregnant with the baby." But he quit the Doors exactly two years ago after a performance in London.
"I wanted to make my own music," Manzarek says. "The Doors were a four man group, like the four sides of a diamond. Without Morrison one of the sides were gone. The triangle that remained just wasn't the same. The three of us used to balance off Morrison's madness."
The album was finished, entitled Golden Scarab. He brought it to Elektra, the Doors' record company, but they didn't want it. Columbia said it was too poetic. A&M didn't think it as poetic enough. Mercury finally picked it up, and although it's not exactly the Tiffany of record companies, Manzarek is satisfied with his deal: two records a year for five years with options. "Also they had some big hits with the Ohio Players, and a lot of money came into the company."
"Songs come," Manzarek said. "You never know where and when an idea will get into your head. Eventually it just has to come out, like an obsession. That's what rock 'n roll is, a madness which takes it's own form."
Thus came the inspiration for the title track, "Rock 'n Roll." "The words got into my head and I couldn't get rid of it. It kept me going round and round and I had to do something to get the little devil out of my head. I sat down at the piano and started playing something. All of a sudden there it was...
"You can't read it.
'cause it can't be seen
But you can feel it
and it makes you mean"
The madness, snakes and demons stay with Manzarek. He doesn't seem to feel he's toting the imagery of Morrison along with him. In fact, he likes being associated with it.
"I'll probably always be haunted by the shadow of Jim Morrison. But that's fun because I loved the guy. We started a rock 'n roll band together.
"I Wake Up Screaming" is a story about a rock 'n roll band. "Because I was in the Doors," said Ray, "fear and pain and strange demons lurking in the night are part of my life. Morrison was a really weird guy. He was a true, Dionysian character."
"Patti Smith, the poet, is also on "Screaming." We had talked about using one of Jims poems in a drum break, or perhaps using Morrison's voice, but that would have caused too much trouble. When Patti came into town we asked her to do it, and she was delighted because she had been influenced by Jim's lyrics."
One of the only non-demonic cuts on the LP is called "The Art Deco Fandango," and it features the actual sounds of a couple making love, although Sugerman, Manzarek and Brown are a little timid about disclosing Whose sex grunts are actually on the LP.
"The song is filled with whimsy," Manzarek explained. "It's based on a 1948 Duke Ellington song. George Segal, the actor, plays banjo on the song. He came into the studio with a cigar and a big smile on his face and was real patient. He didn't say a word. He was so mild. He really got into the song and stayed in the studio for 3 hours."
"I'd like people to understand the album and enjoy it. It doesn't matter if it sells a lot. Just tell everyone to listen to the lyrics and try to figure out what I'm saying and what I'm getting at."
The L.A. Scene and how Rock 'n Roll spun him 'Out Of Control' By Steven Gaines
The 9:30 show at the Whiskey is already running an hour late, and the crowded room is getting restless and hot. Camel, and obscure rock group have just finished their set and the stage is being arranged for the evening's headliner, Ray Manzarek.
Karen Fleeman, a blond girl who writes a gossip column for a music trade paper cranes her neck to check out who's in the room. "The doctor shot me full of penicillin," Tim Hogan said to no one in particular.
"Then don't get close to me," Sable Star answered. "I'm allergic to penicillin."
Hogan is a writer for Cashbox and one of the many members of the press sprinkled through the crowded room to hear the first live unveiling of Manzarek's new LP, The Whole Thing Started With Rock and Roll, and Now It's Out Of Control (on Mercury Records). The turnout at the Whiskey is solid, not especially because Manzarek is the object of that much interest, but because of the L.A network of rock people Manzarek has working with him.
Danny Sugerman is responsible for the press turnout this evening. Sugerman is a 20-year-old, born-and-bred L.A. kid.
At Sugerman's surprisingly tender age he has the heady position of being publicist-manager to Manzarek. This is a job he toiled for-indeed, would have climbed over garbage for since the age of 14. Sugerman had been grouping the Doors since he was old enough to understand rock music. He haunted the Doors' business office and eventually started answering Morrison's fan mail. Six years later Manzarek is on his own. It's opening night; there's a new album to hear; the audience is papered and packed, and Sugerman is finally a real-live "tot" Shep Gordon.
Tim Hogan smiles at an imperious, beautiful Japanese woman to his right. This is Dorothy Manzarek, who has been through all this rock madness for a long time with Ray. They have been together nine years, six of them married. She's seen him through his stint with the Doors as a top keyboard man, and through fortune and fame. Asleep at home Dorothy and Ray have a 17-month old child named Pablo Apollo.
Dressed in a full sleeved red dress with earrings to her jawbone, her hair tucked back in a pony tail, Dorothy might has well been sipping cappuccino on the Via Venetto instead of sitting in a crowded rear booth at the Whiskey.
While Tim Hogan tries to slip Sable Star his phone number, one booth over, Karen Fleeman checks out arriving semi-celebs like Mickey Dolenz and Iggy Stooge. Next to Fleeman sits Bob Brown with his girlfriend Melissa, very composed and patient. Brown is very much like the mother of the bride at this event. He's the producer responsible for Manzarek's new LP, and like Sugerman, it's a position he's worked up to for many years.
Since 1973, Brown had had the dubious position of being Alice Cooper's West Coast publicist-dubious only because Cooper was relatively inactive for the past two years and Brown's responsibilities fell more under the heading of chauffeur and general companion than actual publicist. He and his lady, Melissa, who dwarfs Brown's short, skinny frame, live in a bedroom at the Cooper house in Lauren Canyon.
Before 1973, Brown wandered for a bit before a stint in the army. Then there was a short-term publicity job for Warner Brothers Records in New York while he lived in a depressing tiny apartment in Greenwich Village. While working at Warners he got to know Alice and the people from his management company, Alive, Inc. When Warner's sacked him, Alive scooped him up. They liked Brown's style: quiet, intense, invisible when necessary, yet protective and sincere. He moved into Alice's house and vegetated for a year, making the L.A. scene with Cooper, meeting Manzarek and Danny Sugerman.
Eventually Brown got a chance to try producing, at first on the movie soundtrack of Cooper's ill-fated, "Happy To See You Again, Alice Cooper." When Manzarek started pre-production on Rock and Roll, he first hired axe-man Dick Wagner, an ex-Lou Reed sideman who helped Cooper pen some new tunes for Welcome To My Nightmare. But the Wagner-Manzarek alliance was short-lived, and pressed for a producer, Manzarek hired Brown.
Dream Come True? Now here it was, Manzarek's opening night at the Whiskey, and Brown and Sugerman were finally living out some sort of dream. On the stage Manzarek's band assembled: Suffy Walden on guitar, Nigel Harrison on bass and Hunt Sales (Soupy's son - remember him from Todd Rundgren's band?).
Manzarek puts on a competent stage show, but nothing overwhelming. He is, of course, a brilliant keyboardsman. But the sound at the Whiskey isn't very good and the stage effects are embarrassing. A lot of CO2 capsules go off, and for a long time Manzarek's keyboards look like a whale with a bad prostate condition trying to spout. Yet the audience loves the show, and a half-hour before it is over a line for the second show stretches all the way down Sunset Boulevard and around the corner.
Behind the door: Ray Manzarek lives in a two-story house perched on the edge of a street in Hollywood Hills. Inside, the brick and glass building is sparsely and tastefully furnished. The floors are shiny parquet and the garden surrounding the house is well kept. Pablo Apollo toddles around the living room with complete openness and wonder at Manzarek and Dorothy and greets all visitors without a trace of fear or apprehension. The baby is dressed and clean and one can't help but get the impression that this child is the product of an intelligent and warm household.
In a glass windowed alcove, Manzarek's baby grand piano glistens in the L.A. sunlight. There are only four of these pianos in existence: New York, Paris, Rio and here at Manzarek's. It's body of grained blond wood appears to be encased in veneer of lucite. The legs are shiny chrome.
Manzarek lounges around in pajamas and bathrobe, nursing a bout of the flu. Dorothy suggests hot buttered rum. The house is serene. Manzarek is a pro at interviews. He knows what needs to be said and how. He also likes to be expressive and sometimes gets so carried away he verges on being maudlin. But beneath the poetic waxes he's a sincere musician, one whose been there and back, and knows exactly what this business of rock 'n roll is about.
Four-sided diamond: He remembers things in terms of what happened with the Doors not in years, but in incidents; "That's when we played London. That's when Dorothy was pregnant with the baby." But he quit the Doors exactly two years ago after a performance in London.
"I wanted to make my own music," Manzarek says. "The Doors were a four man group, like the four sides of a diamond. Without Morrison one of the sides were gone. The triangle that remained just wasn't the same. The three of us used to balance off Morrison's madness."
The album was finished, entitled Golden Scarab. He brought it to Elektra, the Doors' record company, but they didn't want it. Columbia said it was too poetic. A&M didn't think it as poetic enough. Mercury finally picked it up, and although it's not exactly the Tiffany of record companies, Manzarek is satisfied with his deal: two records a year for five years with options. "Also they had some big hits with the Ohio Players, and a lot of money came into the company."
"Songs come," Manzarek said. "You never know where and when an idea will get into your head. Eventually it just has to come out, like an obsession. That's what rock 'n roll is, a madness which takes it's own form."
Thus came the inspiration for the title track, "Rock 'n Roll." "The words got into my head and I couldn't get rid of it. It kept me going round and round and I had to do something to get the little devil out of my head. I sat down at the piano and started playing something. All of a sudden there it was...
"You can't read it.
'cause it can't be seen
But you can feel it
and it makes you mean"
The madness, snakes and demons stay with Manzarek. He doesn't seem to feel he's toting the imagery of Morrison along with him. In fact, he likes being associated with it.
"I'll probably always be haunted by the shadow of Jim Morrison. But that's fun because I loved the guy. We started a rock 'n roll band together.
"I Wake Up Screaming" is a story about a rock 'n roll band. "Because I was in the Doors," said Ray, "fear and pain and strange demons lurking in the night are part of my life. Morrison was a really weird guy. He was a true, Dionysian character."
"Patti Smith, the poet, is also on "Screaming." We had talked about using one of Jims poems in a drum break, or perhaps using Morrison's voice, but that would have caused too much trouble. When Patti came into town we asked her to do it, and she was delighted because she had been influenced by Jim's lyrics."
One of the only non-demonic cuts on the LP is called "The Art Deco Fandango," and it features the actual sounds of a couple making love, although Sugerman, Manzarek and Brown are a little timid about disclosing Whose sex grunts are actually on the LP.
"The song is filled with whimsy," Manzarek explained. "It's based on a 1948 Duke Ellington song. George Segal, the actor, plays banjo on the song. He came into the studio with a cigar and a big smile on his face and was real patient. He didn't say a word. He was so mild. He really got into the song and stayed in the studio for 3 hours."
"I'd like people to understand the album and enjoy it. It doesn't matter if it sells a lot. Just tell everyone to listen to the lyrics and try to figure out what I'm saying and what I'm getting at."
The L.A. Scene and how Rock 'n Roll spun him 'Out Of Control' By Steven Gaines