The Golden Scarab

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The Golden Scarab is just my baby entirely. That's all about that's the hero's journey, that's Joseph's Campbell. That's why it is called a rhythm myth.
Ray Manzarek

Track Listing



1.He Can't Come Today 4:40
2.Solar Boat 5:58
3.Downbound Train 5:30
4.The Golden Scarab 6:42



5.The Purpose Of Existence Is? 6:38
6.The Moorish Idol 5:38
7.Choose Up And Choose Off 4:43
8.Oh Thou Precious Nectar Filled Form (or)
A Little Fart 4:57


Dunno if you all know but Cherry Red Records recently re-released Golden Scarab on CD......for me a masterpiece of 70s keyboard wizadry coupled with a truly unique if completely insane storyline.......
Ray's lyrics are always a bit barmy but coupled with the richness of his best storytelling voice are well worth enduring...I first got this on vinyl as an import months before its release in the UK and have had a CD of it since CD recorders first made an appearance but it was cool to hear it as a bona fide CD release with pristine sound and a super cool cover....
Well recommended......
Bet that surprises some of you guys!!



The Persian restaurant was closed, so we had to settle for Bar BQ and Brew. Ray Manzarek, the former keyboardist for The Doors, who had gotten himself immersed in Middle-Eastern mythologizing with his first solo LP, The Golden Scarab (Mercury 1-703), had to succumb to his humble Mid-Western upbringing. Cheeseburger and fries, please.
"Shit, man, I've told this damn story a million times," Manzarek piqued, obviously irritated that people always asked him about Jim Morrison before they showed any interest in his solo career. "I met Morrison on the beach in Venice. (Isn't this in the bio?) We went to school together, graduated from UCLA, the film school. He came walking down the beach two months later. I said, "What are you doing?" He said, "I've been writing songs." "Outtasight," I said, "let me hear some of them." He sang "Moonlight Drive and I said, "That's incredible. Let's get a rock'n'roll band together and make a million dollars."
That'll go over well in Down Beat, too. Stress that. "Let's get a rock'n'roll band together and make a million dollars. And just have positions of power and authority and all that other stuff that goes along with it." We had to get two other guys, or three. We thought about getting a bass player, but we never found one, so I just played keyboard bass the whole time.
"At that time I was involved in Maharishi meditation, and in my class, in that six lecture class you take, were John (Densmore) and Robby (Krieger). We all got together and the music was incredible and it was simple as that, you know."
It was also subliminal. The dark champions of orgasmic rock, with Morrison the poetic sire and visual focus, The Doors created a ballyhoo of controversy during their six-year, six-gold-album existence. Then one day, Morrison upped and split the scene in more ways than one. Was the band together when he died? "He was in Europe and we were in-he was in Paris and we were in Los Angeles. He had gone over there for a rest, to vacation, get his head together. But he never came back. And that was a big...really very affecting, man, Jesus. I mean, here was a guy who was the King of Orgasmic Rock. The Lizard King. So we thought, Hell, what do we do now?"
At that time there had been talk of taking a long vacation. Our contract with Elektra was up and we had no more obligations to deliver records. We thought, let's take some time off and see if we want to go back with Elektra, go with another company, or if we want to continue at all. Let's just cool it. We've been doing this for the past six years. Let's take eight months off and see what we want to do. So that's what we did and it was very difficult after he died. We just decided to continue. Then it really fell apart. We all wanted to go in different directions. Everybody suddenly became a songwriter."
The death of Morrison remains clouded in obscurity. Nobody really knows what happened. "As far as I know, there are no published reports of Morrison's death. No one ever saw the body. It was a sealed coffin and the French death certificate translates-people said he died of a heart attack, that's what I thought-but the death certificate says, "his heart stopped." So who knows. You don't put that down, that he's not breathing, he's dead. He died because his heart stopped! That is not a reason. So there is plenty of speculation."
Manzarek's whole demeanor belies his involvement in the punk-rock era of The Doors. Obviously well educated and interested, almost hung up, in the lore of religion and philosophy, Manzarek strikes a different pose from the one Morrison created. Even performing with his new group, doing material that melodically and lyrically is based in the Doors' sound, Manzarek seems more the metaphysician than the demonic cajoler of twelve-year-olds.
Changing the topic of conversation from Morrison to Manzarek's newly revived career brings a flood of words. "I made the record (The Golden Scarab) and then I took it around to sell it. I went to some big record companies and nobody wanted it. They said exactly what they had said to me when I took the Doors' record around the first time. "Too far out. Too weird. We don't understand it. We don't think our public, our buyers will understand it." A&M Records said, "We don't want it. It's not poetic enough." They're looking for limp-wrist, wishy-washy poetry and stuff like that. When you come right down to it, "Take a walk in the park/Cut a little fart" that's not exactly great poetry. But, you know, on the other hand, it is. It's just so simple, so obvious and so direct."
"Finally, Mercury Records and Danny Rosencrantz said, "Wow, I like this, man, we want it!" They were hip enough to take a chance with it. The Doors went through exactly the same thing. I told the people at Columbia, "You're fools, this is exactly what I went through with The Doors." But Mercury and Elektra are very similar. Small record companies, but they give you a lot of good, personal contact, personal service, and they could just take right off.
"The fact that the album is a concept album is an act of my unconscious mind taking over. I had about ten songs written and one day I sat down and wrote each title out on a little piece of paper and would start to juggle them to arrange them in a sequence. Little by little, after playing with various combinations, it became the story. I said, "Yeah, wait a minute, this thing tells the whole damn story, man, and each song covers one facet of a long, psychedelic voyage. A journey for consciousness, a search for enlightenment, as much as I hate to use that word."
(Part 1) Journey to the Vortex of the Golden Scarab By Ray Townley Down Beat Magazine, November 7th, 1974

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

One of the unusual aspects of the album is the employment of three percussionists along with the extraordinary drummer, Tony Williams. According to Manzarek, "Rhythm is the foundation of the universe. The primitive African religions believed that in the beginning was rhythm and that by dancing and beating on drums and things you could get yourself in closer tune with the basic pulse of the universe. That's exactly what I believe. The foundation of it all is rhythm. Without rhythm, there is nothing.
"I was talking with my producer, Bruce Botnick (who also engineered and produced much of The Doors material) and Bruce had just finished doing a Ben Sidran album for Blue Thumb on which Tony Williams played. So he suggested Williams and I loved the idea. Tony agreed to do it, so we flew him out for the session. When I started my tour I contacted Tony about travelling with me, but he said he was too busy trying to put a new Lifetime together.
"I wanted to add a number of percussionists to the album. I knew Steve (Forman) from Los Angeles, and there was a conga player, Mailto (Correa). I saw him on stage once with Gabor Szabo and he just blew me away. One more guy, Milt Holland, also played weird stuff. Holland does the same kind of thing that Steve does. So I had two guys playing klicky-klackys, bingers and boingers, scrappers and slappers, strange, loose tambourines that would go baro-o-om and all kinds of things. Tony was on traps and Mailto on congas and whatnot. 90% of it was a live session. The only overdubbing we did was on vocals, guitar solos (Larry Carlton), and maybe a little extra sweetening here or there."
On Golden Scarab, Manzarek proves himself a more than adequate vocalist. It makes you wonder why he didn't stretch out more while a member of The Doors, until, that is, you remember Morrison's tremendous ego problems. Manzarek recorded only two vocal tracks with the Morrison Doors (Close To You on the Absolutely Live LP, and the Willie Dixon blues, (You Need Meat) Don't Go No Further, issued on The Doors anthology, Weird Scenes Inside The Goldmine.)
"I used to sing a lot before The Doors got started-Friday and Saturday night beer fraternity things in which we just played rock'n'roll, blues, and every once in a while, I tried to throw a jazz tune in. They'd go, "Ugh, we can't dance to that!'"
What about the comment that your singing is very much like Morrison's? It seems that The Doors' vocals do not try to ride over the instruments, but rather come under and through the textures. It's like a vocal thrust in the lower register.
"The Doors' music is music the way I make music and the only way you can sing with the kind of music I make is to sing like that. It's just power. A lot of rock bands have a big mass of sound going on and some guy screamin' his brains out, trying to go over the top of it all. Well, that's because they never allow for a space. The space in between is the silence. That's the part in your music where the void shines through. Those spaces are of absolute purity and one note in there is as important as all the other notes. Just one note played in the right place at the right time is more meaningful than half-an-hour of solid non-stop."
Manzarek's present state of mind is very much caught up in religio-mytho-philosophic-questions. "Lyrically, I want to explore the human condition. Now that I have gotten this basic statement out of the way, or what I went through to get where my head is at right now, I can do that. I want to explore all avenues of life, to see how people relate to each other, to themselves, and to the universe and God."
Concretely, this is manifested in Manzarek's quest for musical fusions that transcend cultural barriers. "I want to explore the rhythms and harmonies of all the cultures of the world. I want to do more African, more Brazilian, more Chinese music, Arabic music, and bring in as many different elements of the cultures of the world as I can. I think that's where music has to go. It has to expand itself to become a more universal sound. We have to take the basic rock'n'roll foundation and add on to it the harmonies of China, the rhythms of Africa and Brazil, Balinese gamelons, Middle-Eastern."
For now, he's going back into the studio to record his second album for Mercury. It will be titled, The Whole Thing Started With Rock'n'Roll, And Now It's Out of Control, with release date set for December. To be produced by Bob Brown, it will have Mark Pines on guitar, Gary Malber on drums, and Nigel Harrison on bass. Playing lead guitar will be Dick Wagner, who did such fine work on Lou Reed's Rock'n'Roll Animal album. Manzarek, as usual, will take care of vocals and play electric keyboards (Fender Rhodes, Hohner clavinet), synthesizer (Arp Odessey), and Hammond organ.
(Part 2) Journey to the Vortex of the Golden Scarab By Ray Townley Down Beat Magazine, November 7th, 1974

[ensenada]

I truley like the golden scarab, ships with sails is on there isnt it? great tune. its funny that you do praise ray, yet hate is guts now. i cant blame you for that alex, I can see your side of the argument. its great that he could bring us an album with such varied cultural influences, the guys is a genius like you say dude! i still need to listen to carina baruma (that is so not spelt right lol)

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

I have always been able to differentiate between Ray the musician who is a genius and R$ay the man who is a greed driven lying hypocrite.
I bought GS as an American import album thru Melody Maker months before it was released here and have been listening to it for 30 years. I absolutely love this record. I feel that if Jim had survived Paris and continued with The Doors on the recording side Ray would still have taken this path and recorded solo work.
To be honest I always felt Ray shone brightest on his solo work which is surprising as I have referred to him as The Doors 'engine room' for a very long time now and his Doors work stands up with the best keyboard wizards in music.
I enjoy his vocals (which puts me in a club of a handful of people including my old mate AK 47) and love his crazy view of the world. But as a man the guy is a worm lower than a sewer rats bollocks.

BTW Ships w/ sails is on Other Voices

[stuart]

Alex, we all know you really are the mod of www.raymanzarek.com ;D ;D


I fixed the link for you mate! Alex

[ensenada]

has that place got a forum?

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

stuart said:

Alex, we all know you really are the mod of www.raymanzarek.com!! ;D ;D

If it would remember that Ray had a bit of history between 1973 and 2002 it would be an excellent site but sadly its just a glorified ad now for a tribute band.
Shame as it started out so damn well and there are some excellent things there....it beats the shit out of that useless official Doors site which is arcewipe.....for all his faults DD has more idea than the cretins who run that shithole....

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Ensenada said:

has that place got a forum?

A quote from Ray from October
"They can say what they want. Do I care about what the people have to say?
No. "
which probably explains why the site has not got a forum.
Krieger stopped reading his as it got a bit too near to the truth for his liking and R$ay does not care a shit what the people who pay his wages think.
Fucking Hippies!

[ensenada]

how well did GS do when it first came out?

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Ensenada said:

how well did GS do when it first came out?

Sold ONE copy (the one I bought!
I'm not joking either.....
Sadly even Doors fans had no interest in Ray's solo stuff.
Damn shame as it was bloody excellent.
Never saw it in a record shop in the 70s only place to get it was by mail order in NME or MM.
Whole thing started w/ R&R was the same....
I got an import copy from the US and a few months later it came out in the UK to complete apathy.
I saw part of a track played on the OGWT once.....I think from Scarab.
Never heard it on the radio....even Peely never played it and he was a Doors fan.
Robby was the same with his stuff....Butts Band did a bit better as they had Brits in the band and Bronco who had Jess Roden on vocals were popular with what would have been called the pub circuit back then so the BB got a few Bronco fans interested......Doors fans seemed not to notice.....not that there were a huge number of them really.....Sadly nothing the 3 guys ever did ever succeeded without Jim in tow...

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The Golden Scarab

More than Full Circle and Other Voices, The Golden Scarab is the best embodiment of the Doors by one of the three surviving members, and it is amazing it wasn't a huge underground smash. With mentions of moonlight drives tightrope rides, titles of past Doors tunes in "The Solar Boat," drummer Tony Williams, guitarist Larry Carlton, bassist Jerry Scheff, and producer Bruce Botnick generate an eerie sound behind the singer, creating a title track as mysterious and fun as anything by Morrison and company. With intense rhythms and tons of creativity, Ray Manzarek brings us on a musical journey as unique as The Phantom's Divine Comedy, and if Robbie Krieger brought the commercial element to the Doors' gravy train, it is clear here that the eldest of the quartet had more a hand in the development of the Doors persona than he may have been given credit for. One can't fault Robby Krieger and John Densmore for stretching out with Butts Band, but there is a certain responsibility hit artists should have to their audience. The Bright Midnight releases finally address those concerns, but decades before the opening of the Doors tape vaults, that sound from L.A. Woman was most obvious on "The Purpose Of Existence Is? on this solo effort. Yes, Ray Manzarek veers off into his jazz leanings; given the players on this, how could he not? But he gives enough of a taste of past glories to make The Golden Scarab accessible, spoon feeding his musical styles to those who couldn't get enough of the music he was associated with. It's dramatic and cohesive, making more sense than Jim Morrison much of the time, with more controlled insanity. It is amazing that such a fine work as The Golden Scarab escaped the masses, and shameful that classic hits stations don't add this to their incessant repertoire. Had Jim Morrison lived, this is the path the music of the Doors should have taken. Smooth and demanding of repeated spins.
by Joe Viglione
All Music Guide

[jimbo]

I absolutely love this album! I'll type up a full review later, all i will say now is Downbound Train is my favorite

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Jimbo said:

I absolutely love this album! I'll type up a full review later, all i will say now is Downbound Train is my favorite

Downbound Train Screamin' Ray at his best......
I will put your review in the fanzine if you like for my Doors 40 years on feature..?

[jimbo]

that'd be great Alex. I'm gonna be out of town for the next week or so, so I'll write it up when i get back

[jimbo]

Alex did Ray ever play this material live? I know the album had no success but perhaps a nightclub or something?

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Yes he went on the road with the guys from the album in May 1974 and played across the US and Canada which included a couple of short residences at Max's Kansas City in New York during May and August and one at the Whisky in July which included the 3rd featuring the infamous 'Morrison Memorial Dissapearance Party' where Iggy Pop sang LA Woman.
There are several bootlegs available from the tour.
I have Long Island in June 74 which was a radio broadcast....its cool!

[jimbo]

aw man thats' something I'd love to hear. Alex I'll begin to write up the review sometime this week for Golden Scarab

[ensenada]

hmm shame the album never got noticed by doors fans, strikes me as wierd! after all its a good album. i have got it on my real player, but the tracks aint labelled, they are just "unknown" so in order to find the album and listen again i would have to trawl through a lot of stuff. guess i better get cracking on that, cos i want to put it on cd to play in t car! i have regularly been playing other voices in the car, good album i reckon. not the doors we know, but a different doors, still with good points.
as for john peel, i never knew he was a doors fan. i know he was the first to play the beetles in the states, and he was into punk, but didnt know he liked the doors!

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Cheers Jimbo I will feature that in my Summer issue....

Yeah Rick Peely was a big Doors fan....I am not 100% on this but I think he was one of the comperes at the Roundhouse shows.....I know he was there but not certain about that.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Ray Manzarek - The Golden Scarab on Cherry Red

Mention The Doors and people tend to overdraw on Jim Morrison without actively attributing at least some credit for the band’s success to his fellow band members. Whereas Morrison had God-given talent in droves, Ray Manzarek was blessed with immense skill, particular in his avant-garde leanings towards utilising the keyboard as a fiery instrument for rock assault. Morrison’s early death ensured that he would forever steal the spotlight from the other Doors. The fact that most music fans would struggle to name the two albums that the remaining band members recorded after his death speaks volumes for the myth that advocates Morrison was The Doors.

Listen to The Golden Scarab, and you will agree that Ray Manzarek could offer musical work that was just as interesting as Morrison’s, even if the level of charisma on offer was lacking. Where Morrison had dangerous instinct, Manzarek had calculated brains, and yet The Golden Scarab offers a hint that maybe it wasn’t just Morrison who was hung up on preaching whatever pretentious spiritual rambling took his fancy at the time. On first glance, the album is your typical latter-period Doors record – regular motifs such as spoken word introductions feature throughout, along with an overwhelming lyrical fascination for the mystical. Most importantly, however, a strong collection of rock songs is contained, albeit buried amidst off-the-wall production values and indulgent musings. Despite this, repeated lessons to The Golden Scarab will teach you that beneath the mumbo-jumbo aesthetic lies a worthier album than most Doors / Morrison fans will admit to.

Hopelessly naïve in places in its dated mysticism, you’d have strong reason to claim, in an ironic way, that Manzarek’s spiritual vision on the album was tainted purely by the fact that his musicianship was too strong. It’s as if the melodic hooks and killer-choruses somehow made their way into the song structures and that this wasn’t the original Manzarek master-plan. Another major factor corroborating the notion that The Golden Scarab is musically strong is the quality-driven session musicians Manzarek enlisted as his new ‘recording band’. Forever Changes-producer Bruce Botnick oversaw the album’s production with assured confidence, helped by impeccable guitar-work from Larry Carlton and slick drumming from Tony Williams.

Somehow, the album survives despite overt pandering to fourth-dimension conscious-thought. The introduction to second song has Manzarek’s spoken-vocal delivering “And myself said to me ‘Why are you waiting? I’ve always been at your side, can’t you see me? No? Well, then come with it’s time you lean to see!’“ When Morrison spouted nonsense such as this we forgave him because he always danced on the dark side; his unpredictability lead to a sense of incoming alarm at any moment. Manzarek doesn’t earn as much forgiveness with this assumed-narrator persona, and yet we quickly forget the leftfield cosmic framings the minute we hear stand-out song The Solar Boat. This second song off the album begins stark and intense, and then casually slips into a strong chorus, which even pays lyrical homage to doors with its “Let’s take a Moonlight Drive” lyric. It’s a strong follow-up to opener He Can’t Come Today, Maybe Tomorrow, which takes a space rocket through many unrelated musical genres before settling on a blues-rock chorus; the lyrical call for a religious leader seems lost amongst a song this melodic.

Soaring through Chuck Berry cover Downbound Train and even glam-rock synthesiser instrumental The Moorish Idol, it’s clear Ray Manzarek desperately wants to deliver a concept album that people will crave. Funnily enough, it’s the music on offer, as opposed to the concept, that will continue to attract Doors fans back to The Golden Scarab. It’s scary how similar Manzarek’s singing voice sounds to LA Woman-era Morrison, even though it becomes quite apparentManzarek lacks a strong voice on record. Even so, The Golden Scarab is a fine continuation of The Doors’ legacy after the death of Morrison, and should be regarded as an important work in the band’s universe.

Review CD Times 2004