Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 2, 2012 10:51:17 GMT
Don’t take John Densmore’s participation in the publicity campaign for the new 40th-anniversary reissue of The Doors’ L.A. Woman as a sign that he’s reconciled with Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger over that ugly “reunion” business.
Since his former bandmates first attempted to reclaim past glories as The Doors of the 21st Century in 2002 — with The Cult’s Ian Astbury replacing the late Jim Morrison on the microphone and Stewart Copeland of The Police (briefly) replacing Densmore on drums — Densmore’s role in the ongoing saga has primarily involved battling his former bandmates in court. Densmore has prevented Manzarek and Krieger from affixing the Doors name or any Doors-related imagery to their periodic performances of Doors material. In that regard, he has arguably served as the voice of reason, since The Doors without Morrison can’t really be thought of as The Doors in any realistic sense.
His old friends, currently touring with a chap from a Los Angeles Doors cover band called Wild Child on vocals, are now reduced to billing themselves as “Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of The Doors” or some variation thereof. Densmore, reasonably satisfied, is writing a book about the whole mess called Doors Unhinged.
“I would say our relationship — me and Ray and Robby’s — is strained, but I do extend them an olive branch in this book I’m writing and tell them why I still love them,” he says. “This thing is bigger than all of us, but it’s over. The Doors are Ray and Robbie and John and Jim, not Ray and Robbie and Ian and Fred and John, or whoever.”
The Doors aren’t over, of course, in the sense that their lucrative back catalogue can still be raided and/or revived from time to time.
This past Monday saw the release of a “new” Doors single, a forgotten leftover from the L.A. Woman sessions entitled “She Smells So Nice,” via Facebook, to be followed this coming Tuesday by a double-disc re-release of The Doors’ 1971 swan song. A DVD documentary, Mr. Mojo Risin’: The Story of L.A. Woman, is also on the way. These are, we’re told, just the first volleys in a “Year of The Doors” that will see yet more reissues and live packages added to the already overloaded posthumous-release pile.
The curmudgeonly Densmore, 67, isn’t the best pitchman for the projects, perhaps, since even he concedes that the well is running a tad dry.
“Frankly, I’m a big believer in the outtakes were outtakes because we didn’t choose them. There was something wrong with them,” he says of the alternate takes of “L.A. Woman,” “Riders on the Storm, “Love Her Madly” et al. dug up by producer Bruce Botnick for the L.A. Woman package. “But I was a jazz musician and I love Coltrane’s albums, and I have one of them that has six takes of one song on it … so I can appreciate, from the fan’s point of view, why someone might want to hear why we didn’t choose this or that.”
As to the prospect of future “new” Doors songs coming to light à la “She Smells So Nice” — an iffy blues number with a poorly recorded Morrison vocal that doesn’t have much to offer beyond novelty value — don’t bet on it.
“You’re scraping the bottom of the barrel,” says Densmore, dryly adding that: “The surgeon general will have to put a warning on all future release.”
That said, Densmore will allow that he likes some sections of the alternate version of “L.A. Woman” on the new reissue better than the original. And his cynicism subsides when talk turns to the sessions that birthed the album.
“We were really having a lot of fun making this record,” he says.
After more or less killing The Doors as a live act the year before with his unpredictable behaviour on a tour that lasted two dates, Morrison showed up in generally workable shape to the band’s Los Angeles rehearsal studio and the quartet was able to knock the tracks out more or less in the form in which they appear “because it was a band that had played together for many years, and knew what it was doing and got really tight.”
Morrison left for Paris before mixing started and, sadly, never returned. Less than three months after L.A. Woman’s release, he was found dead of a suspected overdose at 27.
“He was never around for mixing much, anyway. It was too tedious for him. So he said he was going to Paris and it was sort of open-ended when he was coming back,” recalls Densmore. “He did promise to return. But then he didn’t, so that was it.”
And that was it, as far as he’s concerned now. The Doors were “a wonderful psychedelic dream I had,” he says, but he has no interest in playing those songs anymore. The Doors are dead.
“What can I say? It took a lot of wind out of my sails, all the legal stuff. But I don’t regret it,” says Densmore. “It’s better to be in The Doors than not. I have ‘of The Doors’ permanently etched in my forehead. But I’m turned on by new ideas, by the sense of whether I’m learning something new. That’s why I play with African musicians. That’s why I’m out on the street and in the clubs.
“If Jim shows up, I’ll be in The Doors.”
TheStar.com
January 20th 2012
Ben Rayner
Pop Music Critic
Since his former bandmates first attempted to reclaim past glories as The Doors of the 21st Century in 2002 — with The Cult’s Ian Astbury replacing the late Jim Morrison on the microphone and Stewart Copeland of The Police (briefly) replacing Densmore on drums — Densmore’s role in the ongoing saga has primarily involved battling his former bandmates in court. Densmore has prevented Manzarek and Krieger from affixing the Doors name or any Doors-related imagery to their periodic performances of Doors material. In that regard, he has arguably served as the voice of reason, since The Doors without Morrison can’t really be thought of as The Doors in any realistic sense.
His old friends, currently touring with a chap from a Los Angeles Doors cover band called Wild Child on vocals, are now reduced to billing themselves as “Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of The Doors” or some variation thereof. Densmore, reasonably satisfied, is writing a book about the whole mess called Doors Unhinged.
“I would say our relationship — me and Ray and Robby’s — is strained, but I do extend them an olive branch in this book I’m writing and tell them why I still love them,” he says. “This thing is bigger than all of us, but it’s over. The Doors are Ray and Robbie and John and Jim, not Ray and Robbie and Ian and Fred and John, or whoever.”
The Doors aren’t over, of course, in the sense that their lucrative back catalogue can still be raided and/or revived from time to time.
This past Monday saw the release of a “new” Doors single, a forgotten leftover from the L.A. Woman sessions entitled “She Smells So Nice,” via Facebook, to be followed this coming Tuesday by a double-disc re-release of The Doors’ 1971 swan song. A DVD documentary, Mr. Mojo Risin’: The Story of L.A. Woman, is also on the way. These are, we’re told, just the first volleys in a “Year of The Doors” that will see yet more reissues and live packages added to the already overloaded posthumous-release pile.
The curmudgeonly Densmore, 67, isn’t the best pitchman for the projects, perhaps, since even he concedes that the well is running a tad dry.
“Frankly, I’m a big believer in the outtakes were outtakes because we didn’t choose them. There was something wrong with them,” he says of the alternate takes of “L.A. Woman,” “Riders on the Storm, “Love Her Madly” et al. dug up by producer Bruce Botnick for the L.A. Woman package. “But I was a jazz musician and I love Coltrane’s albums, and I have one of them that has six takes of one song on it … so I can appreciate, from the fan’s point of view, why someone might want to hear why we didn’t choose this or that.”
As to the prospect of future “new” Doors songs coming to light à la “She Smells So Nice” — an iffy blues number with a poorly recorded Morrison vocal that doesn’t have much to offer beyond novelty value — don’t bet on it.
“You’re scraping the bottom of the barrel,” says Densmore, dryly adding that: “The surgeon general will have to put a warning on all future release.”
That said, Densmore will allow that he likes some sections of the alternate version of “L.A. Woman” on the new reissue better than the original. And his cynicism subsides when talk turns to the sessions that birthed the album.
“We were really having a lot of fun making this record,” he says.
After more or less killing The Doors as a live act the year before with his unpredictable behaviour on a tour that lasted two dates, Morrison showed up in generally workable shape to the band’s Los Angeles rehearsal studio and the quartet was able to knock the tracks out more or less in the form in which they appear “because it was a band that had played together for many years, and knew what it was doing and got really tight.”
Morrison left for Paris before mixing started and, sadly, never returned. Less than three months after L.A. Woman’s release, he was found dead of a suspected overdose at 27.
“He was never around for mixing much, anyway. It was too tedious for him. So he said he was going to Paris and it was sort of open-ended when he was coming back,” recalls Densmore. “He did promise to return. But then he didn’t, so that was it.”
And that was it, as far as he’s concerned now. The Doors were “a wonderful psychedelic dream I had,” he says, but he has no interest in playing those songs anymore. The Doors are dead.
“What can I say? It took a lot of wind out of my sails, all the legal stuff. But I don’t regret it,” says Densmore. “It’s better to be in The Doors than not. I have ‘of The Doors’ permanently etched in my forehead. But I’m turned on by new ideas, by the sense of whether I’m learning something new. That’s why I play with African musicians. That’s why I’m out on the street and in the clubs.
“If Jim shows up, I’ll be in The Doors.”
TheStar.com
January 20th 2012
Ben Rayner
Pop Music Critic