Cheetah Club Santa Monica Pier August 27th 1967
Not to be mistaken for Nazz which was Todd Rundgren's band and the forced name change for The Nazz became the Legendary Alice Cooper.
To add to the confusion Todd's Nazz also played on Doors bills.
August 27th 1967
LA Free Press
The Doors play an all ages 3:30 p.m. show and then two late shows at 7:30 p.m and 11:00 p.m. to a packed house of over 3,500.
Mojo Navigator
August 1967
Greg Shaw
Interview with the Doors
MOJO NAVIGATOR: You just played in New York and Los Angeles and San Francisco. What are the differences you've found in the audiences in the different cities and the scenes going on in the different cities?
ROBBY: Well, in New York we played mostly for older people, although I'd say that the audience was more dance-prone there, they like to dance a lot more; they don't listen as much. L.A. audiences and San Francisco audiences are different, too. I think the San Francisco audience listens a lot more.
MN: Do you think the difference is because of the places you play, like, when you were in New York did you play clubs mostly?
ROBBY: Well, we played clubs, that's probably it. But they still danced, you know. Of course it might just have been the particular club that we were playing. We really didn't get a very good idea of what the New York audience is like, although when we go back this time I think we will. We're going to play some concerts as well as clubs.
RAY: We played uptown in New York and the downtown people, the people who live in the Village and the East Village, don't come uptown. I was surprised, you know, we were down there and we told some people that we knew and had run into in the Village and said, "Come up and see us we're playing at.. ." it was up on the upper East Side. But they didn't come up. They don't come up to the place It' s an uptown club Downtown people stay in, whatever's down there; the Night Owl, the Café Au Go Go. They go to those places. And the people who go to the place where we played, Ondine's, I guess they don't go down to the Village It's kind of strange, it's real segregation there.
MN: Did you find any significant difference in how the material was received by the audiences in the different cities?
RAY: The whole thing went over very well in the club we played. They seemed to understand it. I don't know whether they understood it or they felt it because the rhythm was there, you know. I guess we're very jazz-oriented, and I think those people understand that, better than people who play do. It's funny, L.A. hasn't been our best audience. It's a good audience in L.A., but up here it's a much better audience.
MN: What groups in particular, if any, do you draw your inspirat-ion from; who, do you particularly admire on the music scene in general?
ROBBY: Well, really we try... we don't have any favorites. The peop-le we respect most are the best musicians. And the people who are reaching the furthest out. Albert Ayler, and... different people.
MN: In cities that we don't have very much communication with, for example in like say L.A.. or New York, is there much interchange between the jazz and the rock aud-ience? Not just the musicians, but do the people dig the whole thing?
RAY: I don't think so.
JOHN: Not at all.
JIM: No.
ROBBY: No, not at all.
MN: 'Cause around here you find generally avant-garde jazz groups will be playing, like at the Fillmore. Mostly in benefits, like you'll have Elvin Jones playing, then the Grateful Dead will play.
ROBBY: But you'll find that when Bill Graham puts a jazz group in there, or even John Lee Hooker, that he'll always have a big drawing group with them, 'cause he knows they aren't gonna draw. He puts the jazz group in there for prestige among the hippies, mainly.
RAY: It's a sophisticated audience up here. I, think they understand jazz a little bit, so they... there's some appreciation of the music. But, the jazz people don't... gee, I don't know any of them that are digging rock, really. Not really. And besides I think the whole jazz thing is on the verge of being assimilated into, it' s going to become classical music. Where classical music is going now, and where jazz is going, they're both going towards the same point. Because jazz used to be, it's originally Negro art music. There was a Negro, and the Negro is being more and more assimilated. As he gets more intelligent, he gets up to the same level of intelligence... they're all college educated now, you know, they're going to school, and they're like us, they're the same people, you know, the ethnic background is getting away from them slowly, very slowly, but it's getting away, and they're becoming Americans. You know, they're thoroughly Americanized people. They've got the TV, the whole thing. It's doing the same thing to them that it does to everyone else. So jazz is going to, in 20 years, there won't be any jazz, jazz and the electronic thing, they're all gon-na be the same thing. Rock is going to become the popular music, for everybody. Everybody's popular music.
MN: Do you see perhaps a fusing of the electronic sound of, say Stock-hausen and Cage, with...
RAY: Yeah, Sun Ra is trying to do the very same thing. We saw him after the session in New York, just before we left. And he's trying to do the same thing that Stockhausen is doing. Except Sun Ra is doing it with his instruments. He doesn't have any electronic thing going. But they're both trying to do the same thing. I'm looking forward to the day when the Negros start play-ing electronic instruments, you know, that could be interesting.
MN: You played for all three of the major scenes in San Francisco: the Matrix, the Avalon, and the Fillmore. Did you find any differences in the audiences at each and would you like to talk about it? Just in general what it's like to play all
three. Is it particularly different for you?
JIM: Yeah, there was a difference. I'm not sure what it was.
MN: Which place was more en-joyable to play?
JOHN: Each had its thing. The Avalon is more older hippies, let's say. And the Fillmore is a little more teeny-bopper like. A little louder in their applause and clapping, you know, but at Avalon they appreciat-ed it same amount, they just yell and scream, right, there's just a warm feeling. I mean, we know they're digging it, they're just...
MN: Yeah. How well is your album selling?
ROBBIE: It's doing very well con-sidering we don't have a real hit single, you know, but I'd say the next album will be much better. Our first album was just the skeleton of our material. There was no real production involved. We'll take more time with the next album and it will be more, produced. It should be quite a bit better. It'll be, I think, all original material.
MN: It's selling really well around here. Just about everybody's got it. I noticed at the Avalon, the kids seemed to, they knew what the, songs were, they all had their favorites... That blew my mind; you seemed to have a fan club. You don't see that at the Avalon too much. Another thing you said about the danc-ing thing, that's really funny, be-cause people around here used to really wig out, you know, they used to jump up and down and dance, but not so much anymore. Like you go to the Avalon now and you'll see... it used to be like just a small group of people in front that were listening and then like 90% of the audien-ce was running around and dancing...and now like almost the whole auditorium is covered with sitting people, and it's, I think, considered uncool to freak out.
ROBBY: The Avalon seemed a little, if I can say this, a little more inhibited actually, than the Fillmore even.
MN: Yeah, a lot more. I think because the people who go there, to the Fillmore, are more people that you know, like the first time they go anywhere they go to the Fillmore because that's the name, and they don't discover the Avalon until later. What about the dances down in L.A.? How successful have those been? Along what lines are they structured?
ROBBY: They're always harrassed by police...
JOHN: What dances?
RAY: Therefore they don't have dances down there. There's really no Fillmore down there. It's all still clubs in L.A. There aren't any, no ballrooms and such.
MN: What about the Freak-Outs? You know, the KRLA Freak-Out things?
ROBBY: Yeah, some of those are pretty good, but...they had a nice light show, and the kids really freaked out, more than I've seen here, for some reason. I guess 'cause they don't get a chance to down there. Yeah, it was a good thing, although it was stopped a few weeks later because of the police.
MN: Yeah. They've tried to do that around here too, but unsuccessfully. There is no way they can do it. You know, you've got 5,000 people outside some place, you just can't, you know, stop it. But they do little things. Like, they have the Fire Marshal at the Avalon. I don't know if you dug that cat. He stands right by the door and he's got this double-breasted uniform on and this big badge... he looks like he should be in a case or something. But like when more people show up than the 910 that the regulations allow, he stops them at the door and nobody else will get in.
RAY: Yeah, we saw him.
MN: Who writes most of your songs?
ROBBY: Jim writes most of the lyrics.
MN: I noticed that some of your songs are very strange, like 'The End' and 'Moonlight Drive' and a few others. A strong mood of death running through a lot of them. I mean, it almost seems as if you had lost your mind once, sometime in your past, with these songs as the result. I get the impression from like, 'End of the Night' particularly a real feeling of Celine, Journey To the End of the Night, and from 'The End' and many of the other songs, of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Really strong moods.
JIM: I don't know. Compared to some of the stuff I've heard in San Francisco, I don't think it's too strange. It's pretty straight stuff.
MN: Which groups around here have you heard, and what's your judgment of them?
RAY: I like Country Joe and the Fish. I like some of their stuff.
ROBBY: And we really liked Big Brother.
MN: What'd you think of the Grateful Dead?
JOHN: They weren't too good, the night we saw them. Like, they're really good musicians, and they're tight, but so's Wilson Pickett, you know?
MN: Do you think there's any one direction that rock music is headed, in particular? Is it headed toward a fusion of all sounds, or do you think it will remain a distinct element, with a variety of different sounds around?
RAY: Well, it will all become more sophisticated, as the musicians mature, as the audience matures, you know, naturally the music must at the same time, so there's going to be just a general increase in knowledgeability. People are going to be able to understand music much better, so the music's going to improve. I think even the old folks are going to start picking up on it, more and more and more. It's happening very gradually but it's happening, be-cause the musicianship is getting be-tter. They've thoroughly accepted the Beatles, you know, so who's next? You know, they'll start accepting a lot more people too.
[Enter COUGAR]
MN: Cougar!
COUGAR: I'm so far gone it isn't funny.
MN: Cougar is our... our experimenter. They've got this new stuff called NDDN, One quarter microgram of it....
JIM: What's it like?
COUGAR: It's heavy. It's one of Hoffman's drugs, the third step up from LSD 26. And it's heavy.
JIM: Hey, have they synthesized Yage yet?
COUGAR: No.
MN: No. LSD is supposedly...the guy that first did it, Hoffman, the same guy, said it was Telepathine, was the name he gave it. And he tried to synthesize it and he came up with LSD. LSD 6 I think it was. It was the first one he could consume. Or he could consume safely, that is.
COUGAR: I think Hoffman has discovered 25 drugs since LSD, each one one step closer to purity. And the third one above LSD was this, And it's potent. Unfortunately I took twice what's considered the normal dosage. I blew my mind here Tuesday night. I blew my mind here and I haven't done that with any other drug. I lost it. It was really sad. (laughs all around).
JIM: Interviews are good, but....
MN: Oh, they're a drag.
JIM: Critical essays are really where it's at. Another person's impressions....
MN: For one thing, interviews are a big drag because to me, rock is becoming a total environment thing, and you go and you listen to somebody, or even hear a record, and you say, "yes" "no" or "maybe". And what can you say, you know? Nothing. Nothing.
JOHN: Yeah, right. It's out there, on the stage.
MN: It used to be a real blast, to go and interview somebody, but you know, now I find myself doing the same thing every time, and coming up with relatively the same answers, But it is groovy to meet different groups because you really get a feeling, just from talking to them, of what's behind their music. You understand their music better, too.
ROBBY: Yeah.
MN: You talked about not realizing everything you wanted on your album, how do you think you could have improved it?
RAY: Well, that's not true. We really realized everything we set out to do.
ROBBY: Well the album was made six months ago, and by making a record, we learned about what you do in a studio, you know.
RAY: Yeah, studio is another thing entirely. There are things that you can do, you know, various devices to manipulate, in a studio, and we didn't know anything about that sort of thing. We just went in and played and got a very pure sound. For the most part, it's exactly the way we sound.
ROBBY: There's hardly any overdubbing. You don't hear anything in there that we can't do. We do everything.
MN: How much improvisation do you do in your live performances?
ROBBY: Well, it depends on each song. Some songs are more structur-ed, and in some there's a whole middle section where we can all fool around.
MN: Do you have a last message for teenyboppers across the nation? That is our traditional last question. We ask everybody that.
ROBBY: Buy more Doors records.
MN: OK. Thanks[/font]
