The Doors non attempt to conquer the UK in 1967

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

I have a full year of Disc magazine to trawl through, which was one of the prominent music mags of the 60s, and it shows how foolish Elektra were in 1967 when it came to The Doors promotion.
##Also a full year of Melody Maker 1967 so I will contrast MM with Disc and see if Elektra did the same non participation into the UKs #1 music paper.

England was the 2nd biggest record market for pop & rock.
WE were ripe for the picking in 1967, if only Elektra had promoted the band here and toured The Doors in the UK.
Fuck Europe here was the place to be.
It beggars belief that they took until the end of 1968 to show their faces and then in a couple of London concerts.

Singles each week were ten a penny but in July/August when LMF was released in the UK it was #1 in the US and only needed a nudge to emulate that here.

Instead Elektra's promotion up to LMF release consisted in one tiny advert for the album tucked away at the edge of the page and not a scrap of information about who and what the band was.




Celebrity scumbag Jonathan King was the first to mention The Doors from his US column in April.
He did not like them.

Contrast that with Hendrix or The Monkees who were all over a mag like Disc.
Even Love were doing better.
The 1967 tour was dropped and Elektra seemed to have already given up on Europe.

Touring was what made a band a hit not some tiny mention in the corner of a music paper.
Places like Manchester, Newcastle and Croydon where a band paid their dues.
They knew this from 1966 in the US.

But not even an advert for LMF as far as I can see.
Yes I may have missed it BUT I was looking for it (twice) so how were people with no knowledge of LMF be drawn in to check it out?



The Doors #1 in the US.


The tour that never was. Bloody criminal.
The Doors could have blown us away with the debut LP and their newest effort Strange Days.
Giving bands like Floyd or Procul Harum a run for their money.
Instead we got a tour in support of the much weaker WFTS LP.

If a Doors tour had managed a mention (tiny as it was) in Disc in 1967 then it was seriously on the cards.
They were mental to drop it when it could have broken the band worldwide. Instead they stayed in the more insular comfort zone of North America.
Yes one foray into Mexico but that was hardly a world tour and how many people outside the Americas knew about it.
Probably none.
And England was the 2nd biggest record market for pop & rock.

WE were ripe for the picking if only Elektra had promoted the band here and toured The Doors in the UK.
Fuck Europe here was the place to be.
It beggars belief that they took until the end of 1968 to show their faces and then in a couple of London concerts.




This from August 5th 1967 says it all when it comes to the LMF single release

This bombshell from August 5th is absolutely shameful for a supposed record company..
Forget the review (which isn't even a proper one) isn't brimming with love & affection.
She says it was 2 weeks before she got a copy.
TWO fucking weeks.
In the pop/rock world of 1967 that was a lifetime.
Who was Elektra's man/woman in the UK as this was a disgrace.

It wasn't the reviewers job to go out and buy the bloody thing.
Someone from the record company should have been knocking on the doors of music papers/magazine and radio staions up and down the country with a couple of copies and some promo shit.
What a bloody farce and no wonder LMF did sod all here.
#1 in America but totally fuck all here.
The mind boggles how useless the record company were here.

At the August mark for Disc and so far a couple of one line mentions and a couple of small photos.
Not ONE feature or article and nothing in the way of an interview with a Door.

The #1 single in the USA and LMF gets THIS as a review in one of the biggest music papers in Britain.
Elektra should have been ensuring that LMF got a proper review, the week of its release, by Disc's most sympathetic reviewer and pestering the shit out of radio stations around the country with free copies and profiles of the band.
How do I know they didn't? I don't but if they did they did a piss poor job of it.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

I have been going through 1967s Melody Maker which was the biggest music journal at that time and saw not ONE mention of the bands existence until
May 13th when the debut LP got a short but positive review.
No mention of the tour that Elektra planned for The Doors in England in MM.

The Monkees are in it pretty much every week most of that having a front page mention.
Zappa, The Airplane and even The Amboy Dukes get regular mentions.

Looked as far as the end of August and even when #1 in the US there is no mention nor an advert to alert Brit fans of The Doors success.
The LMF single was released around mid July but MM does not review it nor is there any kind of mention, promotion, or advert.
It beggars belief that a record label of the stature of Elektra gets a #1 hit single in the US but does not bother mentioning that in the 2nd biggest record market in the world.





MM May 27th 1967

How the Hell can you do a feature on West Coast music and not mention The Doors?
OK they were focusing on San Francisco but for Elektra to not have someone who could give them a heads up that a MM writer was doing a WC piece is diabolical.
6 months in and just a tiny review of the debut (above) apart there is not ONE mention of The Doors name in Britain's biggest pop/rock paper.


LMF #1 in USA

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Lots of gaps in the NME scans but what I looked at had not a jot about The Doors even at #1 in the US.


People Are Strange peaks at #12 in the Billboard chart.


Once again Disc tout a Doors UK appearance.
This time a New Year one which never happened.

I trawled my way though a whole year of Disc and found only paltry mentions here and there but not one article or interview for 1967.
Considering the success they were having at home one would expect them to be a regular in the mags US News.
But not one mention as Jefferson Airplane are described as one of the biggest bands in the world.

A tour for Strange Days could have been a highlight of the bands career and they could have been of Monkees proportion here.
But not even a mention of the LP in Disc.

The Doors could have become a world wide phenomenon in 1967 just as Hendrix and The Monkees were after paying their dues in England.

The Doors in Britain's top #3 music papers read by millions here barely rate a one line mention.
Whoever was looking after Elektra's interests in the UK failed miserably here.

1967 when UK bands crossed the water and conquered the US The Doors unlike the likes of Zappa were barely accorded a mention of their existence.
The WFTS September 1968 tour was a minor success but imagine the band bringing over their first two Acid LPs and actually touring Britain.
Unbelievable the band, management and record company all were conspicuous by their absence in one of the pivotal years Rock had here in the UK



A brace of reviews of People Are Strange in the same issue.
Steve Marriot not convinced and the other review hardly great.

Not that any reader of MM would have a clue who they are as up to November 1967 not one feature, article or interview has appeared in the countries premier rock paper.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

It's the end of November before we find out the names behind The Doors name.
Not a single bit of promotion for LMF or PAS even though both were huge in the USA.

This the nearest to an article on The Doors in either Disc or MM.
No wonder, as the piece mentions, The Doors are ignored here.
Nobody knows who they are.


At last a review of Strange Days. Very positive. So MM reviewed both Doors LPs but Elektra did nothing to support them.




At last some advertising that is meaningful, even if it is part of an Elektra promotion for other artists as well as The Doors.