Post by stuart on Feb 26, 2005 14:53:52 GMT
www.doors.com/magazine/dcm_art4.html
Blood In The Streets:A New Haven Retrospective.
Twenty six years later: A definitive article that tells the whole truth!
The summer of love dawned in the year 1967 bringing forth the age of the Monterey Pop Festival, The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's album, free love and of course, The Doors. This was the year when the phenomenon of The Doors exploded on the scene and their music offered hope to humanity through the notion of breaking on through and seizing one's individuality. . .Jim Morrison has already been proven correct in his supposition that the late 1960s might one day be compared to the Troubadour period of France. But every paradise has its share of rainy days, and the career of The Doors was no exception. Bad karma would fall on The Doors on Dec. 10, 1967 when Jim Morrison would be arrested on stage and become a victim of police brutality at the New Haven Arena, in New Haven , CT.
The Doors stood out as being truly unique in the music scene. Not just because of their original sound and lack of a bass player, but because they seemed to be the lone voice of sanity in a chorus of bands who hid behind one sided truths. The Doors chose to explore the full spectrum of the human psyche, whereas most other groups at the time focused on only one half of the human spirit, i.e., the love and the happiness movement at the time. While many of The Doors' contemporaries were singing about incense and peppermints and how all you need is love, The Doors' music dared to entertain glimpses into the darker half of the human soul. Jim Morrison once said that a central theme of the music of The Doors was of... "An awareness of the strange. . .that something's wrong; something's not quite right." The Doors' music forces listeners to look within themselves and confront their greatest dreams as well as nightmares. Jim Morrison strongly advocated the questioning of authority, and the rejection of blind acceptance to the status quo. Such convictions are very prevalent within his poetry and song lyrics. A central notion in the popular communal hippie philosophy is conformity to a greater norm, even if that given norm is of universal love or peace. The result is actually the loss of the individual spirit in a greater communal soup.
By Dec. 10, 1967, The Doors were a sensation. With their classic albums The Doors and Strange Days behind them, and a seemingly limitless future ahead, they were able to score venues in large concert halls. Their fans grew in number by leaps and bounds. But people began to notice that Jim Morrison stood for individual freedom. Authority figures whose positions necessitated the oppression and blind conformity of others, viewed Jim as a non- conforming bad seed who needed to be put in line. Big Brother failed to realize they would only make him a martyr for his cause if they tried to crush him.
The west was the best in 1967; except for New York, most of the east coast was trapped in the 1950s. Jim's presence at the New Haven Arena would serve as a much needed liberation for many of the locals. The crowd that attended The Doors concert at the New Haven Arena consisted of very few hippies, plenty of college students, as well as an unusual contingent of teeny-boppers that would scream Jim's name until they sheered their vocal chords. Two local groups opened up for The Doors and did their best to entertain the crowd.
Before The Doors were scheduled to go on stage, Jim chanced to meet with a female fan backstage. They retired to a shower stall for some privacy. . .I seriously doubt that they only talked. In fact, one could safely assume Jim and the good lookin' female fan backstage, were at least kissing. Even so, the reaction of the cop that discovered them was totally unnecessary.
The cop appeared, thinking that he had simply happened upon two horny hippies; he tried to intimidate them by brandishing his authority, and demanded that they leave. Jim, however, was not one to be pushed around by a man in uniform, and probably let the cop know what he thought of him. The disgruntled policeman responded by spraying mace into Jim's face. Jim was then actually dragged outside on his way to be carted off to jail. As this was going on, the police were informed that the man they had in custody was the lead singer of the band that was about to go on stage. To avoid the potential for a riot, they let Jim go and allowed him to perform. My belief is that the New Haven police had every intention of arresting Jim after the show regardless of the events that would follow. Jim's provoking them during his performance simply sped up the inevitable.
Eventually a battered and infuriated Jim Morrison came on stage and The Doors opened with Five To One; this may very well have been one of the earliest live performances of this song. Five To One can be interpreted as an anthem of revolution, in that the oppressed masses rise up against tyranny. It has a similar "call to arms" feel, very much like the Beatles' Revolution, and John Lennon's Power To The People. . .I can only imagine that Jim must have sung the line, "They've got the guns, But we've got the numbers. . ." with particular anger, considering that the armed police officers that wanted to oppress him were in the arena, watching his every move; ready to descend on him like a spider onto a wayward fly. The Doors apparently gave a strong performance up until the moment when Jim was dragged off stage. Jim was very animated throughout this particular performance, moving and jumping about to the glee of fans and teeny boppers alike. In existing photos Jim's expressions and gesticulations during the performance are full of life. Clearly his stage presence was not as motionless and subdued as in the Hollywood Bowl performance of July '68.
Some of Jim's persona during the performance was captured in Michael Zwerin's article, "The New Haven Bust" from the May '68 issue of Cheetah magazine, where he stated, "Morrison started freaking out during his act, grinding, bumping and coming close to swallowing the microphone. If you had a dirty mind, you might have called it obscene. . .."
Apparently the police who found it necessary to bust Jim, had a dirty mind since they would later claim Jim was talking about sexual matters on stage, rather than the actual police brutality that had befallen him earlier.
Once The Doors finished performing Five To One, the hypnotic sounds of The Doors' latest apocalyptic masterpiece, When The Music's Over filled the sports arena. I can only imagine the intensity with which Jim must have shouted, "We want the world, and we want it now!" As Jim sung the song, he was no doubt still furious at the way he had been victimized backstage. The police had wanted him to be their unthinking puppet without objection. But such wasn't to be the case with Jim Morrison.
Blood In The Streets:A New Haven Retrospective.
Twenty six years later: A definitive article that tells the whole truth!
The summer of love dawned in the year 1967 bringing forth the age of the Monterey Pop Festival, The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's album, free love and of course, The Doors. This was the year when the phenomenon of The Doors exploded on the scene and their music offered hope to humanity through the notion of breaking on through and seizing one's individuality. . .Jim Morrison has already been proven correct in his supposition that the late 1960s might one day be compared to the Troubadour period of France. But every paradise has its share of rainy days, and the career of The Doors was no exception. Bad karma would fall on The Doors on Dec. 10, 1967 when Jim Morrison would be arrested on stage and become a victim of police brutality at the New Haven Arena, in New Haven , CT.
The Doors stood out as being truly unique in the music scene. Not just because of their original sound and lack of a bass player, but because they seemed to be the lone voice of sanity in a chorus of bands who hid behind one sided truths. The Doors chose to explore the full spectrum of the human psyche, whereas most other groups at the time focused on only one half of the human spirit, i.e., the love and the happiness movement at the time. While many of The Doors' contemporaries were singing about incense and peppermints and how all you need is love, The Doors' music dared to entertain glimpses into the darker half of the human soul. Jim Morrison once said that a central theme of the music of The Doors was of... "An awareness of the strange. . .that something's wrong; something's not quite right." The Doors' music forces listeners to look within themselves and confront their greatest dreams as well as nightmares. Jim Morrison strongly advocated the questioning of authority, and the rejection of blind acceptance to the status quo. Such convictions are very prevalent within his poetry and song lyrics. A central notion in the popular communal hippie philosophy is conformity to a greater norm, even if that given norm is of universal love or peace. The result is actually the loss of the individual spirit in a greater communal soup.
By Dec. 10, 1967, The Doors were a sensation. With their classic albums The Doors and Strange Days behind them, and a seemingly limitless future ahead, they were able to score venues in large concert halls. Their fans grew in number by leaps and bounds. But people began to notice that Jim Morrison stood for individual freedom. Authority figures whose positions necessitated the oppression and blind conformity of others, viewed Jim as a non- conforming bad seed who needed to be put in line. Big Brother failed to realize they would only make him a martyr for his cause if they tried to crush him.
The west was the best in 1967; except for New York, most of the east coast was trapped in the 1950s. Jim's presence at the New Haven Arena would serve as a much needed liberation for many of the locals. The crowd that attended The Doors concert at the New Haven Arena consisted of very few hippies, plenty of college students, as well as an unusual contingent of teeny-boppers that would scream Jim's name until they sheered their vocal chords. Two local groups opened up for The Doors and did their best to entertain the crowd.
Before The Doors were scheduled to go on stage, Jim chanced to meet with a female fan backstage. They retired to a shower stall for some privacy. . .I seriously doubt that they only talked. In fact, one could safely assume Jim and the good lookin' female fan backstage, were at least kissing. Even so, the reaction of the cop that discovered them was totally unnecessary.
The cop appeared, thinking that he had simply happened upon two horny hippies; he tried to intimidate them by brandishing his authority, and demanded that they leave. Jim, however, was not one to be pushed around by a man in uniform, and probably let the cop know what he thought of him. The disgruntled policeman responded by spraying mace into Jim's face. Jim was then actually dragged outside on his way to be carted off to jail. As this was going on, the police were informed that the man they had in custody was the lead singer of the band that was about to go on stage. To avoid the potential for a riot, they let Jim go and allowed him to perform. My belief is that the New Haven police had every intention of arresting Jim after the show regardless of the events that would follow. Jim's provoking them during his performance simply sped up the inevitable.
Eventually a battered and infuriated Jim Morrison came on stage and The Doors opened with Five To One; this may very well have been one of the earliest live performances of this song. Five To One can be interpreted as an anthem of revolution, in that the oppressed masses rise up against tyranny. It has a similar "call to arms" feel, very much like the Beatles' Revolution, and John Lennon's Power To The People. . .I can only imagine that Jim must have sung the line, "They've got the guns, But we've got the numbers. . ." with particular anger, considering that the armed police officers that wanted to oppress him were in the arena, watching his every move; ready to descend on him like a spider onto a wayward fly. The Doors apparently gave a strong performance up until the moment when Jim was dragged off stage. Jim was very animated throughout this particular performance, moving and jumping about to the glee of fans and teeny boppers alike. In existing photos Jim's expressions and gesticulations during the performance are full of life. Clearly his stage presence was not as motionless and subdued as in the Hollywood Bowl performance of July '68.
Some of Jim's persona during the performance was captured in Michael Zwerin's article, "The New Haven Bust" from the May '68 issue of Cheetah magazine, where he stated, "Morrison started freaking out during his act, grinding, bumping and coming close to swallowing the microphone. If you had a dirty mind, you might have called it obscene. . .."
Apparently the police who found it necessary to bust Jim, had a dirty mind since they would later claim Jim was talking about sexual matters on stage, rather than the actual police brutality that had befallen him earlier.
Once The Doors finished performing Five To One, the hypnotic sounds of The Doors' latest apocalyptic masterpiece, When The Music's Over filled the sports arena. I can only imagine the intensity with which Jim must have shouted, "We want the world, and we want it now!" As Jim sung the song, he was no doubt still furious at the way he had been victimized backstage. The police had wanted him to be their unthinking puppet without objection. But such wasn't to be the case with Jim Morrison.
