Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Dec 22, 2004 18:49:53 GMT
Perhaps more than any other band, the Doors personified the rebellious spirit of the 60s. With their self-titled debut album, the Doors erupted onto the scene in 1966, replete with an innovative sound, attitude, and message. In contrast to the peace-and-love hippie propaganda of the era, the Doors explored the darker side of death, sex, war, and anarchy. Aside from the talents of frontman/poet/singer Jim Morrison, the rest of the band were supremely gifted musicians: drummer John Densmore, keyboard player Ray Manzarek, and guitarist Robbie Krieger. Although more than 25 years have elapsed since Morrison passed away in Paris, the band s international popularity has not diminished. In France, the Doors remain a huge cult band.
Over the years, John Densmore has become well-regarded for his jazz-inflected, powerfully elegant drumming with the Doors. Besides his music career, he is also an actor and writer, having chronicled his observations and experiences with the Doors in his 1990 book Riders On the Storm (Delacorte Press, Bantam, Doubleday, Dell Publishing Group). It is a very personal and often humorous account of the fascinating story of the band and John s search for self-discovery. Writing the book was cathartic for its author, who struggled with his past and the loss of his friend and mentor, Jim. "The book was a way to work through a lot of what I went through," he declares. " I dedicated it to John Lennon because he exposed so much of his personal life that it was inspiring to me. Public people also have relationship problems and have to go to the bathroom just like everybody else. "You know, my book has never been published in French which is a shame, with Jim being buried there and all," he remarks regrettably. " I don t understand why."
WHAT'S A TYPICAL DAY LIKE FOR YOU?
JD: I get up around 7 AM -- that s because I have a 4 year-old. Then I do my yoga, hang with my kid, eat breakfast. Then, either work on my novel or get on the phone to make calls. I also exercise. I take walks and ride my horse way out in the country. I ve also been trying to help a singer-songwriter, John Coinman. I made four demos for him, put a band together, produced everything, and played drums. Hopefully, we ll get to do a whole album.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE MUSIC?
Well, it s pretty hard to describe. I guess it s rock n roll with Zen Buddhist lyrics. It s Southwest sounding -- the sound of the desert. I did those demos months ago and I m trying to hustle them a deal and then we can make six or seven more songs. We did four.
YOU'RE ALSO INVOLVED WITH DOORS BUSINESS, TOO. Recently, we finally got the money to transfer "An American Prayer" -- Jim s poetry album -- onto CD. So we were in the studio working on that. We did make a video for one of the songs which MTV in the States would not play because it s in the spoken word category and they don t play spoken word. The rest of the world played that video. I guess the U.S. is behind the times, in my opinion .
DO YOU THINK THE ARTS STILL HAVE A PLACE IN THE U.S. UNDER THE PRESENT RIGHT-WING SENTIMENT?
The whole trend of the country is towards the right, so the arts are not that important. Taking money away from children, the elderly and arts programs is the thing to do to balance the budget, according to the Republicans. I m getting a little political here.
THAT S FINE.
There's still great art being done. It s hard getting it through, though. American MTV and Rolling Stone magazine are so big now that they ve gone corporate and they ve got conservative. They ve made some money and they re afraid of losing it so they get tight. It s funny, Newt Gingrich was gonna be on MTV for an interview because they gave Clinton equal time when he was trying to get elected. Ray (Manzarek) made a joke and said "Is Newt gonna sing since they don 't allow spoken word on MTV?"
YOU COLLABORATED ON TWO ALBUMS WITH KRIEGER AND MANZAREK AFTER MORRISON'S DEATH.
We didn t want to give up the musical synchronicity, (pauses) but we didn t want to replace Jim. I mean, who could fill those leather pants? (laughs) So Ray and Robbie tried to sing, ha ha. By the second one we started fighting musically and we decided, "Our spearhead, our forefront is gone. It s time to go our own ways."
TELL ME ABOUT THE PLAY THAT YOU VE APPEARING IN?
I ve always occassionally played drums for small, avante garde theatrical productions, mainly just to see people. If you re writing, you re all alone with the blank page or the video computer screen so it s good to be with people. For a while I was drumming for the Actor s Gang. It was a small theatre company run by (actor) Tim Robbins before he became a big success. I had a great time performing with them.
My wife is an actress and she was in a play by an Argentinian playwrite, Eduardo Pavlovsky. The director wanted to do another play by this man and he wanted me to drum and I said "Great." It was a piece about a man and a woman and relationships. Then he convinced me to do the man part so I m acting and drumming. My wife s drumminga little too, to balance it out. I gave her a few lessons. The play s an interesting piece called "Circa."
WHAT OTHER DRUMMING PROJECTS ARE YOU INVOLVED WITH?
Besides the play, there s another thing my wife and I are up to that s real interesting. I was involved men s groups with Robert Bly who wrote Iron John, before it became a big movement. It s all about sharing feelings. I met a fellow at one of these men s conferences who ran a prison program in Louisiana. He had gotten permission from the warden to give drums to the inmates. This just blew my mind. So I bought 20 drums for the inmates of Dixon Correctional Insitute in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and sent them down there. Six months later I went there with my wife who was eight months pregnant with that four year-old I was talking about and we went in the prison and had a whole afternoon of drumming and dancing and crying and sharing feelings and it was just unbelievable. My wife and I wanted to film this program but the warden got real nervous. He thought it would be an expose on the prison, but we were just trying to show that this program helped a lot. The program eventually was booted out because it works. The whole turn of the country is to incarcerate everybody. But I think deep down people know that the streets aren t safer. This program -- called Project Return -- is now on the outside, helping ex-offenders get their high school diploma, giving them counseling. When inmates get out their families don t know how to deal with them, they can t get a job because they have "ex-convict" etched on their forehead. This program gives them a hand up instead of a hand out. They have to write from prison to get into the program and they must show that they are serious about it. For this program, the recidivism rate -- the rate at which ex-offenders return to prison -- is four percent as opposed to 60 percent in the rest of the country. Anyway, we filmed this program and the drumming, and we hope to get it on television. I just teach them simple beats and talk about how if we all play together for 15 minutes, when we finish, we kind of form an instant community of the drum which helps us access instant community for sharing deeper feelings. When you ve drummed together, there s a real oneness there. One thing this men s movement got me thinking about was that so-called primitive cultures had initiations at 13 and it was clear: "You re a man know and you have to go out and hunt." We don t have these clearly defined rituals so it takes us to 35 or 40 before we really know who we are. Of course it s continual. I don t mean to sound like a guru who knows where it s at believe me.
JOHN DENSMORE DRUMMER ON THE STORM 1
by Teri Saccone
Over the years, John Densmore has become well-regarded for his jazz-inflected, powerfully elegant drumming with the Doors. Besides his music career, he is also an actor and writer, having chronicled his observations and experiences with the Doors in his 1990 book Riders On the Storm (Delacorte Press, Bantam, Doubleday, Dell Publishing Group). It is a very personal and often humorous account of the fascinating story of the band and John s search for self-discovery. Writing the book was cathartic for its author, who struggled with his past and the loss of his friend and mentor, Jim. "The book was a way to work through a lot of what I went through," he declares. " I dedicated it to John Lennon because he exposed so much of his personal life that it was inspiring to me. Public people also have relationship problems and have to go to the bathroom just like everybody else. "You know, my book has never been published in French which is a shame, with Jim being buried there and all," he remarks regrettably. " I don t understand why."
WHAT'S A TYPICAL DAY LIKE FOR YOU?
JD: I get up around 7 AM -- that s because I have a 4 year-old. Then I do my yoga, hang with my kid, eat breakfast. Then, either work on my novel or get on the phone to make calls. I also exercise. I take walks and ride my horse way out in the country. I ve also been trying to help a singer-songwriter, John Coinman. I made four demos for him, put a band together, produced everything, and played drums. Hopefully, we ll get to do a whole album.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE MUSIC?
Well, it s pretty hard to describe. I guess it s rock n roll with Zen Buddhist lyrics. It s Southwest sounding -- the sound of the desert. I did those demos months ago and I m trying to hustle them a deal and then we can make six or seven more songs. We did four.
YOU'RE ALSO INVOLVED WITH DOORS BUSINESS, TOO. Recently, we finally got the money to transfer "An American Prayer" -- Jim s poetry album -- onto CD. So we were in the studio working on that. We did make a video for one of the songs which MTV in the States would not play because it s in the spoken word category and they don t play spoken word. The rest of the world played that video. I guess the U.S. is behind the times, in my opinion .
DO YOU THINK THE ARTS STILL HAVE A PLACE IN THE U.S. UNDER THE PRESENT RIGHT-WING SENTIMENT?
The whole trend of the country is towards the right, so the arts are not that important. Taking money away from children, the elderly and arts programs is the thing to do to balance the budget, according to the Republicans. I m getting a little political here.
THAT S FINE.
There's still great art being done. It s hard getting it through, though. American MTV and Rolling Stone magazine are so big now that they ve gone corporate and they ve got conservative. They ve made some money and they re afraid of losing it so they get tight. It s funny, Newt Gingrich was gonna be on MTV for an interview because they gave Clinton equal time when he was trying to get elected. Ray (Manzarek) made a joke and said "Is Newt gonna sing since they don 't allow spoken word on MTV?"
YOU COLLABORATED ON TWO ALBUMS WITH KRIEGER AND MANZAREK AFTER MORRISON'S DEATH.
We didn t want to give up the musical synchronicity, (pauses) but we didn t want to replace Jim. I mean, who could fill those leather pants? (laughs) So Ray and Robbie tried to sing, ha ha. By the second one we started fighting musically and we decided, "Our spearhead, our forefront is gone. It s time to go our own ways."
TELL ME ABOUT THE PLAY THAT YOU VE APPEARING IN?
I ve always occassionally played drums for small, avante garde theatrical productions, mainly just to see people. If you re writing, you re all alone with the blank page or the video computer screen so it s good to be with people. For a while I was drumming for the Actor s Gang. It was a small theatre company run by (actor) Tim Robbins before he became a big success. I had a great time performing with them.
My wife is an actress and she was in a play by an Argentinian playwrite, Eduardo Pavlovsky. The director wanted to do another play by this man and he wanted me to drum and I said "Great." It was a piece about a man and a woman and relationships. Then he convinced me to do the man part so I m acting and drumming. My wife s drumminga little too, to balance it out. I gave her a few lessons. The play s an interesting piece called "Circa."
WHAT OTHER DRUMMING PROJECTS ARE YOU INVOLVED WITH?
Besides the play, there s another thing my wife and I are up to that s real interesting. I was involved men s groups with Robert Bly who wrote Iron John, before it became a big movement. It s all about sharing feelings. I met a fellow at one of these men s conferences who ran a prison program in Louisiana. He had gotten permission from the warden to give drums to the inmates. This just blew my mind. So I bought 20 drums for the inmates of Dixon Correctional Insitute in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and sent them down there. Six months later I went there with my wife who was eight months pregnant with that four year-old I was talking about and we went in the prison and had a whole afternoon of drumming and dancing and crying and sharing feelings and it was just unbelievable. My wife and I wanted to film this program but the warden got real nervous. He thought it would be an expose on the prison, but we were just trying to show that this program helped a lot. The program eventually was booted out because it works. The whole turn of the country is to incarcerate everybody. But I think deep down people know that the streets aren t safer. This program -- called Project Return -- is now on the outside, helping ex-offenders get their high school diploma, giving them counseling. When inmates get out their families don t know how to deal with them, they can t get a job because they have "ex-convict" etched on their forehead. This program gives them a hand up instead of a hand out. They have to write from prison to get into the program and they must show that they are serious about it. For this program, the recidivism rate -- the rate at which ex-offenders return to prison -- is four percent as opposed to 60 percent in the rest of the country. Anyway, we filmed this program and the drumming, and we hope to get it on television. I just teach them simple beats and talk about how if we all play together for 15 minutes, when we finish, we kind of form an instant community of the drum which helps us access instant community for sharing deeper feelings. When you ve drummed together, there s a real oneness there. One thing this men s movement got me thinking about was that so-called primitive cultures had initiations at 13 and it was clear: "You re a man know and you have to go out and hunt." We don t have these clearly defined rituals so it takes us to 35 or 40 before we really know who we are. Of course it s continual. I don t mean to sound like a guru who knows where it s at believe me.
JOHN DENSMORE DRUMMER ON THE STORM 1
by Teri Saccone
