Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Dec 22, 2004 21:38:23 GMT
Krieger Hotel
In 1971, legendary Doors wild man Jim Morrison decided to take a break from L.A. and the band that made him infamous. The plan was for him to go to Paris and write poetry—maybe even dry out. In July of that year, Morrison was found dead in a bathtub, alledgedly the victim of a heart attack.
He was buried in Paris—his tombstone a must-see for every hitchhiking college kid and stoned tourist who blows through the City of Lights.> The remaining members of the Doors—guitarist Robbie Krieger, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, and drummer John Densmore—recorded three albums without their fallen Lizard King, but it just wasn't the same. They finally disbanded in 1973. For most bands, this would have been...you know, The End.
But a decade later, with the release of `Alive, She Cried'—an album made up of covers and cast-offs—the Doors were back in business. A pieced-together montage of film clips provided a video for the band's cover of Them's 1968 hit, "Gloria"—and MTV aired it in regular rotation, alongside Duran Duran and Culture Club. Danny's
Sugarman's epic chronicle of the band, `No One Here Gets Out Alive', was already in its umpteenth paperback printing, and Jim Morrison was back on the cover of the Rolling Stone for the first time in many a year, proclaimed by the magazine to be `Hot, Sexy & Dead'.
Nearly a decade after that, filmmaker Oliver Stone finished up his trilogy of films about the 1960s—following `Platoon' and `JFK'—with a movie about the band, simply called `The Doors'. Val Kilmer (who went on to portray other mythic figures, like Batman and Doc Holliday) played a zonked-out, hollow-eyed Jim Morrison, stoned and bickering with wife Pamela, played by up-&-comer Meg Ryan. There's lots of events that play into the Doors' ongoing legend: the overblown near-riot in Miami; the infamous `Ed Sullivan Show' appearance, when Morrison openly defied the producer's wishes to alter the lyrics of "Light My Fire"; the fairy tale that Morrison grew to be fat and happy in Paris, and he faked his own death to get out of the rock star rat race.
But it's their music—the poetry, the fuzzy jazz guitar, the keyboards both cheery and haunting—that has kept the Doors in the musical forefront for over three decades. "The fans do get younger," says Robbie Krieger, who appearred at the 19th Hole on Rayford-Sawdust Road last Friday. "Lots of times, their parents play our records for them, but a lot of them just hear our music on the radio."
The Doors are one of the few bands of the 60s that are considered more than just an oldies oddity. You're as likely to hear their music mixed in with the modern rock of KLOL as you are to hear it in the clasic rock blocks of the Arrow. It's an enduring American sound. While Motown's sterilized soul and the Beach Boys' moondog surf music are three-minute memories and commercial jingles, the music of the Doors has a modern, timeless edge—jazzy and theatrical, gothic and symphonic. Even the Beatles' masterworks seem somewhat dated—a souvenir of the era in which they were created.
Robbie Krieger wrote many of the Doors' best known songs—"Touch Me", "Love Me Two Times", the signature "Light My Fire"; you're likely to hear a fair share of Doors music tonight, but you'll also hear Krieger's own brand of moody jazz-fusion—a soundtrack for the mind. His latest release, `Cinematrix' is just that: a stimulation of the visual cortex through music.
"I think it has to make you [see] something. That's what I tried to achieve with [the CD]." Krieger's love of jazz always came through in the Doors' music, even moreso in that trio of post-Morrison albums—'Other Voices', `Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine', and `Full Circle'. "I always liked jazz, but I really studied it after the Doors. I really got a chance to listen to it and learn from it. Especially players like [60s jazz guitarist] Wes Montgomery."
Krieger has made a half-dozen or so albums over the years; while most were in the jazz-fusion mode, he has continued to branch out. Last May, he did a show with the Virginia Symphony— playing the classic Doors tunes on guitar, backed by a real live philharmonic orchestra. And there's talk that Krieger might hit the road with ex-bandmates Manzarek and Densmore, backed by an orchestra.
The Doors did re-group in rock-&-roll mode last October, filming an episode of VH-1's 'Storytellers'—playing the old songs and talking about how they came to be. It was the first the band played together since they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993—when they were fronted by Pearl Jam's grumpy, camera-shy grungemaster Eddie Vedder.
A shipload of frontmen from today's bands lined up around the block to pinch-hit for Jim Morrison this time around—including Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp from Creed, Lollapalooza founder Perry Ferrell, and Travis Meeks from Days of the New, who came real close to capturing Morrison's passionate creepiness on 'The End'. Those vocalists are also found on a Doors tribute album, `Stoned Immaculate'; the uncut `Storytellers' show is available on DVD.Krieger's stop at the 19th Hole is part of short tour of Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. "I like small, out-of-the-way clubs. I like the atmosphere and I like the people." His last Texas date was Monday in Austin.
If you caught the show Friday, you had the opportunity to see a chip off the old Door. Krieger's son, Waylon, is part of his band. "He only started playing when he was about 15. Up 'til then, he just thought his old man was a jerk." Waylon didn't know about the Doors and their music until his peers turned him on to it.
In our conversion, I found Robbie Krieger friendly and laidback—and willing to dispel Doors fact from fiction. He says Jim Morrison "didn't whip it out" during their disasterous appearance in Miami in 1970. "He was dead drunk, and we only did four songs, but that was it. If there was a scuffle, it was because people were mad about that. Then the stage collapsed and [the incident] was blown up.The cops weren't even mad at us; they were drinking beer with us backstage."
And Krieger scoffs at the motion that Morrison is still alive and well and walking the earth. "People like to think that, I guess." He also doubts that Morrison's remains will be moved out of Paris as rumored. "It's their third biggest tourist spot. Americans go to France just to see that. And their busloads of Japanese tourists there all the time."
His favorite Doors albums are the self-titled debut, and their final album as a foursome, "L.A. Woman". "We did the first album in two weeks. It was the same set we'd been playing live for two years, so it was good to finally get it on tape.
"We did `L.A. Woman' at our leisure, and mocked up a lot of studio in the studio, like `Riders On The Storm'." Krieger says he has no doubt that Morrison was planning to return from his French sabbatical and resume fronting the Doors. "We were writing and rehearsing new material, waiting for him to come back when we got the news."
These days, Krieger has his eye on doing movie soundtracks, releasing a second soundtrack for the Kevin Bacon thriller, "Stir Of Echoes", in the fall. It's been 30 years since Jim Morrison became legend—a stage-strutting, booze-guzzling, poetry-spouting madman who died at the top of his game, but Robbie Krieger did live through those crazy days and nights of the Whisky-A-Go-Go and the Sunset Strip.
Someone did get out alive.
Mark Williams
Entertainment Writer
The Bulletin Newspapers. Conroe, Texas 2001
In 1971, legendary Doors wild man Jim Morrison decided to take a break from L.A. and the band that made him infamous. The plan was for him to go to Paris and write poetry—maybe even dry out. In July of that year, Morrison was found dead in a bathtub, alledgedly the victim of a heart attack.
He was buried in Paris—his tombstone a must-see for every hitchhiking college kid and stoned tourist who blows through the City of Lights.> The remaining members of the Doors—guitarist Robbie Krieger, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, and drummer John Densmore—recorded three albums without their fallen Lizard King, but it just wasn't the same. They finally disbanded in 1973. For most bands, this would have been...you know, The End.
But a decade later, with the release of `Alive, She Cried'—an album made up of covers and cast-offs—the Doors were back in business. A pieced-together montage of film clips provided a video for the band's cover of Them's 1968 hit, "Gloria"—and MTV aired it in regular rotation, alongside Duran Duran and Culture Club. Danny's
Sugarman's epic chronicle of the band, `No One Here Gets Out Alive', was already in its umpteenth paperback printing, and Jim Morrison was back on the cover of the Rolling Stone for the first time in many a year, proclaimed by the magazine to be `Hot, Sexy & Dead'.
Nearly a decade after that, filmmaker Oliver Stone finished up his trilogy of films about the 1960s—following `Platoon' and `JFK'—with a movie about the band, simply called `The Doors'. Val Kilmer (who went on to portray other mythic figures, like Batman and Doc Holliday) played a zonked-out, hollow-eyed Jim Morrison, stoned and bickering with wife Pamela, played by up-&-comer Meg Ryan. There's lots of events that play into the Doors' ongoing legend: the overblown near-riot in Miami; the infamous `Ed Sullivan Show' appearance, when Morrison openly defied the producer's wishes to alter the lyrics of "Light My Fire"; the fairy tale that Morrison grew to be fat and happy in Paris, and he faked his own death to get out of the rock star rat race.
But it's their music—the poetry, the fuzzy jazz guitar, the keyboards both cheery and haunting—that has kept the Doors in the musical forefront for over three decades. "The fans do get younger," says Robbie Krieger, who appearred at the 19th Hole on Rayford-Sawdust Road last Friday. "Lots of times, their parents play our records for them, but a lot of them just hear our music on the radio."
The Doors are one of the few bands of the 60s that are considered more than just an oldies oddity. You're as likely to hear their music mixed in with the modern rock of KLOL as you are to hear it in the clasic rock blocks of the Arrow. It's an enduring American sound. While Motown's sterilized soul and the Beach Boys' moondog surf music are three-minute memories and commercial jingles, the music of the Doors has a modern, timeless edge—jazzy and theatrical, gothic and symphonic. Even the Beatles' masterworks seem somewhat dated—a souvenir of the era in which they were created.
Robbie Krieger wrote many of the Doors' best known songs—"Touch Me", "Love Me Two Times", the signature "Light My Fire"; you're likely to hear a fair share of Doors music tonight, but you'll also hear Krieger's own brand of moody jazz-fusion—a soundtrack for the mind. His latest release, `Cinematrix' is just that: a stimulation of the visual cortex through music.
"I think it has to make you [see] something. That's what I tried to achieve with [the CD]." Krieger's love of jazz always came through in the Doors' music, even moreso in that trio of post-Morrison albums—'Other Voices', `Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine', and `Full Circle'. "I always liked jazz, but I really studied it after the Doors. I really got a chance to listen to it and learn from it. Especially players like [60s jazz guitarist] Wes Montgomery."
Krieger has made a half-dozen or so albums over the years; while most were in the jazz-fusion mode, he has continued to branch out. Last May, he did a show with the Virginia Symphony— playing the classic Doors tunes on guitar, backed by a real live philharmonic orchestra. And there's talk that Krieger might hit the road with ex-bandmates Manzarek and Densmore, backed by an orchestra.
The Doors did re-group in rock-&-roll mode last October, filming an episode of VH-1's 'Storytellers'—playing the old songs and talking about how they came to be. It was the first the band played together since they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993—when they were fronted by Pearl Jam's grumpy, camera-shy grungemaster Eddie Vedder.
A shipload of frontmen from today's bands lined up around the block to pinch-hit for Jim Morrison this time around—including Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp from Creed, Lollapalooza founder Perry Ferrell, and Travis Meeks from Days of the New, who came real close to capturing Morrison's passionate creepiness on 'The End'. Those vocalists are also found on a Doors tribute album, `Stoned Immaculate'; the uncut `Storytellers' show is available on DVD.Krieger's stop at the 19th Hole is part of short tour of Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. "I like small, out-of-the-way clubs. I like the atmosphere and I like the people." His last Texas date was Monday in Austin.
If you caught the show Friday, you had the opportunity to see a chip off the old Door. Krieger's son, Waylon, is part of his band. "He only started playing when he was about 15. Up 'til then, he just thought his old man was a jerk." Waylon didn't know about the Doors and their music until his peers turned him on to it.
In our conversion, I found Robbie Krieger friendly and laidback—and willing to dispel Doors fact from fiction. He says Jim Morrison "didn't whip it out" during their disasterous appearance in Miami in 1970. "He was dead drunk, and we only did four songs, but that was it. If there was a scuffle, it was because people were mad about that. Then the stage collapsed and [the incident] was blown up.The cops weren't even mad at us; they were drinking beer with us backstage."
And Krieger scoffs at the motion that Morrison is still alive and well and walking the earth. "People like to think that, I guess." He also doubts that Morrison's remains will be moved out of Paris as rumored. "It's their third biggest tourist spot. Americans go to France just to see that. And their busloads of Japanese tourists there all the time."
His favorite Doors albums are the self-titled debut, and their final album as a foursome, "L.A. Woman". "We did the first album in two weeks. It was the same set we'd been playing live for two years, so it was good to finally get it on tape.
"We did `L.A. Woman' at our leisure, and mocked up a lot of studio in the studio, like `Riders On The Storm'." Krieger says he has no doubt that Morrison was planning to return from his French sabbatical and resume fronting the Doors. "We were writing and rehearsing new material, waiting for him to come back when we got the news."
These days, Krieger has his eye on doing movie soundtracks, releasing a second soundtrack for the Kevin Bacon thriller, "Stir Of Echoes", in the fall. It's been 30 years since Jim Morrison became legend—a stage-strutting, booze-guzzling, poetry-spouting madman who died at the top of his game, but Robbie Krieger did live through those crazy days and nights of the Whisky-A-Go-Go and the Sunset Strip.
Someone did get out alive.
Mark Williams
Entertainment Writer
The Bulletin Newspapers. Conroe, Texas 2001