Nite City Media

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

A really cool 70s combo who passed by almost unnoticed even though they had Ray Manzarek at the helm....

Two cool albums lost to history...the 2nd only released in the then W Germany (US bases? I dunno why that happened) Got them back in the 70s but now they are as rare as talent in Oasis.

My all time fave is Holy Music off the 2nd album.
Danny wrote a couple of songs for them and there are a few Ray originals too....Anyone got a view on these guys

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"Filed in The Doors’ drawer, under M for Manzarek. Nite City could be seen as Ray’s Tin Machine, a band of equal parts doomed to stunted development in the shadow of the monument erected to The Doors. If you’re determined to effect a comparison between the two, vocalist Noah James’ musings on “Nite City” vaguely evoke Morrison, “Bitter Sky Blue” sounds like “Love Street” filtered through Mott the Hoople, and “Angel W/ No Freedom” has some of the dark dream imagery last seen on “Riders of the Storm.” The clarion call of organ at the onset of “Summer Eyes” would seem to promise more, but in fact there’s no reason to come knockin’ here for flashbacks of The Doors beyond the presence of Manzarek. Nite City is closer in style to The Tubes, Mott, even a little Aerosmith in Noah James’ vocals. It’s theatrical rock some of the time, plain old faceless rock the rest of it, and nothing that 1977 hadn’t seen before done better. The band still would have warranted a contract even without The Doors connection (hell, Baby Grand got one with less), but the lack of a strong musical identity would have been their eventual undoing anyway. I paid a few bucks for this elpee, so no skin off my potato, but I wouldn’t make tracking this down a mission. There must be some other Morrison-related arcana that warrants the interest, from bootlegs to saving money for a trip to his grave. And if you haven’t collected the post-Morrison Doors elpees or the opening efforts from The Butts Band and Manzarek, you don’t need to be worried about Nite City. "
Connoly & Co.com

The Doors' Ray Manzarek -- Nite City (1976)
Jimmy Hunter (2nd left in pic) moved to Los Angeles upon being selected as the new drummer of this super group of musicians led by The Door's keyboardist, Ray Manzarek on Twentieth Century Records. Paul Warren-guitar (Rod Stewart), Nigel Harrison (Blondie), and the mysterious Noah James (vocalist) After establishing their cult following in Hollywood, the group toured the US doing gigs with Heart, The Kinks, and The Ramones.

The Doors' Ray Manzarek --
Golden Days and Diamond Nights (1977)
This follow up album to "Nite City" Jimmy continues on as drummer of this super group of musicians led by The Door's keyboardist, Ray Manzarek with a label switch to Polygram. Paul Warren-guitar (Rod Stewart), Nigel Harrison (Blondie). With Paul now taking over the lead vocals, it includes Jimmy's first major recorded tune, "Riding On The Wings Of Love"--the albums single release.

"Jimmy is the man! Great drums, cool tunes, and one of the best producers around."
Ray Manzarek,The Doors

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Nite City: The Dark Side of L.A.

There's no way to write a story about Ray Manzarek and his new band, Nite City, without conjuring up the ghost of Jim Morrison, The Doors' late and lamented Lizard King. Morrison's spirit haunts Nite City just as surly as it lurks in the midnight alleys and slick, seamy streets of Los Angeles, a city Morrison seduced with the boldness of a young Romeo and spurned with the frenzy of an aging gigolo.
Nite City represents a restatement of The Doors' demonic spirit, but with the pragmatism and cool elegance of the '70s.
Even Manzarek's description of his current band draws on The Doors' satanic mystique. "Nite City sorta represents the dark side of L.A.," he said. "We're not the Eagles and we're not Jackson Browne. We're not part of the laid-back country scene. We're a big-city band. L.A. is a big city and we're part of both it's electricity and it's strangeness." Before his marriage Manzarek lived by night, prowling the city streets. "There were endless nights of wandering," he
said. "Everywhere-downtown a lot, and weird sections where most people don't go-the back streets of Venice."
Manzarek and I had just barely settled into a pair of plush chairs and the pianist's tasteful Hollywood home. As we spoke, Ray tried gently to discourage Pablo, his indefatigably curious son from pounding my tape recorder like a baseball glove.
Earlier in the day Danny Sugarman, Ray's manager, confidante and occasional co-lyricist, took me on the Jim Morrison Memorial Tour of L.A., pointing out the Lizard King's favorite watering holes and escape hatches-he often checked into motels to avoid career and domestic pressures. Once Morrison's boy-Friday, Sugarman is a veritable Doors encyclopedia, full of titillating trivia and anecdotes. To wit: Running parallel to Topango Canyon Drive is a thin, winding road Morrison nicknamed "Love Street." At the corner of Santa Monica Blvd. and La Cienega is Upside Down Studios, formerly The Doors office and rehearsal hall.
Manzarek and Morrison met at UCLA, where they majored in film and played in bar bands like The Ravens and the UCLA Film Crazies, a motley collection of cinema buffs who jammed at nearby Santa Monica saloons. The Doors were put together out of this musical jigsaw puzzle, landing their first paying gig at the London Fog, a club two doors up from the old Whiskey A Go Go on Sunset Strip. A hand-painted sign outside heralded their triumphant debut: "The Doors-a band from Venice."
The band made $50 a week ("It was all the guy could afford," Manzarek said generously), playing to depressingly sparse clumps of businessmen and an occasional sailor on shore leave. After four months, the owner screwed up enough courage to fire them ("I can't keep the same band forever," he apologized). Fortunately, the Whiskey's booking agent caught their farewell set and proceeded to hire them as a house band, opening for headliners like the Turtles, Love, and The Locos, Mexico's leading lounge act.
"Our first gig was with Them," Manzarek remembered. "God, were they great! The last couple of nights we jammed, with Morrison and Morrison singing together. Van was a lunatic then-a real crazy, drunken Irishman. He was the first person I ever saw sing with the mic upside down. He'd destroy anything on the stage." Elektra president Jac Holzman, at the Whiskey to see Love, fell in love with The Doors, particularly after their boozy rendition of Kurt Weill's "Whiskey Bar."
Thus began The Doors association with Elektra, a loyal, well-intentioned but folk music-oriented company that had, as Manzarek politely put it, "absolutely no idea how to promote us. They knew nothing about rock publicity or distribution. We happened by ourselves. Once they saw how it worked, especially Jac, the smartest record label president ever, they said, 'Ah hah, this is how it works,' and put their machinery into operation."
Morrison's early performances were restrained, even decorous. He was far from the Lizard King. "Oh, Jesus," Manzarek laughed. "He kept his back to the audience for the first six months. Going to the Whiskey and having to face real people was the most traumatic experience of his life. See, when we rehearsed-hell, even when we played in front of 15,000 people, we always improvised. The Doors never knew what we were gonna do. We'd huddle together and debate what the next tune should be.
"The huddle gave Jim energy. But at the Whiskey he had to leave the security of the circle and face the audience. Our eye-contact energy was gone but he soon learned to let the energy hit his back and just ride out into the audience. We kicked him in the ass all the time."
Nite City's current line up, framed by Manzarek's stately keyboard presence and the brooding theatrics of Noah James, (the band's recently canned lead singer whose unfortunate fondness for gaudy indian jewelry and bearskin overcoats may have hastened his exit) successfully exploits the creative tension of this process, even if it gives the stage show a bit of a ragged edge. Lead guitarist Paul Warren, a particularly agile soloist, sporadically sings his background harmonies wildly off-key, as if to add a hint of suspense to the proceedings.
Morrison's dilemma, as anybody who experienced a Doors show will surly recall, was his peculiarly ambivalent rapport with his audience. Manzarek labels him a "shaman," comparing a Doors performance to a preacher inspiring his congregation. Even from the start, there was a more tragic quality to the event, an atmosphere of love and hate, of compassion and contempt that could never be dissipated, not even by Morrison's increasingly desperate lunges from the stage.
"The frustration set in when Jim became the King of Orgasmic Rock," Manzarek said,. "At first the crowd got crazy with us. Then Jim's reputation got out and people said, 'OK, let's see you fall off the stage.' They just came for the sensationalism."
"It finally culminated in Miami," Manzarek explained calmly. "Jim got sick of seeing an arena full of eyeballs with bodies like stalks of corn. He said 'All right, ya wanna see something? You're just gonna stand there like a bunch of fucking idiots while everybody rubs your face in the shit of the world.' They just sat there. He said, 'Let's everybody hug each other. Take your clothes off and let's get naked. So you wanna see something? How 'bout this? Maybe this will get you off'."
I remember the incident well, having sneaked into the concert with a pair of friends through an open window in the girl's bathroom. We left immediately after Morrison's last gasp tirade, not exactly shocked (the lead singer of a local Miami band called the Exterminators made his name with much the same trick) but sorely depressed and dispirited that The Doors' erotic musical high-tribunal had degenerated into a botched, impotent hand-job.
Manzarek and Nite City have so far neatly avoided the impasse. First, by lowering the audience's expectations, and also, by relying on craftsmanship rather than the erratic stamp of genius. Near the end of our interview, Manzarek fought off his kid's onslaught of body punches long enough to read his astrological sign. "It says you're going to be OK," Ray explained, bouncing Pablo up in the air. "You're very creative and stable and you're a very rich kid."
No one knows this prophecy's promise and peril better than Ray Manzarek. He has lived it once before and would like to see Nite City-not just another Manzarek tax loss but a promising and evocative rock band-string along the vision a little further, and see where it leads.

By Patrick Goldstein Creem 1977

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Actually the Igster did jam with Manzarek when he had that band in the mid-70s, 'Night City' I think they were called. Manzarek used to wear glam-style makeup. I don't know if there are any recordings.

Nite City was the most annoying waste of talent (Ray, that is) that I have ever seen. Spring of '77, this would be. The singer--Noah something, I'm at work and I can't look it up--was the biggest asshole I have ever seen on a stage....if you thought those "new guy" singers on the VH1 thing were doing a bad Morrison, this dope was worse than any of 'em, by a long shot.....he wore a full-length fur coat onstage. He also wrote the lyrics to most of the songs, which were the WORST cock-rock-poseur crap you could imagine...

"Do you think that my summer eyes
Are looking better in the autumn light-tah,
Does it feel like it did before,
When I rode you laughing at the ocean shore....."

EEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!
Or how about this:

"I was drawn out West by a paranoid wind,
I hid down in L.A.,
Fell in with a high class of rolling people,
Lots of cocaine, and cleeeeean Mr. Jones."

Somebody he'p me! Oh, please he'p me!!!

The guitarist--one Paul Warren--was really annoying too. Not such a bad player, but he was one of those lunging grimacing guys. He belonged in a Savoy Brown tribute band.

The bass player, by the way, was Nigel Harrison, who was the second bassist in Blondie. (AFTER Nite City.)

Shame about all this, too, because some of the songs (excepting those lyrics) were pretty hap'nin'. Ray was, well, Ray. He wasn't trying to dress his playing up in New Wave clothes or anything like that. The opening riff to "Summer Eyes", the first song (quoted above) is very neat, just Ray on organ. Then Paul Warren chimes in and ruins it. Then the SINGING starts.......AIIIIIGGGHHH!!!!!

Ray, by the way, was makeup-free. Looked just like the 1968 Ray....pre-the really-long hair he had from 70-73.

If you happen to see the LP for two dollars, grab it. It's an interesting little study in lost promise.

Mike F.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"Manzarek formed a band called Nite City, a quintet which featured former Rare Earth guitarist Paul Warren and Blondie bassist-to-be Nigel Harrison. Their self-titled 1977 album generally consists of fairly typical mainstream rock songs, built around -- and distinguished by -- Manzarek's engaging keyboard-playing. The songs were co-written by Manzarek and vocalist Noah James, with Paul Warren and Danny Sugerman sharing credit on a few. Aside from a bit of Morrisonian poetry reading in the title track, you'd probably never know that Nite City was a Doors offshoot. This album was once considered a prototype of west coast new wave, but it's now hard to figure why. The album is listenable but hardly memorable; "Love Will Make You Mellow" and "Bitter Sky Blue" are the standout tracks.

Nite City recorded a second album called Golden Days Diamond Nights, on which Manzarek received name-above-the-title billing, but it was only released in West Germany, due to internal troubles at the short-lived 20th Century record label. If this album had seen the light of day elsewhere, it may have found a larger audience than the first. Give or take a subversive lyric or two, the album has a very commercial sound; it's not unlike a Jefferson Starship album from the day. James was no longer in the band, and most of the vocals were now handled by Warren, who sounded a little like Marty Balin. "Golden Days Diamond Nights" is no great achievement, but it's easy to take. "Ain't Got The Time" and "Blinded By Love" could have been hit singles. Manzarek takes the lead vocal on the eight-and-a-half-minute "America", a uniquely Manzarek-esque road song."
Rarebirds Review Page

[jimbo]

I've heard both Nite City albums and its good material. A shame the music wasn't noticed

[pep]

I read somewhere else that The Ramones had supported Nite City and that they did not go down very well with the chilled out Nite City fans who were not expecting the Fast and Loud Ramones the Ramones were big fans of The Doors Nigel Harrison joined Blondie after the Blondie bassist Fred Smith had left to join Television! Fred Smith is still the bassist in Television! I saw them in Bristol on wednesday night

[ensenada]

I read in JD's book that nite city played at the whiskey at some point and he saw them there. he said they made him cringe because the singer was attempting to imitate jim...he said ray gestured for him to come up to the drums book JD walked out.

did iggy pop sing with them at any time?

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

ensenada said:

I read in JD's book that nite city played at the whiskey at some point and he saw them there. he said they made him cringe because the singer was attempting to imitate jim...he said ray gestured for him to come up to the drums book JD walked out.

did iggy pop sing with them at any time?

That was Ray's 'Jim Memorial Dissapearance party' on July 3rd 1974...John showed he had class and walked out.......Ray has never been shy when it comes being a burke......I guess this was Rays way of dealing with Jim's loss but it was pretty shabby...

Anyhoo..... after Cherry Red released both Ray's albums maybe we can get them to do the same with the Nite City records....they obviously took notice as a lot of Doors fans emailed them about Ray's TWTSWR&R solo album so maybe we could put a word in for Nite City as both are damn good albums....spread the word...

send your view here....
[e-mail]

[ensenada]

jim's disappearance party?? its amazing that ray was starting the myth of jim pissing off to some island somewhere in the tropics...not dead, but disappeared! it looks like he had this whole myth set up from the beginning..setting himself up for his poet in exile book....is he doing it because he wants to believe jim isnt dead...or just to make money by starting this myth???

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

LA Free Press December 1976





Rock magazine 1977