The Doors: Classic or Dud?

Doors never seemed like hippies though

LA vs. SF

true - Jim's image was darker/more sinister in general, and the other dudes were like nerds

xp

Also, Jimbo died and so couldn't go on to embarrass himself (further) in the 70s like a lot of his contemporaries di

yeah the doors didn't seem like a hippie band at all, their vibe was scummy, drunk, destructive IMO, like more altamont 60s than woodstock 60s

yeah, & as film school dudes, seems like the doors were a bit more about creating a spectacle. had more "theater" in them than other 60s bands i think, both on the records and live.

btw in recent months after years of kinda hating the doors i've reverted to my 13/14 year old opinion of them being fucking amazing so maybe take it with a grain of salt

There was a lot of "acid rock" in the sixties and The Doors were more traditional rock and roll.

Cannot agree with this statement btw, in some ways they were weirder than most acid rock bands!

Acid rock? The Doors? "Roadhouse Blues" is a million times more "authentic" than shit like Blue Cheer. Jefferson Airplane were hippies and easily ridiculed.

True, acid rock is kind of unimaginative. I don't think the Doors are any weirder than literature and films that were contemporary then, however.

Growing up I didn't notice the Doors backlash until the mainstreaming of early/mid-90s altrock. The classic rock kids I grew up with loved them, Jane's Addiction were huge fans, Jimbo and co. were goth icons, and the whole Lost Boys thing. But after the Oliver Stone movie hit the joke status seemed dominant and I'm not sure it's left since.

i go back and forth between loving and hating the Airplane...jorma was such a fucking monster electric guitar player though, he keeps me in the game

"volunteers" is stone jam

"Roadhouse Blues" is a million times more "authentic" than shit like Blue Cheer

don't think BC was really going for "authenticity" when they sludgified "Parchman Farm"...

Yeah and "Alabama Song", to name but one, is not exactly "authentic" rock n' roll, is it?

this would have been 1995, and we were in the dorms getting baked and drunk and watching the oliver stone doors movie over and over this one kid was just beyond gone and stood up and declared "I AM THE TURTLE KING, I CAN DO ANYTHING!"

that soundtrack was the first time a gang of ppl i know heard the velvet underground

i go back and forth between loving and hating the Airplane...jorma was such a fucking monster electric guitar player though, he keeps me in the game

And Paul Kantner consistently keeps me out of the game

lol

personally I love the movie, but am largely indifferent to the band itself

yeah as a kid in the 80s i really loved my dad's tape of the doors greatest hits, but once that movie came out and my friends and i laughed all the way through it, morrison seemed more like a joke. i've gotten over it, but it took a while.
my dad claims he saw them rehearse a couple of times before they hit it big. his story almost checks out.

I think pretentious critical blather is what scared some people off the Doors. To suburban parents in the sixties / seventies they were a great rock and roll band, and those people weren't avant garde types!

I mean, the Monkees and Neil Diamond had weird shit on their sixties albums. Everyone made psychedelic records back then!

That Doors movie is entertaining but kind of pretentious and stupid.

That Doors movie is entertaining but kind of pretentious and stupid.

more or less how I would characterize the band itself tbh

Ditto. Stupid a bit harsh, more silly.

Pretentious, stupid....and awesome for dancing!

man i'm listening to Live at the Matrix, 67 Doors show, this is totally propping up my "they invented punk" thesis...this is skronky as hell

also: X

Hey, the ripped off the Seeds, of course they sound punky!

I think pretentious critical blather is what scared some people off the Doors.

----

People didn't pay as much attention to critics back then.

These statements seem in opposition, yet they both came from you. Reconcile?

only 100 people read criticism about the doors in the 60s, but they all were scared off

Rollins loves the Doors: "The Doors made you think. They were a bummer at the love-in.
Morrison forced you to confront the darkness you tried to shut out with your shiny happiness."
i don;t know what this means. other than that morrison + iggy sorta created that archetypal confrontational frontman.

"the bummer at the love-in" = A+

Hey, the ripped off the Seeds, of course they sound punky!

― Charles Kennedy Jumped Up, He Called 'Oh No'. (Tom D.), Thursday, January 26, 2012 1:01 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

in jac holtzman (founder of electra records') book, it comes out that perhaps a bigger influence on the doors were actually Them (van morrison's band)...apparently, Them were super crazy and unhinged live, and people in that book said whenever they played LA jim was right up by the stage and apparently bit a lot of van's stage moves and presence

morrison was also supposed to be heavily into Arthur Lee & Love, who of course invented both punk and prog.

More than happy to reconcile, and I am so sorry about my lack of clarity.

Someone brought up the Doors film by Oliver Stone, and the accompanying press about both the film and the band, much of it kind of self-indulgent and pretentious. This is eighties criticism.

In the second sentence, I was responding to a question about critical reception in the sixties / seventies. This is the truth, I'm sure many "rock" critics can confirm this...people consumed music, you were participating in culture. Critics' opinions were not as important.

I'm sorry about my lack of clarity.

In any case, if you want some good Doors reading, get this:

http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/102610000/102617393.jpg

man this Matrix show is so great

"Crystal Ship" seems so epic for 2:51

darkness doesn't necessarily mean not psychedelic/hippie... that innocent hippie image seemed to be more of a media/punk strawman, the scene and psychedelic experience could be pretty dark/ritualistic

but anyways I'd consider the Doors more of a Goth band than a Punk band

yeah, & as film school dudes, seems like the doors were a bit more about creating a spectacle. had more "theater" in them than other 60s bands i think, both on the records and live.

― tylerw, Thursday, January 26, 2012 12:46 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

iirc the beeb doc makes this connection too! something about a "living theater" troupe in LA in the 60s, lots of genet etc, very "confrontational"

i found a link which may or may not be it

http://www.livingtheatre.org/about/history

whether there is an explicit connection or just the doc drawing lines idk

yeah, morrison was heavy into that stuff -- http://www.doors.com/miami/one.html

Scaruffi ranks the first Doors album as the #1 psychedelic album

I kind of feel like The Doors were sort of the middleman between Love and the Stooges; is there any Doors song that really stands up punk-wise to "7 and 7 Is" or "No Fun"?

apparently, Them were super crazy and unhinged live, and people in that book said whenever they played LA jim was right up by the stage and apparently bit a lot of van's stage moves and presence

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dCVZ3U_lipU/S_iOHz8J4rI/AAAAAAAAS_Q/dF9uR9B_dHI/s400/whisky.jpg

I'm about halfway through Densmore's memoir, Riders on the Storm -- kind of goofy, but worth reading for its creepy depiction of the rest of the band alternately ignoring, enabling, and fretting over Morrison's self-destruction.

but basically:

i saw this interview with johnnny ramone and i thought it was interesting when the interviewer asked him about bands he liked, he said the Doors were the only good american band of the 1960s, said he worshiped them..

i know iggy idolized the doors too, so Johnny + Iggy = the founders of punk to me...

the doors had that darkness and artiness and also a real confrontational vibe that seems to prefigure punk in a lot of ways

at the same time, i can't imagine, for instance, the full on organ workout version of light my fire, with its jazz/classical aspirations, couldn't have been a major influence on the first-gen prog dudes like rick wakeman, ELP, yes etc

so the doors basically invented everything

― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, January 26, 2012 1:37 PM (2 hours ago)

i go back and forth between loving and hating the Airplane...jorma was such a fucking monster electric guitar player though, he keeps me in the game

"volunteers" is stone jam

― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, January 26, 2012 1:53 PM (2 hours ago)

^^^greatest rock critic who ever lived

I read the Densmore book; it's okayish though anything post-Doors (or even late Doors) doesn't really hold my attention

I kind of feel like The Doors were sort of the middleman between Love and the Stooges; is there any Doors song that really stands up punk-wise to "7 and 7 Is" or "No Fun"?

I don't think you're too far off but their mid-point was relative Love's softer/poppier side, not their garage rock side. The Doors' material never got as willfully stupid/crude as the songs you mention.

I do recall lol'ing at Iggy's line that you might as well call him "Jim Jagger or Mick Morrison"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BhszZ53SEC8

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/903111_4865280425971_368924073_o.jpg

aw

lol

perfect

It sort of looks like he's a cardboard cutout.

Dark times at Maine Labor Department

^^^unreleased Doors jam from the LA Woman sessions.

somebody get that poor old man a reacher grabber. he's going to fall and break his hip.

I saw The World of Jacques Demy last night--some footage of Morrison visiting the Donkey Skin set. (YouTube clips blocked, but this seems to work.)

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb2poa_jim-morrison-tres-court-a-regarder_music