The Doors: Classic or Dud?

Listening to the new Doors Live in Boston 1970 triple CD. Morrison keeps it together pretty good for a drunk guy. (Liner notes say that his first move at soundcheck was trying to chop into the stage with the mic stand.)

Classic.

Mediocre poetry, but GREAT theatre.

Oh, for christ sake. Yeah, he wasn't Jeff Beck. Dude wrote "Light My Fire" - first song he ever wrote!!!

And his solo on "When the Music's Over" is mind numbing and totally psychedelic.

Light My Fire is kind of a dumb song, honestly - if you've ever heard anyone else sing it, it really comes through.

what u no liek jose feliciano? joolz driscoll did a nice verxion

dud. i mean sure, morrison's buffoonery is a well-worn subject, but i'd be able to dig it if he had even just a half-decent band behind him. specifically, john densmore sounds like he's desultorily checking his watch, like he'd much rather be doing something else.

one of the best favors the Who ever did for anyone was when they "accidentally" destroyed some of the doors' gear opening for them at a 1968 show.

Light My Fire is kind of a dumb song, honestly - if you've ever heard anyone else sing it, it really comes through.

Mae West's version is classic. So is Al Green's.

me:i liked the doors again when i realized that if you get past all the JIM MORRISON AMERICAN POET bullshit mythos they're basically a goth psych band fronted by an acid-damaged lounge singer
Bimble78:that's bloody right
me:which is fucking awesome

It's all about The End, folks. Throw Jimi Hendrix out the window, because it is ALL about this song:

bimble's goth heart loves you

"lost in a roman/wildneress of pain/
and all the children are insane"

I Netflixed this Doors collection DVD out of curiosity and it was pretty fun because I was really into the Doors in high school. But I'll never forget this one moment when i was watching the LA Woman video and I don't know if it was a different mix that put Jim's vocals more up front or what, but at 6:10 he makes this sound that brought the LOLZ. It sounds like he is

a)drunk
b)just tripped over something
c)still trying to be cool on the record

It's pretty damn funny!

Dud. I was recently at a party where the host had what I'm guessing must be every single Doors release ever (there were like five different 4cd bootleg comps to start with) and I accidentally told him they were crap. Pretty sure we'll never be friends but it doesn't matter, can't trust anyone who is THAT into the Doors.

Adam, was it the studio version?

Trying to pull it up on You Tube now...

one of the best favors the Who ever did for anyone was when they "accidentally" destroyed some of the doors' gear opening for them at a 1968 show.

Ha ha OTM

LOL

The speed-corrected mix of the 1st album sounds fantastic!

Which way was it corrected?

It was slowed down to the point of inaudibility.

After a bit of googling, it seems there's a fair bit more to this than speed correction - it's a remix, with elements that were inaudible or cut out restored. Be interested to know more about how it sounds. I'm almost used to hearing cleaned-up versions of recordings I know this well, but "finally, at the right speed" is a bit mind boggling.

"finally, at the right speed" is a bit mind boggling.

Thinking about how it took forty years (and umpteen remasters/reissues) for somebody at Doors Inc. to realize the album had been issued at the wrong speed=lolz

So, why are the Doors SO appealing in the early-to-mid teens? I can't dredge it up, I can't get it back.

I just got advances of their upcoming six-CD set - four live shows from NYC, January 1970. Morrison's delivery is hilariously over-the-top; he sounds like Tom Waits circa Bone Machine half the time, and like Ian Astbury's imitation of him the rest of the time.

http://www.wackypackages.org/originalart/scans/dud_rough.jpg

Imagine if they suddenly found out that all the Beatles albums had been recorded at the wrong speed.

YEAH WE COULD POLL ALL THEM MOTHERFUCKERS

anyone able to recommend a good book on the doors/morrison?

No, but I did read a really excellent breakdown in rolling stone a couple years ago of J.Morrison's final day/hours/death throes. Morbid, but great and probably searchable through internets.

Watching "When You're Strange" right now. LOL @ ripping off the opening of the Beatles Anthology, complete with pseudo "A Day in the Life" strings climax.

I thought it was silly at first, but I think Johnny Depp's narration is pretty fitting, probably because of that. Every moment in the Doors' career is expressed as if it was the coolest fact in the world and should blow your mind, man.

"They bought a billboard on the Sunset Strip."
(dramatic pause)
"No one had ever done this before."

anyone able to recommend a good book on the doors/morrison?

the Greil Marcus book is good and short ... a-and there's a chapter on Inherent Vice and "L.A. Woman"

"follow the music" the oral history/autobio of jac holtzman of electra records has a lot of great doors stuff in it

man late period doors live albums are INSANE

in a good way? don't think i've heard any late shows -- what are your reccs.

yeah in a great/hilarious/amazing way...in particular i'd recommend "Live in Detroit" because it's one entire show

they start up with roadhouse blues, then morrison stops the show and go "HEEELLO DETROIT" and everyone cheers...but then he says "How you doing Salt Lake? Hello Minneapolis!" and then spend like a minute and a half saying hello to every city he can think of to the crowd's bemusement

also getting to hear krieger go off the chain is pretty awesome, most underrated guitarist ever

cool, i'll check it out! & yeah krieger is a pretty rad player when he gets the chance.

lol this is pretty good. dead cats! dead rats! hard to know whether the rest of the band would be amused or distressed at morrison's antics. seems like at this point they're pretty good at just rollin' with it.

and you are right about krieger killing it here.

Yeah, the live albums from 1970 that Rhino's been releasing lately are pretty hilarious/great. There's a New York one that's got two full shows on it, spread out over four CDs, and at points it's like Morrison is prefiguring Andrew "Dice" Clay's The Day the Laughter Died.

actually had no idea the doors had been putting out so many vintage live shows. don't want them all or anything, but am into hearing a few... i wish more bands of their ilk would take the "beat the boots" approach, though maybe the doors have a unique, die-hard audience that makes it worthwhile for everyone involved, a la the Dead.

Yeah, there's five or six live sets on Rhino's Doors page.

otm on the dice clay thing...these are great, like half weird proto andy kaufman anti-comedy part a great band tearing it the fuck up

L.A. Woman (40th Anniversary Edition) was released this week:

The L.A. WOMAN 40th anniversary edition (Rhino 2-CD) features a never-before-heard song, She Smells So Nice, which captures the band--organist RAY MANZAREK, guitarist ROBBY KRIEGER, drummer JOHN DENSMORE and late singer JIM MORRISON--joyfully barreling through a full-throttle original before segueing into the blues standard Rock Me. As the song closes, Morrison can be heard chanting, Mr. Mojo Risin --an anagram of his name that was made famous during the bridge of L.A. Woman. The track was recently discovered by producer Bruce Botnick while reviewing the L.A. WOMAN session tapes.

lol "She Smells So Nice," sounds like a lost classic.

She Smells Sanctuary

well done

That is funny, a couple of months ago, I started reading No One Here Gets Out Alive, which I haven't looked at since college! I've been wanting to curl up with something old-fashioned this winter....of course, it sits on my table unfinished.

hot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bvHS7FAubs