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Band: The Doors
Album: The Doors
Elektra / East /West. First release vinyl mono / stereo: January 1967
many CD re-editions. best to date: The Doors: 'the complete studio
recordings: 1999.
The Rolling Stones had just made a tremendous impact with 'Aftermath' America was dreaming of a local reply. It came through The Doors. Of all the bands from that time, the Doors, seemed to be the only ones to have understood the darker side of LSD. That new fashionable drug.
As the 'Flower Power' generation had a great time sitting on the Golden Gate Park's grass, tripping and vibrating with those Jerry Garcia and john Cipollina spirals guitar solos, Jim Morrison and his pals will propose a totally different vision and dark vision. And of course (unfortunately) history will prove them right.
At the beginning, that band comes from the meeting of a Beatnik poet with three garage musicians. LA had seen it all (notably, the famous seeds of sky saxon); but Morrison's vision, seemed to have no terrestrial limits.
He had been fed from Nietzsche Rimbaud, and Artaud. Since 65' he wrote odes to the pacific ocean, sorts of satanic verses and dark incantations.
They had been kicked out from Lou Adler's offices (the pope of those times local scene).
So the debutants Doors, found an engagement in a dope dealers, whores and alcoholic bar, called the 'London Fog': Morrison, urged the band to write their first songs. 'The End' almost came at once.
Then came a remake of 'opera de quat'sous' 'Alabama Song' Ruthlessly manipulating the girls attracted by the singer the Doors could negotiate a three months contract at the prestigious Whisky a Go Go on Sunset boulevard
Here, for 90 days, they'll perform every night in front of an indifferent public, who came to applaud the Animals, Buffalo Springfield, Them Mothers of invention(Zappa) or captain Beefheart.
Arthur Lee (leader/lead singer of Love) convinced Jac Holzman president of Elektra to sign them, only for a pathetic one album contract. Not very impressed, Holzman, talked (a little scornfully) to the journalist eve Babitz: "beat-poetry led by some under-Jagger" said he
Told to be present at the sunset sound studios, the quartet, will now meet a producer, a very strange man from New York, by the name of Paul Rothchild. He'd just served an 8 months jail sentence for traffic of hashish. Son of an opera maestro, Rothchield, had recorded Dylan remarkably well in concert at Newport in 1963. And as he was the authoritative kind of man, he relied on the sound engineer Bruce Botnick
He will be the only one to channel the Morrison's madness who had destroyed everything in the studio, during the 11 minutes recording of that nightmare oedipian 'The End' he had thrown a TV set and two fire extinguishers at the control room glass
panel.
For Rothchild, Morrison was the ultimate schizophrene; one charming Jekyll, who could turn at any moment the dangerous Mr Hyde, as soon as he popped up an acid.
Unexpectedly, the first Doors album, is a venerable success that candidly offers himself with some ultramelodic backgrounds, some blues, (Back Door Man), toying with Hawaiian melodies, even germanics, and some easy listening.
In case of necessity, the band, (who had refused to hire a bassist, after some inconclusive audiences), can really rock like no one else can; squeezing from it's surramplified instruments, a very new sensation.
Imperial, Morrison lead that apocalyptic ride, describing it's mental chaos, with a non-pudic sensuality, not heard since the great hours of the hysterical pioneer gene Vincent.
When he heard the tapes, delivered to him by the end of 66', Holzman changed his mind about the Doors, and decided to invest much more in the first album, than what he originally intended. He offered to the band, a photo session in New York, for the cover, with not only one, but two photographers (a big luxury for those days).
In January, the rumour is amplified thanks to the single 'Break On Through (to the other side) an exiting single that unfortunately can't survive on radios. From then on, the mouth to hear thing will spread an do it's work, and so the news broke out; America, at last had it's band; as cool as the Beatles. Mails from fan readers in the first US rock mag 'Crawdaddy', visionary articles from sandy Pearlman and Richard Meltzer.
July 29 1967, a shortened version of 'Light My Fire' (song written by the Door's guitarist Robbie Krieger) will hit the charts, and bump the guys from Venice (California) number ones for one crazy summer (the summer of love). Morrison who had already nicknamed himself the Lizard King, had invested his first royalties on a black leather suit. He claimed to have been born from animal and human mixed intercourse, he had hit the road from Florida to California, and quote William Blake in
his texts.
His partners, offered a perfect blending of gullible hippies, vegs, meditations, spoke the hip slang of Laurel Canyon. But their jazzesque techniques can't deceive; great musicians, the Doors, are here to bail out the garage rock from it's groove, in opening ways to acid and visions.
On the charts of this fantastic époque, still shared by the dinosaures of the times, Aretha, Arthur Conley, Supremes, Stevie Wonder, and the British trend Beatles Stones, Donovan Who, the Doors made the same impact than an atomic bomb.
They despised their hit single, but advised to buy the album in all their interviews ''to better trip on it" said they.
So it's no surprise that all the locals L.A bands, will be approached by the business, and explode in their turn; Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, Canned Heat, Spirit ect ect ect
Very few people before, had recorded a so good first album.They'll afford themselves the luxury to record an even better second one.
Band members:
Jim Morrison - Singer
Ray Manzarek - Keyboards
Robby Krieger - Guitar
John Densmore - Drums
Track listing:
BREAK ON THROUGH
SOUL KITCHEN
THE CRYSTAL SHIP
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX
ALABAMA SONG (Whisky bar)
LIGHT MY FIRE
BACK DOOR MAN
I LOOKED AT YOU
END OF THE NIGHT
TAKE IT AS IT COMES
THE END
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