The Irish Times
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Eoin Butler
'That Dark, Irish Drunk Jimbo Killed My Friend Jim Morrison. I Hate That Jimbo'
Ray Manzarek the former Doors keyboardist talks to Eoin Butler recalls jamming with Jim - and Van - Morrison
You’re coming to Dublin to play the Grand Canal Theatre this month. What can fans expect?
Basically, it’s going to be a five-man rock’n’roll band with new lead singer, backed by the Lombard Philharmonia Orchestra, playing all of The Doors biggest songs. It’s going to be a tremendous wall of sound, I hope.
What do you do when you’re not on tour?
Well, I live in wine country, Napa Valley in California. So when I’m not touring I read, garden and take care of the fish pond. We have a small orchard that’s coming into fruit as we speak. My wife has a lovely little vegetable garden so, when we’re not taking care of that, we’re going out to some of the gorgeous local restaurants and drinking Californian wine. It’s a good life.
Having lived through the madness of the 1960s you seem to have come through it a remarkably stable and well-adjusted man.
Well, I was the oldest member of the Doors. It was always my job to hold things together. I was the Apollonian instinct to balance out Jim Morrison’s Dionysian madness. But I took LSD. I opened the doors of perception, learned that life is infinite, that creation is the energy of a divine creator.
Okay, I think you might have just blown my mind there. As the years have passed, do you see the idealism of that decade in a different light at all?
No, I see it in exactly the same light. It’s the light of truth, the light of sun, the light of the divine energy. Once you see it that way, nothing ever changes. But I guess I was lucky, too, in having my wife Dorothy to share my life. We’ve been married since 1967. When you find somebody to love, you can do anything.
What’s the biggest misapprehension people have about Jim Morrison?
(Slightly prickly) I don’t know, man. You tell me what people think and I’ll tell you whether it’s true or not.
Well the picture of him that emerges from the Danny Sugerman book and the Oliver Stone film is of a talented guy who was also a pretty mean drunk.
That’s largely correct. I think that what people have to realise is that Jim was first and foremost a poet, writing about deep, dark Freudian secrets. Walking along the Venice Beach in southern California talking about philosophy and art and our favourite saxophone players. That’s the guy I put a rock’n’roll band together with.
You didn’t like the film?
Not really. Jim Morrison was a witty, charming, intelligent man. He was also – as you say – a mean drunk. But onscreen, we only got the mean drunk. We didn’t get the warm, loving, funny Jim, too.
You’re in your 70s now. He was 27 when he died. It may seem an odd question, but has your relationship with him changed at all over the years?
No. It’s still a love-hate relationship. That is to say, I love him. But I hate him for dying. It was Jimbo – the alter-ego of Jim Morrison, that dark, Irish drunk – who took himself to Paris. And Jimbo that killed my friend Jim Morrison. And I hate that Jimbo.
Which of the old songs do you most like to play and are there any you don’t enjoy playing?
Well, I love to play Light My Fire because the improvisation is front and centre on that song. The songs I don’t love to play so much are the ones that have complex chord changes I have to remember. But for me the best part of live performance is sitting at the keyboard making music with my buddies and – as we used to call it – tripping out.
Speaking of joie de vivre, finally, did I read somewhere that you once shared a stage with Van Morrison?
(Laughs) Our very first gig as the house band at legendary LA live venue the Whiskey a GoGo was supporting Them. We couldn’t believe it. We were huge, huge fans. On the last night we ended up jamming with them. Van was holding the mic stand upside down singing “G-L-O-R-I-A”. Jim was perched on the amplifier behind him singing along. Van was very young, but even then he seemed tired. I remember him asking me if I ever got sick of being on the road and playing music all the time. I said, “I’m really sorry Mr Morrison, but this is our first gig. We absolutely love it.”
Do you ever wonder why he performs if he hates it so much?
Ah, he doesn’t hate it. Van was just the kind of guy who likes to complain. But he loved being onstage. Wow, it’s really amazing to think that was 45 years ago now. And he’s still touring. He’s still playing.
Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of The Doors and the Lombard Philharmonia Orchestra play the Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin on July 17
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/magazi...4274104743.html
THE OFFICIAL JOHN DENSMORE FORUM > The Doors > Doors Articles And History Forum (Requires Registration)
Speaking of joie de vivre, finally, did I read somewhere that you once shared a stage with Van Morrison?
(Laughs) Our very first gig as the house band at legendary LA live venue the Whiskey a GoGo was supporting Them. We couldn’t believe it. We were huge, huge fans. On the last night we ended up jamming with them. Van was holding the mic stand upside down singing “G-L-O-R-I-A”. Jim was perched on the amplifier behind him singing along. Van was very young, but even then he seemed tired. I remember him asking me if I ever got sick of being on the road and playing music all the time. I said, “I’m really sorry Mr Morrison, but this is our first gig. We absolutely love it.”
God Almighty he is still telling this bloody stupid story. When is someone gonna have the balls to say 'sorry Ray but thats not true'.
Although it's been written that The Doors opened for Them with Van Morrison on thier very first night as the house band that's not true. They auditioned and were officially hired in early May and started work on the 23rd opening for Captain Beefheart , Buffalo Springfield and Love before Them hit toen for a two week run beginning June 2nd.
The Doors By The Doors page 55
The only person who has ever told this untruth used to play keyboards for The Doors and like so many Myths about The Doors and Jim Morrison comes from the cavernous gob of Ray Manzarek.
(Laughs) Our very first gig as the house band at legendary LA live venue the Whiskey a GoGo was supporting Them. We couldn’t believe it. We were huge, huge fans. On the last night we ended up jamming with them. Van was holding the mic stand upside down singing “G-L-O-R-I-A”. Jim was perched on the amplifier behind him singing along. Van was very young, but even then he seemed tired. I remember him asking me if I ever got sick of being on the road and playing music all the time. I said, “I’m really sorry Mr Morrison, but this is our first gig. We absolutely love it.”
God Almighty he is still telling this bloody stupid story. When is someone gonna have the balls to say 'sorry Ray but thats not true'.
Although it's been written that The Doors opened for Them with Van Morrison on thier very first night as the house band that's not true. They auditioned and were officially hired in early May and started work on the 23rd opening for Captain Beefheart , Buffalo Springfield and Love before Them hit toen for a two week run beginning June 2nd.
The Doors By The Doors page 55
The only person who has ever told this untruth used to play keyboards for The Doors and like so many Myths about The Doors and Jim Morrison comes from the cavernous gob of Ray Manzarek.
Whisky Go Go Website
History
May 9, 1966 The Doors (audition)
The Doors, then playing other, lesser clubs in Hollywood, have a successful audition and by June they become the “house” band for the next few months, playing every night regardless of whether other acts are booked.
May 23-27, 1966 Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band, Buffalo Springfield, The Doors
Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band were from the High Desert area around Lancaster, and were known as the heaviest blues band in Southern California.
May 28-June 1, 1966 Love, Buffalo Springfield, The Doors
The Van Morrison list has Them starting a residency on May 30, with Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band opening, sometimes with Frank Zappa sitting in with Them and The Magic Band. Them had June 1, 1966 (Wednesday) off, so Love perhaps headlined that date.
June 2-18, 1966 Them, The Doors
Strange as it may seem today, Van Morrison’s moody but dynamic performances as the lead singer of Them were a significant influence on Jim Morrison’s Lizard King persona as lead singer of the Doors.
Buffalo Springfield and The Association were probably second billed in the subsequent weeks, along with The Leaves and The Grass Roots. During this month, Them, The Doors, Buffalo Springfield are all regular performers almost every night, although the other groups named appear as well. On the last day, Them and The Doors play together for the last set, including a 25 minute In The Midnight Hour and a 20-minute Gloria.
June 22-July 10, 1966 Gene Clark and The Group, The Locos, The Doors
Gene Clark had left The Byrds in March 1966 due to his fear of flying. This was a rare performance by Gene and his band The Group, featuring Bill Rinehart (ex-Leaves) on lead guitar, Chip Douglas (ex-Modern Folk Quartet, soon-to-be Monkees producer) on bass and drummer Joel Larson (ex-the ‘original’ Bay Area Grass Roots).
July 16-23, 1966 The Turtles, First Review, The Doors
The Turtles, from nearby Westchester, are now dismissed as a trivial pop band (with lead singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan colluding with Frank Zappa to trivialize their history), but in fact the group were first-class musicians who played excellent contemporary folk-rock. Irrelevant Trivia: Ross’s daughters (Jessica and Elinor) had goldfish when they were children. The fish were called Mark and Howard after Volman and Kaylan. They eventually escaped (the fish not the children) to be replaced by Gomez and Lurch.
July 27, 1966 Johnny Rivers, Chambers Brothers, The Doors
The Chambers Brothers had been part of the Los Angeles folk scene at the Ash Grove, but the multi-talented group had since moved to Cambridge, MA and had remade themselves as a sort of psychedelic soul outfit. The initial single of Time Has Come Today was recorded around this time, although the longer, more famous version was not recorded until 1967.
August 1-4, 1966 Johnny Rivers, Chambers Brothers, The Doors
August 7-9, 1966 Johnny Rivers, Chambers Brothers, The Doors
August 10, 1966 The Doors
Elektra’s Jac Holzman sees The Doors this night. It’s not clear who else was on the bill, but Jerry Fuentes thinks it was Love.
August 11-21, 1966 Love, The Doors
On August 21, The Doors are fired one night when Morrison misses the first show entirely (not for the first time) and although the band drags him back from his hotel he is not really in a state to perform. His obscene rant on The End causes club owner Elmer Valentine to fire the band, who by this time has already signed with Elektra.
http://www.chickenonaunicycle.com/Whisky-A...o%20History.htm
History
May 9, 1966 The Doors (audition)
The Doors, then playing other, lesser clubs in Hollywood, have a successful audition and by June they become the “house” band for the next few months, playing every night regardless of whether other acts are booked.
May 23-27, 1966 Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band, Buffalo Springfield, The Doors
Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band were from the High Desert area around Lancaster, and were known as the heaviest blues band in Southern California.
May 28-June 1, 1966 Love, Buffalo Springfield, The Doors
The Van Morrison list has Them starting a residency on May 30, with Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band opening, sometimes with Frank Zappa sitting in with Them and The Magic Band. Them had June 1, 1966 (Wednesday) off, so Love perhaps headlined that date.
June 2-18, 1966 Them, The Doors
Strange as it may seem today, Van Morrison’s moody but dynamic performances as the lead singer of Them were a significant influence on Jim Morrison’s Lizard King persona as lead singer of the Doors.
Buffalo Springfield and The Association were probably second billed in the subsequent weeks, along with The Leaves and The Grass Roots. During this month, Them, The Doors, Buffalo Springfield are all regular performers almost every night, although the other groups named appear as well. On the last day, Them and The Doors play together for the last set, including a 25 minute In The Midnight Hour and a 20-minute Gloria.
June 22-July 10, 1966 Gene Clark and The Group, The Locos, The Doors
Gene Clark had left The Byrds in March 1966 due to his fear of flying. This was a rare performance by Gene and his band The Group, featuring Bill Rinehart (ex-Leaves) on lead guitar, Chip Douglas (ex-Modern Folk Quartet, soon-to-be Monkees producer) on bass and drummer Joel Larson (ex-the ‘original’ Bay Area Grass Roots).
July 16-23, 1966 The Turtles, First Review, The Doors
The Turtles, from nearby Westchester, are now dismissed as a trivial pop band (with lead singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan colluding with Frank Zappa to trivialize their history), but in fact the group were first-class musicians who played excellent contemporary folk-rock. Irrelevant Trivia: Ross’s daughters (Jessica and Elinor) had goldfish when they were children. The fish were called Mark and Howard after Volman and Kaylan. They eventually escaped (the fish not the children) to be replaced by Gomez and Lurch.
July 27, 1966 Johnny Rivers, Chambers Brothers, The Doors
The Chambers Brothers had been part of the Los Angeles folk scene at the Ash Grove, but the multi-talented group had since moved to Cambridge, MA and had remade themselves as a sort of psychedelic soul outfit. The initial single of Time Has Come Today was recorded around this time, although the longer, more famous version was not recorded until 1967.
August 1-4, 1966 Johnny Rivers, Chambers Brothers, The Doors
August 7-9, 1966 Johnny Rivers, Chambers Brothers, The Doors
August 10, 1966 The Doors
Elektra’s Jac Holzman sees The Doors this night. It’s not clear who else was on the bill, but Jerry Fuentes thinks it was Love.
August 11-21, 1966 Love, The Doors
On August 21, The Doors are fired one night when Morrison misses the first show entirely (not for the first time) and although the band drags him back from his hotel he is not really in a state to perform. His obscene rant on The End causes club owner Elmer Valentine to fire the band, who by this time has already signed with Elektra.
http://www.chickenonaunicycle.com/Whisky-A...o%20History.htm
Q: Having lived through the madness of the 1960s you seem to have come through it a remarkably stable and well-adjusted man.
A: "Well, I was the oldest member of the Doors. It was always my job to hold things together. I was the Apollonian instinct to balance out Jim Morrison’s Dionysian madness. But I took LSD. I opened the doors of perception, learned that life is infinite, that creation is the energy of a divine creator."
Ray goes on about LSD as if it didn't turn on him and nearly cause him a mental breakdown. He needs to shut his cakehole about it. As for the rest of it - hands up who's SICK AND TIRED of this Apollo/Dionysus crap.
All that nonsense aside, there is no evidence whatsoever that Jim was Irish or had Irish antecedents. His father's family was Scottish.
A: "Well, I was the oldest member of the Doors. It was always my job to hold things together. I was the Apollonian instinct to balance out Jim Morrison’s Dionysian madness. But I took LSD. I opened the doors of perception, learned that life is infinite, that creation is the energy of a divine creator."
Ray goes on about LSD as if it didn't turn on him and nearly cause him a mental breakdown. He needs to shut his cakehole about it. As for the rest of it - hands up who's SICK AND TIRED of this Apollo/Dionysus crap.
All that nonsense aside, there is no evidence whatsoever that Jim was Irish or had Irish antecedents. His father's family was Scottish.
QUOTE (mewsical @ Jul 10 2010, 11:54 AM) 
hands up who's SICK AND TIRED of this Apollo/Dionysus crap.
I have both hands up!
What’s the biggest misapprehension people have about Jim Morrison?
(Slightly prickly) I don’t know, man. You tell me what people think and I’ll tell you whether it’s true or not.
Oh, yeah we all know Ray has told nothing but the truth through out the four decades since Jim's passing. NOT!
I just wish that one of these journalists would step up and counter Ray's bullshit answers. Too bad myself and Alex are not afforded the opportunity to question this guy. I told Ray what I thought to his face back in '95. Left him sitting there flabbergasted and Alex has tried to approach him in Paris but unfortunately his bodyguards closed ranks and wisked him away.
QUOTE (mewsical @ Jul 10 2010, 07:54 AM)
hands up who's SICK AND TIRED of this Apollo/Dionysus crap.
where did it all start - this stuff?
QUOTE (Helen @ Jul 11 2010, 02:07 AM)
where did it all start - this stuff?
Probably when the Three Amigos discovered how much money Morrison could bring in.
In 1972 they seem to have snubbed the blokes grave when they visited Paris as a trio but once they realised he was becoming a bit of a legend they decided he was suddenly their best friend and since that time have competed with each other to vie for that position.
Ray has always had the edge on them over that and he has constantly deified Morrison and exploited all sorts of bullshit rumours for personal gain.
The current crop of interviews keeps the loony drunken Morrison alive and well which is the medias favourite Morrison. Jim the shaman and Dionysus always popular with interviewers.
The hatchet job of a movie simply an extension of The Three Amigos bullshit over the last few decades.
Pretty much what you will see in 2011 when the Great Morrison 40 Years Gone Mooch will begin.
As they say with friends like that..................
QUOTE (Helen @ Jul 11 2010, 04:07 AM)
where did it all start - this stuff?
QUOTE (gotothelight @ Jul 13 2010, 08:58 AM)
Well, that's just Jerry Lee Lewis, who probably stole from some black honky tonk piano player.
QUOTE (gotothelight @ Jul 13 2010, 09:58 AM)
I would image the $500 (Gold Circle) ticket holders down front got their moneys worth, right?
Oh Gawd! What IS that???
Light My Fire
Ray Manzarek
Page 286 – 290
(Summer ’68 – Hollywood Bowl – July 4th weekend had been a success.)
Everything was going great, and then Jim walked into the office one day and said to me – the hammer was about to fall again – “Ray, I wanna quit.”
I couldn’t believe it. We had the number one single and the number one album. We were realizing our goal. The dream we had together on Venice Beach in the summer of ’65 was a reality. All the hard work had paid off….
And he wants to quit? My mind went blank. I couldn’t even think. Could you?
“Why?” was all I could manage to say.
Leon was at his PR desk, staring. Unbelieving.
“I just can’t take it anymore,” he finally said.
I was incredulous. This was easy. Rock and roll was the easiest and most lucrative thing I had ever done. And what an art form! What a great way to make a living. We were doing everything we wanted to do, creatively, artistically. The future was ours…and it was unlimited.
“What are you talking about, man? This is easy.”
He looked at me. He looked tired. His eyes looked tired.
“I’m tellin’ you Ray, I can’t take it.”
“But we don’t tour that much. It’s not like we’re on the road for months on end.” I began to pace the room as Jim flopped down on the couch. The tension was sucking the air out of the room.
“Want a beer, Jim?” Kathy asked.
“Yeah, Kathy. I need one.”
“We go out for a weekend or so and then we come home,” I said. “Four, five gigs at the most, and we’re back in L.A. We don’t go out more than every other week. Do you think we’re working too hard?”
“No, man. It’s not that…it’s…” He glugged the Tecate. Left me hanging there. I jumped into the void space. I needed to fill in the silence. I was panicking. We all were.
“The recording studio is easy. It’s not too hard making records, is it?”
“No…” He drank again. He seemed to need it. He drank as if his body, or some deep place in him needed to alcohol.
“Man this is everything we worked for, Jim. We’re there! And this is just the beginning.”
His head slouched down. He half mumbled under his breath, “I don’t think I can take it anymore.”
That stopped me. It froze me. I could only stare at him. He finished his beer, far too quickly. Finally, I spoke.
“But…why, Jim? What’s wrong?”
His head slowly came up. Our eyes met.
“I think I’m having a nervous breakdown.”
Kathy gasped. Leon dropped his fan magazine to the floor. They didn’t say a word.
“Oh. Man. No, you’re not. You’re just drinking too much. It’s starting to get to you.”
“No, Ray. I’m telling you…I’m having a nervous breakdown. I want to quit.”
Panic attack again. My heart my racing.
“You can’t quit. Not now!”
“You guys can go on without me. Get another singer, or something.”
“I don’t want to work with another singer. I wanna work with you. Jesus Christ, Jim. I never said this before…but, I love you.”
He looked up at me again. Through those too old eyes.
“I love you too, Ray.”
“Well, Christ, let’s not break it up now. I’ll tell you what…give it six months. If you feel the same way, we’ll break the band up.”
“And you’ll go on without me?”
“Jiiimm – I was sounding like Pam – “I don’t want to think about that now. I just want to feel good.” I sat down next to him. Put my arm around his shoulder. “You’re not having a nervous breakdown, you’re just tired. You gotta stop burning the candle at both ends.”
He smiled for the first time. “Yeah, I guess I do get a little excessive.”
The tension was broken. The air came back in the room. Kathy, Leon and I laughed.
“Just a bit,” I said.
“Okay, six months,” Jim said. “But I tell ya Ray. I think I’m having a nervous breakdown.”
Kathy finally spoke, “Jim, go home and go to bed. Just let Pam take care of you for the next couple of days. You need to rest.”
“Yes, Mother,” Jim said.
“And don’t drink,” I added.
“I don’t know about that, Ray.”
And he stood up and headed for the door. “Don’t call me for a couple of days, Kathy.”
“I won’t Jim,” she said.
And he looked at me, and his eyes became vulnerable. “I don’t feel so good, man” And he was out the door.
After he left, I thought, Freddy and Wes. Guns and booze. I’m not gonna let him break the band up because of too much drinking and craziness with ne’er-do-wells. And pilled out Jaguar rich girl trash. Fuck them. He’s got work to do and he’s going to do it. He’s got a gift like few others have and he’s going to share it with the world. He belongs to the people. To all of us. He’s not going to dissipate his poetic gift with guns and whiskey and downs. I won’t let him stop writing and singing to throw it all away on side arms, black beauties, and firewater. Nervous breakdown? Bullshit!
Now, however, I realize he was having a nervous breakdown. It was an impending psychological split. Jimbo was trying to take over. To destroy the band. To kill the shaman. To silence the poet. Jimbo with the help of those cowboys, was seeking dominance. He was trying to obliterate the Jim Morrison I knew and create a new, degenerate persona…Jimbo the shit-kicker. Jimbo the evil. Jimbo the dog man.
That day in the office, Jim knew he was in a battle for his soul. He knew he was up against a formidable opponent. He just didn’t know whom he was fighting. All he could feel was that he was being torn apart. Ripped in two. And he came to us for help. Jim didn’t want Jimbo to take over but he was losing the battle on his own. If only I had known then what I know now. I could have helped him.
But I was so caught up in the moment, in the joy of it all, in the thrill of riding to the top of the charts, in the giddiness of realizing our dream, in the delight of being flush for the first time in my life, in the exuberance of being the number one band in America…that I never wanted it to end. I was so in love with the dream that I wanted it to go forever. I was hooked. I was so in love with the dream that I wanted it to go on and on and on. Into infinity. Into the mystic, Forever. Wouldn’t you?
END.
Ray Manzarek
Page 286 – 290
(Summer ’68 – Hollywood Bowl – July 4th weekend had been a success.)
Everything was going great, and then Jim walked into the office one day and said to me – the hammer was about to fall again – “Ray, I wanna quit.”
I couldn’t believe it. We had the number one single and the number one album. We were realizing our goal. The dream we had together on Venice Beach in the summer of ’65 was a reality. All the hard work had paid off….
And he wants to quit? My mind went blank. I couldn’t even think. Could you?
“Why?” was all I could manage to say.
Leon was at his PR desk, staring. Unbelieving.
“I just can’t take it anymore,” he finally said.
I was incredulous. This was easy. Rock and roll was the easiest and most lucrative thing I had ever done. And what an art form! What a great way to make a living. We were doing everything we wanted to do, creatively, artistically. The future was ours…and it was unlimited.
“What are you talking about, man? This is easy.”
He looked at me. He looked tired. His eyes looked tired.
“I’m tellin’ you Ray, I can’t take it.”
“But we don’t tour that much. It’s not like we’re on the road for months on end.” I began to pace the room as Jim flopped down on the couch. The tension was sucking the air out of the room.
“Want a beer, Jim?” Kathy asked.
“Yeah, Kathy. I need one.”
“We go out for a weekend or so and then we come home,” I said. “Four, five gigs at the most, and we’re back in L.A. We don’t go out more than every other week. Do you think we’re working too hard?”
“No, man. It’s not that…it’s…” He glugged the Tecate. Left me hanging there. I jumped into the void space. I needed to fill in the silence. I was panicking. We all were.
“The recording studio is easy. It’s not too hard making records, is it?”
“No…” He drank again. He seemed to need it. He drank as if his body, or some deep place in him needed to alcohol.
“Man this is everything we worked for, Jim. We’re there! And this is just the beginning.”
His head slouched down. He half mumbled under his breath, “I don’t think I can take it anymore.”
That stopped me. It froze me. I could only stare at him. He finished his beer, far too quickly. Finally, I spoke.
“But…why, Jim? What’s wrong?”
His head slowly came up. Our eyes met.
“I think I’m having a nervous breakdown.”
Kathy gasped. Leon dropped his fan magazine to the floor. They didn’t say a word.
“Oh. Man. No, you’re not. You’re just drinking too much. It’s starting to get to you.”
“No, Ray. I’m telling you…I’m having a nervous breakdown. I want to quit.”
Panic attack again. My heart my racing.
“You can’t quit. Not now!”
“You guys can go on without me. Get another singer, or something.”
“I don’t want to work with another singer. I wanna work with you. Jesus Christ, Jim. I never said this before…but, I love you.”
He looked up at me again. Through those too old eyes.
“I love you too, Ray.”
“Well, Christ, let’s not break it up now. I’ll tell you what…give it six months. If you feel the same way, we’ll break the band up.”
“And you’ll go on without me?”
“Jiiimm – I was sounding like Pam – “I don’t want to think about that now. I just want to feel good.” I sat down next to him. Put my arm around his shoulder. “You’re not having a nervous breakdown, you’re just tired. You gotta stop burning the candle at both ends.”
He smiled for the first time. “Yeah, I guess I do get a little excessive.”
The tension was broken. The air came back in the room. Kathy, Leon and I laughed.
“Just a bit,” I said.
“Okay, six months,” Jim said. “But I tell ya Ray. I think I’m having a nervous breakdown.”
Kathy finally spoke, “Jim, go home and go to bed. Just let Pam take care of you for the next couple of days. You need to rest.”
“Yes, Mother,” Jim said.
“And don’t drink,” I added.
“I don’t know about that, Ray.”
And he stood up and headed for the door. “Don’t call me for a couple of days, Kathy.”
“I won’t Jim,” she said.
And he looked at me, and his eyes became vulnerable. “I don’t feel so good, man” And he was out the door.
After he left, I thought, Freddy and Wes. Guns and booze. I’m not gonna let him break the band up because of too much drinking and craziness with ne’er-do-wells. And pilled out Jaguar rich girl trash. Fuck them. He’s got work to do and he’s going to do it. He’s got a gift like few others have and he’s going to share it with the world. He belongs to the people. To all of us. He’s not going to dissipate his poetic gift with guns and whiskey and downs. I won’t let him stop writing and singing to throw it all away on side arms, black beauties, and firewater. Nervous breakdown? Bullshit!
Now, however, I realize he was having a nervous breakdown. It was an impending psychological split. Jimbo was trying to take over. To destroy the band. To kill the shaman. To silence the poet. Jimbo with the help of those cowboys, was seeking dominance. He was trying to obliterate the Jim Morrison I knew and create a new, degenerate persona…Jimbo the shit-kicker. Jimbo the evil. Jimbo the dog man.
That day in the office, Jim knew he was in a battle for his soul. He knew he was up against a formidable opponent. He just didn’t know whom he was fighting. All he could feel was that he was being torn apart. Ripped in two. And he came to us for help. Jim didn’t want Jimbo to take over but he was losing the battle on his own. If only I had known then what I know now. I could have helped him.
But I was so caught up in the moment, in the joy of it all, in the thrill of riding to the top of the charts, in the giddiness of realizing our dream, in the delight of being flush for the first time in my life, in the exuberance of being the number one band in America…that I never wanted it to end. I was so in love with the dream that I wanted it to go forever. I was hooked. I was so in love with the dream that I wanted it to go on and on and on. Into infinity. Into the mystic, Forever. Wouldn’t you?
END.
I was so in love with the dream that I wanted it to go forever. I was hooked. I was so in love with the dream that I wanted it to go on and on and on. Into infinity. Into the mystic, Forever. Wouldn’t you?
Ray makes a fair point I have to give him that.
But he blames Jim's firnds too easily and does not look at the part he John and Robby played in Morrison's downfall.
The audience too did not help with thier constant clamour for LMF when Jim wanted to do something else like COTL.
But of course how many of us would not join in the siren song of 'Light My Fire.....Light My Fire.....Light My Fire' at concerts?
I admit I would have been no different to the rest at a Doors gig. I am a little ashamed to admit it but it would be a lie to say any different.
A few months later and Buick added to Jim's mood as the three betrayed him to a car company.
Jimbo is trawled out often by these three as the reason for anything bad in The Doors story of 68/69 but it's not as clear cut as NOHGOA type storytelling would have us believe.
I feel a thread coming on
Ray makes a fair point I have to give him that.
But he blames Jim's firnds too easily and does not look at the part he John and Robby played in Morrison's downfall.
The audience too did not help with thier constant clamour for LMF when Jim wanted to do something else like COTL.
But of course how many of us would not join in the siren song of 'Light My Fire.....Light My Fire.....Light My Fire' at concerts?
I admit I would have been no different to the rest at a Doors gig. I am a little ashamed to admit it but it would be a lie to say any different.
A few months later and Buick added to Jim's mood as the three betrayed him to a car company.
Jimbo is trawled out often by these three as the reason for anything bad in The Doors story of 68/69 but it's not as clear cut as NOHGOA type storytelling would have us believe.
I feel a thread coming on
Jim: “We’re a partnership, artistically and financially. We share equally. In the beginning, a lot of it was to keep the unit together. We have a very different vision of reality, different points to make.” (1969 The Doors In Their Own Words p. 75)
MAY 1968: The Doors finished their 3rd album, “Waiting For The Sun.” This was a very difficult album to put together due to the fact that the majority of the lyrics and music was pieced together. Jim had hoped “Celebration of the Lizard” would have taken up one side of the album which in the final result only a small segment, “Not To Touch The Earth’ actually made it to vinyl. Jim was disappointed that COTL did not live up to his expectations. The band had been touring for most of 1967 and the spring of 1968 and the music and lyrics suffered the consequences when it came time to record ‘Waiting For The Sun.”
Jim Morrison: “I think most rock musicians and singers really do enjoy what they are doing,” he said. “It’d be physically unnerving to do it just for the bread. What screws it up is the surrounding bullshit that’s laid on them by the press, the gossip columnists and fan magazines…..All of a sudden everyone is laying all this extraneous bullshit on his trip. So he starts to doubt his motivation. There’s always the adulators – they just jangle the sensibilities. So you feel a little sense of shame and frustration about what you are doing. It’s too bad. It’s really too bad. (Break On Through p.252)
‘Although he had made very few concessions to commerciality, the public perceived The Doors as Jim Morrison and he was blamed the most for the shift toward Top 40. Morrison began seeing himself as a misunderstood poet living with the confines of the rock medium. More and more young kids were attending the shows now, and most of them couldn’t understand or appreciate his lyrics. They saw him only as a sex symbol and just wanted to hear the hits from the radio. The more he realized the words were being overlooked, the more frustrated he became. Jim Morrison wanted to be taken seriously as a poet more than anything else. He had always been interested in film and writing, and had taken on his duties with The Doors truly believing he couldn’t sing a note. Inside, Morrison wanted to be part of the artistic elite – recognized as a writer, a poet, a true artist.’ (Break On Through p. 252-253)
Jim: “It’s all done tongue and cheek – I don’t think too many people realize that. It’s not supposed to be taken seriously. It’s supposed to be ironic.” (1968 The Doors In Their Own Words p. 90)
Robbie: “With Jim, it was like the band, and the Voice of God up front, and everybody seemed to be overshadowed by that voice.” (1980 The Doors In Their Own Words p. 76)
JUNE 1968 Jim Morrison spoke with Ray Manzarek concerning his discontent in continuing to be a rock star. In short order, Jim wanted out of the band. Ray asked Jim to give the band another 6 months. Jim reluctantly went back to being the lead singer of The Doors.
‘Sometime in the summer of 1968 it began to dawn on him (Morrison), through the haze, that he was a rock star and, worse, that he was likely to remain one. Despite his sense of humor, no one took Morrison as seriously as Morrison took himself. Now, as the tongue in cheek Lizard King, he was forced to realize that he would never be so much Baudelaire and Rimbaud as he was Bozo Dionysus. As if grasping at a last way out of the ever expanding parody he was becoming of himself, Morrison decided to burst his own bubble. He saw the only way out and he took it. He walked into The Doors office and suddenly announced he was quitting the group. “It’s not what I want to do anymore,” he said. It was once, but it’s not anymore.”’ (Break On Through p. 252-53)
‘Amid the opened mouthed stares that greeted this remark, only Ray Manzarek was able to rise to the occasion. He talked to Jim, weighing the various possibilities and the ramifications of such a decision. In the end, Ray asked for and got six more months. But although Jim could reason out the logistics of a decision and make the right choice, he could not always live up to the commitment. There was something about Jim Morrison that always wound up doing exactly what he wanted to do whether it was the right choice or not.’ (Break On Through p. 253)
Rich Linnell: “At the beginning, for me being late ’66, early ’67 Jim always seemed to be little bit apart from the band. As time went on, Jim became more and more distant from the band. He would arrive differently, he’d come by himself, he’d leave earlier or later. Jim would have his little group in the dressing room and the three guys would have theirs. Robby, as recently as a few years ago would say, ‘yeah for along time it was the three of us against Jim. And then when we didn’t have Jim anymore, then we fought amongst ourselves.’” (A Feast Of Friends p. 82)
Vince Treanor: (Equipment Manager) “He (Jim) had no intention of quitting the band, That was all a myth, you know, just talk. He was scaring the group. What he was saying was ‘Does somebody love me? That’s all it was. He wasn’t stupid. Because the minute you take away a forum from a guy like Jim, he becomes a nonentity. What the hell was Morrison gonna do without The Doors? When a guy needs a stage to speak from is he going to quit the stage? And what would he do for money? How would he pay for his drinking, his parties, all those plane tickets, and those bashes in Palm Springs? The boy wasn’t stupid.”
MID – JUNE 1968, The Doors have a band meeting to discuss the up and coming show at the Hollywood Bowl touted in the press to be “The Biggest Rock Event Of The Year.”
Vince Treanor remembers: “Everybody was called into a big meeting……all The Doors, myself, Bill Siddons, and Kathy Lisciandro (Frank’s wife who was now The Doors secretary). Ray had worked out an elaborate production idea for the show – having the band wear Kabuki masks and Oriental theatrical costumes with special lighting and dances…..a whole theatrical production. It was very interesting with all this incredible shit going on before, during and after the performance. But the other guys felt that it just wasn’t The Doors. Jim didn’t say much of anything. He didn’t give a damn what they did. He didn’t care if they had fire hoses onstage at that point. “Just give me my microphone and do whatever you want to do.” Jim was pretty straightforward about what he wanted to do. “Let’s just get up there and do it. None of the bullshit.”
Jim had given his word that he would give the band another 6 months, but inside he already had his mind made up to shed the sex symbol image forever. In addition, it was getting harder for Morrison to communicate with the rest of the band.
Although the audience expected to see Jim Morrison, the wild man, Jim the Shaman, Jim the Lizard King perform at the Hollywood Bowl on July 5, what they got was a lead singer who ingested acid prior to going to stage. Jim was subdued and rather humorous during this performance. Jim was up for the theatrics and pulled it off on que during the “Unknown Solider” but his heart surely wasn’t in this performance. The Jim Morrison that the audience had come to rely on for their amusement was absent on this night.
The Doors traveled to the East Coast of the States as part of their ’68 tour. In September they headed to the U.K. securing a memorable performance at London’s Roundhouse which was filmed by Granada TV. Jim Morrison ingested a huge amount of drugs on the streets of Amsterdam and was unable to go on stage. While Jim was carried off to the hospital, Ray stepped in to sing the lyrics. Robby professed that the audience should have been refunded their money, but the show went on as scheduled without Jim.
SEPTEMBER 21 1968: The Doors with exception of Jim and Pam, return to Los Angeles after finishing their last gig in Stockholm, Sweden. Jim and Pam remain in London at the Belgravia Hotel through October 20 1968. (Doors On The Road p. 133)
OCTOBER 2 or 3, 1968 while Jim Morrison is in London, the other band members are approached by Buick with a lucrative offer for the use of “Light My Fire” as an underscore to a commercial. After efforts to contact Jim fail, they agree to the proposal. (The Doors On The Road p. 134)
‘While Jim and Pam were gone, another incident happened that drove a wedge between Morrison and the rest of the group/ An ad agency offered the band considerable money to use “Light My Fire” in a Buick commercial.
Bill Siddons: “Jim had decided to disappear. Which for me, was the first time he disappeared. For four days no one had any idea where he was and suddenly Buick was offering close to a hundred thousand dollars to use, “Light My Fire.” Since Robby was the actual writer of the song, I felt he should make the decision. For some reason it was a high pressure, ‘You gotta give an answer now’ situation, so together we all decided, ‘Well, what the hell…..why not? You, know, we were all practically teenagers. I mean, Ray was the old guy at twenty-five. And Jim came back in a couple of days and just freaked out. He thought it was the tackiest thing in the world to do with The Doors’ music. Subsequently, I figured out that he was absolutely right. Jim knew what The Doors were doing and for what they meant to people, it was the wrong thing to do. Obviously it didn’t destroy their career, but it created a real anger in him (Jim) and the other three Doors. He felt betrayed by them because of it. And no one did it to betray him. We didn’t know what to do and it was free money being dangled in front of us.”
Columbus Courson (Pamela Courson’s Father): “Jim was mad as hell. He called Ray and said, ‘Hell, this song will be classic. We sell it in a damned ad, that’ll be the end of it, nobody’ll ever give it anything.’ He was just furious, and he hung up on him. And Pam said, ‘Jim, he’s your best friend;’ and Jim was sort of violent….and she said, “Well, what are you going to do? He said, ‘Don’t worry, they’re not gonna let their little goldfish swim away.’”
Rich Linnell: “One of the few times I saw Jim angry was when he found out about, “Come on Buick Light My Fire.” Out of control. He felt betrayed. His partners had betrayed him, they had sold out to corporate America without asking him. I was there when he told them, “How could you do this to me? This my band too. How could you make that decision without me? One of them said, “Well man, you didn’t tell us where you were going, and the offer would have expired.” “So What?” He just didn’t get it. Whether he was gone for a day or a month, it didn’t matter, but you don’t sell out to the establishment. Postpone it or cancel but don’t give my soul away. That was the end of the dream. That was the end of that era of Jim’s relationship with the other members of the band; from them on it was business. That was the day Jim said, “I don’t have partners anymore, I have associates.” (A Feast Of Friends p. 83)
Cheri Siddons: He was an artist. And I think the angriest he ever was happened when The Doors decided to let Buick use “Light My Fire.” I just remember this real unhappiness. I think if he ever was going to yell, he would have yelled that day. He didn’t yell, but to me it was almost like a light switched off. That was like the last straw somehow. I’m not sure if he really liked Robby, Ray and John after that. I think he could sense they had different purposes; they were more into the money and the business and would sacrifice some of the art for that. Jim as not willing to sacrifice the art for anything. (A Feast Of Friends p. 126)
Jim: “I’m the square of the western hemisphere. Whenever somebody’d say something groovy, it’d blow my mind. Now, I’m learning, I hate people. I don’t need them. If I had an axe, I’d kill everyone…….except my friends.” (1968 The Doors In Their Own Words p. 89)
Ray Manzarek recalls the Buick Commerical fiasco in his auto-biography, Light My Fire published in 1997:
“So to be asked to use a rock song over a commerical for a new, sharp little machine was at once lucrative and subversive. We could get "Light My Fire" played again on national television. We could get rock and roll on a medium that had very little to do with rock
music. We could make a few inroads in the changeover of consiousness. Or so I thought. Back then. Back when I was a naif.
I approved the request posthaste. So did Robby and John. Jim was nowhere to be found. He was on one of his now more frequent disappearing trips. Probably off cavorting with Jimbo. Or perhaps locked in battle with Jimbo. Wrestling for control. Fighting for the destiny of the entity christened James Douglas Morrison.
When he finally did show up a few days later, the Buick commercial was a fait accompli. They needed a yes or no immediately. We said yes and signed paper. Jim freaked.
"You can't have signed without me!" he yelled.
"Well, we did," I said.
"Why, man? We do everything together. Why'd you do this without me?"
"Because you weren't here," said Robby.
"So what? Couldn't you have waited for me?"
"Who knew when you were coming back?" added John.
"They needed an answer right away," I said. "So we signed."
"It's not like it's typical Buick road hog or something." said
Robby. It's a cool little car."
"Gets real good mileage," said John.
"Four cylinders," I added. A sports car. Two-seater."
"Fuck You!" shouted Jim.
A silence filled the rehearsal room. Jim had never screamed like that before. He was enraged. And he looked wasted. He looked as if his nerve ends were frazzled. He looked as if he had been doing
things he shouldn't have. And he looked shattered. He was clearly not in control of himself...or his emotions. He stomped around the room, agitated, hyper, angered.
"Fuck You guys!" he said again. "I thought it was supposed to be all for one and one for all. I thought we were suppose to be brothers!"
"Jiiim. we are, man" I said in feeble response to his strange and terrible outburst. Nothing has changed."
"You weren't here," said Robby.
"Everything has fucking changed, Ray! Jim said. "Everything!"
"Why? I don't understand. Just because we signed a contract for a
fucking song...why has everything changed?" I asked him.
And then he came back with a line that really hurt me. Hurt John and Robby, too. Stabbed the Doors in their collective heart.
"Because I can't trust you anymore," he snarled.
"But it's good little car, man" protested John.
"It's fucking industry! It's corporate! It's the devil, you
asshole." Jim glared. "You guys just made a pact with the devil."
"The hell we did," said Robby.
"Oh yes you did, Robby. He seduced you with cute little gas efficient
cars. He shows you what you want and then he puts a little twist in
it. Makes you say yes to him when you know you shouldn't..." He
paced the room, manic. "But you go along with it because the deal's
just too good. It tastes too good." And then he looked at me, "It's
too much money, isn't it Ray?"
"Fuck You, Jim." I was getting pissed too.
Another knife in the heart. Was this actually Jim saying these things? Did he really believe what he was saying?
"Well, I'm not in it for the fucking lifestyle, man." I snarled back. "I just wanna make music. And if we can make some money at it...that's cool with me."
"Lots of money," Jim sarcastically said under his breath.
"What'd you say?"
"You heard me."
He was really pushing it.
Robby jumped into the fray. "Why weren't you here, man? A big decision had to be made and you weren't here, again!"
"Where do you go all the time" asked John.
"Wherever I want!" Jim shot back. "And it's none of your fucking business. You understand?"
John turned away from Jim's penetrating glare. Unable to confront him. Unable to say what was really on his mind. Hell, none of us could confront him. None of us had the psychic strength to call him on the carpet and read the riot act to him. It was probably just what he needed. Maybe even what he wanted.
"No one tells me what to do, John. You got that?"
I jumped in. "Nobody’s telling you what to do, man. We just want to know how come you're never around when you're needed. Where the fuck were you?"
"We called everywhere," added Robby.
"You weren't home, you weren't at the Alta Cienga," I said. "We called Barneys, the Palms, the Garden District...you weren't at the Whisky, Mario hadn't seen you in a couple of weeks." "Even Babe
didn't know where you were," said Robby.
NOTE: (All sources up to this point said Jim and Pamela were in England and had just returned to thet States to find the song had been sold to commercial. i don't understand where Ray comes up with places Jim could have been in L.A.)
Jim eruoted again. "Hey! This isn't about where I go." Then pointing an accusatory finger. "This is about you guys signing a contract without me." A silence filled the room again. Jim had broken out in a sweat. I felt cold and clammy. The evil green thing began wrapping
its tentacles around my stomach, probing for weakness. I didn't like this. I didn't like this at all.
I felt bad, hurt, misunderstood. Here I was trying to hold the whole damn thing together. Trying to be the adult. Jim had abandoned ship.
He was over the top, gone. The Ray and Jim show from Venice do longer existed. I was the oldest. I had to try and maintain the dream, hoping he would snap out of this phase he was in. Hoping that it was a phase. An aberration, a momentary aberration. Hoping that
he would come to his senses and we could resume our grail qust together. The four of us. The Doors. Brothers in the void. Supporting and nurturing one another. Hell, keeping one another alive! And we had so much more work to do. More music and poetry. Theater - Jim and I had talked of a multimedia theater project with
actors and dancers and rear-screen projections and recitations and Doors' music - the "Magic Theater" of Hermann Hesse. Films, directed by me, starring Jim, music by Robby Krieger and John Densmore. And
finally politics. The takeover of America by the lovers! He had to snap out of it. He had to come back to his old self. His real self.
"Well, it's too late," said Robby.
Jim wheeled on him. "Oh, yeah? We'll see about that. I'm gonna smash a fucking Buick to dust on stage." He was perspiring more profusely now. "It's gonna be part of my new act. 'Smash a Buick to Smithereens.' We'll see how they like that. And then I'm gonna get Abe to sue their asses. For big bucks, Ray. For a lot more than their shitty little contract. Then let's see if they still want to use a Doors song to sell a sports car."
He was pacing and sweating and clearly out of control. He stormed out of the rehearsal room and rushed up to the offices, barged into Siddons room and told Bill to get our new, young hotshot lawyer -
Abe Sommers - on the phone. When he did, Jim got on the line and hollered at Abe to do whatever he could to stop the contract."Threaten' them with a lawsuit," he shouted into the phone. "Tell
them I'm gonna smash a Buick with a sledgehammer onstage! Tell them anything! But stop the fucking contract!"
And in three days, Buick backed out. They simply decided they didn't want to go with a rock ad campaign after all. Nothing against the Doors or their music, you understand. They simply shifted demographic focus. It was done, finished. And Jim grinned from ear to ear. He had exercised his will against the corporate
establishment and he was a contented man. He made them back down. Hell, he made them back all the way out. It felt good. And he wanted more.
And that was called...Miami. (Ray Manzarek from his book ‘Light My Fire’ Pages 305-309)
Shortly after the Buick Commercial incident, The Association of Concert Halls had decided that a Special Rider should be attached to all performance contracts involving The Group:
Bill Siddons: “This group of men sent out a letter saying that The Doors were troublemakers and that, if in the judgment of the Hall Manager, the content of the performances was immoral, indecent or illegal, the show would be ended immediately. So the promoters had to do a lot of pushing and fighting to get us into the halls. They had to give a personal guarantee that if anything happens, they, the promoters, would be solely responsible for it.”
Also at this time the band’s accountants advised them that they were also in a crisis situation over ‘Feast of Friends,’ the title they had decided to call their documentary. Some thirty thousand dollars had already been spent on the project, but there was still a great deal of editing to do and none of the planned fictional sequences had been filmed. While Morrison was satisfied with the progress, the other Doors were worried that the film was turning into another white elephant along the lines of “Celebration of the Lizard.”
Jim: “I’m interested in film because, to me, it’ the closet approximation in art that we have to the actual flow of consciousness.” (1969 The Doors In Their Own Words p.85)
Frank Lisciandro: “Robby John, and Ray pulled the plug because the accountant had a bottom-line mentality about it. We were in the middle of the editing process. Paul (Ferrara) and I went to see Jim, who was staying at one of his infamous small motels somewhere. We said, ‘What’s going on? We’re in the middle of this project, we’ve got most of it filmed, what are we gonna do? He said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Just keep working. I’ll take care if it.”
Ray: “At school, at UCLA, I was always interested in film, as it seemed to combine my interests in drama, visual arts, music – and the profit motive!” (1972 The Doors In Their Own Words p. 85)
A compromise was reached. Plans for additional filming were dropped and Ferrara and Lisciandro agreed to work without salary. The Doors put up the four thousand still needed to complete the editing and lab work.
Jim Morrison: “In conception, it was a very small crew following us around for three or four months in a lot of concerts, culminating in the Hollywood Bowl. Then the group went to Europe on a short tour and while we were there, Frank and Paul, the editor and photographer, starting hacking it together. We returned, we looked through the rough cut and showed it to people. No one liked it very much and a lot of people were ready to abandon the project. I was almost of that opinion, too. Frank and Paul wanted a chance, so we let them.
(Break On Through p. 271-272)
OCTOBER 1968, Eye Magazine requested an interview with Jim Morrison and Jim compromised and offered to write a “rap” instead. Here is an excerpt of Jim’s rap.
He sought exposure and lived the horror of trying to
Assemble a myth before a billion dull dry ruthless eyes.
Ask anyone what sense he would preserve above all others. Most would say sight, forfeiting a million eyes in a body for two in the skull. Blind, we could live and possibly discover wisdom. Without touch, we would turn into hunks of wood.
Mates are first chosen by visual. Not odor, rhythm, skin. It is an error to believe that the eye can caress a woman. Is a woman constructed out of light or of skin? Her image is never real in the eye, it is engraved on the ends of the fingers.
(Break On Through P. 273-274)
NOVEMBER 1968 The Doors toured the Southwest of the United States and then to the mid-west. On December 15, 1968 The Doors performed on the Smothers Brothers Show.
On DECEMBER 14 1968, The Doors performed at the L.A. Forum a concert which created an atmosphere of discontent among the audience in attendance due to Jims’ will of shedding his so-called Lizard King image. The Doors debut a few songs from what will become their 4th album, “The Soft Parade.’ To accompany the band, a brass section has been added which shares a portion of the stage.
‘Ray Manzarek, ever the artistic soul, had gotten the others to agree to have the evening opened by a traditional Japanese koto player.
Vince Trenor: “The guy was into traditional Japanese art music, poetic music. The stuff he played was young if it was two thousand years old and this was in front of 18 thousand teenage kids. Well, they damn near had a riot, they booed they guy so bad. I felt horrible for him. It was just so irreverent and terribly rude and the guy could not help but realize what was going on, but he was a traditionalist and therefore he had to finish the performance. And he went through to the bitter end.” (Break On Through p. 277)
After performing 5 songs ‘the crowd becomes impatient and begins intensifying their cries of “Light My Fire,” and even “Do something!” This is not a bad night for The Doors, but a significant portion of the music is so new it will not appear on an album for 6 months, and much of it is rather quiet compared to previous Doors shows.
Jerry Lee Lewis didn’t fare much better, playing mostly country songs to an audience who repeatedly let him know what they thought of country by booing their hearts out. Sweetwater, a local rock group, followed and did the wisest thing possible – shortened their set in front of the wild crowd and got offstage as quickly as they could. (Break On Through p. 277)
The incessant clamoring for ‘Light My Fire’ makes the audience seem harshly unsympathetic to anything else the band want to introduce. The attitude of these ever-increasing ‘top 40’ fanatics who demand nothing but the hits will contribute significantly to the band’s disgust with the way rock and roll is – or isn’t – developing. The Doors have observed a change in the audience as their music became more popular. Their apprehensions will peak with a few months when they record the spontaneous ‘Rock Is Dead’ session and Jim Morrison accosts the audience at Miami’s Dinner Key Auditorium.’
Next comes the piece everyone has been calling for, and it is a showstopper. This version of ‘Light My Fire’ is terrific, as evidenced by the audience breaking into spontaneous applause.
After the conclusion of ‘Light My Fire,’ there is a long pause before Morrison sits down cross-legged on the stage and begins to ask the audience what they really want. Although he seems relaxed, there is a mocking and confrontational tone in his voice as he suggests the band could play music all night long, but what the audience really wants is ‘something different, something more.” He then leads the band into their ‘Celebration of the Lizard,’ incorporating lyrics that are quite different from the version finally released on the live album. The audience reaction is mixed. Some seemed interested in the piece, others bored. A few aggravated patrons even bark out some obscenities during the first portion of the song.
As tonight’s rendition of ‘Celebration of the Lizard’ draws to a conclusion each of the band members leaves the stage individually. First, John Densmore inconspicuously strolls off, then Robby Krieger unplugs his guitar and follows. Finally Ray Manzarek leaves with Morrison alone onstage as he quietly recites the final poetic verses of the composition and then solemnly walks off the stage.
The effect is transcendent. As opposed to the usual thunderous applause exhibited at the end of the show, the somewhat stunned audience of over 18,000 send out a brief ripple of quiet acknowledgement, and then stare mutely before leaving the venue in near silence. (The Doors On The Road p. 143).
After the Forum show was over, Morrison said it had been “great fun,” but the party backstage felt like a funeral. Afterward, Jim went out to the Forum parking lot and played kick the can with his brother, Andy and Pamela.
A monster arrived
In the mirror
To mock the room
& it’s fool alone
(Break On Through p. 281)
In an interview after the L.A. Forum show Morrison said: “I don’t know what will happen. I’d guess we’ll carry on like this for a while then, to get our vitality back, maybe we’ll have to get out of the whole business….maybe go to an island by ourselves and start creating again. I might put some of it in a song……but the trouble is, the outcome wasn’t clear-cut enough for that.” (1969-The Doors In Their Own Words P. 63)
MAY 1968: The Doors finished their 3rd album, “Waiting For The Sun.” This was a very difficult album to put together due to the fact that the majority of the lyrics and music was pieced together. Jim had hoped “Celebration of the Lizard” would have taken up one side of the album which in the final result only a small segment, “Not To Touch The Earth’ actually made it to vinyl. Jim was disappointed that COTL did not live up to his expectations. The band had been touring for most of 1967 and the spring of 1968 and the music and lyrics suffered the consequences when it came time to record ‘Waiting For The Sun.”
Jim Morrison: “I think most rock musicians and singers really do enjoy what they are doing,” he said. “It’d be physically unnerving to do it just for the bread. What screws it up is the surrounding bullshit that’s laid on them by the press, the gossip columnists and fan magazines…..All of a sudden everyone is laying all this extraneous bullshit on his trip. So he starts to doubt his motivation. There’s always the adulators – they just jangle the sensibilities. So you feel a little sense of shame and frustration about what you are doing. It’s too bad. It’s really too bad. (Break On Through p.252)
‘Although he had made very few concessions to commerciality, the public perceived The Doors as Jim Morrison and he was blamed the most for the shift toward Top 40. Morrison began seeing himself as a misunderstood poet living with the confines of the rock medium. More and more young kids were attending the shows now, and most of them couldn’t understand or appreciate his lyrics. They saw him only as a sex symbol and just wanted to hear the hits from the radio. The more he realized the words were being overlooked, the more frustrated he became. Jim Morrison wanted to be taken seriously as a poet more than anything else. He had always been interested in film and writing, and had taken on his duties with The Doors truly believing he couldn’t sing a note. Inside, Morrison wanted to be part of the artistic elite – recognized as a writer, a poet, a true artist.’ (Break On Through p. 252-253)
Jim: “It’s all done tongue and cheek – I don’t think too many people realize that. It’s not supposed to be taken seriously. It’s supposed to be ironic.” (1968 The Doors In Their Own Words p. 90)
Robbie: “With Jim, it was like the band, and the Voice of God up front, and everybody seemed to be overshadowed by that voice.” (1980 The Doors In Their Own Words p. 76)
JUNE 1968 Jim Morrison spoke with Ray Manzarek concerning his discontent in continuing to be a rock star. In short order, Jim wanted out of the band. Ray asked Jim to give the band another 6 months. Jim reluctantly went back to being the lead singer of The Doors.
‘Sometime in the summer of 1968 it began to dawn on him (Morrison), through the haze, that he was a rock star and, worse, that he was likely to remain one. Despite his sense of humor, no one took Morrison as seriously as Morrison took himself. Now, as the tongue in cheek Lizard King, he was forced to realize that he would never be so much Baudelaire and Rimbaud as he was Bozo Dionysus. As if grasping at a last way out of the ever expanding parody he was becoming of himself, Morrison decided to burst his own bubble. He saw the only way out and he took it. He walked into The Doors office and suddenly announced he was quitting the group. “It’s not what I want to do anymore,” he said. It was once, but it’s not anymore.”’ (Break On Through p. 252-53)
‘Amid the opened mouthed stares that greeted this remark, only Ray Manzarek was able to rise to the occasion. He talked to Jim, weighing the various possibilities and the ramifications of such a decision. In the end, Ray asked for and got six more months. But although Jim could reason out the logistics of a decision and make the right choice, he could not always live up to the commitment. There was something about Jim Morrison that always wound up doing exactly what he wanted to do whether it was the right choice or not.’ (Break On Through p. 253)
Rich Linnell: “At the beginning, for me being late ’66, early ’67 Jim always seemed to be little bit apart from the band. As time went on, Jim became more and more distant from the band. He would arrive differently, he’d come by himself, he’d leave earlier or later. Jim would have his little group in the dressing room and the three guys would have theirs. Robby, as recently as a few years ago would say, ‘yeah for along time it was the three of us against Jim. And then when we didn’t have Jim anymore, then we fought amongst ourselves.’” (A Feast Of Friends p. 82)
Vince Treanor: (Equipment Manager) “He (Jim) had no intention of quitting the band, That was all a myth, you know, just talk. He was scaring the group. What he was saying was ‘Does somebody love me? That’s all it was. He wasn’t stupid. Because the minute you take away a forum from a guy like Jim, he becomes a nonentity. What the hell was Morrison gonna do without The Doors? When a guy needs a stage to speak from is he going to quit the stage? And what would he do for money? How would he pay for his drinking, his parties, all those plane tickets, and those bashes in Palm Springs? The boy wasn’t stupid.”
MID – JUNE 1968, The Doors have a band meeting to discuss the up and coming show at the Hollywood Bowl touted in the press to be “The Biggest Rock Event Of The Year.”
Vince Treanor remembers: “Everybody was called into a big meeting……all The Doors, myself, Bill Siddons, and Kathy Lisciandro (Frank’s wife who was now The Doors secretary). Ray had worked out an elaborate production idea for the show – having the band wear Kabuki masks and Oriental theatrical costumes with special lighting and dances…..a whole theatrical production. It was very interesting with all this incredible shit going on before, during and after the performance. But the other guys felt that it just wasn’t The Doors. Jim didn’t say much of anything. He didn’t give a damn what they did. He didn’t care if they had fire hoses onstage at that point. “Just give me my microphone and do whatever you want to do.” Jim was pretty straightforward about what he wanted to do. “Let’s just get up there and do it. None of the bullshit.”
Jim had given his word that he would give the band another 6 months, but inside he already had his mind made up to shed the sex symbol image forever. In addition, it was getting harder for Morrison to communicate with the rest of the band.
Although the audience expected to see Jim Morrison, the wild man, Jim the Shaman, Jim the Lizard King perform at the Hollywood Bowl on July 5, what they got was a lead singer who ingested acid prior to going to stage. Jim was subdued and rather humorous during this performance. Jim was up for the theatrics and pulled it off on que during the “Unknown Solider” but his heart surely wasn’t in this performance. The Jim Morrison that the audience had come to rely on for their amusement was absent on this night.
The Doors traveled to the East Coast of the States as part of their ’68 tour. In September they headed to the U.K. securing a memorable performance at London’s Roundhouse which was filmed by Granada TV. Jim Morrison ingested a huge amount of drugs on the streets of Amsterdam and was unable to go on stage. While Jim was carried off to the hospital, Ray stepped in to sing the lyrics. Robby professed that the audience should have been refunded their money, but the show went on as scheduled without Jim.
SEPTEMBER 21 1968: The Doors with exception of Jim and Pam, return to Los Angeles after finishing their last gig in Stockholm, Sweden. Jim and Pam remain in London at the Belgravia Hotel through October 20 1968. (Doors On The Road p. 133)
OCTOBER 2 or 3, 1968 while Jim Morrison is in London, the other band members are approached by Buick with a lucrative offer for the use of “Light My Fire” as an underscore to a commercial. After efforts to contact Jim fail, they agree to the proposal. (The Doors On The Road p. 134)
‘While Jim and Pam were gone, another incident happened that drove a wedge between Morrison and the rest of the group/ An ad agency offered the band considerable money to use “Light My Fire” in a Buick commercial.
Bill Siddons: “Jim had decided to disappear. Which for me, was the first time he disappeared. For four days no one had any idea where he was and suddenly Buick was offering close to a hundred thousand dollars to use, “Light My Fire.” Since Robby was the actual writer of the song, I felt he should make the decision. For some reason it was a high pressure, ‘You gotta give an answer now’ situation, so together we all decided, ‘Well, what the hell…..why not? You, know, we were all practically teenagers. I mean, Ray was the old guy at twenty-five. And Jim came back in a couple of days and just freaked out. He thought it was the tackiest thing in the world to do with The Doors’ music. Subsequently, I figured out that he was absolutely right. Jim knew what The Doors were doing and for what they meant to people, it was the wrong thing to do. Obviously it didn’t destroy their career, but it created a real anger in him (Jim) and the other three Doors. He felt betrayed by them because of it. And no one did it to betray him. We didn’t know what to do and it was free money being dangled in front of us.”
Columbus Courson (Pamela Courson’s Father): “Jim was mad as hell. He called Ray and said, ‘Hell, this song will be classic. We sell it in a damned ad, that’ll be the end of it, nobody’ll ever give it anything.’ He was just furious, and he hung up on him. And Pam said, ‘Jim, he’s your best friend;’ and Jim was sort of violent….and she said, “Well, what are you going to do? He said, ‘Don’t worry, they’re not gonna let their little goldfish swim away.’”
Rich Linnell: “One of the few times I saw Jim angry was when he found out about, “Come on Buick Light My Fire.” Out of control. He felt betrayed. His partners had betrayed him, they had sold out to corporate America without asking him. I was there when he told them, “How could you do this to me? This my band too. How could you make that decision without me? One of them said, “Well man, you didn’t tell us where you were going, and the offer would have expired.” “So What?” He just didn’t get it. Whether he was gone for a day or a month, it didn’t matter, but you don’t sell out to the establishment. Postpone it or cancel but don’t give my soul away. That was the end of the dream. That was the end of that era of Jim’s relationship with the other members of the band; from them on it was business. That was the day Jim said, “I don’t have partners anymore, I have associates.” (A Feast Of Friends p. 83)
Cheri Siddons: He was an artist. And I think the angriest he ever was happened when The Doors decided to let Buick use “Light My Fire.” I just remember this real unhappiness. I think if he ever was going to yell, he would have yelled that day. He didn’t yell, but to me it was almost like a light switched off. That was like the last straw somehow. I’m not sure if he really liked Robby, Ray and John after that. I think he could sense they had different purposes; they were more into the money and the business and would sacrifice some of the art for that. Jim as not willing to sacrifice the art for anything. (A Feast Of Friends p. 126)
Jim: “I’m the square of the western hemisphere. Whenever somebody’d say something groovy, it’d blow my mind. Now, I’m learning, I hate people. I don’t need them. If I had an axe, I’d kill everyone…….except my friends.” (1968 The Doors In Their Own Words p. 89)
Ray Manzarek recalls the Buick Commerical fiasco in his auto-biography, Light My Fire published in 1997:
“So to be asked to use a rock song over a commerical for a new, sharp little machine was at once lucrative and subversive. We could get "Light My Fire" played again on national television. We could get rock and roll on a medium that had very little to do with rock
music. We could make a few inroads in the changeover of consiousness. Or so I thought. Back then. Back when I was a naif.
I approved the request posthaste. So did Robby and John. Jim was nowhere to be found. He was on one of his now more frequent disappearing trips. Probably off cavorting with Jimbo. Or perhaps locked in battle with Jimbo. Wrestling for control. Fighting for the destiny of the entity christened James Douglas Morrison.
When he finally did show up a few days later, the Buick commercial was a fait accompli. They needed a yes or no immediately. We said yes and signed paper. Jim freaked.
"You can't have signed without me!" he yelled.
"Well, we did," I said.
"Why, man? We do everything together. Why'd you do this without me?"
"Because you weren't here," said Robby.
"So what? Couldn't you have waited for me?"
"Who knew when you were coming back?" added John.
"They needed an answer right away," I said. "So we signed."
"It's not like it's typical Buick road hog or something." said
Robby. It's a cool little car."
"Gets real good mileage," said John.
"Four cylinders," I added. A sports car. Two-seater."
"Fuck You!" shouted Jim.
A silence filled the rehearsal room. Jim had never screamed like that before. He was enraged. And he looked wasted. He looked as if his nerve ends were frazzled. He looked as if he had been doing
things he shouldn't have. And he looked shattered. He was clearly not in control of himself...or his emotions. He stomped around the room, agitated, hyper, angered.
"Fuck You guys!" he said again. "I thought it was supposed to be all for one and one for all. I thought we were suppose to be brothers!"
"Jiiim. we are, man" I said in feeble response to his strange and terrible outburst. Nothing has changed."
"You weren't here," said Robby.
"Everything has fucking changed, Ray! Jim said. "Everything!"
"Why? I don't understand. Just because we signed a contract for a
fucking song...why has everything changed?" I asked him.
And then he came back with a line that really hurt me. Hurt John and Robby, too. Stabbed the Doors in their collective heart.
"Because I can't trust you anymore," he snarled.
"But it's good little car, man" protested John.
"It's fucking industry! It's corporate! It's the devil, you
asshole." Jim glared. "You guys just made a pact with the devil."
"The hell we did," said Robby.
"Oh yes you did, Robby. He seduced you with cute little gas efficient
cars. He shows you what you want and then he puts a little twist in
it. Makes you say yes to him when you know you shouldn't..." He
paced the room, manic. "But you go along with it because the deal's
just too good. It tastes too good." And then he looked at me, "It's
too much money, isn't it Ray?"
"Fuck You, Jim." I was getting pissed too.
Another knife in the heart. Was this actually Jim saying these things? Did he really believe what he was saying?
"Well, I'm not in it for the fucking lifestyle, man." I snarled back. "I just wanna make music. And if we can make some money at it...that's cool with me."
"Lots of money," Jim sarcastically said under his breath.
"What'd you say?"
"You heard me."
He was really pushing it.
Robby jumped into the fray. "Why weren't you here, man? A big decision had to be made and you weren't here, again!"
"Where do you go all the time" asked John.
"Wherever I want!" Jim shot back. "And it's none of your fucking business. You understand?"
John turned away from Jim's penetrating glare. Unable to confront him. Unable to say what was really on his mind. Hell, none of us could confront him. None of us had the psychic strength to call him on the carpet and read the riot act to him. It was probably just what he needed. Maybe even what he wanted.
"No one tells me what to do, John. You got that?"
I jumped in. "Nobody’s telling you what to do, man. We just want to know how come you're never around when you're needed. Where the fuck were you?"
"We called everywhere," added Robby.
"You weren't home, you weren't at the Alta Cienga," I said. "We called Barneys, the Palms, the Garden District...you weren't at the Whisky, Mario hadn't seen you in a couple of weeks." "Even Babe
didn't know where you were," said Robby.
NOTE: (All sources up to this point said Jim and Pamela were in England and had just returned to thet States to find the song had been sold to commercial. i don't understand where Ray comes up with places Jim could have been in L.A.)
Jim eruoted again. "Hey! This isn't about where I go." Then pointing an accusatory finger. "This is about you guys signing a contract without me." A silence filled the room again. Jim had broken out in a sweat. I felt cold and clammy. The evil green thing began wrapping
its tentacles around my stomach, probing for weakness. I didn't like this. I didn't like this at all.
I felt bad, hurt, misunderstood. Here I was trying to hold the whole damn thing together. Trying to be the adult. Jim had abandoned ship.
He was over the top, gone. The Ray and Jim show from Venice do longer existed. I was the oldest. I had to try and maintain the dream, hoping he would snap out of this phase he was in. Hoping that it was a phase. An aberration, a momentary aberration. Hoping that
he would come to his senses and we could resume our grail qust together. The four of us. The Doors. Brothers in the void. Supporting and nurturing one another. Hell, keeping one another alive! And we had so much more work to do. More music and poetry. Theater - Jim and I had talked of a multimedia theater project with
actors and dancers and rear-screen projections and recitations and Doors' music - the "Magic Theater" of Hermann Hesse. Films, directed by me, starring Jim, music by Robby Krieger and John Densmore. And
finally politics. The takeover of America by the lovers! He had to snap out of it. He had to come back to his old self. His real self.
"Well, it's too late," said Robby.
Jim wheeled on him. "Oh, yeah? We'll see about that. I'm gonna smash a fucking Buick to dust on stage." He was perspiring more profusely now. "It's gonna be part of my new act. 'Smash a Buick to Smithereens.' We'll see how they like that. And then I'm gonna get Abe to sue their asses. For big bucks, Ray. For a lot more than their shitty little contract. Then let's see if they still want to use a Doors song to sell a sports car."
He was pacing and sweating and clearly out of control. He stormed out of the rehearsal room and rushed up to the offices, barged into Siddons room and told Bill to get our new, young hotshot lawyer -
Abe Sommers - on the phone. When he did, Jim got on the line and hollered at Abe to do whatever he could to stop the contract."Threaten' them with a lawsuit," he shouted into the phone. "Tell
them I'm gonna smash a Buick with a sledgehammer onstage! Tell them anything! But stop the fucking contract!"
And in three days, Buick backed out. They simply decided they didn't want to go with a rock ad campaign after all. Nothing against the Doors or their music, you understand. They simply shifted demographic focus. It was done, finished. And Jim grinned from ear to ear. He had exercised his will against the corporate
establishment and he was a contented man. He made them back down. Hell, he made them back all the way out. It felt good. And he wanted more.
And that was called...Miami. (Ray Manzarek from his book ‘Light My Fire’ Pages 305-309)
Shortly after the Buick Commercial incident, The Association of Concert Halls had decided that a Special Rider should be attached to all performance contracts involving The Group:
Bill Siddons: “This group of men sent out a letter saying that The Doors were troublemakers and that, if in the judgment of the Hall Manager, the content of the performances was immoral, indecent or illegal, the show would be ended immediately. So the promoters had to do a lot of pushing and fighting to get us into the halls. They had to give a personal guarantee that if anything happens, they, the promoters, would be solely responsible for it.”
Also at this time the band’s accountants advised them that they were also in a crisis situation over ‘Feast of Friends,’ the title they had decided to call their documentary. Some thirty thousand dollars had already been spent on the project, but there was still a great deal of editing to do and none of the planned fictional sequences had been filmed. While Morrison was satisfied with the progress, the other Doors were worried that the film was turning into another white elephant along the lines of “Celebration of the Lizard.”
Jim: “I’m interested in film because, to me, it’ the closet approximation in art that we have to the actual flow of consciousness.” (1969 The Doors In Their Own Words p.85)
Frank Lisciandro: “Robby John, and Ray pulled the plug because the accountant had a bottom-line mentality about it. We were in the middle of the editing process. Paul (Ferrara) and I went to see Jim, who was staying at one of his infamous small motels somewhere. We said, ‘What’s going on? We’re in the middle of this project, we’ve got most of it filmed, what are we gonna do? He said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Just keep working. I’ll take care if it.”
Ray: “At school, at UCLA, I was always interested in film, as it seemed to combine my interests in drama, visual arts, music – and the profit motive!” (1972 The Doors In Their Own Words p. 85)
A compromise was reached. Plans for additional filming were dropped and Ferrara and Lisciandro agreed to work without salary. The Doors put up the four thousand still needed to complete the editing and lab work.
Jim Morrison: “In conception, it was a very small crew following us around for three or four months in a lot of concerts, culminating in the Hollywood Bowl. Then the group went to Europe on a short tour and while we were there, Frank and Paul, the editor and photographer, starting hacking it together. We returned, we looked through the rough cut and showed it to people. No one liked it very much and a lot of people were ready to abandon the project. I was almost of that opinion, too. Frank and Paul wanted a chance, so we let them.
(Break On Through p. 271-272)
OCTOBER 1968, Eye Magazine requested an interview with Jim Morrison and Jim compromised and offered to write a “rap” instead. Here is an excerpt of Jim’s rap.
He sought exposure and lived the horror of trying to
Assemble a myth before a billion dull dry ruthless eyes.
Ask anyone what sense he would preserve above all others. Most would say sight, forfeiting a million eyes in a body for two in the skull. Blind, we could live and possibly discover wisdom. Without touch, we would turn into hunks of wood.
Mates are first chosen by visual. Not odor, rhythm, skin. It is an error to believe that the eye can caress a woman. Is a woman constructed out of light or of skin? Her image is never real in the eye, it is engraved on the ends of the fingers.
(Break On Through P. 273-274)
NOVEMBER 1968 The Doors toured the Southwest of the United States and then to the mid-west. On December 15, 1968 The Doors performed on the Smothers Brothers Show.
On DECEMBER 14 1968, The Doors performed at the L.A. Forum a concert which created an atmosphere of discontent among the audience in attendance due to Jims’ will of shedding his so-called Lizard King image. The Doors debut a few songs from what will become their 4th album, “The Soft Parade.’ To accompany the band, a brass section has been added which shares a portion of the stage.
‘Ray Manzarek, ever the artistic soul, had gotten the others to agree to have the evening opened by a traditional Japanese koto player.
Vince Trenor: “The guy was into traditional Japanese art music, poetic music. The stuff he played was young if it was two thousand years old and this was in front of 18 thousand teenage kids. Well, they damn near had a riot, they booed they guy so bad. I felt horrible for him. It was just so irreverent and terribly rude and the guy could not help but realize what was going on, but he was a traditionalist and therefore he had to finish the performance. And he went through to the bitter end.” (Break On Through p. 277)
After performing 5 songs ‘the crowd becomes impatient and begins intensifying their cries of “Light My Fire,” and even “Do something!” This is not a bad night for The Doors, but a significant portion of the music is so new it will not appear on an album for 6 months, and much of it is rather quiet compared to previous Doors shows.
Jerry Lee Lewis didn’t fare much better, playing mostly country songs to an audience who repeatedly let him know what they thought of country by booing their hearts out. Sweetwater, a local rock group, followed and did the wisest thing possible – shortened their set in front of the wild crowd and got offstage as quickly as they could. (Break On Through p. 277)
The incessant clamoring for ‘Light My Fire’ makes the audience seem harshly unsympathetic to anything else the band want to introduce. The attitude of these ever-increasing ‘top 40’ fanatics who demand nothing but the hits will contribute significantly to the band’s disgust with the way rock and roll is – or isn’t – developing. The Doors have observed a change in the audience as their music became more popular. Their apprehensions will peak with a few months when they record the spontaneous ‘Rock Is Dead’ session and Jim Morrison accosts the audience at Miami’s Dinner Key Auditorium.’
Next comes the piece everyone has been calling for, and it is a showstopper. This version of ‘Light My Fire’ is terrific, as evidenced by the audience breaking into spontaneous applause.
After the conclusion of ‘Light My Fire,’ there is a long pause before Morrison sits down cross-legged on the stage and begins to ask the audience what they really want. Although he seems relaxed, there is a mocking and confrontational tone in his voice as he suggests the band could play music all night long, but what the audience really wants is ‘something different, something more.” He then leads the band into their ‘Celebration of the Lizard,’ incorporating lyrics that are quite different from the version finally released on the live album. The audience reaction is mixed. Some seemed interested in the piece, others bored. A few aggravated patrons even bark out some obscenities during the first portion of the song.
As tonight’s rendition of ‘Celebration of the Lizard’ draws to a conclusion each of the band members leaves the stage individually. First, John Densmore inconspicuously strolls off, then Robby Krieger unplugs his guitar and follows. Finally Ray Manzarek leaves with Morrison alone onstage as he quietly recites the final poetic verses of the composition and then solemnly walks off the stage.
The effect is transcendent. As opposed to the usual thunderous applause exhibited at the end of the show, the somewhat stunned audience of over 18,000 send out a brief ripple of quiet acknowledgement, and then stare mutely before leaving the venue in near silence. (The Doors On The Road p. 143).
After the Forum show was over, Morrison said it had been “great fun,” but the party backstage felt like a funeral. Afterward, Jim went out to the Forum parking lot and played kick the can with his brother, Andy and Pamela.
A monster arrived
In the mirror
To mock the room
& it’s fool alone
(Break On Through p. 281)
In an interview after the L.A. Forum show Morrison said: “I don’t know what will happen. I’d guess we’ll carry on like this for a while then, to get our vitality back, maybe we’ll have to get out of the whole business….maybe go to an island by ourselves and start creating again. I might put some of it in a song……but the trouble is, the outcome wasn’t clear-cut enough for that.” (1969-The Doors In Their Own Words P. 63)
QUOTE (darkstar @ Jul 13 2010, 09:11 AM)
I would image the $500 (Gold Circle) ticket holders down front got their moneys worth, right?
Oh jesus.
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