Tag Archives: The Doors
Roi Lézard
On July 3rd we observed the 47th anniversary of the death of Jim Morrison. We still care about Morrison because he lead the greatest American rock band of all time, and because he was also a gifted poet and a lyrical filmmaker. Even folks who’d disagree with all of those points would have to concede [...]
An April Season In Hell
Celebrating National Poetry Month, here’s a rad radio production of Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell which was published 145 years ago this year. Even though it might not be immediately evident Arthur Rimbaud had a lot in common with William Blake: both saw the benefits of altered states on literary vision and both were [...]
40 Years Of An American Prayer And Jim Morrison’s Lost Paris Tapes
Across the days that marked the overlap from the 1960s to the 1970s Jim Morrison recorded the poetry readings that would eventually be featured on the 1978 release An American Prayer. This year we’re celebrating 40 years since the album’s 1978 debut, but the project has always been a difficult one for fans of the [...]
Lust 40
2017 marks 40 years since the release of Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life. Including the classic title song and the evergreen “Passenger,” the album also features the dark romance of “Tonight” and the jailbait jam, “Sixteen.” I’ve always loved this album as it’s probably the best example of the massive influence that Jim Morrison had [...]
Whisky Doors
Earlier today I saw a tweet about the 50th anniversary of The Doors first gig at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles. Of course I immediately thought “Oh, perfect — I can blog about that.” Turns out it’s the 51st anniversary of The Doors debut at the club, and while it’s not an [...]
Hey, Huxley
I recently posted about Lee Harvey Oswald, remembering the assassination of JFK on November 22, 1963. I wonder how many readers know that the visionary author Aldous Huxley died that same day, tripping on acid as he finally gave way to the laryngeal cancer that had mostly taken his voice. Huxley’s The Doors of Perception [...]
Open To Doors
After all of these Halloween posts I’ve been posting I was at a loss at what to write about on Halloween night. I looked at a bunch of places that inspire these posts before remembering this documentary about The Doors. I’m not sure if I’m part of a counterculture or if I share genes with [...]
Strange Days
50 years ago, in Venice Beach, California over a long summer stretching into fall and winter and a new year, Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek take the first steps to put together a new band that would fuse electric blues, classical music, jazz and Spanish flamenco guitar music to poetic lyrics that recalled the writings [...]
Feast of Friends
While on tour in 1968, The Doors took it upon themselves to create their own documentary of their life as a band. At first glance it sounds like a good idea — Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek met as film students at USC, and The Doors’ photographer, Paul Ferrara, was deployed as cameraman, crew chief [...]
Ray Manzarek: The Music’s Over
Sad news tonight for rock fans: The Doors’ keyboard player Ray Manzarek died on Monday after a long battle with bile duct cancer. Manzarek brought jazz influences to The Doors’ brand of dark, poetic rock and held down most of the bass duties on stage and in the studio – playing a keyboard bass with [...]
