|
The Doors Live
In a second I’ll answer the question of why a CD containing 30 year-old performances by The Doors matters in 2001.
But first…ATTENTION ALL DOORS COLLECTORS AND COMPOLETISTS: this sampler of live Doors material, culled from the same set of concerts that resulted in 1970’s Absolutely Live, is part of a first salvo of releases that also includes a double CD which captures the band’s raucous 1969 performance at Detroit’s infamous Cobo Hall, and a disc that features a radio interview member with Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore. These initial three releases will be followed every three months by three more discs until all of the archived live material has been released. The CD’s will only be available on the Web at www.thedoors.com. Now go away and let me talk to those who might be wondering why they should care about a band that’s been so romanticized, overexposed, lionized, and demonized.
In 2001, all pop music is to one degree or another bracketed. By that I mean that whether we’re talking about Kid Rock, Marilyn Manson, the Backstreet Boys, or Eminem, there are quotation marks placed around everything they say, do, or sing. Everything is contained within the Pleasuredome of media, reduced to a 30-second sound bite and face time with Carson Daly on TRL. In this sterile environment, how can the artists themselves even believe that what they’re doing is subversive and real? Jim Morrison and The Doors did not exist and create under this artistically crippling constraint. As a result, an audience in 1969 could be mesmerized by the spectacle of seeing a singer dancing perilously close to the Edge, not the “Edge”. That understanding between band and audience allowed for the creation of rock music that was nearly mythological. At the least, it was gut-wrenchingly visceral and emotionally cathartic. In 1969 Jim Morrison could be called the Lizard King without a smirk; today it would all just be part of the act.
This smorgasbord of live Doors tracks was recorded in such cities as Detroit, Hollywood, New York, Bakersfield, and Philadelphia. The sound is very good to excellent throughout due to the fact that most of the tracks were recorded directly off of the mixing board. A couple of performances were captured using a stage mike, but even those are way above the sketchy quality of most bootleg recordings. Because of this you get to hear the band in all its power and subtlety.
The sampler opens with ‘Light My Fire’, the song that for most casual fans defines the band. Morrison begins slowly, his voice threatening to give in to it’s more lounge-y tendencies; it cracks at one point. But then off the band goes on a jam that builds and then takes it low so that when Morrison yawps back into the song, you jump as if the bogeyman himself has snuck up behind you and gone “Boo!”. This ability to whip himself into a frenzy is displayed time and time again on these tracks – there is real danger in his voice, the kind of menace you hear in blues singers like Robert Johnson. In a medley of blues songs, ‘Back Door Man’, ‘Love Hides’, and ‘Five to One’, we get a different sort of blues than that produced by such formalists as Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Not a style so much as an attitude, something that Morrison had in abundance, so that when he sings a line like “no one here gets out alive”, it sounds less like an existential observation and more like a threat. Then again, on songs like ‘Touch Me’ and ‘The Crystal Ship’ he shows a real tenderness; whatever emotional mode Morrison is in, he’s always compelling.
Everything here is pretty much great. ‘Break on Through’ is simply stunning, with Morrison snarling the song’s last verse and chorus, spurred by Krieger’s biting, serpentine lead. As you listen to these performances, one cannot deny the greatness of The Doors as a band. It’s what happens when technically accomplished players commit themselves to emotionally-charged music. There’s no self-indulgence here – everything is geared towards creating a sonic context in which Morrison can build his psychodrama. On ‘Roadhouse Blues’ Krieger’s coiling guitar intro raises Morrison the shaman, his voice oscillating like an imprisoned spirit released back into the world for one more night of earthly delight.
They show their artsy roots by covering ‘Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)’, a charmingly nihilistic tune penned by German avant-gardists Kurt Weil and Bertold Brecht. ‘Love Me Two Times’ has Morrison sounding a little unfocused, but after a detour through ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’ and a haunting ‘St. James Infirmary’ he hurls himself into the final chorus with a desperation that makes the album version pale in comparison. By the time we reach the end of the disc only one song is possible, ‘The End’. This thirteen-minute version differs substantially from the studio cut, coming complete with an extended spoken-word rant in the middle. It’s a must-hear, especially for those enamored of the singer’s poetry.
This sampler gives us the Lizard King in all his royal glory. And this is how he should be remembered, not as the dead rock icon who has been fetishized and glamorized by those who find death chic rather than tragic, but as an artist who onstage was mesmerizingly and gloriously alive.
|
