The Doors

[Analogman]

Jimmy Fallon must do his homework:

 

The Doors sing 'Reading Rainbow' theme.

 

 

The Doors Prep 'L.A. Woman' Reissue with 'Amazing' Bonus Material

 

Full details are forthcoming, but Doors guitarist Robby Krieger says the upgraded and expanded edition of the original group's 1971 swan song "L.A. Woman," due out early next year, is a revelation.

 

"It's pretty cool," Krieger tells Billboard.com. "We found a lot of outtakes and separate takes of most of the songs, which are going to be on the set, as well as remastering the original album. I pretty much totally forget about these other takes; when you're recording you kind of just throw them away in your mind. But it's interesting because you can see how different songs developed and changed from one take to the next. 'L.A. Woman,' the song, is quite different from what it started out as."

 

The multi-disc set is expected to include the two discs that comprised a 40th Anniversary release -- which included the bonus tracks "Orange County Suite," and Willie Dixon's"(You Need Meat) Don't Go No Furthur" -- along with a cover of Barrett Strong's Motown hit "Money (That's What I Want)," alternate takes and studio chatter between the band members and producer Bruce Botnick that's dubbed "Inside the Workshop."

 

Fans will get a taste of what's in store for "L.A. Woman" on Black Friday, Nov. 25, when the Doors release a limited edition "L.A. Woman Singles Box" that includes 7-inch vinyl of three songs -- "Love Her Madly," "Riders on the Storm" and "The Changeling" -- and a fourth disc that includes "Inside the Workshop" looks at "Riders on the Storm" and John Lee Hooker's "Crawling King Snake."

 

The box is part of a new campaign called Year of the Doors 2011-2012, which is also expected to feature digital apps and box sets dedicated to the Doors' early career residencies at the Matrix in San Francisco and the London Fog in Los Angeles. But Krieger doesn't expect more outtake-laden album treatments like the group is doing for "L.A. Woman."

 

"I wish we could, but very few outtakes exist," Krieger says. "It's really a catastrophe; Elektra, being a small label, they took a lot of our masters, our 8-track and 16-track tapes, and bulk-erased them so they could use them for other bands to record on. So very few outtakes remain. The stuff on 'L.A. Woman' was just an amazing find."

 

While the Doors camp -- a partnership with Rhino that also includes drummer John Densmore and the estate of frontman Jim Morrison -- continues to mine their vaults for reissues, Krieger and keyboardist Ray Manzarek continue to play the group's music, now billed as Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors after stints as the Doors of the 21st Century, D21C and Riders on the Storm. They've been fronted by the Cult's Ian Astbury. "That's probably what we should have been in the first place," Krieger notes. And the current incarnation of the act is fronted by Dave Brock, who hails from the Los Angeles Doors tribute band Wild Child.

 

"We've always been kind of afraid to ask him to play with us, because people say, 'Oh, you're using a tribute singer. Now you're your own tribute band,' " Krieger explains. "But then Journey got that karaoke singer (Arnel Pineda) and everybody loved it, so we said, 'If they can do that, we can use David. And he's been great. That's not to say the other guys (the Cult's Ian Astbury, Fuel's Brent Scallions) didn't do a good job, but I think when people come to see Ray and I, they want to see us do the Doors music as it should be done, so why not use a guy who really is an expert? He knows the songs better than we do, really."

 

Krieger says he and Manzarek also "talk about" recording some new music and even have songs they began when Astbury was working with them. "I think it would be a lot better if (Densmore) would be on it," Krieger says. "We do have some songs that we've worked up. We're just waiting for the right time, but we'll definitely be doing that." He and Manzarek are also looking ahead towards a full-scale world tour to celebrate the Doors' 50th anniversary in 2017.

[uncool2pillow]

Jimmy Fallon must do his homework:

 

The Doors sing 'Reading Rainbow' theme.

 

Awesome. Barry Gibb, Neil Young, now Jim Morrison. Is there no musician this guy doesn't get perfectly.

[Analogman]

They must have a heck of a budget for that show.

 

(The set they recreated there is the set from The Doors Ed Sullivan Show appearance.)

[calvino]

I wonder if some of the Ed Sullivan' sets have been saved and they reused it? Regardless, great performance.

[Analogman]

I always found that backdrop funny. At least - it is funny once you learn what the band's name actually refers to.

[Sir Stewart]

Awesome. Barry Gibb, Neil Young, now Jim Morrison. Is there no musician this guy doesn't get perfectly.

 

Don't forget Dylan.

[Moss]

Apparently this is real.  "Fat is beautiful" interview with Jim Morrison, with helpful animation:

 

[Analogman]

Speaking of The Doors - John has a new book coming out called "The Doors: Unhinged ".

 

 

A founding member of the influential, inspirational band whose ‘all for one, one for all’ equal partnership status among the bandmembers was legendary until it all came apart, John Densmore tells the story of what happened when the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll met lots of money, and the court case that threatened Jim Morrison’s legacy and tore decades-old friendships apart.

[Sir Stewart]

Apparently this is real.  "Fat is beautiful" interview with Jim Morrison, with helpful animation:

 

So that's where Oliver Stone got the line "What's wrong with being a large mammal?"

[Moss]

So that's where Oliver Stone got the line "What's wrong with being a large mammal?"

 

Yeah.  And "Like a tank".

[NoJ]

Speaking of The Doors - John has a new book coming out called "The Doors: Unhinged ".

 

"A founding member of the influential, inspirational band whose ‘all for one, one for all’ equal partnership status among the bandmembers was legendary until it all came apart, John Densmore tells the story of what happened when the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll met lots of money, and the court case that threatened Jim Morrison’s legacy and tore decades-old friendships apart."

 

He already covered most of that in his autobiography.

[Analogman]

I have one of those Unauthorized Rock N Roll comic books about The Doors. One of the panels shows Jim in a gym lifting weights. Pretty funny. I think the premise was someone told him he was fat and needed to go to the gym.

[Analogman]

This is cool. I have wanted to see this film since I was a kid. 

 

Feast of Friends (coming out November 11)

 

 

The Doors' long lost self-produced documentary, Feast of Friends, will be seeing a proper releases more than four decades after its creation.

 

The 1968 film has been previously only available to fans as poor-quality bootlegs, but now it has been remastered and will be available on DVD and Blu-ray beginning Nov. 11.

 

Feast of Friends was filmed during the Doors' summer tour 46 years ago by director Paul Ferrara and funded by the band itself. But it was never completed, Rolling Stone reports, after receiving generally negative reviews at film festivals and was eventually shelved due to singer Jim Morrison's legal problems from allegedly exposing himself to an audience in Miami.

 

Ferrara also shot the cover photograph of the Doors' Waiting for the Sun album, and his relationship with Morrison later led him to direct the 1969 film HWY: An American Pastoral. The film contains a mix of on-stage performances and behind the scenes footage of the band approached in a '60s cinéma vérité style.

 

"It's a fictional documentary," Morrison says in the film's trailer. "I can't say too much about it, because we're not really making it. It's just kind of making itself."

 

The new version of Feast of Friends has been color-corrected and mastered in high definition by long-time Doors co-producer and engineer Bruce Botnick, who also remixed and remastered the soundtrack.

 

The DVD and Blu-ray will also include a handful of bonus features. Those include the newly made Feast of Friends: Encore complimentary piece assembled with additional footage shot for the original film such as footage of the band recording "Wild Child" in the studio, a solo performance by guitarist Robby Krieger, a Morrison poem and an altercation with photographer Richard Avedon.

 

As well, it will include the 1968 British documentary The Doors Are Opencentered around the band's final performance at London's Roundhouse, also remastered and restored.

 

And, lastly, it also includes The End, a special performance of the song "The End" for British program The O’Keefe Centre Presents: The Rock Scene – Like It Is from October 1967. (The footage later aired in the U.S. on the program The Now Explosion in 1970.) In this packaging, the piece is supplemented with interviews of surviving band members John Densmore, Krieger, Ray Manzarek and former manager Danny Sugerman.

 

Feast of Friends has become a cult fan favorite over the years with a legacy of mythology surrounding it. The grainy bootleg version that was until now the only way of seeing the film was purportedly Morrison's own, which he brought with him when he moved to Paris in 1971 and he left at a friend's house in a brown paper bag just days before his death.