The Doors

[Guest Len B'stard]

You don't get Zeppelin which is cool as too each his own..but interesting the songs of theirs you like are some of their least blues type songs.

Yeah, as i was saying i don't think much of their representation of the blues, i don't think they did anything for it.

also interesting you have such a dislike for ProgRock as ChiDem borders on Prog Metal

I've never thought of Chi Dem as anything more than a good album. There's better and there's worse too.

Prog is thinking man's rock music

See i don't think so, i think exactly the opposite, i think Prog masquerades as the thinking mans music, i think a lot of prog bands think that just by being technically profficent you are offering something to those of intellect when really, all technical mastery of an instrument is the commiting of certain things to memory and i suppose a motor skills thing. I think they use these things to cover over the fact that they actually don't have anything to offer you that can stand up to any kind of intellectual scrutiny. I find there to be more food for thought in say for example the way The Ramones present themselves or say Bob Dylans music.

There is one thing that Prog rockers don't get is that...people that are good at say guitar or keyboard or...whatever instrument isn't JUST that they've taken the time, put in the hours, the years into learning the instrument. Of course, thats a part of it and a BIG part of it but that's not all of it, i don't think talent is 100% something that a person creates in themselves because if that were the case, everybody with the inclination to put the time into an instrument could do it and everybody can't do it, otherwise everyone that comes out of G.I.T. and places like that could make an indelible mark on their times by means of their music. I could sit there and learn all the notes and all the chords and all the patterns and rhythms and scales and modes and, in theory, have the guitar down to a T and i'm sure what i'd produce as a result would probably be to at least a few peoples liking but i don't think the resultant product would NECESSARILY be good music and i thats symptomatic of a lot of the thinking behind Prog Rock. You don't have to be complex to provoke thought.

I don't find a lot of that stuff to be inspiring, i don't think it has anything to say, i think a lot of it is to do with sort of meandering, in a sense i suppose you could say that that in itself is a sort of ineptitude...whats the point of knowing all the words in the dictionary if you've nothing to say with them?

modern classical IMHO....Yes, Genesis (Peter Gabriel era), ELP, Pink Floyd, etc...brilliant music...a shame you don't get it

Yeah, shame. I dunno though, i've come around to certain kinds of music that a previously was a little sceptical of, maybe the same'll happen with this stuff someday.

As far all the "soloist bullshit" how can you like Hendrix so much as he was the ultimate soloist.........see Voodoo Child, Red House, Hear My Train, Machine Gun etc........ultimate blues influenced solo rock................and Hendrix is probably my favorite musician.

Right but i find his soloing to be emotive, to be offering something to the song, to be bursting with feeling...it moves me...but just because he does solo's and long solo's at times doesn't mean that everybody that does long solos is gonna achieve the same effect much the same way, lord knows, everyone that produces fast three chord rock n roll songs doesn't do the same thing for me as The Ramones might do. There's something haphazard and ill concieved about a lot of Prog Rock to me, it seems often it uses technical profficency to cloak the fact that they don't have anything to say/any ideas.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Definately don't agree with you about Prog...certainly some of it lacks emotion but a band like "YES" ( Close to the Edge) I can't see how you can say that?? an acquired taste I guess??

I am most likely older than you and when I was younger I only listened to hook filled rock like AFD...as a matter of fact I was not a Doors fan....As I got older I started to appreciate all types of music like classical, zydeco, blue grass, even old country music ( not the pop they pass off as country these days)..and my wife has turned me onto a lot of music from around the World...we went to see the Gypsy Kings (Latin music) a month ago at the Boston HoB and they were fantastic..People were dancing in the aisles....something I would never considered listening to when younger..........sometimes it just takes time

I think bands like Yes, ELP are the worst offenders.

I like a great deal of music too, from around the world or otherwise, Persian music, turkish music, irish music, American Rock n Roll. I don't think that these so called Prog bands actually do much that is progressive though. They pretty much stay within the boundaries of modern rock music and just elongate and accentuate elements of it, i don't think that is progressive as such.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1NaPGwhbpE&feature=related this i find to be more progressive than any Prog rock i've ever heard

Or The Butthole Surfers or Sonic Youth or Gang of Four or Magazine...none of which are bands that rely on typical long winded soloing of rock n roll or even technical profficency per se. A lot of this stuff is a lot less cerebral and more sort of...instinctive and i find that to be a lot more profound than all of that other fiddley shit, not that its any less calculated...i guess it's all a matter of personal taste.

To cut it even shorter, to me its about music that says something, that has a point as opposed to a musician showing off his prowess for its own sake. Oftentimes its these sorts of musicians that ultimately, to my mind, have the least to offer anyway.

Edited May 16, 2010 by sugaraylen

[Guest Len B'stard]

that PIL track sounds like a band who can barely play their instruments trying to imitate King Crimson

See that i think cuts right to the heart of the problem with the prog rock mentality. Its too bogged down in conventional notions of what is or isn't musical ability to be at all progressive. Its all about convention, "THIS is how you play your instrument". For a mentality thats supposed to be progressive it's hopelessly shackled to convention and rules. The idea that just because a person is not playing their instrument according to convention is not identical to not being able to play that instrument. Music for for the middle classes, radical with a small r.

Edited May 16, 2010 by sugaraylen

[iftheworld]

Jim Morrison was revolutionary.

[Guest Len B'stard]

that PIL track sounds like a band who can barely play their instruments trying to imitate King Crimson

See that i think cuts right to the heart of the problem with the prog rock mentality. Its too bogged down in conventional notions of what is or isn't musical ability to be at all progressive. Its all about convention, "THIS is how you play your instrument". For a mentality thats supposed to be progressive it's hopelessly shackled to convention and rules. The idea that just because a person is not playing their instrument according to convention is not identical to not being able to play that instrument. Music for for the middle classes, radical with a small r.

Sounds like the same excuse the punk movement used to dismiss the bands who could actually play their instruments.....Your argument is nothing new just a repeat of the punk movement dogma........too each his own mate..............................

Just curious do you even like ChiDem? as it sounds like it contains some of th Prog Rock excesses you are complaining about...Based on your posts I would expect you to be more a fan of AFD...

Its definitely not new but its certainly relevant...or at least i think so. Do i like Chi Dem? Yeah, i do, i think its a pretty cool album but i don't think of it as a prog rock album although i do see the parrallels, its pretty much over-embellished (depending on your outlook) rock n roll.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not against music thats...experimental within the confines (if you can call them that) of conventional musicianmanship, its just i find a lot of the stuff that comes under the Prog Rock banner to be a little redundant.

I dunno whether i prefer AFD to Chi Dem, i suppose i do but it has less to do with which one is or isn't Prog and more to do with AFD being head n shoulders above Chi Dem as an album.

Edited May 16, 2010 by sugaraylen

[Guest deleted_19765]

that PIL track sounds like a band who can barely play their instruments trying to imitate King Crimson

See that i think cuts right to the heart of the problem with the prog rock mentality. Its too bogged down in conventional notions of what is or isn't musical ability to be at all progressive. Its all about convention, "THIS is how you play your instrument". For a mentality thats supposed to be progressive it's hopelessly shackled to convention and rules. The idea that just because a person is not playing their instrument according to convention is not identical to not being able to play that instrument. Music for for the middle classes, radical with a small r.

Sounds like the same excuse the punk movement used to dismiss the bands who could actually play their instruments.....Your argument is nothing new just a repeat of the punk movement dogma........too each his own mate..............................

Just curious do you even like ChiDem? as it sounds like it contains some of th Prog Rock excesses you are complaining about...Based on your posts I would expect you to be more a fan of AFD...

Its definitely not new but its certainly relevant...or at least i think so. Do i like Chi Dem? Yeah, i do, i think its a pretty cool album but i don't think of it as a prog rock album although i do see the parrallels, its pretty much over-embellished (depending on your outlook) rock n roll.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not against music thats...experimental within the confines (if you can call them that) of conventional musicianmanship, its just i find a lot of the stuff that comes under the Prog Rock banner to be a little redundant.

I dunno whether i prefer AFD to Chi Dem, i suppose i do but it has less to do with which one is or isn't Prog and more to do with AFD being head n shoulders above Chi Dem as an album.

Besides, despite my position on it as a general trend, I like a lot of Punk influenced music. I don't think this criticism is fair, we could probably find fault with everyone over this. For another example, I don't really care about Aerosmith. This should be a capital crime seeing as I love GNR. classicrawker, I think we need to remember that music is made by individuals who have very particular ways of making their art, even if some umbrella terms work for them and others that the listener might not appreciate.

[LaBellaVita]

Has anyone ever been to Jim's grave? Really cool, it's a must see - just for the atmosphere.

Edited May 16, 2010 by LaBellaVita

[Guest deleted_19765]

Oh and one more thing for you sug. You are not going to die a Zeppelin hater. I just don't think that's possible. You are going to hear one of their dozens of certifiably great songs out some place and have a whole new point of view. Mark my words.

[JAC185]

Has anyone ever been to Jim's grave? Really cool, it's a must see - just for the atmosphere.

Always wanted to. Is the head not there anymore because of vandalism etc? Pretty sure I read that somewhere.

[LightningBolt]

Prog Rock is one of my favorite kinds of music...

How can you listen to this and not love it?

Or these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUzpX-KxNLg

http://www.playlist.com/searchbeta/tracks#take%20a%20pebble/all/1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sVShT6nVTA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lazdg-eqmQ

[Guest Len B'stard]

One time I put on King Crimson's "Larks Tongue in Aspic", which is one of my favorites, and my friends wife had to leave the house as she said it was making her crazy

See now if i'd've ever heard any Prog stuff that'd even leaned in that sort of direction before, THEN i'd be interested.

One man's music is another man's noise I guess

Music is just organised noise. Its at its most interesting and most progressive, to my mind, when you mess with and distort the aforementioned 'order' and that is something thats best achieved by LESS profficent musicians than their technical whizzkid counterparts cuz the techies are so well learnt that they're in a sense confined to that order. Thats why a lot of punk, while at the same time dennouncing Prog' stuff, started doing TRULY prog shit themselves on the tailend of the whole movement, only in a more instinctive way, a way dictated to more by overall feel than by textbook shit.

I mean its just so clear to me, the textbook stuff is there, its in the books, it is written, it is established, how much of a progression can you be when you stick to it? Going outside the lines is where you get REALLY interesting. Do what you're not supposed to. The spirit of rock n roll has always been about rebellion, going against, making a statement thats perhaps contrary to the norm, this is lost and destroyed i think by people that dictate the way instruments should be played and dismiss anything, no matter original or intense or interesting, when it doesn't fit the pre-determined mould of musicianmanship.

Then again there is the school of thought that says you gotta know the rules before you knowingly break them...depends how you look at it i suppose.

[GivenToFly]

The spirit of rock n roll has always been about rebellion, going against, making a statement thats perhaps contrary to the norm

Who says that if you've got a band with guitar, bass and drums you have to abide to 'the spirit of rock n roll'? You put down these bands for sticking too much to the norms but you're creating a norm here yourself.

[F*ck Fear]

It's in my honest opinion that The Doors were one of the best bands at the time, and one of the best bands ever. Next to Guns's they are my favorite band. Morrison is an icon. True poet and great performer.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Who says that if you've got a band with guitar, bass and drums you have to abide to 'the spirit of rock n roll'? You put down these bands for sticking too much to the norms but you're creating a norm here yourself.

No one, that particular arrangement of instruments and the musicians that play them has been around since before Rock n Roll existed. And i'm not creating a norm because rebellion by its very nature can never be a norm, the minute it does it ceases to be rebellious. The spirit of rock n roll is not something that is exclusive to or was born with rock n roll, its been around since time began, its just there's different names for it. They're cultural phenomenons, before rock n roll it was the Beat Generation, before that it was...y'know, the list goes on. Its the difference between a living entity and a benign one, the ability to...speak and express oneself in a manner that is perhaps unsettling. After all, if we all agreed with each other words would become eventually obselete. It's not creating a norm, its reaching towards and trying to expand upon what i believe to be the singlemost important characteristic of life.

[dalsh327]

If it hadn't been for Dylan, rock music would still be about cars and girls.

Hendrix's girlfriend had said when "Highway 61" came out, Jimi would play it over and over. Morrison's college buddy said he used to make people shush so they can listen to Bob.

But if it hadn't been for Love and Arthur Lee, The Doors would've been some regional LA band that never made it big. Unfortunately, Love committed career sabotage because Arthur was a major pain in the ass to deal with and became more bitter and erratic as he got older. Not a nice guy, for all the crap The Doors pulled, they still played the game, although Morrison made a point to try to make sure everyone knew they were equally important, and all talented at the instruments they played. Without a doubt, "improvisational" is what they were... they improvised without a bass player, for one, and Manzarek saved more than a few gigs when Morrison passed out.

I also think one of the great things of the 60s was that people who ran record companies didn't try to be "hip", and took their chances on putting a lot of stuff out then that would be impossible for a record label to do today. Zappa had said these guys were clueless when it came to music, and that's why he was able to release albums in the first place. You have to remember him and Lou Reed and Paul Simon all recorded in the early 60s under assumed names on fly by night record labels, sounding like whatever was on the radio at that time. Elton John in the late 60s did the same thing... it was a paycheck, nothing more, nothing less.

What's amazing to me is that most of the songs for the first 3 albums were written around the same time. The first two albums and part of "Waiting for the Sun" were more or less finished, they just touched it up in the studio.

Also, The Doors and Queen are two bands where everyone in the band had written a hit song. The Stones and Beatles can't claim that.

One of the, if not the most legendary rock n roll band, been a fan for years, there music & Jim's poetry has changed me as a person, can't wait to see the new doors movie, will be epic.

What do you think of this amazing band?

[Eah]

mmm... interesting, i didn't know that

[nickzark]

they are one of the best Rock bands.I like them very much

[American Psycho]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdjg3QtLd6Q

[J Dog]

Recently bought an old Doors LP and it sound so good on vinyl. To make some of their music with just one guitar, keyboard, and drums is amazing.

[American Psycho]

Indeed.

Its sad that most people see Jim as a sex sympol and a the huge rockstar/the lead singer of the doors, almost nobody sees him as the true and deep poet what he at first wanted to be seen as.

Everyone checking this thread out, listen to this, its incredible, what a poet Jim was, R.I.P.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_Bwl7wvQE8&feature=related

Can't wait to next year, gonna visit his grave in France, Paris.

Edited September 26, 2010 by American Psycho

[dalsh327]

I was pissed off when they were at Book Soup doing a signing for the coffeetable book and couldn't go, but Manzarek's approachable and friendly (although I get tired of him talking about Morrison myths that he takes part in perpetuating), he does a lot of stuff with poet Michael McClure in the known rock clubs in most cities. He's taken part in a ton of other stuff all over SoCal that he's prob. as busy now as he was with The Doors.

I don't consider them one of the best bands at that time, only because they had a reputation of delivering unpredictable shows. You could compare the GNR St Louis show to The Doors' Miami show in terms of most controversial concerts of all time. And in 2010, what was in peoples' imagination, male nudity on stage, you can now get away with at any festival concert. Rage Against the Machine and Janes Addiction had done so in the past, and there's many others.

[American Psycho]

''When Youre Strange'' documentary is simply amazing, actually there is no words to describe how good it is, all the footage youre gonna see, the quality of the footage is amazing, you will actually think it was filmed in 2010 instead of 1969.

1969:

2010:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdjg3QtLd6Q

Any Doors fan should see this documentary.

Edited September 26, 2010 by American Psycho

[F*ck Fear]

''When Youre Strange'' documentary is simply amazing, actually there is no words to describe how good it is, all the footage youre gonna see, the quality of the footage is amazing, you will actually think it was filmed in 2010 instead of 1969.

1969:

2010:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdjg3QtLd6Q

Any Doors fan should see this documentary.

I've watched it about 1000 times already dude. What a documentary!

[ChineseDemocracy2004]

One of the, if not the most legendary rock n roll band, been a fan for years, there music & Jim's poetry has changed me as a person, can't wait to see the new doors movie, will be epic.

What do you think of this amazing band?

I bought their Greatest Hits CD a while ago. Its great to listen to on a Sunday afternoon when you're lazying about.

[F*ck Fear]

I always find myself listening to one album at a time, than moving on the next one. Like right now, I can't get enough of Morrison Hotel. Land Ho! is one of their best tunes.