Monocled Alchemist

Article published in RAVE magazine, December 1968

The Doors in Rave | JIM MORRISON lives in exaggerations—the dragged-out half stumble and the sloth-like stance on stage the upturned, pouting face with eyes clenched shut, the ponderous but precise speaking voice which is out of the best Brando mould.

James Douglas Morrison, Superstar, Poet and idol of America’s rising generation, would be a perfect target for the satirist. That apart, he is not as black as he has been painted.

Already pre-warned by colleagues of Morrison’s erratic behaviour toward the British press during the Doors‘ recent and eventful stay here, it did not cool my apprehension any to read, on my way to see Mr. Morrison, his publicist’s claim that he can be civil, polite, even erudite one clay: yet gross or, as Jim says, “primitive” the next.

Which extreme was I about to face?

“He’s been quite good today,” said his British publicist at Polydor-Elektra Records, with the air of a keeper talking about London Zoo’s naughtiest lion.

The Doors in Rave

I was ushered into a small room containing the Doors and sundry people flitting back and forth with no apparent purpose. Most of them were hovering on the edge of Morrison’s conversation and, it was Jim, in open-necked shirt and tight black leather jeans, who dominated the room.

Among those present with some purpose were three gentlemen in a Granada Television team filming the whole Doors visit with a rare degree of dedication. A bored looking Robby Kreiger, Doors’ guitar man, was to tell me later that they had even followed one of them to the toilet!

Next to Bobby was drummer John Densmore, an active Maharishi student, colourfully attired, who was sitting cross-legged on his chair, saying little and watching the chaos that was supposed to be a press conference.

In another corner sat organist Ray Manzarek with a polite smile on his face and a polite line in answers. Kreiger, hiding behind dark glasses and an uncontrolled growth of beard. had some interesting things to say about Morrison in the short interview which came to a sharp end at the sight of a Granada man crawling along the floor and pushing a huge mike up into our faces.

A camera was meanwhile probing the recesses of my left ear. What of Jim’s reported moods?

“It de-pends.” said Bobby. “which day of the week you get him. It is just the way he is. I think I understand him as well as anybody through being with him for three years, but I still don’t understand him completely.”

The Doors in Rave

Morrison certainly knows how to project himself and has an actor’s feel for presence. Questions are met by prolonged periods of deep thought accompanied by closed eyes and intense expression downward. He can often take so long to answer that the poor interviewer finds he’s lost track of his precise inquiry.

I get incredible letters. They teach me how to live rather than me teach them. My fans are intelligent

Answers themselves, delivered in a half-stumbling tone reminiscent of Jim’s movements on stage, are accompanied by intense glances skyward. He first wished to extend his praise for the behaviour of the audiences during the Doors’ two London concerts at the Round-house.

“They were one of the best audiences we’ve ever had. Everyone seemed to take it so easy. It was like going back to the roots again and it stimulated us to give a good performance. They were fantastic. That’s all I can say. ‘Cept that we enjoyed playing at the Roundhouse more than any other date for years.”

While on the subject of their stage act, I asked Jim how important the sex angle was.

“Sex is just one part of my act. There are a lot of other factors. It is important I guess, but I don’t think it is the main thing, although all music is a very nature-based thing. So they can’t be separated.

“But the sex thing has been picked out because it sells papers”

How important then were politics in his writing?

“I don’t think so far politics have been a major theme in my songs. It is there in a few songs, but it is a very minor theme. Politics is people and their interaction with other people, so you cannot really separate it from anything.”

The Doors in Rave

I became aware at this point that there was a hint, only a hint, about Morrison that he was reluctant to take himself seriously. The journalist faithfully transcribing Morrison’s thoughts to paper would be well advised to glance up from his work for a second and there you may see just the trace of an inward smile on the handsome countenance.

Jim acknowledges that Elvis Presley along with the other giants of the era, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, was an early and strong influence on him. He says: “Their influence was due to their music and the fact I heard them at an age when I was kinda ready for influence.”

Jim was courteous enough to me. But a glimpse of what the “primitive” Morrison could be like came out at the questioning of one persistent reporter, who asked him first about the comparisons between him and Mick Jagger.

“I have always thought comparisons were useless and ugly. It is a short cut to thinking,” replied Jim, in what seemed too glib an answer to be an off-the-cuff comment. He went into deep thought, with eyes closed and down, and finally replied, “Well how do you see yourself?”

In 1964 the year before he joined the Doors— Morrison entered the Theatre Arts Department of a Los Angeles university and entered a course of training in cinema. He claims to have forsaken the cinematic arts only temporarily and told me that when the group returned home they will begin work on a feature-length Doors movie, directed by Morrison.

They met in the Summer of 1965

“Film is a hard medium to break into,” he says. “It’s so much more complex than music; you need so many people and so much equipment. I like the rock medium because of its direct contact with an audience.

Sex is just one part of my act. It’s important but I don’t think it’s the main thing

The Doors began in the Spring of ’65 deriving from a band called Rick and the Ravens, containing the three brothers Manzarek—Ray, Rick and Jim. It was Ray Manzarek who brought Morrison in.

Both were living in Venice during the summer of ’65 when they met. “He said he had been writing some songs, so we sat on the beach and I asked him to sing some of them,” says Ray. “The first thing he tried was “Moonlight Drive”. When he sang those first lines—’let’s swim to the moon, let’s climb through the tide, penetrate the evening, that the city sleeps to hides’—I said that’s it!”

Rick and Jim Manzarek eventually decided they didn’t like Morrison’s songs and left. John Densmore and Bobby Kreiger were recruited from one of the Maharishi’s Los Angeles training centres and the Doors as four had started, the name of the group being culled from a phrase of William Blake—”There are things that are known and things that are unknown: in between there are doors.”

Group’s followers

It seemed appropriate. I asked him if he found the group’s followers coming to him to be taught how to live. “I get incredible letters.” he replied, “but they teach me how to live rather than me teach them. My fans are intelligent youngsters and very sensitive.”

On a par with Morrison’s writing is his stage performance—often described as evil. Jim prefers the term primeval. “I was less theatrical, less artificial, when I began,” he says, “But now the audiences we play for are much larger and the rooms wider. It’s necessary to project more, to exaggerate—almost to the point of grotesqueness. I think when you’re a small dot at the end of a large arena, you have to make up for that lack of intimacy with expanded movements.” (Mike Grant)

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