Give us an Hour For Magic . . . . . . . .

 The Lords and The New Creatures

Jim Morrison and Pam Courson at the Bronson Caves, 1969, 

Photos by Edmund Teske 

THE DOORS.com share Remembrance of Jim Morrison today on the Anniversary of his Death (27)

 

one of the last known shots of Jim [with Pam on the left[ at the doorway of their holiday apartment Paris 1971 Join us today in remembering Jim.  “Jim Morrison was one of our great poets and unique performers. His body of work will always endure.” - Patti Smith “It was the way to stand at the mic – the stance and the grab. He hung on the stand. Nobody else did that.” - Iggy Pop “It is hard to believe that there was a better poet than Jim, at his age.” - Michael McClure  “The guy was a genius, and I don’t throw that word around very often… He was a risk taker, fearless.” - Alice Cooper More than five decades later, Jim’s work has continued to live on. The records he made with The Doors are still finding new ears, and his poetry has been passed to the new generation. He brought a poet’s perspective to rock and roll and shattered notions of what it meant to be a rock star. Rest in peace, Jim.

The Doors - Moonlight Drive (Jonathan Winters Show)

Family reflects on Jim Morrison : his Dad, The Admiral, and his beloved sister Anne

 Jim (Morrison) his dad and his sister Anne reminisce about Jim’s character

Given he had been know to invent their death, it is interesting to hear their warm and affectionate views - they knew!

Brought a tear to my eye . . . . .Anne’s desire that he be remembered affectionately and as a songwriter and poet came true! so touching

Anne knew what Jim was at but boy Admiral Morrison also, in his own way, knew what position his son held and was clearly immensely respectful and deeply proud

For his graduating from High School he asked his parent’s for the complete works of Nietsche! “Most kids asked for a car!” Anne Morrison

He once got out of class by saying he had to go and get a brain tumour removed and went home to read [Anne]

Be honest, it made me cry!

This Is The End : one of the last known pictures of Jim Morrison . . . .

 

Photo by Gilles Yepremian. 

Circa May/June 1971 - Pam and Jim picture with Hervé Muller outside his apartment (6 Place Tristan Bernard, Paris). 

Bigger photo from Jeff Finn’s docu-mystery “Before the End: Searching for Jim Morrison”, chapter 3.

You can watch it here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/beforetheend

“Tremble: your whole life is a rehearsal for the moment you are in now.” Judith Malina (UPDATED: + Jim with The Living Theatre?)

 

Writer/Actor/Director and Co-founder (with Husband and Partner Julian Beck) of New York’s Avant-garde Living Theatre Judith Malina [Uncredited and Undated Photograph]

Thought For The Day:

“Tremble: your whole life is a rehearsal for the moment you are in now.” Judith Malina

It is thought that prior to the Doors Miami ‘incident’ Morrison had been to see the Living Theatre and was struck by their ground breaking attitude to the body and naked form in theatre

Jim onstage with the Living Theatre in San Francisco, 1969.?

Jim onstage with the Living Theatre in San Francisco, 1969.II ?

Jim onstage with the Living Theatre in San Francisco, 1969.detail 

Jim onstage with the Living Theatre in San Francisco, 1969. These were the shows that inspired Jim’s tirade during the Miami incident shortly afterward. Definitely the most substantial photos that have surfaced in recent years. (N.B. these are either really good fakes or as near to perfect documents of the event I have ever seen)

Photo credits to Elizabeth Sunflower. Originally posted by @RetroPhotoArchive on Instagram

of course this is now causing much debate on Reddit and elsewhere and many are calling them out as fakes

Jim (Morrison) and Pam

Pam and Jim being in love at Michael McClure’s “The Beard” play premiere at the Warner Playhouse, California, January 24, 1968.

"Here you have the blurry original picture (L) that during ages was in the internet (this one comes from instagram) and on the right you have the beautifully restored version by R who heavily tagged with huge red words published at her facebook page “Pamela Courson: She Dances in a Ring of Fire” which now is closed.

Well, thanks to this cleaning pictures program, now you have the beautiful photo without any tags. You can post it wherever you want and you don’t need to credit our site since this is a photo from the 60s. Enjoy it!!”

 

Little Queenies Rock Muses from 1960s - 1990s

Jim Morrison’s last days . . . . . .

 Last Known Photos of Jim Morrison Paris June 28 1971 

by Alain Ronay

again someone posted a clip of this on Fleckennabok! and again WHY! Just post the whole thing and stop being dictated to by the social media as to where you post! if it limits your time and breadth of posting

I maintain you can see the effects of Pam’s heroin use here and the heroin that allegedly went on to kill Morrison snorting what he believed to be ‘coke' and taking a bath did not recover (Jim went on record that he hated smack and her use thereof and she is said to have hidden her habit from him for prolonged time if not years). It certainly seems that she had continued her habit Paris and the likelihood that Jim found her China White and snorted an amount believing it to be cocaine now with any alcohol use both heroin is a notoriously hard and demanding concoction reducing our ability to breath and users suffer death by asphyxiation . . . . . . . Coke and alcohol together go on to make a secondary drug of its own and are frequently used to consume larger quantities of both

 

Here there is a dispute and whilst it is claimed Jim wasn’t drinking to excess accounts do vary and shorn of his beard you can see signs of his bloat but then after wearing a full beard for so long it is not unusual to show similarly but hey . . . . . .that he didn’t make it past the 3rd July is a given IMHO

Downtime with Jim (Morrison that is!)

 1969, Jim Morrison visited Teotihuacan, exploring its ruins and standing beside a carved stone serpent. Known for his interest in history and mysticism, he seemed deep in thought. During The Doors' time in Mexico City, this visit offered a quiet moment away from the chaos of his music career.

BIRTHDAYS | Jim Morrison 8 December 1943 - Interview THE DOORS : When The Music’s Over / Riders On The Storm

Remembering Jim Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971)

This extraordinary recording of Jim Morrison from 50 years ago feels like it could have been recorded yesterday. This CBC interview was recorded about one year before Jim's death in 1971

When The Music’s Over

The Doors Live In Copenhagen 1968

What have they done to the earth? What have they done to our fair sister? Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn And tied her with fences and dragged her down

Riders On The Storm

 

The song Riders was recorded at the Doors Workshop in December 1970 with the assistance of Bruce Botnick, their longtime engineer, who was co-producing the recording sessions. Jim Morrison recorded his main vocals and then whispered the lyrics over them to create the echo effect. This was the last song recorded by the members of The Doors, according to Manzarek, as well as Morrison's last recorded song to be released. The single was released in 1971, shortly before Morrison's death in Paris 

5 MUSICIANS DAVID CROSBY HATED!

L.A.Woman - The Doors

5 MUSICIANS DAVID CROSBY HATED: 

In bleak times, the world needs heroes such as David Crosby.

I wasn’t going to share this but it is a good read and made me smile actually and despite his supposed ‘hatred’ of some bands, his comments about The Doors strikes me as solely about jealousy but maybe I would say that as a confirmed fan! His opinion about Manzarek is so far off mark it is merely ludicrous! The magnificence and ground breaking drummer in John Densmore fitting jazz licks into rock and the way they all fit together is a testament to a fine fine rock band with a poet of genuine creativity (ask Michael McClure!) as its figurehead. That Jim was a ‘juicer’ who could be an asshole is a given! But we understand the idiot savant that alcohol reveals. The same can be said of those chain smoking weed! 

 He did cop to his disgusting comments about Darryl Hannah and I guess the dope smoking make you as about opinionated as it possibly to get but he was undoubtedly a curmudgeon of stellar proportions and check him out on his release from prison to see how cool he was! That he posted one of the finest voices in rock music is a given and he didn’t have to work at it. Natural gifts make for arrogant egotists!

 "Despite his many flaws, you’d be hard-pressed to find any culturally significant figure who doesn’t have serious pitfalls; this internal dichotomy produces both triumph and the obstacles that make their victories resound even more.

A folk-rock pioneer famed for his work in The Byrds, CSN, and CSNY, there can be no doubt regarding Crosby’s talent as a songwriter, guitarist and vocalist. From the early moments of The Byrds to their psychedelic classic Fifth Dimension and on to the defining opus of the countercultural era, CSNY’s Déjà Vu, he resoundingly showed his genius on many occasions. Furthermore, his unwavering creativity would later be heard with the jazz-rock outfit CPR and his solo work.

Yet, Crosby’s character afforded his many consequential musical efforts a different dimension. A divisive figure unafraid to make his opinions known, he would be fired from The Byrds for voicing those thoughts and later have strained relationships with his CSNY bandmates, particularly Neil Young. Crosby burned that particular bridge after Crosby felt compelled to offensively criticise the Canadian’s wife, actor Daryl Hannah. 

Giving a taste of Crosby’s fire and his comical way with words, after things had reached boiling point with Young in 2021, he maintained: “Neil has got a genuine beef. I did say something bad about his girlfriend [Daryl Hannah]. I said I thought she was a predator. OK, he can be mad at me. That’s all right.”

If it wasn’t already clear, the late Californian was unafraid of making his opinions known. From interviews to Twitter – the latter encompassing taking down musical peers and judging fans’ joint rolling skills – he was a real one until the end. Even those he irked will certainly miss his impish character to some degree. Prone to providing challenging insight and pure comedy, bleak times such as the present are made that bit worse without figures as complex and perenially fascinating as he was.

Jim Morrison and The Doors had their fair share of detractors, many of whom were also key driving forces of the countercultural sound, including Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Grace Slick. Crosby was also a part of that set. 

When asked to discuss The Doors on Twitter in 2019, the moustachioed weed-smoker was bold in his argument and added to his original assertion in a 1998 interview that frontman Morrison was “obnoxious” and that “I didn’t like him.” This time, though, the Croz attacked the entire group. He said they “Basically sucked …guitar and drums pretty ok …keyboard was awful ..his bass with left hand was abysmal, horrible …square wheel bad.”

After two decades, The Doors frontman was due another volley. “Morrison was no effing good as a singer or poet,” Crosby said, believing him nothing but a “poser.”

In 1998, his band CPR released ‘Morrison’, the track based on The Door’s vocalist, who died aged 27 in 1971. It paints a sympathetic image of the ‘Lizard King’ and only adds to the complexity of Crosby’s character. “He was lost and I don’t think / He wanted it that way,” Crosby sings, indicating compassion for the musician he deemed “mad and lonely”. 

Of course, Crosby’s points about The Doors in 2019 attracted fury from their fans. In his classic style, when he was told he was wrong in his claims, he doubled down: “I’m not wrong …they sucked all the time.”

Another band with legions of critics are The Rolling Stones, one of the most successful outfits of all time and a vital part of the story of the 1960s. While Crosby’s views on Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ group somewhat softened as time wore on, back in the day, the American absolutely hated the Dartford outfit.

A proponent of peace and love right until the very end – despite his numerous critiques of others – it seems that the Laurel Canyon dweller was at spiritual odds with the British rabble of hellraisers and inferred that they were partially at fault for the dream dying. It was the horrific tragedy of 1969’s Altamont Free Concert, where The Rolling Stones hired the Hells Angels as security, leading to fatalities, that was Crosby’s primary source of contempt. Furthermore, the doomed festival is the moment many have pinpointed as the start of the hippie dream fading to black.

Crosby asserted: “I think the major mistake was taking what was essentially a party and turning it into an ego game and a star trip of The Rolling Stones, who… qualify in my book as snobs. I think they’re on a grotesque, negative ego trip, essentially, especially the two leaders.”

He would later comment that while there was range to The Rolling Stones’ music, The Beatles were much better, including at vocal harmonies, which Jagger, Richards and the band couldn’t do “for squat”.

As a lifelong hippie, it makes much sense that David Crosby hated the entire punk genre despite its profoundly countercultural essence and the old saying that hippies are, in fact, punks. Alas, no amount of images showing Johnny Rotten, Joe Strummer and other notable genre names with long hair would change his mind.

Asked for his thoughts on the genre on Twitter in 2017, he simply said “no”. Then, when another fan listed an array of truly great punk acts, including The Clash, The Stooges, Buzzcocks, Ramones and Descendants, Crosby wasn’t having it. He disregarded punk as “Pretty much all dumb stuff,” with “no musical value at all and mostly childish lyrics.”

Following this, one bold user attempted to outline how the childish lyrics were the point of The Ramones, but Crosby chose to stay on his hill. “Yes, but dumb”, he corresponded. Elsewhere, even the lyrical power of the “punk poet laureate” Patti Smith wasn’t enough for Crosby to change his mind. “Not my thing”, he said after being asked for his opinion on her.

Mike Love has been a controversial figure for a long time. Recently, he took The Beach Boys’ name on the road, much to the chagrin of their mastermind, true leader, his cousin and nemesis, Brian Wilson. Notably, in 2020, he was criticised for dragging the group’s reputation through the dirt when he played a fundraiser for Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.

As Crosby was a left-wing legend, in 2020, he was asked about Love using the band’s name without original members Wilson and Al Jardine. He replied: “Those aren’t the Beach Boys, and I doubt they voted. Mike Love is, in the opinion of almost every musician I know, a shithead, most assuredly has no talent at all, and, as you can probably tell… I just don’t like him”.

Kanye West is another detestable figure, recently seeing his cultural value plummet due to his anti-semitism and seemingly sympathetic view towards Hitler, in which he told rightwing pundit Alex Jones, “I see good things about Hitler.” He also wore the “White Lives Matter” t-shirt in Paris.

While West’s politics and personality are the source of much rightful anger, Crosby was already a naysayer, taking issues with his lack of ability years before public opinion swayed.

“Music ?.. He’s an idiot and a poser….has no talent at all,” Crosby said on Twitter in 2015. The following year, he remained unmoved, asserting on Andy Cohen’s chat show Watch What Happens Live: “He can neither sing, nor write, nor play.”

Delivering his knock-out blow, Crosby added: “Somebody needs to drive him over to Stevie Wonder’s house right now so he understands what a real one is. Secondly, they should send him all of Ray Charles’s catalogue so he can learn how to sing.”

Can’t disagree with his comments on West here, nor pro-Trump Mike Love come to that . . . it’s a view!

✍️ Arun Starkey

Upon his release . . . 

David Crosby ‘Long Time Gone’ Lowell Summer Music Series 6-14-18 Boarding House 

Park

Arrested on drugs and weapons charges . . . . .  Crosby look wrecked and no hippie this!

The Doors with the final word . . . . Riders on The Storm

 Well that’s a weird day and couldn’t find anything from any of the sites I visit that was new!? Where is everybody?

All on a break? Half term? Holidays? . . . . still, time for a catch up on some piccies maybe and if I find some music along the way I’ll let ya know!

Jimmie Rodgers - The Singing Brakeman

Paul and Heather on holiday in Portugal (prolly taken by Linda)

Grace and Spenser Dryden Golden Gate Park SF 

copyright the legendary photographer Jim Marshall 1967

Wonder what the atmosphere was like? A rare photo of George dropping in to see his ex with Eric and the guys! George Harrison visiting Pattie Boyd and Eric Clapton at Hurtwood Edge with Jenny Boyd and Carl Radle, late 1974. Ahem!

Linda and Paul strutting their London stuff - happy days, glad he’s found those happy days again!

Blind Willie McTell in case you wondered what he looked like

We miss these guys and if ever we were in need of the peacemakers its now!

Jim Morrison in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. 1969

Oor Wullie

Bob [‘Alias'] on set with Sam Peckinpah - Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

More Alias

Frank!

my favourite line up of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band - Art Tripp III, Captain, Mark Boston, Bill Harkleroad, John French. 

We featured Paramore t’other day and this is their singer and founder and really only constant member Hayley Williams, in action - we like her!

more Hayley in Paramore

Tom Waits by perhaps my favourite rock photographer and fellow artist Anton Corbijn, Santa Rosa, 2004. 

As per usual, if you own the picture and want a copyright tag or acknowledgment just drop by and let me know, happy to credit (or remove if you must insist!?) just don’t be threatening with Web Sherriffs and Marshalls and all! It’s demeaning!

Some Random notes from the t'interweb

 "There is a moment when you realise that Jim Morrison loved Pink Floyd and even got to see them play live but never got to hear Dark Side of The Moon!”

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'You tell me that silence is nearer to peace than poems, but if for my gifts I brought you silence “for I know silence” you would say : This is not silence this is another poem and you would hand it back to me.'

Leonard Cohen  from “The Spice-Box of Earth” 

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Someone posted this on social media:

“A friend of mine posted a photo of a euphonium he's about to repair and restore... Check out the lost and found address on the case!”

You have a friend who repairs euphoniums!

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A sixth of all Beatles songs reference the weather!

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Early shots of the Gibson factory in Kalamazoo Michigan.

My Kalamazoo guitar was made around 1936 when they first started making the  budget end Gibson acoustics mine is a KG14

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Joe Strummer 1974 then known as Woody Mellor

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Greg and Duane Allman and their Grandma

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I love this picture of Paul and Heather. 

(not credited where I found it but almost certainly taken by Linda)

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