The Doors: From the Outside (2009) Review

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The Doors: From the Outside (2009) ReviewI can see why some people may not like this documentary.It's dry and British.Yet,it's a wonderful look at what the critics,then and now,think about their music.In 1971,the psychedelic tide had ebbed out.And left many bands ,high and dry.The Doors' music lives on and is still able to find new listeners,generation after generation.This documentary is slow and almost scientific in its approach to explain the 'Doors' influence.If you are a die-hard fan,you'll love this DVD.If you wanted a lot of music,you'll be disappointed here.The Doors were one of the few bands,that was able to ride the vibe and survive,with its unique Blues/Jazz/Hard rock sound.The lyrics were poetic and erudite.And still perfect for Top 40 radio.Oliver Stone's film was entertaining,yet only about thirty percent accurate.And most friends of Jimbo agree that the Lizard King would not have been happy with the film.This documentary also closes with the ambiguity of Morrison's death.Almost all agree his health was poor,so his death was not that big of a shock.But,his Parisian friends felt his health and mood was improving.I feel Morrison was set-up,perhaps by the CIA.Jim's father was a big-wig in the navy,and serving in Vietnam,during the Doors successful launch.Ironically,the Doors were the most popular radio music,over the GI air-waves.Jim having felt distant from his parents,claimed they were even 'dead'.Jim's death has always been shrouded in mystery.I think a pausible story is that the CIA,were closing in on Jim and Pamela Courson.Jim's soul-mate and anima gemella,Pamela,operated a successful L.A. fashion shoppe.While at the Left Bank,Pam sent Jim to pick up some 'packages' for her,at the Rock-n-Roll Circus discotheque.When Jim arrived he encountered the two drug couriers was soundly roughed-up by the two dark-clothed dudes and left in the loo.Jim was helped out,by fellow clubbers, and taken back to his flat.They put him in the bath-tub.And Pamela was then faced with a huge dilemma.If she called the police,her involvement with the drug-dealers would be fully exposed.Whether quick medical attention would have revived him is unknown.Jim expired in the tub,and she needed to have the body quickly interned,before the police became suspicious of 'foul-play' and 'drug-connections'.She was able to have the death ruled 'natural',within two days.Most believed it because of Morrison's depression, bloated frame and declined state of health.This documentary doesn't mention this version,yet does leave the window open to various possiblities of his final where-abouts.This documentary is a must for every true fan of the 'Doors'.The Doors: From the Outside (2009) Overview

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When You're Strange (Songs From The Motion Picture) Review

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When You're Strange (Songs From The Motion Picture) ReviewThe Doors have spent years finding new ways to re-package and re-sell the same basic songs from their six studio albums. Now they have a new excuse for yet another release, a documentary about the history of the band which of course opens the door for a "soundtrack."
The album for "When You're Strange" is basically the same recordings a Doors fanatic or casual classic rock listener probably already has in earlier releases, such as the much superior "The Very Best Of The Doors" and of course, the albums themselves. For die hard members of the Jim Morrison cult the only noteworthy new material here are the poetry readings by actor Johnny Depp (who narrates the film), most of them only last a few seconds, but does that matter to Morrison's disciples? It is a shame though, how short the poetry tracks are, because Depp's voice adds a nice, dark atmosphere to the words, like a fellow literary rebel reciting strange visions and ideas.
The other "new" material here are "live tracks" basically lifted from TV performances such as the notorious "Light My Fire" performance from the Ed Sullivan Show and a scorching "When The Music's Over" from European TV. But the quality of these tracks is so scratchy and fuzzy that you're better off with the actual performance footage found in Doors DVD releases which have much cleaner audio. The Doors fanatic will no doubt want to get them just for the sake of having them but the casual listener will find little reason for adding the recordings to their iPods. The same goes for the "interview clips" featuring the band, short clips which, again, are simply lifted from video sources most fans purchased long ago.
The music of The Doors is of course classic, powerful and timeless. Songs like "Moonlight Drive" and "People Are Strane" retain their dark, poetic power while "Break On Through" and "Soul Kitchen" are exciting numbers with killer rhythms. The beautiful "The Crystal Ship" is here as well with its wonderous visions and lush melodies and "The End" remains the band's epic masterpiece. But of course anyone who loves The Doors already knows all this. And those who loved 2007's remixed albums will find the original recordings which of course, they probably already own.
Some are saying that criticisms of this release are unfounded because hey, it is a SOUNDTRACK to a film after all. True, but reviewed as a product, it has little to offer Doors fans and for the newly initiated, they are better off getting the band's albums which are the true testament of any musical group. Wouldn't a new fan prefer the actual studio versions of "Light My Fire" and "When The Music's Over" anyway? "When You're Strange" is no doubt a fascinating film, but as a soundtrack, it's just more recycled product which you probably already have sitting somewhere in your CD collection or downloaded into your iPod.
When You're Strange (Songs From The Motion Picture) Overview

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Classic Albums: The Doors - The Doors (2008) Review

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Classic Albums: The Doors - The Doors (2008) ReviewFor every Doors fan, this is a thrill to have the first Doors album featured on a Classic Albums dvd. I have been a Doors fan since 1967 and have enjoyed their very unique style of music for 41 years.
This dvd features 7 of their 11 debut album songs, 1.Break On Through (To The Other Side), 2.The Crystal Ship, 3.Back Door Man, 4. Alabama Song (Whisky Bar), 5.Light My Fire, 6.End Of The Night and 7.The End. It does not feature the following 4 songs: Soul Kitchen, Twentieth Century Fox, I Looked At You and Take It As It Comes. I wish they had covered all 11 songs, as it is fascinating listening to the surviving Doors Ray Manzarek (organ, piano and bass), Robby Krieger (guitar) and John Densmore (drums) telling how these songs began and how they evolved into one of the greatest albums of all time.
Jim Morrison's poetry was almost always the beginning of their great songs, but there were many other influences that Ray, Robby and John brought into their unique sound from jazz, blues, latin, flamenco and bossa nova music. They even brought in some James Brown music!
There is much bonus material that really makes this worth owning as well. Ray tells of learning to play a Marxaphone on Alabama Song that gives the song it's carnival sound. Robby tells about his slide guitar, which gave The Doors such a unique mystical sound. John tells many of his trade secrets on the drums, such as he uses size 7A drum sticks, which are very thin and break easily, but give him maximum speed.
There are also great stories about Jim Morrison from 1967 told by The Doors. Bruce Botnick, the sound recording engineer for The Doors, plays many tracks from this fantastic album by themselves, so you can hear just single tracks of Jim Morrison's voice or just single tracks of the instruments. Jim Morrison can be heard singing with no accompaniment to show that his voice alone was unbelievably incredible!
Ray was such a talent on the keyboard, that he was the bass player! They never needed a bass guitar player with the fantastic sounds Ray could make on his keyboard. They tell how Moonlight Drive never made it to this first album, because the sound was not quite right. Moonlight Drive did make it on the second album, Strange Days, when it was slowed down quite a bit and a harpsichord sound was added to it. There are also commentaries from manager Bill Siddons, Jac Holzman who signed The Doors to Elektra Records, friend and poet Michael McClure, LA DJ Jim Ladd, other musicians, a film student and a music writer.
This dvd brought back many memories from 1967, when the shortened version of Light My Fire stayed at #1 on the record charts for that summer. The magic and genius of The Doors from 1967 is still there and it comes through on this dvd. I only hope that Classic Albums will feature more of The Doors truly fantastic albums like Strange Days and Waiting For The Sun, because listening to the origins of The Doors unbelievably fantastic songs is just like listening to The Doors songs for the first time in 1967!Classic Albums: The Doors - The Doors (2008) Overview

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The Doors Original Soundtrack Recording Review

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The Doors Original Soundtrack Recording ReviewGreat soundtrack to a good movie. This really serves as a basic "best of" with a few extra's. Half of this is the big songs you would expect, but what I like is the inclusion of "love street", and 3 tracks from the "American Prayer" album: "ghost song", "stoned immaculate", and "the severed garden". Plus you have the Velvet Underground track "heroin", and Carmina Burana. Also a cool little clip from the movie starts it all off. Why this is an import now I don't know. I guess all the Doors hype of the early 90's is long past. It was fun while it lasted. At least we'll always have the music.The Doors Original Soundtrack Recording Overview

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The '60s Rock Experience Live (2004) Review

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The '60s Rock Experience Live (2004) ReviewMy experience with the PBS concert series has always been a good to great one. Unfortunately, this is the first one I have been slightly disappointed with. This December 9th, 2004 event definitely does not compare with others such as the many Soul, Doo Wop and Pop events. I expected the 60's Rock Experience reunion to be one of my favorites but I must agree with the last reviewer that the "fake or canned" applause is annoying. Below is my observation:
Pros
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* Audio: 5 stars (excluding the older footage); 5.1 audio
* Video: 4.5 stars (only due to the stage lighting; clarity is fine on new performances)
* 142 min. long with 29 songs/performances (old and new).
* Good mix of Rock, Folk Rock and Pop artists. Good line-up.
Cons
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* Fake applause. One example is Scott McKenzie's performance of "San Francisco. A wonderful performance ruined by this annoying "canned" crowd cheer. Same goes for Martha Reeves performance (Rock Experience??) and Eric Burdon. It's not as evident on the pre-taped performance of "Whiter Shade of Pale" by Gary Brooker and Procol Harum.
* Mixed results on old footage. Some pretty good (The Doors), some rare but severely chopped (The original Moody Blues with Denny Laine on lead vocals singing "Go Now") and some just poor.
Still a fun DVD just to see these artists on a nationally televised event. Some voices have aged well (i.e.: Rob Grill, Chuck Negron) and others have suffered slightly but still a good time.The '60s Rock Experience Live (2004) Overview

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When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors (2010) Review

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When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors (2010) ReviewIn the short 4 ½ years that keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robbie Krieger, drummer John Densmore and lead vocalist Jim Morrison enjoyed an artistic collaboration, they produced six timelessly resonant studio albums and the classic Absolutely Live (which still holds up as one of the best live albums ever by a rock band). The Doors were also one of the first rock bands to successfully bridge deeply avant-garde sensibilities with popular commercial appeal. It was Blake and Rimbaud... that you could dance to.
Surprisingly, it has taken until 2010, 45 years (!) after UCLA film students Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek first starting kicking around the idea of forming a band, for a proper full-length documentary feature about The Doors to appear, Tom DiCillo's When You're Strange. You'll notice I said, "about The Doors". I felt that Oliver Stone's 1991 biopic ultimately lost its way as a true portrait of the band, because it was too myopically fixated on the Jim Morrison legend; Morrison the Lizard King, the Dionysian rock god, the drunken poet, the shaman. Yes, he was all of that (perhaps more of a showman than a shaman), but he was only 25% of the equation that made The Doors...well, The Doors. That's what I like about DiCillo's film; he doesn't gloss over the contributions of the other three musicians.
In fact, one of the things you learn in the film is that Morrison himself always insisted that all songwriting credits go to "The Doors" as an entity, regardless of which band member may have had the dominant hand in the composition of any particular song (when you consider that Morrison couldn't read a note, that's a pragmatic stance for him to take). The band's signature tune, the #1 hit "Light My Fire" was actually composed by Robbie Krieger-and was allegedly the first song he ever wrote (talk about beginner's luck). He's a great guitar player too (he was trained in flamenco, and had only been playing electric for 6 months at the band's inception). Manzarek and Densmore were no slouches either; they had a classical and jazz background, respectively. When you piece these snippets together along with Morrison's interests in poetry, literature, film and improvisational theatre (then sprinkle in a few tabs of acid) you finally begin to get a picture of why this band had such a unique vibe. They've been copied, but never equaled.
The film looks to have been a labor of love by the director. Johnny Depp provides the narration, and DiCillo has assembled some great footage; it's all well-chosen, sensibly sequenced and beautifully edited. Although there are a fair amount of clips and stories that will qualify as old hat to Doors aficionados (the "Light My Fire" performance on the Sullivan Show, the infamous Miami concert "riot", etc.), there is a treasure trove of rare footage. One fascinating (but all too brief) clip shows the band in the studio constructing the song "Wild Child" during the sessions for "The Soft Parade". The real revelation is the interwoven excerpts from Morrison's experimental 1969 film "HWY: An American Pastoral". Although it is basically a bearded Morrison driving around the desert (wearing his trademark leather pants), it's mesmerizing, surreal footage. DiCillo must have had access to a pristine master print, because it looks like it was shot last week. It wasn't until the credits rolled that I realized this wasn't one of those dreaded recreations, utilizing a lookalike. As a matter of fact, Morrison has never appeared so "alive" on film. It's eerie.
When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors (2010) OverviewWhen You're Strange, written and directed by the award-winning Tom DiCillo, is the first feature documentary released on The Doors. Graced by the narration of Johnny Depp, it carries the audience through the journeys of vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. This 90-minutepresentation features never-before-seen rare archival film,pulled from their inception in 1966 to Morrison's passing in 1971.These snapshot scenes of the band's history is as much an intimate experience, as it is revealing. After being featured at the Sundance, Berlin, Deauville, and San Sebastian Film Festivals, music fans who didn't catch this in theaters can now relish in this extraordinary documentary. It celebrates the collaborative power of this illustrious rock quartet and their revolutionary fusion of creativity and thought-provoking rebellion.

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