![]() ![]() The perception-busting lead single, “Break On Through (To the Other Side),” arrived in sharp contrast to the hippie idealism of the time, but it was the incendiary organ-powered track, “Light My Fire,” that challenged listeners with the drug reference, “girl we couldn’t get much higher.” The band’s live shows became notorious as Morrison writhed suggestively on stage, taunted crowds, and provoked the police. The band began honing their sound-and Morrison’s bawdy onstage antics-on the Sunset Strip, which led to the release of their 1967 self-titled debut album. The L.A.-based quartet’s influences stretched well past psychedelia, though, as they approached rock music with the loose agility of jazz experimentalists and the indulgent romanticism of beat poets. In 1965, Morrison met keyboardist and fellow UCLA film student Ray Manzarek on Southern California’s Venice Beach, and after a few personnel shifts, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger joined them as The Doors-a reference to Aldous Huxley’s mescaline-fueled book The Doors of Perception. Woman album that month in The Doors Workshop, their office transformed into a makeshift studio, close to the bars and sleazy joints that became his natural milieu.One of the most wildly influential bands of the ’60s, The Doors molded a seductive brand of doomed psychedelic rock infused with brassy jazz and plodding blues and shot through with heady, hedonistic mantras howled by frontman Jim Morrison. ![]() A bulky, heavily bearded Morrison made amends by completing the L.A. ![]() The Doors’ final show, at the Warehouse in New Orleans on December 12, 1970, ended abruptly with Morrison smashing the microphone stand through the stage before lurching to the wings. His increasingly erratic, often alcohol-induced misdemeanours, tolerated to a degree by keyboard player Ray Manzarek but less so by Krieger and drummer John Densmore – who threatened to quit if Morrison didn’t clean up his act – only enhanced Morrison’s legend. Riots at Doors concerts were nothing new, nor were arrests for their lead singer. ![]() Four days later a warrant for his arrest was issued on charges of gross public indecency, including simulating oral sex on guitarist Robby Krieger (mimicked by David Bowie on Mick Ronson three years later). At that show, Morrison allegedly exposed himself. In between they released six studio albums, and the double Absolutely Live, mostly taken from their comeback tour in the aftermath of the notorious Miami show at the Dinner Key Auditorium on March 1, 1969. ![]()
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