2011, paperback
THE DOORS FAQ
by Rich Weidman
Of course if you are going to do a book like this
you have to have someone check the facts.
I think Weidman did a good job on The Doors
but I found a few errors. One of course is stating that
Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen" is a cover by
Question Mark and the Mysterians as "8-Teen"
on pg 125 - 127.
Pg 65-66
Cheetah Club
Once known as the Aragon Ballroom (featuring Lawrence Welk and the “Champagne
Iusic Makers”), the Cheetah was a rock ‘n’ roll club located adjacent to Pacific Ocean Park at
1 Navy Street on the Santa Monica Pier. According to Densmore, first the Doors
“played clubs, then second bill at small two-thousand-seat auditoriums like the Cheetah
. . . We were making the transition from dives to concerts.”
The Cheetah featured early performances by the Doors, Buffalo Springfield, the Seeds, the Mothers of
Invention, Love, Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper. In Light My Fire, Manzarek described the Cheetah as
“an insane psychedelic ballroom” that was “all wooden and warm
archaic . . . inside” like “something from the movie They Shoot Horses, Don’t They ?,
a Depression-era tale of marathon dancing.”
During a gig with Jefferson Airplane on April 9, 1967, at the Cheetah (the first time
received top billing over their San Francisco rivals),
Morrison unveiled his “tightrope walk,” balancing precariously on the edge of the stage eight feet off the ground while doing a shaman Indian dance. According to Manzarek, Morrison lost his balance and fell into the audience and “stage diving was born.”
One of the Alice Cooper Band’s early incarnations, the Nazz (not to be confused with the Todd Rundgren group), opened for the Doors at the Cheetah, The Cheetah closed in 1968, and the building was completely destroyed by fire in 1979.
Pg 106 (Roadhouse Blues)
The opening lines for “Roadhouse Blues”- Keep your eyes on the road
your hands upon the wheel” - were Morrison’s instructions to Courson as she
sometimes took the wheel for the precarious drive along Topanga Canyon
Boulevard. The “King of Shock Rock” himself, Alice Cooper, an early drinking
buddy of Morrison’s, later claimed that he uttered the line “Woke up this morning
and got myself a beer” in a conversation with Morrison that eventually ended
up as a line in “Roadhouse Blues.” As with “Love Street,” “Roadhouse Blues”
ends on a tentative note: “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.”
Pg 125 - 127
Bands That Share the Bill with the Doors During the Early Years
In this section the author screws up Alice Cooper info in misleading the reader that “I’m Eighteen”
was a cover song from Question Mark and the Mysterians as “8-Teen”
Alice Cooper
“Welcome to my nightmare. I think you’re gonna like it . . .” Before he became
the “Godfather of Shock Rock.” Alice Cooper (real name: Vincent Damon
Furnier) was just a struggling rock musician trying to hit the big time with
his band in Los Angeles. The son of a preacher, Furnier was born in Detroit,
Michigan, on February 4, 1948. The family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, when
Furnier, a severe asthmatic, was three years old. In 1965, Furnier and some of his
high school buddies on the track team formed a band called the Earwigs, mainly
performing covers of Beatles and Rolling Stones songs. The band changed their
name to the Spiders the following year, scored a local hit with “Don’t Blow Your
Mind,“ and eventually headed to Los Angeles in 1968, morphing first into the Nazz
and later Alice Cooper. The band featured Furnier (vocals/harmonica),
Glen Buxton (lead guitar), Michael Bruce (rhythm guitar/keyboards), Dennis
Dunaway (bass), and Neal Smith (drums). Furnier soon adopted the band’s name as his own.
The Doors were one of the first bands to befriend Alice Cooper and invited
them to the recording studio. According to Cooper, Morrison would arrive
at the studio and start taking any drugs that were available, pills or acid, and
washing it all down with shots of whisky. Needless to say, Morrison and Furnier
soon became drinking buddies and often hung out on the Santa Monica Peir
chugging beer after beer. The Alice Cooper Band opened for the Doors at the
Cheetah, which was located at the end of the pier, as “Light My Fire” skyrocketed
up the charts during the summer of 1967. According to Cooper, “The thing
about Jim was it was sometimes dangerous being around him because there was
no such thing as a dare. He would jump out of cars and roll down hills.” At a big
party for the Doors at 6000 Sunset Boulevard, Morrison’s “got a bottle of whiskey in each hand,
on top of the building balancing like a high wire act. One gust of
wind and he is over. I’m sitting there going “How come no one is pulling him off
the ledge? It’s Jim Morrison!’ and they’re like “If he falls, he falls.”
During the late 1960s, the Alice Cooper Band earned a reputation as “the
worst band in Los Angeles.” They eventually signed with Frank Zappa’s Straight
Records label and released two albums: Pretties for You (which the Rolling Stone
Album Guide called “strictly inept psychedelia”) and Easy Action in 1970. On
September 13, 1969, the Alice Cooper Band turned in an infamous performance
at the Toronto Rock n’ Roll Revival festival. The Doors headlined the event,
which also featured the Plastic Ono Band, as well as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley,
Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Gene Vincent. During the Alice Cooper
Band’s set, someone threw a live chicken onstage. Unaware that the bird could
not fly. Cooper hurled the bird off the stage, and it was torn to pieces by the audience.
Unable to gain any momentum in Los Angeles, the Alice Cooper Band
decided to head to Detroit, where they received a somewhat better reception
and befriended local bands such as the Stooges and MC5. In 1971, the band
released Love It to Death, which featured the hit single “Eighteen”- an instant
teen anthem first recorded by Question Mark and the Mysterians as “8-Teen”
that reached No. 21 on the charts. By this time, the band started indulging in
rock theatrics and incorporating elaborate stage props into their live shows
that included black makeup, fake blood, guillotines and electric chairs. live boa
constrictors, and six-foot-long, inflatable phalluses. No strangers to excess, the
Alice Cooper Band bought a 42-room mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, and
boasted of spending $300,000 a year on booze. Cooper later remarked, “We were
the National Enquirer of rock ‘n’ roll.” Lovell to Death was followed by Killer (1971)
and School’s Out (1972), which reached No. 2 on the U.S charts, and Billion Dollar
Babies (l973), which reached No. 1. ln Cooper’s 1976 autobiography, Me, Alice:
TheAutnbiography of Alice Cooper, he wrote that the song “Desperado” on his Killer
album was a tribute to Morrison.
Cooper’s first solo effort, Welcome to My Nightmare (1975), featured narration
by Vincent Price and the ballad “Only Women Bleed.” Cooper provided the
song “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)” for the Friday the 13th, Part VI
soundrack. Trash (1989) boasted the hit single, “Poison,” which hit No. 7 on
the U.S. charts. Alice Cooper has influenced such performers as Kiss, Marilyn
Manson, and Rob Zombie, among others. He was selected for induction into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2011 along with Tom Waits,
Dr. John, Neil Diamond, and Darlene Love.
Pg 158 - 159
Toronto Rock & Roll Revival Concert - September 13, 1969
This one-day, 13 1/2 hour festival was originally promoted as a tribute to ‘50’s
rockers, but tickets sold poorly, and the promoters added other groups such as
the Doors and the up-and-coming Alice Cooper Band. Even with the Doors as
headliners, only 800 tickets had been sold just a week before the concert. In
desperation, the promoters contacted john Lennon and asked him if he would
like to emcee the show. Surprisingly he offered to perform at the concert with
his newly formed Plastic Ono Band. With Lennon on the bill, ticket sales took
off, and the venue completely sold out its 22,000 seats.
It was Lennon’s first gig without the Beatles. The Plastic Ono Band consisted
of Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton on guitar, Klaus Voorman on bass. and Alan
White on drums. The band played “Blue Suede Shoes”‚ “Money‚“ “Cold Turkey,”
and “Give Peace a Chance.” Other performers included many of the Doors’
earliest musical influences such as Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, Bo Diddley
(who later would sing a cover of “Love Her Madly” on the Doors tribute album
Stoned lmmaculate), Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Lord Sutch. During
Alice Cooper’s set, the shock rocker launched a live chicken into the audience
(he later confessed that he thought it could fly), and the poor bird was torn to
pieces by the crowd.
The Doors‚ set list included “When the Music’s Over,” “Break on Through,”
“Back Door Man,” “The Crystal Ship,” “Light My Fire,” and “The End.” During
“Back Door Man,” Morrison inserted a line from a new song, “Roadhouse Blues,”
that he was still working on: “Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon
wheel.” During the intro to “The End,” Morrison paid tribute to the other
performers, stating that it was “a great honor to perform on the same stage with
many illustrious musical geniuses.” An album of the performance, Live Peace
Toronto, was released by Apple Records on December 15, 1969.
The Toronto Rock & Roll Revival Concert was the only time the Doors
shared a bill with any of the Beatles. However. Morrison had met Lennon once
on September 23, 1968, when he stopped by Abbey Road Studios during
one of their recording sessions. The Beatles were working on “Happiness Is a
Warm Gun.” According to an unfounded rumor, Morrison sang a chorus on
one take. Lennon was murdered at the age of forty in 1980 on December 8
(coincidentally Morrison’s birthday; he would have been thirty-seven years old).
Pg 169
How Morrison’s Alcoholism Affected the Doors’ Performances and Studio Albums
People would tell Jim he should drink less and he’d take them out and get them drunk.
- Robby Krieger
Acidhead to Boozer
When Morrison first started writing lyrics during the summer of 1965, he had
dropped down to about 135 pounds, had basically stopped eating and was
dropping acid and smoking pot frequently. However, he changed very quickly,
according to Manzarek, from a “psychedelic pothead and acidhead” to “a closing
off of consciousness, and a favoring of pills, uppers and downers. and alcohol.”
Alice Cooper, who was one of Morrison’s early drinking buddies, described him
as one of the “most self-destructive” individuals he had ever met. According to
Danny Sugerman in Wonderland Avenue, “It almost appeared Jim was intentionally
trying to ruin everything he had worked so hard to establish - hellbent on
bringing the whole house down with him.”
Pg 241
(Iggy Pop excerpt)
ln interview with Salli Stevenson that appeared in Circus magazine (Winter 1970),
Morrison was asked what he thought of groups likes the Stooges and
Alice Cooper and he answered, “I like people who shake other people up and
kind of make them uncomfortable. A young friend of mine [presumably Danny
Sugarman] thinks Iggy is great.” Music critic Lester Bangs of CREEM magazine
called Pop the “most intense performer” he had ever seen.
