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Ray Manzarek and Danny Sugerman identify ‘Johnny Yen’ from Iggy’s ‘Lust for Life’
06.29.2018
08:23 am
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In 1995, the Doors’ keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, and biographer, Danny Sugerman, appeared on the Australian music video program rage, smoking cigs on the couch and telling stories about Jim Morrison and Iggy Pop.

In the first clip below, Sugerman describes sharing his home with Iggy in the Seventies (“sort of like staging the Vietnam War at Grauman’s Chinese Theater”) and checking him into the mental hospital after a Quaalude overdose. He credits the quick thematic transition from “Death Trip” to “Lust for Life” to Iggy’s personal growth under the care of Dr. Murray Zucker.  In the second clip, “Iggy’s Homosexual Ballet Dancing Heroin Dealer,” they reminisce about “Gypsy Johnny,” the real-life heroin dealer immortalized as “Johnny Yen” in “Lust for Life.” Sugerman:

His black Porsche said “Gypsy” on it, and he wore a scarf around his head. He used to be a ballerina, and he was homosexual, and very hot for Iggy’s parts—body parts—and “yen” is a term that William Burroughs uses a lot describing the craving for heroin. So in “Lust for Life” there’s a line, “Here comes Johnny Yen again, with liquor and drugs and a sex machine,” and that’s Gypsy Johnny coming up to Wonderland Avenue with his scarves and his drugs and his motorized dildos and whatever else he had, his balloons full of Mexican heroin that was killing all of us.

Continues after the jump…

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Posted by Oliver Hall
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06.29.2018
08:23 am
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Open Doors: Watch Ray Manzarek’s student films, ‘Evergreen’ and ‘Induction’
03.10.2016
08:00 am
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“I’ll open doors to strange and exotic countries.” That’s the first line in Ray Manzarek’s 1965 student film Induction, and one of several moments from his UCLA movies that retrospectively became omens and portents of Ray’s near future—his film school classmate Jim Morrison turns up in Induction, too. Though Induction and 1964’s Evergreen predate the Doors, both of Manzarek’s extant student films contain such seemingly premonitory details. (In Evergreen, it’s footage of the Whisky a Go Go and the Venice Beach apartment where Ray and Jim lived during the band’s early years.)

Both movies feature Dorothy Fujikawa, who was married to Manzarek from 1967 until the end of his life, and who was instrumental in the formation of the Doors. “There would be no Doors if it wasn’t for Dorothy Fujikawa,” Manzarek said. “She was the one who supported Jim and me as we put the band together.” Fujikawa’s character in Evergreen is reading Brecht, whose “Alabama Song” Morrison sang on the first Doors album. Her co-star, Hank Olguin (stage name Henry Crismonde), let the Doors use his house for their first rehearsal. (“Hank was the only guy I knew who had a piano,” Manzarek writes.)
 

 
Compared to Ray’s 1985 video for “L.A. Woman”—not his greatest achievement—these films are, as they say, actually pretty good. Both were released as bonus features on the Doors’ Collection DVD (originally a laserdisc), from which Morrison’s student films are conspicuously absent. In his memoir Light My Fire: My Life with the Doors, Manzarek explains at some length why his UCLA films survived but the Lizard King’s did not:

The best of all the student films were screened twice a year for the public at what was called the “Royce Hall Screenings.” The faculty would select a dozen or so films to be composite-printed and projected up onto the big screen of Royce Hall. Dignitaries were invited. Critics were invited. And the carved, Spanish-style doors were flung open to the public as if to say, “See, we’re not insane here. We can do good work.” And, oh, how the faculty would strut. Because Royce Hall was the prestigious auditorium on the entire west side of Los Angeles. Symphonies were performed there, great jazz artists and intense folksingers of the time performed there. I saw the Modern Jazz Quartet play there. The great Odetta sang there. The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra performed there. I walked in one afternoon on a rehearsal of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and it was absolutely overwhelming, standing at the foot of the stage—Zubin Mehta was the conductor—and I’m watching the L.A. Philharmonic power their way through the Rite of Spring... in Royce Hall. Thrilling.

Well, lo and behold, a few months later a Ray Manzarek student film, Induction (and the year before that Evergreen), was to be shown at the Royce Hall Screening. It was certainly an honor for me. I was very pleased with those films. They worked. And I was very proud of my cameramen, John DeBella and Christopher (Kit) Gray, and my actors, Dorothy Fujikawa, Hank Olguin, and Kathy Zeller.

Jim’s movie, unfortunately, didn’t make it into Royce Hall. He was panned by the teachers and panned by many of the students. What a bunch of dolts! They just didn’t get it. However, they did appear to take great delight in raking Jim over the coals. Jim always rubbed a lot of them the wrong way—those people were called squares—hell, he’s still doing that. And they’re still squares.

“Nonlinear, Mr. Morrison.” “Doesn’t make any sense.” “You’ve violated basic rules of screen direction on the shot with the darts, Morrison.” “Male chauvinist! Why’s the girl in her underwear?” “What are you, a stoner or something?” “Fascist!” “This isn’t the way we make movies in America, Morrison. This is like a Communist would think.”

So his film didn’t make it into the screenings…nor did it make it through the projector. He had trouble making splices. Jim’s forte was not splicing two pieces of film together with the tiny little tape and the tiny little 16mm splicer you had to use. But it was an extremely poetic movie.

It doesn’t exist anymore. It was tossed out with three hundred or so other student movies at the end of the semester. The only films that were saved were the ones that had the negative cut and a composite made for the big show in Royce. The other films were like term papers—seen once and tossed. Just too many to save. So Jim’s is gone. Into the dumpster and into the ether.

Keep reading after the jump…

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Posted by Oliver Hall
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03.10.2016
08:00 am
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Patti Smith and Ray Manzarek’s 1974 tribute to Jim Morrison
11.12.2015
07:51 am
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Patti Smith visits Jim Morrison’s grave, 1976
 
Patti Smith released her first single, “Hey Joe” b/w “Piss Factory,” in August 1974; her second appearance on record came later that year on a song by Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek. Billboard’s review of Manzarek’s second solo album, The Whole Thing Started with Rock & Roll Now It’s out of Control, advised retailers that it was strictly for the FM crowd:

Don’t expect much AM action on this one, but watch for plenty of FM action, especially with the likes of Flo & Eddie, George Segal, Mike Fennelly, Joe Walsh and Patti Smith along for the ride. A strong set, and lots of fun as well.

 

 
The sleeve credits Smith as “Poetess” for her appearance on the Doors-ish blues number “I Wake Up Screaming.” Two minutes and seven seconds in, Smith reads Jim Morrison’s “Ensenada”—mind you, not the “Ensenada” published in The American Night, in which “Dog licks shit / Mexican girl whore sucks my prick,” but the seven-line “Ensenada” from The New Creatures which Morrison sometimes recited during Doors performances:

Ensenada
the dead seal
the dog crucifix
ghosts of the dead car sun.
Stop the car.
Rain. Night.
Feel.

The album version of “I Wake Up Screaming”:

A live performance from Roslyn, New York in 1975, minus Patti but with extra Lizard King:

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Patti Smith’s ‘Career of Evil’ with Blue Öyster Cult

Posted by Oliver Hall
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11.12.2015
07:51 am
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A Door closes: Ray Manzarek dead at 74
05.20.2013
05:07 pm
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Sad to hear this.

Via The Doors’ Facebook page:

Ray Manzarek, keyboardist and founding member of The Doors, passed away today at 12:31PM PT at the RoMed Clinic in Rosenheim, Germany after a lengthy battle with bile duct cancer. He was 74. At the time of his passing, he was surrounded by his wife Dorothy Manzarek, and his brothers Rick and James Manczarek.

Manzarek is best known for his work with The Doors who formed in 1965 when Manzarek had a chance encounter on Venice Beach with poet Jim Morrison. The Doors went on to become one of the most controversial rock acts of the 1960s, selling more than 100-million albums worldwide, and receiving 19 Gold, 14 Platinum and five multi-Platinum albums in the U.S. alone. “L.A.Woman,” “Break On Through to the Other Side,” “The End,” “Hello, I Love You,” and “Light My Fire” were just some of the band’s iconic and ground-breaking songs. After Morrison’s death in 1971, Manzarek went on to become a best-selling author, and a Grammy-nominated recording artist in his own right. In 2002, he revitalized his touring career with Doors’ guitarist and long-time collaborator, Robby Krieger.

“I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of my friend and bandmate Ray Manzarek today,” said Krieger. “I’m just glad to have been able to have played Doors songs with him for the last decade. Ray was a huge part of my life and I will always miss him.”

Manzarek is survived by his wife Dorothy, brothers Rick and James Manczarek, son Pablo Manzarek, Pablo’s wife Sharmin and their three children Noah, Apollo and Camille. Funeral arrangements are pending. The family asks that their privacy be respected at this difficult time. In lieu of flowers, please make a memoriam donation in Ray Manzarek’s name at www.standup2cancer.org

Below, a post-Jim Morrison Doors do “Love Me Two Times” on Germany’s Beat Club TV show, with Manzarek taking over the vocal duties:
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.20.2013
05:07 pm
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The Doors: Soundstage Performances 1967-69

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A little something for a Sunday, 3 excellent showcases from The Doors recorded in Toronto, Denmark and New York between 1967 and 1969. With introductions and interviews with Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger.

Track listing:

Toronto 1967
01. “The End”
Performance Europe 1968 - Denmark TV
02. “Whiskey Bar”
03. “Back Door Man”
04. “Love Me Two Times”
05. “When The Music´s Over
06. “Unknown Soldier”
New York 1968 PBS ‘Critique’ 1969
07. “Follow Me Down”
08. “Whiskey Bar”
09. “Back Door Man”
10. “Wishful Sinful”
11. “Build Me A Woman”
Critique  interview with The Doors
12. “The Soft Parade”

Now let’s all have a good week!
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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02.19.2012
07:34 pm
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Pissing on Jim Morrison’s grave


 
Ray Manzarek desperately attempts to resurrect the 40 year old corpse of Jim Morrison.
 
Yesterday, on the 40th anniversary of Jim Morrison’s death, Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger played a Doors gig after visiting Morrison’s grave site at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Fronted by one of the band’s endless series of faux Lizard Kings, Morrison look-a-like David Brock of Doors cover band Wild Child, Manzarek and Krieger did their best to remind anyone watching why their music careers have been utterly insignificant since Morrison died. John Densmore had the good taste and wisdom to not attend.

Advice to Manzarek: stop pissing on your legacy. I know your Muse - and cash cow- abandoned you when Jim checked out in that bathtub but your determination to milk every last drop out of the Doors’ legacy has been arrogant, pathetic and shameless. If you must perform, call up the former members of your Doors knock-off Nite City. They could probably use the work. And Ian Astbury has probably got some holes in his Cult tour schedule. Every time you drag out another version of The Doors, you remind us all of how utterly empty the band is without Jim’s voice and presence.

Last night in Paris, the “Doors” played “Riders On The Storm” with all of the conviction of a jaded lounge band eternally grinding it out in a Ramada Inn somewhere in Hell. May the wrath of the ghost of the Lizard King be upon them.

“When the music’s over
Turn out the lights”
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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07.04.2011
10:10 pm
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Masque Founder Brendan Mullen Dies From Stroke

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Sad news as Brendan Mullen, founder of LA’s pioneering punk rock cub The Masque, passed away earlier today from a stroke.  Here’s what Variety had to say about this absolutely essential Angeleno (by way of Scotland):

Mullen emigrated from London to Los Angeles in 1973.  He created the Masque—a dank, soon graffiti-scarred 10,000-foot space at 1655 N. Cherokee, behind and beneath the Pussycat adult theater on Hollywood Boulevard—in June 1977 as a low-rent rehearsal space for local musicians.  (Mullen himself played drums in his own punk lounge act, the Satintones.)

It quickly morphed into the principal performance venue for the city’s then-nascent punk scene, mounting its first show by the Skulls on Aug. 18, 1977.  It served as a stage and a hangout for an honor roll of first-generation punk groups: the Germs, X, the Go-Go’s, the Screamers, the Flesh Eaters, the Weirdos, the Alleycats, the Plugz, the Bags.

The freewheeling Masque, where the charming and oft-acerbic Mullen hosted the proceedings, was a magnet for the antipathy of local merchants and daily scrutiny by police, fire, and licensing officials, and was soon cited by city authorities for various licensing violations.

Closed and reopened more than once, it moved to another space on Santa Monica Boulevard before shuttering permanently in February 1979.

Mullen is seen in the abandoned Cherokee Avenue club in W.T. Morgan’s 1986 documentary about X, “The Unheard Music.”

From 1981-92, Mullen booked shows at the Sunset Boulevard bar Club Lingerie.  His diverse shows included sets by talent ranging from veteran R&B, blues, and rock ‘n’ roll acts to hip-hoppers and avant garde rockers.  He also mounted dates at the downtown Variety Arts Center in the late ‘80s, and stage managed some of the L.A. Weekly’s music awards shows.

In recent years, Mullen prolifically chronicled the history of L.A. punk, and, not incidentally, his own role in the scene.

His books included “We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk” (2001, with Marc Spitz); “Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and the Germs” (2002, with Don Bolles and Adam Parfrey); and the photo history “Live at the Masque: Nightmare in Punk Alley” (2007).  He also authored the Jane’s Addiction oral history “Whores” (2005).

Mullen is survived by his longtime companion Kateri Butler.

 
Beyond the above clip from The Decline of Western Civilization, there’s not much of Mullen online, but, as a nod to his significance, there’s probably no better day than today to share as well my second favorite video of all time (after this one).  It’s from The Unheard Music.  In it, X rips through The Doors’ Soul Kitchen with some onstage help from Ray Manzarek

Whatever your thoughts may be on Manzarek and The Doors (and believe me, my own thoughts on the matter have ranged wildly over the years), I return to this “torch-passing” clip over and over again.  Sure, it reminds me that no matter how many times I saw X as a kid, it was still never enough—could never be enough.

But it also tethers me to a moment in LA time I was privileged enough to have witnessed up close (too close, sometimes, depending on the act and the stage).

A moment that felt, in clips like this one, intensely connected to some larger arc of history.  Even on our most receptive days, those moments of connection to a place and time can be a hard thing to muster.  Indirectly or not, Mr. Mullen provided me with some of mine. 

My thoughts are with Kateri Butler and the family of Brendan Mullen.

 
Brendan Mullen In Swindle Magazine

Bonus: The Weirdos do Helium Bar

In Variety: Club Promoter Brendan Mullen Dies

In the LAT: Local Punk Champion, Masque Founder Brendan Mullen Dies

(with thanks to Ian Raikow)

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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10.12.2009
07:17 pm
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