From top to bottom: Freddie Mercury, Shane MacGowan, Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison and David Bowie.

 
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!
 

 
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”
 

 
The Lizard King has an epiphany and starts channeling Bill Murray…all the way from the future.

Great minds meld outside of time. Can ya dig pure unbounded joy?
 

 
The Hill blog reports that outgoing Florida Governor Charlie Crist is considering pardoning Jim Morrison for a crime that was most likely never committed.
 

In his last two months in office, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is considering a December surprise: a posthumous pardon for Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, for indecent exposure charges after an infamous 1969 Miami concert. In a phone interview with The Hill, Crist said “stay tuned” regarding the idea of a posthumous pardon for the singer who died in Paris in 1971.  Crist said he won’t make the decision lightly, noting the many complexities surrounding the 41-year-old case. Numerous sound recordings from the show exist, for example, but Morrison’s defenders say none of the scores of photographs from the show prove the exposure charge. “We would have to look into all of that,” Crist said.

 
Archival footage of Morrison’s Miami trial (no sound).

 
Via The Daily Swarm

 
Before attending UCLA to study film, The Doors’ lead singer Jim Morrison was a student at Florida State University, where he studied art and psychology. It was during his stint at FSU that Morrison appeared in a promotional film, called Florida State University - Towards a Greater University. Even in this little clip, the teenage Morrison exudes the sullen charisma that would later make him a star.

A fellow student, Gerry McLain recalls the young Lizard King:

AL: How did you meet Jim Morrison?

GM: I was a film student at FSU. At that time, the department consisted of two people: myself and Werner Vagt who ran the operation. There were no formal classes. Werner made short films for the university and some outside clients. He had been a director in Germany. Jim Morrison appeared in a short we did for United Way. As I recall, he walked to a mailbox and mailed a letter.

 
With thanks to Maria Guimil
 

 
Burroughs reads Morrison’s ‘Is Everybody In’ on this track from Doors tribute album ‘Stoned Immaculate’ released in 2000. The surviving Doors provided the music. 

Bill Burroughs, the originator of the mashup.

 
Detroit techno soldier Monty Luke hepped me to this rather remarkable clip from an unnamed American music show in 1969. It seems apropos since last week marked the 39th anniversary of Jim Morrison’s death, and his ghost still haunts what once was the Doors Workshop in Los Angeles. Below, the LizKing notes that music in the future “might rely heavily on electronics and tapes” and feature performers “using machines.”

You think he figured that electronic music geniuses like John Oswald a.k.a. Plunderphonics would have such a blast blowing out the Doors, as shown in the fan video after the jump?