Q: HOW MANY DOORS DO YOU SEE IN THE PHOTO?

If there was one band that represented Los Angeles to the rest of the world in the late sixties, it would have to be the Doors. I was thinking about that earlier today, followed by the thought that Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg kinda wore that hat in the second half of the nineties. Then I remembered something that I'd forgotten, a cut with Snoop doing his thing over the Doors "Riders on the Storm". More than just sampling, it's almost a mash-up because there's a lot of the Doors part. At six minutes long it's a minute less than the Doors original version but it's still longer than most Snoop cuts. I seem to remember that it was done for a video game, but don't quote me on that. Here's that cut with an assortment of Doors songs and a rare live video from 1968. Dig the spoken word part at 5:15, referred to in the notes at YouTube as "Texas Radio and The Big Beat" would later appear as "The WASP (Texas Radio and The Big Beat)" three years later on the L.A. Woman LP

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Listen:
The Doors - Twentieth Century Fox mp3 at Internet Archive
The Doors - L.A. Woman mp3 at Internet Archive
The Doors - Five to One mp3 at Internet Archive
The Doors - The WASP (Texas Radio and The Big Beat) mp3 at Internet Archive
The Doors - Riders On the Storm mp3 at Internet Archive
Snoop Dogg featuring the Doors - Riders on the Storm mp3 at Street Racing

LOCK DOWN THEATER NIGHT 24

This is, eh, pretty cool I guess. You don't run into many clips of the early Doors where they're not lip syncing. And you certainly don't run into many clips of the Doors doing a spoken word thing that would show up on an LP three years later as a song. Or maybe you do. I'm not near that level of a Doors fiend to keep tabs on this kinda shit. The clip is from 1968, the tracks are "Alabama Song", "Back Door Man", "Texas Radio and The Big Beat", "Love Me Two Times", "When the Music is Over" and "Unknown Soldier". The part I'm taking about is "Texas..." (at 5:15), it would appear in 1971 as "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)" on the  L.A. Woman LP.

There's some other Doors shake down there. Don't blame me for the Snoop Dogg thing. I ran across it and had never heard it. I think it was made for a video game. It's mildly amusing to hear him rattle on about the lizard king.

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Listen:
The Doors - Five to One mp3 at M.Rouzeau (?)
The Doors - L.A. Woman mp3 at Crooke Madame (?)
The Doors - Riders on the Storm mp3 at Parakno (?)
Snoop Dogg ft [sic] the Doors - Riders on the Storm mp3 at Street Racing
The Doors - The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat) (streaming) at YouTube

SPRAY TAN ROCK

Hey, I don't know where you are but, in my parts, today is the last day of summer. Sort of. I'm in Southern California. Fall colors here are radiant sunsets. September and October are the warmest, driest, and sunniest months. The ocean is at it's warmest. The crowds are gone. Shit, what's not to like?

I try to stay away from thematic posts, because a similar theme rarely means a common musical thread. The closest thing to a thread with these is that they're all great songs. They may not have the same feel, but they're all about the end of summer, or lack thereof. Dig the Dusty cut. She wins this one.

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Listen:
The Beach Boys - All Summer Long mp3 at The Pop History Dig
The Doors - Summer's Almost Gone (streaming) at YouTube
Dusty Spingfield - Summer Is Over mp3 at ATumblr (?)
The Drifters - Sand In My Shoes (streaming) at YouTube
The Sandals - The Endless Summer mp3 at Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban
Bonus:
The Sandals - The Endless Summer (film soundtrack) at Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban Twelve songs

NICEST HAIR RUNNER UP

Ray Manzerek died today. Now, before you go saying that he wasn't that big of a deal, that Jim Morrison was the Doors and the rest of the band were but bit players, or that he grabbed onto the coattails of X in the late seventies to try to reclaim some sort of L.A. counter culture coolness, or that he shamelessly slogged on tours some years back in some sort of ersatz Doors with the guy from the Cult singing in the place of Morrison, before you say the guy hadn't been relevant in years, you have to take a step back, silence the skeptic, and look at what he did do. He played keyboards for one of the most original bands to ever come out of L.A., a band that had a sound all their own, a sound that relied heavily on keyboards, and still managed to sound badass. An argument could be made that without him, the Doors would have sounded like a hundred other bands, albeit one with a good looking waste case William Blake fetishist of a lead singer. But I'm not some stoned hippie chick on the Sunset Strip, and this is not 1967. I like the Doors as a package, and Manzarek was an indispensable part of it.

Here's just some oddballs; mostly covers, but they're good ones. The live one, with Albert King guesting on slide, is really good, sloppy good. I trust most of you already have some Doors you can revisit. If not, for craps sake, don't start with a greatest hits package. Just start with the first LP and get to know it as an entire album. Then continue with some of their others. You should listen to them as they were intended to be heard. Don't be a stupid ass spring chicken.

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Listen:
The Doors - Break On Through mp3 at Happy Blue Mondays
The Doors - Soul Kitchen mp3 at Happy Blue Mondays
The Doors - Moonlight Drive (Demo) mp3 at Music For Humans
The Doors with Albert King - Money (Live) streaming at Hellhound on My Trail
Covers:
Shirley Bassey - Light My Fire mp3 at Cover Me 
X - Soul Kitchen mp3 at Cover Me
Patti Smith - Soul Kitchen mp3 at Happy Blue Mondays
The Ramones - Take It As It Comes mp3 at Cover Me
The Fuzztones - I Looked At You mp3 at Cover Me
Nico - The End mp3 at Cover Me