22 Dec, 2008 CHRISTMAS IN SANTA MONICA
I am not great at it but sometimes it is nice to indulge by ‘doing nothing’. Being so I have easily enjoyed hanging around here amidst the sea air of Santa Monica where it is both quiet and peaceful. It has rained more than expected but that is fine by me and as Bob Clearmountain has knuckled down to the task of mixing our previously recorded tracks it’s released us for many hours to do whatever we feel.
Arriving in Los Angeles as we did on Monday 8th of December, meant that we would be in the hometown and birthplace of the Doors front man Jim Morrison on the exact day of what would have been the deceased singer’s 65th birthday. Being an admirer of Morrison, I decided during our stay that I should at least raise a toast of sorts – in celebration of the life of what I consider to be rock music’s greatest voice – by visiting Barney’s Beanery. Especially so since the Beanery was one of Morrison’ s favourite hangouts after all.
A subversive to the end and a born hell raiser by every account he was even temporarily barred from his chosen hostelry over a small matter that saw him drunkenly pissing all over the bar! It was confirmed by the group’s keyboardist Ray Manzarek who by all accounts has the memory for all kind of minutiae and was on hand recently to confirm the exact spot where Morrison let go with the warm jets.
That was a long time ago however. Therefore without in trepidation of any sort I ventured in to try and grasp albeit some decades later just what it was that made Barney’s so popular with the singer, whereupon I immediately concluded that the huge list of beers from all around the world may have had something to with it.
Being faithful to his Celtic roots no doubt, JM enjoyed a drink or two on most occasions and that being so this bar with it’s obvious air of conviviality had me believing easily that the likes of Morrison and Janis Joplin for that matter – would have fit right in.
Such is the interest in the legendary Doors singer more than three decades after his death, that endless amounts of visitor to LA are still enthralled by the tales of Morrison and his life, I am merely one of them and I have always imagined that I could feel his presence every time I landed in the City. This town of course has given birth to so much incredible music, however for me it is always the Doors that I hear pulsating in my head whenever I set foot in this hug estate that borders not only the ocean, the mountains, and the desert, but also blessed Mexico itself.
The Whiskey A Go – Go club, which is still operating on Sunset Strip, is probably most synonymous with the Doors, as it is where they played regularly while hustling for their record deal. The Whiskey incidentally is also where Simple Minds made their LA debut, playing two shows on one Sunday back in early November’81. It was an unforgettable experience for me to walk through the backstage corridor of one of the world’s most famous rock venues, but Morrison’s shadow loomed rather too large as I sat nervously in the dressing room contemplating that we were about to attempt commandeering the same tiny stage that he had kind of made hallowed.
It was an uncomfortable excitement that filled me, but it was tremendously exciting nonetheless. Afterwards I went driving through the silent Hollywood canyons with the most mysterious woman that I have ever met, adamant that she could show me the ghost of James Dean and the haunts of Charlie Manson. I was already high as a kite from the overwhelming reaction we had received from our set an hour earlier and became fixated both by the view of the carpet of lights from downtown LA that stretched before me, and a quiet inner contentment based on the notion that maybe, just perhaps, Simple Minds could find some success in America. To this day I still enjoy driving through the same canyons that housed some of my favourite artist’s including Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and the irrepressible Frank Zappa
Jim Morrison means different things to different people. And yet I am amazed still whenever I get the chance to talk to musicians from that era that knew or came across him particularly as they all seemed to have disliked him thoroughly. While I like many consider him to have been the ultimate front man, others view JM as the most pretentious. Too good looking by far perhaps, Jim and his ways of being unavoidably caused much jealousy among the music community. Possibly it still contributes to a tainted legacy, least as told by others.
Because unfortunately while many see the heroic others view Morrison as someone who died pathetically and in much the same way as Elvis Presley and maybe Kurt Cobain. Tragic symbols, burnouts gone terribly wrong? Well that is not my view in any shape or form. They may have expired too young, but the art they both left behind undoubtedly lives on and somehow becomes even more potent with passing time.
I clearly recall the first time that I heard “Riders On The Storm” on my father’s car radio. It spooked me. I was chilled to my backbone by the cascading piano and the slow galloping bass, more than that I was instantly aware of the overflowing well of masculine sexuality inherent in the timbre of the voice that seemed to be cloaked in the blackest of velvet.
Interestingly enough, US troops are known for listening to Metallica and Slipknot etc as they forlornly parade the edge of dusty Iraqi towns currently. But Vietnam was the first ‘rock and roll war’ and therefore it is no coincidence that Francis Ford Coppolla used the voice of Morrison to set the opening scenes of the ensuing hell we enter when we watch Apocalypse Now. To this day I cannot listen to the opening words of “The End” as delivered by Morrison, without thinking that I am listening to the voice of Pontius Pilate himself.
Finally and most appropriately, out here where The Doors spent much of their time just hanging out, it has just gone 7 am and the morning sun is about to rise over the Pacific Ocean. I am sitting on the wall of a beach café not opened yet although the Mexican waiters are slowly arriving bleary eyed. I can wait for my coffee however, and as I do I am thinking of the famous pictures of The Doors taken only yards from me on Santa Monica beach. Simultaneously, I am writing this while listening to the first completed song mixed by Bob Clearmoutain for our upcoming album.
Quite possibly chosen as the opening track, it is a driving song with a relentless and hypnotic rhythm. A seductress of a song with a shiny black heart, it also just happens to have Jim Morrison’s and the Doors fingerprints all over it! Listening to it I almost feel that he was in the room as we put it together, and if not quite in the room, perhaps more appropriately hanging somewhere out there in the hall.
Later on in the afternoon I am walking amid the Christmas lights on a wet and rather desolate Santa Monica Pier. Storm clouds may be gathering over this structure, but I could not feel less elevated as I rewind and replay the same track endlessly.
Merry Christmas then Jim Morrison.
Jim Kerr