Doors drummer loses his mind.

So continuing on this Doors thing…

I basically wrote former Doors drummer John Densmore off as a bit of a wanker because of his allegiance to a dead Morrison and his stonewalling of keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger and their twin desire to play Doors songs under some variation of ‘The Doors’ name. Like ‘The Doors of the 21st Century’ or something to that effect. He sued them and won. Why did he sue? Because Jim like, would not have been cool with it man… Why did he win? Probably because the judge was a huge Doors fan and Densmore bribed him with an old pair of Morrison’s undies if the decision went his way. Or something.

Really John? Your former band buddies are freaking getting old and they just want to jam on some tunes that just happened to be huge rock hits that captured the vibe of an entire era. Maybe their peyote trips wore off (unlike yours) and they realized Jim wasn’t a shaman and The Doors wouldn’t/couldn’t/didn’t change the world, and they all just got lucky with some great tunes and now they  just want to go play them and have fun before they die? And if some variation of the name ‘The Doors’ is on the marquee just a few more people might show. Is that so wrong?

I guess so. At least that’s what the judge thinks. Sitting in the Lizard King’s undies. Whatever.

That being said, I came across this 1992 video of Densmore on “The Dennis Miller Show”. (By the way, check out the young Miller and check out that mullet!)

At first I was like, “Oh my goodness, this is awful. This guy is pathetic”. But then as I kept watching it turned into, “Oh my goodness, this is  funny. Not a bad drummer either…” Densmore does a live reading/performance from his book in which he recounts playing the yet-to-be-released first Doors record for his parents. The whole time he is panicking about coming to the last song called ‘The End’ which has Morrison’s infamous take on the Oedipus complex where he yells something or other about wanting to um, well, you know, be intimate with his mother. But in a not-so-polite way. In 1966 the ‘F’ word was off limits for a recording but the point is still made and Densmore gives a pretty entertaining telling of sweating it out in front of Mom and Dad.

I still think Densmore is a wanker though and he should just chill out and let his former bandmates play the casino summer circuits if they want.

See what you think.

And if you’re still with me click on the wild-man image above for an extra goodie.