Pearson Lakes Art Center, April 19, 2011: Ray Manzarek And Roy Rogers
My concert-going buddy of some 24 years called me a couple of months ago and suggested we attend this event at this venue which is maybe 60-70 miles north of me. Book lecture at 4:00, performance at 7:30, sort of a different kind of format, but especially since I can, and my partner Tom could, we made it to both with ease, despite the strange snow we had earlier today.
Lots of things went through my head. The Pearson Lakes Art Center is a small venue, and there was plenty of meet-and-greet time for everyone. As has actually been my custom now for a decade and a half, I didn’t ingest any stuff that made me forget anything and I remember too much. There was enough media there that I’d like to anxiously await somebody else’s review, but in the meantime I need to catch some thoughts.
Ray strode into the lecture refusing to lecture. He said “you better start asking questions or I’m going to talk about LSD” with a grin. I instantly called out a question: “talk about LSD please”, but it soon proved more popular of course to talk about his days in The Doors. I wish I would have counted the attendees, that was quite doable, but now I’ll have to estimate there were no more than 50-75 people in attendance. We were free to take pictures and collect autographs. I collected my autographs on my ticket and on my original Doors self-titled album I bought from the Columbia Record Club and subsequently took to college in 1969, neatly writing STEVE in block letters on the label so my record wouldn’t get mixed up with my roommate Findlay’s.
I’ve kicked myself ever since because we do not write on our records if we are serious collectors and the cover got damaged in small wet basement incident right after we moved into Royal in or shortly after 1984. But now that record is signed by both myself and Ray Manzarek. It’s “repurposed”. That’s what I do.
As many in the room posed for photos, the conversation continued, and when it became my turn I said “really, talk about LSD”, and Ray said “it certainly opened the doors of perception” (a reference to how they selected their name from an Aldous Huxley book which mentions a line from a William Blake poem). I’ll bet he gets reasonably sick of that crap, but he was very gracious about it.
When I sensed we could ask more than one question, I asked him about Dave Diamond, who apparently is mentioned in Manzarek’s Life With The Doors book. Dave lived down the street from where I am now and taught at Buena Vista College (now University) at the time. I met him through Rainy Day Music’s fledgling #2 store here, and fell in with him and a group of reasonably serious whiskey drinkers for quite a length of time. Dave and I spent one memorable night lying to each other about stuff in an uptown bar that resulted in my relocation to a ditch north of town in the middle of the winter, to be rescued by a state trooper who let me go even though I obviously barely knew where or who I was. I’ve always been grateful about that.
Anyway, Dave had some Doors stories, and when I asked Manzarek, he said “oh yes, he IS the guy who insisted Light My Fire was a hit. Wow. Small world. The book lecture was a great success even though they ran out of books very quickly.
Did he and Roy Rogers PLAY Light My Fire? No. They did play “Love Me Two Times”, “King Snake”, and an interesting instrumental version of “Crystal Ship”, but they also did play some stuff from their upcoming album “Translucent Blues” as well as some Miles Davis and several other jazz numbers. They also seemed to compose “Okoboji Blues” on the spot, although I suppose the song could have been a template that you could stick any name into.
I don’t get out very often. It’s amazing how small the world is getting-I’ll bet I recognized about half the crowd, and as been happening now for ten years, I also renewed several old acquaintances from the store.
From the middle of the fourth row, allowed to take photos, I was possibly ready for something just slightly more intense than I got during the performance. The format included several pauses for question from the audience, and those were fun, but I didn’t get to watch these guys really delve into any of those deep hour-long sessions that develop at many concerts I go to.
They knew that though, and Manzarek in particular has a wonderfully developed sense of humor and after joking about the LSD thing again, he did mention that dosing really didn’t turn out to be the answer either if you looked at it like Charlie Manson did.
He and Rogers semi-promised to come back to the area again in the Fall, this time with a full rock band. If they do that, I humbly suggest it’s a must-see.
This event was recorded by Mediacom. Apparently, according to the Mediacom guy, it’ll probably show up in their channel 22 programming (?) in the next couple of weeks. See: http://www.mc22.net/
Wish I would have remembered to keep a set list, but I didn’t.