Speaker 1: The Seven Club is a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Double Elvis Media. Jim Morrison died at the age
Speaker 1: of and he lived a life of self inflicted turbulence.
Speaker 1: I can give you twenty seven reasons why that statement
Speaker 1: is true. Eleven would be the number on a scale
Speaker 1: of one to ten that Jim would approach while performing
Speaker 1: on stage. He screamed, louder, cursed more, jumped higher. Even
Speaker 1: on nights when he missed most of the notes, he
Speaker 1: still gave a performance. Twelve more would be the number
Speaker 1: of weeks the doors would hold onto the coveted spot
Speaker 1: of house band at the Whiskey A Go Go on
Speaker 1: the Sunset Strip before Jim's hatred of authority and foul
Speaker 1: mouth got them kicked out for good. Another one would
Speaker 1: be the number of Walt Disney affiliated studios he hosed
Speaker 1: down with a fire extinguisher buck naked, and three will
Speaker 1: be the number of years he'd have left to live
Speaker 1: after the man who would become Iggy Pop witnessed Jim
Speaker 1: give a beautifully destructive performance in Detroit on this our
Speaker 1: third episode of season two. Foul mouths, fire extinguishers, beautiful destruction,
Speaker 1: and Jim Morrison lost in another fantasy. I'm Jake Brennan
Speaker 1: and this is Phil Tanzin. He couldn't believe what he
Speaker 1: had just heard. His ears were hot. He was enraged,
Speaker 1: he was shocked, and tan Zini did a shock easily.
Speaker 1: His ears were hot with the filth coming from the
Speaker 1: mouth of Jim Morrison. He wouldn't be surprised in the
Speaker 1: least if someone told him in that moment that smoke
Speaker 1: was literally coming from his ears. His nost was flared
Speaker 1: and a shutter surged through his body. Tan Zini stood
Speaker 1: up from a desk in the office at the back
Speaker 1: of the whiskey a go go. Stood up so fast
Speaker 1: that he banged his knee in the desk drawer hard.
Speaker 1: The pain and his knee only added to the frustration
Speaker 1: he was feeling. He lost it fuck. He hopped on
Speaker 1: one foot, grabbed his knee with his hands and tried
Speaker 1: to rub the pain out. He had to move quickly
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere, and the whiskey was getting x rated
Speaker 1: real fast, and tan Zini had to bring the hammer down.
Speaker 1: He dragged Jim Morrison off the stage by his long hair.
Speaker 1: If he had to pull the plug on the equipment,
Speaker 1: something anything to make it stop. He could hear Jim
Speaker 1: on stage, doubling down on his initial obscenities with cathartic
Speaker 1: shouts into the overloaded microphone. Kill Fuck, Killed Fuck. It
Speaker 1: was August and the doors were dragging out and especially
Speaker 1: loud climactic edition of the end. Robbie Kreeger played the
Speaker 1: repetitive Eastern guitar vamp over and over like he was
Speaker 1: in a trance, and Raymond's Eric made his vox organs
Speaker 1: squeal while his left hand held down the looped bassline.
Speaker 1: John Densmore brought his jazz chops to the forefront with
Speaker 1: some well timed fills that exploded like bombs. The whole
Speaker 1: band was buzzing with tension and release, and then we
Speaker 1: get loud and unhinged Jim shrieking into the mic, and
Speaker 1: then tighten everything up and get quiet again. It was
Speaker 1: in those moments of quiet that Jim began to slowly
Speaker 1: turn the song into theater, obscene theater. His unrehearsed ramble
Speaker 1: in front of a stunned crowd was a reductive take
Speaker 1: on that of his Rex, and his final lines were
Speaker 1: what made Tanzini leap from his chair like a bat
Speaker 1: out of hell, father, I want to kill you. Jim
Speaker 1: wrapped one of his black weather cloud legs around the
Speaker 1: microphone stand, rubbed his crotch against the long metal pole
Speaker 1: the way that he always did, the way that made
Speaker 1: the girls in the audience to loose their ship. It
Speaker 1: wasn't jested, it wasn't coated. It was blatant. And this
Speaker 1: was why the girls and boys flocked the Whiskey in
Speaker 1: the summer of sixty six to see this aloof elegantly
Speaker 1: wasted rock god Wh's effortless sex all over the sunset strip.
Speaker 1: And he didn't disappoint. He never disappointed. But then things
Speaker 1: been weird. Father, I want to kill him. Jim regained
Speaker 1: a balance on the stage floor, leads into the microphone stand,
Speaker 1: and looked up toward the club's low ceiling. No one moved.
Speaker 1: The Go Go dancer stopped moving in their suspended cage,
Speaker 1: The audience ground to halt, waitresses stopped serving drinks. All
Speaker 1: eyes were on Jim, eyes shut tight as he made
Speaker 1: this assault on the mic. Mother, I want to fuck you.
Speaker 1: All the night lost Tanzani knew that Jim was going
Speaker 1: to push him over the edge. Ever since they had
Speaker 1: hired the doors to be the Whiskey's houseman back in May.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't say how or when. He couldn't, but he
Speaker 1: knew it would happen. And Jim have been pushing his
Speaker 1: butt for months now. He was arrogant, he was condescending.
Speaker 1: He racked up an absurd bar tab and he was
Speaker 1: searching for buttons to push, hell bent on butting the
Speaker 1: hand that fed his band. He found the button in Tancini.
Speaker 1: He pushed it and this was the moment, the button moment.
Speaker 1: It was happening right now. Another one of the Whiskey's owners,
Speaker 1: Elmer Valentine, could be a little softer with the bands,
Speaker 1: even if his background suggested otherwise. Valentine was a former
Speaker 1: Chicago cop who made his way to l A after
Speaker 1: being indicted for extortion in Shy Town. His side hustle
Speaker 1: was running nightclubs for the mob. Was on their payroll
Speaker 1: into Valentine and other cops at the time. It was
Speaker 1: the way things were. It wasn't dirty, it just was
Speaker 1: what it was, a means to an end. Valentine was
Speaker 1: never convicted, but he got out of town, headed west
Speaker 1: and redefined himself as a club owner. And since he
Speaker 1: had some experience under his belt. After running PJS in
Speaker 1: West Hollywood, Valentine took a trip to Europe and discovered Discothex.
Speaker 1: He brought the concept back to l A and make
Speaker 1: the Whiskey a go go the preeminent place for live
Speaker 1: rock music in the city, perhaps even in the entire country,
Speaker 1: and he never let those wise guy connections dry up.
Speaker 1: When the Whiskey opened, he signed Johnny Rivers to play
Speaker 1: regularly for a year. Mr Secret Agent man himself. Bill Gazari,
Speaker 1: another l A club owner, claimed that Valentine's stole Rivers
Speaker 1: from his place and he wanted Johnny Rivers back. Valentine
Speaker 1: can go fund himself. Gazari put in a call to
Speaker 1: the infamous Chucky English, one of Sam Gi and Kanna's
Speaker 1: top men in Chicago, and Chucky English made the trip
Speaker 1: across the country to the Whiskey and laid it out
Speaker 1: real nice. Johnny Rivers goes back to Gazari's or Valentine
Speaker 1: was a fucking dead man. Valentine remained calm. You got
Speaker 1: on the phone, rain back home to Chicago. Felix Saldericio
Speaker 1: a k A Milwaukee Phil a k A hit Man's
Speaker 1: hit man with at least fourteen confirm Mafia Kills, who's
Speaker 1: a close friend of Valentine's. Valentine needed him to come
Speaker 1: out to l A and do him this favor. Get
Speaker 1: this fucking Gazari funk off his back, and so he did,
Speaker 1: and so that was that it was settled. Johnny Rivers
Speaker 1: kept playing the whiskey. The whiskey didn't feel mobbed up.
Speaker 1: It felt like the coolest room on the planet. The
Speaker 1: Whiskey cigarette Girl Patty Brockhurst was also its house DJ.
Speaker 1: Valentine wanted patrons to keep dancing between bands, and since
Speaker 1: there wasn't enough room on the floor for a DJ booth,
Speaker 1: a glass walled booth was mounted above the floor, where
Speaker 1: Patty would spin LPs and dancing or miniskirt. It was
Speaker 1: such a hit the Valentine hired some additional dancers to
Speaker 1: join Patty. The crowd shook their asses NonStop following the
Speaker 1: direction of the women suspended from the dance cage above
Speaker 1: the whiskey. A Go Go turned the strip into the
Speaker 1: Promised Land, the scene to end all scenes. Raymond Zara
Speaker 1: called it Mecca. Even if it's glamorous, commercialized seen was
Speaker 1: the exact opposite of the Bohemian artist fantasy they had
Speaker 1: concocted on Venice Beach. The Whiskey attracted Hollywood elite Carrie Grant,
Speaker 1: Jane Mansfield, Steve McQueen, Jack Parr. They all got their
Speaker 1: rocks off at eight and nine oh one Sunset Bull
Speaker 1: of her as the Whiskey Ago Goes house band. The
Speaker 1: Doors opened for Buffalo Springfield, the Birds Love Captain Beefheart,
Speaker 1: Frank Zappin and the mothers of invention the Turtles. When
Speaker 1: them came into town, their frontman Van Morrison went on
Speaker 1: a bender for days with Jim and they saying g
Speaker 1: L O R I A on stage together two brothers
Speaker 1: from other mothers, a duo of Morrison's for the ages
Speaker 1: right there on the Sunset Strip. Earlier in that year,
Speaker 1: the Doors has secured a recurring gig at the London Fog.
Speaker 1: The club was a few doors down from the Whiskey,
Speaker 1: but not nearly as respected. At least they were Whiskey adjacent,
Speaker 1: They were in the orbit, and they were where the
Speaker 1: action was. But the doors had no draw and the
Speaker 1: fog wasn't consistent with payment. Serendipitously, Ronnie mellon the Whiskey's
Speaker 1: talent bookers saw the Doors at the fog on the
Speaker 1: night they were let go, She went back and told
Speaker 1: Valentine they needed to be the Whiskey's houseman. Now, Tanzini
Speaker 1: was regretting the whole thing, regretting ever, allowing Jim Marrison
Speaker 1: to defile the stage, to rub his tight pants and
Speaker 1: the mic stand to how like a wounded animal, to
Speaker 1: play his music way too fucking loud, to say the
Speaker 1: kinds of things a normal person just wouldn't say on stage,
Speaker 1: You sick fuck. Tansini was screaming as he approached the stage,
Speaker 1: You say that six ship about your mother on my stage,
Speaker 1: on my stage. Who the funk? Who the funk do
Speaker 1: you think you are to say that six ship on
Speaker 1: my stage? Then tan Zini fired the band and they
Speaker 1: were done. He was all out of patients, with Jim
Speaker 1: being all on a fox, the cush gig they had
Speaker 1: won over every other band in l A was taken
Speaker 1: away from them just like that, and it was all
Speaker 1: Jim's fault. The Doors knew there was a caveat that
Speaker 1: came with having Jim Morrison as their front man. This
Speaker 1: was the caveat, But Jim wasn't just a liability on
Speaker 1: stage in front of an audience. He didn't even need
Speaker 1: an audience. He slipped deeper into that fantasy world, felt
Speaker 1: himself more invincible as the months went on and the
Speaker 1: band game notoriety. His act wasn't merely attention seeking. He
Speaker 1: was all in, so far in that it was almost
Speaker 1: second nature when he took off all of his clothes
Speaker 1: and lit up the recording studio with a loaded fire extinguisher.
Speaker 1: Paul Rothschild stepped outside the New Jersey State Prison for
Speaker 1: the first time in nine months and felt that early
Speaker 1: morning July sun smack him in the face. It was
Speaker 1: hot and muggy, felt like summer, smelled like Trenton. He
Speaker 1: didn't take the moment for granted. That Jersey sun could
Speaker 1: smack the every loving ship out of him all day.
Speaker 1: If he wanted to, he'd soak it up the maximum
Speaker 1: security behemoth dwarf Frothchild, where he stood waiting for the
Speaker 1: gates to ceremoniously open, his balding head a little more
Speaker 1: bald than when he was first put in the cell
Speaker 1: nine months earlier. Holy shit, he thought nine months he
Speaker 1: grow a human being in nine months. He had done
Speaker 1: his time with murderers. These racketeers and psychopaths, as well
Speaker 1: as those who like himself, were there because of some
Speaker 1: petty bullshit. Rothschild was there for a couple of joints
Speaker 1: if you could believe that he couldn't marijuana possession. In
Speaker 1: the mid sixties, the police had raging, hard honest to
Speaker 1: bus people smoking grass, fringe folk, hippies, rock and rollers.
Speaker 1: So the squares put him inside the Trent and Fortress
Speaker 1: and did their best to make him feel like a
Speaker 1: different person, a normalized person, a reformed person. The nine
Speaker 1: months Rothchild spent inside were full of monotony. There was
Speaker 1: no music, no work, and certainly no grass. But he
Speaker 1: couldn't stamp the music out of Paul Rothschild. Rothschild was
Speaker 1: Electro wreck and senior staff producer. He was hired by
Speaker 1: Electra president Jack Holdsman in sixty three. He had produced
Speaker 1: records by folk He's like Phil Oaks and Tom Rush.
Speaker 1: In sixty four he discovered the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
Speaker 1: When he was sent to jail in November nine, Holsman
Speaker 1: kept him on the payroll. It was only nine months
Speaker 1: and Electra would be waiting for him when he got
Speaker 1: out and now there he was the one Electra and
Speaker 1: Holsman were waiting for, standing there under the hot July sun,
Speaker 1: receding hairline, dramatic mutton chops on his cheeks, beads around
Speaker 1: his neck, sandals on his feet, unless cigarette behind his ear,
Speaker 1: real fucking far from reformed. But how would he do this?
Speaker 1: How would he acclaim back into reality? Who would he
Speaker 1: work with? Who would want to work with him? A
Speaker 1: producer with a rap sheet, Jack Holsman of the Perfect
Speaker 1: group that summer, Arthur Lee of Love, Electra's first rock
Speaker 1: group and a quintessential example of the mid sixties psychedelic
Speaker 1: folk rock scene in l A, brought Holzman to the whiskey.
Speaker 1: He had to see this band. The singer was wild, unpredictable,
Speaker 1: a nique. The band really cooked. It took Holsman to
Speaker 1: repeat visit, but he got turned on. And the doors
Speaker 1: have been dicked around by Columbia Records, signed and then
Speaker 1: sat on with little enthusiasm by the label's brass. They
Speaker 1: had been picked up and dropped with a little fanfare,
Speaker 1: and they needed a place to go. Polsman needed another
Speaker 1: exciting rock band and continue to diversify, which was roster,
Speaker 1: the Doors are gonna blow people's minds, or as l
Speaker 1: a critic Jean young Blood said, the Beatles and the
Speaker 1: Stones are for blowing your mind. The Doors are for afterwards,
Speaker 1: and your mind is already gone. The Doors welcomed Rothschild
Speaker 1: with open arms, a record producer fresh out of the
Speaker 1: joint for smoking dope. Yes, that was the only icebreaker
Speaker 1: the band needed, and they were all in. Rothschild and
Speaker 1: the Doors checked into Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood, a
Speaker 1: studio that Disney's director of Recording, two D. Camarada, had
Speaker 1: built in the late fifties at Walt Disney's request. Used
Speaker 1: at first to record music for vintage Disney films, it
Speaker 1: would become a legendary spot where the Beach Boys would
Speaker 1: make pets sounds. The Stones would finish exile on Main Street.
Speaker 1: Janis Chopping would record Pearl and Prince would track Purple Rain.
Speaker 1: In six days, the Doors were done. They tracked Light
Speaker 1: by Fire, Break On Through to the Other Side, Soul Kitchen,
Speaker 1: Backdoor Man, the End, along with the other six songs
Speaker 1: that would make up their groundbreaking self titled debut album.
Speaker 1: The band was picking up steam. Their sound was new
Speaker 1: and hungry. They put the drama of the Whiskey behind them,
Speaker 1: but Jim wasn't done with all the drama yet. There
Speaker 1: was other drama to find and exploit. He wasn't done
Speaker 1: with the theater yet either, and there were still words.
Speaker 1: He hadn't said things, he hadn't done people, he hadn't shocked.
Speaker 1: He wasn't done with the fantasy. The doors were trying
Speaker 1: to record the end when Jim, stoned and ranting, decided
Speaker 1: to rip the television cord out of the wall and
Speaker 1: smash it to ship. He hurled it towards Rothschild in
Speaker 1: the control room of the studio, but the boxing TV
Speaker 1: was stopped by the large wall of sound proof glass
Speaker 1: separating the control room in the studio. Jim was shocked
Speaker 1: the glass didn't break. It was a letdown anti climb
Speaker 1: actic a. Rothschild cut the session short. Jim obviously needed
Speaker 1: to sleep this one off. Rothschild put him in a
Speaker 1: car and had someone drive him home, but Jim didn't
Speaker 1: make it home. Jim wasn't done, had to finish what
Speaker 1: he started. He bailed out of the car as it
Speaker 1: was rolling down Sunset Boulevard, just like he had bailed
Speaker 1: to kiss the fourteen year old that time on Hawthorn.
Speaker 1: He ran down sunset, moaning and groaning so loud that
Speaker 1: he fitted perfectly with the human wildlife crawling around at
Speaker 1: this late hour on the streets. When he made it
Speaker 1: back the sunset side, everyone was gone. And then he
Speaker 1: saw smoke coming from the building's windows. Jesus, he thought
Speaker 1: they kick him out of the studio, and then the
Speaker 1: place catches on fire. He climbed the gate and found
Speaker 1: his way into the empty building. He could tell the
Speaker 1: fire it was coming from the studio room they have
Speaker 1: been recording in. He had to do something. He was
Speaker 1: sweating and panting from all the running. He was already hot,
Speaker 1: and he just got hotter and hotter the closer he
Speaker 1: got to the studio room. With the fire inside, his
Speaker 1: heart beat wildly and his arms shook with unchecked adrenaline.
Speaker 1: It was time to go full wild child. It was
Speaker 1: time to get real faro and Jim took his clothes off,
Speaker 1: took them all off. He felt free, loose, unfettered, fucking invincible.
Speaker 1: He burst into the room and used his clothes to
Speaker 1: try to smother the flames. Threw his shirt down on
Speaker 1: some fire. It's smoldered, threw his jeans down on some
Speaker 1: fire and they seemed to do the trick, but there
Speaker 1: was too much fire, too much smoke. He didn't have
Speaker 1: that many clothes, and frustrated, he threw ash trees around
Speaker 1: the room, up ended the table if it wasn't bolted
Speaker 1: down to get tossed, and then he grabbed the fire
Speaker 1: extinguisher from the wall and let it ripped spray down
Speaker 1: the whole room. The crackling of the flames and the
Speaker 1: white noise surge of the fire extinguisher filled his ears
Speaker 1: with a beautiful cacophony foam from the fireston which recovered everything,
Speaker 1: the control board, the tapes, John Densmore's drums, and Robbie
Speaker 1: Creaker's guitar, and not an inch of the room was missed.
Speaker 1: Jim was thorough. He was both a hero and a
Speaker 1: wild force of destruction. He could have his cake, and
Speaker 1: he did too. As the fire extinguishers sputtered its last
Speaker 1: final blasts of white foam, Jim collapsed in her chair, exhausted, fulfilled.
Speaker 1: He had finished when he started. Later that night, Rothchild
Speaker 1: found Jim nearly passed out in that chair, and the
Speaker 1: entire room covered in chemical foam. It was like a
Speaker 1: marshmallow crime scene. He shook. Jim awake was babbling about
Speaker 1: a fire fire. Rothchild was confused and angry. There was
Speaker 1: no fire. It was just a studio room entirely covered
Speaker 1: in goo and a bunch of random ship thrown around
Speaker 1: and smashed. Damn Jim Rothchild said, it took a real
Speaker 1: beautiful thing, fucked it up good. Jim, still naked and
Speaker 1: out of his mind, smiled At times like these, the
Speaker 1: devilish encouragement and hostility of his friend Jimbo bounced around
Speaker 1: in his head. Even when Jimbo wasn't standing right next
Speaker 1: to him, Jimbo was always there, always commenting, always provoking.
Speaker 1: Even if Jim was naked and alone in a recording studio,
Speaker 1: it wasn't really ever alone. And yeah, Rothchild was right.
Speaker 1: He did fuck it up. He sucked it up real good.
Speaker 1: But it was a private act of insanity. It's shocked Rothchild,
Speaker 1: a guy who had recently spent time in the big
Speaker 1: House and didn't shock easily. But Jim needed a bigger audience,
Speaker 1: a bigger stage, passing insanity along to the masses, and
Speaker 1: they were thirsty for it anyway. Twenty tho unsuspecting hippies
Speaker 1: in a public park was a good place to start.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this word. We were Jim
Speaker 1: Morrison and Jimbo made the scene. Jim tagged along behind Jimbo.
Speaker 1: Jima looked out onto the crowd of twenty people gathered
Speaker 1: in Golden Gate parkin thought, fuck these flower children. Fucked
Speaker 1: this grassroots activism, and fucked these wild eyed, deluded losers.
Speaker 1: President Kennedy was still dead, and after Watts, Cleveland had rioted,
Speaker 1: oh Mad rioted, and there were almost two U S
Speaker 1: soldiers in Vietnam. The world was a ball of confusion,
Speaker 1: and these starry eyed, optimistic fools thought that holding hands
Speaker 1: in the middle of San Francisco would make things better.
Speaker 1: At least the folks and Watts knew what was up.
Speaker 1: Fuck sh it up, make it stint, make the establishment
Speaker 1: feel the pain the human being. Even the name was stupid.
Speaker 1: Life was chaos, disorder, life was fucked up. Life wasn't
Speaker 1: tidy and lovey dovey, and where was the fun and
Speaker 1: just floating along in ignorant bliss. Anyways, it was always
Speaker 1: more fun to make a mess of things. And this
Speaker 1: is what Jimbo thought while he made his way through
Speaker 1: the throngs of smiling San Franciscan's, pausing to take in
Speaker 1: Timothy Learry's speech from the stage and the one time
Speaker 1: Harvard professor and LSD prophet recently touring college campuses to
Speaker 1: spread the good word of the acid. Ture rang fourth
Speaker 1: with the mantra that the whole movement would adopt the
Speaker 1: movement that was taking form here and now in Golden
Speaker 1: Gate Park, turn on, tune in, and drop out, drop out.
Speaker 1: Jimbo fixated on those final words. He plucked them from
Speaker 1: Leary's entire sentence and kept on repeating them out loud,
Speaker 1: quietly at first, and then louder. It was his own mantra.
Speaker 1: Now he spun around in the public park and the
Speaker 1: cozy jan whevery sunshine, yelling drop out, and all the
Speaker 1: smiling faces. Jimbo plucked the flower from behind the ear
Speaker 1: of a teenage girl with long blonde hair. He squeezed
Speaker 1: it in his palm into The petals had been ripped
Speaker 1: off and the stem was crumpled, and then he let
Speaker 1: it droop and fall into the ground. The girl looked
Speaker 1: on in horror. He snatched a joint from the fingers
Speaker 1: of short haired flower chap some young kid who was
Speaker 1: in the early stages of letting it all hang out.
Speaker 1: Jimbo snatched the joint and just ate it. Stuck the
Speaker 1: lip roach in his mouth and started to chew. He
Speaker 1: smiled while his cheeks moved up and down, and then
Speaker 1: blew residual smoke right back into the kid's face. Fuck him,
Speaker 1: he thought. He grabbed girls dresses and pulled them sky
Speaker 1: high to get a peep, deliberately bumped his rugged shoulder
Speaker 1: into the shoulders of passing kids with rose colored glasses
Speaker 1: and gob smacked faces. Fun Pretzel book, he would really
Speaker 1: dig his shoulder into, set them reeling, flailing backward, and
Speaker 1: then follow up with a bloated, drunk confrontation, what the
Speaker 1: fucking your problem? Jim Morrison trailed Jimbo, stoned and drunk
Speaker 1: as usual, chuckling at Jimbo's hijags, but also affording himself
Speaker 1: the luxury of keeping his distance. Louis plenty going on
Speaker 1: in January, but on this particular Saturday, San Francisco was
Speaker 1: certainly where it was at the human being. A prelude
Speaker 1: to that year's Summer of Love was builled as a
Speaker 1: gathering of the tribes, and truly it was hippy. Kids
Speaker 1: walked side by side with business men in suits. Everyone
Speaker 1: was encouraged to breathe a little deeper and take things
Speaker 1: a little slower, peacefully, protests the war, love one another,
Speaker 1: smile upon another, look at the world in a different way.
Speaker 1: Come together. Rainbow colored posters for the mass event asked
Speaker 1: people to bring flowers, insects, feathers and candles, to bring animals, symbols, chimes,
Speaker 1: and flutes. Organizers expected about a thousand people to show
Speaker 1: up at Golden Gate Parks polo fields, but guestimates put
Speaker 1: the actual number of attendees between money and thirty. Thus,
Speaker 1: other posters promised all SF rock groups, which translated to
Speaker 1: a who's who of San Francisco rock and roll circa
Speaker 1: early nineteen The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sir Douglas, Quintent,
Speaker 1: the Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Big brotherren holding company. Big
Speaker 1: Brother eddiet to release a debut record yet, but they
Speaker 1: were making waves in the scene, largely due to their
Speaker 1: lead vocalists, Janis Joplin. It was also the first major
Speaker 1: counterculture gathering that used the local Hell's Angels chapter for security,
Speaker 1: seeing as there was no police presence, and they passed
Speaker 1: out drinks from the back of a station wagon, helped
Speaker 1: lost kids find their free flowing parents, and for the
Speaker 1: most part, stayed out of trouble, and there was a
Speaker 1: general sense of unease at the Angel's presence. After all,
Speaker 1: they had attacked anti war protesters the year before and
Speaker 1: carried with them in overall air of menace the Jimbo
Speaker 1: found delightfully ironic. A couple of hits of acid from
Speaker 1: Alan Ginsburg and kem Kesi, though, kept them on their
Speaker 1: best behavior for the moment. You know what I see
Speaker 1: when I look out at this crowd, Jimbo asked Jim,
Speaker 1: draping his arm around jim shoulders and pulling him in close.
Speaker 1: I see a whole lot of people who aren't happy,
Speaker 1: who want something else, and they don't want to be
Speaker 1: told what to do by Sea Hall and the President
Speaker 1: and the fucking pigs Man. They sure sh it ain't
Speaker 1: gonna get what they want by holding hands and Golden
Speaker 1: Gate fucking park. Me and Jimbo snared it up a
Speaker 1: real big lugi and spat it out into the ground,
Speaker 1: tugged at his crotch and looked around at the hippie
Speaker 1: dream gathering steam in the wide expanse of the polo fields,
Speaker 1: and saw it bursting a loud, resounding pop. Revolution was
Speaker 1: not this immaculate. This won't last, Jim. I see these
Speaker 1: crowds rising up, getting angry. We'll get tired trying to
Speaker 1: give piece a chance, and they'll just be dying to
Speaker 1: go crazy. And they'll want someone to show them how,
Speaker 1: to tell them that it's okay, to tell them that
Speaker 1: they don't have to listen to their parents or the cops.
Speaker 1: Fun the parents, fuck the coughs, fox society. All these
Speaker 1: motherfucker's wanted self expression. They want to be left alone
Speaker 1: and allowed to do whatever they want whenever they want.
Speaker 1: The Hell's Angels they're like wolves and then wolves and
Speaker 1: sheep's clothing. Brother, you know what the fund do they
Speaker 1: get out of this. They're gonna flash through true colors too.
Speaker 1: People will say those Hell's Angels went crazy, when you know,
Speaker 1: you know that the Hell's Angels are just gonna do
Speaker 1: what the Hell's Angels do. Fucking ship. Oh. The crowd
Speaker 1: around them started to back away. A large empty circle
Speaker 1: was formed in the grass as people pushed each other back,
Speaker 1: and the sound of anticipatory conversation increased. Jim thought it
Speaker 1: had something to do with Jimbo. At first. Was he
Speaker 1: being too loud? Was he now scaring off large groups
Speaker 1: of calm pe seekers. He noticed that the crowd now
Speaker 1: going and I was looking to the sky. Little white
Speaker 1: tablets rained down on the mall. Obviously these white lightning,
Speaker 1: recently made illegal in the state of California. Acid tabs
Speaker 1: were falling from the sky like mona from heaven. Jim
Speaker 1: smacked Jimbo on the chest, the universal sign in the
Speaker 1: sort of situation for shut the funk up pointed upwards
Speaker 1: a parachute who was making his descent from the deep
Speaker 1: blue sky above a plane tailing off in the distance
Speaker 1: as its engine sputtered and gurgled, and the parachuter tossed
Speaker 1: white lightning calves here and there, the hands from the
Speaker 1: crowd reaching out, reaching out and grabbing the promise of
Speaker 1: another trip, and they squealed with joy in this wild
Speaker 1: westfield full of love and compassion and altered states of mind.
Speaker 1: Jimbo was unimpressed, though, as Jim could tell by the
Speaker 1: one syllable grunt he made under his breath. And then
Speaker 1: he turned to gym and said, turn on true man.
Speaker 1: Jim Osterberg knew a fellow drop out when he saw
Speaker 1: one and this guy on stage at the University of
Speaker 1: Michigan's intramuro Sports building. This guy was a colossal scene
Speaker 1: shifting pants shifting drop out. He hit the stage late,
Speaker 1: stumbled around like a buffoon, grabbed the microphone, and mumbled
Speaker 1: a litany of offcolor remarks and curse words. The kind
Speaker 1: of ship you didn't say in public, the kind of
Speaker 1: ship you definitely didn't say at the University's homecoming concert.
Speaker 1: In his untucked white dress shirt and dark leather pants,
Speaker 1: he can barely stand upright. Jim witnessed Jim and thought,
Speaker 1: takes one to no one. For Jim Osterberg, Jim Morrison
Speaker 1: was an inspiration. The rest of the audience didn't share
Speaker 1: Jim Osterberg's excitement. The rest of the audience was pissed.
Speaker 1: It felt screwed over, and they paid three dollars for
Speaker 1: this train wreck. And the students in the audience expected
Speaker 1: better things from performers at the University of Michigan's homecoming show.
Speaker 1: Performers like The Righteous Brothers, Dion Warwick, the Four Tops,
Speaker 1: the Beach Boys, consummate performers who knew how to deliver
Speaker 1: a show. Give him a bang for three bucks. The
Speaker 1: Doors should have been that band. All signs pointed to
Speaker 1: that band, a band that would wild them, a band
Speaker 1: that was grabbing hold of some corner of the country zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: At the moment in the fall of the Doors were
Speaker 1: on top of the world. They released their self titled
Speaker 1: debut album that year, Lecture bought them a huge billboard
Speaker 1: in the sunset Strip, the first of its kind for
Speaker 1: a rocket roll band. The first single from the record,
Speaker 1: Break On Through to the Other Side, didn't live up
Speaker 1: to its title, but it's follow up made up for
Speaker 1: lost time. Light My Fire spent twenty three weeks on
Speaker 1: the Billboard charts, peaking at number one or three of
Speaker 1: those weeks. Light My Fire, cut down from its seven
Speaker 1: minute album length to a barely three minute radio version,
Speaker 1: was everywhere. During the summer of sixty seven, Jim Morrison
Speaker 1: threw down his hit single money for a custom black
Speaker 1: leather suit, walk that lock and skin tight pants. It's
Speaker 1: hard to overstate just how revolutionary Light My Fire was
Speaker 1: when it appeared on the pop charts for weeks before
Speaker 1: Light My Fire debut. The number one slot on the
Speaker 1: Billboard Charts was held by songs like Whitney by The Association,
Speaker 1: Grooving by the Young Rascals, and Happy Together by The Turtles.
Speaker 1: Bubblegum pop ruled the airwaves, and Light My Fire was
Speaker 1: an invitation to explore something well off the beaten path
Speaker 1: of pop conformity, not to mention the gateway to an
Speaker 1: album version that was more than twice the single's length.
Speaker 1: The Door's debut altered the public's perception towards what a
Speaker 1: number one song could be. They followed up quickly in
Speaker 1: the early fall with Strange Days, which was immediately a hit.
Speaker 1: Its singles People Are Strange and Love Me Two Times
Speaker 1: would do well even if they weren't generation defining songs
Speaker 1: like Light My Fire. Crawdaddy magazine called the live show
Speaker 1: beautiful and frightening and said that the doors in concert
Speaker 1: were the best of the West has to offer, and
Speaker 1: just like the epic, the end closed out the debut record,
Speaker 1: Strange Days featured an equally long coda when the music's
Speaker 1: over that the band would transform into dramatic, dynamic, improvisational
Speaker 1: rock and roll a live when they were firing on
Speaker 1: all cylinders moved aside, and they could swim to the moon,
Speaker 1: climbed through the tide, penetrate the evening. But the city
Speaker 1: sleeps to hide and they were ascending. But in ann Arbor, Michigan,
Speaker 1: they got caught on a wrong When the band first
Speaker 1: appeared on stage following the local opening group, the Long
Speaker 1: Island Sound, Jim wasn't even there. Ray, Robbie, and John
Speaker 1: picked up their instruments and began to vamp on Soul Kitchen.
Speaker 1: Once the audience realized that they were just going to
Speaker 1: play without their front man, Ray's twittering organ line repeating
Speaker 1: over and over again, the booze started and this was
Speaker 1: gonna be disastrous. They needed Jim, no matter what stad
Speaker 1: he was in. Ray knew he was stone drunk. Back stage,
Speaker 1: he had been nursing a whiskey bottle all day, not
Speaker 1: all afternoon, all day morning, noon night. The band stopped
Speaker 1: playing and exited at the stage. They came back minutes
Speaker 1: later with Jim. They started up Soul Kitchen again, this
Speaker 1: time with their frontman front the center. Jim tripped on
Speaker 1: his own feet, fell over, pulled himself up on the
Speaker 1: microphone stand, tripped again through his wild mane of hair backwards.
Speaker 1: He was beyond wasted, and that's when he started cursing
Speaker 1: into the mic. He pulled it close against his lips,
Speaker 1: completely missing the insistent heartbeat rhythm of Soul Kitchen and
Speaker 1: rambling on. He thought about Jimbo rambling to him and
Speaker 1: channeled it, just let it come through him, rambling man
Speaker 1: and the mic was tied against his lips, and his
Speaker 1: words were muffled, stunted, slurred, go down, Soul Kitchen. Kids
Speaker 1: in the audience were shocked, not that they didn't say
Speaker 1: fun themselves, but bands on stage did not say. Jim
Speaker 1: picked up the brief from the stage, a beer can,
Speaker 1: a pencil, a crumpled up piece of paper from his pocket,
Speaker 1: and chucked it at the audience, whatever he could get
Speaker 1: his hands on, whatever wasn't tied down. Jim shouted his face,
Speaker 1: not directly in front of the mic, but close enough
Speaker 1: that a handful of the audience were able to hear
Speaker 1: his taunts, and they started to get upset. Jim was drunk,
Speaker 1: he was late, he was insulting the audience, and now
Speaker 1: he was daring the audience to what to challenge him,
Speaker 1: to rush the stage, to take him on the cops
Speaker 1: stepped in before things got out of hand and usher
Speaker 1: Jim and the band off stage, and the Long Island
Speaker 1: Sound stepped in the soften the blow and began playing again. Backstage,
Speaker 1: Jim breathed heavy, and the heavy breathing of a man
Speaker 1: who was feeling the tug of war between whiskey and
Speaker 1: LSD in his system, The heavy breathing of a man
Speaker 1: who drunk or not had the crowd in the palm
Speaker 1: of his hand and set them reeling. He had control
Speaker 1: to Jim oster for his theater. It was expression. It
Speaker 1: was something new, big, dumb and confrontational, alive and definitely
Speaker 1: wasn't Elvis Presley, and it wasn't the fucking Beatles. It
Speaker 1: was the future. Jim aster Burke took what he had
Speaker 1: seen back to his bandmates and the Psychedelic Stooges. He
Speaker 1: had a vision he'd ride the Jim Morrison character to
Speaker 1: the extreme, to the next level, transcendentally dumb, insightfully idiotic,
Speaker 1: artfully primitive. The Psychedelic Stooges changed their name to simply
Speaker 1: the Stooges, and Jim Osterburg started calling himself Aky Pop.
Speaker 1: Jim Marrison meanwhile had put Anne Arbor on the map
Speaker 1: as yet another location for his crowd bating antics. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the complete insanity he imagined, the kinds of fantasy.
Speaker 1: Jimbo helped him a vision that would come soon enough.
Speaker 1: The next step would involve authority cops. Soon enough, when
Speaker 1: the tour rolled into New Haven, Connecticut, Jim would ratchet
Speaker 1: up that spectacle, and it would take him weeks to
Speaker 1: get the taste of the mace off of his tongue.
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan and this is seven Club all right.
Speaker 1: The twenty seven Club is scored and co written by myself,
Speaker 1: Jake Brennan. Zef Blundie is the lead writer and editor
Speaker 1: around the show. Matt Bowden mixes the show. Additional music
Speaker 1: and score elements by Ryan's Breaker and Henry Linnetta. The
Speaker 1: twenty seven Club is produced by myself for Double Elvis
Speaker 1: and partnership with iHeart Radio. Sources for this episode are
Speaker 1: available at Double Elvis dot com on the twenty seven
Speaker 1: Club series page. The twenty seven Club is released weekly
Speaker 1: every Thursday. Season one features twelve episodes on Jimmie Hendricks,
Speaker 1: which are all available for you to binge right now
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, and if you like what
Speaker 1: you hear, please be sure to subscribe to the twenty
Speaker 1: seven Club on Apple podcast i Heeart Radio, Apple, wherever
Speaker 1: you get shows. And if you'd like to win a
Speaker 1: free twenty seven Club poster designed by the man himself,
Speaker 1: Nate Gonzalez, and leave a review for twenty seven Club
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or hashtag subscribe to twenty seven Club
Speaker 1: on social media. I will pick two winners each week
Speaker 1: and announce them on the Double Elvis Instagram page that's
Speaker 1: at double elevens. You're gonna want to give that a fall,
Speaker 1: So get out there and spread the word about twenty
Speaker 1: seven Club. And as always, you can find me laughing
Speaker 1: about other crazy rock stars and my other show, disgrace Land,
Speaker 1: and you can talk to me per usual on Instagram
Speaker 1: and Twitter at disgrace Land pod, rock a Rolla, What's
Speaker 1: after Your Ears