Winslow Leach
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An absolute MUST for Doors fan is the excellent The Doors Collection, a DVD that contains everything you ever wanted to know about the group and more. It's absolutely invaluable.
To start things off, there's a nice video "Welcome" intro from Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger, who introduce the disc, and tell you what to expect.
Then there are three full-length programs, originally produced for home video, each running over an hour.
Dance on Fire - this is a compilation of Doors performances taken from several sources. We get a promo film (early rock video) of the band performing Break on Through. This clip was produced by Elektra Records to promote the single. There's the infamous Ed Sullivan Show performance of "Light My Fire," and performances of the Doors from The Jonathan Winters Show, American Bandstand, Murray the K, and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. This last clip is particularly interesting. The band performs "Touch Me," and Robbie clearly has a black eye. Apparently he had gotten into a fight the day before the show was to be taped. When he arrived at the studio, the make-up people insisted he cover up the wound, but Robbie refused, and went on national television with a black eye!
The Doors Live at the Hollywood Bowl - the complete concert of the group's Hollywood Bowl show, filmed by a camera crew on July 5, 1968.
The Soft Parade - this was produced by the Doors in response to the Stone film. The bulk of the material is a PBS Soundstage performance/interview session, with a bearded Morrison performing songs from "The Soft Parade" album, as well as several tunes that were never officially released on vinyl.
All three programs have optional commentaries by the Doors. These commentaries are fun, funny, informative and extremely entertaining to listen to. Plus, they are often very screen-specific, and tell you a little bit about the background of what you're seeing onscreen (that's how I learned about Robbie's black eye story).
Next, we get two complete, ultra-rare STUDENT FILMS by Ray Manzarek while he was a student at UCLA. These black and white short films are a fascinating look at Manzarek's directorial style. Their titles are Evergreen and Induction. I think one of them even won some kind of award, according to Ray. And if you look very closely at the party scene in Induction, you'll see a pudgy, short-haired young man with an angelic face...Jim Morrison!
There's a documentary on Doors memorabelia, which include original concert posters, ticket stubs, promo materials and other cool stuff.
There's a clip of John Densmore's one-man show, Riders on the Storm, in which the drummer reads excerpts from his book.
Finally, there's a new music video of "The End," performed by Robbie and other musicians.
All of this is contained on one, one-sided dual-layer DVD. It was put out by Universal Home Video around 1999, and may still be in print.
The commentaries and student films are worth the price alone.
To start things off, there's a nice video "Welcome" intro from Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger, who introduce the disc, and tell you what to expect.
Then there are three full-length programs, originally produced for home video, each running over an hour.
Dance on Fire - this is a compilation of Doors performances taken from several sources. We get a promo film (early rock video) of the band performing Break on Through. This clip was produced by Elektra Records to promote the single. There's the infamous Ed Sullivan Show performance of "Light My Fire," and performances of the Doors from The Jonathan Winters Show, American Bandstand, Murray the K, and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. This last clip is particularly interesting. The band performs "Touch Me," and Robbie clearly has a black eye. Apparently he had gotten into a fight the day before the show was to be taped. When he arrived at the studio, the make-up people insisted he cover up the wound, but Robbie refused, and went on national television with a black eye!
The Doors Live at the Hollywood Bowl - the complete concert of the group's Hollywood Bowl show, filmed by a camera crew on July 5, 1968.
The Soft Parade - this was produced by the Doors in response to the Stone film. The bulk of the material is a PBS Soundstage performance/interview session, with a bearded Morrison performing songs from "The Soft Parade" album, as well as several tunes that were never officially released on vinyl.
All three programs have optional commentaries by the Doors. These commentaries are fun, funny, informative and extremely entertaining to listen to. Plus, they are often very screen-specific, and tell you a little bit about the background of what you're seeing onscreen (that's how I learned about Robbie's black eye story).
Next, we get two complete, ultra-rare STUDENT FILMS by Ray Manzarek while he was a student at UCLA. These black and white short films are a fascinating look at Manzarek's directorial style. Their titles are Evergreen and Induction. I think one of them even won some kind of award, according to Ray. And if you look very closely at the party scene in Induction, you'll see a pudgy, short-haired young man with an angelic face...Jim Morrison!
There's a documentary on Doors memorabelia, which include original concert posters, ticket stubs, promo materials and other cool stuff.
There's a clip of John Densmore's one-man show, Riders on the Storm, in which the drummer reads excerpts from his book.
Finally, there's a new music video of "The End," performed by Robbie and other musicians.
All of this is contained on one, one-sided dual-layer DVD. It was put out by Universal Home Video around 1999, and may still be in print.
The commentaries and student films are worth the price alone.