Jim Morrison

Five Instruments on the Cusp of Rockstardom

By: Jesse Sendejas Jr. Electric-guitar sales boomed in the 1960s, thanks to Clapton and Hendrix. In the 1980s, synthesizers were popular enough to blow up the likes of A-ha and A Flock of Seagulls. Beck upped the status of two turntables and a microphone, and everyone knows that a band's drummer ge ... More >>

Ray Manzarek Remembered By Colleagues and Fans

Ray Manzarek, co-founder and keyboardist for The Doors, died last week in Germany after a battle with cancer. He was 74. See also: Henry Rollins Remembers Ray Manzarek Manzarek's melodies were the musical backbone for many of the Doors' most classic tunes, and he was well-regarded as a producer as ... More >>

Henry Rollins: Remembering Ray Manzarek

[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Sunday KCRW broadcast.] After a month of living in Virginia and the D.C. area, we (myself, cameraman, producer and assist ... More >>

Ray Manzarek, Doors Co-Founder, Dead at 74

Ray Manzarek, who founded The Doors with Jim Morrison in Venice in 1965 after their time at UCLA, died today at the age of 74, the band's official Facebook page announced. The keyboard player, who gave the quintessential L.A. rock band part of its signature sound, died at RoMed Clinic in Rosenheim, ... More >>

Jerry Hopkins: Jim Morrison's Biographer Finds a Strange Kind of Bliss in Bangkok

A Photo Tour of Jim Morrison's (Restored) House On Love Street

Built in 1922, Jim Morrison's house sits nestled in the Laurel Canyon hills. It's located on Rothdell Trail, and is more commonly as his house on Love Street. Across the way from the Canyon Country Store and just moments from the Sunset Strip, it's full of Doors history. After Morrison, the house ... More >>

Our Most Popular Stories of 2012

It was a great year for the L.A. Weekly music section and our West Coast Sound blog. On the print side, we specialized in well-reported profiles, news stories, and essays that helped our readers understand better the music they love. On the blog we churned out compulsively-readable pieces that start ... More >>

Happy Repeal Day: Drink Up at the Longest Continuously Running Bar in L.A.

Farewell to the 18th Amendment. Seventy-nine years ago today, on Dec. 5, booze in the United States flowed freely again. Celebrate the repeal of Prohibition at the longest continuously running bar in Los Angeles. "We never technically closed during Prohibition," General Manager and Beverage Director ... More >>

The Laurel Canyon Country Store's Inneresting Musical History

The Canyon Country Store has been the makeshift cultural center of Laurel Canyon for a full century. Immortalized in the Doors song "Love Street," this deli-market is not a venue, but it's got historical music importance to spare, and continues to be -- as Jim Morrison put it -- the "store where the ... More >>

Oh Nico, You're So Fine

Surviving Doors Members Speak on Jim Morrison's Substance Abuse

See also: *L.A. Woman Was the Doors' Bluesy Masterpiece, and Jim Morrison's Kiss-Off to L.A. *Surviving Members of the Doors Discuss L.A. Woman, Track by Track In December we scrambled from the Pacific Palisades to Ojai, interviewing the major players behind The Doors' opus L.A. Woman. The sessions ... More >>

Tammy Faye Starlite Channels Nico From the Velvet Underground, and Tells Us About Sex With Jim Morrison

You may have thought that Nico -- the eyelinered, somewhat racist Velvet Underground singer, Warhol superstar and film actress -- died in 1988...but you'd be wrong. She's been reincarnated by Tammy Faye Starlite, a New York singer/comedian/performance artist who's also known for sending up two othe ... More >>

She'll Be Your Mirror

L.A. Woman: Track List

L.A. Woman Was the Doors' Bluesy Masterpiece, and Jim Morrison's Kiss-Off to L.A.

Jim Morrison's 'Love Street' House Catches Fire in Hollywood Arson Spree: Balcony That Inspired the Song Burns

homeaway.com.auThe canyon home that inspired "Love Street."​The hills of Hollywood and West Hollywood came under attack last night: A mysterious arsonist (or team of arsonists) started 19 car fires in the wealthy area, some of which spread to nearby homes. Luckily, no residents have been repo ... More >>

Phlo Finister: A Portugese, Black, And Irish Former Model Who Sings R&B

Phlo Finister's hair is black and stick-straight. She's wearing Tims and a tight, cropped Tommy Hilfiger tank. Her boxers are puffed out of the approximately size 38 jeans that pool around her ankles. With her gold wire-rimmed sunglasses, she's Aaliyah, circa 1994. This is not what we expected. Th ... More >>

Santa Monica Bar Report: Circle Bar

The Place: Circle Bar, 2926 Main Street, Santa Monica; 310-450-0508. The Hours: Sat.-Thu. 9 p.m.-2 a.m.; Fri. 8 p.m.-2 a.m. The Digs: The fact that Jim Morrison did some drinking at this downtown Santa Monica mainstay means nothing to us. He would do it anywhere he could, surely never turning ... More >>

'The Lords & The New Creatures' at Nye Brown: How Jim Morrison's Poetry Book Inspired an L.A. Art Show About Cars

"Modern life is a journey by car." This sentence could have been written yesterday, but it actually appeared in The Lords and the New Creatures, Jim Morrison's first book of published poetry in 1971. Forty years later, little has changed: The car is still king in Los Angeles. Now, a group show t ... More >>

Ten Groups Who Never Should Have Gotten Back Together

Beware fellas, bad things may be coming your way​On New Year's Eve 2009, Chris Cornell made a Twitter declaration: "School's back in session." The implication was that Soundgarden was reuniting. However, it took several months for the official announcement. The grunge pioneers would be putting ... More >>

Anthony Wiener Take Heart! The Four Greatest Penis (and 1 Boob) Exposures In Rock

Does this remind you of anything?​What a weird week it's been for fans of penises and liberal politicians alike. Last Friday, NY Democratic Representative Anthony Wiener's Memorial Day weekend plans were ripped asunder when a weird dickpic was posted to his twitter account. Weiner claimed the ... More >>

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 4/18-4/22

Flickr/Lauren Manning​ In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "As Sotto, the new Italian restaurant from Steve Samson and Zack Pollack, who ran David Meyer's Pizza Ortica at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, somebody sprung to fix up the basement, because it is ... More >>

The Doors' Los Angeles Masterpiece "LA Woman" to Be Reissued with Rare Studio Outtakes

Jim Morrison at the "La Woman" sessions​ The Doors' very concise catalog has to be one of the most recycled set of the recordings in the history of rock. After original issues, reissues, compilations, early-era CDs, remasters, remixes, box sets (yes, plural), etc. it's almost miraculous that t ... More >>

The Column! No. 2 With a Bullet

Time Machine: See What Ten LA Musicians (and Betty White!) Will Look Like 20 Years From Now

LA is famous for a lot of things, but perhaps nothing says Hollywood magic quite like the ubiquitous, desperate quest to stay young forever and ever and ever. Think you're above it? Live east of Alameda for a 2 years and you'll be staring emptily into every mirror you see, desperately trying to perf ... More >>

Day 1: Volcano, Disorganization Can't Stop the Music

We're tempted to tell you about Jim Morrison and the really interesting remixes of their old catalog featured on the soundtrack to the new documentary People Are Strange. This is because we spent a few hours listening to it trapped in traffic trying to get to the parking lot so we could get to spend ... More >>

Strange Fascination

Archival footage is the real draw of this doc about the Doors

Strange Cozmic Experience

Photography Exhibit

Bad Idea #324: Love to Reform without Arthur Lee

No. No. No. Love minus Arthur Lee is like, well, The Doors without Jim Morrison. Or that time "The Byrds" toured with Gene Clark and long-ago fired drummer Mike Clarke as the only band members. We understand, everyone needs money right now. But there are some things that are sacred, and Love is ... More >>

Milking the Band: The Doors Get New Unauthorized DVD Documentary

A waste of precious resources? In this installment of Milking the Band, we bring you the new documentary about the Doors, called, The Doors: From the Outside, an unauthorized tome that puts its arm's-length status in the title by acknowledging that this telling comes "not from the perspective of th ... More >>

SXSSXSW Day 4/Days Late (Pt. 1): On Rap/Rock, The Legacy of the Beasties, and Asher Roth Vs. The Knux

Other than freshman Delta Sigma Theta rushes at Cal-State Chico, no substrata of the American population has worse taste in rock than rappers. Sure, your little brother likes Fall Out Boy, but eventually, he's going to grow up and discover The Clash, then weed, then hopefully Junior Murvin and Lee ... More >>

Venus Prototype's Fashion Show; Miss Kitty's Latest Adventures

Mogwai's Hollyweird Sonics Are Ready for Their Close-Up

Is Scottish rock quintet the "perfect soundtrack for murder"?

Ask a Mexican! Las Puertas

Never realized Jim Morrison was the equal of Morrissey and Charles Bronson among other Mexican guero icons.

Black Mountain's Stormy High

Los Angeles always seems strange in the rain. Jim Morrison once may have said something to that effect. Then again, Jim Morrison once declared himself the lizard king and was known to drink blood at wiccan ceremonies, so maybe he wasn't the best best guy to take advice from. But he was right in th ... More >>

Theater Reviews: The Drawer Boy, Hollywood Hellhouse, Max Maven

Also Jim Morrison's Swimming to the Moon and this week's pick, Innocent When You Dream.

Theater Reviews: Black Watch, Clay, Lauren Weedman, Durango

Also Goblin Market, Wendy Wasserstein's Third, Twelfth Night and more

Rock Picks

For February 1–8

Cross Rock

A historical celebration of pop crucifixions, from Morrison to Manson to Madonna

Freedom's Just Another Word for Arty Videos, the Doors and Sippy Cups

What to do in Los Angeles this week

Back to the Garden

The music and mythology of Laurel Canyon

Nether Bound

Danzig

Feeling in the Dark

The uncontrollable energies of Z’ev

Tee Time

From Requiem to Rave...

...and back again, in Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People

Ghosts

Poe holds a séance

Landmarks

Sex, Despair, Rock & Roll

Four novels by Leslie Schwartz, Gary Phillips, Donald Rawley and Mick Farren

Talking Paris Hotel-Room Blues

Thoughts on Montmartre, Jim Morrison and olives au citron