This is called 'the bastard son of Jimmy and Mama Reed'
Oh yes mortals, never let it be said that I don’t know how to link posts. Listening to albums at this frantic frenetic frestive time of year by the light of the Christmas tree lights is one of my real pleasures in life. At random tonight I picked the Doors L.A Woman: The Workshop Sessions and came across that bit of studio chatter that I’d forgotten about, as my grandmother always used to say, ‘that’s motherfucking serendipity for you!‘.
I love the Doors in a semi-embarrassed fashion, mostly because Jim Morrison was a chap capable of some vile behaviour with a vastly inflated sense of his own literary talents, whom I can’t help loving as a singer and shamanistic frontman. Plus, they sound tracked some key parts of my childhood.
L.A Woman edges out their debut LP as their best offering for me*. My friend Christian was a leading proponent of the theory that the porkier and more hirsute their frontman got, the better the band played. I concur.
I tend to avoid demos and suchlike as a matter of course, scorn them even with an upwards tilt of my aristocratic nose. Basically record companies employ all manner of gifted highly paid people to make sure the best stuff goes out on the records. However, I’m very glad I plumped for L.A Woman: The Workshop Sessions and they are really great.
To keep everything loosey-goosey during a stressful time for the Doors they turned their HQ and rehearsal space, ‘The Workshop’, into a makeshift recording studio, producer Bruce Botnick** manning the desk upstairs while the band and auxiliary musicians Jerry Scheff and Marc Benno played downstairs, with Jimbo singing in the bathroom doorway. Then it was all shipped over to Poppi Studios for a polish and scaling.
L.A Woman: The Workshop Sessions is what was sent on over.
Okay, first thing’s first I LOVE studio chatter, always have; my favourite bits of Electric Ladyland always happened between tracks, or at their end. We are well served by that singer chap here, whether it’s declaring that ‘The Changeling’ is his favourite track, pleading that no mutants are allowed in there, that remark about Jimmy and Mama Reed before ‘Cars Hiss By My Window’. I’m in chatter heaven^.
The cuts on The Workshop Sessions sound more vital, more energized to me than those on the finished platter. You can really hear the band playing off each other and some great rawer moments cut through – Robby Krieger’s soloing on ‘L.A Woman’ is a revelation, for example.
The vocals are mixed brilliantly here too, much more immediate. Morrison’s voice lifts ‘The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)’ from a minor irritation with a good bassline to a real pumping declaration of intent, albeit with a couple of irritating musical flourishes^^. Jerry Scheff is such a good player too.
I can go through the list if you like, ‘Love Her Madly’ sounds more rootsy than baroque; ‘Cars Hiss By …’ is quieter, more reflective seeming; ‘Riders On The Storm’ (once they stop pissing around with ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’) is the least changed tune on offer, which surprised me; ‘Been Down So Long’ stomps harder, again Krieger lets loose a bit.
The only track on The Workshop Sessions that suffers by comparison to its’ final version is ‘L.A Woman’ itself. I like the hard-charging cut here but the finished version is just so much more, the whole film noir whiplashing past you at 100mph feel isn’t quite apparent yet.
Which leaves us with the last two sides of the LP. Firstly we get a medley of ‘She Smells So Nice / Rock Me’ which is bloody great, the former a fast-paced tangentially creepy ode to a sleeping woman and the latter a nicely judged straight take on B.B King’s smouldering blues, with Morrison singing too close into his microphone and sounding a touch refreshed.
The final side of The Workshop Sessions is engraved with all the LP lyrics from the first two sides, which I rather enjoyed*^.
I really enjoy this LP, it has pretty much replaced the original for me entirely. By showing their workings out, missteps and prototypes The Workshop Sessions really serves to to humanise the band. It really shows each and every member hitting his mark and stepping up to deliver a really memorable album.
I would really recommend this one to any Doors fan. It does sound particularly good under the influence of fairy lights. Just saying.
The LP cover is, I presume, a mock up of the original mock up for the original cover of L.A Woman, you dig? I really like how it deconstructs the cover and Rhino used similar on their Gary Numan demo reissues a while back too. There are some particularly baffling technical notes from Bruce Botnick for your delectation too, if you’re the sort of person who goes all fizzy at the mention of Altiverb Impulse reverbs and EMT140 revelation plates.
1162 Down (so long).
*mostly thanks to their worst tune ‘Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)’. yuk! Raymond Weil really should have stuck to making his watches. I’m allowed to recycle my own jokes, deal with it.
**drafted in after Paul Rothchild flounced away from the sessions.
^I may start crowdfunding for my project and ultimate legacy Hot Mic which will offer to add period appropriate studio chat, in authentic accents and inappropriate levels of intoxication between tracks of your favourite LPs. Trust me you need to hear what Cliff & The Shadows were bragging about between takes, the dirty SOB’s!
^^the bit that tritely goes deedly-deedly-da-DAA and makes it seem all circus-like never fails to raise my hackles. Forgive me if my analysis is all too technical, its my only fault.
*^It sounds like shit if you play it though!