If the Lizard King had lived, December 8 would be his 65th birthday. Traditionally, impromptu celebrations always take place at Jim's grave at the Pere LaChaise cemetery in Paris, where Jim has been interred since his death in July 1971, when he was 27.
This year, a celebration will take place in Morrison's adopted home of Los Angeles, where he created the majority of his lasting literary and musical works, and where he co-founded The Doors with Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger, who are all still working musicians living in Los Angeles. The place - one of Jim's favorite bars, Barney's Beanery on Route 66 - 8447 Santa Monica Blvd. The date - December 8. Here's a link to the address and phone number. Parking is likely to be a chore. Plan accordingly.
This from the Doors' management - suitably edited:
"... Both Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of The Doors will be on hand that
evening for a special live broadcast on L.A. rock station 95.5 KLOS,
hosted by famed "Last D.J.," Jim Ladd. The three will discuss and sign
copies of Live at The Matrix 1967, a live CD on The Doors' Bright
Midnight Archives and Rhino Records. The two-CD set, which was recorded
in San Francisco over two nights in March '67, will be available on
November 18th. The shows took place shortly before the group broke on
through with their hit Summer of Love single, "Light My Fire." Winners
of a 95.5 KLOS contest will get to meet and greet Manzarek and Krieger.
"We decided to celebrate this occasion because Barney's is a place
where Jim Morrison hung out often," says Barney's Beanery principal
David Houston, who bought the place in 1999 from Erwin Held. He is only
the third person to own the famed venue after original founder John
"Barney" Anthony and Held. "Whatever point in time you go back to,
whoever was making history in pop culture, they seemed to have a foot
in the Beanery."
In the late '60s, Morrison and Janis Joplin, among other rock luminaries, were regulars at Barney's
Beanery
The locus of The Doors' history, notes Houston, took place largely in a
one-mile radius of the Beanery, with the band's label Elektra
headquarters and Jim's girlfriend Pam's clothing boutique on La Cienega
Blvd., the group's offices around the corner, the Alta Cienega Hotel,
where Jim often stayed, just down the street, and the Whisky-a-Go-Go,
where they regularly performed, just up the block on Sunset.
Rhino's Live at The Matrix 1967 is the fourth of the Bright Midnight
Archives releases, and features liner notes by all three surviving
members of The Doors and brand-new cover art by renowned San Francisco
artist Stanley Mouse. Whereas the three previous collections documented
The Doors' final 1970 tour, this latest edition takes you back to the
early days, when the band was still working out arrangements and lyrics.
"This is probably the closest we've come to a true document of The
Doors without constraints," says the band's longtime producer/engineer
Bruce Botnick, who worked on the reissue. "You've never heard the group
quite like this."
