PROTO-PROG

The Doors was an American band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. The origins of The Doors emerged from a meeting between two UCLA film school students Morrison and Manzarek on the Venice Beach, California in July 1965. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs and at a request of Manzarek, he sang "Moonlight Drive", a song that would appear on "Strange Days". Impressed by Morrison's lyrics, Manzarek suggested they could form a band.

"The Best Of The Doors (1973)" is a compilation of The Doors. It was released in 1973 and has eleven tracks. It features tracks from five of their six studio albums when Morrison was member of The Doors. It has three tracks from "The Doors" of 1967, three tracks from "Strange Days" also of 1967, one track from "Waiting For The Sun" of 1968, one track from "The Soft Parade" of 1969 and two tracks from "L.A. Woman" of 1971. Thus, it hasn't any tracks from their fifth studio album "Morrison Hotel". So, "Soul Kitchen", "Take It As It Comes" and "Light My Fire" are from "The Doors". "People Are Strange", "Love Me Two Times" and "Moonlight Drive" are from "Strange Days". "Hello, I Love You" is from "Waiting For The Sun". "Touch Me" is from "The Soft Parade". "Riders On The Storm" and "Love Her Madly" are from "L.A. Woman". But, it has also a track that never was released in any studio album of them, "Who Do You Love".

"Who Do You Love" appears for the first time on their live album "Absolutely Live", of 1970. It's a cover from an original song recorded in 1965 by Bo Diddley. This is a good song with a nice Krieger's slide guitar work. It sounds pretty, actually. "Soul Kitchen" is a tribute to the soul food restaurant "Olivia's" in the Venice Beach, Los Angeles, California, where Morrison and Manzarek met for the first time and represents the place where all began. It's a nice rock song played with energy. "Hello, I Love You" was a big commercial success. Despite be considered one of the most pop songs by The Doors and be frequently criticized, it's a great and catchy song. I never understood the dislike of many fans of the band about it. "People Are Strange" is about the alienation and be an outsider and a very loner person. This is another good and enjoyable song, but it's also at the same time a sad song with a dark musical atmosphere. It's a song with simple lyrics, ironic and sarcastic. "Riders On The Storm" represents, one of the greatest highlights of the band. This is a legendary track, which seems to be the last song recorded by The Doors, as well as Morrison's last recorded song to be released. It seems that it have been played live only once, on The Doors last public performance with Morrison, on the "L.A.Woman" tour at The Warehouse, in New Orleans, USA in 1970. "Touch Me" is a notable song for the extensive use of the brass and string instruments and also because the use of a saxophone solo by Curtis Amy. The orchestral arrangements work perfectly well and they accent Jim Morrison's vocals, even more. "Love Her Madly" became as one of the highest charting hits of The Doors. It's an interesting rock song with good lyrics, very good performances by all band's members, especially the guitar performance of Krieger is really amazing. "Love Me Two Times" is about a sailor and his last day with his girlfriend before shipping out to the Vietnam War. It's one of the most normal and typical rock songs made by the band. It has a slight touch of blues, which is a very normal common thing with many songs of The Doors. "Take It As It Comes" is a beautiful pop rock song, well made, highly attractive and which still sounds fresh and young in our days. We can say this song is so well written that sounds much better than many of the songs on the pop scene today. "Moonlight Drive" is known by fans as being one of the first songs written by Morrison, the song that started all. It's the song that Morrison sung to Manzarek in the Venice Beach. In many ways, this is the song that helped to form The Doors. It's a good song with a nice rhythm. "Light My Fire" was the first great success of them. It has brought the world fame and recognition to the band in the summer of 1967, bringing The Doors to the top of the charts and a symbol of that generation of the late 60's. It's one of the songs that immortalized the band.

Conclusion: "The Best Of The Doors (1973)", is really one of the best compilations released by The Doors. Seven of the eleven songs chosen to be part of it were taken from their three best studio albums "The Doors", "Strange Days" and "L.A. Woman". Only one was taken From "Waiting For The Sun" and one other from "The Soft Parade". None was chosen from "Morrison Hotel" and, fortunately, none was chosen from "Other Voices" and "Full Circle", the two albums released without Jim Morrison. Sincerely, I never got used to of hearing The Doors, without Morrison. Still, if you don't know The Doors very well and you need to by a compilation of the band, I sincerely advise you to buy "The Best Of The Doors", released in 1985, or the double CD compilation "The Very Best Of The Doors", released in 2007, because they're better and more representative from the career of the band when Jim Morrison was a member of The Doors.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

And beyond a few thematically nonsensical episodes, "Tommy" has an enormous instrumental and harmonic fluidity, appreciable from the very introduction with the orchestrated "Overture", a medley that functions as a teaser for the following tracks, with a solvent and very loquacious Townshend with the acoustic guitar in songs of overflowing musicality even in their acoustic simplicity as in the brief "Its a Boy" and "Tommy Can You Hear Me", or in the medieval- scented opening chords of "Welcome", and an impeccable band that backs him up to generate countless moments of melodic brilliance, as in the tragic "1921" (excellent vocal interplay), the suffocating and urgent "Eyesight To The Blind (The Hawker)" and "Christmans" (heartbreaking Roger Daltrey), the painful "Cousin Kevin" (another great choral set), the incredible "Pinball Wizard" (fantastic acoustic and electric riffs by Townshend), or the energetic "Go to the Mirror!" (another great electric guitar riff).

And after tracing the life of the troubled character, "Tommy" reserves for its closing section the imperishable "We're Not Gonna Take It / See Me, Feel Me/ Listening To You" with the stupendous rhythm that Keith Moon and John Entwistle structure for the chorus and Daltrey's singing, in one of the pieces that helped install The Who in the definitive Olympus of rock heroes.

One of the many examples of the repercussions of an album that transcended frontiers is the detail of the father of former Spanish tennis player Tommy Robredo (number 5 in the ATP world ranking in the 2000s), who named his son in honour of the English rock-opera.

Indispensable.

4/4.5 stars

The Doors began with a meeting between Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach, in Los Angeles. At the time, Manzarek was in a band called Rick And The Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while Robby Krieger and John Densmore were playing with The Psychedelic Rangers. During the year of 1965, Densmore joined together with members of the Ravens and bass player Patty Sullivan and recorded a six-song demo, in September 1965. The demo was very pirated and since then circulated widely as a bootleg recording and finally appeared in full later, in 1997, in a collection of The Doors. That month the group recruited Robby Krieger and the final line up of The Doors was formed.

The Doors had a relatively short life due to the dead of Jim Morrison. During those years the band released six studio albums, their eponymous debut and "Strange Days", both in 1967, "Waiting For the Sun" in 1968, "The Soft Parade" in 1969, "Morrison Hotel" in 1970 and "L.A. Woman" in 1971, and only a live album "Absolutely Live" in 1970. However, the band did many live sets all over those years. Later, many of those live acts would be released in several formats. So, from those days we have an amount of live releases of those live sets. This is the case of this live album, "In Concert".

"In Concert" is a live album that was released in 1991. But, "In Concert" isn't a live album released from a single live set from the band. In reality, "In Concert" is comprised of live recordings that can previously be found on three other live albums from the band, "Absolutely Live", "Alive, She Cried" and "Live At The Bowl '68", with the exception of the last track of "In Concert", "The End", that wasn't unavailable until now on CD in The Doors live releases and that was taken from the live concert that was made at the Hollywood Bowl. So, "In Concert" is a live album that was recorded between 1968 and 1970 in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Copenhagen. Thus, the picture of the band's live work is still a bit disjointed because the uneven levels of inspiration achieved at various moments.

"In Concert" is a very extensive live album with 2 CD's with about 2 hours and 20 minutes long. It covers a significant part of their career. It has many of their most known tracks, such as, "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)", "Backdoor Man", "When The Music's Over", "Break On Through (To The Other Side)", "Soul Kitchen", "Roadhouse Blues", "Light My Fire", "The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)", "Love Me Two Times", "Moonlight Drive" and "The End". Besides that, it has many other live parts with some very improvising parts, mainly a rare track, "The Celebration Of The Lizard". The CD 1 is exclusively filled with "Absolutely Live". It's the most consistent part on the set, and it almost specifically bypasses the band's most popular songs. It opens with a non-music track "House Announcer" that is nothing more than the presentation of the band. Than we have "Who Do You Love" that can keeps the flavor of the original song with some psychedelic declinations and highly electric turns. The medley of four songs with "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)", "Back Door Man", "Love Hides" and "Five To One" is excellent. "Build Me A Woman" is a fairly standard blues. "When The Music's Over" follows the album's version pretty faithfully, but this an extended version. "Universal Mind" sounds much like most of "Morrison Hotel" material. "Petition The Lord With Prayer" and "Dead Cats, Dead Rats", are two short tracks with some vocal improvisations by Morrison. "Break On Through (To The Other Side)" is a great live version of the song. "The Celebration Of The Lizard" is a great piece originally planned for "Waiting For The Sun" that was never finished. "Soul Kitchen" is brilliantly chosen to end "Absolutely Live" and this CD. The CD 2 is less consistent. It opens with "Roadhouse Blues" one of their classic songs followed by "Gloria", a version of a Van Morrison's song. After that we have "Light My Fire", "You Make Me Real", "The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)" and "Love Me Two Times". "Light My Fire" is a landmark of the band, one of their most beloved. "You Make Me Real" is a nice song. "The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)" is a great song with recited lyrics. "Love Me Two Times" is a nice rock song with a blues' touch. All these tracks are good versions. "Little Red Rooster" is a version of a Willie Dixon's song. "Moonlight Drive", "Close To You" and "Unknown Soldier" represent also three nice live moments. The album and CD close with "The End". It's probably the most iconic piece of The Doors and the most progressive track ever made by the band too.

Conclusion: "In Concert" contains almost all of the material from the band's live releases, and can paints an accurate picture of the magic that these trailblazing iconoclasts were capable of making onstage. Free from the strictures of the recording studio, The Doors were able to stretch out both musically and conceptually, with some extended jams and Morrison's spontaneous poetics making once familiar songs into exciting new explorations. Once "In Concert" is a kind of a best off of three of their previous live albums, "Absolutely Live", "Alive, She Cried" and "Live At The Bowl '68", we can say this is a nice and cheap way to have that live stuff. It also can be a good introduction to the world of the band.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

DON'T DELAY!!! A barrage of Radio London adverts are coming your way! "Armenia City In The Sky", a concept I certainly haven't considered before, opens us up (and closes...) with a supposedly 'sonovox' vocal effect, one of a number of simultaneous wall-to-wall effects, including a back-tracked guitar melody at the end. John Entwistle, just one of the multi-instrumentalists present, plays the horns (here and throughout). Who knew this was so timely and specifically appropriate the sort of sound one might've heard for those most classic of radio ads? I mean, I didn't. "Heinz Baked Beans" poses a rather current-era-sounding question--and seemingly totally unrelated to its title-- 'What's the tea?' They don't skip a beat, and four times we get a rapido 'MORE MUSIC!' leading to the Folk Pop classic "Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand"; it's Simon-and-Garfunklesque (but more exciting and non-demestic, a la castanets?). Verily, people should know this one.

We get a style and lead-vox switch-up (Pete Townsend) on the really great "Odorono". It's some Power Pop Lite, k? Roger Daltrey then exchange vocals duty on "Tattoo", a [Who-specific]track[type] I feel must have influenced Yes to some degree. The Sunshine-Jangle of "Our Love Was" reveals some really spectacular psychedelia; very delicious to mine ears, and with a strikingly beautiful guitar solo. Overall, an expertly crafted tune. Next is a track which, by name alone, is so well-known, nay, so iconic, I actually might not've been able to reliably identify the band were you to ask me: "I Can See For Miles". But of course, hearing it, y'know, there's no mistaking this is L'Who, and part of that is the trademark BOOM from naughty-nun Keith Moon working behind the kit. Bolded this'n because, in its relatively experimental psychedelic display, it is technically proto-Prog in fine form. The cool Country Western advert is so charming hahaha. You TOO can 'turn into a Beast of a Man!' So funny, personally.

The cutesy "I Can't Reach You" is yet another lead by Townsend. Entwistle then takes up the charge, much to my surprise, on "Medac", yet another charmer (better than the one prior). I feel I can only think of him as singing "Boris the Spider" (Fake fans: please report) [like the Ringo of the group, but, no offense to the wonderful Starkey, far more talented]. "Relax" to follow is quite lovely--I did chuckle to myself at the boyish chirp from again-lead vocalist Petey--and I think interesting in the use of an organ, another contribution from Mr. Entwistle. The keyboard role then continueth next... I sort of see why, but I don't recall the unusual Chamber Pop of "Silas Stingy". Great ideas herein, but other groups at the time and thereafter sonically succeeded far more. Then we get, in stark (quieted) juxtaposition, the classically-informed folksy nicety of "Sunrise", the softest entry as one of the album highlights for me. And here we are, the final statement of the (original) LP, "Rael [1]" . Roger Daltrey is the obvious choice for front man, as many of us know; in his sweetest contributions he still shows great power. Yet another iconic force from the most excellent The Who; another, more sure entry in Proto-Prog should-hears. The last minute+ has so much to offer your ears.

Again I repeat, especially to those of you in the back, DON'T DELAY! THE WHO SELL OUT TODAY! Peace be with you and yours.

Finally, returning a week later, here are my recommends from the bonus material (1995 version): "Melancholia" (slick, dark and then moody Garage-Psych), "Someone's Coming" (playful Pop Rock), "Early Morning Cold Taxi" (some great early Power Pop), "Hall of the Mountain King" (a fun, truly Proto-Prog rendition; the second moment after "Melancholia" that reminded me of early Pink Floyd), "Mary Anne With the Shakey Hand" (seriously so charming version with a very prominent organ, and it's a tad longer than the album version, replete with key change), "Glow Girl" (just some good ol' fashioned The Who The Whoin')

The year 1971 launched the band into instant success with the debut of its one and only self-titled album that featured eight tracks of early Spanish psych and prog as well as performing at the Granollers Progressive Music Festival where they immediately made a huge impression as Spain hadn't quite latched onto the early sounds of progressive rock brewing in the UK, Germany and abroad. The members of PAN & REGALIZ on the other hand clearly had their hands on the pulse of the international market as they eschewed crafting lyrics in their native Catalan or even Spanish and rather performed in English. Likewise the band emulated the British scene with clear references to Jethro Tull and early Pink Floyd as well as finding affinity with the early German Krautrock scene and its psychedelic excesses.

Although this album only ran for about 30 1/2 minutes it displays an interesting contrast between the A side of the original album and the B side. Side One featured the band's most accessible sounds including the first single "Dead Of Love" all of which exemplified the affinity of Jethro Tull influences with the early blues rock of "This Was" and the guitar and flute soloing trade offs as heard on albums like "Stand Up" and "Benefit" however PAN & REGALIZ wasn't a clone and made these styles their very own with highly varied compositions and a more psychedelic and jazzy touch. The first side culminates with the flute-laden instrumental "Thinking In Mary" which showcased the band's unique rhythmic style as well as use of acoustic guitars and soloing improvisation.

The second side of the album is something else altogether with each track going down completely different roads. The unexpected "A Song For The Friends" takes a journey back to the days of the music hall which features a cabaret piano performances with a rather theatrical foxtrot dance performance which was popular in the 1930s. Then with "When You Are So Bringdown" the band jumps back into blues rock with a bit of Jimi Hendrix swagger. The true progressive psychedelic trip of the album though comes with "Today Is Raining" which immediately exudes an Amon Duul II meets Guru Guru reckless abandon for convention and immediately finds a throbbing bass groove accompanied by trippy organs, spastic drumming and even a jew's harp! Even the vocals display a rather drugged out persona reminding of Can. The music still implements bluesy guitar licks and leads while the cyclical loop style of Krautrock propels the track into a sprawling procession of strange motifs laced with sound effects and detached escapist cosmic unorthodoxies. The track really floats off into space towards the end.

The album ends with the more standard "I Can Fly" which also served as the title of the album when it was reissued on the Orange label in 1979 with a completely different track listing. This was the only reissue to feature this title and all others after reverted back to the eponymous original intention. This track is a nice little confidence booster with bouncy bass groove and psychedelic guitar and sound effects and is by far the most standard psychedelic rock track on the album. One of the coolest tracks on the album as well.

Later reissues also included the pop single "Magic Colors" which features a funky guitar riff and sounds more like a British psych pop hit from around 1968 or some of the crossover prog of The Moody Blues only with a more energetic display of guitar heft and a healthy dose of the Tull-ish flute that dominates the album's content. Overall PAN & REGALIZ may have displayed its influences clearly on its sleeve and doesn't sound even remotely Spansih in any possible way but still managed to emulate the English and German scenes without sounding overly much like the influences they were worshipping. Many may find this album to be lopsided and uneven or even unfocused but i tend to love these kind of albums that offer a wider display of a band's creativity and given that the band only release one album they made it count. While the band was successful it pretty much ended when bassist Artur Domingo decided to join the band Evolution and drummer Pedro van Eeckout followed stuff and joined Jarka. París tried in vein to keep the band going but finally called it quits in 1973.

The band's debut TANGERINE DREAM was released in 1967 and followed the first single "Flight From Ashiya" which lamented about an impending plane crash thus showcasing the band's propensity for whimsical and unconventional lyrics accompanied by typical 60s psychedelic rock sounds. Despite emerging from England, KALEIDOSCOPE sounded more in tune with the California Haight-Ashbury scene. Ironically a much more famous band from Germany would adopt the name of the album and become one of the pioneers of electronic music but that's another story altogether!

This album of 11 tracks featured the earliest sounds of the psychedelic pop scene with jangly Byrds-like guitar work, catchy pop hooks in the vein of The Beatles or The Pretty Things and an overall beat and garage rock sound structure. Devoid of many psychedelic effects or even significant trippy keyboard / organ contributions the album doesn't sound as psychedelic as the cover leads us to believe. The opening "Kaleidoscope" ushers in the clear focus on pop hooks above all else. Sounding like a more refined version of The Monkees in many ways, the track features the hallmark vocal harmony effect that the 60s offered in abundance along with a busy piano and surf rock style of drumming along with the jangle guitar effects. The second track "Please Excuse My Face" shifts more to a Kingston Trio type of folk only with silly lyrics.

The tracks do display a bit of variety with "Dive Into Yesterday" propelling more into rock territory sounding a bit like something The Pretty Things would prefect on their masterpiece "SF Sorrow" so it's very likely KALEIDOSCOPE provided some inspiration in that band going the direction they did. "Mr Small, The Watch Repairer Man" adopts a clear influence from The Who's early albums however "Flight From Ashiya" takes on a darker and more menacing tone. Once again a precursor to The Pretty Things style. The other standouts are the track "A Lesson, Perhaps" which features only an acoustic classical guitar and spoken narrative whereas the closing "The Sky Children" showcases a more nuanced 8-minute dreamy epic tale that epitomizes the psychedelic rock style of the era.

While many tout TANGERINE DREAM as one of the quintessential psychedelic masterpieces of the era, i have to admit that i really don't get all the hype. Sure it's a nice pleasant album with memorable pop-infused hooks and decent performances. It's also a clear indicator of the psychedelic pop that would evolve in the next couple of years but at the same time it's a bit cliche and pales in comparison to what The Beatles and Pink Floyd were cranking out the same year. Even the works of Donovan, The Beach Boys, Procol Harum, The Left Banke and even The Monkees had crafted beautiful psychedelic albums by 1967. In the big scheme of things i find KALEIDOSCOPE's debut album TANGERINE DREAM to be somewhat down the list of my top 60s psych pop releases but it certainly has its following and is indeed a pleasant listening experience. Just don't expect to be blown away. This is no "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club" or even "The Piper Of Dawn's Gate."

3.5 rounded down

We start off with the title track - a piercing guitar sound, shouted vocals and a brass interlude. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a smash hit and a punch straight to the solar for anyone who thought the "bugs" had already said their piece to rock noise once and for all. The obligatory track, in which the dominant Lennon/McCartney duo let the "battered" Ringo behind the microphone, was tackled by the aforementioned With a Little Help from His Friends and it worked. The affectionate undertone that runs through the whole tune was ear-pleasingly fitting. While Alice crawls down the depths of the rabbit hole, her twin aims (quite possibly boosted by some hallucinogens) for the very heavens in the exultant chorus of the psychedelic Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. And it gets even better - the typically Beatles-esque melody in Getting Better has come up with a hell of a tune that you won't get out of your head for a long time. The brooding Fixing a Hole adds weird pseudo-classical titles to the psychedelia party, not exactly my cup of tea. On the other side, She's Leaving Home (the Eleanor Rigby inspiration from the previous Revolver record seems more than obvious here to me) wrings a proper emotional cocktail out of all those strings and melodies.

Here we go again - the Beetles apparently liked the wave of "good time music" that swept through the United Kingdom in 1966 so much that they started incorporating it into their songs in more ways than small. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! does have some interestingly dark undertones to it, but I still don't find its arrangements the least bit appealing. The indian moment in Within You Without You feels like the opposite of Love You To from Revolver to me - we have five drawn-out, tedious minutes here, during which we gradually move out of a frying pan into the fire. In When I'm Sixty-Four the "good time" arrangement returns, this time enhanced by some oboes. As interesting as the aging-themed lyrics are here, the whole musical component irritates me all the more. Lovely Rita sounds a notch more interesting, the blending of vocal lines in the chorus is quite pleasing to me as well. But then again, there are the jerky trumpets in the shabbiness of Good Morning Good Morning, which I can only shake my head at. The brief return of the Sgt. Pepper opening motif is pleasing, but it would fit me better at the very end of the record - we get to the end with the opus A Day in the Life. The melodic motif from the first half of the track has power like thunder, too bad about the noise collage in the middle and the reappearance of the "good time" motifs right after.

I find the first half of the album excellent, but it's hard to find anything positive about the second half. It seems to me that the Beatles looked too much at bands like the New Vaudeville Band, and for the first time in their career, they just took a ride on what someone else invented without any significant added value. Thus, in my personal assessment, I have to place Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band among the less hilarious half of the Beetle's output. Three stars will have to do (mainly because of the second side of the album) this time.

But I don't agree that this album is weak. Yes, it is inferior to In Rock and Machine Head, but it is definitely not weak. I don't understand why it is called unfinished. Listening to one of the fastest and most driving songs Smooth Dancer or the magnificent caustic Marylong or the expressive Super Trouper, I don't know how they can be improved more. All the elements of DP's style have already formed and embodied here, Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord still shine, in turns and together. Perhaps the perception was also influenced by the fact that DP was expected to continue the Machine Head's formula, where the drive and hard rock onslaught are perfectly balanced with keyboards, which were given a lot of scope for creativity. Yes, after all, a very high level was set by the previous albums.

The additional bonus tracks on the late reissue of the album are interesting first of all for the extended version of Women from Tokyo and the long First Day Jam, where Jon Lord seems to be rehearsing melodies for his next solo album.

The 25th anniversary reissue of the album contains several bonus tracks that belong there. They are quite interesting, but seem to be from another time. The rhythm of Freedom reminded me of the melody of Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison. Another cheerful rock and roll is Slow Train. All these songs are in the style of Deep Purple mark I, so I suspect that they could be the embodiment of old musical ideas. It is also interesting to listen to The Noise Abatement Society Tapes with the outright hooliganism of Jon Lord on keyboards. And the instrumental version of Fireball can easily be used instead of karaoke, to try walking in Ian Gillan's shoes.

This is one of the most diverse albums of Deep Purple. The next time the band will record such unexpected music in Come Taste the Band and Purpendicular, and in both cases this will coincide with a change of guitarist. Clearly not by chance. Hard rock fans may have been disappointed. After the big breakthrough of In Rock, many were probably expecting a continuation in the same style. But for those who appreciate unconventional musical techniques like me, this is exactly what you need.

My rating is a solid 3 stars, give it a chance!