The Shaman Church
Like many teenage boys, I went through a period where I was obsessed with Jim Morrison and The Doors. I was particularly enamored with his early period, when he was handsome and full of promise.
By the time I got to college, my friends and I had a love/hate relationship with the myth and the music of The Doors. We could still be moved by their best tracks, but knew that we could not defend the overwrought pretension of much of Morrison‘s antics, and the waves of cheap promotion from the band, as it seemed like every five years there was a new compilation, or live record.
An elaborate in-joke developed in the form of a satirical cult built around the persona of Jim Morrison. Using bits and pieces of film performances, quotes from the overblown biography, “No One Here Gets Out Alive,” and song lyrics. We call it the Shaman Church.
The biggest flashpoint for us, beyond Jim's often ridiculous lyrics, was the myth-making of keyboardist Ray Manzarek and author and manager, Danny Sugarman. It reached its peak for us when Manzarek appeared on David Letterman and made a cryptic reference suggesting that Jim might still be alive.
In their best moments, what made The Doors powerful was their uncompromised commitment to their ideas, no matter how countercultural or dark, so to be using that similar mysterious tone to boost record sales, struck us as opportunist.
Nerve co-editor Dave MacIntosh was amused by our oddball tribute to Jim Morrison and wanted to build a piece on the band partially around it. He helped facilitate an interview with Manzarek, and wrote about yet another surge in interest in the group, as their “Live at the Hollywood Bowl,” record was coming out at that time.
David McMullan and I entered a Jim Morrison look-alike contest in downtown Toronto (landing in third place!) and shortly after MacIntosh photographed us, along with friend (and Toronto music icon) Andy Stochansky. We did various poses at Variety Stadium, where the Doors played in 1969, one of our local “pilgrimage sites."
Macintosh perfectly captured the tone of our mock cult in the Nerve article, as we lionized, obscure—and terrible —songs over the band’s classics.
To the Shamans, The Doors represents something truly unique: the oddest rumor, the truest joke of the last two decades of Rock ‘n’ Roll. To the Shamans the peaks of The Door‘s music occurred, not in the mock-Oedipal section of “The End,” or the laconic Jim, informing the globe that “People Are Strange,” but during the ordeal of the unreleased, unrehearsed ramble “Rock is Dead,” or when Ray sings, “(You Need Meat) Don’t Go No Further.”
David Letterman Show, January 25, 1984
David Letterman: “Occasionally you read the rumor that this is all a hoax, masterminded by Jim, that he is still alive in Europe somewhere or in Southern California. Do you subscribe to this at all?”
Ray Manzarek: “No, I don’t know, I don’t … I don’t think I better go any further with this, actually. I’ll get in trouble … Jim, I love you, man.”
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Telephone interview excerpt: Chris Buck and David McMullan with Ray Manzarek, spring 1987:
Chris: When we see a clip like that on David Letterman, we can’t help but think, “Wait a second, what is he hiding? Is there a secret here, or is he just baiting us?
Ray: That’s a good question… the part I’m concerned with is, “He’s doing it to sell records.“ Not what I’m doing, but my motives. And that’s what I object to.
If that’s what certain people have to say I can only say they better not say it to my face. And until that man comes along … As far as I’m concerned, that’s a nasty thing and it doesn’t give Jim’s words justice.
I would almost wonder if a person who would say that would know the line “O' great creator of being, grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives.” If you know the words, then you can come to me and say, “You’re doing it for the money.“
And you know who knows every fucking line, you’re talking to him.
Chris: I don’t see the connection there.
Ray: What I’m saying is, Jim is a guy I met on the beach in Venice, and what we said was, “Let’s make a Rock ‘n’ Roll band. Let’s make poetry and music. We’ll get paid for it.” You’re damn right we’re going to get paid for it, because it’s going to be really fucking good.
I’m tired of living in Venice on nothing. I would like to have more than a baby burger at a local A&W root beer stand. I want a Kandinsky. I don’t have a Kandinsky yet. I’d like to have a Kandinsky. I don’t have a Kandinsky.
If The Doors are doing it for the money, we really haven’t succeeded because we never made as much money as The Knack. No Doors record ever sold as much as the album with “My Sharona" on it.
So, I failed in my job, if what I’m doing is it to perpetrate the myth of Jim Morrison’s death so I can make money off of the records. I really failed.
I don’t want to do another fucking interview, I’m tired of telling the same damn stories. On the other hand it’s always a pleasure to talk to somebody who knows about The Doors, so congratulations to both of you, this is a real treat.
We felt bad about blindsiding Manzarek, but the interview remains a fascinating document.
Top & Second Images: The Shaman Church members photographed at Varsity Stadium in Toronto, site of a 1969 Doors concert. Photos by Dave MacIntosh for Nerve.
Bottom Image: A letter of warning from Doors manager Danny Sugarman. Obviously, we ignored it.