The Doors: the Story of Strange Days and the Madness of Jim Morrison
- by Max Bell (Classic Rock)
THEY STARTED THE SUMMER OF LOVE A POP PHENOMENON AND ENDED IT IN WHIRLWIND OF BOOZE, LSD AND OUT-OF-CONTROL HEDONISM. YET IN BETWEEN, THE DOORS STILL MANAGED TO MAKE THEIR UNSUNG MASTERPIECE
New York City, April 1967, Ondine Discotheque on 59th Street. Standing at the bar throwing back double shots of vodka and orange is Jim Morrison, 23-year-old singer of rising stars The Doors, who are halfway into their third residency at the club. In his new black leather suit, his tea-coloured hair falling in angelic ringlets about his face, Morrison looks exactly as he’s remembered now, 45 years later: the iconic rock god in mock crucifixion pose, nailed to the cross of his own imperturbable beauty.
Looking on is pop artist and underground film-maker, Andy Warhol, who has been obsessively in thrall to Morrison since he first clapped eyes on him some months before. Warhol wants Morrison to appear in one of his films, naked and surrounded by Warhol’s Factory ‘girls’, some of whom are not girls at all, nor even good facsimiles; some of whom, like Nico, are so ball-achingly beautiful Morrison will soon begin a brief, hopelessly doomed affair with her.
