Music Babble

Maybe I just really like live albums, but as a generalization I like the Live Doors material pretty well. However, there are certainly caveats here. Celebration of the Lizard is mostly boring/annoying and it was a good chunk of every concert. There are other disappointments, like the choppy Light My Fire on In Concert. Also I'm sure that drunk Jim Morrison ruined tons of concerts. To cite another funny Prindle Review, the Archive release Live In Boston 1970:

http://www.markprindle.com/doorsa.htm#boston

On the afternoon of Friday, April 10th, 1970, Jim Morrison shoveled 14,000 gallons of alcoholic beverage into his nervous system.

Thus, liner notes such as these:

- "A Surgeon General's warning should be stickered on this recording, because Jimbo is ripped!"

- "When I hear Jim slurring his way through 'When The Music's Over' or 'Light My Fire,' I cringe. I feel bad for the audience."

- "Jim is pie-eyed, stinko, a rummy in training."

Say! Did I mention that each of those quotes was written by a different member of The Doors?

Uh...maybe that shouldn't have been a commercial release? It's cool that the box set has a really terrible, drunken version of Five to One from the concert where he may or may not have whipped it out on stage, but that's only one track and is therefore historically interesting. They're not asking us to listen to an entire live album. Maybe alot of their concerts were actually that bad, I dunno.

Also, like the classic era Stones, even when The Doors were at their live best, their concerts didn't embrace all facets of what they did in the studio. Live they leaned harder toward their bluesy side, like they did in the studio on Morrison Hotel.

I don't know much about Punk, but I like the 70s live released from The Ramones. The live ablums from the 90s are not good. Maybe they were fun concerts to see, but the albums are lame.