Classic Rock Crate Digger: The Doors and Their Disciples

The Stooges, The Stooges (1969)
Elektra signed The Stooges hoping they'd become the next Doors. Morrison's influence on Iggy is common knowledge. There was even talk of Pop taking Jimbo's place a few years after his death. But let's talk music: the knotted mechanical pulse powering now-legendary rockers such as "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "No Fun" can in part be traced back to The Doors' first two albums. There's something wonderfully inorganic about tracks like "Back Door Man," "Soul Kitchen" and "Twentieth Century Fox." At the time, critics dismissed The Stooges as sonic primitives, but they were simply inspired by The Doors' ability to take garage rock's crunchy stomp and sculpt it into a precision timepiece.

Can, Tago Mago (1971)
At first blush, Can's Krautrock feels dimensions removed from what The Doors were up to. But it seems to me there's a lineage connecting the two, and it has to do with the idea of building an extended hypno-drone from jazz-informed finesse, touches of Eastern music, spacey guitar effects, classical minimalism and keyboard-derived atmospherics. This is something The Doors pioneered, particularly on the infamous "The End." It's a concept this piece returns to over and over. Just about any alternative rock band interested in creating hazily undulating atmosphere primarily through the use of keyboards, synthesizers and/or electronics is — directly or indirectly — influenced by you know who.

Patti Smith, Horses (1975)
Believe it or not, Patti Smith is one of those canonic artists the Crate Digger has failed to explore in any appreciable depth. However, when I do hear a track from Horses, I hear a poet-punk goddess who understands the genius of Jim Morrison more than anybody. The only other contenders are Suicide's Alan Vega, Ian Curtis of Joy Division and a young Glenn Danzig (all of whom we'll soon get to).






The Modern Lovers, The Modern Lovers (1976)
Squeaky-clean Jonathan Richman seems like the unlikeliest of artists to be influenced by Jim Morrison and The Doors. After all, this is the guy who penned the lines, "I'm certainly not stoned like hippie Johnny is/ I'm straight, and I want to take his place." Let's set that aside for a moment. The Modern Lovers' proto-punk sound was straight-up Doors drone-pop filtered through the Velvet Underground's choppy minimalism. Jerry Harrison's organ solo on "Roadrunner" is pure Ray Manzarek.



Suicide, The First Album (1977)
In the Age of Aquarius, when the children of Woodstock made primitive love in the mud, The Doors were static-age futurists extolling the joys of mechanized sex. Morrison wasn't a hippie; he was a character straight out of a J.G. Ballard sci-fi novel that had yet to be written. These are facts Suicide's Alan Vega and Martin Rev totally understood. On their debut album they took "Hello, I Love You" and drowned it in a post-industrial nightmare that felt so good — pain as pleasure and all that arty biz. "Frankie Teardrop" was punk rock's "The End."



The Stranglers, Rattus Norvegicus (1977)
TOTAL. DOORS. WORSHIP.











The Misfits, Static Age (recorded: 1978)
The most immediate connection is just how much Danzig sounds like Morrison. Jimbo taught Glenn how to shift from a riotous punk bark to a smooth, Sinatra-like croon in a single tune. (Morrison's love for classic vocal craftsmanship is way overlooked.) Then there's lyrical content: "Last Caress" — which contains the incendiary lines "Well, I got something to say/ I raped your mother today" and "Sweet lovely death/ I am waiting for your breath/ Come sweet death, one last caress" — was torn from the Morrison playbook. On the other hand, a more fundamental influence exists on the instrumental level. The early Misfits, as documented on Static Age, a collection of demos recorded in 1978, rocked like a stuttering funny car. They were basically accentuating the gnarly robo-pulse dominating The Doors' middle period: Strange Days and Waiting for the Sun.


Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures (1979)
Ian Curtis fans are just as rabid, if not more so, than Jim Morrison fans. I've met more than a few who bristle at the notion of The Doors exerting an influence over their beloved Joy Division. But it's true. It has been reported several times over that Curtis loved The Doors. The brooding baritone aside, his ability to orchestrate the band's funereal-rock rituals, full of negative-space and a claustrophobic heaviness built from implication, is in many respects very neo-Morrison/Doors.




X, Los Angeles (1980)
X sounded like The Doors only vaguely. Yet there's a reason why Ray Manzarek, who produced the group's first four studio albums, freaked for them. Both groups created raw poetry-rock that stalked the crap-stained streets of the L.A. night. Dig Los Angeles' "Soul Kitchen" cover, and the way the line "learn to forget" so easily translates into punk-rock incantation. (Patti Smith also covered "Soul Kitchen" on her 2007 covers album, Twelve.)





Echo and the Bunnymen, Heaven Up Here (1981)
The flaw with many Doors haters is the way they focus way too much attention on the band's shaman-boogie shtick. The group did produce its fair share of white-boy blues rock. However, bands like Echo & the Bunnymen were more about channeling Morrison's ability to mix dark/desolate imagery with the ethereal beauty of Robby Krieger's guitar and organist Ray Manzarek's mesmerizing repetition. Compare, say, "I Can't See Your Face in My Mind" or "Strange Days" with just about any track off Heaven Up Here, and you immediately hear what I'm yapping about. Then again, my Rhapsody cohort Stephanie Benson recently reported that Echo & the Bunnymen covered "Roadhouse Blues" at this year's Coachella festival. So apparently, New Wave Brits dig The Doors' white-boy blues shtick as well.

The Damned, Strawberries (1982)
The Damned's discography contains better albums (Damned Damned Damned, for instance). But Strawberries contains historical significance directly tied to The Doors' legacy. The 1981 release of Danny Sugerman's Jim Morrison bio, No One Here Gets Out Alive, ignited an intense Doors revival. Elektra's Greatest Hits package, released a year prior, quickly went platinum (amazing). Though The Doors' influence on punk's first wave was apparent, the full-bodied resurgence Sugerman's book invoked helped sell The Doors to a new crop of post-punk bands who were smitten with the group's ability to conjure both dread and beauty through atmosphere, ambience and phantom reverb. Strawberries, which saw The Damned starting to explore Goth, is one of the first high-profile albums to reflect these inherited traits.

Junkyard (1982)

There's not much difference between Nick Cave flopping about the stage and howling "Release the Bats" and Morrison flopping about the stage howling, "Break on Through." OK, so The Birthday Party were a bit more ... violent.









Wooden Shjips, Wooden Shjips (2007)
Want to hear Doors drone-pop taken into the 21st century? Then check out one of San Francisco's best modern-rock bands, Wooden Shjips. Pay special attention to the guitar on "We Ask You to Ride"; it totally nails "When the Music's Over"-era Robby Krieger via Suicide, Spacemen 3 and Loop.








Honorable mentions

Black Sabbath: Black Sabbath (1970)
Alice Cooper: Easy Action (1970)
Tubeway Army/Gary Numan: Replicas (1979)
The Teardrop Explodes: Kilimanjaro (1980)
The Flesh Eaters: A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die (1981)
Billy Idol: Billy Idol (1982)
The Gun Club: Miami (1982)
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Dazzle Ships (1983)
The Cult: Love (1985)
The Scientists: Human Jukebox 1984-1986 (released 2002)
Spacemen 3: The Perfect Prescription (1987)
Opal: Happy Nightmare Baby (1987)
Loop: A Gilded Eternity (1990)

If you're now craving a fat sack of classic Doors music, then check this out: The Ultimate Doors Playlist. You can also sample a bunch of the bands I just wrote about by pressing play below.