Album Reviews

Whenever a record shows up I like to look at the lead out groove area to see who did the lacquer cutting. Sometimes there’s nothing to be found and that’s annoying, but with this double set I thought I was hallucinating because in plain view was “TML-M” a stamp not seen on a slab of new vinyl in decades. TML is the acronym for “The Mastering Lab” and the “M” means the main lathe at Doug Sax’s place.


Whenever a record shows up I like to look at the lead out groove area to see who did the lacquer cutting. Sometimes there’s nothing to be found and that’s annoying, but with this double set I thought I was hallucinating because in plain view was “TML-M” a stamp not seen on a slab of new vinyl in decades. TML is the acronym for “The Mastering Lab” and the “M” means the main lathe at Doug Sax’s place.

Was this record sourced from old metal parts or what? No because the original wasn’t cut by Doug Sax. An email confirmed what was hoped for but never believed possible: Sax had taken two of his legendary lathes out of mothballs and was once again cutting lacquers. Hot damn!

While the Sax cut Exile on Mainsteet was nothing to write home about (he cut from compressed 44.1k/24 bit masters supplied to him), this set from higher resolution digital is quite good. Like the Doors box set, the results here are impressive clarity, definition and an “analog-like” experience, though The Doors’ originals are still the greatest: they were all analog and the tapes were fresh. But try finding clean originals and if you do they will cost you.

So the sound here, recorded by Bruce Botnick and culled from various 1969/1970 performances (many tunes were spliced together from bits and pieces of different performances) is very good considering the state of live rock recordings back then: immediate, clarified and present. The splices aren’t noticeable.

If you want to hear Jim Morrison recorded live and sounding as if he’s directly in front of you in 3D, this gives it to you and the jacket promises no overdubs were involved.

There’s something creepy about listening to the opening announcer and the unruly defiant/respectful audience patter knowing that most of these kids are now the oldsters you see in PBS fundraising specials and the rest are dead. It’s just creepy.

This album was originally issued in July 1970 when Morrison had peaked and began his slide. He was overweight, bearded and beginning to look more like Brian Wilson than like the sleek sex symbol he once was. Morission is in fine, clarified voice, and has excellent command of the stage, admonishing and mocking the unruly New York audience on “When the Music’s Over.”

The band minus the studio atmospherics comes across as Morrison’s accessory. They play the basic blues band backup and get the job done but there’s less of a sense of group cohesion than you might wish to hear.

The song selection is interesting but rather than spew it all out here you should look it up online and see if it’s of interest to you. The opening medley is strong. There are many exclusions and no “Light My Fire,” probably more because a good take couldn’t be assembled than because they didn’t perform it on tour, but I could be wrong. There are a few wrinkles including two originals: “Universal Mind” on record here for the first time and the ridiculously titled “Build Me a Woman.” If you like “The Celebration of the Lizard,” there’s a long scaly one here before the set ending “Soul Kitchen.”

When this came out the reaction from fans was ambivalence and that feeling remains. I’d say this is for Doors fanatics only. For others this might serve to diminish rather than burnish the legend of Jim Morrison and The Doors.

Meanwhile if you can find a copy of Alive She Cried issued in 1983 and culled from tapes thought to have been lost, you'll find a more energetic single LP package though these were recorded during the same time frame in L.A. New York, Detroit, Boston and Copenhagen. There's a good "Light My Fire" and some other good tunes not on this double set and the Ocean Way mix and mastering by Bernie Grundman have a liveliness that hits the spot.