(Ray Manzarek's) Nite City "Nite City" 1977***

Of all the great groups of the 60's the one that later had the most disappointing development were the Doors. I know what you'll say "well, there was that minor incident of the lead singer dying". Well yes, there was that. I can't deny it was a biggie. They tried to go on without him, making two underwhelming albums (reviewed here and here) before they went their separate ways. After all, who would like to listen to the Jimi Hendrix Experience without Jimi Hendrix? Or Big Brother and The Holding Company without Janis Joplin? Actually I did see Big Bro with an ersatz Joplin and they weren't half bad - for a bar band, that is. But I expected more from the former Doors. After all, Krieger did write the music to "Light My Fire" and Manzarek's organ was integral to the sound of The Doors. Which is why I kept collecting their post-Doors outings, hoping to catch a spark of the old flame. But they never seemed to be able to get the right collaborators. Krieger struck gold once -by getting Jess Roden to sing on the first Butts Band album. Manzarek sang lead himself in his solo albums. I'd like to say his voice is an acquired taste, but it's more like an unacquirable taste. He must have also seemed out of place in 70's L.A. where the dominant sound was the laid-back country rock of The Eagles and Jackson Brown. Slowly, though, the music had began to change. The punk flame brewing in the New York underground scene was transmitted to England and from there it started shaking the foundations of the music industry. Manzarek was hip to the change, don't forget he discovered and produced L.A.'s first punk rockers, X. So he had the idea to form a group which, he claimed, would explore the city's dark side. This was to be called Nite City and, initially, feature Iggy Pop on vocals. But Iggy followed his pal David Bowie to Berlin - nowhere better to explore the dark side than with Soviet soldiers watching you from their gun towers above the wall. So, instead of Iggy what do we get? Noah James. This being Hollywood, he's a kind of model/singer. At some point it seems that regular people in that city disappeared to be replaced by model/actresses, model/waitresses, model/plumbers, model/pornstars, model/lifeguards etc. So what if the singer (the one with the fur coat, on the right of the album cover) looks like Zoolander impersonating Jim Morrison? Can he sing? Well, the best I can say is that he's less annoying than Manzarek. The other members were accomplished musicians: guitarist Paul Warren had played with white soul band Rare Earth and bassist Nigel Harrison was soon to join Blondie. Apart from Manzarek's distinctive organ sound, there's little here that reminds of the Doors. It's more of a combination of AOR and New Wave akin to, say, Sniffin' The Tears or Foreigner. Any "darkness" is limited to the pretensious pseudo-poetic lyrics, another poor Morrison imitation. "Summer Eyes" starts off quite promising with an organ riff straight out of The Doors' cookbook but continues with a chorus reminiscent of Jefferson Starship. Not bad, but nothing special either. "Nite City" has a Supertramp-like piano and a Morrison-esque poetry reading at the middle. Noah's singing on this song is terrible. I can easily imagine Iggy nailing it. "Love Will Make You Mellow" sports a hard rock guitar riff and groovy keyboard. A nice rocker that should appeal to fans of Journey etc. "Angel W/ No Freedom" is a jazzy ballad a la "Riders On The Storm". It got a lot of attention for the line "heroin killed my best friend" which people took to mean Jim Morrison. Remember that, up to then, Manzarek and Danny Sugerman (writer of Morrison bio "No one here gets out alive" and co-writer of this song) were the ones circulating the rumor of Morrison disappearing rather than dying. For once, Noah's vocals live up to expectations. "Midnight Queen" is forgettable AOR and "Bitter Sky Blue" is a bluesy ballad with piano reminiscent of The Doors' "Love Street". "Caught in a Panic" is a Foreigner-like hard rocker and "In the Pyramid" an ill-judged funk instrumental. Every time I hear it I get a mental image of Disco Stu from the Simpsons. The album closes with Roadhouse Blues-like boogie "Game of Skill". It's not bad, but what do you get if you take "Roadhouse Blues" and subtract Morrison's lyrics and singing? A bar band. It's true, there are some decent songs and good musicianship here, but I'd file it under "Another Missed Opportunity". The ex-Doors story has a lot of them. I think the last one was the Doors Of The 21st Century tour. Many thought it was sacrilege but I've been to one of their concerts and enjoyed it immensly. It was the first time since 1970 that Manzarek and Krieger were playing together, in a band with a decent singer (Ian Astbury). I wish they had entered a recording studio to cut a record with that band, but it seems they were too apprehensive of the inevitable comparisons. Manzarek's recent passing has closed this chapter forever and albums like "Nite City" only hint at what he could have accomplished if he had the right company...

**** for Summer Eyes

*** for Nite City, Love Will Make You Mellow, Angel W/ No Freedom, Bitter Sky Blue, Caught in a Panic, Game of Skill

** for Midnight Queen, In the Pyramid