{"id":2667,"date":"2010-04-06T23:46:14","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T03:46:14","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-11-15T14:49:52","modified_gmt":"2010-11-15T18:49:52","slug":"artists-you-wish-people-could-see-for-what-they-are-not-for-what-most-of-their-fans-wish-they-could-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/artists-you-wish-people-could-see-for-what-they-are-not-for-what-most-of-their-fans-wish-they-could-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Artists You Wish People Could See for What They Are, Not for What Most of Their Fans Wish They Could Be"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XR-qzSYsJ9k?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nI&#8217;m excited to see the new documentary on <strong>The Doors<\/strong>, <em>When You&#8217;re Strange<\/em>, which is playing for free in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atthepiazza.com\/media-bureau-and-puff-presents-when-youre-strange-a-film-about-the-doors.html&amp;date=09-Apr-10#media-bureau-and-puff-presents-when-youre-strange-a-film-about-the-doors\" target=\"_blank\">Philadelphia this Friday night, April 9<\/a>. My excitement is for a range of reasons, from the fact that it&#8217;s directed by <strong>Tom DiCillo<\/strong>, who&#8217;s first three movies (<em>Living in Oblivion<\/em>, <em>Box of Moonlight<\/em>, <em>Johnny Suede<\/em>) were indie joys for me in the &#8217;90s, to the fact that I like my share of Doors music as well as get a great deal of laughs out of the band&#8217;s pretensions and their even more incredibly pretentious diehard fans. I&#8217;m sure this film&#8217;s narrator, <strong>Johnny Depp<\/strong>, for instance, is going to match <strong>Ray Manzarek<\/strong> for jive-ass references to &#8220;shamen&#8221; and other mystical &#8220;native&#8221; nonsense that no white man who&#8217;s not a professor of anthropology should be caught dead talking about.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m suspect this film will only perpetrate the mythology around The Doors and Jim Morrison, but I wish more people could see The Door for what they really were, not for what most of their fans wish they could be. For instance:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Doors were a solid psych-pop group with tight production, not groundbreaking avant-garde visionaries!<\/li>\n<li>The Doors were a tough, little blues-rock combo, not the house band for the Weimar Republic.<\/li>\n<li>Jim Morrison&#8217;s lyrics were usually pretty funny and only worked in the context of his committed approach to desiring transcendence within the confines of his solid, little psych-pop\/blues-rock combo. He was no American Poet!<\/li>\n<li>Jim Morrison&#8217;s not alive; he&#8217;s dead.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m not trying to degrade the work of The Doors. There&#8217;s so much to like over the course of their brief career that reasonable rock &#8216;n roll fans can&#8217;t be bothered to hear for what it is for the risk of letting any of the wacko cult-worshipping leak into their lives. I&#8217;m trying to uncover the true and meaningful legacy of The Doors. For those Doors fans who use the band as a means for compensating for their empty spiritual lives, get a practicing shaman to guide you!<\/p>\n<p><em>Is there an artist you wish people could see for what they are, not for what most of their fans wish they could be?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m excited to see the new documentary on The Doors, When You&#8217;re Strange, which is playing for free in Philadelphia this Friday night, April 9. My excitement is for a range of reasons, from the fact that it&#8217;s directed by Tom DiCillo, who&#8217;s first three movies (Living in Oblivion, Box of Moonlight, Johnny Suede) were <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/artists-you-wish-people-could-see-for-what-they-are-not-for-what-most-of-their-fans-wish-they-could-be\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[38,34,161],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}