Jim Morrison is alive and well in Oregon!
Posted on 10/09/2005 3:50:59 PM PDT by dennisw
Is it simple selling or selling out? We report on a band at odds over ad revenue
THE drummer of the Doors has infuriated his former bandmates by turning down nearly $20 million to use their music to sell computers and cars.
John Densmore has a legal right to veto the use of the band’s music for advertising. And that is exactly what he is doing. He says that he is holding out to honour the memory of the band’s lead singer, Jim Morrison, who died in Paris from a suspected heroin overdose in 1971, aged 27.
“People lost their virginity to this music, got high for the first time to this music,” Densmore, 60, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview that has astonished an industry more accustomed to performers launching bottled water brands than objecting to the capitalist exploitation of their art.
“I’ve had people say kids died in Vietnam listening to this music. On stage, when we played these songs, they felt mysterious and magic. That’s not for rent,” the drummer said.
Densmore recalls the day in 1965 that Morrison discovered that his colleagues had allowed the song Light My Fire to be used in an advertisement for a Buick Opel car. The singer vowed to take a sledgehammer to a Buick on stage unless the deal was cancelled.
Five years later the Doors agreed in writing that the band would have to approve unanimously any music licensing agreement. It is a contract that the other members regret.
The sanctity of rock music in advertising ended in the 1980s, when Nike used Revolution by the Beatles. Since then, Paul McCartney has sung for Fidelity Investments; a dancing silhouette of Bono has been used to promote Apple’s iPod; and the Rolling Stones have played the blues for Ameriquest mortgages. Even Bob Dylan’s The Times They are a-Changin’ can be heard in an unlikely advertisement for the health firm Kaiser Permanente.
One of the few to hold out is the experimental blues singer Tom Waits, who recently said that corporations “suck the life and meaning from the songs and impregnate them with promises of a better life with their product”.
Recent offers to the Doors include a reported $15 million (£8.4 million) from Cadillac for the rights to use Break on Through to promote its 4x4s. Densmore said that he could not sell a song to a company that was “polluting the world”. In the end Cadillac stuck with the slogan “Break Through”, but used Led Zeppelin’s 1972 Rock and Roll instead.
Apple offered the Doors another $4 million for Light My Fire, but again Densmore said no.
The other Doors, Robby Krieger, 59, and Ray Manzarek, 66, are not happy. The last time the trio met was at the Los Angeles County Superior Courthouse last year, when a judge ruled that Krieger and Manzarek could not use the name Doors of the 21st Century during a world tour. The musicians changed their name to D21C. But they may still have to pay Densmore a percentage of the estimated $8 million receipts.
Manzarek has cited the court battle as evidence that Densmore does care about money. “John is going to get about a million dollars for doing nothing,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “He gets an equal share as us, and we were out there working. A free million bucks. That’s a gig I’d like.”
Others have pointed out that in the 1970s Densmore agreed to sell Riders on the Storm to the Pirelli tyre company. He later vowed never to be tempted by money-lust again.
“I gave every cent to charity,” he said. “Jim’s ghost was in my ear, and I felt terrible. If I needed proof that it was the wrong thing to do, I got it.”
"C'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon now boot me baby!"
"PCs are strange, when you're an Apple,
networks are lonely when you're a Mac.
Linux seems wicked, when you're an iBook
at least your company makes the iPod...."
I guess they didn't mind Fracis Ford Coppola using 'The End' in his commercialization of their product.
A man very taken with his own self-importance. Figures it's the drummer.
Selling out might not be so bad. $20 million can buy a lot of cocaine and hookers to salve one's conscience.
Yes, we all want to remember a dead druggie. He didn't die from a suspected drug overdose. This fool turning down the money makes me think that drug use may still be prevalent in that group.
What a jackass. I wonder how he gets around, on his bicycle? Bet he never flies either.
Jim Morrison is alive and well in Oregon!
R O T F L M A O
This is really good. Boomers claiming sanctity for any product of their g-g-generation. This is really good - too good to make up. Fight the power, man! Right on!
What do you call a guy who hangs out with a bunch of musicians? The drummer!
Mark
When songs appear in commercials, album sales decline. The band members are probably making several million a year just from album sales and radio play.
LOL
Those are great!
"Show me the way to the next Cyber Bar..."
-- Chet Baker
If "THE drummer" had to make a living frying french fries, he would be dead of hunger by now!
Who are you going to get to do the rim shot? ;)
Sounds like he and The Schlickmeister, aka: Stainman, might have a joint venture in the works.
"Figures it's the drummer."
What? Excuse me, as a former rock drummer, I don't resemble that remark. Heck, I'd sell out for a lot less. Plus I like cars. I believe that many other drummers would agree with me.
Now if you want to talk about bass players,........
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