Right off the bat, I’ll say the Doors are overall a fairly crappy band, or more accurately a middlin’ band with a narcissistic blowhard for a frontman. Most of their songs are catchy, but dull andand the lyrics are at grade 6 level. They require massive beer to be enjoyed. However as a broken clock, blah, blah, correct hour, blah blah, they have two genuine masterpieces, or so I think. These are ‘The End’ and ‘Riders on the Storm’.
Riders in particular has a (deceptively) simple but very groovy bass line. The difficulty is in the endurance moreso than in any complexity. I am very fond of it, so I’ve decided to learn it. I have it worked out tonally (famous last words) but I’m still fingering out the fingering. So, the main line is a repeating 2-bar segment of E-B-G-B | E-A-C#-A.
I finger it like so alternating index-middle fretting
A -2-2 | --4-
E 0-3- | 05-5
Do you folks have any alternate suggestions to try? Any other fretting fingerings that may be more efficient?
So i tried to play it starting with the ring finger and somehow find myself inverting, meaning that on the next pass I’m starting with my index. Fully strange. However if i use the index for the opening E and the B, it smooths out and plays nice. I can play it alternating, but the second bar feels rushed? I cant explain what i mean there. What i do know is it feels like most (if not all) doors basslines are actually written to be played on a keyboard. I’ve been trying to nail “peace frog” for better than a year. Good luck, my friend.
Any band one doesn’t like can be called crappy for any one of myriad reasons. God knows there are lots of forum members’ fave bands/artists I’d characterize as such. It’s all just subjective opinion.
As a keyboard player I have a lot of respect for Ray. That said I will also be up front about the Doors being the reason I don’t like the Vox/Hammond/Leslie style of rock keyboard.
They really seem fairly typical to me for bands of that era, dysfunction-wise. Some exceptionally ill advised taste in lovers towards the end there as well I guess, but hey, it was the '70s. The whole decade was ill-advised.
OTOH Iron Maiden started then and Zappa did a lot of his best stuff too.
As far as Morrison goes, the best summarry of his life was done by Denis Leary:
"Let me tell you something. We need a two and a half hour movie about the Doors? Folks, no we don’t. I can sum it up for you in five seconds, ok. I’m drunk. I’m nobody. I’m drunk. I’m famous. I’m drunk. I’m fucking dead. There’s the whole movie, ok!? Big fat dead guy in a bath tub!
