 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm very happy to have my old friend Mr. Kurt Ekstrom back on the podcast. Kurt, welcome back. Thank you, Hitler. I'm glad to be back and I appreciate you having me on a second time. Yes. Your first episode was the history of WFL drums, which I deem those kinds of episodes like essential. Like that has that history had to be covered. It's a part of the Ludwig history. It's just very, very important. And I think you did a great job and a lot of people really loved that. And we recently got to hang out at the Chicago drum show, which it was a pleasure to see you there. That was awesome. It was totally fun. Yeah. That was a great time. That was good. It feels more like we're getting back into the swing of things post COVID. So, all right. So let me, we have a little Patreon thank you to do real quick at the beginning, but I want to just kind of tee up to folks what we're going to be talking about. So this is going to be a gear episode, but also a little bit of a biography and a focus on the Mod Orange drum set, which you yourself are very passionate about because it is easily one of the coolest drum finishes in existence. And I know you agree with that. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. So we will get to all that. But very quickly, before we start, it's awesome that this keeps kind of rolling and happening. I've got a new upper tier Patreon member. This is a cool one because this one is the folks at steambentdrum.com. So steambentdrum.com makes steam bent drum shells for DIY drum builders. And they also build full drum kits that you can buy on, you know, all by themselves. But basically you buy a steam bent drum shell and then you put all the hardware on and everything. And they're very affordable for what you'd expect. You can build a snare or bass drum, toms, a whole kit. So the cool thing is though, you can get a 10% discount code by mentioning drum history. You can put it in the email. You basically have to kind of email them to get info and then you order. Just mention drum history and you get 10% off your order. So thanks to the folks at steambentdrum.com for supporting the show on Patreon. But without further ado, Kurt. So this is an interesting one. We're talking about John Densmore of the Doors Iconic Band, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Star on the Hollywood, you know, Walk of Fame, basically as big as it gets as rock bands. So we're going to talk about him as a person and also his gear. So we should probably just lead off with a little bit more info about his background and then we'll get into the gear as we go. So take it away. Well, I'll give you a quick synopsis on, I mean, I gave a little bit of my background in the last episode. And I talked about I started playing drums in 1982 and Van Halen was my big, you know, big influence and all that. But as I got older and I got towards high school, what would happen is I would like go to a lot of the football games with a couple of my friends. And there are of course long drives around the state. I live in New Hampshire and so go around driving to these places and, you know, after a while, they're like, you know, we like the Van Halen, but you might want to switch it up a little bit. I'm like, okay, you know, why not? Yeah, sure. And so they put in like Jimi Hendrix smash hits or like the doors first album. And of course, I took to both of them and I liked them. And and there was something about the doors. I don't know what it was. It just the, you know, you can't because back then we're talking, you know, I'm old. So we're talking about cassette tapes. And so there were no visuals, no pictures. All I could hear was a band playing. And so I was drawn to it for sure. And the more I started trying to figure out what what is this and what was this band? Another friend of mine at school had said, well, hey, have you ever seen the video that they put out with doors playing at the Hollywood Bowl? I said, well, no, I don't know what to deal with that is. And, you know, again, we're talking VHS. I borrowed this video tape and plopped it in. And there these guys are playing on the big, big Hollywood Bowl stage. But and this was like 1988. So, you know, everybody at that time, including Alex St. Hill, was playing huge, huge, monster sized drum sets and usually like solid colors like white and, you know, maroon and whatever else black. And so here's this guy putting out all this noise on a tiny little kit. It was like this little four piece kit on top of a riser. And the other thing I noticed, and it's kind of funny because like my teacher had a lot of really great technique and all that. But for some reason, when you're like, I don't know, when you see it like firsthand from like a teacher sometimes and all that, it's just not the same when you're in a practice room. But then I see, you know, the video and here he is on this stage and he's got some really fast hands. And I'd always sort of maybe focused on my right hand because I thought I needed it to sort of, you know, go around and hit the ride and do things. But my left was always like, Oh, I'm playing back beats with that. And I saw him doing all these jabs and things that this left hand and I went, Oh, I can play, you know, I got to get working on that. Like in the same with Mitch Mitchell, I mean, you start listening to the Jimi Hendricks. And so both of those two made me go, Oh my gosh, you know, like I need to start really working on this stuff. And so when I watched the video, it made me number one, realize, you know, I really got to start woodshedding. And number two, it made me, you know, say, What the heck is that drum set? Like that's really cool. Like this tiny little drum set. But the cool thing that I noticed in the video, which made me feel cool was my original Gretch set I got as a 12 year old, you know, it was like, it's a rosewood red Gretch set. I actually just hit 40 years with it. But the funny thing about it is it's like, at the time I thought it was boring. I didn't like the color, you know, it was like, you know, it's so stupid now because I love it now. But it didn't come with a Gretch share. It came with a 1966 Ludwig Superphonic 400. And so of course, all the Ludwig drums I had seen prior to that were all blue olive edges. And, you know, so I'm looking at this drum going once a Ludwig, but what the heck is it? Like, you know, and again, all the drum sounds in the 80s were big and processed. And so this Ludwig Superphonic sounding kind of tinny and thin to me a little bit when I was first starting out. But I'm watching this video and like, Oh, John Densworth playing a Superphonic just like mine. You know, like maybe it is a cool drum, you know, like, yeah, you need to see what other people have kids, kids are funny like that. You're like, what you have is great. You're like, well, I want what he has. And it's like, well, he's playing a Ludwig rocker or something. What you have is good. In 1983, when I got my drum set, I mean, the big album of the day was Pyromania. Like drums don't sound like Pyromania on their own. Like, you know, no, fair information or anybody out there, when you sit down and play a drum set, you don't sound like Pyromania. So, you know, but, you know, because everybody hears that and you hit this metal snare drum that sounds ringy and tinny. And you're like, what the? But yeah, that's recording studio magic right there. Yeah, I am lying magic. Yeah. So, so it was a, you know, it was a good thing. I, you know, I ended up being a good thing. So it really propelled me to say, okay, I need to work on my hands. I, you know, I need to learn more about this band and all this stuff. And then I happened to get into my high school jazz band like the following year. And so the whole thing about the doors for me, what it allowed me to do was sort of bridge the gap. Because when I looked at guys like Elvin Jones and Tony Williams and all these guys that I'd started to hear about was like, no way, there's, you know, like that's just like out there. I'm never going to be able to get that far. But when I would see John Densmore, and that was this big influence with, you know, Elvin Jones, it sort of made it a little more like, okay, well, maybe I can kind of, maybe I can sort of creep into that world a little bit because it was sort of like a bridge between that. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of cool because I mean, he does get a big sound out of a small drum set, but also how you mentioned Mitch Mitchell and John Densmore. There's a lot of parallels there of like clearly it's the holdover of like growing up listening to jazz guys, very intricate right hands, very swingy kind of style and getting a lot out of a small drum set where, you know, I love that we all love the big drum sets. They're all very cool, Van Halen. It's just, you know, you don't have to like one, it's not one versus the other. It's just, it's very impressive to be able to have such a small drum set and make such a big sound. And I loved all the Neil Pear. I loved all that stuff too. I still love Rush and all that, but there was something that's, I don't know if you want to use the word romanticize, but when you, when you see people just, you know, playing out straight out technique on a four piece kit, because when you break it down realistically, even a band like Rush, even those a lot of fills and all that, you still have a bass drum snare drum, a couple of toms and you know, like you're, you know, that's the core of a drum set and sort of see somebody at the core level being able to just, you know, make all that music out of that. I found that impressive and I found it impressive that it was happening on such a large stage. And, and so, you know, you didn't need to be, you know, behind a tank to make all those noise, you know, like, yeah, so. Yeah, absolutely. There's different, you know, but everyone's got a different technique. Absolutely. So, all right, Kurt, let's hop in here. And I, like I said before, that's all great to know. It's good to know your background with it and what, and so you are truly passionate about this and Mod Orange is a big thing for you, which we'll touch on as we go. Yes. Let's, let's talk about John Densmore as a young drummer, young man, and then as we go, we'll talk about his gear. So a little bit of a biography and gear mixture, which I think is great. So what's the story with John? So, I mean, in John, if you ever happen to see this, you know, thanks to the inspiration, but I want to say, you know, I'm taking some of the information from his book, the book he wrote called Riders on the Storm, and he describes in his book that he grew up in what he called the Ozzie and Harriet show with his family, like he had, you know, pretty straight parents, and he had an older sister and a younger brother, so he was in the middle somewhere. And I guess he took to music early on, and I guess he started fooling around with the piano. I think his dad played piano a bit, and so he took to the piano and kind of liked it, but the lessons were, he couldn't really focus on the lessons. So much like me with the piano, I mean, I like to, but he just liked to just pluck chords out and all that. And so when he got into school, I guess, you know, he decided he wanted to be in the band somewhere and he was going to try the clarinet. But the clarinet was not an option because I guess he had braces at the time and his dentist told him it wouldn't work out. So somehow his band director said, you know, you should be doing drums. So it was, of course, marching bands. So they put him on the bass drum. And but he was also taking private lessons. And so as he progressed, he was able to sort of work his way up into the snare drum. And so so that's how he ended up there. But his teacher forced upon him the 26 rudiments and all that discipline, which he later thankfully says, you know, it made me the difference between a clubber and somebody that could, you know, like articulately play buzz rolls. And you know, at the time he was saying, you know, it's kind of tedious to do all that stuff. But he was very thankful because it gave him the, you know, the ability and the technique to be able to pull all that stuff off. So as he, you know, as he got older, he started getting really into jazz. And then he, as he puts it himself, he became a jazz star. But this friend of his named Grant was a piano player. And the two of them were like late teens. And they would go around and mind you, they lived in, you know, Los Angeles area, that kind of thing. So they would drive around to all the Los Angeles clubs. And at the time, I guess you could get into a club at like 18, if you're, you know, because they, you know, they wouldn't, you could, didn't drink. So basically you could get into the club and be there. But apparently you had to be 21 to be able to play these clubs. And so he and his friend Grant went to like Tijuana, Mexico or something like that to get fake IDs. So they could like get into these clubs and play or whatever. But, but they would drive around to all these jazz clubs and, and see, you know, Alvin Jones and all, you know, Art Blakey and all these guys play. And so that's where he got his real, you know, real taste and real thing for jazz. Yeah. That was really big influence. I mean, it's pretty, you know, I guess, advantageous to be born in Los Angeles as well. Like coming, speaking from a guy who's in Cincinnati, it doesn't hurt that you have like, there's not, we don't have, I mean, there's bands that come through. And I'm sure in New Hampshire, it's sort of similar where cultural mechas like Los Angeles. So he was kind of in the right place. I mean, he was born in 1944. So literally like the perfect time. Yeah. Like, I mean, the perfect age, perfect time. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. He's got it going on there. So, and I'm looking at some pictures here, which Kurt has sent over, which I will do my best. We will describe for folks who are listening, but I've got a photo of John as a young man in a nice suit. I might be mistaken, but it looks like he's got braces on in this. Yeah, I think he does. And I believe he's holding, which is the only picture I've ever seen, but he's holding what looks to be a Gretch Dixieland snare drum in white marine pearl. You can see in that photo that it's got like clip hoops on it. It doesn't have the famous general Gretch die cast hoops. So and it's got like a renowned strainer on it. So it's definitely like a lower end model, but he's holding this one drum, which I would assume would be his first snare drum. This week's episode is brought to you by GM Designs Custom Symbols. GM Designs is not your typical symbol company. 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Absolutely. I think Gretch came into play in that sense. Okay. Any info about his first childhood drum set or where he got it or anything like that? Well, it's a long running theory of mine because he was in Los Angeles. And I've reached out to the guys over at Pro Drum Shop in Hollywood just to ask them if they know anything. But I have a feeling that a good majority of just about everything he got may have come through that store. It kind of makes sense. And there has been a lot of pictures over the years with him hanging out with Stan and Jerry. And so he may be like a long running customer. I just have never really heard the definitive answer on that. Yeah. Gotcha. All right. So then moving forward here, it looks like a photo you sent is... I'm not sure if this is like a collage or was he actually featured in the Gretch catalog? So I just put that together so it would look a little more simple. So that's a picture of him on the first drum set, which is the one he used with the doors all the way up to the doors. And you can... The stands... I mean, I'm not a Gretch expert, but the stands to me, I went through and looked at the catalogs and they look like the Gretch stands, but the stands look like they're from the 50s. But the way the kit looks, to me, it looks like it's probably the early 60s because the rail is positioned in more of a normal position. Like the 50s, Gretch kits had the rail way off to the side and then they would have like a similar mount on the top of the bass drum, which I never really understood why they did that. But by the early 60s, I know they moved the rail towards normal position. Because when the rail's that far, it makes the bass drum hang way over with the tom and all that. And so these early... And I've seen them before, these early cymbal stands, in this case, particularly Gretch, the tripod kind of bottom, it goes so high up. It's very interesting though, the amount... I guess it gives you more stability because if you go further on in time, you become double braced and thicker everything, but very, very long legs that go seemingly more than halfway up the entire cymbal stand, as opposed to now, which is like, you know, lower, third, or quarter. And it's really kind of funny to me because it almost seems like if they had in the 50s the rail way off to the side, which made the bass drum sort of hang and all that, and it was kind of flimsy. Well, then they moved the tom to a normal position and put the ride mount in a position, but then they made the cymbal stands because some of those guys, like Alvin and all that, I mean, they were playing probably a 22-inch K on those stands like that. And Alvin was not a... He could really lay into a drum set. Let's put it that way. Alvin got pretty animated. And so I don't know how some of those stands really held up with him doing the Alvin thing. And it wasn't like he was playing four, four simple backbeats. You listen to those Coltrane tunes, Chasing the Tain and Starving. It's like a drum solo the entire song. And it's never mentioned in his book where or, you know, what the impetus for the drum set was, but he, you know, obviously got that drum set. And you can see in the picture that he's pretty young. So like, you know, his hair's really not long yet. And he's still, but he's probably like late teens. And so he used that set primarily all the way up. And you know, when he... So as he got playing along, he ended up meeting Robbie Krieger at some point. And they were, they did some little fun thing where they were jamming called the Psychedelic Rangers. And it was just, you know, basically teenage kids playing for fun. And I guess, you know, dropping acid and that kind of stuff. As kids do. But Robbie was like, you know, like a rich kid. His parents were well off. And he was a rich kid from a different school and all that. So John got friends with him, but nothing really materialized from the Psychedelic Rangers. And at some point later on, John, and I think it was because of Robbie, they got into meditation. Like this is like way before the Beatles and the Yogi or all that stuff. They got into this meditation stuff that was starting to take popularity in Southern California. And when they were there, John met some guy, Ray Manzarek, and who was there with his Japanese girlfriend. And Ray came up to him after a session and basically said, Hey, here's your drummer. I got a band going with my brothers. Maybe you want to come out and jam. So they came and jammed. And it was Ray's two brothers. It was Jim Morrison. And then they had a girl named Patty Sullivan playing bass. And it was the band was called Rick and the Ravens. And so John, you know, he thought it was pretty cool, but it was Morrison was kind of weird because he just kind of stood in the corner. He really didn't do a whole lot. And but Ray showed John his lyrics that he had written. And it was basically the lyrics to break on through. And John read them in that violence is a very percussive sounding set of lyrics. And so he was thinking about all the stuff he could do to it. And the more he got into the band, the more he was thinking, you know, I could really do a lot with some of these original songs. And then at some point, the Ray's two brothers in the bass player decided they wanted to move on and quit. I guess his brothers wanted to go back to school. So it basically left John, Ray and Jim to go, OK, well, now what are we going to do? We got to find a guitar player. And that's when John basically, I think they tried out one other guy that didn't really work, but John was like, I know this guy named Robbie. He might work out. And so they brought Robbie down. And that's that's when the doors actually got together and formed. So this would have been maybe about 1965 or so. But you can see like John, it's he has trends off and on about like, because John will say in interviews that he liked his drums to sound like dead and barking back in him. And, you know, it's took the bottom heads off. Well, that's not entirely true. I mean, it's true for the most part, but they're like, you see the early picture of him, and he's got all the heads on, you know, the tops and bottoms of that retch kit. But later on, when he's playing with doors, he'll, you know, take the bottom of the front head off the bass drum, maybe the bottom head off the floor calm, but leave the bottom head on the tom, you know, stuff like that. So he'll, he'll kind of do that. And he was still kind of using a little more of a high tuning. When he first joined the doors, it was sounding a little more jazzy. And John tended to favor the small sizes. So all of his kits with the doors never had a bass drum that was bigger than a 20. So that was probably due to his jazz roots and all that. I mean, an 18 would have just been too small and a 20 was the perfect size for the doors. But sure. To kind of examine the photo that we have up here where there's, you know, bottom head on the tom, no front bass drum head and no floor tom head. He also looks like there's like an internal internal muffling system on the bass drum against the batter head with a felt strip going down. Yeah. So Greg's drums came with what they call the Pratt muffler. And so all those, every Greg's bass drum in those days, you know, they have the round, you know, chrome knobs you'll see on them. And it's called a Pratt muffler in the bass drum. And so you just, you know, spin the knob, obviously, and adjust the tension level of the, that was definitely a, you know, a Greg's thing. As far as I know, and I could be wrong, there could be some lesser known companies, but out of the big ones like Slingerling, Greg Rogers, Greg's was the only one I know of that put like an internal muffler in a bass drum like that. And of course, the person who invented it must have been Pratt, must have been the name for us. And so they called the Pratt muffler, you know, contention it, loosen it. And so I'm sure he used that just to cut some of the ring out of it. The other thing to note is that it seems, even though he had that Gretsch Dixieland snare drum early on, he must have acquired a Superphonic at least around 1965, if not sooner, because he pretty much used a Superphonic 5x14 for everything. Like always, everything, all the way, you know, even now he'll still use one. Universal kind of good across the board snare drum. And then I see, well, let's talk cymbals for a second. I see in this picture, which is interesting, it looks like he has a rag or something, small cloth on the bottom of the cymbal. Explain that. And then maybe what type of cymbals he was a fan of. I think that picture was taken when they played the London Fog. So as the doors got bigger in popularity, or they started trying to get out there, they landed a house gig at this place called the London Fog, which was down the street from the Whiskey of Gogo. And so they would play a lot down there and they would try to drag, you know, or coerce their friends, college friends or whatever to come see them. But it only worked so much. I mean, and so, you know, they'd have better nights than others. And it was just, it's after a while, like the friends had seen him enough, they were like, okay, we're good. And actually, somebody actually made like a low-fi recording from one of those gigs that recently was officially released by the doors. They clicked it up as best they could and put it out there. But you can see that John was pretty much using mostly just a ride in a set of hi-hats. So it was like some kind of a crash ride. And honestly, I couldn't tell you what the rag was other than I'm wondering if the cymbal was just too much for the room. And he was trying to dump it down a little bit, because you can see there's not really any mics on the kit. There are, and Ray, I'm not even sure if Ray was using the piano bass at the time. They were just probably using small guitar amps. I don't even know what they were running Jim Morrison through as a PA. But I'm sure volume was a concern and they had to keep it sort of in check somehow. Yeah. Self-mixed a little bit. Yeah. So that rag was probably in there to sort of keep some of the wash from the cymbal going too much. I've never seen that. I've seen like tape, things like that. I've never seen a rag. That's kind of a new one. And actually, when you listen to that recording that they put out, and it's all out there in all the platforms, you can kind of hear like probably from that, I don't know if it's from that pictures gig, but it's probably one, just it's probably the same setup going for that. Symbols in general, though. Is he a Zildjian guy? I believe pretty much was mostly Zildjian. And of course, when we get into later on, he will talk and he had like a piste brought. But that's the thing that's kind of weird is like it's, of course, symbols back in the day weren't like they didn't have giant logos or any of that stuff. So it's really kind of hard to tell sometimes. But I do know that he has said that he was mostly a Zildjian guy. And it wouldn't surprise me because of the jazz background and all that. And they were pretty much a popular brand of the day. Of course, everybody played them. But so eventually the doors, it was kind of one of those fate stepping in things. The doors got to the point where they sort of outgrew or were about to get fired from the gig they had because the attendance was low and all that. And so they actually on the last night they were playing in there, somebody saw them who was down at the whiskey. And it was some woman that saw them. And of course, probably took a liking to Jim Morrison, no doubt. But for whatever reason, she was the one that got them to move up the street into the whiskey. So then they got a house gig there. And it was there that they really started to become the doors. They were playing with a lot of bands, well known bands played the whiskey and they got friendly with like the band Love and they got friendly with Van Morrison, all these other bands that were off a little Springfield. And so they eventually got checked out by somebody from Electro Records who picked them up because they had tried to get signed before. And nothing was going their way. And they even made some little demo for Columbia Records that was nothing. And so they finally got discovered and picked up by Electro Records, who then signed them and got them to go into the studio. So they went into Sunset Sound and that's where they cut the doors first album. So, you know, John likely used, you know, it's that same Gretsch kit, whatever he had been using. Now I find it funny because the sound, even though the doors first album is probably their best selling album and it's got, you know, light my fire on it and all the big hits they had. But the sound of that album I don't think is nearly as good as like say the second album when they finally went to the second album. And I think they were able to move up to like either an eight track or something like that. So the first album was done on a four track and of course none of them had ever really been in a bonafide like a real studio. And so John's drums sound pretty wide open for the most part. Everything sounds mostly unmuffled. And it only sounds like he's again using like a crash ride and a set of hats. You don't really hear anything else other than the same symbol it seems. And it's weird because it has a very distinct sound to it. And it would be interesting to know exactly what it is. I mean, it's likely some kind of a 20 inch Zildren, you know, Zildren, I think I don't feel like he really went above a 20 for his ride symbol. But when I got that, you know, that Gretsch kit I had talked about, it came with a crutch symbol, which everybody knows like, you know, apparently they were trying to use the word turk, you know, like to make it, but they were spelling it backwards as a play on it. But it sounded when the people who created that didn't realize the Americans had a word called crud or something like that. And so really crutch sounds a little bit more like crud. And so Yeah, not like turk. But I had the same mystique. I had this 20 inch crash symbol that was a crutch that came with that Gretsch. And I mean, I wish I still had it because that thing sounded very, very, very much like the ride that John uses on, you know, he used it on like first two albums or something, you know, the bell and all that had a very distinct sound to it. It was a fairly thin symbol and all that. And it sounds to me when you listen to that doors first album, the symbol doesn't sound very heavy. And the bell has a very distinct sound to it. But yeah, so, so that's what they were doing then. And then so, you know, they put the album out and then they started all, then they started doing lots of big touring and all that. The record company, of course, started booking in better gigs in better places. They were doing a bunch of gigs in New York City in June of 1967, when they probably should have been in San Francisco playing, you know, the Monterey Pop Festival. So that's why like the doors aren't there. And it was probably just like all the festivals, you know, didn't really work in their favor because there was something or other that sort of got in the way of things. And so they were, you know, as John puts it in some dreared club playing, you know, some dreary place in New York City, when everybody, you know, that was anybody was playing at Monterey Pop. And likely they would have been filmed and in their prime, it would have been an awesome way to see them. Yeah, that's very true. They really did. And because they did not do Woodstock either, correct? They did not. And basically, you know, jumping into that for a second, they were asked, they were asked to play it. And of course, you know, Ray has says in his book, you know, oh, you know, we got asked to play this place in New York, like what, you know, where's the central part? Where is it? And they were like, oh, some farm out in, you know, Woodstock, New York, he was like, a farm. Like, yeah, I think we're good, you know, feel things. Yeah, oh boy. They really did like go left of all the festivals and just kind of miss them. Yeah. And John Densmore was actually at Woodstock. He actually decided to go later on. And he's actually in the footage because he sat off the side of the stage when Joe Cocker was playing. So you can actually see him for like half a second here and there. But yeah, and of course, he was sitting there going, crap, why didn't we do, why did we play Woodstock? Yeah, this is pretty big. Yeah, we should play Woodstock. All right, as we move forward, like, was he ever a fully endorsed Gretch artist? Or was he just, I don't think so. I think he bought that kit when he was in high school and it was just what he was using. And I don't even think, you know, I'm not even think he had any endorsement, to be honest with you. I mean, endorsements weren't a big thing back then. Sure. I've never seen, I mean, they, you know, when you look at like the Ludwig Drummer magazine, I've seen, you know, several in the list, you know, like Carmen Apice and some of these guys that were, I mean, there were endorsers for sure. I don't want to say that. But yeah, I don't think it was like it is today. I have never seen John Dentz or his picture or anything in a Ludwig, you know, thing. And it just, I don't know, I don't know what the reasoning may have been or may have not have been. One of the, one of the issues the doors had that sort of followed them around in a negative way, which John addresses in his book a lot too, is that, you know, it's kind of funny because he's always kind of said that he wanted to be in some happy go lucky, he's 60s pop band making records and blah, blah, blah. And instead he got put in this band with a psychopath, you know, like, which is, you know, Jim Morrison, of course. But you know, at the time, not knowing that, you know, when you're young, I mean, it's easy to look back at your 70s or whatever it is and, and see where somebody was coming from. But when you're in your 20s and you got this budding career growing and all that, and your singer is acting like a complete wild man, you know, and he's unpredictable from day to day. It's, it's a little nerve wracking. And John said he would, you know, he developed like a permanent rash the entire time he was in the doors because he just couldn't stop itching because he just never knew what was going to happen on a daily basis. And whatever reason with Jim Morrison, Jim Morrison was the kind of guy that could sort of look into your soul and sort of get you pegged and, and for whatever reason, he had John's number in the sense that he could look into his eyes and, and, and knew that, you know, he had the upper hand or control or, and it was just that kind of guy where he was, you know, very much, I mean, he would get lesions of people to follow him in this and that. But I think Jim Morrison also, like Jimi Hendrix, you know, Jimi Hendrix burned his Stratocaster at Monterey Pop and it followed him around to the port where he got like, you know, you know, I don't want to be known for the guy that just burned a guitar. Like I'm, I'm a guitar player. I've got talent, like, you know, it's more than a gimmick. And I think Jim Morrison more or less fainting himself a poet. And, and he just got tired of being the freak show that everybody came to see. So he would, you know, relieve his tensions with alcohol and mostly alcohol. I mean, he took some drugs and stuff, of course, but alcohol was his big downfall. And so the guys in the band just didn't know from day to day what kind of a show they were going to get because it really depended. And so yeah, which is, you know, you kind of look at it and you go, well, you know, on the outside we can go, well, you know, John and the guys in the band that like you were in one of the biggest bands in history. You this is there's nothing better than that. But in that moment of being a really dedicated trained drummer who wants to be taken serious and then to have one of the most kind of like wild man front, literally the prototype of a wild man lead singer that like we all look at and go like there's like, you know, people have copied his style in the future. It's it is a bit, you know, like it's it's not fun in that moment to be like, is Jim going to show up? And we've all seen the movie and stuff like that, which I know is less than accurate. The movie is less than accurate. But in John's book, they would say there was Jim Morrison. And then the Hillbilly Redneck, because Jim Morrison was from Florida, they would say the Hillbilly Redneck was Jim Bo. So if Jim Bo was here, then Jim Bo was the other drunk, crazy redneck. But Jim Morrison, the Jim Morrison could be, you know, a well thought out, very well spoken, you know, authentic guy and poet and everybody loved that guy. It was Jim Bo they didn't like. And so yeah. So there was that's funny, you know, and it's too bad because it just, you know, it makes it very difficult. And I also feel like John, like one of the things they did early on in their career, and I know, you know, getting off the topic of gear a little bit, but it's pertinent. But they, they all made the conscious decision when they formed that not any one person is contributing more than the other. Now granted, Robbie Krieger actually wrote Light My Fire. But Jim Morrison contributed like the second verse, Ray Manzera contributed the organ intro, and then John put his jazzy Latin stuff to it and all that stuff. So they decided to not argue early on and they said, you know what, everybody's adding something to this pot. So we're going to just split everything straight down the middle. So they all had 25% of, you know, all the stuff. And they also, they also decided, you know, they just, they just don't want to fight over that stuff. So when it came up for Alton, like their first Alton started to hit the charts and all that, they decided to do an Alton renegotiation. And their lawyer was like, you know, I don't really care what kind of deal you guys are saying, you just need to make sure that you tell them you want to own your own songs and stuff like that or something similar to that. And so they also put a veto power on there so that if any one member didn't want to do something, they wouldn't be able to do it. And so it is basically all these years later, it has made them very wealthy because the doors really never went away. And they've always remained popular. So they've been very fortunate in the fact that they are all, you know, that, that agreement they had years ago. And it kept them from fighting because how many bands do you see that say, well, you know, I wrote this and I wrote that and this person doesn't do anything. And it's, you know, you're out. And it sucks. So they all realized that without, you know, one member, it would change the whole thing. And they also refer to it as a diamond. And so if you look at the way they set up on stage at Jim Orson in the front, and then if you look to like say stage, if you're sitting in the audience, stage left would be Ram Brayman's Eric and then Robbie on the other side and John behind him. So they formed what they called a diamond, meaning like it had this power of energy going through it when they played. And if you broke the diamond in any way, it just went the same. So. Yeah. No, it's Beatles-ish. It's Led Zeppelin. It's, it's a, it's a, I feel like it's more in that era of like every member is just as important with those guys. Absolutely. Yeah. Very cool. And so. All right. Well, let's, let's hop back into some gear stuff here. So where do we go from, we got Gretch, then where do we go from there? They're now, they're now famous musicians. So they're, they're really starting to, you know, take off and all that. And John was using that Gretch kit. And you'll even see in a couple of times because like people will ask, well, I've seen pictures of them on a Rogers kit, or I've seen pictures of them on, it looks like a, either a Gold Spocker or a Champagne Ludwig kit, or maybe even a Whitemore Imperial Ludwig kit in larger sizes. But I think there were several instances where they did either TV shows, or I know that they did a concert somewhere where they had to borrow somebody else's equipment. And you'll see John playing like a black Rogers kit with bread and butter lugs, but it was not his kit. He probably used his symbols and his snare. They played this place called like Fantasy Fair in 1967, but he's on like some Spocker, you know, it's black and white. So it's, it looks like it might be either Gold or Champagne, but I'm doubting those were his drums either. And so, but because you never see him, you only see him like one time or something. And there's even a picture of him playing like one of those Rogers where it has, you know, it looks like a Scotch tape kind of a, you know, thing. And, but it's like a one-off session of photos. And it's, you know, more than likely it's nothing he ever owned. And so he had that Gretch pretty much all the way up. And then the thing, it's kind of weird if you look at like successions of photos, it almost looks like the floor tom may have gotten lost or something happened to it. Because in the last couple of pictures where John's playing the Gretch kit with a black diamond pearl floor tom and the floor tom's gone. And so what happened was around September of 1967, as their popularity was really getting to all-time highs, they put out break on through as a single and it did okay. But it wasn't until somebody suggested that maybe you guys should cut down like my fire and make it a single, like take the solos out, which they weren't real crazy about doing because of course they love the solos. But at the time in 1967, playing a song that long, which is not going to work as a single. So they made a single version of it and they edited it down and that song became a number one, number one hit for 67. So which brought him to the Ed Sullivan show. So this is where the Mon Orange starts coming into place. So he got this Mon Orange kit, but actually the first time I've seen it in a picture, he's playing it at the Village Theater, which later became like the Fillmore East. And so if you notice in those pictures, he has the front logo Ludwig hat on it. I mean, the kit looks probably brand new in that photo. I would think that like, when those colors came out, and I'll delve into this a little later on about the history of the colors, but like they really didn't, you know, they missed a catalog and they show up until later on and as far as the literature goes. And so it would be my opinion that if Ludwig was releasing a new color, especially something that was supposed to be trendy, like psychedelic red and Mon Orange, the first places they're going to send that is like, you know, you know, Pro Drum LA and they're going to send it to like Manny's Music, they're not going to send it to some music store in the middle of, you know, Pig's Knuckle Arkansas or whatever. I mean, they're going to send it somewhere that they want it to be. Yeah, famous drummers go. Yeah. So yeah, so they're going to send, you know, so I have a feeling he either walked in the shop and saw it or whatever, either, you know, but he ended up with this kit and it showed up and it's what I believe to be the first appearance of it at the Village Theater. And so he used it. But if you see, they played like Ed Sullivan, literally, like a week later, like it was like September 9th and like September 17th or something like that. And when you look at the Ed Sullivan performance, the front head is gone. And you'll never see the front head on that kit again, unless it was like some, like Doors logo head that they made up for, but he rarely ever used a front head. And so he would take the hoop, the front hoop, not all the time, but nine, you know, a lot of times you would take the front hoop and just put it back on, resting on, on the front of the base room so you can see the inlaid model and troop on there. It makes it look a little more finished. Yeah, it does. Even though it doesn't have a head on it. It just kind of gives it a little cap. Yeah, exactly. A cap is a perfect word. But I don't think he had it on Ed Sullivan. He may have just taken the whole thing off and there you go. And so, you know, Ed Sullivan was a little bit cheesy for them because it like they were unhappy because they put all these doors in the behind them, like like with door knobs on them and stuff. And of course, they fancied the name after a book called The Doors of Perception, which was cleansing your mind had nothing to do with actual doors. So they were a little bit like, you know, this is kind of cheesy. But I'm sure. But sure. Didn't they get in trouble for saying, like, girl, we couldn't get much higher? Yeah, the big problem with movies like, you know, the Oliver Stone movie is like when Jim Morrison said higher in the movie, he like accentuated higher and looked into the camera. And he never did that. He sang the song the way they sang it a thousand times and he never even moved. And you can actually see at one point they clip and you see Robbie who's kind of making a smirk like he do that like, okay, he said the word higher on TV. But it was like, you know, it was just dumb the way the movie, the movie's over the top and way over the top. And they made John Dinsmore sound like a moron in that movie, in my opinion, you know, when he says things like, oh, hey, far out. And you know, it's like, he didn't really, you know, he's a smart guy. Yeah, he's done an idiot. So I mean, yeah. Well, all right. So mod orange, very, very cool, rare finish today that you don't see very often. Just let's talk about mod orange in the in like, was this like a limited edition color at the time? Or was there a lot of them made? Or was this So I think, you know, like anything Ludwig would just every couple of years, you know, the success of Ringo really like just put them into the stratosphere like Ringo went absolutely brought them, you know, everywhere. So so with that, I think they tried to, you know, along with other companies like some companies, I think like Slingerland, they had so many finishes at some point that it just got, it got kind of ridiculous because like there's too many finishes to pick from. But Ludwig would do kind of as they currently do, but they were trying to like add a different color. Like, you know, like at some point, they added burgundy sparkle and then they transitioned away from galaxy sparkle, which was an early 60 thing. And so I think they were trying to mostly keep a pulse on the, you know, the 60s, you know, and they're trying to stay current. And so the supplier, I mean, I think they got their wraps, you know, I'm not a rap expert, but they got them from someplace in Italy and stuff. And I'm sure they got samples of things of what was possible. And I'm sure they, you know, they went with those two colors. And William F. Ludwig Jr. was known for naming the colors. And I'm wondering if he named these two. It's never been mentioned. But the problem with those two colors is, is the catalog 67 was printed in 66. And so they don't have the colors in there. And so when the colors came out, they actually never made another catalog until 1971, which was printed in 70. So there's a three-gear gap where so, so the, the only time you actually see those colors show up anywhere is in an ad for Ludwig Drummer. And it's in like the January 68. So a lot of people think, Oh, well, that's when the color came out. But it's not because obviously John Densmore was playing a set September of 1967, which is, you know, and so if you, if you logically think, okay, when was the set built? When did it get shipped to wherever it was going? And then when did he acquire it? So it puts you back at least into probably at the early, you know, latest maybe August. And so from the things that I have seen, and sadly, I don't have a picture because like it was explained in the Neil Pearce thing, I don't like saying things without showing the proof. But I saw a psychedelic red set once that was actually date stamped July of 67. And then I think I saw years ago, a modern jazz festival that would had a June date stamp in it. But these were pre, you know, cell phones and pre cameras, you know, like now if I see something like that, I'll whip up my phone and quickly take a picture. But I don't have anything as proof. So I can, yeah, my memory is proof that I saw it. And I mean, I clearly read the dates and stuff. But but it's fair to say that like the planning was going on. And like maybe they were planning this and checking things out and like late 66. And then let's try it and get samples and production. Yeah. And then it rolls out in late spring 67. And then summer 67, it's in the shops or something. I mean, it takes a while to yeah, things take a while. And and and again, it's not like, like if Ludwig, like they just put a color called lemon oyster purr or something. Super cool. I like it. Yeah. Well, everybody knows about it because it showed up on Instagram, it showed up on Facebook and you know, and they they'll make, you know, it's really easy. But back in 1967, they didn't have any of that. So unless you saw one in a music store, or you saw it on like, you know, like the key ring sample that they have of the swatch color swatches, or, you know, yeah, happen to see John Densmore on, you know, the Ed Sullivan show on a color TV, you know what I mean? Because most people probably have black and white TVs. It was it was hard to know like that that stuff was even available. And the same, which I'll, you know, I'll cap off later, but the same, you know, the same instance with Citrus Mod and Black Panther, because they never made catalogs until that 1971 catalog. Those kinds of things were only known if you happen to see them. And sure. I think it's also good to tell people that like it is a pearl finish. So this would be in their pearl finish category. Looking at the ad here, it's Ludwig creates a new swing and scene. See your local dealer today. Psychedelic red and mod orange were like paired together as these new kind of with the now look. Was John Densmore with his first mod orange kit that he got? Was he playing, was it the deluxe classic outfit or the big beat? So he played a downbeat, which is not in the ad. The ad you're showing shows the deluxe classic and it shows the Hollywood. And the only difference between a deluxe classic and a super classic is the deluxe classic has the symbol arm on the base room removed. So you'll see that there's no no symbol arm on that base room. And I'm likely guessing they may have, it makes really kind of no sense why they came up with a deluxe classic. But maybe they thought because if you ever look at pictures of Ringo, he never used the ride symbol arm for his kid. He always played like two symbols on stands here. He had like a ride crash and he always had the 20 off to the other side. So maybe they thought, well, if we make a bunch of sets without that mount, we can save a little bit of money on wasting them out that somebody might not use. It's true. It adds up when you're making tons of kids and I don't know that may have been the reasoning for it, but the super classic and the deluxe classic are virtually the same except for the mount, the mount. And so John, which is why this makes him unique was playing a downbeat set, which is a 2012 and a 14. Now the early downbeat kits in the early part of the 60s came with a four by 14 downbeat snare, which is what Ringo's kid should have come with. But he got the, you know, the whole other story about the five and a half by 14. But later on is the beetle craze really got into full swing. Ludwig quickly realized that, you know, hey, if we make a chrome super fawn and can put it with every kit, you know, it's a lot easier. It's a lot less work for the wood shop. It's a lot less work for everybody involved. And then all they have to do is say a kit's finished and just need to grab a super fawn. So they go over to this massive pile of finished super fawns and grab one off the, you know, and throw it with the kit and you matched everything. So, so that's likely, you know, that's how you blow these kits ended up with super fawns. And I don't think people at the time were really that discerning. And they may have been even discerning in the sense that a super fawn was probably louder than a wood snare. So when they were playing with less than, you know, adequate amplification, the super fawn likely cut through the amps and stuff better than a wood snare would have anyway. Although Ringo snare seems to have sounded great when you hear the live out, but whatever. Yeah, absolutely. But so, yeah. And then it looks like if I'm going back to the photo you have where he's got this literally like you said pristine front base drumhead with the Ludwig logo, the decal, not painted like Ringo's and stuff. He's got the real decal symbol wise. It looks like we've added a crash on his right side. And then his ride looks like it has rivets in it. Yeah. So he he would he definitely was using a rivet ride, you know, various point and times. Because and likely that, you know, again, went back to his jazz influence. Definitely that came certainly from there. And a lot of times it's I'm not one of those guys like that they can they can guess symbol sizes exactly from looking at them. They definitely play tricks of my eyes. But it looks like he used a 16 and an 18. But the 18 was like a lot of times was on his left side. And the 16 would go on his right side. But then sometimes it looks like he's played two 18s. And it's always hard to tell. But I always feel like he had a 20 inch ride. And so the model works, you know, of course, it came with all of its stock factory original heads front and back. And it was like, yes, and it looked like he was playing, you know, the weathermaster of course. And I don't, you know, I mean, I think they had different heads for maybe marching stock, but I think drum sets all got relatively the same hands. I'm not, you know, it's not like today where they have, you know, a two ply this and this and, you know, a pinstripe and a, you know, they were just coated heads. And so he had those. And then it's hardware was pretty much, you know, like the 1400 symbol stands and that kind of stuff. And I've noticed looking at different photos that he had looks like he went between the one, one, two, three dash one high cat stand and the one, one, two, four, which is just a little different than the three, you know, like when I look at like Hollywood bull photos, I think you can, he's up pretty high and you can see the bottom of the high handstand is a one, one, two, four. Yes. And it looks like he's using the 1026 dash one throne, which we have now entered a new level of drum nerd where we are using a few numbers. A couple of pictures where it looks like he may be using the 1025, which is like the tripod one. Curved a little. Yeah, possibly. I've seen him on pictures where it looks like he was almost using like the tripod throne, which is just a horrific thing to use. But he did eventually use the 1026 dash one. And it's, you know, you can see in those photos that he sat like really high. And the other thing, too, is he was, you know, he pulsally played in the doors. He always pretty much played a match grip, but he would switch around to traditional for certain things. And so his snare was always sort of tilted like a traditional grip player would, even though he played match most of the time with it, because he was always doing like, like they had a song called unknown soldier where he would do like a press roll and that. And so he would flip over to his traditional grip to do this perfectly clean, you know, Art Blake, he started our buzz roll to compliment that. And I'm looking at a couple of pictures here, too, while we're on that kind of, I believe it's the Hollywood Bowl where it's the bottom angle. It looks like he's got a speed King, which probably came with the kit. And then it looks like the bottom of the floor Tom has no head. And it appears in another kind of outdoor photo that the Tom has no bottom head because previously with the Gratch, at least the Tom had a bottom head, but he's gone full, you know, bottom head less. So, so here's the part that again, you know, I don't want to jump around too much, but I'll get to it sort of when I'm really getting into the kit. Sure. But the floor Tom, it almost looks because the head that's on there is the same head that's still on the drum today. It's just I can't even, I can't even wrap my head around it. I mean, it just it's it's it's weird. But the but you'll see what the Tom Tom, if you zoom in on some of those pictures, you can see the wall bat muffler in the front. So he likely broke ahead and then flip the Tom over. So when you're looking at Hollywood Bowl, the Tom's upside down. And then some of the early 68 pictures and stuff, the Tom's upside down. But then later on, it gets flipped back over to its normal side. Very interesting. And then there's actually, you know, you're kind of a drummer, geeky stuff. I mean, this goes like into the the far level. But there's actually footage of them playing in the studio recording part of this operadum. And you'll see like, there's a shot and I don't understand it, because the Tom has no head on it, like it almost like you broke it. And it just hadn't changed it yet. And so there's video footage and you can if you pause it, you can see that there's no head on the on the 12th. So yeah, I don't know what's up with that. It's just one of those little weird things you catch. Yes, interesting. All right, well, I'm getting this off the timeline. So you carry on. So in the timeline, I think, you know, they did the unsolved and all that stuff. And they were doing more shows that in the funny, the cool thing about the modern oranges, unlike Ringo, there was only one modern kit. So if you ever see a picture of the doors from the 60s, and there's an orange, you know, colored drum set behind him, that's the kit. There was no other. There was no, you know, no backup kit, nothing. It was just the modern kit was it. And he would, he would usually have a backup like Superphonic. If you look at like Hollywood Bull footage, sometimes you can see on that stage, there's a Superphonic sitting on the floor in case maybe he broke a hat or somehow or something and just put the other one on. But, but he always had this. And it's funny story because I saw on a forum somewhere on John Densmore, somebody, I had heard that John Densmore had one of his Superphonic stolen. And so there was somebody that came on a forum that one time they talked about, you know, he wanted to formally apologize on this forum that when he was like a teenager, he saw the door somewhere and he and his friend got very risque and they ran up to the back of the stage and told a snare drum off the off the thing. It was the weirdest thing to see. But normally I would have thought, you know, yeah, that's whatever. But John had mentioned somewhere that one of his original Superphonics had been stolen. So I was like, that's bizarre, you know. But the fact that the guy came forward, I mean, I do get it where if it's like he smashed in his car and stole it, that's like terrible. But like to be a dumb teenager and just kind of like these guys are rich and famous, that's a little different. Yeah. And you're going to remember concerts and things are nothing like today where, you know, you'd probably have zero chance of even getting close to the back of a stage. Whereas in, you know, those days, you could see people standing around on the stage, like this one photo I'm showing you and it's from May of 68 when they're playing the Southern California Rock Festival. And I look at that photo and they're great. But like, who are all these people? There's have to be half a dozen people standing on the stage like, why are you there? Yeah. Who are you? Are you three feet behind me? Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. It really is. So I don't get that kind of stuff. But it was just different times back that people, and of course you look at the doors now and you think, you know, there's this legendary band. Well, they were still building that legend then. So it wasn't like today where you could look back and say, oh my God, you know, how did these people get on stage with the doors? Well, they weren't that popular you get. So, you know, it was a little more relaxed, everything, you know, nobody had to worry about people rushing the stage and killing somebody. Yeah. Very strange way to do a concert with people hanging around on the stage. Sure. So. Okay. So one mod orange kit. One mod orange kit. That helps put things in perspective. And so, you know, they would, they went along. It's all like what you see, like the footage. There's a couple of real quick footage shots of Jim Morrison getting arrested at New Haven and John's playing the mod orange kit. And you can see that he still has the bottom head on the 12th. Like for a while, he was using like early in 67, late 67, he was using still the bottom head at least on the 12th. But it wasn't till, well, you know, by the time he got into 68, he started taking all the top heads off the bottoms. And so, when they did recording, the recording sessions, the first album was likely done in the Gretch. And the second album, which was recorded around August of 67, he hadn't yet got the mod orange. So it's likely that the second album as well was featured the Gretch on it. And it kind of sounds like it did. So you have songs like, you know, Loving Two Times and When the Music's Over and That's All the Gretch. And that same ride symbol, you can hear it. But when they got into 68 and they recorded Waiting for the Sun, there's photos that I saw for the recording sessions. And I always kind of assumed that they were using the Gretch again, because you can see the 12-inch tom. But there aren't a lot of really great shots that show the whole kit. But I happened to see this photo. And if you look at it zoom in, though, you can see the 12-inch Gretch. But when you zoom in, you can actually see, oh, wait, that's the mod orange bass drum. And it looks like the floor tom. So I don't know why he was using the Gretch 12 with that. But yeah, but he is. So you experiment in the studio and, you know, exactly. Yeah, there's, you know, it's been discussed as pictures of Charlie Watts playing, you know, part of his a Gretch kit. And then with the part of the, you know, the slop sign, I mean, the sky blue pearl Ludwig Tom and that kind of thing. So it's a missing mix match. Sure. So he was, you know, it surprised me because I kind of assumed the whole album was done on the Gretch and it's not. So that's one of the things I learned since I wrote my article. And so that's kind of cool to see that. Very cool. But he was using, you know, the mod orange, mostly exclusively for touring at this point. And so it went pretty much everywhere the band went. And there was a website that I looked up. It was a mildequator.com or something. And it has all these like dors dates on there. Like, it's pretty well detailed. I don't know who did it, but they did a really good job of laying out where all the dates were. And it's, I get a kick out of seeing the way the dates are laid out. Like it's the same thing. Like if you look on Led Zeppelin's website, like he makes you wonder like, who the heck put these two right tenories together? I think somebody just took a blindfold, put on a dart and just throw it at, you know, throw it at the thing because you'll see like, you know, like the doors Led Zeppelin, they'll go from like somewhere in Arizona, then they'll go back to California, but then they go to New York, but then they go down to Florida, but then they go like to Chicago. It's like, okay, who's planning this thing? I don't know, one of those guys were exhausted. Like go in a line, stop here, here and here. Don't go, yeah, exactly. Like we're in Texas and then we're in Maine and we're in California. Led Zeppelin, if you look at the first five years of their career, it's like, oh my god, those guys must have been zombies by the time they finished out that 73 tour. Like they just cost it. And the same with the doors. They, I mean, they were really busy in the first, you know, 67, 68. The reason it slowed down really is because as time moved on, Jim Morris had got more unpredictable and more erratic in his, in his things, but they, so they, so they played the Hollywood Bowl on July 5th of 1968. And that's what happened was, is they were using a Ray Mansaric and Jim Morrison went to film school, UCLA, UCLA film school. So they had some film school buddies of theirs that, and they decided like Jim decided, oh, you know, let's put a movie together. Let's, let's make a movie about the band will film it on the road and this and that. So they started filming in the earlier part of, you know, maybe February or March of 68. And they had film guys going around with them that were just friends of theirs. And they were going to put all this footage together. And then they were going to cap it off with like a concert and all that, which ended up being the Hollywood Bowl. And believe it or not, one of the film guys that ran a camera, like at the Southern California Rock Festival was Harrison Ford, the actor, because he was, he was actually working as a carpenter and he lived in the area where these guys were. And so they hired him to be an extra camera guy. So in some of the footage that's out there, you can see them talking, you know, like it's kind of like, you know, before you do one of these, and we're talking about setting the camera up and all that, you hear one of the guys goes, Hey, Harry, you got to get on, you know, you're in the shot, Harry. So, you know, you can see Harrison Ford for like a second. Wow. You know, he has to get out of the camera way. And it's just kind of funny. So, so there's, so there's that and they filmed all this footage and they put together this movie, which was always sort of a cult thing. They called it Feast of Friends. But what in reality, what happened was it was basically Jim's film school buddies that got dropped together and they all just sort of, so they put this film together. And I think the guys in the band were like, what is this? Like, I thought you guys were making a movie, you know, and yeah, this isn't good. Well, it wasn't anything good. And so they had all this film footage. So years later, they re-released the film Feast of Friends and they narrated it, some of it, and they, you know, upgraded all the footage to like HD. So it's a really cool way to see like a little window into what was going on at the time with them. So, so that's kind of cool. But the, you know, so they ended up filming the Hollywood Bowl. Now, the only complaint from the band themselves with the Hollywood Bowl, it's got some great footage, the audio is really good. They even like, that's, you know, again, that's the first video that I saw back in when I was the 80s or was talking about. So the Hollywood Bowl show, they have since sort of upgraded it, added more camera angles, you know, upgraded the sound. They repaired, I guess the song Hello, I Love You got repaired because something was going on with Jim Orson's microphone. So they were able in today's technology to weave in the original vocals from the album and make it look like it was, you know, they had all the music. They just didn't have the vocals. And so they were able to do that, which is really cool. So they added that video into there. So that that that was out. And but the problem the band says is that right before they went on, Jim dropped acid. So he was fine. He sang good, but he just wasn't as typical like, you know, he was just kind of out of it. And at one point you'll see him like, he goes looking off the side of the stage and he's like, oh, to a grasshopper and he's going on and one of his whole, you know, monologue things. And then it flies away. And he's like, oh, I blew it. It's a moth. You know what I mean? Like, you know, so like, they're just like, this is silly. But yeah, but it's like, hey, Jim, big night, we're going to be filming everything should be okay. He's like, all right, I'm going to take some acid. Yeah. So unfortunately, when you look back, you know, in modern day, you're like looking at all these wonderful concerts that people like Jimi Hendrix has been able to put out a bunch of wood stock and all these, this is pretty much it for the doors. They don't really have much. So this is their big one. And it's good. And I mean, of course, John's playing is fantastic in it. Drums sound great. And there's some great shots of them on orange kit. He's up high in the riser. But the other thing that was kind of weird is that if you look, they got this big huge wall of amps. And the complaint really was that the amps, like they couldn't turn them up because they there's like, you know, the Hollywood Bowl is there's a bunch of neighboring houses in the area. So the decibel level could only be so loud. And so Robbie complains and says this guitar doesn't sound the way it should because he had the volume so low, which seems kind of weird to be like, in today's day, in today's day and age, you wouldn't make the volume of the bunch of amps, you do a small amp and crank it and then put a microphone on it and control the sound but PA stuff weren't like that in those days. So they thought it would look cool and be really neat if they made a wall of amps and and so that's, it's quiet. Exactly. So it's really kind of funny. But yeah, that's interesting. Correct me if I'm getting ahead of myself here, but it looks like there's like a patch on his bass drum head. It must have been so part of a muffling technique that he was doing. Sure. It's weird. I mean, there's there isn't any one thing I've seen. If you look at photos of him from like, when it later became the Fillmore East, you'll see that he's got like almost a piece of foam, like he just says a bunch of foam just stuffed into the bass drum. You know, I mean, it's just it's weird. Like, it just do pretty much anything. So after they finished, you know, the Hollywood Bowl and all that, they moved on and like that feast of French footage goes all the way up to about when they played Seattle. So there's footage of them going to the needle and all that stuff. But in the pictures, you know, photos later on, you can see the Johns playing the modern orange kit. Well, shortly thereafter that and there's not much known about this kit or much information details given, but they started recording the soft parade album and I have a feeling that they were and it took a long time. It wasn't something they just whipped out because that's the album that's got all the strings on it and the horns and all kinds of touch being in all those tunes with the elaborate recording. So it would seem to me that he would likely kept this kit set up in the studio for the most part, but he acquired another downbeat set. But this one was in white marine pearl. So he had, you know, exact same sizes, same pretty much everything, the Superphonic, but it's just it's a white marine pearl. And it's likely a kit from, you know, 67 error, you can tell just because of the the rail, the way the rail was put and it still has ball bat mufflers, white interiors on the toms. So it's a pretty, pretty easy guess that the kids of 67 because all the kids prior to prior to 67, I don't know the exact data when they came out, but the rail on a drum set on those drums used to have a sort of a telephone dial, they call it. And by possibly 66, maybe late 66, they used like a ratchet tooth kind of a mount. And so it was a lot more positioning, it was a lot more stable. And those those, you know, those arms for the rails work way better because the telephone dial had like a little knob notched out and it had this telephone dial with all the holes in it. And you would just, you know, you'd move the thing along like a clock, you know, in position to position that. And it just, you know, the little knob on one part would sort of wear down after a while. So they would slip, the rail wouldn't hold, especially if you use like a 13 or something. But all of John's kits had the teeth style, later style rail mount on them, which, you know, puts them in at least, you know, probably 67. And white marine pearl, he's going back to his original color. Original color, his jazz roots, which he liked and all that. So he got this kit. And the first time I, one I can tell the first time I see it show up is at the Singer Bowl. And the Singer Bowl was a pretty popular or famous concert because they played with the Who. So they were playing and there was some other band that opened the show, but they actually played with the Who in which of course Keith Moon was playing his pictures a Lily kit and likely destroyed the thing, you know, probably after, but that kid got, you know, that poor kid was the coolest kid, but it got destroyed. But and so John was playing this kit and Jim actually sort of incited a riot. Like he just kind of, you know, turned the concert, you know, got sort of a little bit rambunctious at the end. And so there's actual video footage of him, which may be actually the last Feast of Friends footage where he's shown backstage, you know, sort of tending to a girl who got whacked in the head with a chair and she's bleeding and stuff. And and so, you know, he's trying to like, you know, help her, like, you know, stop the bleeding. And but boy, but there's, you know, when you look at some of these, the footage from that time and John's playing this white maroon pearl kit, there's a lot of this, there's people all over the stage. There's cops all over the stage that just, it's unbelievable. Like how did these guys play a show? There's just people, fans running around trying to grab Jim, a cop runs out from nowhere, grabs a person, throws them down. You know, they hired a big, they hired a bunch of big, you know, goons, like from some agency to sort of keep them protected. Somebody like, I think clipped a piece of Jim Morrison's hair when he was walking through the crowd, you know, like, because they had a line going back in those days, you know, there was no like, out from the backstage, they just got a line right through the crowd and he walked right through and signed a couple of signed a couple of tour books and somebody clipped a piece of his hair off I think and all and like, man, this is nuts. It doesn't happen at the Taylor Swift concert. You're not having, you're not getting anywhere near. Yeah, you get no Tay Tay, no Tay Tay. But no, and it looks like in one of the white marine pearl pictures where he's got kind of the red vest on that's like kind of shiny. I see that he's doing the same thing, which I do think really it makes a big difference with the front bass drum hoop to kind of finish it and make it look good. And I see a superphonic on the side of the stage there. So he's got his, you know, and again, it's kind of cool. It's just like puts it in, you know, there's not like some drum tech back there who's like ready to go and has it. It's literally sitting behind him on the stage, which was just a different time. But on that note, did he like famously have a drum tech work with them throughout his career? That's a funny thing too, is that you're talking about 1960s, like you talk about like Beatles and they had band 11s. Well, they had they had this guy that was working for them and he think he took care of all the equipment. And so Vince trainer was his name. And so he likely, you know, had to set everything up. And maybe, you know, who knows, he might have been able to grab some guys here or there locally just to help them lift college kids. But he was pretty much the equipment guy. And so it was just, it's kind of crazy to think that that he handled. You know, they didn't have in those days, you know, oh, this is my guitar tech and my drum tech. Or maybe some guys did, I don't know, but like, but this is, you know, for a band that's big and they got one guy handling all the equipment. So that's kind of funny. And then the other thing is you can, you can, when you look at pictures too, if you'll notice in any of those pictures, you won't see one floor monitor around John. Like there isn't one floor monitor, like, you know, like I'm actually doing this year when I got my engineers in, you know, because it, you know, looks better than works and I can feel great. They didn't have any of that stuff. So all the amps were in front of John, you know, so you couldn't tell what was going probably here much and you couldn't tell what was going on. You never wore ear protection. And a lot of times too, like if you look at some of the May 68 pictures, there's no carpet. So I don't know how the drum kit didn't go like this and, you know, go away from them. Yeah, we all know that feeling. And of course you, like every time I always use the front hand on my bass drum, and I have one of those little clamps that go on there and it puts a little feet down and holds, I mean, you couldn't do that with no front hand on the bass drum. So there was nothing holding the bass drum in place for going anywhere. I don't know how the heck they did it. And then if you look at some of that concert footage, like we was using the white marine pearl kit, there's plenty of videos on YouTube that show stuff. And it just looks chaotic. There's people running everywhere. There's, you know, like, I'm sure, like, how do you focus on trying to play the songs when you, you know, you're just worried about somebody just doing a stage dive into your kit because they're coming out of left field, you know, being chased by a cop. And yeah. Yeah, just run right into you. Nuts. Like it's just absolutely nuts what they put up with. And so it got, and that's one of the reasons that Jim Morrison got fairly burnt out. And I think he was just tired of being a circus act for a lot of these people. I agree completely. You know, it's interesting too, looking at a couple pictures, if you look really closely and it's the one of them is the one with the pristine, it says colorized doors 67 on it. I'm not sure which this is. There's two looks like screws at the front that are holding the bass drum from from sliding off there in the bottom, which maybe that was like, you know, venues would just be like, yeah, you put your drums here. Here's our screws, which is like, this is a big show. But even like there's a classic picture of Elvin Jones hairling nails in front of his bass drum. What you didn't know what you didn't have classic, you know, yeah. And there's pictures of the ring on the Ed Sullivan show and they had a screw that went into the stage that, you know, put the bass drum in place or whatever. So there's that. And so, so basically moving forward. So they went, he got this white Marine Pearl kit and they did some shows. But then that's right before they went to Europe. So they actually went and did a bunch of concerts in Europe over there. And so John took that white Marine Pearl set with them to Europe and played it throughout the entire 68 Europe tour. And there's actually some like TV footage of them lip syncing miming to the song, hello, I love you. And he's playing that kit in the middle of the street. And then they went on tour with Jefferson Airplane. And there was one particular show where apparently they were walking in the streets during the day just out and about. Because again, it's not the same like Tay Tay couldn't go out in the streets and walk around and, you know, so they're walking around in the streets and literally people are just handing the bands everything you can think of drug wise. And of course, Grace Lyck would say, you know, we take some here, there, put some in a pocket, save it for later. And they were like, no, Jim Morrison would just take everything handed to him, toss it in, throw it down, gulp. And he just, just, you know, they were astounded at the amount of drugs that he took in such a short amount of time. And so by the time showtime came around, Jefferson Airplane was opening and Jim was off the side of the stage doing those little Indian dances and all this crazy stuff and went down like a sack of potatoes because he'd had so much in him. And so they basically had to cut him off to the hospital and pump his stomach and all that. And rather than cancel the show, the doors ended up playing the show with Ray Manzarek doing all the lead vocals because he would do some background vocals here and there. And so Ray sang the entire show because he'd done it a thousand times. So John liked it because they put a newspaper picture in, you know, describing the show. And without Jim there, that showed, you know, John Densworth, clear shot of him. And so he was beaming with pride because he made the pictures of the dude, you know, because it was always pictures of Jim, you know, without Jim there, he was clearly the focal point. And so he was doing his, you know, best showman drumming. And he had a great time playing that show because he was like, you know, it just was able to sort of cut loose a little bit more and all that stuff. But he wouldn't have that. I mean, maybe he would, of course, I say with huge respect, but you wouldn't have that fame. Mitchell wouldn't be where he was without Jimi Hendrix, but Jimi Hendrix was kind of on that a little bit different than the Lizard King and his antics. And it's, you know, the older John Densworth would 100% agree with that. But when you're talking about somebody that's, you know, probably 23 at the time, you know, they're just like, oh my god, this guy is driving me crazy. He's a frustrating, you know, and like, you know, they got a night off and they were able to just so, you know what, you know, we're going to have at it and, and they have fun. Yeah. So, yeah, crazy. Okay. So where do we go from there? So they, they did, they, they did all those, those shows and then they came back and I think he used that kit a little bit more, a little bit more on some of the American dates. And then it just sort of disappeared. Like I'd really, really never saw anything of it again. And the only thing that's really bizarre about that kit is that there's later footage when you see them get inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. John, when he put out his book, the one I've been referencing, Riders on the Storm, he played on like Rick D's television show or something promoting the book. And he was playing this kit that was like, that he acquired somewhere down the line. It was mostly like a Pearl kit with concert toms. But the floor Tom was this white Marine Pearl 60s 14 inch floor Tom, which again, you know, I can't say for sure. So I'm guessing, but I would, I would almost bet that that's the floor Tom from that kit. But in all the years of looking at pictures of John and all that, I've never seen the base drum, the Tom Tom, just that floor Tom, like he used it when the doors got inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There's a picture I sent and you got Eddie Vedder there and he's like, you know, he's playing this kit and you can use the white floor Tom. And I mean, that's the floor Tom. So it's, it's kind of one of those bizarre things where it just, he put it away and like, never to be heard from again. So that was pretty much the end of that kit. And so he went back to pretty much exclusively playing this modern orange kit again. You will see after they released the album, the soft parade, they had a couple of hits with like Touch Me and all this stuff. And they played some shows where they played, I think they played Madison Square Garden. It was like the only time they played with like an orchestra. Maybe they did it in LA too, not 100% sure, but it was like a very small number of shows. And they tried to sort of get away from the whole, like, you know, let's have a bunch of fans running around the stage and, and cops everywhere. Like, let's, let's put on like a show with an orchestra and like, like, like, you know, we're trying to be serious here or we're trying to make real art and music and incorporate our influences with jazz. And so you listen to that album, there's all kinds of influence of a pop and jazz and orchestra stuff going on. It's really kind of cool. It is cool. But it took a long time to make the album because, you know, Jim Morrison was always like an unpredictable no show when it came to the studio and stuff like that. So they always had to work around getting him there focused and getting the right stuff going on. But he used, likely used that modern orange kit for the whole recording of the album. And then he used it at Madison Square Garden and one of the pictures I show, he has a door's logo front head. Yeah, I'm looking at that. And so it was rare for him to do that. But he also used that logo head on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour when they played like Touch Me in another song. And, and then the last time you see that head is they did something called PBS Critique, which was in New York City. And he used that head. But what, what the funny thing with that head is, is that people don't realize is there's obviously the footage of them playing that stuff and they've released it on DVD. But one of the pictures I sent you shows Jim Morrison being kind of a pain in the butt. And you can see John Dentsworth is like, you know, holding up his high hat like the whole entire thing, like, get away from me kind of thing. And you see Jim Morrison holding a stick and he goes right through the bass drum head and he ripped it. And so when you're in Las Vegas or when I was there, there's a door's logo head in a case in a frame in Las Vegas. And you'll see on the head that it was clearly it's going to rip all the way through it. And they just taped it up in the back. So that is clearly the head. And so it's really kind of funny to see that. But of course, that's the last time the head was ever used. But prior, pretty wild, prior to that critique show, the big thing that happened, which is documented in the Oliver Stone movie, which apparently they kind of got this part somewhat right. But Jim Morrison had gone and seemed out and you remember that Los Angeles was way ahead of the curve as far as some of trends and just open, you know, there was a lot of the country that just wasn't as open and accepting to things like Los Angeles was. So Jim had just seen the movie Hair, or not the movie, the play, rather Hair, where of course they do all this, you know, performance aren't naked. And so they played this show in Florida where Jim was late getting to the show and he was drunk and all that. And it's all documented in the movie. And he got all, you know, drunk. And by the time he got on stage, he went on a rant and was, you know, calling the audience, you know, you're all a bunch of slaves and all this stuff happened. And again, it's clearly, you know, see it in the movie. But one of the things that's not in the movie, and John says happened, is he says somebody threw a cane can of paint at the stage and it got over his Mon Orange kit. But you don't really see any pictures of the kit covered in paint. And so he must have cleaned it really well or something. I'm not really sure, but apparently somebody threw this can of paint, which had to have been like, well, you know, what the hell, you know, like, it's not me. They're a pain at Jim, not John. Exactly. And then that's the infamous concert where it was claimed that Jim Morrison pulled out his member, so to speak, which they never really actually proved one, you know, there's never one photographic piece of evidence showing that. But so that was a very frustrating show for the band because they had released this album and they were hoping to do a full concert date tour around the US. But all of the promoters backed out of the shows because Jim had been basically arrested for the lewd behavior and all that and the profanity and all the other things. And so he had actually gotten like they got arrested and he had to go through a trial and all that stuff. So basically the Boerscott went from having like a whole calendar year of shows to doing nothing. So that's when they did that PBS Riteek show. And then they did manage to get a couple of shows at the Aquarius Theater in Los Angeles. And so they decided the next time they were going to go on tour or they decided with this Aquarius Theater show, they wanted to make a live album. It was kind of a goal of theirs to have a proper live album. And so they played two shows, like I think a late show, an early show and a late show because they did those kinds of things back in those days where nowadays you see one concert. But bands in those days would do the late show and the early show, which is kind of weird. But I think they did an early and a late show with the Aquarius Theater and they had it all professionally rigged up with their engineer Bruce Botnick to record it and all that. And the intent was to make a live album. And then the very next day they left all the equipment set up and then they were supposed to basically play the concert in its entirety just so to nobody. So basically like if Bruce needed to do some studio magic and yeah, it's a safety and he could weave in some pieces here and there because they always did that with live concerts. But the problem was is that Jim Morrison in particular was never one like if there wasn't an audience, he had really like no interest in doing that stuff. So what they've released it, it's called Backstage and Dangerous, but it's just basically them screwing off and it starts off being kind of serious. But then by the end of it, you know, it's just it's a complete joke because Jim Morrison is like, you know, bored and he's making up lyrics and stuff and they're just, you know, they're screwing off. But out of that came the recording years later, Paul Rothschild was able to sort of cobble together this recording and do all this work to it. And they have a version of the song Gloria. And that's where that came from as the actual version. If you listen to the unedited version, it's a little dirty. But then, you know, they had to cut all that stuff out so that they could make it ever get played on a radio station. Sure. So it's kind of funny. That's interesting. It's again, it's him kind of his own worst enemy type deal. One thing I'll just note while we're talking about gear here is like it's interesting to go back to the photo. There's a picture of John looking very, you know, dapper in a suit and he's got the guys with the horns behind him. It almost looks like the bass drum here does not have, it's like missing some claw hooks and some tension rods, which is likely they did it just for the TV show. So they just put up, oh, because he's probably miming to the track. It's actually kind of funny if you ever watch though, that's the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. So the only thing that was actually reported live were the vocals. So if you listen to Jim's vocals and I don't know how they did this in those days, but the music is actually the actual music from the actual album. But then, of course, Jim Morrison has dubbed in, you know, live real vocals. So I don't know. OK, that makes sense. I just don't know how they do that stuff, because you would think all the instruments would bleed into his mic and I don't know, I don't get it. Yeah, well, whatever. But I guess you do get that live kind of, he can ad-lib a little bit and it's more real. Yeah, it's more real. But he probably was probably just didn't really gig with that front head. So I think it was probably just tossed on there at the last minute. Put a couple of claws on there. Let's go. So moving ahead as they went, they recorded that Aquarius Theater show and you can actually hear in some of the Aquarius Theater performances that they were doing stuff that would later sort of show up in the next album. They had some embryonic pieces of that and which was kind of cool. And then the other thing they did, they did a song called what the heck is it called Universal Mind. And in that, there's some definitely some Elvin Jones kind of stuff going on like altering stuff in the middle of it. So it was kind of, I always, I always liked the fact that while they may not have called themselves like we're not really jazz musicians, they would always quote stuff in there. So like there's one of their earlier songs and they do a little second quote of Straight No Chaser. And I mean, it's just, it's cool to know that they were aware of that stuff and they were influenced by it. And it was something on their radar, even though they weren't what you would call, you know, real jazz guys. But John does some really cool like three, four, he kind of, you know, fast stuff and drums sound great in that album because it's professionally recorded. But overall, the performance didn't come out the way they had kind of hoped it would. So they sort of didn't think it would make a great full front to back live album. So they decided to continue on later in like, so I'll get to that. But later on, they decided to record even more. So, so they could put an album out. But, but basically they moved on without, you know, having any more gigs because they lost all those gigs. And they decided to make the Morrison Hotel album, which had like Roadhouse Blues and all that stuff. So they go into the studio yet again. And it sounds like John used that modern orange kit again in the studio. And he had it pretty muffled up, but they were still recording at sunset sound. And they recorded over there and put the album out. And then they went on tour again. Now, when they went on tour again, John actually got a new kit, which is a really bizarre choice for me. I've never really understood what the reasoning was behind it. But he got what was called the from the standard series, which is a lower end line of Ludwigs. And it was called the single six. And so there's a picture of it from the catalog I put in there. And it's a weird kit because it came without bottom heads. There's no bottom lugs, no nothing. And it's like a 20 inch bass drum. And it's got like an eight, 10 and 12 tom set up in like a triangular pattern. And then they have little list up top. Yeah, like a small floor tom with no bottom head on it. And it's just a bizarre setup that Ludwig made. And the other thing that's bizarre, and I don't understand how or why they did this, but it looks like the rap is also on the inside of the shells. It's on the outside and the inside. But I think John had the color blue strata. They had a whole different set of colors that were not related to the colors that Ludwig made on their top end line stuff. And of course, the different bags, different log, which later became the rocker log you see in the 80s. And so they were there were standards at first. And there are a couple of standards that will show up from time to time that have classic lugs on them, because the whole spacing is the same and all that. And I actually have a picture saved somewhere and I don't know where the heck this thing came from. But it's a it's a standard set clearly that was finished in Mont Orge. Like it's just it's almost like they had the shells because it's been said before, you know, all the stuff was virtually the same no matter what Ludwig made. It was only one shell. Whereas in today, of course, they got classic maple, legacy mahogany, different shells for different lines and all that. But back in the day, you know, he had a club date said it was the same shell as a classic set. It just depended on how the holes were drilled for lugs. So it's it's probably a guess, again, on my part. But I'm going to assume that they would use the shells for the standard line for maybe a shell that was less than less than perfect looking. Because that's true by this and then cover the inside. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and they only cover the inside on like the single six, which is bizarre, because on the other lines of the standards, they used a gray speckled interior sort of like a Resicote. And yeah, and the thing that's makes me wonder about that in general is just because by by the earlier part of 68, maybe around May or so, they switched to using a natural, you know, maple interior on all theirs. So a lot of the 68 69 drums have a maple interior, they went away from the white paint. And so it makes me wonder if they were trying to use a drum with a maple interior, if it didn't have as nice of a finish as they would have liked. Okay, this will be a standard, you know, and they paint it with the gray paint. It's just, again, it's a hypothesis, I guess. Very interesting choice, though. Like you said, you don't see, I mean, right now they're now they've become more popular because they're kind of like, you know, the cool, the strata finishes are neat. But yeah, in that day and age, to be playing that is one of the biggest drummers in the world, really, you know, with a rock band. It's very strange. And when you hear, so what I was mentioning earlier about live recordings, they decided for the first part of the year of 1970, they recorded probably like half a dozen or more shows professionally, recorded these shows so that they can hopes that they could like rap songs here and there make a live album, which is exactly what they did because they made an album called Absolutely Live. And they used, you know, a couple of things that came from those Aquarius theater performances, maybe like two songs or so. But the majority of them came from the shows they played in 1970, where he was playing this kit. But when you listen to the recordings, they don't sound any different than any of the other, like, you know, even though he's got an eight and a 10, whatever those Tom sizes are, I didn't really look at the catalog that close. But it's not like you're hearing little Tim Toms or I mean, they all sound the same. Like, I just don't understand what he had them for. Like, what was the point? Yeah, he didn't use them. He didn't really use them. Whereas like Neil Peart, it's like, oh, he uses every single thing that he had and touch every single thing. But this it's cool, though. I mean, it's a cool style kit. If he did, even if he did use them, it almost sounds like, you know, they may have all been tuned to the same pitch. Like it's just very bizarre. I just I don't quite understand the whole reason behind that kit. But he used it throughout most of 1970. And then you'll see it like when I don't know how far there shows went. There's, you know, a lot of times you'll see like the dates, but there's no photos of evidence. But the last time I really see it in use is at the Isle of Wight. So they played the Isle of Wight festival in August of 1970. And he played this kit and mind you, they're playing in front of like 600,000 people. And they sound good. You know, the band sounds good, but as a very subdued performance, because it was like in the middle of the night, it was in the middle of the trial. Jim Morrison was going through with the whole, you know, they were still on trial for that thing. And he was actually looking at real jail time in Dade County, Florida. And so it weighed on on me. It sort of, and at this time too, he had grown like a full beard. And he had his drinking gone into real excess. And he was like, it's really kind of funny, though, because people a lot of times will say he was fat and bloated and all that. But when you look at pictures of him like, gee, I wish I wish I could look like that. If somebody was going to call me fat and bloated, like, he looks pretty good. He doesn't really look though. Maybe he was, you know, toothpick thin prior to that. But at this point now, you know, people are saying, oh, he's like fat and bloated. Oh, it's like the old man. Not really. Yeah, not really. I'll show you fat and bloated. Yeah, exactly. No, there's, there's some pictures, though, from behind that where you do see on the Ludwig Standard, where it's the behind shot. It looks like there's some wear on all the toms, even on his little tiny toms. So he's playing him. But I guess just audibly, maybe it's a that all blends together with the miking technique back then or something. And now you mentioned that, too. I'm knowing, I know the picture you're talking about, he actually did use that set all the way up until their last performance. So when they made absolutely live, they choice picked songs for the album. But like a bunch of years later, they realized they had all these full concerts in the can. So they decided they have this company called Bright Midnight Records, and they released all these concerts starting with the Aquarius Theater and stuff. And so they put them out because they're, you know, they're pro recorded by with a real audio setup. So all of these eventually came out, you can hear them in some are better than others, but the Boston one is pretty, pretty lackluster because of Jim Morrison being in. So it's interesting to hear that. But apparently they had started working on the last album, which would be LA Woman. And when they started working on the album, they had a couple of shows after they started working on the tune. So like Riders on the Storm, LA Woman were performed live, maybe like twice. But the last show they actually played was like December 12th, I believe. So the photo you looked at was like Dallas, December 11th. And the next night they played this place called the Warehouse, which was in like New Orleans. And so it was a famous concert place like bands like the dead and all these bands played there. But apparently it was like one of those hot steamy nights. And and it's been documented in all the different books from the band members. But Ray Manzare claims that he saw Jim Morrison spirit, you know, leave his body that night as in like, like he just, he was pretty much done, had it, you know, and, and so after the show was over, the three rest of the guys kind of were like, you know, so, so could we agree that it's finally over? But the thing that really was surprising to me is that on the flip side, they were super creative in the studio when they made LA Woman, like it's an awesome album. If you listen to the album, they actually debuted some of the songs to their producer, Paul Rothschild, who first heard like he heard Riders on the Storm and was like, you know, this sounds like cocktail jazz. And it just, you know, this is just garbage. And he was like, you guys would probably be better off to like do this album yourselves and co-produce it yourselves. But he goes, I just, I can't go through the whole process with you guys one more time. It's, you know, it's killing me. So painful. So he gave up. And so that's when their engineer Bruce Botnick suggested, you know, they had a rehearsal place on Santa Monica Boulevard where they practiced all their stuff. And it was like, they called it the doors workshop. And it was an office where they could do business stuff done. But it was also a place where they could lounge and hang out. And they would practice over there. So it was Bruce Botnick's idea to drag all the recording equipment over there. And then he would put the control room in the upstairs and the band would play downstairs. And like you see in the doors movie, they put Jim Morrison in the bathroom to sing his lyrics. And so they had all and again, John's, even though they're black and white photos, you can see that John's using the modern orange kit. And they had, you know, baffles set up, but they used the bass player from Elvis's band, Jerry Chef. And then they used, they used some guy named Mark Beino or something playing like alternate guitar. So there really aren't any, you know, really that many overdubs on there. The only overdubs are like, when Ray Manzarek played piano and organ, so they would have to overdub some one of them. But but it's a really great sounding album. I mean, it's one of the best drum sounds John ever got. And by this time, you know, he'd been using the Zildrens. Well, by the time they did Morrison Hotel and specifically LA Woman, because the recording quality is so good, he's playing a 602, piste 20 inch ride. And so when you hear like riders on the storm, the song LA Woman, you all have those strong ride patterns. That's a piste 602. So it's clear and it cuts. And I remember Dan Garza in the piste episodes talking about the huge list of people that were playing 602s. And I remember he mentioned John Densmore. Yeah, it's honestly hard to tell, but I don't really think I've seen pictures or recall that he ever played the 602 in concert. He may have been using like Zildrens, but he definitely had the 602 on the album for, you know, the LA Woman in the, you know, the previous album. Well, and he's such a ride guy. I'm looking at his Wikipedia and 2010 Modern German magazine referred to his ride symbol work as some of the most distinctive in classic rock. I would agree with that. I mean, I think just that the amount of he can do with his right hand and just the freedom he has and that 602 definitely cuts. And you listen to like a song like LA Woman and they get into the middle section where Jim is singing about, you know, I see your hair is burning and he's playing some quick fast sort of almost what you would call like, you know, the Ray Charles sort of thing, you know, just doing some of that. And he quickly had like, he had really fast hands ever again, watch the Hollywood Bowl video. It's dark a lot and you'll see like sort, you can just see his kind of hands going and they go on like super quick. And he would do these quick flourishes and blasts. And I mean, again, those are the things that made me go, wow, like, I really got to start working on this stuff. Because I mean, like, wow, those are like super quick. And he put them in or use them. Nobody, you know, it's never good when you use technique just to blow technique. He was always just putting them in the right places to compliment Jim's poetry. They're always trying to accent something or, or, you know, make a song come to life that way. So I feel like he used them in some of the cool ways. Absolutely. So well, so we're getting close here. I mean, this is yeah, what happens from there? So basically what I'll go into. So he used that, that Molen Orange kit several times, like they put out two albums without Jim Morrison. They were finally released not long ago, but Bray and Robbie sing all the vocals. And he actually looks like he was using like a Heyman kit during the touring and all that, although they had like, you know, they expanded the band, they had some bass players and some other members. And it's ironic, you'll see like a guy playing, look like Tim Ballins that looked like the Molen Orange Ludwig Tim Ballins or something. But he was using this Heyman kit. But, but I think he used the Molen Orange on the albums. It sounds just like, you know, basically the drums sound identical to LA Woman. They probably just had everything set up in the Doors Workshop where they did all this stuff. But he also, later on, he was in some band with Robbie called the Butts band. And so it was kind of like, you know, a bridge with classic rock and sort of some reggae in there and all that. And they actually had two drummers in the band. And I don't know who the other drummer was, but they played on the Midnight Special in like 74 and John's playing that Molen Orange kit. And that's the last time I ever see any, any like footage videos, any of that stuff. He's using it, you know, that there and that's it. And that's cool. So the trails. So for me, of course, I've always not only wanted to find my own Molen Orange kit and I wanted to find the downbeat sizes, but it also led me onto this trail of like, where's the kit? What happened to it? And so originally what happened was is I watched a version of the Live at the Hollywood Bull video that had audio commentary on it by Ray, John and Robbie. And when they was the video started, Ray makes a comment about the tight little Molen Orange kit. And he mentions that those drums were in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And I was like, Oh, that's really cool. Or the Hog Rock has them or something like that. So I, I have a good friend that lives out in Vegas. And I was, I spent a couple of months out in Vegas trying to, you know, see about maybe doing some playing out there or whatever. And when I was out there, I did some, you know, investigating around and I went to the Hog Rock and they had a Molen Orange kit saying that it was John's Molen Orange kit. And when I got there, it was like, it left me flat because it was, it's a 1968, 22, 12, 13, 16 Hollywood kit. I'm like, well, that's not the kit. That's clearly not the kit. He played a downbeat in jazz sizes. And I mean, when you look at a 22 inch bass room, it's got 10 lugs per side and a, 20 has eight lugs per side. And the other thing that really threw me off and made me irritated is that they had that 20 inch ripped logo bass room head there in the, at the same time. So I'm like, if you guys took that, if you grabbed the picture, you know, frame with that head and you put it up to the kit, the head wouldn't fit. It's not, it's too small. It's not the same. It's, it's not the same thing. And if I'm looking at your picture quickly, aren't there two mounted toms? There's two mounted toms. There's two mounted, which it wasn't. It's a Hollywood kit. It's not, I mean, it's, it's just, it's got clear interiors. It's, you know, it's, it's a, it's a probably, it's a cool kit. It is, but it's not the kit. So it left me going, okay, I'm one of those people that's like, I'm a historian. I like, you know, well, that's, you know, I can't, I can't accept that. And so, yeah, so later on, as time went by, you know, this was, you know, just about the time the internet was coming out. And so I, you know, I would do Google searches later on and I'd be looking up things in this and that. And John made a comment about his kit being, you know, on display at the Peterson Museum or something with his old Ford truck. Well, it was the same kit from the, the one that was at the Hollywood, you know, the Hollywood kit. So I was like, but this time he took away the 13. He had it set up like a 22, 12, 16. And I was like, what the heck, you know, like this is, you know, I wonder if John knows, does he care? But this is not the kit. So that's what I was like. So I, you know, I need to really figure out where it's, what happened, where did the trail go with this? And the other thing I stumbled upon was I saw in an old modern drummer from the early 80s, somebody asked in the, in the ask a pro question section, it said, whatever happened to that little kit you use with the doors. Now that's all they asked in the question. And they didn't say orange. They didn't say, yeah, but they said that little kid. But it's, it's likely assumed that they were talking about the modern kit because that was the famous kit. And so John said he traded it to Robbie for some electric gear, like electronic stuff, which was like, what? Like it was very bizarre. And so, so it sort of explains where the kit happened, like maybe Robbie happened to happen. And so it left a lot of dead end trails. And so as time went on, I was looking, I saw a picture of some doors tribute band, I think it was Peace Rock or one of those bands, and they were pictured with the original roadie, Vince Trainor, who was holding clearly a 14 inch floor tom, Mont Orange. I was like, wait a minute, what is this? And so I'm like, that's, that's got to be the floor tom. You know, bottom head on it. And it was like, this is the floor tom. This has to be it. And in the caption under the picture said, you know, this is us hanging out with Vince Trainor with the original John Dentsmore drum kit. And it didn't say, it just said drum kit didn't say floor tom just the whole thing. So it's a, but they only had the floor tom. So I managed to find a contact info in for Vince Trainor. And I wrote to him and he wasn't unfriendly. I mean, he just wasn't like, you know, he just, he was just kind of like, yep, I got it. Or, you know, and I asked him a couple of questions and he didn't really make a comment. And it's, it is, again, it wasn't that he was unfriendly. I think he just didn't really care that much. And you got to remember this guy spent a lot of years huffing their equipment around. And they're all like bazillionaires and he's probably, you know, still likely working, working, working his butt off. I think he worked his butt off as a, as a road guy, put in his time and really, you know, so the details of a piece like this probably wasn't all that important to him. But I don't know how he ended up with the piece. And so I kind of figured, well, that's the end of that. I guess I'm done, you know, that's the end of that search because he's never going to answer much more than that. And, and I don't see any other pieces of the kit. Well, then a couple of years later, some really nice colored pictures of that drum showed up on the internet and it had another guy's name attached to it. And I won't, you know, I mean, it's not hard to find this, but I won't mention the guy's name just because I won't draw any attention to him that, you know, they may not want. But, but I was like, what, why does he have this drum? So I reached out to him and that's when I decided to do the article for Not So Modern Drum. It was my first article and he was very gracious enough to say that, you know, he got the drum through a friend who knew Vince Trainor somehow, something like that, along with some other. And I guess this guy collects rock and roll memorabilia and he's got some really cool things and he ended up with his drum. And so we were sort of messaging and stuff. And then I discovered that he, at the time, was living in like Foxboro, which is two hours from me. And I said, would you, would you be cool with me just checking this out? Like, you know, some random, it was nice of him to let some stranger, you know, coming to his home and look at this drum, but he was gracious and I came down and inspected it and looked it over. And I was just floored by it. I mean, it's the only piece that was available or that he had. And I said to him, you know, we're able to sort of take it. And much like Gary Asridge did when he was looking at Beatles stuff, you can look at like all those striations in the color are like a fingerprint. So they don't have a repeating pattern like some of them do now when they photocopy stuff. So there are certain things that are evident. And there's one picture that I sent you and I don't know if you can pick it out, but it's a split side. It shows the drum in its current condition and it shows John Densworth playing a, playing the kit in a show. And if you look at that picture of John Densworth, you can faintly see up in the corner above a lug, you can see a little orange blurb, like a little orange spot where the finish is. It just showed up perfectly in that photo. And then if you look at the floor tom in its current condition, you can see that same orange line right above the floor tom. It's like... Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the same... That's... That's right there. It's like, it's the same drum. It really is. And I've looked at a lot of pictures of that floor tom in various states and matched up the color striations. And you can, you could, it's like a fingerprint. You can match them up. And it's clearly the drum. And then in another picture you'll see that I sent you. You'll see there's a side by side. Well, it shows John in the studio recording the Saw Parade album. And you can see where the wearer is on his floor tom, on the head. And this is what I was talking about earlier where I am just completely, absolutely 100% astounded. It is the same drumhead. Like I have a feeling that that drumhead came with the modern skit that you see at the Village Theater performance. It never got changed. It never got changed. And John had said in interviews that he was always like, it would literally put him into a depression when he had to change a head because he hated it. He liked his heads to be beat up and worn out. This head, when you look at it, there's like one of the pictures I sent that has them at the Fillmore East. You can see there's not much wear on the head quite yet. But as time progresses and moves on, there's more of a black circle that forms on that head. And when you look at the side by side and the top pictures I show of the head in its current state. Number one, it has a Ludwig bubble logo on it that's black. By 1969 or so, the bubble logo turned blue. And then by like 1970, the Ludwig turned into the block logo and it was blue. So it was like sort of that bluish kind of looking thing. So the head that's on that drum is clearly a head that's free, 1969 or so. And so, I mean, I'm convinced that it's the original head because if you look at the wear patterns, it follows itself. So if you think about every single show that was done with that one mod orange kit and it's the same head, it's like, how is that even possible? Yeah, the amount of history. The guys that are guys that go on tour and change their heads while every three or four shows. Like you were talking about the deal pair. How many times did he change the hydraulic heads around or this or that or the... I mean, I mean... This has never been changed. It's never been changed. It's never been changed. It just, I'm astounded by that. And it kind of makes me a little sad again, you know, that like I think John at this point has got to know that the kit that he's sitting on is not his kit. And I actually did find out later from a friend of mine who was involved in like, you know, was involved with Ludwig and was involved with some production helping movies and this and that. I'm pretty sure the kit that John has is the one they used in the Doors movie. The one that John has now is the one that was the like recreation. Yeah. I mean, it's the one for the movie. If you look at the Doors movie, there really isn't a lot of great footage showing the kit, but you can pause things and stuff. And it's clear they're using like a 22 and a 12 on a, you know, 22, 12, 16, with a single Tom out. I mean, and the person that I talked to basically said, yeah, I found this kit and gave it to production for the Doors. Well, because finding a modern orange down the kit, that's the other thing I'm going to get to is it's really rare. Yeah. I mean, it's fun. So for me, I always decided I wanted this modern orange kit in those sizes. I didn't realize back when I was a teenager and even early when I started collecting, just how tough they are to find. Like, there just wasn't a lot of them. Because if you think logically in the late 60s, the trend was going bigger. You got John Bonham, well, starting with Carmine apathy, but going with John Bonham and even Mitch Mitchell's kits had 24 inch bass drums. They got bigger. A lot of guys were using bigger sized drums. And so a 2012, 14 size kit for a rock band was just not really something you saw a lot of. And so Ludwig, while they still made 2012, 14s, clearly, you know, all the way up, you know, through the 70s, 80s, whatever. It's not a lot of people had them. Everything was mostly a 22 and up. And so. Which means they're not around now because no one was buying as much. Exactly. So, so in 1967, there were still, you know, a decent number of downbeat sets being used for the most part, but the trend changed rather quickly. And so when you think of the color of modern being introduced, most of the 2012, 14 sets you'll find are probably either from 67 or whatever. But by the time you hit 1968, later part 69, you don't see them as much. You see the bigger sizes. And I'd say nine times out of 10, you're going to find a 22, 12, 13, 16 Hollywood kit. So I wanted and wanted one of these kits. And I actually found a super classic set in the early 2000s, which was I was grateful to find that, but it's the larger sizes. And then a little later on, I actually found a club date set from like 1971, which I was just crazy that I found that so that technically is a 2012, 14, but it's got blue olive badges on it. And it's got the club date box. So it may sound kind of crazy to like somebody like maybe my wife or the average person that I want this particular modern skin. Not quite right. What happened for me, and you'll see the pieces behind my shoulder there. But I found a 14 inch floor tom on Craigslist, which was just astounding to me. I found that. And then I found later on a 12 inch tom, which was very close and range to it. So I had the two of those pieces for a long time. And then I just a couple, maybe like last year I found a 20 inch base for them. So I was able to put the whole thing together. But and again, mine kit is like from 69. So it's got round norms and but it's a it's a piece together kit. But I started a Facebook group, you know, for modern drums for geeks like me. And so and so sits then some of them have come out of the woodwork. So I've probably seen about, you know, a dozen or so modern downbeat kits. And and it but I see a lot of them from like, say, October of 67. And that kind of thing. And it's just just really weird how how rare and bizarre a lot of them have been pushed or extra holes extra this and that really hard to find them. He definitely played, you know, it's his iconic. He's what you think of when you think of mod orange and I think of him and I think of you. It's exactly like I I feel like I wish that he was a little more like I you know, like if that was me and granted, I didn't live his life and I didn't go through the things that he went through. But knowing that drum has the same head on it from the big I mean, I would go at every length to get that thing back. And I would probably put it in a glass case in the middle of my room. And just so it was just a look at it. I mean, you granted his he owes his career to his abilities. It was playing. But this was something that you used for like 70% of your career. And it's on, you know, most of the albums. I mean, like, why wouldn't you want to have that just to just to have it like, you know, you know, I don't know. And that's just me. And I know that they they gave them when they reassured the color recently in 2017. Uli Salazar, you know, made up of they made up a downbeat kit for him and stuff that he has. And he uses that occasionally for some stuff. Yeah. Well, Kurt, this is these gear episodes are really cool because they're a deep dive. But this is also neat because it's biography info, it's doors info. And we're coming up on the two hour mark. These things are not not possible to do in a quick amount of time. But I think it's cool to have a super deep dive that lives on YouTube and podcasts forever. So why don't you as we kind of wrap up here, do you want to tell people where to find you on social media, because there's like different Facebook groups, where do you recommend people check things out that you're doing and posting and writing? I mean, I write for Not So Modern Drubber. So if you're at NotSoModernDrubber.com, and then if you're if you're just look me up Kurt extra on Facebook, that's where you can find me. Yep. And I have a model orange group. So if you search model and drums, you can find that. Yep, cool. Well, I feel like very I'm much more knowledgeable now about John Den's Moore's drums. I feel like it's a good, you know, overview and people can, you know, go to the footage, go to YouTube, you can now look at things and have a better understanding of it. Before we wrap up, I do want to say thank you. Before saying thank you to you, Kurt, I want to say thank you to the folks at SteamBentdrum.com for joining the Patreon. Again, 10% discount. Get yourself a SteamBent drum shell, build a kit, build a snare, have fun. That's a cool offer to do. But yeah, Kurt, I mean, I feel like we just that's been a long, long journey. We've been trying to get this booked. Yeah. And I think you did a great job of covering it. And I'm glad to be, you know, we've we're friends and I'm glad to have met you again in person and all that stuff, like I said, and this has been awesome. So thank you for taking all the time to do the work, come on the show, share your knowledge, share your love of this color. And I think you did a great justice to John Den's Moore and Mod Orange by doing it. Oh, thank you. And I appreciate being on the show. I love, I love listening to these on my way to gigs and it's really growing and it's such a cool show. Awesome. Well, thank you, Kurt. Thanks for having me.