Customer Reviews

Live At The Matrix

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

EDIT: UPDATE: Sept 12, 2009 - The Doors purchased the complete Matrix Master tapes from original location engineer Peter Abram circa April of 2009. Doors manager Jeff Jampol recently posted on the Doors Message Board that the band will issue a complete Matrix Box Set in Q1 or Q2 of 2010. This upcoming official Matrix box set will include 2 previously unheard instrumental jams recorded on March 7, 1967. If you are considering buy this CD, it is recommended you wait until 2010 and buy the complete box set which will mark the first time the original master tapes have been used.

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The Doors and Warner Music Group issued a press release to promote this CD, stating: "Restored and carefully mastered from first generation tapes acquired by Elektra Records and The Doors 40 years ago, these historic shows never sounded better."

However, at least 4 tracks here were sourced from 3rd generation or higher bootlegs. The remaining songs were mastered from an edited 2nd generation 1/4" reel to reel copy of a cassette dub made from the master reels.

Neither the Doors, nor their corporate record label Warner Music Group (aka the Rhino and Elektra imprints) own the original master recordings.

The master tapes are owned by Peter Abram, who had the foresight to record the band at The Matrix (with the band's permission)--more than two years before Elektra and Paul Rothchild got around to recording The Doors in a live setting at The Aquarius theater in 1969.

These legendary 1967 live tapes were well engineered by the young Abram and find the rock band at the peak of their prowess as an improvisatory unit.

However, the tapes Warner Music Group has published on this 2 CD rip off are vastly inferior to the master tapes, brief samples of which are circulating on the Internet with Peter's permission for comparison purposes.

Some fans may choose to believe that Abram is being greedy by asking for cash for his tapes. However, The Doors manager Jeff Jampool has publicly stated the Doors' policy about acquiring live tapes is that they will only provide a small royalty based on sales.

According to Abram, he wasn't even approached to sell his tapes to the Doors for this release. And what about all those bootlegs on the market? According to Abram, all bootlegs derive from the missing first generation cassette copies in the Doors archive, which vanished in the 1970s.

The fans get a sonically subpar, incomplete product. The legality of this release is suspect since Peter owns the master tapes. Peter Abram receives zero money from this product, even though he owns the master sound recording. Meanwhile, your purchase of this material will make Warner Music Group and The Doors a little bit wealthier.

And this is the same rock band that recently sued itself for $5million dollars over issues of "integrity."

By the way, how much money was cover designer Stanley Mouse paid for his Matrix album cover art, while they guy that actually recorded the show--on his own nickel and made this cash cow possible for The Doors--doesn't even receive a credit as recording engineer in the liner notes?

After all the negative reviews here, I thought it might be helpful to inquire from the record company itself about the legitimacy of their first generation claims. Here is the response received from "Dr. Rhino" at Rhino Records:

Dear Bob,

Thanks for your email.

Bruce Botnick and Jeff Jampol (engineer and manager) both believed that
they had a copy made from the original recording. It was not until the
release came out, that Jeff found out that a superior source existed.

We sincerely believed all the statements made about the source tapes at
the time the production masters were delivered to us.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Dr. Rhino

The honesty here is refreshing. It's too bad something originally purporting to be first generation was being dangled before us. So needless to say...caveat emptor!

Please keep in mind...I LOVE LIVE CDS and I LOVE THE DOORS music....that being said, this cd is a major disppointment.....I (like other Doors fans) have heard boots of these shows (more complete 4 cd versions too) and they sound terrific compared to this official release (the performances are cool...i cant complain about that)...i mean does remastered mean ray manzarek did some tribal dance in the control room as the tape played....if anything, they denegraded the sound on this tape....just a shame.....while i would rate the perfomace a 4 out of 5 im just tired of the doors weak product...cheesy packaging....poor sound....edited incomplete shows....enough already...plus at a high price in these times...its just not worth it

How many times can they issue product they claim to be new, rare, unreleased or something else...when in fact it's all the same old, same old.

I can forgive the Doors issuing Absolutely Live on CD when it already existed on the IN Concert CD. I can forgive them calling a disc Live in New York when one song is from Los Angeles. I can forgive them for putting a disc called Band Favorites of studio songs which we all own anyway.

I cannot forgive them for this mess. Sure it's great to hear this...but my Mp3 boot sounds better. They blatantly lied about this release. I bought all the Doors recordings up til now...even the 12 disc Box that came with 6 DVD-A...that was awesome...but i digress...this was a blatant lie. It remains to this day the only disc i have returned to Amazon based on quality. Yes, I know it's a boot but they promised it was better, clearer and i thought it was from the master tapes as it stated. It was not. How much money do the Doors want? Makes me wonder what Morrison would think about this? Is Densmore part of this too?

This CD is such a mess one hardly knows where to start!

The reason why I am giving this product a bad review is simply because it is NOT what it says it is. This CD is NOT first generation tapes acquired by The Doors.

This CD is just a cleaned-up-in-the-studio copy of the tape from which all the Matrix bootlegs come from, plus some tracks lifted straight off the actual bootlegs. The hiss levels vary dramatically from one track to the next, exposing the fact that this is just a collection of different sub-par sources.

The fact that The Doors and their management lie to their fans like this is a real disgrace, and shame on them for advertising this CD as quality "first generation" product when IT IS NOT. It is just a rip-off, plain and simple.

This material has been out there for years. Don't waste your money on an incomplete, out-of-sequence copy of a bootleg.

Well, if you CAN'T find the 6-CD complete Matrix set described elsewhere, this is a fine taste indeed. Great sound quality and great ambiance, and a focused, confident Doors with effortlessly "on" vocals from Jim. Nice "Summertime" interlude in the middle of a "Light My Fire" jam. Classic stand, only a scoop's worth, but the coins are still gold.

The lineage of this recording is questionable, and it shows. Many of the tracks are hissy, and contain artifacts that are present in bootlegs of this material that have been circulating for years. It's also a shame that the guy who made (and owns) the master recording, Mr. Peter Abram, is not credited. Why would the Doors management bury their head(s) on these issues and release this in its present form?

The Matrix was a tiny club in San Francisco (NOT L.A.) where up-and-coming bands would find a supportive audience. I've got both shows from March of '67 on tape and one on CD (three CDs...). If you want to catch PART of the 3-10-67 show, this is OK, especially since it's relatively inexpensive. But try and get the six-CD set if you can. It's fun hearing the small smattering of applause as the audience listens to a band whose fame had not yet exploded. Light My Fire's release a couple of months after these Matrix shows would change the band forever, and the intimate nature of the Matrix captures the band doing a relaxed, loose couple of three-set shows. I hope the "official" bootlegs series gets around to releasing these two Matrix shows. I just got Live in Boston (early and late shows) and it's great. For a taste, this is OK. But, really, find the whole show if you can...

This is an early performance by the Doors that is a welcome addition to my collection. The sound is much better than the two Matrix songs that were on the Doors Box years ago. The performances are interesting early versions of some songs they would perform throughout their brief career and others that would never be performed again.
Addendum: To put all the negative complaints into perspective, Mojo magazine gave this release three stars and Uncut magazine gave it four stars.

Jeff Jampol and the Doors Management, as well as whoever else at Elektra Records and Warner Music Group, have done a shameful thing by releasing this subpar quality CD. While the original masters were safely in the hands of the original owner for all these years, The Doors and their management never even attempted to contact him to work out some agreement for the usage of the tapes.

Don't support a greedy management that has no respect for those who were actually responsible for preserving such historical musical performances!!!