"Urge To Come To Terms With The "Outside", By Absorbing, Interiorizing It. I Won't  come Out, You Must

1967.05.29. Grover Cleveland High School, Reseda, CA. Photo by Don Johnson

The Doors 1967.09.09 Village Theatre,New York, NY. 📷Nathan Farb

Bobby Klein's first photo shoot of The Doors in  Bronson Park, Los Angeles, September 1966

Jim Morrison, Fillmore East, 03/22/1968

Bobby Klein: "Jim was irreverent and mischievous. One time we were shooting outside and he suddenly disappeared. He came back with this cheeky smile and I took his picture. Only later, when I got the photos developed, did I realise what he had been doing: he’d hidden behind a tree, got himself aroused and, through his trousers, was pointing his erection right at my camera."

January-February 1967, Venice Beach, California. © Bobby Klein.

1067.07. Photo by Paul Ferrara

Bobby Klein : "I was the first official photographer of the Doors, and this shot was taken early on. It was 1967 and we were heading to Venice Beach to take some publicity shots but got hungry, so Jim recommended stopping off at Lucky U Cafe, his favourite place in Los Angeles to grab breakfast. It was a tiny Mexican restaurant owned by a Chinese man, pretty much just a counter with no tables. Jim ordered a beer and a menudo – a beef and chilli soup – to line his stomach. It wasn’t uncommon to see him sink six beers in an hour. I’ve always enjoyed shooting people when they’re eating because it creates an intimacy. So I got behind the counter and started snapping away. Jim was beautiful. He looked like Michelangelo’s David. He was checking me out: “Who the hell is this guy?” He didn’t suffer fools, and this was early on in our relationship. There’s an intensity in his eyes: he was totally serious about being seen as a credible poet."

January 1967, Lucky U Café, Venice Beach, photo by Bobby Klein

The Endless quest a vigil

of watchtowers and fortresses

against the sea and time.

Have they won? Perhaps.

They still stand and in

their silent rooms still wander

the souls of the dead,

who keep their watch on the living.

Soon enough we shall join them.

Soon enough we shall walk

the walls of time. We shall

miss nothing

except each other.

(Jim Morrison, THE VILLAGE TAPES, WILDERNESS)

🔻January-February 1967, Bronson Caves, Los Angeles, California. Photographer Bobby Klein

"First New York opening in a while. The Doors - Fresh from Los Angeles with an underground album of the hour - return. This time, they are worshipped, envied, bandied about like the Real Thing. The word is out or 'in' - 'The Doors will floor you'. So not all the pretty people in New York were present at opening night, but enough to keep a few publicity agencies busy. The four musicians mounted their instruments. The organist lit a stick of incense. Vocalist and writer Jim Morrison closed his eyes to all that Arnel elegance, and the Doors opened up. Morrison twitched and pouted and a cluster of girls gathered to watch every nuance in his lips. Humiliating your audience is an old game in rock 'n' roll, but Morrison pitches spastic love with an insolence you can't ignore. His material - almost all original - is literate, concise, and terrifying. The Doors have the habit of improvising, so a song about being strange which I heard for the first time at Ondine may be a completely different composition by now. Whatever the words, you will discern a deep streak of violent - sometimes Oedipal - sexuality. And since sex is what hard rock is all about, the Doors are a stunning success. You should brave all the go-go gymnastics, bring a select circle of friends for buffer, and make it up to Ondine to find out what the literature of pop is all about. The Doors are mean; and their skin is green." (Richard Goldstein, "Pop Eye," Village Voice, Mar. 25, 1967)

🔻March, 1967, photo shoot inside Ondine NYC, New York, photo by Thomas Monaster.

1967.05.26. Crescenta Valley High School, La Crescenta, CA.  Photos by Linda Neff (Backstage) / Unidentified (KRLA Beat)