Sunday, July 18, 2021

Ray Manzarek Explains "Riders On The Storm"

 The Doors were one of the bands I "Came of Age" with, along with Chicago, BS&T, Iron Butterfly, Cream, Traffic, Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, and many others.

"Riders On The Storm" came out in 1971 as a track on the "L.A. Woman" album, and was a sleeper hit. It's in my top 3 Doors songs, and I've always enjoyed hearing it. Has a very haunting sound to it, along with Morrisons' dark lyrics.

Ray Manzarek explains where it came from, and how it was put together, and I think you'll find this an enjoyable ten minutes. Sorry I can't do anything about the aspect ratio of the video. Looks like it was shot in 16:9, but is playing back at 4:3. Oh, well....



And I can't wait to hear some classic rock on this new acquisition.....

 It's a "Silver Pioneer", Model SX-780, the baby of the line. If the speakers I built a while back aren't suitable, there's a local books/records.vintage audio gear store here called "The Bizarre Bazaar" that has some good looking classic speakers for some very reasonable prices.



8 comments:

  1. Ahhhh, silver and too wide for the rack, all that optional wood.... there's no substitute for big speakers moving a lot of air.

    n

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    1. Absolutely! My Holy Grail is an SX-1980, but I'm not coughing up $3500+ for one!

      Not sure what I'll do for speakers. I built some "Near Field" bookshelf speakers a while back, but didn't really "have enough amp" to get decent volume out of them. They also seemed to be pretty darn "Near Field", and I don't think I can get Room Filling Sound out of them even driving them with 50 Watts RMS per channel....You just need certain size speakers to pump enough air to sound impressive! Just sold some stuff on eBay, so I'll probably be going to the used audio place. They had a set of killer Bose 901 speakers for about $600 that have been sitting there since last summer. I'll see if I can wrangle a deal with them to get them out of inventory.

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  2. I had that SX-780 on Adak, and took it home to Missouri with me afterward. Big ol' Pioneer speakers, too. Never had quite as much punch as I wanted, but other systems (later) came closer.

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    1. Yep, the 780 was the little guy in the line up. 45 Watts/channel should be plenty for the downstairs workshop.

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  3. drjim, glad you posted about your speakers and the repair shop. I bought a slightly older auto reverse cassette deck and was told it works, well it didn't. I have been looking for a place that repaired older audio gear. I have all these cassettes of jazz, big band and swing and good older C/W music I can't listen too or record to an MP4 player. I am giving them a call later today.

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    1. I think their audio tech is out on medical now. The nice young lady at the counter told me he had a wipeout skateboarding into work, and broke his collarbone!

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  4. Ah yes, Bose 901s! Great speakers!

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    1. And the have some nice KLH studio monitors, along with some Pioneer speakers that I'll have to check the model number on.

      Wonder if I can drag the receiver in to "audition" the speakers??

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Keep it civil, please....

Annnnd.....We Got Zip.....

 Total snow was about 6~8", but half o0f it melted as soon as it hit, and we never had more than 3" on the ground at any one time....