‘Last DJ’ Jim Ladd in Deep with SiriusXM

Veteran rock DJ Jim Ladd is going underground — via satellite.

Ladd, recently fired by longtime employer KLOS in Los Angeles, has found a home at Deep Tracks, the satellite radio channel reminiscent of the free-form FM stations of the 1960s and ’70s.

(Update: Listen to Ladd’s show on Deep Tracks from 4 p.m.-7 p.m. ET. Tom Petty’s show airs earlier on Thursdays as a result, at 5 p.m. ET.)

He celebrated the news by blasting the “stagnant, preprogrammed fodder that passes for radio today.”

Ladd, dubbed the “last DJ” by Tom Petty, was one of the few major-market rock radio hosts allowed to work without a playlist. He launches his nightly four-hour show in January, on SiriusXM Channel 27.

“I will be playing everything I want, from Pink Floyd to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, from the Doors to Moby Grape, freely and with no playlists,” Ladd said. “As I have always done throughout my career, I will be choosing all my own music (and) creating thematic sets.”

Ladd should prove a good fit for Deep Tracks, which focuses on lesser-known songs by top “underground” artists of the 1960s and ’70s, such as Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin.

The station’s stated concept is to play songs that didn’t chart, B-sides and live tracks. SiriusXM neighbor Classic Vinyl (channel 26) plays the era’s FM hits.

Deep Tracks is the closest thing to a psychedelic station on the satellite service. The channel’s “The Blacklight” program — “the finest in psychedelic rock” — is similar to Ladd’s hourlong “Headsets” segments. The Grateful Dead also have a channel of their own.

Deep Tracks’ big-name DJs are Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, both of whom do weekly free-form shows. Dylan’s show is so popular that archived episodes of his “Theme Time Radio Hour” now run 24/7 on an Internet-only SiriusXM channel (805).

Ladd seems eager to burn his bridges with terrestrial broadcasting: “Traditional FM radio has turned its back on the very thing that made rock radio the magical experience it was intended to be,” he said in the SiriusXM announcement of the deal.

“SiriusXM is kicking down the doors of the stagnant, preprogrammed fodder that passes for radio today by encouraging me to do my free-form show so we can all share this experience live as it happens.”

KLOS’ firing of Ladd came in a wave of layoffs created by Cumulus Radio’s buyout of Citadel Broadcasting. He wasn’t allowed a farewell show, so a local AM station offered him a one-time 3-hour slot to communicate with his fans. Rockers Roger Waters, John Fogerty, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Slash and George Thorogood were among the well-wishers who phoned in.

Waters included Ladd in one of his concept albums and tours. Petty’s “The Last DJ” song was written about Ladd.

Ladd, who calls himself “The Lonesome L.A. Cowboy,” built his audience on the legendary L.A. station KMET. He wrote the tell-all book “Radio Waves: Life and Revolution on the FM Dial” (1992). A critic of the time greeted the release by saying that Ladd remains “trapped in a 1960s-1970s time warp.”

For his satellite show, Ladd plans regular interviews with rock stars as well as listener call-ins. The Deep Tracks host most affected by the Ladd signing would appear to be Meg Griffin.

Before the satellite deal was announced Dec. 2, Ladd reportedly was in talks with the city’s 100.3 The Sound.

SiriusXM chief Scott Greenstein said: “Jim Ladd is a classic rock radio icon who turned curating a list of songs into an art form. We are proud and excited to welcome his free-form style to SiriusXM.”

Original MTV VJs Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter and Martha Quinn also have shows on the satellite service.

Paint it Black: a special Record Store Day

Before you know it Record Store Day will be here again (OK maybe it’s already here). But hold on … didn’t we have one back in April?

Yep, but this time out it’s a special Black Friday edition — and the goodies are really good.

Record Store Day, of course, is the festive event in which we celebrate those indie music shops that soldier on in the mp3 era, providing cool physical media such as specialty CDs to those who still want them.

Vinyl records are the coolest of them all these days, and the hipper labels have responded with collectors albums, EPs and singles from artists of quality.

The Black Friday stash includes soon-to-be rareities from psychedelic-leaning acts such as the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett, the Yardbirds, the Byrds and the Who.

We’re spoiled here in L.A. (and in San Francisco) with the massive indie recording purveyor Amoeba, but of course most of the record stores being honored are small shops, run by music-addicted guys and gals. (View list of participating Record Store Day shops.)

Here’s a nod to my closest shop, Freakbeat Records in Sherman Oaks, Calif., where the guys don’t look at you funny if you ask for something by the Ultimate Spinach.

Here are the Black Friday Record Store Day exclusives from bands with 1960s psychedelic connections. Call it the Geezer Collection:

Syd Barrett: “Mick Rock.” Photography of the Pink Floyd founder by his pal Mick Rock, packaged with a 7-inch 45 of “Run Like Hell” and “Don’t Leave Me Now.” Capitol says the package comes “in a picture bag” with the 7-inch single on yellow heavyweight vinyl.”

The Beatles: “The Singles” box set of four 7″ picture-sleeve singles in a flip-top box. The A and B sides are “Ticket To Ride” and Yes It Is”; “Hey Jude” and “Revolution”; “Something” and “Come Together”; “Yellow Submarine” and “Eleanor Rigby.” The tracks are billed as newly remastered.

The Byrds: “Eight Miles High”/”Why.” 7-inch vinyl, 45rpm. Sundazed dug up these first-time-around RCA recordings (the versions most of us know were rerecorded at Columbia). “Eight Miles High” is destined for the top 10 of our Best 100 Psychedelic Songs list.

The Byrds: “The Times They Are A-Changing”/”She Don’t Care About Time.” 7-inch vinyl, 45rpm. This Dylan two-for was supposed to be released in the 1960s, but it never happened. Until now.

The Doors: “L.A. Woman” box set on 7″ Vinyl. Songs include “The Changling,” “Riders on the Storm,” “Love Her Madly” and another single of studio chat. The cover is the original artwork for the “L.A. Woman” album, with a naked woman nailed to a telephone pole.

Grateful Dead: “Live Europe ’72 Vol. 2″ in a four-album vinyl set. With an additional track. The double-disc CD was released in late September. Cover art: A new look at the Ice Cream Kid from artist Stanley Mouse. From Rhino, the Dead’s marketing partners.

Janis Joplin: “Move Over.” Four 7-inch singles with four unreleased tracks. “Magic of Love” and “Call On Me”; “Piece Of My Heart” and “Summertime”; “Raise Your Hand” and “Bo Diddley”; and “”Move Over” and “My Baby.” Some mono, some in stereo.

Janis Joplin: “The Classic LP Collection.” 180 gram vinyl versions of “Pearl,” “I Got Dem’ Kozmik Blues Again Mama,” Big Brother and the Holding Company’s first release and of course “Cheap Thrills.” From Legacy (Columbia). Exclusive to indie record stores until Monday, when orders start being filled at the Janis Joplin web site.

John Lennon: “Imagine 40th Anniversary Box Set.” Vinyl album of the stripped-down 2010 remix job overseen by Yoko Ono. Comes with six-track white vinyl 12″ and a poster. From Apple.

Pete Townshend: “The Quadrophenia Demos, Part 1.” On a 10-inch EP. In a twist, Part 2 won’t be available until Record Store Day 2012. The project was overseen and produced by Townshend. The demo tracks are “The Real Me,” “Cut My Hair,” “Punk,” “Dirty Jobs,” “Is it in My Head?” and “Anymore.” Don’t expect quadraphonic, though.

Pink Floyd: “The Wall.” Box set of three 7-inch singles. “Move Over” and “My Baby”; “Comfortably Numb” and “Hey You”; and “Run Like Hell” and “Don’t Leave Me Now.” The goodies just keep on coming from EMI’s massive Pink Floyd remastering project that began in September. Also just out on SACD.

The Yardbirds: “Ten Little Indians” and “Drinking Muddy Water” on a 7″ single. From the band’s waning days, in which Jimmy Page gets all psychedelic with reverse echo — trying to save the A-side, a strident cover of a Harry Nilsson song. The B-side is an excellent white boy blues workout from “Little Games.” From Sundazed.

The Yardbirds: “Ha Ha Said the Clown” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor” on a 7-inch single. A 1967 record never released in the U.K. Two solid of the best late-period songs — one pop, one rock — with Jimmy Page leading the way on guitar. From Sundazed.

Of course there are quite a few contributions from acts in many genres, across many decades. Check out the Black Friday music collection. See you in the queue.

Dead brings to life Dave’s Pick CD series

Thought the Dead marketing machine was done with live archival releases?

Fat chance. The music never stops. Not fade away. And all that …

Six years after the famed series “Dick’s Picks” was retired — and just weeks after the “Road Trips” series reached the end of the road — the Dead’s live legacy continues with “Dave’s Picks.”

Dick was the Dead’s longtime archivist Dick Latvala. Dave is David Lemieux, the current archivist, who took over the job when Latvala died in 1999.

Dave’s Picks will be a numbered limited edition series limited to 12,000 copies (that number could be elastic, based on previous Dead decisions). The CDs will be close to Dick’s Picks in philosophy, Lemieux says, featuring complete shows.

The Dead’s website promises “the finest unreleased shows from the master tapes, brought to life with HDCD sonics by Jeffrey Norman, period photos, and informative liner notes.”

The first release comes from a May 25, 1977, show at the Mosque in Richmond, Va.

Dead.net offers an advance subscription package with a lower price ($95) and a bonus disc.

“This is the most excited we’ve been since the ‘View from the Vault’ (DVD) series,” says the excitable Lemieux, who says 90 percent of his personal listening time is spent on Dead audio.

“Mostly it’s going to be two-tracks (as with the Dick’s Picks and Road Trips series).”

The archivist invites fans’ input: “We not only welcome your input, we need your input. … There’s too many shows and too many hours. … Everyone’s opinion matters to us. If you think that such-and-such is a great show, we’re going to listen to it.”

To contact the team, email vault@dead.net — put “Grateful Dead” subject line.

In other Dead product news:

• The 2011 edition of the Grateful Dead Almanac no longer will be printed on paper. “Yes, here in the second decade of the 21st Century (and after a bit of screaming and kicking), we’ve (gone all digital),” the editors say. View the online Grateful Dead Almanac.
• Rock book author Paul Grushkin (“Grateful Dead: The Official Book of the Dead Heads”) takes another look at the band’s hardcore fans with “Dead Letters: The Very Best Grateful Dead Fan Mail.”
• The “Road Trips” CD series has come to an end with No. 4. Vol. 5, capturing the Boston Music Hall show from June 9, 1976, and (partly) June 12. The series ran four years and released 17 discs.
• Lemieux’s massive “Europe ’72, Vol. 2″ had a cup of herbal tea on the Billboard album charts, topping out at No. 193 in the week of its release.

Concert review: The Yardbirds in L.A.

Playing fast and loose, the Yardbirds rolled into L.A. with their latest crop of talented young musicians. An audience that started out waiting to be impressed ended up cheering and howling its approval of the still potent U.K. band.

No mere oldies act, the group sometimes bill themselves as the Most Blueswailing Yardbirds. For good reason: After almost a half century, they remain terrific (rock) interpreters of the U.S. blues masters.

The set list from the Canyon Club (in L.A.’s west Valley) included Bob Diddley’s “I’m a Man,” Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning” and Eddie Boyd’s “Five Long Years,” all Yardbirds’ showstoppers since the mid-’60s. The band’s own “New York City Blues” and “The Nazz Are Blue” fit right in there with the American classics.

(Photos by Arnie Goodman. They are of an earlier tour stop in New York.)

Two original Yardbirds remain, the rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja and drummer Jim McCarty, both sizable contributors to the original sound. (For example, both receive songwriting credit on most of the album that came to be called “Roger the Engineer,” the group’s best studio album.) They’ve been reviving the Yardbirds on and off for 20 years, since the band made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Dreja and McCarty didn’t stray from the canon, even though they’ve recorded several well-received albums over the years.

The crowd expected the hits and key album tracks, and got them: “Heart Full of Soul,” “For Your Love,” “Over, Under, Sideways, Down,” “Shapes of Things” and “Mister You’re a Better Man Than I.”

The Yardbirds often are credited with creating the first psychedelic record, “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago.” (It’s number 10 on our list of the Best Psychedelic Singles.) That Beck-Page workout blew a few minds at the show. The band thoughtfully threw in the trippy studio chatter from the record, delighting the hardcores.

Filling out the Yardbirds lineup are the guitarist Ben King and two relatively new members (2009), singer/harmonica player Andy Mitchell and bassist David Smale.

King has the monumental task of following the Yardbirds’ 1960s godhead of guitarists — Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. (Beck’s been known to pop up at Yardbirds’ gig or two, but no dice this night.)

King did yeoman’s work on most of the numbers, but kicked into high gear for the Page songs: “Little Games” and the original “Dazed and Confused.” Drummer McCarty pointed out that although Page had gone on to play “Dazed” with “some other group,” well, they did it first. (The song was titled “I’m So Confused” back in ’68.)

Singer Mitchell wisely didn’t try to imitate original singer Keith Relf, but on harmonica he sounded uncannily like the late rock star. Mitchell drew cheers several times, including one bit where he finished a song singing quite audibly without the help of a microphone. He delivered all the humor and cock-rock attitude needed for a smoking “The Train Kept A-Rollin.’ ”

Bass player Smale hit the walloping turnaround bottom notes and flourishes that were a key part of the band’s original sound — much like the Animals, the Yardbirds built some of their best songs around an infectious bass-line. The young man has the 1960s heavy bass thing down to an art.

Keith Relf often said that no one ever captured the real Yardbirds on record — the live performances were everything. Good to see tradition carry on.

Rock Hall: 3 psychedelic acts high on list

Donovan, the Small Faces and War fly the freak flag high as nominees for the 2012 class of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Other sonically adventurous nominees include Beastie Boys and the Cure.

Rounding out the list (in order of PsySight’s preference): Freddie King, Laura Nyro, Heart, Guns ‘N Roses, the Spinners, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Donna Summers, Rufus with Chaka Khan, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and Eric B. & Rakim.

Inductees will be announced “in the coming weeks,” the Rock Hall says.

Donovan, a nominee last year, was among the first recording artists to chart with psychedelic songs. He also was among the first long-haired British pop stars busted for drugs. The artist was closely associated with the hippie movement and flower pop.

Donovan’s psychedelic singles include “Sunshine Superman,” “Mellow Yellow,” “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and “Barabajagal (Love Is Hot).” The album “Sunshine Superman” was among the first rock works to feature the sitar. Donovan also flirted with jazz and Indian music, making for a heady musical brew.

The Small Faces/The Faces were two scrappy English bands, really. They first scored with the heavily flanged psychedelic single “Itchycoo Park,” a global smash in 1967 despite a BBC ban for its druggie lyrics.

A year later came the classic LP “Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake,” an early concept album. Side 2 was devoted to an odd psychedelic fairy tale. Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane did the band’s heavy lifting until Marriott quit to form Humble Pie.

Then came the Faces, with three original members joined by up-and-coming vocalist Rod Stewart and guitarist Ron Wood. The Faces’ sound shifted to inebriated good-time rock ‘n’ roll. This line-up enjoyed a short but brilliant career, cut short by Stewart’s solo success.

War (picured, top of page) still continues to pound out the Latino-influenced funk these days, but in the beginning they had solid psychedelic credentials. English shouter Eric Burdon of the Animals formed the group in L.A., following up on his psychedelic explorations (such as “Sky Pilot”) with the remainders of his original band. The Animals entered the Rock Hall in 1994.

War and Burdon made two albums, the first brilliant and the second spotty. The Burdon/War legacy is best represented by “Spill the Wine,” a smash single that describes a psychedelic dream. (The song is fated for a prime spot on this site’s roundup of Top Psychedelic Songs.) War continued its hitmaking ways despite Burdon’s departure (in the middle of a tour).

Nominees had to release their first recording no later than 1986.

Want to cast a (just for grins) vote? Pick five Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees.

Here is the complete list of nominees for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012:

Beastie Boys
The Cure
Donovan
Eric B. & Rakim
Guns ‘N Roses
Heart
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
Freddie King
Laura Nyro
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Rufus with Chaka Khan
The Small Faces/The Faces
The Spinners
Donna Summer
War

Iron Butterfly live, heavy at Fillmore East

They’ve been going in and out of style since “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” first scorched earth in 1968. Looks like Iron Butterfly is in for another round of retro-appreciation.

On Oct. 17, the psychedelic heavies get the Rhino Handmade treatment with a live double-CD set recorded at the Fillmore East.

The CDs (and MP3s) capture the “classic” version of Iron Butterfly in April 1968, just after the band was rebuilt in the wake of their debut album. The album “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” would surface several months after these performances.

There are 22 songs recorded during a quartet of sets at the Bill Graham concert hall.

The line-up is singer/organist Doug Ingle, bassist Lee Dorman, teen guitarist Erik Brann and drummer Ron Bushy.

Here’s Rhino’s word on the audio for “Fillmore East 1968″:

The well-defined sound heard on these previously unreleased recordings is the result of the quality of the original tapes and the meticulous restoration used to prepare them for this project. Original recording engineer Lee Osborne recorded all the shows using a ½” four-track recorder running at 15 ips. Unfortunately, audio signal issues made the first two songs from the second set on April 26 unusable.

If those two songs were usable, they’d be repeats anyway. Like many collector’s sets, “Fillmore East 1968″ offers multiple versions of its tracks. (Alas, there is no repeat-free single CD.) “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” for instance, appears twice — in a 17:11 version and a slightly restrained 15:20 take.

The band’s monster closing number, “Iron Butterfly Theme,” shows up four times, running between 4 and 5 minutes. “Iron Butterfly Theme” is No. 30 on this site’s list of the top 100 psychedelic songs.

The Butterfly gave the New York audience a preview of two other “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” album songs, “Are You Happy” and “My Mirage.”

Other likely highlights are “Unconscious Power,” “So-Lo” and “Possession,” all from the debut album, “Heavy.”

The Rhino Handmade set is available for preorder at $40. No other retail sales.

The collector’s label also went psychedelic with “Box of Fudge” from Vanilla Fudge. We hold out much greater hopes for “Fillmore East 1968″ as Iron Butterfly is a vastly underrated band (with the Fudge vastly overrated).

‘Magic Trip’ film: journey through the past

The Merry Pranksters ride again, in the acid-drenched documentary feature “Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place.”

The Pranksters, of course, were the pack of bohemian youth who gathered around the hipster novelist Kesey. With beat generation icon Neal Cassady behind the wheel of an old school bus, they traveled across the country, in search of the New York World’s Fair and … Whatever.

The bus, carrying the destination sign of “Furthur,” was painted wildly, in tune with the soon-to-come psychedelic aesthetic. One Prankster called it a “traveling pleasure palace.”

Many historians point to this happening as the big bang that unleashed the psychedelic era. Kesey (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”) had taken part in government-sponsored LSD experiments five years earlier and was eager to spread the sparkly swirling vibes.

“We were too old to be beatniks and a little too young to be hippies,” one Prankster recalled.

And so, a half-century later, documentary filmmakers Alex Gibney (“Taxi to the Dark Side”) and Alison Ellwood found themselves with 40 hours of amateur home movies shot on the trip.

The resulting two-hour movie from Magnolia Pictures began its theatrical roll-out Aug. 5 in San Francisco (naturally) and New York. “Magic Trip” downloads also are available (iTunes link).

Reviews were mixed: The San Francisco Examiner reviewer found that while ” ‘Magic Trip’ failed “to adequately explore the significance of the journey involved, the film is a worthy document of the 1964 event and a loopily enjoyable visit to the inception of hippiedom.”

The New York Times’ Stephen Holden wrote that “the unbridgeable distance between the stoned and the sober is the problem with Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood’s documentary.” As in, taking acid is a lot involving than watching some shave-tail kid freak out.

The footage couldn’t be synched up with what remained of the recorded sound, so most of the movie’s audio focuses on the participants’ memories. Audio interviews with various Pranksters were made in the 1970s. “None of the storytellers could be described as transfixing yarn spinners,” Holden wrote. “Any philosophical afterthoughts are resoundingly banal.”

The Hollywood Reporter, however, found the older Pranksters’ tales fascinating: “They provide a vivid portrait of the journey previously profiled in Tom Wolfe’s book ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,’ ” reviewer Frank Scheck wrote.

He continued: “Much of the footage on display consists of the Pranksters behaving in generally silly, stoned, sloppy fashion, with the result that the proceedings come to resemble a rambling home movie that was clearly more fun to make than it is to watch.”

The band that would become the Grateful Dead, the Warlocks, make an appearance and, of course, “Truckin’” keys the soundtrack. The main Dead offshoot band is now called Furthur.

You can see for yourself via Magnolia’s on-demand (paid) distribution network, which includes iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, the DirecTV and Dish satellite systems and a swarm of cable providers.

Mickey Hart’s world of music, collected

Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart has teamed up with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings to release his expansive archive of world music recordings.

“The Mickey Hart Collection” is set for release Oct. 11, via on-demand CDs, downloads and audio streams.

Releases begin with 25 albums from Hart’s previous series “The World” (originally on Rykodisc). Six of those recordings comprise “The Endangered Music Project,” done with the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution, the national museum of the United States. Hart said he donated the recordings to the museum because “there will always be a Smithsonian (and) Folkways is the premier indigenous music label.”

Hart began his recordings as world musicians began to perform in San Francisco in the 1960s, but his interest dates back well before his Grateful Dead days.

As a young boy, Hart heard an album of field recordings of pygmies from the Ituri Rainforest “that made my world disappear. … I was entranced by the rhythms of West Africa, by way of Cuba and Haiti. … They were dance music, and I loved music that made you dance. …

“I treated each recording as if it would sell a million copies. So I always always recorded it at the highest resolution and had it mastered at the same place I was mastering the Grateful Dead material.

“It was very important that all this music was released first-rate so that people could understand the importance of it.” (text continues …)

Among the initial recordings are “The Music of Upper and Lower Egypt,” made during the Dead’s 1978 tour of the country. Nigerian artist Babatunde Olatunji is the focus of two albums, as is Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira (Return to Forever). Other artists hail from American Indians, the rainforests of South America and the Caribbean, the Indonesian archipelago, Tibet and Cuba.

The Mickey Hart Collection includes his “Rhythm Devils: The Apocalypse Now Sessions” and the delivery-room album “Music to be Born By.” It also includes recordings made by other musicologists and producers.

Hart was a member of the Grateful Dead from 1967-1971 and 1974-1995. He continues to play with other Dead members, principally fellow drummer Bill Kreutzmann (as the Rhythm Devils).

Mickey Hart
recorded numerous albums of his own work and led several bands.

Check out the Folkways Recordings amazing record catalog and listen to a stream of its world music.

White Stripes in Love: ‘Signed D.C.’

The White Stripes wail no more, but Jack White continues to put out some of the duo’s recordings in limited formats. This time, he’s gone public with a pair of covers, including the druggie Love classic “Signed D.C.”

The White Stripes’ version of “Signed D.C.” can be heard on YouTube (see bottom of post). Earlier, it was released as a 7-inch vinyl under the band’s From the Vault paid-subscription series, via Third Man Records.

A suitably rough recording, it features White on acoustic guitar and vocals, with Meg White (apparently) playing tambourine. There is no harmonica, as heard on Love’s recording.

White also released to YouTube his take on Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”

In a similar vein, White’s band the Raconteurs previously covered British singer Terry Reid with “Rich Kid Blues,” originally released in 1969. (Reid, a bit of a raconteur himself, tells audiences that the popular 2008 cover inspired him to call up White in hopes of working together. White never called back, Reid says with a sheepish grin.)

“Signed D.C.” appeared on Love’s first album. John Einarson, who wrote the Lee biography “Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and the Book of Love,” describes the original track like so:

With its stark instrumentation, featuring just Arthur alone on acoustic guitar and harmonica, the song offered a harrowing anti-drug message drawn from the real-life experience of drummer Don Conka — the titular D.C.

“When I wrote the song, I heard the Animals’ ‘The House of the Rising Sun,’ ” Lee said in an interview. It was inspired by some of the people who hung out with the band in its early days — strung out on methadone or heroin.

The White Stripes’ “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” sounds a lot rougher than “Signed D.C.” with a bit of feedback and White’s tentative vocals. Meg White plods along on drums.

(Hat tip to Uncut.)

‘L.A. Woman’ set for massive reissue

On Sunday, the 40th anniversary of Jim Morrison’s death, two of his surviving bandmates — Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger — visited the singer’s grave at Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, where they lit candles and posed for pictures.

Drummer John Densmore, out of synch with his fellow ex-Doors, as usual, wasn’t attending: “I don’t even know the date (of Morrison’s death),” he said. “I prefer to celebrate Dec. 8, his birthday.”

Nostalgia for Morrison and his dark brew of psychedelic rock and collegiate poetry never abated, really, with the 1960s band’s commercial machine cranking out repackaged music and merchandise at a pace surpassed only by the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Manzarek and Krieger have other musical affiliations, but by and large their careers have been spent chasing the ghost of the Morrison-fronted Doors.

2011 also marks the 40th anniversary of the Doors’ last studio recording with Morrison, “L.A. Woman.” Rhino and the Doors several months ago released a vinyl version of its most celebrated song, “Riders on the Storm” (for Record Store Day), but the motherlode comes this fall.

A 40th anniversary edition of “L.A. Woman” sprawls across two discs, one with a remastered version of the original album and the other with alternate versions of its songs and some studio chatter. The liner notes come from Rolling Stone archive guru David Fricke and the album’s producer, Bruce Botnick. A separate vinyl release contains the disc 2 material.

The big bang for the Doors-obsessed comes in the 40th anniversary app (for various computer platforms), billed as “a redefining of the album reissue using today’s most current technology.” This appears to be the definitive study of the Doors in their final days.

Editorial topics include:

• Setting the Scene: Los Angeles in 1971.
• The “cast of characters” involved in the creation of the album.
• A multimedia re-creation of the “in the studio with the band” experience.
• The recording sessions/technical background/the creative process.
• Geo-mapping of the landmarks/places mentioned in accompanying essays, which are written by Fricke, Botnick, Holly George-Warren, Michael Ventura, Barney Hoskyns and Kristan McKenna.
• Audio and/or video interviews with the surviving Doors plus Botnick, Jac Holzman, Bill Siddons, Marc Benno, and Jerry Scheff.

A four-CD box set, the “super deluxe” edition, picks up much of the content from the Doors app with Rhino-style collectors packaging and adds some other materials.

The 40th anni promotion also sees the release of “Mr. Mojo Risin’: The Story Of L.A. Woman” on DVD.

No specific release dates or presale information was released by the Doors’ management. The four-CD box set will be sold exclusively by the Doors’ web site, apparently.

CD background: The surviving Doors remixed “L.A. Woman” a decade ago, but those tracks weren’t included on on single CD release until 2007 (part of another 40th anniversary celebration, for the band itself). The last mega-Doors release was the six-CD, six-DVD box set “Perception,” unleashed in 2006 and again in 2008.

More immediately, there’s the covers project “All Wood and Doors,” from folk veteran James Lee Stanley, who created “Wood and Stones” (with John Batdorf) in 2005. Doors drummer Densmore was a fan of that album of acoustic Rolling Stones covers, and told Stanley he’d be happy to play on a similar project with Doors material.

Stanley, given to two-man band projects, teams up this time with Cliff Eberhardt. Also playing on the album are Doors guitarist Krieger, Peter Tork, Timothy B. Schmit, Paul Barrere and Batdorf.

Krieger and Densmore recorded separately, no surprise because they’ve long been at odds over the Doors’ name and recordings. Keyboardist Manzarek, usually eager to get in on any Doors-related project, is MIA on this guitar-driven project.

“All Wood and Doors” is set for release on June 12 via Stanley’s own Beachwood Records.

The dozen Doors cover songs are “Break on Through,” “Love Me Two Times,” “Take It As It Comes,” “Strange Days,” “Light My Fire,” “Touch Me,” “Crystal Ship,” “Soul Kitchen,” “People Are Strange,” “Moonlight Drive,” “Riders on the Storm” and (short and sweet) “The End.”

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