Bleeding Paradise by Darryl Read & Ray Manzarek

Combining Read’s existentialist Beat poetry with Manzarek’s cinematic keyboards, the two create fevered art on Bleeding Paradise, their third team-up.

In an interview conducted on March 14, Manzarek explained his long fascination with the Beat Generation and how it led to the formation of the Doors and his creative partnership with Read.

Manzarek has known Read for 20 years. According to Manzarek, what attracted him to Read’s poetry was that “it’s got a street credibility, an instant punch in the nose,” he said. “It’s now, it’s today, and yet it’s got its roots firmly set in the Beat Generation.”

It was the work of the Beat Generation, the groundbreaking, spontaneous, and in-your-face words of underground icons such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, that opened the Doors for Manzarek. Manzarek revealed that the writing of the Beats was “the reason the Doors came together in the first place, an attempt to wed poetry and rock & roll, the same way that the Beats had wed poetry and jazz.”

In some ways, Manzarek’s work with Read unites both approaches as Read’s delivery booms with punk intensity while Manzarek’s lushly crafted keyboards have the playful energy of jazz.

To Be Continued

(For more information on Ray Manzarek and Darryl Read, go to: http://www.raymanzarek.us and http://www.darrylread.com).

Explore posts in the same categories: The Big Question (Interviews), Music, Mike

Calling all Beat Defenders: Ray Manzarek and Darryl Read need you for a revolution of the mind, safe from the "moneyed poison creed of greed": one voice, one piano, "Far From The Hearth Of Slumber," unadorned and unrelenting: food for thought, and food for your head. Welcome to BLEEDING PARADISE.

Ralph Heibutzki AMG January 2007

BLEEDING PARADISE

Press release February 2007

Ralph Heibutzki

SAN FRANCISCO -- If the forces of reaction come knocking, only the whole truth will do -- especially when it arrives in the spoken word cocktail of Bleeding Paradise.

Recorded in July 2006 at San Francisco's Banquet Studios, Bleeding Paradise (BeatKat Records 001) reunites proto-punk pioneer, filmmaker, and lyricist Darryl Read for a collaboration with Ray Manzarek, the Doors' former keyboardist.

The pair last flexed their collective muse on Freshly Dug (1999), where Manzarek wove his acoustic and electric keyboard spells around Read's supercharged delivery.

For Bleeding Paradise, the spotlight falls on Manzarek's acoustic piano, while his deft blues, jazz and classical flourishes provide the rhythmic undertow for Read's lyrics. (The 15-track album's bonus features include 15 minutes of footage from the actual sessions, plus a 20-page booklet.)

To many listeners, Read is best known as the windmilling drummer for Crushed Butler (1969-71), the underground British power trio now regarded among the direct forebears of the Sex Pistols.

Now entering his fourth creative decade, Read has worked with an amazing variety of musicians -- including the late Dave Goodman, who collaborated with Darryl on his last musical CD, Shaved (2002).

For Bleeding Paradise, Read reveals a different persona to suit the mood, from scourge of reactionary dreams (“You Can't Stop The Words,” “Beat Defenders”), to environmental sage (“The Earth's Revenge”), prince of the underground (“B-Side Night”), and fast talker of local characters past (recalling “Sam Cha Cha”).

Join Darryl Read and Ray Manzarek for a revolution of the mind, which unfolds right from the opening salvo of “You Can't Stop The Words”: “They...can't kill...your words...'cause they're ours.”

Beat Defenders; heed the call from Bleeding Paradise: we need you more than ever.

To hear the evidence yourself, check out www.amazon.com or www.cdbaby.com

For additional information, please visit the artists' sites: www.darrylread.com & www.raymanzarek.us

Ralph Heibutzki 11th of February 2007

Author of: Unfinished Business the Life and Times of Danny Gatton

SHOTGUN REVIEWS http://www.shotgunreviews.com/

Ray Manzarek: Life After Jim Morrison - Part I

March 16th, 2007 by Michael Sutton

Categories: The Big Question (Interviews), Music, Mike Sutton

Written by Michael Sutton

For Ray Manzarek, the Beat goes on.

In fact, the Beat has never stopped. Even after Jim Morrison’s shocking death in 1971 and the Doors’ subsequent break-up two years later, the group’s legendary keyboardist has never faded from the rock & roll scene. Whether it’s producing post-punk pioneers such as X and Echo & the Bunnymen or resurrecting the Doors with a new frontman, Manzarek continues to mesmerize and move new generations of listeners with his atmospheric, jazz-inflected playing.

One of the most intriguing projects that Manzarek has involved himself with lately is a collaboration with late ’60s garage rock survivor Darryl Read, frontman for Britain’s first punk band Crushed Butler. Combining Read’s existentialist Beat poetry with Manzarek’s cinematic keyboards, the two create fevered art on Bleeding Paradise, their third team-up.

In an interview conducted on March 14, Manzarek explained his long fascination with the Beat Generation and how it led to the formation of the Doors and his creative partnership with Read.

Manzarek has known Read for 20 years. According to Manzarek, what attracted him to Read’s poetry was that “it’s got a street credibility, an instant punch in the nose,” he said. “It’s now, it’s today, and yet it’s got its roots firmly set in the Beat Generation.”

It was the work of the Beat Generation, the groundbreaking, spontaneous, and in-your-face words of underground icons such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, that opened the Doors for Manzarek. Manzarek revealed that the writing of the Beats was “the reason the Doors came together in the first place, an attempt to wed poetry and rock & roll, the same way that the Beats had wed poetry and jazz.”

In some ways, Manzarek’s work with Read unites both approaches as Read’s delivery booms with punk intensity while Manzarek’s lushly crafted keyboards have the playful energy of jazz.

To Be Continued

(For more information on Ray Manzarek and Darryl Read, go to: http://www.raymanzarek.us and http://www.darrylread.com).

Explore posts in the same categories: The Big Question (Interviews), Music, Mike Sutton

This entry was posted on Friday, March 16th, 2007 at 11:07

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