During my first few semesters at the University of Dortmund, a breakthrough in album sales happened. While at the regular record store you had to shell out over DM 20 (that’s Deutsch Marks for all you young kids, the currency they had in Germany before the Euro) for a 30cm album, some entrepreneurial students started to sell those same albums for DM 14.95 or less in the entry hall of the mensa (Latin-German for cafeteria).

This is where I got pretty much my whole collection of albums I still have after so many years. Some of the early and important items in this collection are records from the Doors. Sure, we knew Jim Morrison by name, but the other members of the band were more or less faceless and nameless.

Until today, when I found the great video site called L-Studio (Edit 2026: no more). L must stand for Lexus, as this site is hosted on a subdomain of Lexus.com. And why not – BMW sponsors TED, why should Lexus not have its own video site with – I have to say – excellent videos.

Some of these videos are with and about Ray Manzarek, the creator of the Doors’ characteristic keyboard sound. Hear him tell about the Doors’ beginnings …

… and then look through the other video for more Ray Manzarek and try not to miss the series of Web Therapie with Lisa Kudrow. (Edit 2026: again, no longer a write-off item for Lexus, but you can find Web Therapy easily on YouTube. A must-see if you like cringe-worthy comedy.)

UPDATE: just ran into the new video of Weird Al Yankovic – ‘Craigs List’ – where he pays homage to the Doors – in his own special way. And the great thing is that Ray Manzarek actually plays the keyboards in this spoof of the Doors! No wonder that Yankovic version sounds so authentic…