Live at the Matrix 1967 is a double live album by the American rock band the Doors. It was recorded at The Matrix in San Francisco on March 7 and 10, 1967 by club co-owner Peter Abram (the other co-owner was Marty Balin).[1] The recording is notable as one of the earliest live recordings of the band known to exist, played to a mostly empty venue. By March 1967, the Doors had recorded only their debut album (released January 4, 1967) and "Light My Fire" had yet to be released as a single (on April 24, 1967),[2] and they were still relatively unknown outside Southern California.
Recording equipment
On November 22, 2008, recording engineer Peter Abram revealed in an online posting[3] the equipment he used to record the Doors at The Matrix:
I used an Akai tape recorder (tubes), 4 Calrad mics on the stage and a Calrad mic mixer on the instrumental channel. On the vocal channel: a Knight mixer with 3 Electrovoice 676 and Shure mics. The Calrad mics that I used on the instrumental track were model DM-21.[3]
The original master quarter-inch track stereo tapes were recorded at 7.5 ips on Abram's Akai reel-to-reel vacuum tube tape recorder.
The release was mastered by long-time Doors' sound engineer/producer Bruce Botnick. The album was released from the Bright Midnight Archives collection which contains a number of previously unreleased live concerts by the Doors.[11]
PopMatters music critic Steve Horowitz observed in his review of Live at the Matrix 1967, entitled "Money...That's What I Want,"[12] that the Rhino CD was not sourced from Peter Abram's master tapes; Rhino's press release stated that "first generation tapes" were used.[13][14]
On December 2, 2008, Peter Abram allowed photos to be taken of his master tape boxes. These photos were published online at the Steve Hoffman Forums on December 4, 2008.[15] Abram's notations on the master tape boxes indicate that a 'jam' was performed between "Soul Kitchen" and "Get Out of My Life, Woman" during the March 7, 1967 show. For Record Store Day 2017, 10,000 condensed version LPs were released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Doors.
