CREEM ONLINE: Danny Sugerman — Tribute To A Lizard Disciple

Danny Sugarman
Tribute To A Lizard Disciple

Danny Sugerman and I had many overlapping connections, friends, projects and passions over the 30 years we knew each other. I'll miss Danny, and even though I hadn't spoken to him for almost a year. I did send him a copy of the Stooges' Live in Detroit and he left me a phone message, thanking me.

Our first meetings were through Iggy when I visited L.A. in 1974 and later when I interviewed the Doors for a CREEM special upon the 10th anniversary of Jim Morrison's death. I helped him with the Doors photo archives, assisting with The Illustrated History, cleaning negatives, restoring prints—as well as photographing girlfriends, parties, and the last minute backstage "Hey Bob, I need a shot of me and Iggy!" That familiar growl became a regular event over the last 25 years—almost like an annual family Christmas photo.

I remember him trying to get comments out of Mick Jagger backstage on the Steel Wheels tour. Danny had just started working on a book about Guns ‘N Roses when he asked Mick Jagger whether or not GnR were the new Rolling Stones. Mick was pondering deeply and about to answer when Oliver Stone butted in, offering that Danny had started working on a book about them, Mick was quick with a pithy comment along the lines of “Let’s see them stay together for 25 years, then ask me.”

He co-wrote songs with Ray Manzarek, for Ray’s 1974 solo album, most notably the title cut “The Whole Thing Started With Rock & Roll Now It’s Out Of Control" and “I Wake Up Screaming." The latter is a haunting Doors jaunt with a cameo by a then still unknown Patti Smith reciting lines from a Jim Morrison poem as well as “Angel W/No Freedom” and “Midnight Queen” for Ray’s band, Nite City. His work continued with Ray over the years, including collaborations with Phillip Glass and Jim Carroll. But truly one of his greatest recorded achievements would have to be his production of the Iggy Pop track featured in the film classic Repo Man. Pop was recorded along with Steve Jones, Clem Burke and Nigel Harrison—all recovering from their own ’70s rock superstardom and slumming it together as Chequered Past.

Although best known as the author of the Doors biography No One Here Gets Out Alive and his autobiographically twisted tale of rock 'n' roll decadences, Wonderland Avenue, Danny wasn't content to merely rest on his Doors laurels. He was obviously obsessed with the rock frontman as Dionysus (see Jimbo, Jagger, Iggy and that once up 'n' comer Gunner, Axl). More than anything he was a true rock fan, like all of us.