All language subtitles for Danny.Says.2015.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX]

Downloaded from
YTS.MX

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

You're always looking for sexy.

Everyone's always
looking for sexy.

I'm always looking for sexy!

But...

smart is sexy.

It is as if I know

how wonderful this person,
this talent is.

I'd rather see a bit
of a miracle, and then...

just encourage it to keep
being miraculous because

the thing about people,

especially when they're young
and coming along,

is that they're racked
with so much insecurity.

They don't know
how fabulous they are.

He seemed to be at the pulse
of the underground

in New York City.
He was always, sort of,

in that world of
Lou Reed and Iggy,

the whole Warhol gang.

He was sort of
the mayor of New York City,

when it came to that.

Danny's a connector,
like a fuel line in a car,

which is, by the way, one of
the most dangerous places,

a place where things
are liable to... erupt.

He's been the handmaiden
to the gods,

he's been midwife to

some of the most important
people in music.

I remember the first time
I went to his house,

and I found the "Wall of Fame."

And he said, "Yeah,
here's Janis and Patti..."

Various stories,

denigrating or otherwise,
about all of them.

And then
there was a picture of me.

You know, in a mirror,
putting my make-up on.

I was really overwhelmed.

Somehow I was preparing
my first trip to New York,

Danny said, "Stay with me."

Really, Danny was my
introduction to New York

and the East Coast.

And Danny was the first person

to explain to me the importance
of a cover of a magazine.

That meant something. We just
put any random thing on a cover.

He said, "No, no, no,
when you do that,

it signifies great importance."

So that was
another revelation to me, so...

You know, kinda just...

Danny was an early teacher.

Danny was one of those people
who was into rock 'n' roll

and the rebellious edge
that it had,

and he chose to work with

the most rebellious
of those people.

His art is knowing how to
place people within a context,

and that context,
within the culture.

All of the bands that were in
Danny's universe,

whether he worked
with them or not,

had a great,
great influence because

they were doing something
that nobody else was doing.

They created themselves
out of the stuff of...

dust.

He speeded up the evolution
in a tremendous way.

Nothing was ever
the same after that.

This music went on
to take over the world.

I was born in Brooklyn.

My father was in
and out of the war,

so there was a lot of
grandparents and aunts.

There were four sisters,

and their idea
of sinning as teenagers,

was to go out and eat shrimp
in a Chinese restaurant.

God bless that generation.

That's how they defied...

tradition and parent control,
they ate shrimp.

And I grew up with them,
so they were sort of

four "Auntie Mames" in a way.

My life was mainly my hobbies,
I had no friends.

I went to school like
everybody else, I got all A's.

I took a lot of amphetamines
cause my father was a doctor,

so I've been taking
amphetamine every day

since I was ten.

But so was everyone else,

my mother.

There was a bowl of Desoxyn
on the dining room table,

like people would have M&M's,
I don't know what Italians have,

but we had Desoxyn and Dexamine.

I always went against the grain,

whether it was because
I was a little faggot,

which everyone else knew but me,

or whether it was because
I didn't like

my parents' tastes in anything.

Oh, it's Daniel's Bar Mitzvah!

This is quality.
This is high class.

Okay, there's my mother
and my father,

and my little brother.
The traditional...

kiss...

The traditional pomade.

My brother.

Isn't this mortifying?

Now, the main thing
at a Bar Mitzvah is all kids.

Then, it was just a few kids,
and I hated kids.

They had to scrape the bottom
of the genealogy barrel.

Oh yay, hurray!
Aren't they nice?

It's amazing to have something
like that, isn't it?

Forest Hills!

Home of the Ramones, right?

When I was a teenager,
and I was at Penn...

there was no right table.

I was in the wrong table
from the get-go.

The wrong city,
the wrong school.

My best friend,
Steve Levine, said,

"You have to see this singer."
And it was Nina Simone.

♪ Say love me and leave me
And let me be lonely ♪

♪ You won't believe me,
but I love you only ♪

♪ I'd rather be lonely than
happy with somebody else... ♪

She would come and
sit with the guys from Penn.

She was so, I'd say insecure,
but she was humble.

"Do you really think I'm good?"
kinda thing.

"You think
what I'm doing will work?"

Well, I don't know, we were 15!

As long as
it's good enough for then,

you can't think of what noise
this is gonna make

in the history of history.

And that was part of our
little crowd, trying to escape,

the "Penn penitude,"
"penal-atude."

Other schools looked so sexy
compared to

all the Jew finance majors
at Penn.

Yeah, I had straight A's.

I was sixth in my class
of a thousand...

and the youngest.

One of our immediate crowd
was a flaming faggot

who loved to get fucked.

So I knew all the juicy ways,
what they did.

The night I graduated college,
we went out to celebrate,

and one of the things we did

was to go take a look at the
promenade in Brooklyn Heights.

They said it was very cruisy so
we went up and looked at it.

You know...

I'm 19,
I graduated college,

and I stood there, and I did
everything he said they do.

Like, you look,
and you wink and nod, and all...

It's like you do a silent
"Hello, sailor,

would you like to come over?"

This is what they say!

Whoa!

I felt compelled to tell him
on the way back to his house,

"I've never done this before."

Of course he said,
"Oh, it'll be all right."

So I always thought
I would fall in love at Harvard,

but I didn't know how to fall
in love at Harvard Law School

where everyone was 23 and
wearing a suit and a tie.

No one had sat next to me
in Property

or Civil Procedure

that I wanted to go and have
a coffee date with.

So I had to call Keith.

"I haven't be able
to meet anyone like us."

I don't know what I said.

I don't know what word I used.

Homosexual, I guess.

"Are there homosexuals
in Boston?"

And he said, "Yes, there are
two bars in Boston,

The Punchbowl
and The Napoleon Club."

I met people like Donald Lyons
and Hal Peterson

and Harold Talbot,

real aristocrats
of the mind and spirit.

I was in the 99th percentile
on the law school aptitude test,

no one could believe it
'cause I was flaky.

I stopped going to class,
it was so boring,

and I hung out with
a bunch of dissolute faggots,

shoplifted a lot,
charged a lot,

ran around Harvard Square
in a camel's hair coat

and fucked a lot.

That's what I always wanted
to do was fuck at Harvard.

And I got a big chance to do it,
so I did it.

Coming back to
New York and moving

to Greenwich Village where...

You know, I stayed in this hotel
and out the back window was

lesbians, literally,
having pissing contests.

Really, you think
that's just a word,

but they really were doing it.

They would press
their pussies, pissies,

and see how strong
they could make it,

so they could pee further.

That's what it means, isn't it?
It's always what it means!

But dykes could do it too and...

Oh, God, welcome to
Greenwich Village, so...

I had nine years of that
before the Stonewall.

When I got to New York and
I met Danny and Jackie Curtis,

it was all gay,
but it wasn't homosexual.

It was really gay, I guess,

the definition of gay
was just ha-ha.

So what?

When you talk about
Danny being out,

he was never in.

We never came out
to our parents,

what's the point of that?

Why would we want
to upset those old people for?

You know?

We were okay, we don't have
to bother them with it.

You know, so gayness was not
a point of reference,

it was certainly
not a definition.

There was a columnist
named Lee Mortimer,

who'd disclose and expose

gay bars in New York.

It's like finding
a protestant in Spain.

They really were
rooting them out.

I didn't feel harassed
by the police,

but I didn't confront them

like they did
at the Stonewall either.

Fuck it!

We had a good time and...

we all had to fuck each other
'cause it was like lesbians.

It wasn't like we could go
to the Firemen's Ball.

And with the gay liberation came

all these gay firemen
and stuff like...

Oh!

You know, that's nice,
be happy, but...

I mean, I didn't wait my whole
life for firemen to come out...

as a group.
Who cares?

I was in search of crazy people.

I'd just come from three years
in Philadelphia.

What else would I want?
Christians?

I want my people
with insanity in their blood.

It was the same Sunday that
inThe New York Times magazine

the lead story was
the soup cans.

That was revolutionary.

I thought that was really...

pushing the bucket,
or whatever you...

Cutting the envelope because

everything good starts off
being hated

byThe New York Times.

Andy was sitting...

on the sofa with Gerard,

and there was a woman crawling
around the floor screaming,

"Andy, I love you, I love you!"
It was Ivy Nicholson,

it was Andy's girl of the year,
she was in love with him,

and when she got close enough,
he'd kick her in the chin and

she just moaned and

went over to one of the windows
and started to climb out.

I said, "Oh, my God!
That woman is going to jump!"

And I put my arms around her.

And then I said,
"There, there, you know,

don't do something so silly."
And then...

I dunno,
she took a sleeping pill,

or someone gave her
a Quaalude.

And then as we were leaving,

someone said to me,
I thought it was Andy,

"Boy, we were all hoping
she would jump!

You sort of spoiled it
for everyone."

I was uncool by saving
this person's life at a party.

But the lesson is,

it's sort of
an upper class thing,

you don't get all excited
about anything.

I thought,
"That suits me fine."

That's it!

I was not worried about
being uncool anymore...

because I knew all it took
was to do nothing.

That's the whole model of
what that world was saying.

"You're better of doing nothing.

Look at it,
and let the looking at it

become the thing
that you're doing."

Once you're in those
silver-aluminum rooms,

you were in the world.

It was like going through
the looking glass,

it was action central,
people were coming to you.

What a good way to be
in New York.

It's the reason
anyone comes to New York.

A point of contact with,
like, whatever is happening,

recognized and creative,
and all that.

That was The Factory.

That was as in
as you could get.

So then it's career time.
I'm living in the village and

going to have a career
in publishing,

and I'm gonna start
at the bottom.

So I sold books at Double Days.

Then I got a job through an
agency at Liquor Store Magazine,

the monthly magazine
that goes to all owners

of all liquor stores
in the United States.

The day of the assassination,

we were all sitting around
the receptionist's desk.

She had a radio.

I'm like paralyzed and the boss
came back from lunch and said,

"What's going on here?"

Someone managed to get out that

the president
had just been killed.

And he said, "Hmm, too bad
they didn't get his brother."

I decided to have a party
because it was one week later.

The Warhols were there,
the San Remos were there,

and also all the people from
Harvard, and they sorta all met.

The only thing that
we had to drink was

vodka and grapefruit juice,

which is just wonderful
'cause it's cheap,

and it's potent

and no one knows
what the proportions are.

You can just turn them up,
or turn them down.

No one on earth can tell,
until you see the effects.

It's like a silent,
tasteless poison.

In the middle of the evening,
the door opened and

Nico came in, dressed in

tattered levis
and tattered levi jacket.

She came in with two men.

One of whom was a Chilean count,

and the other who was
an English dandy.

And the room of
beautiful people just turned.

She walked over to the table,

and on which
there was a punchbowl,

and...

dipped the ladle in and
threw her head back and just...

Man, showstopper.

That's how I met Nico.

She crashed my party,
then she got...

She was in New York so

she and the Warhols
picked up on each other.

She began to sing
with The Velvet Underground.

Being in the world of

New York in the 60s was
transcending everything to me.

I was with people
who were smart and

sexy and famous and brilliant
and talented and

I had...

what I had always wanted was
a pool from

where I could find friends.

That's what motivates me is
to be in the right crowd.

In 1964, Tommy Goodwin,
everyone's favorite,

most beloved, beautiful guy,

drove down to New York
from Cambridge, and he said,

"Can my friend, Edie,
stay at your apartment tonight?"

I guess it was the first place
she stayed when she moved here.

I think she was going
to model then, or something,

she was into something fashiony.

Then she met Andy, and then
she changed her hair and

she changed her look.

I remember
the first time he said

he was going
to do a screen test with her.

And I thought, "What?"
You know,

"Gee, she's just
another pretty face."

And then, we saw the screen test
like two days later,

and it was just a revelation
for everybody who was there.

Because Andy had seen
what she'd had,

that she was bigger than life.

And that's what a star is,

someone who can stand
the spotlight

and continue to surprise
and delight her audiences.

I mean she always attracted
and was attracted

to the most brilliant
and crazy people.

And a lot of these people were
probably mostly gay,

but they were in love with her.

I mean
seriously in love with her.

- Andy was in love with her.
- Really?

Oh, yeah, definitely,
he was as in love with her

as any man can be
with any woman.

Whoever you were, next to her,
you were strong in a way.

'Cause she was so weak
in so many ways,

and she was so strong
in so many ways.

I don't know,
people are just born,

they just keep turning up
in every generation.

So Paul came down and...

It was his first night ever
at The Factory and Andy was...

Had the camera pointed at

the center of
this group of people and...

he said to Paul, "Oh, you know
anything about movies?"

And, "Oh, I can't get
all these people in the picture.

I don't know what to do."

And Paul said, "Well, there's
the thing called a pan,

and you, very slowly,
you know...

move the eye piece, whatever,
what you're looking through,

until you get
all the people in."

"Wow, we didn't really
think you could really do that.

I've always seen it in movies,
but I didn't know how to do it.

Oh, thank you."

And this is how he learned
to make movies

as if he made movies,

This is a good metaphor

for everything, we just
pretended there was no...

known way of doing it,

and maybe someone knew
a known way of doing it,

and admit what we don't know.

And be proud
of what we don't know.

And make a virtue
of what we don't know.

And...

turn a lack of expertise,
lack of virtuosity, into...

an asset.

So I was wondering,

when was the first time
you ran into Cale or Reed?

It was when the
Velvet Underground was playing

at the Café Bizarre.

They were terrific and very
strange and wonderful.

They immediately became
my favorite band.

John was very intense
and poetic and Welsh.

Lou was very arrogant
and difficult,

and you must remember,
everybody in New York

was in love with Lou Reed.

That crush on Lou
was an energy that

fueled a great deal of what
went on in and around the band.

It became...

corrupted...

by the presence of a lot of
extraneous elements,

like a psychedelic light show.

I really think that's the reason
that the band didn't go

the route of
rock 'n' roll success.

John and Lou and Nico who were
so intense and incredible,

were covered over
with flashing polka dots.

I used to tell Lou and John
all the time,

"Why don't you get rid
of that fucking light show?"

And what was their response?

They shrugged.

That was their response
to anything.

If someone said that to me,
I woulda shrugged too.

Andy was inspirational in
conveying to him

the importance of work.

And I think Lou
would tell you this himself,

I don't mean to put words
in his mouth, but he would say,

"How many songs
did you write today, Lou?"

And Lou would say, "Six."

Andy would say,
"Ooh, that's not enough.

You have to work harder."

It was difficult
to prove your legitimacy.

Everyone was a freak if you were
associated with Andy Warhol.

Unless you were Andy himself,

then you were just considered
some underground drug trash.

Erase these bananas
and whip dancers from your mind,

and listen to songs

from one of the greatest
songwriters of all time.

Then there was an ad
inThe New York Times,

"Expanding Teen Magazine
seeks writer/editor.

Young, hip, knowledge of
pop scene, some experience."

I thought he meant
the pop art scene.

So I wrote a letter
to the box atThe Times.

It was all about how I believed
in great, beautiful people,

and I loved kids.

And also I dropped
a lot of names like

Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick,

I thought that's what he meant.

So I went in
for an interview and

I turned his head around,
I guess.

How did you feel once you were

right in the middle of pop
music?

Hey! What? To go see a band,
five cute boys at once?

As Pat Hartley used to say,

"You bet your fucking ass
I'm a groupie!"

So I thought, well, you know,
"Hey,

The Velvet Underground,
my favorite band.

I know all about it.
What do you have to know?"

Of course back then,

you really didn't have
to know very much.

It was the year that everything
wonderful was happening.

It was '65, '66, which was

The Doors' first album, the
Mamas and Papas' first album,

Aftermath from the Stones,

I never liked the Beatles,

but they had some album,
and that was okay, Revolver.

There was all these first
albums, or watershed albums,

that didn't sound like
anything else in the world.

You just knew
this is the place to be!

Everything that you get
in the music business is,

when you first get in,

is just given to you
by press agents.

The first one I met
was a woman named Connie DeNave.

Her assistant took me to,
guess where, Brooklyn!

These three women came out
in bright yellow dresses,

and I went crazy.

That was my first maybe
rock 'n' roll-go-crazy moment,

like, I lifted off my seat.

♪ Whenever I'm with him

♪ Something inside's

♪ Still burning

♪ And I'm filled with desire

♪ Could it be a devil in me

♪ Or is this the way
love's supposed to be? ♪

♪ It's like a heat wave

♪ Burning in my heart

♪ I can't keep from crying

♪ It's tearing me apart...

I was earthquaked

by Martha and the Vandellas.

Boy, if that's what
this is about,

it's gonna be a fun business.

The Rolling Stones were giving
a press party

in the form of a boat ride.
I got there late.

My photographer
was the reason I was late

'cause he arrived with no film
and we missed the fucking boat!

A limo pulled up
and Gloria Stavers got out.

She was my archrival then,

she was like way number one
in the field.

This guy in a rowboat
came up and said,

"You two guys want a ride
to that boat?"

It'll be...

$20.

I said,
"Gloria, you wanna go in it?"

She said,
"I wouldn't pay 20 cents

for the fucking
Rolling Stones,"

and got back in her car
and drove away.

The boat docked.

A beautiful girl got off,
carrying a camera.

It was Linda Eastman,
her photographs were so great.

And we became best friends.

She had this quality that...

I find in...
In Libra females.

It's that men have a tendency
to dance for them,

to please them.

She always had that quality,

she took the best pictures
of pretty people.

And I wanted to write
a lot about The Byrds.

And Cass Elliot and
The Velvet Underground.

The publisher was very canny,

and he investigated
London literary agencies,

and bought a bunch of interviews

that Maureen Cleave,

a journalist and
a friend of The Beatles,

had done in England.

And they had

Paul McCartney saying,

"It's a lousy country where
anyone black is a dirty nigger!"

Whoa, that was nice.

And John Lennon said,

"I don't know what'll go first,
rock 'n' roll or Christianity!"

"We're more popular than Jesus."

And here I was
with this magazine,

I was competing with16,
I didn't wanna do,

you know, how nice
is Herman to his family,

or you know, something,
or this secret of Paul Revere's

you know, favorite color.

I just wanna do
something different!

I said, "Well, let's just,
hey, put it out.

See what happens,
maybe we'll get famous."

Ha-ha.

If I had said, "We're more...

"Television is
more popular than Jesus,"

I might've got away with it.

I just happened to be talking
to a friend, I used

the word "Beatles"

as a remote thing,
not as what I think,

as Beatles as those
other Beatles,

like other people see us.

I just said they are having more
influence on kids and things

than anything else,
including Jesus.

But I said it in that way,
which is the wrong way. Yap-yap.

The magazine came out
on the eve of the Beatles tour,

in the summer of 1966.

Some proper little
Christian teenager saw...

this thing about Christianity,
the word "Christ,"

whatever gets these people
juicing or drooling, whatever.

I just cannot understand

why I have to share
this country with them.

- And she got all in a thing...
- Socialist experiment?

Twat steaming and
ran to a disk jockey in...

Don't you know, there's
three States it could be?

In Alabama.

And he got outraged,

and he went on
the radio on his show and

called attention to...

this blasphemy

on the part of the
beloved Beatles because...

Remember, guys didn't like them
because they looked like

girly-girly with that hair!

If you, as an American teenager,

are offended by statements from
a group of foreign singers which

strike at the very basis
of our existence,

as god-fearing,
patriotic citizens,

then we urge you
to take your Beatles' records,

pictures and souvenirs,
to the pick-up points

about to be named,

and on the night of the Beatles'
appearance in Memphis, Aug 19th,

they will be destroyed

in a huge public bonfire
at a place to be named soon.

Stay tuned to WAQY
for further developments.

They were playing
stadiums and giant things,

it was 10 days in America,
I think,

and they flew into Memphis,

and someone, as they say,
looked out the window and said,

"Wow, there's snow
on the ground!"

Wow, it's Memphis, you know,

the beloved city
of Elvis and Sun Studios.

And they got closer,
and someone said,

"That's not snow!
It's the KKK!"

The Beatles made a statement
in all the newspapers that

they're getting more better
than Jesus himself and

the Ku Klux Klan,
being a religious order,

is gonna come out here,

the night that they appear
at the coliseum here,

and we're gonna
demonstrate with...

different ways and tactics
to stop this performance.

We're known as a terror
organization, I think we have...

A terror organization?

We have ways and means
to stop this

if this is gonna
be the case, yeah.

What ways and means?

Oh, I don't wanna say this but
there'll be a lot of surprises

on Monday night, I believe,
when they get here.

What did I do...

really?

I didn't have to put Jesus
Christ on the top of the page,

and the word nigger on...

When's the last time
you saw the word nigger

on the cover of a magazine
for 11-year-olds?

For anybody?

Anybody!
He's saying it like...

that's bad to call
someone a nigger.

You know,
what's wrong with that?

I didn't love them that much,

but I certainly loved them
more than Jesus.

You know, I mean, they're
more important to me

than to Jesus, right?
I mean than Jesus was.

What did Jesus
ever fucking do for me?

If you think I did that to be...

To cause them trouble.

No.

Only but in the sense that...

it's about time...

You know...

Look at Lenny Bruce,
it's about time

more people got in trouble
for saying the right things.

Look what Dylan is doing.

You know, it's all emerging now.

I wanted to make some trouble,

I didn't want them to have
to live through a week of...

death threats.

I wouldn't want that for anyone!

Mm, mm...

Uh...

I wouldn't want them
to be killed.

But I think
some death threats would be...

I can think of some people who
could use some death threats.

You know what
the happy ending is,

lightning hit the radio station,
in Alabama and it fell down.

Is that the ending to the story?

That's true.
Isn't that great?

So anyhow, the real end is that
many years later when I...

for a while...

was acquainted
with Paul socially

because he was married to
my dear friend,

Linda Eastman McCartney.

And I said to him once,

"You know, Paul,

remember with the magazine,
with the "more popular..."

"Yeah."

I said, "That was me."

And he said,
"So you're the one."

Because they really did
never perform again.

After that Sunday night
at Candlestick Park...

So you, Danny Fields,
broke the Beatles up?

- No, I didn't!
- That's what you told me!

No.

Don't be backtracking
now that we're on the air!

Look, if you had to sell
a candy bar in 20 words or less.

I want to ask you if
you think that prediction

was accurate, by the way.

I don't know what'll go first,
rock 'n' roll or Christianity.

Somehow I think
it's rock 'n' roll.

The first time I heard
they had a cute lead singer was

a friend of mine named Pat
Hartley who was a movie actress,

and she came screaming
into Max's one night and said,

"Ooh, there's the cutest lead
singer of a new group

playing at Ondines
called The Doors,"

at which point I said,

"Yee, I promised their person
I would go in and look at them!"

And there was
this little small audience,

and you could stand or sit
or just mill around,

and then there were maybe two
dozen people paying attention.

Steve Harris:
I came from the Dick Clark era.

If you saw somebody
that was really attractive,

Dick would play it.

Jim Morrison,
when I saw his picture, I said,

"If he could read
the phone book on key,

you're gonna make millions."

I met Danny when I went
to see the group rehearsing.

And I said,
"I'm the New York

press agent for The Doors."

He said,
"How wonderful, a press agent!

We've never had a press agent
connected...

But who decided

that you were the press agent
for The Doors?

I did!

He kind of appeared to be
a hippie yenta.

I told Jac that I met somebody
that knew everything,

and could wind up,
with his knowledge,

going after
specific types of acts.

So I went up to Elektra
and I said hi,

and they said,
"Oh, boy, are we happy

to have a press agent,
we've never seen one before!"

And I said,
"I'm glad to be of help.

By the way, I must say that

they were doing one very
intriguing song last night."

I said, "It was real catchy."

So they played me
the first single,

which was "Break On Through",
I said, "That's not it!

Something about a fire."

"Oh, 'Light My Fire',

oh, that can't be a single,
it's seven minutes long."

And I said, "That's too big,
can't you cut it down?"

And they said, "You can't cut
down a song, that's heretical.

You can't do that."

Finally, they figured out
it could be cut down,

and they remembered that I was
the first person

outside the company

who suggested that
they really try to cut it down.

And, of course,
with the release of that song,

that became
a different record company.

Then they
called me up from Elektra

and asked to come and
work for them

as a full-time to create
a publicity department.

Danny was plugged in
to another part of the scene,

the part of the scene
that was bubbling under.

But also he stayed up
later at night,

and that was a big plus for us

because then Elektra
was on the street

while I was asleep.

We had great plans for
him in our heads then because

the buzz was starting to invent
him as a major sex object.

Gloria had seen pictures of him,

was intrigued with his record
and his photographs.

This was my next thing,
I was gonna go to California

to set up a phone call
between him and Gloria.

This is how expense accounts
worked in those days.

I flew to California
to set up a phone call.

People in California, it was
a joke then, but it was true,

they would do one thing a day.

And if you asked someone what
they did, they would say...

"I washed my hair today."

Long pause, and that was it,
and you would say, "Oh, I...

You know...

Made a salad.

That wasn't
because of drugs?

No, I think they were all
just winding down so fast

and finding that...
Everybody did this,

then nobody would ask
anybody to do anything more.

And I saw them perform in San
Francisco, it was very jolly.

And I went backstage.

I was horrified.

It was like a sort of statue,
just sitting there,

and there were all these
groupie things.

Dirty girls.

Just rags and dirt,
and things falling off them,

and too much eye make-up
and a dopey, glazed look.

I was concerned that
this was bad for his image.

What if a photographer got this?

Gloria had told me that they're
always supposed to be alone.

Alone is sexy.

You're never supposed
to see them with a girl.

I made him make the call
to Gloria,

she asked him her questions,
I got on the phone with her,

she said, "That was very
interesting, I look forward

to meeting this young man."

And then,
as we were about to leave,

I had a little electric bulb
in my head.

And I said,
"Say, Jim, I'm staying with a...

an interesting chanteuse
called Nico, up in the Hills."

And I thought I would
bring him up there,

and then he would
fall in love with Nico,

and then he would see
the error of his ways,

in letting all
these slimy, little groupies...

And he would never
settle for a woman

less beautiful, or mystical
or exotic than Nico.

And since
there weren't too many,

then he would never have
too many girlfriends,

and my plot would be on its way.

We finally got up to the house.

And Nico was standing
in the doorway.

And he just looked at her,

and she looked at him,
and then they both

cast their glances downward.

They stared
at some imaginary spot

on the floor in between them.

And I tried to start
a little chatteroonie.

And I saw
this was going nowhere,

this was some kind of thing
they were acting out.

And I came back
about an hour later,

they were still
in the exact same positions,

they hadn't moved.

And they hadn't said anything?

They hadn't said anything.

This is their way
of acknowledging,

"You're a beautiful, special,
poetic person," I suppose...

Edie was after...
I had some pills with me,

I always traveled
with a little drug case then.

I hid them...

somewhere under a bed,
under a mattress,

between two blankets
and another mattress,

and she got them.
She found them,

and she took about half
of everything that was there.

I don't know how she did,
when she was in the room,

but she did and she was magical.

She was having an affair
with Dino Valenti, he wrote,

"Come on, everybody,

shine on your brother,

let's love one another..."

And the evening wore by.
and the day wore by,

and he and I
went up to the room,

and we started smoking
a lot of hash.

I started making a major speech
to him about

"I have these things
in mind for you

and life is a roller-coaster
and stardom is a trip and..."

I didn't know what I was doing,
I was just sounding like

every movie I had ever seen

about what's in store,
and play the game.

He would just open his palm
about every five minutes,

and asked for another drug.

Incredible amount of hash.

About six hits
of orange sunshine.

Nobody in those days

got scared
about taking too much?

I was scared!
I thought he was gonna die!

I had never seen...

This was like...

Enough drugs for me and

everybody I met in two weeks in
California!

But you kept giving it to him?

I kept giving it to him,
he wouldn't answer.

And I would say,
"What do you think about that

flight of brilliance, Jim."

"Got any more acid, man?"

In the middle of the night,

David Neuman came running
into my room and said,

"Oh, my God, you have
to see what's happening!"

She was in the courtyard.

She was crying and screaming,
and he was naked

up on top of this house.

And he was walking on it,
like jumping over the gaps.

Totally naked.

Jesus, what if he falls off?

Am I gonna lose my job?
It's all I could think of.

Who cared about him?

She came flying into my room
and threw herself

on the bed and she was
crying hysterically.

I never found out
what had happened, I mean,

"He is so evil,
oh, he is so evil."

"Oh, Nico, calm down and go
to bed, he's just stoned."

I went to his car and I took
the keys out of the ignition,

and put them
under the floor mat.

The next morning dawned,

and he said,
"Give me my car keys!"

And I said, "No, you're in
no condition to drive."

He was not smiling because

it totally reversed
everything that he stood for,

and everything that
he tried to project.

Nico and Edie
suggested we go over to

some friend of theirs house
who had a swimming pool.

We got to this house,
he didn't have a bathing suit.

So I went through this pile of
bathing suits and I said,

"Here, Jim, this looks like
it will fit you. Put this on

and then we will go swimming."

"Where's my car keys, man?"

I said, "We'll find them later,
put this on."

That's when he took off his
thing and he got naked,

and I saw his cock,
which was very big.

What do you mean
very big?

It was long.

It was like a salami,
it was long.

We all drove back to the house.

We found that
all the dining room chairs

had been put on the table,

and there was a still
fromChelsea Girls,

on the back of it, it said,
"Jim, your ass is mud.

Call us and
get to rehearsal fast."

I said, "Have you looked
under the mat of your car?

Perhaps you put the keys there,
as so many people do."

And he gave me a look like, "Oh,
so that's where you hid them."

And he got them
and he drove away.

And he hated me from that
point on.

He was constantly trying
to get Jac Holzman to fire me.

- Why?
- From Elektra records.

Well, cause I had kidnapped him.

Jim got really pissed.

And he called me, and he said,

"Keep Danny Fields
away from me!

And I'm gonna call Jac now."

The only person I knew
who wasn't a big fan of Danny's

was Jim Morrison.

If you get to close to one
of your artists personally

that when you have
to sit down and have

a hard talk...

it's tougher to do.

But we needed someone
to stay close to that group.

And you felt
Danny was too close?

No, I have no idea.

In his later days,
he is said to have become nicer.

However, when I went to visit

his widow
to give her my condolences,

the lovely Pamela,
who didn't live long after that.

And the dog kept jumping on me,
and she told me it was Jim,

and I went...

And he vomited on me.

I swear to God it's the truth,
I have witnesses.

- He won't die.
- The reincarnation.

No, he doesn't need
a reincarnation,

he is incarnated at all times.

This is a song that we...

We first sang together in a
hotel room in Newport.

That's right.

That's right, at the festival.

- Yeah.
- It was.

- We sang it all night.
- I know!

♪ Yes, I loved you in the
morning ♪

♪ Our kisses deep and warm...

Danny was one of the people
that just flipped out

over Leonard Cohen's music.

He just thought
it was wonderful.

And we all were
at Newport learning,

"Hey, That's No Way
to Say Good-bye."

And Danny was singing,

and we were all, of course,
drinking and carousing

and having a great time.

I decided to take acid,
'cause I was near the water

and I always found that
when I tried it in the city,

I'd start hallucinating over
an oil slick.

"Whoa, those colors."

So I thought, you know,
nature is better.

I didn't realize I would end up
in the hotel room of...

two super-human or extra-human,
projective artists.

And I'm on the floor,
exploring E = MC2 over H.

She looked over me and she said,

"Oh, I have to show you
the sunrise on the cliffs."

Because, you know, she's a
Taurus, she's the earth mother.

And...

She's there to respond to the
needs of people who she's with.

And she took me out,

they propped me up
and put me in a car,

and we drove out to the cliffs.

And Leonard and I...

just stood and laughed
and talked about everything.

Anybody who will take you
for a walk

by the ocean
when you're on acid

is saving probably both lives.

He was part of the fabric

of what was going on
culturally in the city,

not just music.

But the cultural involvement of

people who were against the war,
and people who wanted to see

a more loving culture and

create different kinds of music
and different kinds of events.

I didn't hang out
with the fast, druggy crowd.

He really understood
that I was not

the real folksinger deal,

I was something else that very
few people really understood.

I think that went a long way in
his being able to really

do things with my records,
and with me as an artist,

that were appropriate.

And that took me to the edge
and pushed me over,

but not too far.

What the company freak
was supposed to be

a liaison primarily

between both the artists
and the younger community,

and the communications area,
the writers and editors.

Having not existed before,

it's up to the person
who takes it to invent it.

And then it becomes
not a job but a role,

as McLuhan defined a role,
versus a job.

A job is something which can
be replaced by a machine.

In the summer of 1966
in Los Angeles,

I met the legendary Billy James,

an executive at
Elektra Records, Hollywood.

He sat barefoot on his desk.

He was the coolest guy of all.

And so he became a role model,
I guess still is. God bless him.

Billy James:
The world "freak" is defined

in my OED
as a sudden or causeless

turn of the mind,

or disposition of mind
that is subject to such humors.

I also thought of the jester,

and then I thought of Mercury,
I thought of the messenger.

And then I thought of the
Jungian archetype

of the eternal boy.

There is the...

somehow different
aspect to the freak.

And it sometimes creates
harmony among one's colleagues.

And sometimes
it creates discomfort.

I thought
there should be a drug album

because, especially Elektra,

they had all,
when I was in college,

they had recorded
these lusty university songs.

Beery, kinda
drink, drink, drink.

And Cook That Beer,
or whatever you do to it.

Why not have a smoking song?

So how do you do it?

And then I was in Washington
Square and I saw David Peel.

♪ ["I Want To Get High"

by David Peel
& The Lower East Side plays] ♪

David Peel: Okay,
I met Danny Fields in 1968.

He had a way with words that
made you wanna become part of,

whatever he was doing.

He brought me
to Max's Kansas City

after the show,
and he bought me a steak dinner.

How could I say no

to a steak dinner
when I'm used to eating...

pizza all my life
on the streets?

And I told Jac Holzman about it,
and saw a big crowd...

♪ I like marijuana,
You like marijuana... ♪

I said, "Well, there it is," and

"Up against the wall,
motherfuckers!"

and Jac thought, "Well this is
indeed avant-garde,"

and then looked around
and said, "Hmm,

light poles, hmm.
We can do this, live!"

We were allowed to plug into

the outlet at the secret bottom
of a lamp post in New York

to power the Nagra tape recorder
that we had out there.

Some cop came up and said,
"You can't do that."

We showed him our fancy

$600 order and that was it,
and we recorded

David Peel & the Lower East Side
in one afternoon.

In a way,
the Have a Marijuanaalbum,

was this to the establishment.

And we had this gigantic
marijuana leaf on the cover.

William S. Harvey thought
it was a terrible idea and...

We had a bet, he said it wasn't
gonna sell 10,000,

and I said I think it'll sell
way over 100,000.

And it sold probably 600,000.

In 1968,

I became a DJ at WFMU,

two nights a week,
four hours a night.

This is Danny Fields,
this is WFMU-FM,

freeform radio from
East Orange, New Jersey.

Going backwards up the half-hour
are the Beach Boys of course

and "Good Vibrations."

Pearls Before Swine,
"I Shall Not Care."

Silver Apples, "Program,"
the Righteous Brothers...

"You've Lost That Loving
Feeling."

Lot of us will be out at the
Pavilion next Wednesday night

to see the MC5,

The Stooges and David Peel
& the Lower East Side.

WFMU has been the first to play
any of their records remember.

As we go into the next half-hour
again with Otis Redding, Cream,

David Peel, Captain Beefheart,

The Byrds
and The Rolling Stones.

Bob Rudnick was of our world.

He was brilliant and funny
and Jewish and crazy and

he wrote an alternative column
called "Kokaine Karma" with Ks

in theEast Village Other,
with Dennis Frawley.

And they had
a radio show on WFMU.

He taught me a great deal.

He steered me in directions
of political activism

that I thought were simply
ludicrous, but if he liked them,

I knew they had a little style
as well, and he was right!

The MC5,

they had fabulous clothes
and physiques,

and they were all 6 foot 2.

They had amusing politics
and great hair.

Here, I was coming from an Andy
Warhol crowd in New York,

and we were the most effete
people in the most effete city

in the most effete crowd.

And I was so effete.

I was just poised for...

Being slammed with something

that was full of blood
and lust and sweat

and cum and smell and vigor,

and they had it.

Rob Tyner:
Brothers and sisters!

The time has come for each and
every one of you to decide

whether you are gonna
be the problem,

or whether you are gonna be
the solution!

That's right!

It takes five seconds,

five seconds of decision,

five seconds to realize your
purpose here on the planet.

It takes five seconds to
realize that it's time to move!

It's time to get down with it!

Brothers, it's time to testify
and I want to know,

are you ready to testify?

Are you ready?

I give you a testimonial,
the MC5!

I saw them at the Detroit at
the legendary Grande Ballroom.

It was great,
everyone jumped up and down,

there were thousands
of people there.

They had great costumes,
they twirled, they jumped,

and they landed,
and that very same weekend,

Wayne Kramer,
who I always loved,

a great guitar player
with the MC5 then said,

"If you liked us, you'll really
like our little brother band,

The Stooges."

I heard the music coming
from just down the hall,

and I got just transfixed.

And I've been listening
to music my whole life,

and this is a new take
on the word music.

The Stooges had left the stage,

I got to the back of the room
when this guy said,

"Hi, I'm Danny Fields,
I work for Elektra Records.

You're a star."

I thought,
"Oh, he's probably just...

wants to party or hang out or
pick me up, or something."

You know, I...

I felt a little of that,

and then we talked to him
for two minutes after,

and I knew,
"No, this a real sharp guy."

We couldn't play
"Johnny B. Goode."

He wasn't gonna look
at the Ramones and think

that there was
any problem because

they couldn't play
"Johnny B. Goode" either!

They couldn't play it
fucking either, you know?

I'll bet Metallica
can't play it either, you know?

You know?
So...

Whereas somebody else might
want to address that issue,

he didn't see it that way.

And this was a guy
who would look at something

that nobody else was really
ready to see and he'd say,

"People could enjoy this,
people should enjoy this.

This should be everywhere!"

Wayne Kramer: We were in
the basement at Translove

where John had his office.

Danny got on the phone
with Holzman.

John Sinclair: "I'm gonna tell
him they oughta sign you guys."

I said, "Great, Danny!"

"Hey, go get 'em, baby!

Tells them he saw the MC5,
they were spectacular,

and then they had their little
baby brother band with them,

called The Stooges.

And he says, "I think we ought
to sign both of them."

He says 20 for the MC5,
5,000 for the Stooges.

And John said, "Yeah, that's
sounds like a good deal to me."

"Okay, it's a deal, all right.
okay, see you back in New York."

That was it, it was done,

all by Monday morning
at 10 o'clock.

It was done.
Here I got...

two of the greatest bands
in the history of the world

with a phone call.

For the Stooges to get
signed to a record contract

at a major label after about...

Oh, I don't know,
not a year of existence...

Never really having a tune.

It was just unbelievable that
this would happen, you know.

And I always thought, 25,000,

we could pay off all of our
debts,

we could pay off our equipment.

And then everybody
got a leather coat, you know?

Yeah!

Yeah, come together!

Come together!

Thank you, thank you.
Come together.

Thank you kindly.

We hope you all did
come together.

I wasn't cynical about
him because he was too cool.

He wasn't...

obnoxious like
most music business types.

I didn't know that there are
powerful economic interests

that control how a band
ends up in the newspaper,

or a band ends up on television.

Those were the kind of things
that I wanted to learn

from Danny Fields.

Like all that publicity
about The Doors,

"You made all that happen, huh?"

And he said,

"No, man,
I didn't make that happen.

You know, they did that."

Which is of course,
the brilliant publicist way

to answer that question.

He was from the underground,

the bohemian quarter, you know,

the arts and weirdness
and drugs.

But I mean, he schooled me.

We really liked each other!

And he saw something
in me that...

I was this raw intellectual
from Detroit,

who wanted to do
some sensational shit.

I just saw him as a guy

who knew everybody
and knew how this shit worked.

Our idea was to take over
the world, you know, so...

First, starting with
the music business.

Totally out of our way.

White Panther program is

cultural revolution
by any means necessary,

including rock 'n' roll, dope
and fucking in the streets.

People were wary then,
it was getting serious.

There was a moratorium,

and the marches
were getting more serious.

The country was getting
more divided.

It was now getting out of hand,
you could see it in Chicago.

And the MC5 called their parent
organization

the "White Panther Party."

They had a minister of defense,

I don't know many
rock 'n' roll bands that had

a minister of defense.

People carried machine guns
around the house!

♪ Kick out the jams,
motherfuckers ♪

Jac Holzman suckered us

into putting "motherfucker"
on the record.

He urged us to do that.

Of course,
we've got a single version,

♪ Kick out the jams,
brothers and sisters ♪

"No, man, come on,
nobody'll give a shit!"

And I said,
"They're not gonna like this,

we're out here in Detroit.

I know they
aren't gonna like it."

They don't like it now when
it just comes out on the stage.

They're really aren't gonna
like it in vinyl.

They put out
the David Peel album.

♪ Have a marijuana,
motherfucker ♪

"Great, if they don't have any
problem with his 'motherfucker,'

they're not gonna
have any trouble

with our 'motherfucker'."
We told them,

"Let the single go up the charts
"before you release the album."

'Cause the album's gonna
have the real version of

"Kick out the jams,
motherfuckers" on it,

but, see, they won't be able
to stop us then

'cause we'll have a hit record!

The minute the single
started going up,

they rushed the album out.

Kids were arrested in record
stores for selling the album,

and parents are freaked out.

Then Jac Holzman says,

"Is it okay if we put out a
clean version

'cause we're losing money."

We had problems
with a chain called Hudson's.

And then the MC5 took out an ad

in the local Detroit
alternative newspaper,

which said,
"Fuck Hudson's!"

And stuck
the Elektra logo on it.

Everything that was
an Elektra product,

including Bach and Mozart,
came back.

We said, "You can't do that."

They said, "Jac, we thought you
were part of our revolution."

I said, "No, I'm interested
in documenting

what you do with music
in the context of that."

And they said,
"We're not comfortable."

I said, "Well, fine."

The MC5 should have been
Grand Funk Railroad.

They should have been
the big, fast-moving,

hard-rocking, rabble-rousing,

mid-western band that
Grand Funk Railroad became.

When you're on the front pages
of the paper,

you can be making
the best music in the world,

but no one will pay attention
to you for that,

they just wanna know
how much you vomited,

and what dirty words you used
and what trouble you made.

People like Danny
are not even producers.

I mean there's not a quantity
of work that is measurable

that comes out of them
every day.

They're here for
the hallelujah moment.

Danny jumped up and down
and said,

"You've gotta sign this band,
you've gotta sign this band."

And we saw nothing,

it was one of these things
that's a...

It's a prayer.

The Stooges were

difficult in that
they did not have songs written

and Iggy was strung out.

Danny screamed, "How come
you don't have any songs?

"Go to the hotel tonight
and write songs!"

So "I Wanna Be Your Dog",
"1969",

all that came out of
one night's production.

John Cale: Cool Song, take one.

John Cale was
a very talented musician,

and I thought the juxtaposition

of a really experienced musician
in the studio with them

would either agitate them
or inform them.

They got along pretty well.

And then the problems
with Bill Harvey started.

He heard this, and he said,
"Are you gonna put that out?"

And I said,

"I don't quite understand it,
but it's interesting."

And he said,

"Well, you put that out,
you're gonna ruin your label."

And I said,
"I don't think so."

People who had to say
something about them say,

"This is not music."

It's the same thing
they said of rock 'n' roll!

To say that was the worst thing
you could say.

Doesn't deserve
to be called music.

You know, I'm sure
Wagner heard that and

anybody who did something
fabulously different.

Lenny Kaye: "If 1967

was the year of The Beatles
and 'Get Together'

If 1968 was the year of The Band
andBeggars Banquet

then 1969 might well be
the year of The Stooges.

You might not like it,

but you can't escape it."

Lenny Kaye,
August 10th, 1969.

Obviously written two minutes
before I went up to Woodstock.

If you were on the fringe, and
trying to understand who you are

and you heard
this bleat of sound.

To me, these bands are
a lot about yearning.

They're about finding
their place in the world,

finding your place in the world.

You listen to The Stooges,
"I Wanna Be Your Dog", and you

can get those three chords
in a second,

and then all you gotta do is

just keep turning
the amplifier up,

turning it up.

It was a beautiful
explosion of noise.

And the fact that Danny
was behind both of these bands,

is, to me, a thing of wonder.

It's like someone
who talks you into buying

a painting that you don't get,
an impressionistic painting.

You just don't get it at all.

And later you find
it has achieved

notoriety and value that
you never would have imagined.

When you're starting out
in show biz,

part of what you do
to figure out

who you are and
how you can operate is...

You put yourself
somewhere where

people who know more than you
can react to you.

He had an interesting spread

between the world
of teen vacuity

way over to your
very hard-core social deviants.

He was on location with us
in the Tropicana Motel

in Los Angeles.

There were The Stooges
making Fun House...

Andy Warhol,

Paul Morrissey,
Joe Dallesandro, Jane Forth,

and the entire cast ofHeat.

Danny gave me something that...

I don't know if he was the first
one to ever give me this but

he let me try something
called cocaine.

And I tried it and I thought,
"I don't feel anything!"

And then three days later,
I found myself...

crawling in through his bathroom
window at the back of the motel,

taking all of his stash,
you know.

And that was
the sort of buddy I was.

I was a very bad, bad buddy.

Look, we did
so many terrible things

to blacken Danny's reputation,

and just destroy
his faith in us.

And we would show up

very, very late for gigs,
or not at all.

Or once we were...

The band was playing
the intro riff,

and I was having sex
on the bathroom floor

of the men's room
with a groupie.

"Wait, I'll be right there!

Tell them to just
keep playing there!"

And on and on and on.

And then there were times
when I was shooting up.

And...

not fun to talk
about it anymore,

but, yeah, that happened
and there he was...

trying to get
somewhere in his life.

Yeah, I got...
I finally scored my methadone.

- Yeah.
- It's not a thing that

you're supposed
to have all the time.

I thought that he would expect

you to just keep taking that?

No, it's... You know...

It's pretty easy to kick
with methadone, it really is.

I've kicked three fucking times
with it but every time...

started again.

Why do you start again?

I don't know,
I couldn't even answer that.

They were fucking up,
I didn't know what to do.

It was not something I was
equipped to deal with.

There's no...

You cannot...

cope with heroin use in
someone you're working with,

or as a partner,
or you're dependent on.

That's the worst drug
in the world.

And if it's someone you love,

it's tragic,
but you're helpless,

and everything
is gonna self-destruct.

Boy...

I think when I said enough was
when The Stooges rented a truck

and they went under one of those
highway overpasses where it says

"If you're over 12 feet tall,
don't come under this thing"

And they destroyed the truck.

The top was shaved off.

They destroyed everything in it,

all the instruments and stuff
which they were liable for.

They destroyed the overpass!

So when I got a bill
from the city of Ann Arbor

for whatever it costs to repair
a concrete highway bridge,

that was enough.

So no, no, no,
this is a sign.

I'm so proud of the way

that Scott Asheton, our drummer,

drove the 12-foot U-Haul

under the 10.5 foot underpass.

The top of that U-haul
literally peeled back

exactly like
Popeye's can of spinach.

Gladly handed

Iggy and his music
and his dancing

and his band and his antics
and his bills

to David Bowie.

I'm happy to do it,
he didn't keep me on board.

I got out
when the going got tough.

Otherwise I could have said,

"I'm giving up everything
in my life, and..."

I have to pee, I have to...

"...giving up everything
in my life for Iggy

and sweeping everything aside,

and I'll move into
a cheaper apartment and

get a different lifestyle,

and stop using drugs
'cause they're expensive and...

It'll all be for Iggy."
Well, I didn't.

I don't know if I could have!

I was staying in Danny's house,

and he had gone out to Max's,
and he started calling me.

"You really should
get down here,

David Bowie is down here and...

You could do yourself some
good, he wants to meet you."

And I was watching
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,

repeatedly on the verge of tears

as I saw Mr. Smith confronted by
the foul corruption

of the status quo
and the people in charge.

But finally I thought...

"Okay."

They started talking

so fast about...

"One thing I hate most
in the world, music."

And...

I was so glad to just say...

They hit it off such big time
because they're both so smart.

- Hello.
- Hi.

- Who's this?
- Danny.

- Oh, Danny!
- Yes, hello.

Hi,
are you at the Tropicana?

Yes, I am.
Who's working for you?

Warner Brothers,
but they aren't very bright.

No, I'll see, we should
be able to get you something.

Yes. I need to work.

Yes, I want you to work.

- How's the weather?
- Beautiful.

- Yes?
- Yes, it is.

How's the weather there?
It's cold, huh?

- Hmm, a little.
- Yeah.

Okay, I'll talk to you
later, darling, okay?

- Yes.
- Give my love to Paul.

Okay.

Call me here
if anything comes up.

I'll see what I can do
out here and

I'll call you back
to let you know, okay?

- Yes, please.
- Okay, for sure, I will.

- Okay.
- Okay, baby, be good.

You too, bye-bye.

Danny was close to
the entire Andy Warhol crowd.

And one day he brought Nico in,
and I knew who Nico was.

And she brought in
her little harmonium,

and she sat and she played.

♪ Lord of lunacy

♪ In the moon
of the frozen beyond... ♪

And as usual, he sat there when
I'd bring up an artist and...

"Like, well, I guess so!"

You know, here comes...

Get me John Cale
on the phone once again.

Was it off the wall?
Unbelievably so.

But so what?

It's not gonna be
an expensive record to make

and she's an interesting artist,
and let just see what happens.

And she sat...

And read books of poetry
looking for a title.

And she found it in Wordsworth,

"The marble index
of the mind gone..."

something or other.
And she liked that phrase.

She was... a poet.

Danny was having continual
problems with Bill Harvey,

and Bill Harvey came to me
one day and he said,

"Either Danny goes or I go."

He called me into his office,

blamed me for circulating
this water cooler rumor about

his daughter's pregnancy.

Then he started
punching me in the head,

and saying, "Get out, get out!"

I said, "I know
he's an irritant to you,

I think he has value...

But I probably am not gonna
fight you on this one."

And I didn't.

And it was probably the correct
decision for the business,

but it wasn't quite the correct
decision for my conscience.

Danny has always been...

the sand in the oyster
around which

you hope to grow a pearl.

And that was my last day there.

It was best to leave

after your boss
punches you in the head.

I wouldn't stick around.

I was not wanted.

Saw The Cockettes at the Palace
Theater in San Francisco,

and of course I loved them,
they did "Pearls Over Shanghai".

Then they were coming
to New York,

so I found out
who the promoter was,

who was bringing them here,
and I said,

"Well, let me be
their press agent."

Fayette Hauser:
Every single time I saw him

in the office at the Anderson,
he was on the phone,

corralling every single person

who had any fame and glory
in the city at the time

to come to this opening,
and they did.

They sat there stone-faced,
waiting for a performance

that was more polished

than the kind of
instantaneous, anti-theater rave

that we were communicating
in San Francisco.

The famous one is, Angela
Lansbury stood up and said,

"Let's get the fuck
out of here!"

And the audience began to flee.

But Danny, unphased,
went forward with it all

and got us
as much press as possible.

Art needs
a translator like that.

Danny was a catalyst
for a lot of people.

Some people can be artists,
can be great,

but they can be floating
in the sphere,

unrecognized or unknown.

He would bring the artist
into the society and

put them on a platform and
define the platform and say,

"Here, this is the artist that
you need to pay attention to."

At that point, as at
many others, I needed a job.

And my best friend, Steve Paul,

said he needed
a personal assistant

and someone to drive him around.

His dream was that the Winter
brothers were gonna be

unstoppable, inevitable,

on television, on parades
and in Super Bowls.

Because what could be better
than two albinos!

Whoa, think of the visuals.

One of them is the world's
fastest blues player.

Is that...
That's an oxymoron.

The blues is...

So I don't how you could be a
fast blues player but anyhow...

And the other one
was a keyboard player,

and he wore the piano
around his neck.

It was the most ungainly thing
I've ever seen,

because it was this big, long...

diving board.

And it sort of gets
a life on its own.

When you turn one way,
it goes the other.

Imagine this thing.

And you're...

And you're playing it.

Guitars are
stupid-looking enough.

That was Steve's dream.

That's okay, but you can see
that was a little dispiriting.

I do wanna take credit for

the Edgar Winter's album
that made Steve Paul rich.

And us rich, which was called,

They Only Come Out at Night,
and it contained

the enchanting hit,
"Frankenstein".

Eight minutes of one riff.

And it was huge!

Just like you get time
to go to the bathroom,

or you can make a doodie,

you put on a sandwich
to roast in the microwave.

You could do all these things,
while that song was on,

it was very handy.

Someone had done
a shoot of Edgar

looking up at the ceiling so his
hair was falling down his back.

Steve asked me to advise him,

"What do we do
with this person?"

"Turn him sideways!"

You know,
he ain't ever gonna be cute.

At least turn him sideways,

and make it look
as if he's blowing in the wind.

That's the little things
I do to make trouble that...

if they happen, no one knows,
so that's my life story.

So what's the name?
What's that career called?

A nudgy?

Modern Lovers in 1972
were a very hot band.

Steve Paul and I recorded them
and chased them and

we used to hang out
with them and go to

saunas at motels and I would
save the towels that

Jerry and Ernie sat on.
Cute people!

Jonathan Richman:
He would come up when

The Velvet Underground
would play,

and they would play
in Boston a lot.

We would talk about
The Stooges a lot.

And Danny brought me
to see them live in Ungano's.

And I had all these drawings
of myself in different positions

'cause I was in
the center of the world.

I showed Iggy and The Stooges

Here's a picture of me

up on the roof
of the Howard Johnson's,

and those are the trees,
and that's the '57 Thunderbird,

and there's the universe

in relation to myself
and everything.

The Asheton brothers
and Dave Alexander said,

"Let us look at that too."

So they look at
my complicated drawing

where I was the center
of the world and everything.

They looked at each other
and said,

"Give up, man."

I say to Iggy, "I've got so much
more to say to you!"

And I'm shameless, you know,

and Iggy, bless his heart,
you know...

said, "Oh, I've got a good idea.

I'll talk to you
from the stage!"

And I went, "Okay!"

I said,
"You know what I wanna be,

I wanna be
a rock 'n' roll star."

Danny says,
"Jonathan, don't say that."

I said, "Why not?"

He says, "Because people
will laugh at you."

I go, "Yeah, and?"

It's the truth.
And we would argue.

And we'd have fights about
all kinds of things like that.

He was trying to be nice.

He was trying to help me out.

One of them albinos was
playing at a high school and

Steve Paul figured,

"Now we'll see how good
the Modern Lovers are,

so we'll have them

open for either one
of these unappealing artists."

The audience wasn't
thrilled with us exactly.

It was a mutual lack
of communication.

But that wasn't disheartening,
that was show biz.

They wouldn't have liked
the Second Coming

if Jesus had flamed up
on the stage there.

They were waiting for
albino Texas blues guitarist

and nothing,
certainly not The Modern Lovers,

who were quirky and kinky
and Harvardy.

They could have been killed
by projectiles.

And if someone had
a poison dart gun,

all The Modern Lovers
would have been dead.

So to me that's like, "Hooray!"
Must be doing something right.

So that ended our quest
to be associated with them.

Who knows
what would've happened?

Who knows?

Danny Goldberg:
I guess when Danny

uses the word inventing,

he means, that through
his credibility and enthusiasm,

he puts someone on a map

that they wouldn't
otherwise be on.

His opinion influenced...

most of the journalists
and PR people.

He just had the best taste,

and a way of expressing it

that made you want
to seek his approval.

He doesn't think
about money as

the main definition
of success.

He thinks about greatness
as he defines it.

And if he thinks something
is great, it's great,

and whatever
anybody else thinks,

they're just idiots
if they don't agree with him.

So that's incredibly inspiring
in terms of

somebody's commitment
to their own taste

and clarity and vision.

It's not the way to get rich.

I never turned down quick money,
but I wasn't looking for it,

and you have to pay for money.

Steve Paul and I were both
asked to see Aerosmith.

He hated them as people,

and I didn't love them
as anything.

Someone could have said,

"Oh, they're gonna be great
and famous and big stars

and sell a gazillion records,

and make millionaires
out of everyone."

I would've said, "I don't care,
good, let it happen,

let someone else do it."

They flew people to Boston
to see them.

Lisa and I were there,
of course.

And afterwards,
there was a big dinner

at a cool restaurant
in Harvard Square.

The band came in,
and the first thing,

she looked at me and said,

"Ew, he's wearing what
he wore on stage to the party!

Ew!

I don't want to get
too near him!"

And...

you know...

It's kinda like that's one way
of saying what I felt.

It's a way of saying
what Steve Paul felt about them.

Legs McNeil:
I think what's great about Danny

is that he's kinda undefinable.

Danny believes that love is
kind of like art, it's perfect.

And sex is this dirty thing...

It's kinda like
money and sex are down here,

and art and love are up here.

And he has a kind of a...

a real conflict with that.

I mean I look back and...

What am I thrilled by?

Something I did?
No.

The best times?

When they were happening,

I didn't think, "Oh, I'm
living in the best time."

They didn't seem so then.

You don't say that,
on that...

When you think about it,
or look at pictures of it,

"Oh, my god,
what a beautiful place!

"What a beautiful time of day,
what a beautiful person!"

Five important people in my life
died last year!

Five!
I think, I'm losing count now.

In one year.
What?

You know...

My Achilles heel was...

everything
took too long to happen

and I couldn't stick
around for it.

I wasn't gonna stick around.

Mara Hennessy: He becomes
overly attached

to the illusion of self,
his creation,

Danny Fields.

And I think that that's
a lot of pressure,

it's a full-time gig.

So he lives with a...

A kinda sense of inadequacy
about his life, I think.

He feels like he needs
to do something he hasn't done.

I'm not sure,
but I think it's really basic...

existential despair.

I think it's like
the dark night of the soul,

that he goes back to
over and over and over again.

His whole apartment
is anthropomorphized.

He's got all the files and
all the things that he's saved,

and the photographs,

there's spirits of all
the people he's loved

and known everywhere.

It's out of love
that he has that stuff.

He's very romantic,
wanting somebody to blossom.

And wanting somebody's

spiritual, creative,

intellectual development
to be fulfilled

as much as you want your own,
and helping them do that.

He does that for so many people.
That's loving.

Gloria Stavers, then at16,
who had been my supposed rival,

I never got near
to what she did,

asked me to be her personal
assistant at16 Magazine.

That lasted until her final
fight with the publisher.

And the magazine then fell to
the co-editorship

of me and the brilliant
Randi Reisfeld.

Danny did
absolutely bring a sense of fun.

It was going to be
about David Cassidy,

and it was going to be
about Davey Jones,

but he also would be interested
in exposing the readers

to the Ramones,

or what was happening
on the hipper New York scene.

You went through a phase where
you had the Beatles,

you had the Monkees,
you had David,

Bobby Sherman, the boom days...

But then harder-edged
rock 'n' roll took over,

so Danny made Alice
into sort of a teen idol.

I said, "There's so many
rock heroes,

so many Peter Pans,
where's Captain Hook?"

The great thing
about16 Magazine was that

it was Donny Osmond was
the devil and I was the angel,

which was kinda funny to be
on the cover of16

with Donny Osmond.

'Cause we couldn't have been
further apart.

Somehow Danny kinda liked
that juxtaposition of the two.

You know, the opposites.

I think that he loved glam rock,
punk rock and horror rock.

Iggy was the punk rock guy,

I was sorta
the glam/horror rock guy,

Bowie was
this space oddity/glam guy.

Danny was in the middle
of all of it,

almost orchestrating it.

And those are the guys that...

They are always in the wings,

but they're always
the most effective people.

He was always helping us,
and pushing us.

Max's was our after
hours,

before hours place to be.

The New York Dolls
were our band,

but because they wore lipstick

and had that attitude on
the cover of their first album,

they were slammed nationally.

Patti Smith
and Robert Mappelthorpe

knew about Max's,
but they were terrified.

It seemed so impenetrable
and so in,

especially the back room,
everyone was so cool.

We'd say, "They're are those
cute people again.

Which is a boy,
which is a girl?"

If one of them is a boy,
we should be fucking him,

and if one of them is a girl,
you should be fucking her.

They're just standing there,

they look like
they want to meet us.

Let's bring them in
and fuck them.

At one moment,
I just went up to them:

"Sit down, you're here all the
time, why don't you sit down.

Have a cup of coffee,
it's free."

Hey, it was Patti Smith and
Robert Mapplethorpe in infancy,

cultural infancy and...

as opposed to Jim Morrison,
she was a good poet.

And he was adorable
and everyone fucked him.

So that was their kick-off.

With the Patti Smith Group,

our sense of punk
was more one of attitude.

Nobody knew
what the heck we were doing.

Patti would come out
and do a few standards,

and then I'd scrub away
on guitar,

and we'd do some rock oldies
and then some noise.

Danny says, "I know
a really great piano player."

And he introduces us
to Richard Sohl.

He's just a beautiful boy,

and we're thinking,
"Can he actually play?"

And then he sits down,
and phew...

And that was probably
the most important thing

for the development

for our band,
and for Patti as a singer.

He helped shepherd me as...

a young, questing human
into my life.

Forty years later,
I'm still playing,

which is a beautiful thing.

And Danny recognized

that element in me
before I even had a clue...

who I could be.

The Ramones
and their fighting, competitive,

we-hate-everyone-else spirit,

Johnny would yell at Tommy,
"You're our publicity guy,

why isn't this guy
writing about us?

Why is writing about these
fucking beatniks or hippies?"

They were also after
Lisa Robinson,

she was the editor
ofRock Scene.

And of courseRock Scene
was full of, you know...

"David Johansen
has dinner in Chinatown"

or, you know, "The New York
Dolls buy lipstick."

All pictures, all glam,

nothing about music, it was
just all about celebrities.

Everyone was a star.

Lisa and I said, "Ugh...

are you getting bothered
by these Ramones?"

She said, "Ugh, they don't stop.

I'm afraid to pick up the
phone."

I said, "We have to get them
off our backs.

You go see the Ramones,

I'll go see
the whatever elses."

She called the next day
and she said,

"You've got to see this band,
you will love them."

Their songs are all
two minutes long,

their whole set is
about 14 minutes.

It's what we dream of!

So I went to see them
the next time they played and...

it was true.

I Don't Wanna Go Down
To The Basement!

Come on, let's do "Loudmouth,"
all right?

Fuck it.

No, I wanna do "I Don't Wanna
Go Down To The Basement" too.

Yeah, I know,
that's two against one.

- Oh, really?
- Yeah.

Really?
Fuck you all!

Take it, take it, let's go!
Quick, lively!

♪ 1, 2, 3, 4

♪ Hey, daddy-o

♪ I don't want to go

♪ down to the basement

♪ There's somethin' down there

♪ I don't want to go

♪ Hey, Romeo

♪ There's somethin' down there

♪ I don't want to go

♪ Down to the basement

I decided within 15 seconds

because if it ever takes me
longer than that

to know if I like
something or not,

I probably don't like it.

I don't want to have to wonder.

It's just gotta

knock me over like...

atomic wind.

This is just everything,

no guitar solos,
the songs are over so fast,

they're all so cute,
they look great,

I love what they're wearing.

I loved them,
they had everything.

I introduced myself to them
afterwards and

I said right away,
"I want to be your manager."

"We need a few thousand dollars
for a drum kit and...

if you come up with that,
you can be our manager."

"Okay."

So I flew down to Florida and

went to visit my mother,

"I just discovered this band
I really love and

they're going to sign
a long contract with me,

and they're gonna make me rich.

I need $3,000."
"Okay, if you're sure."

And she wrote me a check
and I gave it to them,

they bought what they needed
and I was their manager.

Lou Reed: Do you hear the way
the songs start?

No bullshitting,
and same way they end.

No, it goes at full throttle
from beginning to end.

It starts and ends,
then the next one,

starts and ends
and just goes sailing on.

That's such a great concept!

- That's so intuitive.
- It's genius!

No kidding.

Now you hit the nail
on the head, they're crazy!

Without doubt,

the most fantastic
thing you've ever played,

bar none.

I mean it makes everybody else
look so bullshit and wimpy,

Patti Smith and me included.

Wow!

Everyone else looks like
a sissy compared to them.

Everybody else looks like
they're really old-fashioned.

That's rock 'n' roll.
They really hit where it hurts.

They are everything
everybody worried about.

Every parent in America would

freeze in their tracks
if they heard this stuff.

Everything, you know...

They got them an amp,
they got them a guitar.

Now look!

There they are!

Their worst dreams come true.

It doesn't take any talent,
all they're doing is banging it,

and look at this.

That is the greatest thing
I've ever heard.

Danny, do something I feel like.

My friend, Linda Stein,

she said
let's get Seymour to sign them.

So they played for Seymour,

who of course has wonderful
taste and heard the songs.

And Seymour was...

consistently...

irrevocably...

unstintingly supportive.

Mo Ostin, who was an accountant
for Frank Sinatra,

before he became chairman
of Warner Brothers,

Mo's a wonderful man

would say, "Seymour, this band
is not selling records,

"Did you ever think
of not renewing their options?"

And Seymour would say,

"Oh no, wherever I go,
this band goes."

Seymour Stein: A lot of people
have great taste,

but are afraid to express it.
Not Danny.

Danny was quite explicit
about everything.

He really had so much taste,
so smart.

But some of
his outrageous behavior...

You know, I think...

turned a lot of people off.
Not me.

Never.

I loved CBGB,
they were packing in crowds

that Hilly never imagined.

It made it all the more

depressing,
discouraging and frustrating

that we couldn't get them
out of town.

Tommy Ramone: We did an audition
for Blue Sky Records

that Steve Paul owned.

And our audition was opening
for Johnny Winter.

And it was our first time
out of the city,

in Waterbury, Connecticut.

And the curtain opens up,
and here are these guys...

playing music
from another dimension.

By the third or fourth song,

we take a break, all of sudden
out of the audience comes...

We always played

some place where no band
had ever played before.

A basement,
a loft or a parking lot,

or someone found
an abandoned warehouse.

Talking Heads auditioned
and Hilly thought they were

terrible enough to play there.

He asked me if they could
open for The Ramones.

Johnny was nearby,
he was very fussy about that.

And I said, "They want to open
for us, what do you think?"

He said, "They really are
lousy, yeah, sure."

That was his criteria,

are they terrible enough
not to steal any thunder?

Such a pro, so smart, Johnny.

Again,

the Ramones first appearance
in London, July 4th, 1976,

outside the Round House,

Paul Simonon introduced himself.

"I'm a big fan of yours, this
must be really exciting for you,

you sold our the Round House,
you've never been here before."

And Johnny said,
"What do you do?"

"We're called the Clash,
but we never played

'cause we're waiting
to get good enough."

Johnny said, "Wait till you see
us tonight, we stink!"

Just get out there and play.
Wait till you see us,

you're not gonna ever
worry about being good again."

And sure enough,
about two weeks later,

they started booking themselves,
The Clash, on tour.

You were not allowed to be
terrible and great

until these bands came along.

And that was
the meaning of that revolution.

By traditional standards of
how many notes

can you squeeze into a second
like that Van Halen guy,

as opposed to how much power can
you get out of a performance,

that was the watershed moment.

Everything interesting
since then

has derived from that.

But they got that
from The Stooges as well,

who were terrible.

Bands in my life...

They were always
kinda doing something like that.

And it was always
about the songs.

Every one of those bands
had great songs.

If they didn't have great songs,

they couldn't have been great.

There's no question that
the Ramones suffered greatly

because the Sex Pistols
were so famous

for vomiting and bleeding
and scratching and smelling and

tearing down and destroying,

you know, "no future".

So bleak!

And when their records
went around to radio stations...

Intuitive,
like what do I know about them?

They're trouble.
They throw up.

If we play their record, we'll
probably have to have them here,

and then they'll throw up
on the console.

It's easier!
Don't play their record!

And this stigma falls on you.

They're a critics' band.

Critics don't pay for records,
they get them free.

And every once in a while
they annoy us

by rubbing it in that
they all like this band

that we're not able to sell.

The band voted to find
new management,

in the hopes of

getting these wonderful songs
on the radio.

And I could not fucking
in any way blame them.

The Ramones were disaffected
teenagers for whom, in fact,

there was, when they were
in high school, no future.

But through their work,

they gave themselves
a very long future.

They left a legacy
of no future people.

Maybe we have a future.

We thought we had no future!

Look at them!

They can't play!
They're terrible!

But look! This is exciting!
They're big! They're famous!

They can get laid.

Let's start a band!

What more can you do?

Your pied pipers out there.

What? You can't pay
the rent with that.

A lot of these bands are going
to go on to be U2 and Pearl Jam,

and outsell you by the zillions.

It was the greatest years
of my life,

traveling, the adventure...

getting laid...

the audience reaction...

the encore...

fans...
getting laid...

You know,
I would have been a millionaire,

if I'd just stayed with them,
but then again,

I would've had to be
their manager for 20 years.

Wow, I always liked to do
something new

that no one's ever done before.

Oh yeah, stick with me,
and 40 years from now,

you'll be a star.

You'll be in
the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

That's the worst case,
but you know,

life isn't long enough
to see everything that happens

that we saw beginning
or continuing or

we thought was ending.

You know, it takes more time
than that when it comes to...

things that will endure.

I have been really lucky
to know or be around

so many smart people,
and then from that

to have so many smart people
be my best friends.

I thought I would never
have any friends.

What matters is the people

and the smart people,
and the friends people,

and the beautiful people and

animals and dogs
and nature and art and...

maybe music belongs
in that list somewhere.