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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Dec 23, 2004 10:05:46 GMT
I first read this in 1980 and still have my original US edition which I bought from a record store import service. Back then it blew me away and since that time has sold millions of copies and been reprinted numerous times. It still holds the distinction I believe of being the biggest selling rock bio ever by a large margin.
Nowadays I find it to be rather tawdry and way down my list of Doors related efforts.... So what's your view.
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Dec 23, 2004 10:08:09 GMT
Jim Morrison & Me & Bangkok
Jim Morrison was more than an acquaintance and less than a close friend. Ours was a relationship that developed when we found ourselves drinking in the same seedy Los Angeles bars back in the 1960s and I interviewed him for Rolling Stone following his arrest for allegedly exposing himself while in concert in Miami, Florida. (He did not, although he was later convicted in a witch hunt trial.) During the two or three weeks it took to do the longest interview he ever gave, some of the sessions ended in a topless bar where Jim was a regular customer and, inevitably, "Love Me Two Times" dropped onto the jukebox and one of the dancers came up to him, sat in his lap and shook her "two times" in his face. We also discovered that we had the same literary agent, Sylva Romano, when I drove Jim to her office to sign a contract for what became his first book of poetry, for Simon & Schuster. His editor was named Jonathan Dolger. That same day, Jim said he had read a small rock music history that I'd published recently and asked if I was writing another book. I said I was looking for a subject for a biography. Maybe Frank Zappa, I said, as I'd known him for many years and thought him smart and articulate. Jim said, simply, "I'd like to read a book about Elvis."
That planted the seed and a year later, in 1969, my (Jim's) agent got me a contract to write what became the first Elvis biography, selling the idea to, of all people, Jim's poetry editor at Simon & Schuster. At the time, Elvis was still making all those awful movies in Hollywood, hadn't even returned to performance in Las Vegas, and everyone asked, "Why do you want to do a book about him?" Then, in the summer of 1971, with the Elvis book on the presses, Jim (to whom the book was dedicated) died in Paris, prompting Jonathan to ask if I'd like to write a book about him. I said yes and after interviewing about 200 people in the US and Europe---many of whom asked why I wanted to write a book about him---I submitted a manuscript about three inches thick. Jonathan asked me to shorten it to about an inch and a half and by the time I did that, Jonathan said interest in Jim had waned and he rejected the manuscript.
For the next six years, copies of the manuscript were submitted to some thirty publishers in the US and UK. Sometimes, an agent represented the book. Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone tried as well. Other times, the manuscript went in cold.
Among the companies that turned it away was Warner Books, part of a growing media conglomerate that included three record companies, Warner, Elektra, and Atlantic (WEA), Elektra being Jim's (and the Doors') old label. I asked Jac Holzman, who had been the founder/president of Elektra and now was on the WEA board, if he would do me a favor and resubmit it to Warner Books, but this time to the guy at the top.
He did and the president, Max Kaminsky, sent me a one-line reply: "We still don't want it." Wow, I thought, those guys have got memories! Time passed and after the number of publishers who said no reached thirty, I decided to hang it up, figuring I'd given enough time and energy to Mr. Morrison.
One of the people I'd interviewed researching the book was Danny Sugerman, who at age fourteen was a Doors groupie befriended by Jim. He was now working for Ray Manzarek, the now defunct band's keyboard player, who was paying him to do whatever he could to keep the Doors name alive. When I told Danny I was giving up on the biography, he asked if he could try to find a publisher. I said, "Sure, and if you find one, you get ten per cent, agent's commission."
Not knowing the history, he sent it to Warner Books, the last place I would've sent it. I thought it was funny when he told me. But it landed on the desk of a young editor named Marcie (I can't recall her last name) and that made all the difference. When she took it to the editorial committee, she was told, "We've rejected this turkey two times already and we don't want it." Marcie was only a few years out of university, but she had a good track record at Warner; every book she brought in either broke even or made money. So they told her okay, but don't give Hopkins and Sugerman any money. We accepted a pitiful $1,500 advance.
Next, Danny said he thought there was stuff in the first draft that should be put back into the second and asked if he could shuffle the two together, and maybe take a few of the nastier bits out. He also volunteered to write an introduction, get poet Michael McClure to write an afterward, compile the discography, and coordinate all the photographs, as well as add a few new anecdotes of his own. I said go for it, now you're the co-author and in for thirty per cent of the royalties and fifty per cent of the movie rights, which at that time we thought were worthless. The $1,500 went to a typist to put the final manuscript together.
In the winter before publication, I was in New York and arranged to meet our editor, Marcie, who suggested we have drinks at the Algonquin Hotel, known as a literary cocktail place since the 1920s when people like Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker drank there. Marcie arrived late and in a hurry, a bundle of energy wrapped in a bulky overcoat and trailing scarves, her arms laden with purchases, her hair style in the same neighborhood frequented by Whoopie Goldberg and Bob Marley. Once settled into our first drinks, I asked her what she had done before she became an editor. "Oh," she said, matter-factly, "ten-thousand mikes [micrograms] of acid and two years in a commune in New Mexico." I knew why she had taken the book.
When the book was published in June the following year (1980), there was zero budget allotted for advertising or promotion, so Danny and I decided to host a launch party at the Whisky a Go Go, the club on the LA Sunset Strip where the Doors really got their start. When we said we expected 600 guests, the owners of the place agreed to close the club for one night if they got whatever was spent on drinks. We didn't have a clue how we might pay for those drinks, but we went ahead, and when I arrived that night from Hawaii (where I was then living) I saw our names on the nightclub marquee where The Doors once had theirs. Danny had taken the liberty of putting his name on top.
It was a great party, a Î60s reunion. Danny invited young rock bands and the three surviving Doors joined in. I was sitting in a booth with Tim Leary on my right, the ghost of Lenny Bruce on my left. And there were, as promised, at least 500 people, who were, more than a decade after Leary told everyone to drop acid, now throwing down the booze. How, I wondered, were Danny and I going to get out of this one?
Now we come to the unbelievable bit. Half-way through the party, a telegram arrived. I read it, then laughed all the way to the stage, where I stopped the band and said I had an announcement. I then read the telegram, saying it came from our editor at Warner Books: "Next week, NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE goes onto the New York Times bestseller list at No. 16. We'll pay the bar bill."
The room erupted in a roar and everyone in the place made a dash for the bar to place an order.
Within two months, the book was No. 1 and I got another note from Marcie. She was leaving the publishing business to go to Spain and learn how to play flamenco guitar and I haven't heard from her since. As for the book, it stayed on the New York Times list for nine months, was translated into a dozen languages, and when Oliver Stone's film The Doors came out in 1991, the book went back onto the bestseller lists, rising to No. 2. It's still in print today, with more than two-million copies in circulation.
Occasionally I'm asked to speak to young writers and I tell this story, saying there are three lessons to be learned from it.
One: if you believe in a project, hang in there, be persistent, don't give up.
Two: keep your fingers crossed, hoping for good luck. If our book hadn't landed on Marcie's desk when Danny sent it in, but had gone to the adjacent one, whose owner hadn't dropped acid or lived for two years in a commune, Warner might have rejected it for the third time.
Three: if someone asks why in hell you're doing a book about him (or her or that), you may be on to something.
This is a story with a happy ending that hasn't stopped, at least for me. For the past eight years, I've lived in Bangkok, famous for its topless bars, where royalties from the book are still paying for my beer and the disc jockeys in some of the joints I visit play "Love Me Two Times" when I walk in. Jerry Hopkins author of No One Here Gets Out Alive
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Post by pantydropper on Jan 2, 2005 22:19:43 GMT
Although i have never read NOHGOA, numerous people have told me that the book is full of lies.
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Post by miepie on Jan 3, 2005 13:03:40 GMT
I have never read this book so i can't give an opinion on this one
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jan 3, 2005 13:12:00 GMT
Neitehr of you have missed much....it may well be the biggest selling rock bio but its a load of old rubbish. Held up by Ray and danny as some definitive biography its nothing more than The Doors movie as a book...
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Post by jym on Jan 3, 2005 18:37:27 GMT
I kind of see NOHGOA as the Doors movie, it was good when nothing else was out there & for a long time that's all I could find out about The Doors was No One Here... It takes the credit for pulling in a new generation of fans along with Apocalypse Now, but it smacks of idoltry in parts & when Break On Through came out No One Here falls apart under the research minus the bias.
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Post by wyldlizardking on Jan 4, 2005 2:02:37 GMT
I loved it, but then again haven't read any of the newer books that have come out
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jan 17, 2005 10:08:06 GMT
"THE ROCK BOOKS YOU MUST OWN" NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman
Like Sugerman's later Wonderland Avenue, this is a compelling if utterly cheesy stagger through L.A.'s underbelly in the footsteps of Jim Morrison. There's sex, drugs and Satanism, but mostly there's booze. But is it the true story of Morrison and The Doors?
When in doubt about the truth, always print the myth: Jim Morrison - shaman, poet and modern renaissance man; also possibly still alive, having faked his own death. It's all in here, man.
This book did not start the mythologising of Morrison but it certainly added some bulk to the story. In the late 70s all male teenagers in the world were issued with their own copy of this book and a quarter-ounce of ropy hash, seemingly by the government; many of them bought into the idea that pissing your leather trousers after six pints of cider made them in some way the spiritual heirs of Jimbo. Tommy Udo Classic Rock January 2004
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Post by wyldlizardqueen on Jan 18, 2005 22:16:12 GMT
"THE ROCK BOOKS YOU MUST OWN" NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman Like Sugerman's later Wonderland Avenue, this is a compelling if utterly cheesy stagger through L.A.'s underbelly in the footsteps of Jim Morrison. There's sex, drugs and Satanism, but mostly there's booze. But is it the true story of Morrison and The Doors? When in doubt about the truth, always print the myth: Jim Morrison - shaman, poet and modern renaissance man; also possibly still alive, having faked his own death. It's all in here, man. This book did not start the mythologising of Morrison but it certainly added some bulk to the story. In the late 70s all male teenagers in the world were issued with their own copy of this book and a quarter-ounce of ropy hash, seemingly by the government; many of them bought into the idea that pissing your leather trousers after six pints of cider made them in some way the spiritual heirs of Jimbo. Tommy Udo Classic Rock January 2004 I have Read this one and i Liked it!!!
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gizmo
Door Half Open
Posts: 113
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Post by gizmo on Jan 21, 2005 9:16:07 GMT
nice reading
but it's written like if jim was a living god who walked on water daily. but , i don't know how it is to meet a living god jim was good, strong personality, a good poet and sometimes a better singer, damn good combination
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Post by wyldlizardqueen on Jan 22, 2005 1:35:14 GMT
I have Read this one and i Liked it!!! But then again, i liked it but, i haven"t read but two..and now this Stephen Davis..peice of Shit. I think what the problem is i just haven" found the right book yet. But i am now working on that! Thanks to all of you!
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Apr 30, 2005 11:56:09 GMT
Got to give it credit nontheless....I was in Middlesbrough last week and Virgin and HMV had it displayed prominently in thier book sections. It's been reprinted about 10 times now since its debut.....the pocket book version is really popular. I have the original full size Yank copy from 1980 which is falling to bits a bit.... Wonder how many millions its sold? 25 years on this year and still selling by the truckload.....
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Post by sandysunshine on May 5, 2005 20:40:28 GMT
I got the book just after seeing the film and I must admit that I didn't really learn much from it that I hadn't already seen in the film!
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Post by blondie on Jul 10, 2005 17:44:01 GMT
I thought it wasn't bad at all!
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Nov 13, 2011 9:59:49 GMT
Over 30 years on what is the 21st century view of this seminal Doors book that was without doubt the template for the vast majority of what was to follow both in print and film.
It's now accepted by many Doors fans that although Danny Sugerman is credited/blamed for NOHGOA Ray Manzarek was the figure on the grassy knoll and responsible for its more sensational aspects.
Regardless of how good/bad it is the book has been in print for 30 years and I saw a 2011 edition on sale in my local HMV shop for a fiver last month. It must hold the record for the most sales of any rock book ever written and is a good starting place for a Doors fan. the Stone movie in book form. As long as the reader realises most of it is nonsesne and looks further there is no great harm done from it. However many Doors fans are too lazy and a lot of them are pretty dim so they think this is the actual story.
Where to find that? Well like everything Doors that's a difficult one. The spaces between the tale are where I look nowadays and a lot of interesting stuff can be found there. Look at the way we have been fed the relationship with the four sided diamond all for one garbage. We now know a lot different and that the three Doors resented Morrison and barely spoke to him when recording. He himself could not bear to be in their company in the latter half of The Doors career. he would get seperate planes and seperate cars and vanish once the gig was over. You don't find that in NOHGOA
A groundbreaking book nevertheless. Any of you 'Doors' fans got a view on this?
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Post by casandra on Nov 14, 2011 19:18:08 GMT
This book was translated into Spanish in 1996, I have to admit that I liked when I read it for first time, some excerpts were amusing. Indeed I didn’t see many differences between this book and Oliver Stone’s movie. So at that time I didn’t understand the criticism by Ray Manzarek about the film, which it copies many things what the book tells. The story is too sensational; here was the shaman, the Rock God. The portrait of Jim Morrison is excessive, wild, rebellious and self-destructive. I guess Jim Morrison was this sometimes, but that was his dark side, he also had other qualities as human being. The book doesn't ask the reasons about his self-destruction, in which his band mates had some blames. The tale is exagerated and sometimes, the guy seems an asshole. Sometimes I asked myself when I read it… but… did this boy do more in his life that taking drugs and being drunk? For me, the problem of this book is the end of the book. The authors had built a portrait of a hero, not a portrait of a human being, and the readers knew that the book should end with the hero's death. So the authors had to show some doubts about what had happened and they began to amplify the rumors that he hadn’t died. Ambiguity and sensationalism always sell more. Anyway, I would like to read 200 interviews that Jerry Hopkins did in his research for seeing who participated, the questions and the answers. How they answered, uncensored and without rewritings. I think we could have a more realistic tale, since the research began few years after Morrison's death and before the mythology and legend hided the reality, so the information of these interviews would be much more plausible and the portrait would be more complex. However, I recommend reading, but you must not believe everything you read in it. Anyway, I think you wouldn't do the same reading if you are 15 or 20 years old, that if you do it with 30 or 40 years old. In the first instance, you think all the book is true, but in the second... you only believe a half.
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 27, 2012 12:15:40 GMT
From Ch4 Music Of The Millennium 1999
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Post by glasstecwindows on Oct 30, 2018 12:12:36 GMT
Interesting, Good description.
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Apr 18, 2024 10:07:59 GMT
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Apr 18, 2024 11:36:46 GMT
1997 Hardback Edition.NOHGOA has been in print now for well over 40 years. I got a US softback edition via HMV and its import service. At first I thought it was amazing but during that 40 years or so grew to think of it possibly the worst book ever written about Jim. Actually that's Dark Star but it's a close 2nd. One of the worst things it did was to define Jim Morrison as a Manzarekesque drunken disruptive 'shaman'. The poet never had a chance after this. There have been a dizzying array of reprints in various paperback sizes and in 1997 a hardback edition like the one below.
Hell I'm not saying Jim was some kind of 'saint', he could be an absolute twat and treated women badly on many occasions which is something I cannot condone. He was an 'arcehole'. But he wasn't an 'arcehole' all the time. And he did a lot of stuff outside of the orbit of Ray Manzarek. Who basically wrote NOHGOA. He could be kind, considerate, nice to kids, helped struggling artists, made off the cuff phone calls to fans and was always 100% behind his band. But thanks to NOHGOA the Stone movie and the Doors so-called documentary may as well have just called them selves by yhe title of the book. Stone had an excuse as he was making a movie for a non Doors audience. What the bands excuse was for their When You're Strange shite is a different matter. I asked John what his excuse was and he threw me off his forum. Not the guy who ran it for him but John Densmore himself.
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