Via Annie Klenman I tracked down Doug Currie, a friend of the Stooges from Ann Arbor, who hung out with them in LA when the band was crashing at the Coronet.

 

 

Also, poignantly, Doug spent time with Dave Alexander after the Stooges’ original bassist was thrown out of the band, around 1972 and 1973 (Dave died of pancreatis resulting from alcohol abuse in February 1975).

 

“Dave was carrying heavy psychological baggage. When he was in a good mood, he wouldn’t say anything about it. Then at other times, I don’t know if it was the drinking or his own weird psychological state, being this only child who was always indulged, he’d get very moody.  He’d be the greatest guy one minute, then get into a weird depression or funk the next. I remember one time seeing him outside a bar in Ann Arbor, not talking, being morose and we were driving back and trying to persuade him to come with us: ‘Come on Dave, get in the car,’ and he was,  No no no. In the end Ron said, Just let him be. And an hour before he had been in a good mood.

 

“There had to be heavy psychological stuff given he had helped found the band, it had to be a devastating thing that he never worked out. He did drink a lot. I remember when we were driving the 600 miles from Ann Arbor to New York [for the Max’s Kansas City gig in July ‘73] he was just drinking one beer after another and throwing it in the back seat. In a couple of hours there were 10 or 12 cans in the back. He’d open one up and guzzle it down. It didn’t seem to affect him a lot. But I guess [in the end] the drinking was what killed him.