[1] Sides attended USC, NYU, and Berklee College of Music, and worked in the early 1960s with Illinois Jacquet, Teddy Edwards, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Griffin, Howard Rumsey, Curtis Amy, Harold Land, Sonny Stitt, Charles Kynard, and Buddy Collette.

With this last one, Doug did a live recording on 27 June 1967, at the Village Gate in New York City, which later was released as New View (Columbia CS 9497).

In the 1970s he worked with Kai Winding and Abdullah Ibrahim; in the 1980s he was a touring drummer for Abbey Lincoln and Jon Hendricks.

In 1988, Sides toured Europe and played in the Netherlands with Joe van Enkhuisen; the following year he moved there.

He subsequently played in Europe with Benny Bailey, Tete Montoliu, Steve Grossman, Tom Harrell, Walter Bishop, Jr., Ralph Sutton, Ranee Lee, Hank Jones, Oliver Jones, Don Bennett, Fritz Krisse, Ricky Ford, Monty Alexander, and Benny Golson.