Danny Goldberg

so you grow up where? Grew up in Hastings on Hudson, which is Westchester County, right, and I went to a high school called Fieldston, which is actually in the Riverdale section of the Bronx Private School. Yeah, and your father is doing what for a living? Here? Was a textile executive and my mother was a housewife. She didn't make money, but she was a brilliant you know, she's a poet. She published a book of poetry and we always looked

her is the smartest one. But but my dad was took the train to the city every day and came back and as did you. If you're going to Fieldston, well to Fieldston from Hastings there was a math teacher, Mr Jason, who would drive me there and then it was a bus back. There was there was not really a train. How long was the bus ride that? Forty minutes? Right? Relatively long for school? Yeah? And you have any siblings. I have a younger brother and a younger sister. Yeah,

so you're the oldest. All the hopes and dreams are in you, correct. And so what are your brother and sister up to today? My brother works for a company that sells computer systems to companies. I don't know exactly what he does, but it's in that ballpark. And he's got a son named Ben and and two grand daughters. Uh. And my sister is an academic. She is a professor at the Paul University in Indiana of conflict resolution. And she's a PhD. So we do have a doctor in

the family. Okay. And are your parents political, because I know you're very political. My parents were political. I got my politics from my parents. They were there. They they're in heaven now, but they're not, you know, I don't get to talk to them in the flesh anymore. But there they were, you know, for the civil rights movement. They had worked together before I was born. On the thing was before they were married, but when they were

gonna get married. On the Henry Wallace campaign in so so he was he for those who don't know he was, he had been Roosevelt's Vice president and Secretary of Agriculture, and he was kind of against the Cold War and was to the left of Harry Truman and and ultimately ran on an extremely unsuccessful third party ticket in forty eight because he felt Truman had kind of sold out

some of the New deals. So that's what I grew up with was they weren't communists, but they they they were They hated John McCarthy, and they were they were lefties, liberals, liberals. Let's jump all the way to the future as we sit here right now with what happened in the Bronx with Crowley being uh beaten in the primary by a twenty eight year old woman. Do you believe the Democrats should run to the center, run to the left. Well, I think that the short answer, the one word answer,

would be to the left. But I do think these words left and center are kind of um used differently by different people. But to me, the key to the Democrats is to turn out the vote and to get everybody who voted for the third party candidates uh to vote for Democrats this time. To get the people who didn't vote to vote for Democrats this time, I think that's the low hanging fruit. I think changing the mind

of a Trump voter is really really hard. And I think getting somebody who voted for the Libertarian or Jill Steiner who didn't think there was any difference, or those ridiculous arguments, I think getting those people to show up and vote for the Democrats is is an easier lift of the two. Well, that's what Frank Rich says. Frank Rich said, you know, although it's interesting to study why these people voted for Trump, that you're not going to convince him. It's about getting out the vote. Yeah, I

think that's true. I think historically, when there's a high turnout, Democrats win, and when there's a low turnout, they lose. And I think clearly we know the math. I mean, there's not a majority support for Trump, but but if if a majority the people who show up to vote support him, then he controls everything. Do you have any fear that we could have candidates that are too far to the left and we lose the so called center.

I'm much more scared of people who demoralize women, young people in racial minorities, because that's what happened last time, and that's what's happened frequently with the Democrats. I haven't I guess, if you wanted to say McGovern was too far to the left, that was so long ago, and it was such a unique set of circumstances, you know, and you know, almost forty more than forty more than

forty years ago. But certainly in terms of in the last several decades, there's no examples of Democrats who are too far to the left. There's a lot of examples of Democrats who didn't get the turnout, who didn't motivate young people. These kids who showed up on the Gun March, the women who showed up on the William Million Women March, the the African Americans who showed up for Barack Obama, the Latinos who need to know that there's a compelling

difference between Democrats and Republicans. Getting them to show up is to me the big task. I haven't seen examples of Democrats who lost because they were too far to the left. We have a lot of examples of Democrats who couldn't get turned out. Well, it's interesting in the last few days, uh, people are accusing of The New York Times of trying to bring people to the center, and then there are people to the left like Matt Taiebi say no, we really have to run on the issues.

You know, a lot of them publicized by Bernie Sanders, having to do with school debt and healthcare and other opportunities. And as I say, this is how we lost, if I want to say I am a Democrat, that is how we lost the last time around. Um, I guess when Hillary Clinton said her favorite book was the Bible,

I said, it just blew all credibility. Well, I think when she said I'm going to ask Henry Kissingerer for advice, and when she said no, I won't tell you what I said to Goldman Sachs that it was it was not exciting. You know, Look, I voted for Hillary Clinton. I contributed money to Hillary Clinton, and I think she would have been a terrific president. I was for burning in the primaries because I agreed with him on the issues.

But I think the reality is that there's been too many Democratic leaders that haven't delivered for a lot of people, and and some of those people, uh didn't vote last time, and some of them voted for third parties. I think five percent of the vote went to the libertarian or to Jill Stein. I think all those people, I don't think any of those people would have voted for Trump. Some of them would have voted for for Hillary. Maybe

some of them you just could never get. There's a certain core of nihilist lefties that will never vote for a Democrat. But it's not five percent, that's for sure, And uh, you know that was you know, and then you look at the young people. The percentage of progressive views of people under thirty or fifteen twenty points higher than the rest of theation. And uh, every every election

is more of those people. And you've got to motivate them and show them there's a real difference and that it's worth it and taking it for granted because you just kind of quote something that you know lb J did fifty years ago is not going to do it. You've got to. So I on that particular argument, I'm I'm more on the mat Ti e. B side, not only because I happen to believe in those issues, because

I don't believe the other thing works. That what the what you're describing the not let's not go too far to the left platform is what lost for the Democrats, not only Hillary Clinton, but but successive mid terms and governorships. And you know, the Democratic Party is the weakest in terms of elective office that it's been in my lifetime because they keep taking the advice of these so called experts who claim to know what the center thinks, except

they keep losing. If they would win, I would salute, you know, but they lost, so obviously their expertise is not what they claim it was. Okay, you're speaking my language before we go back to the beginning here, is there a place for music in this political sphere? And can music move the needle um? You know, it's so hard to know how music affects people relative to to politics. The historical role of music has mostly been as a

source of encouragement for people. When when you know, John by Ezra Pete Seeger would go and sing for the civil rights workers, or phil Oaks would sing at peace rallies, or Jackson Brown and Bonnie Rate would would sing, you know, for anti nuclear rallies and things like that. It's not been to convert people. It's mostly been to kind of inspire and motivate the troops and to raise money. Um, you never know what art can do. You know, I wouldn't look at music as a separate category. I would

just think creativity in general. I mean, certainly, Uncle Tom's Cabin is believed to have been a big catalyst in getting white people who had political power to finally be against slavery. So that's the famous example of a work of art actually moving the needle. But I think in terms of the general atmosphere of the culture, to the extent that art is makes certain things cool. Uh, you know it helps. I don't think it's it's it's it's

that big deal. I think the underlying issues matter more and and the Again, the main role of artist is to support politicians. As much as I love Harry Bellafante, he supported Martin Luther King, he wasn't Martin Luther King, and he would be the first to say that. Okay, So going back to Fieldstom, you were in high school in a very tumultuous era. Were you involved in politics them? I was, to the extent I could be. Um, you know,

bunch of us in in um in seventh grade. One of my my best friend in high school was somebody named Joel Goodman, who was still a friend of mine. He lives in Santa Monica, not far from where we were doing this podcast, and he um. His uncle was Paul Goodman, who's a famous radical writer of the fifties, great hero of both the gay rights movement and a lot of left wing movements. So he was way more tuned in to sort of left the ideas than I was.

But my parents, like I was telling you earlier, supported these things. And he had the idea that we should protest air A drills because they represented preparation for war and kind of enabling a war psychology. And so in seventh grade, six of us held signs up mindset, don't prepare for war prevented and refused to participate in an air A drill and we got suspended for a day. But then the next year they stopped having air A drills.

So now this was a private school, but it gave me an unrealistic sense of what protests could do, which I've never completely lost. Okay, so you get kicked out of school for a day for yours. Oh, they were all for it now my parents supported that. My parents didn't like it when I started smoking dope and taking acid that and and dropped out of college. That freaked them out. But the political activity they were completely supportive of.

And a bunch of us got a bus in sixty five to go to a march on Washington against the war fields and bus and uh. And one of my classmates in in in Um the last three years of high school was gil Scott heron Um. You know, he he got a scholarship there. He had his family had moved up from somewhere in the South. I think it's Virginia, but it might be Tennessee. I it's But he was immediately the most popular kid in school because he was

that cool. He was the lone African American. There were a few other African Americans, not a lot, but I think we had out of a class of a hundred, I think there were seven or eight. But he was just so charismatic. He was the center of the basketball team. He was the biggest, he was the main he was the wide end on the football team. He was the most talented musically. He had the best sense of humor,

and he was an incredible writer. The first day in English class, we've been given this assignment about what did you do over the summer? And mine was the I went to the beach. I rode my bike and brought a copy of Mad magazine, and I had a ice cream Sunday and I rode back. And we're all having these like a sort of four line see Dick run type descriptions, and the okay, Gil yours and he starts

reading the wind Blew through marriage Hair. She hadn't slept all night, but she'd had enough coffee that she was, you know, it was literature. And we all looked around, like, who is this guy? You know? And um, so he was you know, he wasn't um. He didn't come with us to the to the march. His mother was pretty strict and but but but he he was. He was a lefty. He was he was a deaf and it lefty. How was he your friend in school? He was my friend. He mostly hung out with the jocks, but he liked me.

It's it's counterintuitor, isn't it. But but these were fields in shocks. This is a mostly Jewish private school. This this was not providing players for the NFL or NBA. You know, Um, but he uh, he was. He was a good guy, and he was he was. Everybody loved Gil. He got along with kind of all the different cliques and and and I considered him a friend and he and I saw him in subsequent years at different times in both of our lives. You know, now, any of

your contemporaries from Fieldston become notable on the scene. Oh, I don't know. I would say he was by far the most spectacular public figure from our particular class. Okay, So you graduate from Fieldston and you go to college where I got into the University of California at Berkeley because I was an underachiever, as they used to call us, a d D people in those days, do you consider yourself to have a d D? In retrospect? I know what it was about the story. That's the story I

tell myself now for being such a mediocre student. Who knows, but I um, but but but I was a good test taker. And Berkeley was one of the schools that only looked at the S A T. S. So the guidance people said, don't even those are the only colleges you should apply to, because if they look at your grades, they're not gonna want you, you know. And I spent an entire week going to classes and that was it. I just was only into drugs at that time, and

so I dropped out literally after one week. This is the fall of no. No, this is this is the fall of sixties seven. I graduated from high school in June sixty seven and go I wind up in Berkeley, and okay, sixty seven, Okay, so that is literally just at the end of the summer of law. Just missed the summer of love. Yeah, so by the time I visited Hay to Ashbury, it was it was already kind of ruined by the inflo of junkies and predators. And I mostly stayed in Berkeley, but I did. But I

saw it right after the Summer of love. The real summer of love, I think, having just written a book about this, was really sixty six. That was the real idealistic period. Sixty seven was the media summer of love. Although many people think sixty eight was the summer of love. Who weren't around that today was the summer of assassination. Sixty eight was certainly that was when the mains just started to get clued in. But you're in Berkeley, which is a hot bit of radicalization, and could you still

feel that even though Mario Savio was before that, etcetera. Well, there was a schism. It wasn't an official schism, but there was the fact of schism among people that were kind of long haired, people that were generally rebellious baby boomer anti war types, between people that were sort of into the seeing political radicalism in the anti war movement as their number one priority, and people who saw getting high as their number one priority. And I was in

the latter group. I was in said head who was against the war and proudly against it. I had no ambiguity about it. But I didn't want to sit in meetings. I was never part of STS. I was really mainly into getting high. Okay, So were you into getting high in high school? I was, okay? So why do you you just doubled down when you get to Berkeley? Correct? Because I didn't have parents to come home to anymore. Okay? So you literally stopped going to classes after one week? Correct?

And but you're living in the dorm. No, at Berkeley, you did not have to live in the dorm. So Joel Goodman, the Fellow I mentioned you before, also went to Berkeley and we shared an apartment. It was actually in a town called Albany, California, that's just past the border of just slightly north of of Berkeley. So we we had an apartment and we're not in a dorm. Well, so what? And he continue to go to school. He stayed in Berkeley for about another year, and then he

later became a film editor. You'll see his name on the credits of many TV series and the movies and so on. He's okay, so you're there. You you stopped going to class for uh after week. You know, you know something is coming the bell that's gonna be wrong. Your parents are gonna freak out. So what's going through your head? You know? I this was not the time. Welcome, Welcome,

Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My guest this week is Danny Goldberg, who's had a career as a record executive, as a manager, as a writer, as a producer. Good to have you here, Danny, So nice to be here, Bob. Okay, you were the billboard correspondent for Woodstock. How did that come together? I got my first job after dropping out of college, uh with Billboard because okay, well let's go

that that triggers. Okay, So you grow up where? Grew up in Hastings on Hudson, which is Westchester County, right, And I went to a high school called Fieldston, which is actually in the Riverdale section of the Bronx Private School. Yeah, and your father is doing what for a living? Here was a textile executive and my mother as a housewife. She didn't make money, but she was a brilliant you know, she's a poet. She published a book of poetry and

we always looked at her as the smartest one. Uh but but my dad was took the train to the city every day and came back, and as did you. If you're going to Fieldston, Well, to Fieldston from Hastings there was a math teacher, Mr Jason, who would drive me there and then it was a bus back there was there was not really a train. How long was the bus ride that? Forty minutes? Right, relatively long for school. Yeah. And you have any siblings. I have a younger brother

and a younger sister. Yeah. So you're the oldest. All the hopes and dreams are in you, correct, And so what are your brother and sister up to today. My brother works for a company that sells computer systems to companies. I don't know exactly what he does, but it's in that ballpark. And he's got a son named Ben and and two grand daughters. Uh. And my sister is an academic. She is a professor at De Paul University in Indiana of conflict resolution and she's a PhD. So we do

have a doctor in the family. Okay. And are your parents political, because I know you're very political. My parents were political. I got my politics from my parents. They were there. They they're in heaven now, but they're not you know, I don't get to talk to them in the flesh anymore. But there they were, you know, for the civil rights movement. They had worked together before I was born on the thing was before they were married,

but when they were gonna get married. On the Henry Wallace campaign in so so he was he for those who don't know he was. He had been Roosevelt's vice president and Secretary of Agriculture, and he was kind of against the Cold War and was to the left of Harry Truman and and ultimately ran on an extremely unsuccessful third party ticket in forty eight because he felt Truman had kind of sold out some of the new deals.

So that's what I grew up with was they weren't communists, but they they they were They hated John McCarthy, and they were they were lefties, liberals, liberals. Let's jump all the way to the future as we sit here right now with what happened in the Bronx with Crowley being UH beaten in the primary by a twenty eight year old woman, do you believe the Democrats should run to the center, run to the left. Well, I think that the short answer, the one word answer, would be to

the left. But I do think these words left and center are kind of um used differently by different people. But to me, the key to the Democrats is to turn out the vote and to get everybody who voted for the third party candidates UH to vote for Democrats this time. To get the people who didn't vote to vote for Democrats this time. I think that's the low

hanging fruit. I think changing the mind of a Trump voter is really really hard, and I think getting somebody who voted for the libertarian or Jill Steiner who didn't think there was any difference, or those ridiculous arguments. I think getting those people to show up and vote for the Democrats is is an easier lift of the two. Well,

that's what Frank Rich says. Frank Rich said, you know, although it's interesting to study why these people voted for Trump, that you're not going to convince him it's about getting out the vote. Yeah, I think that's true. I think historically, when there's a high turnout, Democrats win, and when there's a low turnout, they lose. And I think clearly we

know the math. I mean, there's not a majority support for Trump, but but if if a majority the people who show up to vote support him, then he controls everything. Do you have any fear that we could have candidates that are too far to the left and we lose the so called center. I'm much more scared of people who demoralize women, young people in racial minorities, because that's what happened last time, and that's what's happened frequently with

the Democrats. I haven't I guess if you wanted to say McGovern was too far to the left, that was so long ago, and it was such a unique set of circumstances, you know, and uh, you know, almost forty more than forty more than forty years ago. But certainly in terms of in the last several decades, there's no examples of Democrats who were too far to the left. There's a lot of examples of Democrats who didn't get

the turnout, who didn't motivate young people. These kids who showed up on the Gun March, the women who showed up on the William Million Women March, the the African Americans who showed up for Barack Obama, the Latinos who need to know that there's a compelling difference between Democrats and Republicans. Getting them to show up is to me the big task. I haven't seen examples of Democrats who lost because they were too far to the left. We have a lot of examples of Democrats who couldn't get

turned out. Well. It's interesting in the last few days, UH people are accusing of the New York Times of trying to bring people to the center, and then there are people to the left like Matt Taiebi say no, we really have to run on the issues. You know, a lot of them publicized by Bernie Sanders, having to do with school debt and healthcare and other opportunity. And as I say, this is how we lost. If I want to say I am a Democrat, that is how

we lost the last time around. I guess when Hillary Clinton said her favorite book was the Bible, I said, it just blew all credibility. Well, I think when she said I'm going to ask Henry Kissinger for advice, and when she said no, I won't tell you what I said to Goldman Sachs that it was it was not exciting. You know, look, I voted for Hillary Clinton. I contributed money to Hillary Clinton, and I think she would have been a terrific president. I was for Burning in the

primaries because I agreed with him on the issues. But I think the reality is that there's been too many Democratic leaders that haven't delivered for a lot of people. And and some of those people, UH didn't vote last time, and some of them voted for third parties. I think five percent of the vote went to the libertarian or to Jill Stein. I think all those people, I don't think any of those people would have voted for Trump. Some of them would have voted for for Hillary. Maybe

some of them you just could never get. There's a certain core of nihilist lefties that will never vote for a Democrat. But it's not five percent, and uh, you know that was you know, and then you look at the young people. The percentage of progressive views of people under thirty or fifteen twenty points higher than the rest of the polation, And uh, every every election is more

of those people. And you've got to motivate them and show them there's a real difference and that it's worth it and taking it for granted because you just kind of quote something that you know lb J did fifty

years ago is not going to do it. You've got to So I on that particular argument, I'm I'm more on the mat Ti e B side, not only because I happen to believe in those issues, because I don't believe the other thing works that what the what you're describing the not let's not go too far to the left platform is what lost for the Democrats, not only

Hillary Clinton, but but successive midterms and governorships. And you know, the Democratic Party is the weakest in terms of a of office that it's been in my lifetime because they keep taking the advice of these so called experts who claim to know what the center thinks, except they keep losing. If they would win, I would salute, you know, but they lost, so obviously their expertise is not what they claim it was. Okay, you're speaking my language before we

go back to the beginning here. Is there a place for music in this political sphere? And can music move the needle? Um? You know, it's so hard to know how music affects people relative to to politics. The historical role of music has mostly been as a source of encouragement for people. When when you know, John by Ezra Pete Seeger would go and sing for the civil rights workers, or phil Oaks would sing at peace rallies, or Jackson Brown and Bonnie Rate would would sing, you know, for

anti nuclear rallies and things like that. It's not been to convert people. It's mostly been to kind of inspire and motivate the troops and to raise money. Um, you never know what art can do. You know, I wouldn't look at music as a separate category. I would just think creativity in general. I mean, certainly, Uncle Tom's cabin is believed to have been a big catalyst in getting white people who had political power to finally be against slavery. So that's the famous example of a work of art

actually moving the needle. But I think in terms of the general atmosphere of the culture, to the extent that art is makes certain things cool. Uh, you know it helps. I don't think it's it's it's it's that big deal. I think the underlying issues matter more. And and there again, the main role of artist is to support politicians. As much as I love Harry Bellafante, he supported Martin Luther King, he wasn't Martin Luther King, and he would be the

first to say that. Okay, So going back to Field Stem, you were in high school in a very tumultual was era. Were you involved in politics them? I was to the extent I could be. Um. You know, a bunch of us in in um in seventh grade. One of my my best friend in high school was somebody named Joel Goodman,

who was still a friend of mine. He lives in Santa Monica, not far from where we're doing this podcast, and he um His uncle was Paul Goodman, who's a famous radical writer of the fifties, great hero of both the gay rights movement and a lot of left wing movements. So he was way more tuned in to sort of left the ideas than I was. But my parents, like

I was telling you earlier, supported these things. And he had the idea that we should protest air A drills because they represented preparation for war and kind of enabling a war psychology. And so in seventh grade, six of us held signs up mindset, don't prepare for war, prevented and refused to participate in an air A drill, and we got suspended for a day. But then the next year they stopped having air aid drill. So now this was a private school, but it gave me an unrealistic

sense of what protests could do, which I've never completely lost. Okay, so you get kicked out of school for a day for your say, Oh, they were all for it. Now, my parents supported that. My parents didn't like it when I started smoking dope and taking acid that and and dropped out of college. That freaked them out. But the

political activity they were completely supportive of. And a bunch of us got a bus in sixty five to go to a march on Washington against the war fields and bus and uh and one of my classmates in in in Um. The last three years of High school was Gil Scott heron Um. You know, he he got a scholarship there. He had his family had moved up from somewhere in the South. I think it's Virginia, but it

might be Tennessee. I it's but he was immediately the most popular kid in school because he was that cool. He was the lone African American. There were a few other African Americans, not a lot, but I think we had of a class of a hundred, I think there were seven or eight. But he was just so charismatic. He was the center of the basketball team. He was the biggest, he was the main he was the wide end on the football team. He was the most talented musically.

He had the best sense of humor, and he was an incredible writer. The first day in English class, we've been given this assignment about what did you do over the summer? And mine was the I went to the beach. I rode my bike and brought a copy of Mad magazine, and I had a ice cream Sunday and I rode back and we're all having these like a sort of four line see Dick run type descriptions, and the okay, Gil yours and he starts reading the wind blew through

Merrit's hair. She hadn't slept all night, but she'd had enough coffee that she was you know, it was literature. And we all looked around, like, who is this guy? You know? And um, so he was, you know, he wasn't. Um, he didn't come with us to the to the march. His mother was pretty strict and but but he was. He was a lefty, he was. He was a definite lefty. Now was he your friend in school? He was my friend. He mostly hung out with the jocks, but he liked me.

So it's it's counterintuitor, isn't it. But but these were fields in Shocks. This is a mostly Jewish private school. This this was not providing players for the NFL or NBA. You know. Um, but he uh, he was. He was a good guy and he was he was. Everybody loved Gil. He got along with kind of all the different cliques and and and I considered him a friend and he and I saw him in subsequent years at different times

in both of our lives. You know, Now, any of your contemporaries from Fieldston become notable on the scene, Oh, I don't know. I would say he was by far the most spectacular public figure from our particular class. Okay, so you graduate from Fieldson and you go to college where I got it into the University of California at Berkeley because I was an underachiever, as they used to call us, a d D people in those days, do you consider yourself to have a d D? In retrospect?

I know what it was? That the story, that's the story I tell myself now for being such a mediocre student. Who knows but I um, but but but I was a good test taker. And Berkeley was one of the schools that only looked at the S A T. S. So the guidance people said, don't even those are the only colleges you should apply to, because if they look at your grades, they're not gonna want you, you know. And I spent an entire week going to classes and

that was it. I just was only into drugs at that time, and so I dropped out literally after one week. This is the fall of sixty No, no, this is this is the fall of sixties seven. I graduated from high school in June sixty seven and go I wind up in Berkeley, and okay, sixty seven. Okay, so that is literally just at the end of the summer of law. Just missed the summer of law. Yeah, so by the time I visited Hay to Ashbury, it was it was already kind of ruined by the influx of junkies and predators.

And I mostly stayed in Berkeley, but I did. But I saw it right after the Summer of Love. The real summer of love, I think, having just written a book about this, was really sixty six. That was the real idealistic period. Sixty seven was the media summer of love. Although many people think sixty eight was the summer of love. Who weren't around that today was the summer of assassination was certainly that was when the mains just started to

get included in. But you're in Berkeley, which is a hot bit of radicalization, and could you still feel that even though Mario Savio was before that, etcetera. Well, there

was a schism. It wasn't an official schism, but there was the fact of schism among people that were kind of long haired, people that were generally rebellious baby boomer anti war types, between people that were sort of into the seeing political radicalism in the anti war move as their number one priority, and people who saw getting high as their number one priority. And I was in the latter group. I was an asset head who was against the war and proudly against it. I had no ambiguity

about it. But I didn't want to sit in meetings. I was never part of STS. I was really mainly into getting high. Okay, So were you into getting high in high school? I was okay? So why do you You just doubled down when you get to Berkeley? Correct? Because I didn't have parents to come home to anymore. Okay, So you literally stopped going to classes after one week? Correct? And but you're living in the dorm. No, at Berkeley,

you did not have to live in the dorm. So Joel Goodman, the fellow I mentioned you before, also went to Berkeley and we shared an apartment. It was actually in a town called Albany, California, that's just passed the border of just slightly north of of Berkeley. So we we had an apartment and we're not in a dorm. Well, so what? And he continue to go to school. He stayed in Berkeley for about another year, and then he

later became a film editor. You'll see his name on the credits of many TV series and the movies and so on. He Okay, so you're there. You you stopped going to class for uh after week. You know you know something is coming. There's a bell that's gonna be wrong. Your parents are gonna freak out. So what's going through your head? You know? I this was not the time in my life when I was the most clear thinking.

Um what was I was really thinking everything in terms of sort of the next twenty four hours, and I really became a druggie. I'm not particularly proud of it. I think that the psychedelics played a positive role for me at one moment in my life, but thereafter I was just into taking all kinds of drugs, including you know, meth and heroin and everything. And I got arrested in May of sixty eight wandering around asking a cop for directions when I was very, very stoned, and it was

obviously subconsciously something I wanted to do. It's scared, you know, I was scared straight, as the expression goes. I spent six days and Alameda County Juvenile All my parents found some laurying got me out. It was before my eighteenth birthday, and the lawyers were not as strict then, and and I I didn't. I don't think I took any drugs or had a glass of wine for a ten or

fifteen years after that. Really, you were literally scared. I was like I, I don't understand a lot of things about life, but I never want to put myself in that position again. You know, that was very clear. I got lucky nobody raped me or beat me up. I was, but I never wanted to be in that situation again. How about today? I still don't want to be in jail. But would you imbibe any uh? I don't have a social glass of wine or smoke a joint. You know I'm not. I'm not a twelve step person that many

of the people closest to me are. But but in the in the extreme moderation, we'll take a quick break and come back with more of my conversation with Danny Goldberg, recording it at the Tune in studios in Venice, California. I love sitting down with music industry veterans like Danny and traveling back in time and getting their history. I love getting to the heart of a person's story, whether they're perform warmer, a manager, a record label executive, or

just someone on the street. Everyone's got a story and I want to hear it. This week, Danny Goldberg tells us all about his roles in the music business. Previously, we talked with artists like Cascade, Moby and Shirley Manson of Garbage. Whether you come from the music conversation or learn more about the business, be the first to hear next week's episode by subscribing to the podcast on tune in,

Apple or your podcast host of choice. If you like what you hear, please rate, review, and of course tell your friends they'll dig it to. Okay, let's get back to my conversation with Danny Goldberg. Okay, so when do your parents wake up to the fact you ain't going to school. I think when they got the call from the jail was when they woke up to it. And so how pissed were they? They were devastated. My poor parents.

They were such lovely people, and I got very close to them by the time I hit my thirties, but you know, at that time in my life, I just didn't want them in my head. They they were I if I get to be born again and live on a planet like this, and I can pick my parents. I'm fine to have the same parents. They were really interesting, loving people, and I became particularly close to my dad, who outlived my mom and and who was the not the disciplinarian of the two of them, and was the

unconditional love guy. But they were just freaked out. I mean, they didn't understand it. They were worried that I'd ruined my life. But you know, within you know, I got a job. I got the job working for Billboard. Remember of that year. Okay, you're in Berkeley, you get out of juvenile hall, you go back to your parents. I

have to go back. The condition of my release was that I would not be in California for a year, that i'd get therapy, and and so I'm living in their apartment going to some kind of group therapy that was for people with drug problems. Was that beneficial at all? It was? First of all, I was so surprising to me that other people had problems. I thought I was the only one I had problems. So just that sheer

fact of sitting in a group. And what was really amazing to me was that older people had problems, because I thought only people my age had problems. So just in terms of that superficial getting out of my own self centered nous, it was hugely helpful. And there was one therapist there named Ralph Ricky. I think he's passed away, that I still remember that that that that he just

helped me feel a little bit better about myself. I only went for Bad five or six months, and then I by the fall, this was June, and by September I got the job at Billboard. How did you get the job at Billboard? And The New York Times really says magazine clerk wanted for magazine. I had no idea what Billboard was. I didn't know there was a music business. I just loved rock and roll as a fan. I didn't know there was a whole business and that it would be a trade magazine about it, or three trade

magazines about it. But you know, I figured magazine. I'd written for the high school newspaper. I figured the other job that I could get was key punch operator for Sears Roebuck and writer. You know, magazine just sounded better to me than Sears Roll. Did it say Billboard? Uh? I don't remember, But I didn't know what Billboard was. I didn't really unders thinking of other competition. Other people

might want that gig. Well, I don't know, you know, nobody knew what the music business was then later on USA today, the New York Times would print charts and they'd beat you. Developed subsequent generations understood there were things called record companies and managers and agents, and it became part of popular conversation. At that time. Nobody knew anything

about this except people that were in the business. So I certainly didn't know what billboard was, and I really didn't understand what it was when I started the first day and I was leafing through it, and they had pictures of like Janis Joplin and people that I liked, in addition to kind of country artists and R and B artists. And the job was in the chart department,

where there was no bar codes then. So the way they compiled the charts what they had seven or eight of us called stores three or four three three days a week. We would call the stores and read a checklist of all the singles that were on the list and ask to people who answered the phone or is it selling heavy, medium, light or not at all? And then what's your top ten selling albums, and then I had and then some of us had specialties. Mind was classical music, so I would also have a list of

classical stories to call to compile the classical chart. And then we and then then one day we'd spent compiling the now would be called data. And then then then the fifth day we'd answer the phone when people called all day asking where their record was on the charts. So if there are five other people doing this and you're basically a data technician, you're not on the fast road anywhere. Well what happened is they were. I discovered that there was this thing called the music business, and

there were people. I discovered two things pretty quickly. Number one, there were people and another side of the office that got to go to concerts for free and got free records, and all they had to do was write their opinions about them. And I had pretty low self esteem, but I knew I could do that. You have plenty of yeah, especially about music, you know, especially about the kind of music that I that I like. So I was immediately, how do I get that job? How do I get

that job? But no, no, no, no, there's that you have to be credentialed. And but what what happened is that by nagging enough. It was a small enough office, there were there were certain assignments that none of the staff writers could cover, and so within a few months they would let me as a freelancer do pieces that nobody else none of the states remember. The first one ever was a banned on Atlantic called Mr Flood's Party. I don't even remember that. No, they were a flop.

They played at the Steve Poles the Scene and um, I wrote one that I do remember, um about the Rascals. The Rascals played at an outdoor venue in Queens. I think it was called the Pavilion. It was on the side of what had previously been the World's Fair. And um, and I wrote, um, and I love the Rascals. But I knew I'm supposed to be a critic, so I'm supposed to say something critical or I'm not really a critic.

So I said, well, feelis cavalerian Eddie Brigotti sound amazing vocalist and the songs are great, And I said and and and Gene Cornish twanged his guitar. Because this was the era of guitar heroes. You have Jimmy Hendrix and Eric Clapton and you know Jeff Beck and you know these amazing guitar players. And he was like, you know the rascals guitar. So on Monday, which was in the magazine, is published The Phone Rings and it's Gene Cornish and he says, um, what do you mean I twanged my guitary?

Do you know how long I practiced to learn other players? I have a lot of I said, I didn't mean it as a criticism. I I just, uh, you know, I was so I felt so terrible. I didn't know that these people in bands were human beings that would read or care about anything like this. I was just trying to look like I was a critic, and after that it was very hard for me to criticize musicians, you know. And that's why I ended up being a

much better publicist than I was a critic. Okay, So if you're starting to fall of sixty eight, let's go back to the additional question. You end up being the writer for Woodstock, So then then I'm still at Billboard by by August of sixty nine, when when Woodstock happens and none of the writers wanted to cover it because

a good assignment for a Billboard writer. These were old guys like thirty five, you know, totally different generation than a nineteen year old, and they they wanted to go to clubs like the Copacabana where you got a free drinks and free dinner. Those were the assignments that were coveted by the staff writers. Nobody wanted to slep up to the country. They didn't care about these artists. They were ten fifteen years older, and so nobody wanted to go.

So they somebody said, do you want to go? I said yes, So I went there in a limo with the public The publicist for Woodstock was a woman named Jane Friedman, who is still alive. I think she runs an art gallery in Soho. Now and uh, stop for one second. Are you making enough money at Billboard to live in your own place? You're living with your parents? Oh no, No. The minute I got the job, I got my own apartment. I was sharing it. Initially, I

had apartment in Brooklyn. Initially I was sharing with Peter Connoy, who was a fieldstin friend of mine. He was a year older, first guy who's the first guy ever smoked pot with and his father was a great civil liberties and civil rights lawer. He had represented Dr King and

Adam Clayton Powell and other other people. But Peter like getting high, you know, and uh and and then after I saved up about a thousand dollars, which was like this huge milestone when of my savings account was four figures, I got an apartment on St. Mark's Place by myself. So I don't remember when Woodstock happened, if I was still in Brooklyn, or if I had moved to sing. So you're going in the limo with Jane Friedman. It was me, Jane Friedman, and there was a writer named Vincelletti.

Roll wrote at that time for a magazine called Rat. He later became kind of a village voice writer and particular expertise on R and B and disco. And I'm trying to think if anyone else was in the car. I know it was me, Vinceletti and Jane Free. Okay, So you're going to go in the car to Woodstock, and you're going to stay where in a hotel? They were the publicists for Woodstock. They had a group of rooms for the writers. And so I may get money,

did you make it to the hotel, Yeah, definitely. Okay, So do you hit any trap if they if the first day of shows was Friday? Did you go on Friday? Did you go on Thursday? You know? All I remember is that when I finally got to the site of the festival, the band that was playing was Santana. So in my mind it was the first day. But it's a long time ago, and a lot of my memories of Woodstock are commingled with the memories of watching the

Woodstock movie. I'm not sure which are my memories in which I'm just remembering seeing in the movie, but I do remember it was Santana and I've never heard of Santana, and I walked up and I asked, these people aren't like, who's that, you know? And it was the town and they're amazing, and it was so that's like one of my They were definitely on because they were so good and they were brand new to me at that time,

and so I happen to remember that now. Certainly it's iconic at this point, But in terms of the experience, what did you think, Well, what I felt was, even though I hadn't been taking drugs for more than a year and was really committed to the idea that I'm not that guy anymore. Who's who's going to screw up my life by taking drugs. I still completely identified with

the romance of hippie culture. And I was so moved by the audience and the crowd and the and the camaraderie and sweetness of everybody there that that's my main memory more than the music. It was, it was, it was, it was you know, it turned out to be the end of something, not the beginning of something, but it was something in that moment that I was very moved by. So, okay, you pored on that for Billboard and they put on the front page. The only time I ever had a

front page story in Billboard. They let me write. Usually I'd have to write like three words. This I think they let me write a couple of thousand words because it was a big turned out to be a big story, and I was the only Billboard guy that was there. And how much long do you stay at Billboard before you become a publicist. Well, I went through a series there was a gap in between Billboard. I went through

a series of of of of short term jobs. First of all, I went from Billboard to Record World, which was one of the three because Record World was a competitive Billboard, but a Record World, I didn't have to be in the chart department anymore. I was just hired as a writer. So that was a huge step forward because I was only writing periodically as a freelancer while

still having to be in the chart department. A Record World, I had a weekly column called Getting It Together, and and I reviewed shows, and I interviewed people and I wrote story. So that was a full time writing job. And then I got fired from that because I kept coming in eight You know, I hadn't completely mastered this adult thing yet. Uh. It's so funny because now the last thirty or forty years, when I have people who work from you coming late, I really don't like it. Well,

what's your definition of late? Uh? You know, if it's more than it depends on the Like our office now, in my little company, we look at ten o'clock as a time. Other companies I had at nine o'clock. But to me, if it's more than twenty minutes, it's late, right, I just meant the time that you would have to arrive so you get can from Record World. So I got caned from Billboard. Then I got Can from Record World. No no, you didn't tell me you got Key No no, no, no, right, right,

I went from Billboard to Record right then. Um, there was about a year where I worked for Circus Magazine. I think I had the title of managing editor of that, and that was so sort of a cross between sixteen Magazine and Rolling Stone, right, it was. It was going, That's a good description of it. It was certainly for more for males and girls. You know, it was a little bit older audience than sixteen. And it was a rock magazine. There were no pop, no Bobby Sherman, no

David Cassidy. It was it was rock. But the thing that roll that Circus had that Rolling Stone even didn't have at that time was color pictures. Rolling Stone later got colored, but for this brief period, so Circus had shorter articles, but we had some of the Rolling Stone typewriters like Paul Nelson wrote also for Circus, and a lot of the people who wrote for Rolling Stone would also write pieces for Circus. To pick up an extra fifty hundred bucks, you have another outlet or or whatever.

And so I did that for about a year and then I got a job working for Albert Grossman's publishing company that I wasn't any good at. But I got to meet Albert Grossman, who was my great hero of mine, who's Bob Dylan's manager, and I've seen him in that movie Don't Look Back. And at least I got to meet him, you know, at that time. And and then finally I was kind of desperate. I wasn't getting writing work anymore because I wasn't really that good a writer.

I was just mostly into trying to meet girls and having friends and I wasn't serious about you know, there's this um website called my back Pages, uh that's out of England that compiles rock journalism. So they found a lot of my old articles, including especially the Circus articles, and it's I don't think I ever wrote a second draft of anything. It was all this. So I walked into the room and you know, Alvin Lee was just

eating breakfast, and you know, I thought that's what journalism was. UM. So I couldn't I couldn't make it as a writer. And I got a job working for Lee S. Walters, who was the real rand old great show business uh, you know publicist he um one of One of the things that happened that was a big life changing experience for me when I was at Record World was I met a guy named Danny Fields. And Danny Fields I had read about because there had been an article about him.

He had worked in Electra in in the in the eight period, where his actual title was company freak, and he then signed the m C five and the Stooges to Electorate. He later was one of the managers of the Ramons. He also, I believe, introduced the Louie to Andy Warhol. I mean, he's a great historical figureing. There's a documentary about him called Danny Says. It came out

a few years ago, and he read a piece. The woman named Gloria Stavers, who was the editor of sixteen magazine, UM read everything and took notes, and she read a column that I wrote about the m C five for Record World and sent it to Danny. And Danny called me and said, uh, we should have lunch, you know, great, you know and and and then he took me the next night to Maxis, Kansas City, where I met Gloria.

Woman named Lillian Rockson who was the Australian correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, who at the Encyclopedia of the Encyclopedia of Rock, and Steve Paul, who was Johnny Winter's manager and runs De Poils, and I met all of them the same night and they became the most important people in my life. For the next several years, I just would go to Max's every night, and it was my social life, was my professional life, and it was

my identity and I it just conferred. Being Danny's friend was this instantly legitimacy in a culture that was a million times cooler than anything I'd ever encountered, And overnight I had an identity that I really owe him forever for. But I did find my own way. I mean, after the first night I could go myself. Mickey Ruskin, the guy who ran it, was just kind of if he you know, the big thing with Mickey Ruskin famously is if you came in a limo, he wouldn't let you in.

You know, that wasn't what you know, he had like this inverse snobbery. So um so. Gloria became a good friend of mine and she was a mentor. She was such a glamorous person. She passed away. Uh, in her fifties from lung cancer. But she had an extraordinary life. First of all, she she invented a lot of you know, before Rolling Stone sixteen magazine was all there was. And she did some of the earliest interviews with Dylan and

the Beatles and Elvis. And she did a thing about Rolling Stone when it first was published that Yan always said helped get them thousands of subscriptions. And and she had been Lenny Bruce's lover for the last several years of his life, which there was just no more awesome credential for me than someone who had known Lenny Bruce not to mention, and slept with him. So I just idolized her and did and and and she and she

liked me, you know, so she she she um. When I was desperate for a job, she called Lee Alters and look, you know, if you want somebody to do rock and roll, this would this would this is this is who I would suggest. So Lee interviewed me, because of Glory's recommendation, hired me. And you know, within a few months he asked me if I thought it was a good idea for Salters and Roskin to do pr for led Zeppelin and I said yes, and he said, well, you'll have to deal with them because I'm the guy

Lombardo generation. I said, you got it. So then I was Led Zeppelin's publicistem that's which kind of branded me for the rest of my career. Okay, so you were Led Zeppelin's publicist at what point in their seventy three The album was Houses of the Holy and they that album came out, and then they did an American tour and it was the tour where they sold out stadiums. One of them was Tampa, which was fifty hundred people, which was more people than so the Beatles and Jay Stadium.

And I got a wire service story about it, and you know, I got Zeppelin really the first good press they'd ever had. People. They're so legendary and such an influence on the musical culture that it's hard for people who weren't around to realize they never got good reviews. The rock press hated Zeppelin in those years because they you know, they were they were Their audience was younger.

The Rolling Stone writers were into The Stones, Dylan Cream and then Zeppelin comes along, and Zeppelin was made famous by radio, not by the press, and so they always got bad reviews. So by House of the Holy was their fifth album, and it was the first time they got good press. And it was just the planets lined up. I was in the right place of the right time, and I could help them do that, and they liked me enough to then hire me before they hired So,

you know, Peter Grant is a legendary guy. The BM members are known as being off putting too. How do you ingretiate yourself with that? Well, you know, I was so nervous, Lee and I Lee came to the first meeting. He said, I'll come to the first meeting and after that I'm never going to see them again or meet them again. But I'll go to the first meeting because they were hiring lease authors. And we flew to Paris.

They were playing at the Palais to Sports in Paris, and we stayed at some fancy George sand hotel which is where the Zeppelin was saying, I've never been to Europe before, you know, not to mention to Paris, and he says, so tell me about these guys. I said, Look,

they got a really bad reputation with writers. I mean there was some writer named Ellen Sander who they supposedly threw things at and you know, they had, like what you're saying, a reputation of not being pleasant to strangers or people that weren't in their inn out, including and a particularly journalists because they viewed journalists as adversaries. I said there, like considered to be like barbarians. So we

get to the meeting with Peter Grant. First we meet with Peter Grant, and then after that we meet with you. Who have it? Are you pitching? I don't really know, I mean Lee, they we flew over there. Um, I don't know how they came to him exactly. He was just to go to famous PR guy and they decided to go to him. I don't know really. Uh. In my understanding of it was that we had them, but I'm sure if they hadn't liked the meeting, they would

have changed their mind. And um, so we're sitting there with Peter Grant, who is this three hundred plus pound former professional wrestler, wrestler, cockney accent, very intimidating, tough guy. And uh, I'd heard about Peter Grant, you know, and there was vague sense that he maybe new gangsters or could have been a thug or you know, it was a scary guy physically. And lisays, tell tell Peter, you tell me, tell tell him, tell tell him. You told me,

tell about the Barbarians thing. So I said to Peter, look, you know, um, like I talked to some of the writers and you know, there's like this feeling like that the that the band is almost like barbarians. And he looked at me with this big smile. You know, Peter was brilliant. He wasn't only tough, he was the smartest manager of his generation and knew how to be charming. He looked at his big smile and he said, yeah,

but we're just mild barbarians. So then we met with the band and uh, you know, uh it was fine. You know, they they they you know, they they wanted good press. Robert Plant in particular was sick of He wanted his parents and the people who grew up with to read about him. Also, they already were the biggest band commercially, and he he did most of the interviews. Jimmy Jimmy controlled things, but he was in the big schmoozer. Robert was the big mooser. Okay, so you're moving from

writing publicity with essentially no training or track record. How do you pick it up? Well? Two things. One is I had friends who were writers. All my friends wrote about rock and roll. I had spent three or four years in this clique of people that revolved around Max's Kansas City writers and who were on the press list. There was like a party every night. I mean it was the boom period in the music business. You never had to pay for a meal or pay for a ticket.

So I knew the New York writers and it was all about favors and hey, it's can you do this for me? So like Lilian Rockson did the first piece for the New York Daily News. By this time, in addition to the Australian paper, she was the rock writer for the New York Daily News, which at that time I had the biggest circulation of any American newspaper. She did a big full page in the Sunday and so she came to the airport and did a piece on them. And so I was into asking my friends for favors.

And then Lee explained to me, Les Alters taught me publicity. He is different generation. He didn't care anything about rock and roll. He were suit every day. He was a guy that you know, knew, Walter Winchell. He was like from out of a forties movie. But um, he understood the rock and roll was this new thing that they wanted to have their piece of that pie, and that I was his guy with the long hair to do that.

And he explained to me that if you had a good story, you didn't need to ask for a favor. That the idea was to create good stories and that was this huge paradigm shiffers. So he and the other publicists, it's olders. They were all older than me, and and and uh and hard bitten, but they they they took me under their wing and they showed me. They explained to me how to write a press release and you know, how to how to do it, you know, and it was like it was like going to Harvard for publicity.

Did you like it? You know? I liked that I had a job. I had had spent three after you know, I had a few months where I didn't have a job. So I was like, I I liked that I had a job. And it occurred to me after are a couple of months that I was good at it. And it was the first time I'd ever felt I was any good at anything. I always felt like a complete fraud as a As a journalist, I knew I wasn't really as good as the really good writers. They were

great writers. John Lynde was writing about rock and roll, then Paul Nelson. These were great writers. I knew I couldn't write as well as them. But I was really good at publicity because I was a fan and because um, you know, that fit my temperament better, like I said, being a fan instead of a critic. So within a pretty short amount of time I started to get, for the first time in my life, feeling I was good at something, and so I like that. So how did

you end up working? Well? I did publicity for the for the seventy three tour, and then when they started Swansong, they offered me the job to be what Peter called his ambassador and in America, and I said, uh, well, could I have a title? He said, well, what title do you want? I said, I've had vice president of Swansong. He said fine, because there was no staff. Was he was president vice press or something about vice president of

led Zeppelin's label. But yeah, they they had a good they liked me, you know, and and and and they needed somebody like in my category for for the new label. So they for me, were you making the money that would be aligned in one's brain with that title in that position, Well, I was making more money than I was making. Its salters, I think it's salters. I was making three hundred dollars a week. Um, this is seventy three so whatever inflation would be, you know, that's fifteen

thousand a year. That's probably like making seventy five hundred thousand now, uh. And then and then I got a percentage of business I brought in. And the only business I ever brought in was Edgar and Johnny Winter, which was Steve Paul's clients. So maybe I was making three fifty a week. So then I started a Swan song at five hundred a week, so that was like a

fift increase dollars a year. And I also um had an expand accounts, so I could take people to uh, you know, the fancy Italian restaurant around the corner, and and and they would pay for it. So that was a step up. And then after the first year they raised me to forty thousand dollars a year because we had a great first year. Bad Company record came out. Of course, it was the first release of Lanson was Bad Co number one album, number one single. So so you know, I was then twenty four. I was that

was fine, you know. I was ambitious to kind of just be more in the business. But it was certainly for a guy who never had any college education. I suddenly was rebranded from being this failure to being this success in terms of just the way. Like my parents realized at a certain point when I was working for Zeppelin and my mother said, Danny, you ever think about maybe going back to college? And I said, month, did

you know who Lie Zeppelin is? Okay, So were you working with the band during the famous era at the Cote, Yes, I was. That's why that's really where I bonded with I think that's why Peter Grant hired me is because that was in ninety three, and the story is that they had cash. It was the end of a tour

and there was a lot of cash. Peter liked cash for whatever reason, and there was I think two thousand dollars in a safety deposit box of the Drake Hotel that disappeared, and it was front page of the newspapers, and I and and Peter is like, they're all freaked out. And Peter's freaked out, and and I said, you want me to call um? It was a guy named John Gibson, I think was the publicity guy at Atlantic. I said, you want me to call Bob Gibson. He says, no,

I don't want anybody from Atlantic here. I want you to handle this. So and I had no idea that he would prefer me to somebody at the label, but to him, the label was them. And I worked for him, and and and and and that was the first time I even knew he liked me. I mean, he never gave me a compliment. You know, there were some and so we had to have a press conference and that that's really I felt that that that he kind of felt I handled that well enough. Yeah, some people believe

that they stole the money themselves. Well, nobody knows. Let's put it this way, no one's ever was arrested for this crime. And uh, it's a little fishy. And then the question is who would they be. Would they be the entire band, would it just be Peter, would it be Peter and someone else? No one knows. What we know is no one was ever arrested for it. Well, I guess my father woke me up. Was during the summer. He couldn't believe the sum he read it in the papers,

you know, this being led Zeppelin. They're staying at the Drake Hotel. And the famous thing was the band flew home almost immediately, as opposed to staying around and trying to help with the finding of this money. Well, I mean, how would a band there but I was to get on stage a masson Square Garden. You know they saw that three shows at the garden and to play a great concert. They are not detectives or you know, so of course the band flew home. Um there there Peter

and the two. A manager of led Zeppe was named Richard Cole, who's to this day a pretty good friend of mine. The beautiful guy he was, he's he's a twelve step guy. He's a guy in those he's out of control. I remember when he used to be at the Rainbow every night. He was out of control, a pirate, scary guy. Peter's right hand guy, kind of the enforce your guy. And uh and the last thirty years he's like, uh, he got sober again. I'm not you know, this is he he would be the first to say this, and

and he's what a beautiful guy. He lives, he's retired, he lives in in in England, I think London. I just mostly see we mostly communicate through Facebook. But you know, I don't think Richard knows and if anybody that IM and Peter's dead and um, I don't know, but it's something a little a little um. The weird thing is that the one was ever arrested for it, you know, and uh, and that only a couple of people had access to the to the safety deposit box, one of

whom definitely was Peter. We're listening to my conversation with Danny Goldberg, recorded live at the tune In Studios in Venice, California. I hope you're enjoying this episode of the Bob Left Sets podcast. If you want to see videos, photos, and soundbites from Danny and our other guests as they joined me in the studio, visit at tune In on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Now more of my conversation with Danny Goldberg

on the Bob Left Sets Podcast. Okay, so you end up working with Led zeppelind until the band ends, right, No, No, I did not I work with them. Um. I started at Swansong in January of seventy four and I left in May of seventies six, and the band didn't end until seventy seven. Okay, so you left in seventy six to do what I started my own PR firm. You know, I had a falling out with Peter. We later made up.

It's it's not that interesting a story. And but I by this time I had a reputation of I'd been Zeppelin's publicistem bad company, and I've been quoted in articles. So I started a PR company with the imaginative name of Danny Goldberg, Inc. And And the first client I got was Kiss, you know, who idolized Zeppelin and billow Cooin had been at somebody i'd met earlier. And I also very quickly got E l O, which Don Arden managed to Don Arden had been Peter Grant's former bloss

and was also a legendary tough English guy. His daughter married Ozzy Osborne. We know here Sharon Osborne, and those days she was Sharon Arden, and very very good to me, you know, always made sure I get paid on time. Really, so you were at the advent of the success of those Well, Yolo had already had a hit seventy four in America. Elo, it had hits. They they had. I mean I think, um, they already had can't get out

of my head. Um. The big record we had was I think it was called uh, God had living thing on it. I think it was called out of the Yeah. I think that was the big yellow record that I that I was Danny Goldberg in just you or did you have people working? Oh? No, I had people working for me. Um. I started. I started out of my apartment.

By this time, I'd moved to West seven ninth three and I had a one bedroom and sort of for the first six months, the living room was our office, and actually Howard Bloom shared the office with me, and then he later off did his own PR firm. But originally we were thinking of doing it together. But but we're still friends. Howard and I just did a book event together like last year. But um we we um. So I had fives, I had, I had some people and then and then I made enough money that I

could afford to rent offices somewhere in midtown. Uh and uh, you know, publicity is work intensive. It's it's a you need you need bodies making the phone calls to UH service the clients. Do you're making any money? I mean it was cash flow positive, you know. Um for most of it. Um, it was a struggle, but I got enough money where I ended up having also an l

A office. I had an office in Century City, right down the hall from where E. L Os Jet Records was, And then I had an office in New York, but with two or three people in each in each office. And it was a cash business. I wasn't owning anything, and I wasn't building up any great savings, but I was making enough to pay for these rents and to pay salaries to these people. So then the next step

is twentieth century Fox. No, you're so kind to have researched to all this, and and obviously you know, being around for so many years I have in the middle of I'm trying to remember when I did Fox. I um, Fox, I think was two. Yeah, that's later the big breakthrough coming out of So I have this PR company and within a year one of the most the important clients

to me becomes Bearsville Records. And this is the second time, I encounter Albert gross soon, and this time I'm actually communicating with him on a regular basis because the guy that was president of his label was Paul Fishkin, and Paul and I just were best friends, you know, and Paul the minute I was doing this, looked for a way to get me the business and they had some budget for PR so I did Bears well. They had

Todd run Gren. Their big act in those days was fog Hat That was their Planum act and they Jesse Winchester made a record while I was there, and Um and Paul Um at some point in seventy eight, I think it was seventy eight, maybe the beginning of seventy nine. Has a romance with Stevie Nicks, and this is at

the peak of Rumors. They're the biggest group in the world and she's the lead singer and songwriter of their biggest hits, Rhiannon on the previous record and Dreams on Rumors and he introduced me to her, and uh, you know, would be quickly became clear to me that she was frustrated in terms of some of the business dynamics of Fleetwood Mac because she and Lindsey Buckingham had joined the group that had already been in existence for eight or nine years or least. So Fleetwood and Mac made all

the decisions, including which songs went on the record. And she had written this song called Silver Springs that she loved that they didn't include on Rumors, and she had all these other songs, and I was extremely happy that she was so unhappy, because now I could be somebody who could maybe help, you know, And and Paul was promoting this, and so we got to know each other and had this idea for a Rhiannon movie. We made a development deal with the United Artists. Nothing ever came

of it. But I got to be friends with Stevie and she's just another person who just believed in me when there was no particular reason for her to do so, based on my background. And and uh, somewhere along the line, Paul and I had this idea that we should start a label with Stevie for her solo work, because Warner Brothers had not signed her as an individual when she joined Fleetwood Mac. Fleetwood Mac had made album after album

after album. They just seemed to change guitar players on every album, and they weren't that important an act to Warner Brothers for the first seven or eight albums, so there was no big push in business affairs to sign the new members of Fleetwood Mac. How hum, and then almost immediately they went from selling a hundred fifty albums to four million albums with this with the record called Fleetwood Mac that had Rhiannon on it, and they never signed Stevie, so she was available as a solo artist.

So we created this label called Modern Records together Paul and I. Stevie had a piece of it, and and that the first record was Bella Donna, which Jimmy Ivan produced and which was number one. I think it's sold ten million by an now or something. So that was that was a big thing. And then after a few years I thow there were there any other records on Modern Records. Nothing successful. We put out a couple of other records. It was a friend of Paul's named Joey

Wilson from Philly that we put out that flopped. And there was a reggae act called Jamala that I was enthusiastic about that also flopped. Those with the other artists on Modern Um it went through Atlantic. We made our deal with Doug Morris who was just started running at Go, which was a division of Atlantic, and it was a big deal for him and big deal for us. Uh. And there's a photo I have somewhere of me, Doug Stevie, Jimmy Ivan and Paul right after Belladonna became number one,

and it was a moment for all of us, you know. Um. So then later on, after I sold my half of that, I started some other label UH with A and M that that was not particularly successful, called Gold Mountain, which I then later used as the name of management company. And during that period of A and M, I got this offer to be a soundtrack slim for twenty century Fox.

So I spent the year it was right after Flash Dance and all the movie studios to oh, we need somebody who understands MTV and stuff to do soundtracks, you know, because that's a part of marketing films. So I had that sort of as a part time thing. I had an office at Fox and an office UH at A and M for um Gold Mountain, just just for a year. But my name is on some you know, there's there's some movies my name is on. And then for about a year after that, I did a few other movies.

The most famous credit I have as music supervisor of Dirty Dancing. But you know it was, well, you know Jimmy Ivan takes Jimmy Iron or takes all the credit on that. Does he deserve it? He definitely deserves some of the credit. Um and and he and I have not don't have a different narrative about this. We've you know, this is come up? I was, can is this? Can one use four her words on this course? So the

director of Dirty Dancing was named Emil Ordealino. He's passed away one of the loveliest people I've ever met and and couldn't have been easier to work with, and had almost no interest in the music. So in terms of picking all the oldies that are in the movie and Be My Baby and whatever is I I did that and it was the easiest thing in the world to do. You just pick all your favorite old songs that there

hadn't been a zillion of these other movies. It was like low hanging fruit and it was not hard to license them. And then I and then they needed some original material, and I suggested and I brought in Michael Lloyd, who was a friend of mine. I don't know how we got to know each other. It's from a different kind of music. He produced like Debbie Boone, You Like My Life a pop guy, but I just liked them and I knew that needed a pop guy. But there was one of the producers of the film, and she

may still be alive. I don't want to embarrass anybody, but she very um. They was so frustrated that we didn't have a record deal yet, because you have to remember, nobody knew Dirty Dance Thing was going to be a hit. It was an unknown director with an unknown cast, with a tiny little studio called Vesturan that was known as a home video company that had made some money selling Jane Fonda videos. So they decided to make a movie.

It was the least likely film based on the people involved in UM, I forget who was The guy who brought me on was named Steve Ruther. I don't know what became of him. So one of the producers was very combative and pushy, and she called my assistant at the time, Lorie Levy, a count and uh so I just uh said, I can't deal with this. I had already gotten so I made a deal. It was the

worst business decision in my life. I had gotten fifty fee, which was a lot of money to be a music supervisor, and I had a couple of points on a record, but there was no record deal. So I just made a deal with Steve Ruther. I said, look, I want to keep the credit. I think there was an extra ten or fifteen thousand. You know, the fee was paid in installments, compaying me the rest of my fee. I don't need a royalty. I just need never to talk to this woman again, who who? Because you know, insulted

my assistant. And and then they brought in Jimmy Einer, who did oversee the recording of the Hits. There's no question about it. Michael Lloyd produced the Hits. I was so the producer I've writ but Jimmy Einer in terms of the songwriting and A and R in it, He and R had they hit singles that made that that

record what it was as a phenomenon. So he but but in terms of the music that you hear when you're watching the movie, that's why they kept my credit because so so we played different roles in it, and he made a lot more money from it than I didn't. He deserve to because he he oversaw the production of the hit center of the hit songs, and then you decided to become a manager. I always wanted to be a manager from the time I worked for Peter Grant.

I just thought that was the job for me. It was he was so powerful the record company did what he said. He was the close this person to the band. He made a percentage, so he was making what seemed to me like so much more money than than than anything that was accessible to me. So I had wanted to be a manager ever since leaving Zeppelin, but it was hard for me to convince people to let me be a manager. I had this one band called the Mink Deville that I was very proud to work with,

a great band, but Willie became a junkie. You were the manager for their first record, first two records, which were the best record, Yeah, which is the first two records. H Van Edmonds was a former rock writer who's a and R guide Capital would signed them and he suggested I do it, and and it was it was an interesting you know, they were great, I mean they were

incredible live act. Willie Deville is one of the most compelling live performers but you know, a little self destructive, so we couldn't really break them, even though again those records hold up. And there's a song on the first Mink Deville record called Mixed Up Shook Up Girl that someday someone's gonna have a hit with. It's such a great song. And uh, Willie wrote that song. He didn't write Cadillac Walk. Moon Martin wrote Cadillac Walk, which was the A O. R track, but Willie wrote Mixed Up

Shook Up Girl. But you know, that flopped, and I couldn't get anyone to the WOMY as a manager, so I started, you know, I tried different things, and then finally after the Stevie Nicks success in the association with that, I somehow had enough whatever it is, to convince people to let me be a manager. And the first client I had after Gold Mountain Label didn't work, I turned

it into Gold Mountain Management. And the first client of Gold Mountain Management was Belinda Carlisle, right after she left the Go Goes. I think her lawyer suggested it might have been Michael Lloyd um or maybe that's how I met Michael Lloyd. Yeah, because that was before I don't know John Mason was her lawyer. Um, she wasn't you know. It wasn't like a huge competition at that time to get Bull into Carlisle. But I was excited to get

Bull into Carlisle. And because you know I I was a Go Goes fan and she was the singer and and uh, and I heard this song Man about You, which just I wasn't sure it was a hit. I'm not one of those guys that can always predict to him. But it sounded to me like a lot like a great Go Go song, you know it's like So she was the first client in Bonnie Rate was the second client. Bonny I had met um some years in the late seventies. Um, when I had the PR company, one of my clients

was a band called Orleans. And then Orleans broke up and John Hole, who was the lead guitar player, Um it was a social friend of mine and he made a solo deal with Electra and so he hired me to be the publicist on his solo records. So his solo record flopped. But in the middle of this was seventy eight. He said, look, I want you to help me publicize this other thing I'm doing and he ex Ai'm to me why he was against the nuclear power

plants because of the environmental hazard. The radiation could cause cancer and there could be a meltdown. And this was the same period of time Karen Silkwood had had the subject of a huge Rolling Stone article. She had uncovered some problems in the nuclear power plant, and then she mysteriously died. And so we did a press conference whereas artists United against Nuclear Energy or something, and the press conference with James Taylor, Carly Simon, Bonnie Rate and John Hall.

And then not long thereafter, there was an accident at the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and it became front page news. This Jimmy Carter was president. This was before the hostages were taken in Iran, which wiped everything off the front pages. During this window of time, nuclear power was like a big issue. And and so John Hall then calls me and he says, look, we're gonna now it's this big issue. We're going to these concerts.

And they did concerts at Madison Square Garden and Jackson Brown joined the Fray and this is where I met Jackson And then for the last two nights of those concerts Springsteen headlines. So there were five nights at the Garden and out of it. Uh And I had this notion that we should make a movie UH that was released by Warner Brothers called No Nukes that I end myself and a friend of mine ended up directing and producing. UH. So through that experience, I got to know Bonnie and

I loved Bonnie Rate. And then it occurred, and then by this time, I just she was kind of going through a down period in her career. Warner Brothers was about to drop her, and she had been around, you know, she was close to forty, and it was considered somebody that just had her shot and didn't make it, whereas Linda Ronstad doing some of the same kind of thing, had become the big star. And I just couldn't believe

that Bonnie Rate couldn't do. I didn't know she was going to be as successful as she became, but I knew she was great, and so UM I I called her, and she had had the same manager for her whole career, and I felt it was time. She was at a was Dick Waterman and and and it was at a dead end, and she came with me and I I think I called her. I think I said, yeah, I

think I called her and pitched her. You know, but we had We've gotten to know each other pretty well through the Nonwkes experience, and I and I knew she was struggling, you know, and I said, I can help, you know, and and and I brought in a guy named Ron Stone, who became part of Gold Mountain and so appropriately on all of those records, it says management Danny Goldberg and Ron Stone, and we um, you know, she got sober just at that time, and she wrote

that song Nick of Time, and I remember the cassette of it in my car, the demo of it, and uh, you know, talking about watching her parents age, and I just tear it up, and you know, knew it was great again. We got very lucky with the planets lined up. V H one was just starting and suddenly there was an exposure vehicle for somebody like Bonnie Raid and capital was cold, so they paid more attention to her than they otherwise would have, and uh, fourteen labels turned her down.

I went to everybody, Jerry Moss, Doug Morris, all the people I knew in the business that she's too old. And then Joe Smith, who had a sentimental attachment to her from having worked with her Warner brothers and having nothing else at Capital, gave us what was a low ball deal, but it was fine out of that cam nick of time and that one the Grammy, and then I was suddenly a successful manager. And then who were the acts to follow? Uh? Well, the biggest one was Nirvana? Right?

But before Nirvana? Who else did we have? Oh? Goodness? I mean I I had a gold Mountain, became a certainly a bigger company than the one I have now. I think we had like thirty five people there. We had a number of different artists. We had Bela Fleck, we had Sheena Easton, I had I brought in a lot of co managers, So I was com aage with a lot of different people to create kind of a home for for different managers. We had some rock bands that didn't make it that they got played on pirate radio,

you know, a bang tango. And the whole thing was if you could get the record deal and a publishing deal, you get a commission on the record advance, you get a commission on the publishing advance, and then you've made your forty or fifty grand as a manager and then you hope it's successful. So I had a lot of

several of those that didn't make it. Had Andy Taylor from Duran Duran solo deal, Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols solo deal, my old friend Michael Dabar, you know, I worked with on various records, still still one of my best friends. Um. But in terms of successful artists other than Bonnie and Belinda Uh, the Almond brothers were client for several years. Then I was able to help them get back together again, and that was really one of the great things of my career was to be

able to work with them for a few years. And then I had this realization that there was this younger thing happening with punk rock, and then I didn't really understand it. So I hired m John Silva, who was you know, so I don't remember how I met Silva, but he Um, I just knew I needed someone in that category. And he had a House of Freaks and Red Cross and House the Freaks had acoustic acoustic guitars, and I always liked folk music and I was so

not connected to the eighties punk world. But I figure I could kind of get what this was, and he had this great work ethic and he came, you know, and we decided we got to go and try to sign some people and the big Within about six months we signed Sonic Youth, which was a big deal in the punk subculture for good reason. They're great band and great tastemakers. And then through Sonic Youth met Nirvana, and did you know Tirvana was going to blow up to

the degree it did? No, No, nobody knew. I knew that I trusted Thurston More and Kim Gordon of Sonic you that that they were they they they had the jeweler's eye for talent and that idiom so many of the artists that were developing reputations had started as opening access on a Youth based on them just hearing some seven inch So I signed them totally based on the fact that Sonic Youth like them, and uh, you know, we signed them to Geffen, the imprint of Geffen called

d g C that had Sonic Youth already. Gary Gersh was the and R a guy for both. And then I didn't really know until I saw the band live that that they were going to be important to me. They had already. We've been managing them for months and I've never seen them, which was a common thing for me in those days. You know, it was a bigger company. And I saw them at the palace they opened for

Dinosaur Jr. And I was blown away. You know, bye bye what this before never Mind came out, But they already were working on never Mind, and Uh, seeing this way he connected with an audience is when I realized, oh my god, this is like a much bigger deal than I thought it was. And I went from being kind of a tertiary priority for me within the company to like one of the main things I was thinking about. You know. So by the time the record came out,

I was like totally focused on it. But when we first signed them, they were just one of a zillion things that we were working on. We'll pause here for a weeve moment and get right back to my conversation with Danny Goldberg. For those not in the know, I'm primarily a writer. You can go to left sets dot com and sign up for the newsletter or read the

archive for past history. In addition to following my commentary on music business in the world at large, will be the first to find out, we published a new episode of the podcast. Go to left sets dot com and sign up for the newsletter. I know you'll like it. Now, let's return to my conversation with Danny Goldberg, recorded at the tune In Studios in Venice, California. Looking back at

this point in time, Kurt Cobain ultimately commits suicide. Is there anything that you were the team could have done differently that might have prevented that? Well, Um, obviously the only honest answer is I don't know. Um. It's I've just finishing a book about him that's going to come out in the spring, and I've been thinking about this a lot, and uh, I just don't know what to say about that. I mean, um, we did a couple of it. I was part of personally, part of a

couple of interventions to get him off of heroin. You know, I certainly feel, um, it's better for people not to be junkies, and that that's a if there's one lesson that I already felt it was bad to be a junkie, and I still do. Um. I uh, you know, um, thousands and thousands of people kill themselves every year, and as far as I've been able to find out there's no therapists or priests or yogis who the philosophers who

know how to prevent it. Um. You know, you do everything you can and pray, and some people just kill themselves. You know. It's It's one of the mysteries of of life, I think. I mean, it's just I think fifty Americans a year killed themselves. So, uh, you don't think that maybe he should have been pulled off the road earlier. He was not on the road much. Nirvana did very little touring, um the last the last year. Um. You know, he certainly didn't kill himself on the road. Um. And

and he had complete control over every decision. I mean he you know, he didn't spend a lot of money, so Kurt was financially independent right away. Um. And they didn't do much touring. They did I think shows, you know, the the you know, the last the last year. And was Courtney loved an influence in his decision? Do you think? You know, Cortney is a friend of mine and someone that I also worked with and who I really admire,

complicated person like anybody else. When you know, again, I think some of these hard drugs are just really bad for human beings, and they had a bad effect on each of them when they did them, and on almost most people who do them. But um, you know, I think the main thing is, uh, some people are prone to depression. Some people can deal with it, some can't. Some some people go into twelve step programs and you know,

have some don't take to it, you know. Uh. John Coltrane, I think just stopped doing heroin through willpower, you know, and became a I've never quite understood. He was certainly into various Eastern religions, you know. Um, But you know, I just don't think anybody knows why people kill themselves. You know, I think that we know what some of the things increased the likelihood. But there were people who were junkies don't kill themselves, or people who were depressive,

they don't kill themselves. There are people who have relatives in their family who who committed suicide who don't kill themselves. But you know, all those things increased the likelihood of it. So how did you find out? Uh? Rosemary Carroll, who was my my wife at the time and mother of my children, you know, was was also the lawyer for um. She's a music business lawyer. And she was the lawyer for by that time, both Kurt and Courtney. And she

called me. I was Atlantic Records by this time. You know, I left the management company to go work for Atlantic. Um. You know, within a year after never Mind came out. You know, I had a sense of foreboding and I was I wanted a regular job. I just didn't want it, and that once I had kids, I just didn't want to run a small business anymore. I like the idea of getting a salary. So I was still involved with Nirvana, and particularly involved with Kurt as somebody that he liked

to talk to. But but you know, I had this other job, as you know, you know Atlantic, and and so I was in New York at that time. You know, Atlantic was in New York. We were still living in l A. She was he had just given birth to our second kid, Max. You know, Max was I think, uh, four or five months old when Kurt killed himself. And Um, she called me and told me. So she was on her way to see Corny to tell Corney. This is a bad segue, but we have to move on on

the less Um. So you take the job in Atlantic, and simultaneous or shortly thereafter, there's a huge power struggle at Warner Music. And what did that look like from the inside, Well, it unfolded over a period of I think the total amount of time I was there was three years, so it you know, in retrospect, it was a short period of time. But in those days, I'm just living my life and I had no idea that around the corner was going to come this, this power struggle.

I did feel. Doug Mars hired me originally to be kind of the West coast head of A and R for Atlantic. I had the Nirvana's manager. That kind of music was clearly overnight change. What was commercial rock and roll, The so called hair bands were passe A. There was a need for someone who could find these new these new acts and uh. In that context, I was one of the people at Science Stone Temple Pilots, which was almost an immediate huge success and and and kind of

made me a success in Atlantic right away. Uh, and that or so Reaginally I was on the West coast, but I Doug, I knew, had aspirations to move up in the hierarchy, and I thought that if I did a good job, I'd had a chance of them becoming presid of Atlantic, and that is what happened. He became head of Warner Music for America UH and made me president of Atlantic UH and then um, by this about two years into my Atlantic period, there was this huge

convulsion there. Um. They were a corporate guy named Bob murgato um who oversaw all the music companies, and um, the CEO of Time Warner the entire corporation was named Steve Ross, legendary brilliant business guy who had assembled this jewel of a media company included Warner Brothers, films, Time Magazine, with Time Warner Cable. I think they had Nintendo and one or books, and you know, it was like one

of the big big media companies. He was like on that list with like the way you would talk today about a Ruper Murdoch or one of those guys. And he died in his sixties. Like I don't think people knew he was going to die. He had cancer and he went from being running the company to being dead

very quickly. And the vacuum created his death changed the power dynamic in the music group because Steve Ross, for example, had always said that Mouston reported to him directly, not to the head of overall Music and the new guy who replaced the Ross was Jerry Levin. Didn't want that kind of weird structure, so Margato hated my Austin and he liked Doug, and Mom ended up getting fired. I ended up for eight or nine months becoming chairman of Warner Brothers, and then Doug got fired. It was a

convulsive time. Uh. You know, the Warner Music group, it was. It was a weird thing to be part of. It was an amazing experience. I'm gratefully I got paid well for it, and I learned a lot from it. But I was totally ill equipped to deal with it. I had moved so quickly in the corporate world. I I didn't I wasn't a corporate guy. I had been an independent manager publicist guy for twenty some years and I was only in the corporate world for like a couple

of years and something. I have the biggest corporate record job at a time when my boss is embattled, and uh, I was not equipped to really deal with the pressures in a very intelligent way. But I did the best I could, and you know, I'm glad I got to do it. And so when you let get let go. Do you see that coming? Well, um, there was a series of things that happened that that seemed incredibly important

to the time. And now all these names are kind of not that interesting, but you know, um, first Mouston has let first. Bob kraz now has let go. He had been running Electric for ten or fifteen years. One of the giants of the business didn't get along with Bob Mugato. I guess he wasn't. The company was less profitable. Doug puts um Sylvia Rohne in his head of Electra.

Then Lenny Warnicker was supposed to take Then Moe is given all right, when his contract is up, he's going to be out, which is a gigantic dock to the

West Coast music community. Was the premier record executive, certainly in California, and many people thought in the country and beloved by a wide range of people in the entertainment business here, and they all sent letters to Jerry Levin, you know, all these Quincy Jones, Barbara streisand everybody, and Jerry Levin, CEO of Tom Waterer, didn't particularly like being

pressured that way. That was not an effective tactic. And Magato hated Mouston because of some ego thing between the two of them that I was not really privy too, but was clearly palpable. And um. So then I then then uh, Margato gets fired and is replaced by Michael Fuchs, who had been running HBO. And then six months later and then then Doug gets fired. Then I get fired because I was very close to Doug. The people the two people closest to Doug corporately were Melo Winter and myself.

We both got fired immediately right within weeks after Doug got fired. Sylvia hung in for a while. Um, they got rid of interscope, you know, within a year, UM, and Doug by then Universal brings inter scope there and UM. And then Michael Fuchs gets fired because he once Jerry Levin used him for the purpose of doing all of this, he he also turned out and wanted to also get rid of Michael Fuchs. So there was an enormous number of people fired. So certainly, once Doug got fired, I

knew my days were numbered. I mean that was I was just a matter of how and what day of the week it was going to be. I couldn't imagine I was so closely identified with him there and and you know it was so personal. My whole role and there was so based on him, you know. Uh, So once he got fired, I figured it was it was going to happen. I I stayed for a couple of more months and to see if there was any way of achieving equilibrium and and to be responsible. I had

a job until they fired me to do it. But my days were clearly numbered then. So once he was fired, I was not surprised that I was later fired. And you're fired, then you go to Mercury and then not long thereafter, Yeah, A Loon Levy hired me to be president of Mercury Records. It was a good soft landing and what you learned there, well, you know that was the That was a job that I had that wasn't based on Doug. That was a job I got kind of where it was me because Doug was was a mentor.

He taught me a lot, but he also was always the boss, and a Loon Levy was really hands off. He was globally. He was running a global company, not just the US, and a global company whose main business was not in the United States. PolyGram was the biggest company everywhere, but the U S and they were a major in the US, but they were super major in Europe, Latin American Asia. Um So, first of all, it was the first time I kind of did it on my own, and uh it was that. It was certainly my most

successful time as an executive. But it was shortened because PolyGram ended up being sold to Universal and they eliminated the idea of Mercury, you know. But but I had three years there. We had the last year I was there when Billboard Sounds getting they did their annual who which major company had the biggest market share? It was the Mercury Group. We beat Columbia, you know, and everybody else. So, I mean, I I felt really good about what we accomplished, and uh I got to uh, I got to do

things that were really exciting there, you know. And uh what was exciting there? Well, um I I, UM, we had some hits. Are always exciting, right, so, you know, I Luke Lewis was running Mercury Nashville. He reported to me and Chanai Twain's biggest record, which is one of the biggest records of all time. It comes out of that. We we created what we called the Mercury Group. Where we had the pop department also working with the country department. It's very hard in those days to to to do

pop and country at the same time. We pulled it off. I had the classical labels for acording to me and we we had Andrea Bicelli, you know, who's this unknown blind tenor and Pevrotti was in the middle of retiring and just kind of room for one of those and we were able to throw pbs and other things established

him and he said twenty year run. Uh. Phil Walden had had another iteration of Capricorn that nobody wanted and it was one of the first deals I made and within a few months we had Platinum Records with three eleven and Cake and I got to work with Phil Walden, who was you know, had been noticed writings manager in the Alman Brothers manager, one of the great again. He died young, you know, but in the sixties of cancer, but you know, really to me, a giant in his

own right, you know. You know, Um, we had a big We had the first of the boy bands of that era was Hansen, you know, before the Backstreet boyson in Sync, the first when Total Request Live started on MTV, which became kind of the nexus of the boy band era. For the first twelve weeks of TRL and Hansen was was number one. So that was kind of fun to

be part of. And the A and our guy that I had hired from named Steve Greenberg developed them, still a good friend of mine and and and to be part of really launching at least one big pop act. I mean, Hansen turned out not to want to play the game and have future big records, but that first record sold ten million records, was number one all over the world. And then because we were doing a lot of business, I was able to do some of the arts, craftsy personal things that I had always dreamed of as

a record company president. Maybe I could do which so we put out I put out Allen Ginsberg's last record, to put it to Jim Carroll's last record. Um, you know, brought a record, brought in a label called Tri Loca that put out the first several Christian Das records. You know, it's just things that culturally I was really proud to to to to be able to give a place you know, in the in the in the in the business. So that was really fun. I love that period. But you know,

corporate events utterly beyond my control. It was some big fight in Holland between Phillips and along Levy about you know, the film company or something that had nothing to do with me. Caused them to sell the company. And once it was part of Universal, it was a different vision and they created what they called the Island def Jam took over most of what Mercury did, and and they were probably right. I mean, you know, hip hop was exploding, and Lee or was certainly had his handle on it.

I mean, I I got paid very well for that, you know. Uh, that was the best parachute I got. But those three that so Mercury at least I felt I kind of had had the e ticket ride and and uh. But after two corporate convulsions, I was a little um dubious about my ability to function intelligently in a corporate area. I didn't respond to the pressure very well. I I panicked and had ego issues, and you know, I I didn't have the kind of centered discipline that

the great long term corporate players have. You know, I was I was more of a rock and roll guy. And the next step is Artemus. So then yeah, I had Artemus I found a guy named Michael Chambers approached me right away. He had his father's a very successful leverage buyout genius and they had and Michael loved Nirvana and wanted to start a label and started Artemus, not you know, thinking that I could do what like Interscope had done. That was my model, but of course it

was first of all, I'm not Jimmy Ivan. Secondly, it was the wrong time to do it. We started Artemus just as the record business was spiraling downward financially and the you know, the the the MP three, dot Com and Napster and you know, the digital world was was was eroding the value of masters. So I couldn't fight that that wave. I was totally not equipped for it. I was fighting the last war. But we had some

records I'm really proud of it. Made the last three Warrant Yvon records, the third of which one in Grahamy's and his gold record That's where I met Steve are all made for Steve row records. Uh two of them at won Grammys. Uh made a Jimmy for One record that won a Grammy, made Hubert Someone's last record, did a Pretender's record, Um. And we had to let the dogs out. So you know, it was it was not nothing, but but it was. It was doomed because I just

didn't I didn't have the clarity. You know, Daniel Glasses, I was chairman, he was president. You know, I'm I'm proud of what we did at Artemus, but it was it was the wrong business model. It was a business model that would have been great for ten years earlier, and I, you know, I didn't So but you know, again there's the records that we put out that I'm very proud of. So now you're a manager again. Correct? So what you know you could have just said I'm done? Yeah?

Why why get back in? Um? You know, I I like to work. Um, I I feel better about myself when I'm working. I don't really, you know, I I my self esteem requires the idea of doing something. Uh so far, I do meditate and I defined myself when I'm in my highest moments as being not just the some of my external work and accomplishments, but most of the time I'm the same schmuck that wants to be

somebody and do something. And the only thing I really have expertise in is is is whatever corner of the music business I have at any given moment in time. So I spent a year or leaving I experimented. I'd always had this real interest as a political activist. Ever since No Nukes, I've been very involved with a lot of political things. I've been the chairman of the a c o U of Southern California for seven years when I lived out here, and uh, you know, wrote a

book about politics and culture. Uh. And so I did take a non music business job, which was the to be the chairman of Air America Radio coming out of Artemus, which turned out to be doomed. I noticed you had Rob Glazers recent podcast guest, and he was he was my least favorite boss. Because I don't want to go into it. I'm just trying to say I'm not gonna make it. Was he hands on? Well, I mean I

would say this. Um. When I first got the job. Um, he was coming out to l A to try to raise some money from the Hollywood liberal community, and I said, you, I know, I said, I know, I'm not starting for a week or two you but do you want me to come with you? I know a lot of these people, you know, because when I was here, I was really part of that community and meant a lot to me and I and I had some credibility with a lot

of normally are and those kind of people. And he said no, no no, no, he says, I don't want you to worry about money. I want you to run the company. I said great. So then three weeks later, I'm now running the company. They've announced it, and the in house controller they didn't have a normal CFO comes to me and says, Um, by the way, we don't have the money for the payroll, and and and you know, as I called him, and I said, Rob, we don't have the money to the payroll. What do I do? He says,

you're the CEO. You figure it out. So I knew I was fun. You know, there was underfunded. He he did lose money on it. I mean he put millions of dollars into it, but it required much more money than that, and there wasn't a plan to raise the rest of the money. There was this if you build it, they will come notion, which is that's a movie. People would say that. I said, no, that's a movie. That's not real. That was like, you know, so you know, um,

when that, uh, when that flopped. Um it went bankrupt not long after. I spent about a year there. Again. It a very interesting experience, and to be able to work with Al Franklin was an incredible honor. I'm a great fan of his. I wish he was still in the Senate. Rachel Mattow was our you know. I put her into Morning Drive and she's had the celestrious career. There were a couple of things came out of it

that are notable, but it was a failed business. And Steve Earle had been on Artemus and he called me, and I knew he was looking for a new manager because he'd had a falling out with the guy who had been managing him for years. And he called me, says and I said, look, man, I don't know if you'd be interested it, but this thing is going under. And I was thinking about being a manager again. And so he called me back an hour later and he says,

if you're in, I'm in. So I just figured there it is, you know, I you know, I had a client and uh, I still work with Steve Earl. I mean, so it turns out to be the longest relationship I've ever had with an artist. It's not seventeen years we've we've worked together, and um, I just didn't want to quit. I just didn't know what I would do if I quit. You know, Now, because I've been writing more regularly, at least I have some confidence that there's something else I

could do. You know, I published that book last year about the sixties nine seven. I have this one coming about Kurt. I've been writing regularly for the nation. I finally kind of have a discipline as a writer that I didn't have in my early twenties. But um, you know, I I I like, uh, it's the only thing in the world where I've had a role is the is the rock and roll world. I don't, you know, It's not like I could get another job doing anything thing else.

And I like working, and I like, I don't like every minute of it, but you know, I I'm really very grateful to have a little piece of it. And I've had a very interesting ride at highs and low is big and small, but you know, I still think it's a honorable profession. And I don't know what else to do. Okay, let's just drill down a little bit. Steve Earle Steve Earle, you know, comes out in the eighties as the new White Hope, makes these incredible records,

Guitar Town, etcetera. In a different area. If you're Steve Earle today and you're approaching sixty, what does the business look like for somebody like that? Uh, yeah, he's over sixty. He's over sixty. He's five years younger than me. Um. Well, the number one characteristic for an artist in a category that includes him is that the primary business is is selling concert tickets. You know that the records are are are your legacy and their marketing tool for your concert business.

They're not your main source of income. Um The second thing about the business is that it's about it's increasingly about trying to monetize the super fan. It's not it's it's hard to grow new fans. Every once in a while, something happened. Somebody has a song in a movie or a commercial, or or a magic song of some kind that expands their audience when they're older. Um. You know, Zevon expands this audience when he was dying, you know.

But more common for artists, whether it's Springsteen or Jackson Brown or Steve Earl or you know fifty other names that we could we could mention it. It's it's it's about figuring out to maintain those fans and and some of them will pay for uh you know, uh Golden Circle tickets or uh a luxe editions signed things, uh being able to come to the sound check. Um, you know,

it's about it's about servicing your super fans. It's it's kind of a hybrid between the old music business and kind of the business of being like a painter, where you've got you know, it's kind of it's it's not like someone spending a million dollars for a painting, but it's also not like somebody just streaming something hundreds and hundreds or millions of times. You know. It's it's it's it's it's about it. It's about an intense group of

super fans, many of whom will pay more money. So you've got venues like the City Winery that pay very very well because they make so much money on the wine and the food. You've got these performing arts centers, uh, and then of course for the bigger artists. You know, you've got two hundred and fifty dollar tickets that are that are that are part of the ecosystem that was

unheard of. So so that's the world you know, it's about it's about finding your fans uh and uh and monetizing them um with and and and you you of course everybody always wants new fans, but but if you're trying to make sure you can pay your bills for the year, it's about servicing the fans that you have. So if you're someone like Steve Rrol, how many super fans would you think he has? Well? Um, I mean on Spotify it says eight hundred thousand people a month

visit his page, so that's a number I like. Um, he's got um uh. He's a global artist. You know, he tours. He's in Europe right now as we speak. You know, he's he's you know, you can sell a couple of thousand tickets and uh in London and Dublin and Stockholm, Australia. You know, Canada has always been as big as a market. So if he's going, he's selling couple hundred tickets, couple of thousand, couple of thousand, ye no big, Yeah, there's a couple of no no no

no no no no no, A couple of thousands. Yeah, yeah, no so, um, a couple of thousand tickets. Sure, you know he's got a band. Um. Sometimes he plays solo. Obviously the margin is bigger when he plays solo. But on the other hand, the key with the audiences is to keep doing something different each time. Right now. In the last American tour was him, Lucinda Williams, Dwight Yoakum and Steve. They called the L S D Tour. Uh you know. Uh. Then he did a cycle with him

and Sewan Colvin. They did a record together and they toured together. Um. You know his next record is going to be a record of Guy Clark songs. Uh. You know, one of his mentor is one of the great Americana icons. Um. He won a Grammy a few years ago for an album he did of towns, fans and songs. You know, Steve is very smart about trying to create a narrative for each cycle because the main exposure vehicle is is the old school media. You know, there's only there's some

radio stations that will play him. I mean here in Los Angeles KCS and always play Steve, and there are a w FUV and there's a noncommon you know, he has a weekly show on serious radio and things like that. But but kind of having the narrative that can cross the old and new media is kind of a way

of letting fans know. So, like this year was thirtieth anniversary of Copperhead Roads, so he did a Copperhead Road tour and you know, that did about more ticket sales than his last tour because he played the whole album. It was easy. It was a one liner the elevator pitcheets all of Copperhead Road and some and some other songs. So it's it's it's the marketing part of it is

about a narrative. The economics is about what the ticket price is, multiplied by how many people will buy the tickets, adding to which the amount of merch you sell, and making sure that you spend enough less than that between the tour bus and the crew and what you pay the musicians, so that there's a profit at the end of it. You know, And if you can have a thousand or two thousand fans and seventy rading markets around the world, you can make a good living. You're not

going to become a billionaire or you know. Lifestyle is the rich and familists, but it's it's it's it's a definitely a good, good living. So the same would be true of Bonnie Ray, Jackson Brown, you know, a whole category of artists and and there's an artistry to a too. I think as a fan of the last five years of Leonard Owen's career, you know, to me or among the most inspiring, profound artistic moments as a fan that I ever had, those last several albums he made, those

last few tours he did. So you know, it's not only about being as big as Drake. You know, you can't. You can't compete with people fifty years younger than you were, forty years younger than you. You know, youth has a

certain thing to it. But the exciting thing to me about our generation is that there are is that emerge that some of them have found a way to stay relevant as artists, and some of them are just doing all these shows obviously, but Leonard Cohen, to me, is one of the great examples of someone in the latter part of their career and not also doing some of his best work. And I think Steve is doing great work. I think Steve's last few records are are as good

as anything he ever did. I think Lucid the Williams last few records are as good as anything she ever did. And then there are other people whose best work is twenty years or thirty years ago. You know, it's just it's it's like any other kind of creative person, whether it's a novelist. Not every novelist can do what Philip Roth did, but Philip Browth did it right. And not every filmmaker can stay relevant the way Scorsese does, but there is a Scorsese. And it's just one of those

things about about aging. Some artists lose their inspiration as they get older, and some keep it. So really, you've been there from the beginning because you were awake when the Beatles arrived. You're involved starting in six the Woodstock, and you here today with all that perspective, What do you think of music and the music business today? You know, I tend to see things just through my own prism. You you would be much better able to have an

overview than I do. My My professional life revolves around a handful of artists who I work with, and then if I get a new client, then I see it through their prism and and uh, you know, I see it through the prism of some of my friends who manage other acts or who work with other artists. But I'm not at Billboard anymore. I'm not at MTV. I'm not you. I don't have to have it. It's not my job description to have an overview, you know. Obviously, um,

streaming is how people are consuming music. I'm no different. I I liked it better when we sold these physical products because I understood the economics very well, and it was it was a system that worked for a lot of people. But I listened to of the music I listened to on Spotify because it's so convenient, and there's a few things they don't have that I have to listen to in another way, But anything that's on Spotify, that's how I'm going to listen to it. I mean,

obviously there's a subculture of audiophiles who like vinyl. It's not that economically important, but those are the people who buy the expensive concert tickets also, so those are super fans. The concert business is probably as healthy as it's ever been in my lifetime. The the the number of festivals around the world, the amount of money people will pay for tickets to things that they like, the continued role

that music has for wealthy, older audiences. So the kind of the kind of uh, you know, Bruce Springsteen, the face price on the best tickets to that show are eight hundred and fifty dollars. You know. Um, that's not a scalpers price, you know. Yeah, well you know that's a good way of doing it. Um. And obviously stub hub and other things like that too. But so I

think the live businesses as a business very vital. I think the record business is being reinvented, and there are fifty people a lot smarter than me who could talk about what it's going to be. But obviously the aggregant amount of money that's dreaming is generating is probably a few years away from getting up to what it used to be with with the physical product, how it's divided. Um, I don't think that conversation is over. I think it's

a little weird, you know. Um, I pay my ten dollars a month for Spotify, and so it is my son and he probably listens to ten times as much on Spotify as I do. So I might listen to my Bob Dylan, you know, once a week and somebody else is listening to Drake you know, a hundred or two hundred times a week, but it's the same ten dollars.

So in that sense, Bob Dylan is kind of getting screwed because they're paying based on the quantity of streams, not based Well, there was a study once, the studies about five years old at this point, where they allocated it the way you're talking about it, and actually the revenue went down for those martial artists. Now that has not been redone since streaming is really gained traction. So it's really about the math. Look, it's it's it's there

has to be a formula. Obviously. It's also a transition in terms of the record deals. When see these first came out, written into all the contracts was a packaging deduction of twenty five or thirty because of the cost of manufacturing see these. By the time those contracts were over see these went down from costing three dollars and

fifty cents to manufacture to a quarter. So during these transitions, the record companies make make a big margin, and then as people renegotiate deals, these percentages you know obviously obviously changed. So part of it is that. Part of it is that the algorithm I think does favor um people with an appeal to younger audiences than people with an appeal to older audiences, because younger people are going to listen

a lot more. But it's still only ten dollars a month if you listen to a five thousand streams a month or five streams a month. But I don't know. I'm not a math genius to know what to do about it. But there are people thinking about this, and I think we're gonna see some other models in the last in the next few years. But obviously it's going to become it's it's a big business. It's still gonna

be a big business. I'm not sure i'll be the right person to have a leadership role in it, but I still think I can represent artists of the generation that I understand, and uh, I see things through the prison of my clients, So it depends on on who they are. But it certainly didn't die. You know, there were a lot of people thought the record business was going to die. I didn't. It's definitely bigger than it was a couple of years ago because of the growth

of streaming, and it's there. Streaming is nowhere near mature yet. You know, I think this whole idea of free has to go by the way side, you know. And this is a uh you know, when I got when I was in Atlantic, I mentioned earlier Stone Temple Pilots. Was this very important signing to me? And so they sold I think four million on a record and then there was a million four sold through the record clubs and the margin on the front line sales was like four

dollars a unit or something. Once you were over a million units is very profitable because your marketing course weren't going up anymore. And on the record clubs the profit was like fifty cents. And I used to say, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? And no one would ever answer the question, and there was nothing I could do about it was corporate decision. So then I get the PolyGram and now I'm reporting to Alan Levy, who's the worldwide head, not just not just

a regional head. And I asked him the same question. I can't do a French accent, but he gave me one of these young men, let me explain to you how the world works. And you say, look, I get fifty million dollar advanced at the beginning of the year from the Columbia Records Club. I mean that might not be at that exact number, but something like they said, so I can plan my whole year. I know that

for sure we're profitable. And he said, the lower the royalty the better because we have to split the royalty fifty fifty with the artists. But the unrecouped amount we keep. And I got another advance next year. That's how all these initial deals were done with Apple and Spotify and everything. I I know for sure, and and so that's um. That's a short term high for the labels, even though it undermines their long term model, because the long term

model has to be people paying for it free. The advertising revenue generated is not remotely comparable to what it is to sell products. But if you're getting ten dollars a month, it's it's real. You know, you're multiplied by a billion people or whatever. Mark Tiger said, you can eventually do you know? That's a that's a that's a bigger business than the old c D business. So I think it's gonna be a big business. I don't know

what role I'll play in it. But it ain't going away, and the live business has never gone away, and it's probably healthier than ever. The digital world makes it easier to superserve fans of individual artists, to identify them and find them cheaper to market to them, and we found that older people will pay a lot of money for that live experience, even though there's all these things you can do in a home theater and the quality gets

better and better. There's something about being in a room full of people in real time, whether it's a sports event or a or a musical event, that is different from seeing it on a screen, and that has not going away. And so, you know, I think it's that people ask me, is there a music business young people come to you can? So yeah, I don't know. You know,

you gotta get lucky, you gotta have hits. But it's it's not going away, okay, And you personally relevant music business maybe contained with the time you have on the planet, anything you want to do, any dreams, unfulfilled bucket list or certain desires. You know, I'm I'm really a bee here now, guy, you know, I mean that's that's my hippie roots are growing bigger and bigger as I get older.

You know, it's not about taking LSD but some of the ideas that came with that about really you know, one of my heroes and the people you know, wrote a dedicated my last book too, is rondas you know, Richard Albert, originally the lsd UH spokesperson who then became a mystic and a teacher. And you know, to me, it's really about just trying to in the moment be a good person and do as good as I can and appreciate the moment. And uh, I'm really enjoying writing.

I love working with you know, some of the artists I work with, I get paid very well. For some of them, I don't get paid anything for But as long as as long as I can feel I'm doing something useful in the moment, that's that's. That's that's I'm trying to think that way more and more and less and less about having a bucket list. I'm gonna I'm in a non bucket list mode. I'm I'm gonna be here now mode. Okay. Any regret that you didn't go

to college? Oh goodness, yeah, I mean I'm so grateful for my life in general, and but boy, not having a college education. I mean, I'm pretty well read by just being you know, a didact, but not having that credential and not you know, foreclosed a lot of things that would have been probably interesting to do. But you can't do everything in life. And I definitely grateful for the life I've had so far, and so far so good.

So it worked out for me. I'm very glad my kids both graduated from college and I told them that, I said, don't the path I walked on doesn't exist anymore, so I don't even think about that. The kids you today are very smart. They know there's the haves and the have nots, and they don't want to end up one of the half. Yeah, so I um, but yeah, you know, I'm just I like doing this podcast. I

I like writing. I like working with Betty Lovette on her record of Dylan songs, and with Steve and Ben Lee and you know the people I get to work with, and I'm just trying to trying to do it one day at a time as much as I as much as I can. I I'm grateful for the rock and roll business though it gave me a place in the world, and as long as I can be of use to artists. I'm quite happy with that vocation, you know. So we'll we'll,

we'll see what happens next. Well, we've heard your entire journey. Obviously, there's much more depth underneath all these peaks that would be interesting, but we only have a limited period of time. Danny, thanks so much for coming and being on the podcast. So so pleased to do it with you. Until next time, it's Bob left Sets here tune in doing the Bob Left Sets podcast once again. That was then Goldberg on this week's episode of the Bob Left Sets Podcast, recorded

live at the tune In Studios in Venice, California. Thanks so much for listening. Don't hesitate to email me feedback at Bob at left sets dot com. Until next time, It's Bob left Sets