In July 1973 the band Led Zeppelin was robbed of $203,000 from a safety deposit at the Drake Hotel in New York City. Danny Goldberg, former press agent for Led Zeppelin, makes a small mention of the heist in his book Bumping into Geniuses: My Life Inside the Rock and Roll Business. Jason Buhrmester draws attention to this “greatest robbery” in rock history as the plot premise for his novel Black Dogs: The Possibly True Story of Classic Rock’s Greatest Robbery.
Read Danny Goldberg’s book to receive a solid background in rock references before you proceed to Black Dogs. An autobiography of Goldberg’s career, Bumping into Geniuses is a must read for fans of Led Zeppelin, KISS, Stevie Nicks, Patti Smith, Nirvana, Warren Zevon, and classic rock overall. The title comes from Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records, whose advice for getting rich in the rock business was “to keep walking around until you bumped into a genius, and when you did-hold on and don’t let go” (Goldberg 4).
Danny Goldberg tells his tale with great humility. While presenting an inside view of the real music business, he relates story upon story about the artists with whom he has worked: Jimmy Page, Stevie Nicks, Kurt Cobain, Warren Zevon and more. In each of the book’s three parts his narrative weaves together his personal life and career choices with stories about the geniuses he has bumped into.
In Part I Woodstock Nation’s Brief State of Grace, 1969-1976 he tells how he “wormed way into the clique of New York rock critics” ((13) where he met Patti Smith when she was still unknown. In plain words Goldberg explains the influence of underground radio stations in breaking out bands like Led Zeppelin who were not loved by rock critics still stuck in the 60’s. Although Zeppelin already had four hugely successful albums, the band hired Danny through the PR firm Solters, Sabinson and Roskin in order to improve their image in the press (58-59).
In Part II Corporate Rock, 1976-1989 Goldberg describes leaving Zeppelin to start his own PR firm. One of his big clients during this time was KISS. Danny had learned from Zeppelin manager Peter Grant that “rock stars held the real power in the business” (129). He finally made this knowledge work for him when he and Paul Fishkin signed Stevie Nicks to their new label Modern Records for her first solo album.
Goldberg continues his fascinating career chronicle in Part III Rock’s Middle Age, 1989-2004. Part III includes his involvement with the No Nukes project which introduced him to Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt. After selling his half of Modern Records, Danny’s company Gold Mountain Entertainment managed Bonnie.
In his narrative Goldberg analyzes the reasons for Raitt’s unpredictable success with her album Nick of Time. He describes Nick of Time as a classic example of the “passive-aggressive resistance from radio promotion people who needed to pay lip service to an ‘image artist’ but who had no appetite for a ‘work record'” (170). Yet Raitt won four Grammys for the album even though none of the songs on it were radio hits (172).
Goldberg’s account is full of insightful analysis of the music business, but the most moving sections in the book are chapters nine and eleven. Chapter Eleven is mostly about the making of terminally ill Warren Zevon’s last album The Wind. Chapter Nine portrays Goldberg’s professional and personal relationship with Nirvana, particularly Kurt Cobain. Danny writes about Cobain with vulnerability, “I was his manager, where I did a decent job, and his friend, where I failed” (175).
Where Bumping into Geniuses is a non-fiction insider’s look at the rock music industry, Black Dogs is a fictional story whose characters are huge rock fans. 19-year old Patrick Sullivan gathers a band of fellow small time thieves to pull off an impossible score, robbing Led Zeppelin. The character Frenchy exclaims, “This is insane. Zeppelin are the biggest band on the planet right now. The biggest! How are you gonna pull this off” (47)?
Apparently someone, maybe Patrick and his friends, did rob Led Zeppelin. Danny Goldberg gives a brief account of the heist in Bumping into Geniuses:
The Madison Square Garden shows, which were filmed for the movie The Song Remains the Same, were the very last shows of the 1973 tour. I was standing backstage when I noticed Peter speaking in an agitated tone to Ahmet. I soon found out what the problem was. Peter had held on to more than two hundred thousand dollars in cash, put it in a safety deposit box at the Drake Hotel, and the box had been broken into and all the cash robbed. (78)
Classic rock music provides a constant background to the plot of Black Dogs. In one scene Emily roots through Patrick’s collection of Black Sabbath then asks, “Are you some kind of Satanist” (22)? Finally she chooses a radio song instead, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”. Another scene has Patrick’s friends Alex and Frenchy almost devastating Keith with the story that the Doors actually played on Soul Train (43-44).
Black Dogs is an amusing book. The plot especially turns on the tendency of rock fans to debate the greatness or badness of their favorite bands. See Robert Lanham’s article “Led Zeppelin vs. Black Sabbath” to catch up on the main points of that debate. Ultimately, Lanham sides with Patrick Sullivan. Says Lanham, “Zeppelin’s a party band, but Sabbath will haunt your dreams” (120).
If you do not agree, don’t sweat it. In both Black Dogs and Bumping into Geniuses Led Zeppelin gets plenty of good PR. Above all, Jason Buhrmester’s novel and Danny Goldberg’s memoir are worthwhile reads not just for aging Boomers but also for teens who appreciate the influence of older bands on the music they love.
Buhrmester, Jason. Black Dogs: The Possibly True Story of Classic Rock’s Greatest Robbery. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009.
Lanham, Robert. “Led Zeppelin vs. Black Sabbath” in Rock and Roll Cage Match: Music’s Greatest Rivalries, Decided. Edited by Sean Manning. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2008, 112-122.
Goldberg, Danny. Bumping into Geniuses: My Life Inside the Rock and Roll Business. New York: Gotham Books, 2008.
