Serving the Servant (by Danny Goldberg)
I regularly listen to the podcast, Mindrolling, with cohosts Raghu Markus and David Silver. On one of the episodes, Raghu and David spoke with their long time friend, Danny Goldberg. The main context of their conversation related to their Buddhist and Hindu lifestyles; however, since all three men were deeply involved in radio and the music industry, their conversation easily flowed into their common passion for music artists. Danny shared about his experience of having been Nirvana’s manager and the book he wrote, Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain. I immediately added this book to my massive TBR.
I remember learning of Nirvana in the early 1990s, during my high school years. Their music was completely different from what I was used to listening to in the 1980s. I enjoyed their music and recall listening to their popular songs on the radio and watching their music videos on MTV. I didn’t become a huge Nirvana fan and wouldn’t described myself as a dedicated follower. I definitely respect their work and was shocked my Cobain’s suicide.
Serving the Servant is a good book. Danny narrates the audiobook, which makes the listening experience fantastic! Danny Goldberg covers all the details as to how he became Nirvana’s manager. I’m pretty ignorant to the behind the scenes of the music industry, so while those stories were out of my realm, I found it interesting. I was mostly interested in the personal relationships more than the business end of things. I was able to recall seeing or hearing many of the heavily publicized moments Danny wrote about when they originally happened; MTV interviews, Unplugged session, and news about Kurt’s drug addiction.
Danny developed a very close relationship with Cobain and Courtney Love. He not only managed Nirvana, Danny became a father figure to Kurt. I’ve never been a fan of Courtney Love, solely based on her public persona. Listening to Danny talk about her throughout this book allowed me to see her as human and someone that Kurt loved very much. Sadly, their duel drug addictions were very toxic. Although, this book portrays they seemed to maintain a very tight marriage and strong love for their daughter, Francis Bean. The book became emotional as Danny’s story neared the end of Kurt’s life. Looking back on my younger self, I thought Kurt was so much older than me at the time. (It’s interesting how we perceive the age of others when we are just clueless teenagers.) Anyway, it was a shocking reminder that Kurt was only 27 when he died.
It was closer to the end of the book when Danny shared about his Buddhist belief system. He talked about giving Kurt and Courtney statues of the deity, Ganesh, which is pictured in my blog post.
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