Michael Goldberg is a distinguished pioneer in the online music space; Newsweek magazine called him an ‘Internet visionary.’ In 1994 he founded Addicted To Noise (ATN), the highly influential music web site. He was a senior vice-president and editor in chief at SonicNet from March 1997 through May 2000. In 1997, Addicted To Noise won Webby awards for best music site in 1998 and 1999, and also won Yahoo Internet Life! awards for three years running as best music site in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Prior to starting Addicted To Noise, Goldberg was an editor and senior writer at Rolling Stone magazine for 10 years. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Esquire, Vibe, Details, Downbeat, NME and numerous other publications. Michael has had three novels published that comprise the "Freak Scene Dream trilogy": "True Love Scars," "The Flowers Lied" and "Untitled" which can be ordered here. His new book, "Wicked Game: The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey," can be pre-ordered from HoZac Books. In November Backbeat Books will publish "Addicted To Noise: The Music Writings of Michael Goldberg," which can be be pre-ordered here.
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This week the very cool music journalism website, Rock’s Backpages, has me on the “cover” as the weeks “Featured Writer.” They highlight some of my articles, which are archived there, including an excerpt from my new book, “Wicked Game: The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey” (HoZac Books), titled: “Watching the Avengers Absolutely Crush the Pistols.” There’s also a profile of Chris Isaak, a feature on the San Francisco music scene circa 1983 and, if you click on my name, dozens of my stories on these artists and others: Bob Dylan, American Music Club, the Bangles, Robbie Robertson, John Fogerty…
Today, Thursday, May 19, 2022, Rolling Stone Online published an extensive excerpt from my new book, “Wicked Game: The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey” (HoZac Books). The 4000-word excerpt details how Chris Isaak said he wrote the song, how guitarist Jimmy Wilsey came up with the intro riff and other electric guitar parts and how David Lynch and manager/producer Erik Jacobsen contributed to getting the song into the top 10.
The book is based on over seven hours of interviews with the late guitarist, over ten hours of interviews with Isaak (done from 1985 into 1995) and extensive interviews with over 60 of Wilsey’s friends, family members, and music business acquaintances. It includes over 150 images–photos, flyers and record covers.
It can be pre-ordered directly from the publisher, HoZac Books.
I’m donating 25% of my royalties to Jimmy’s song, Waylon Wilsey.
On Saturday June 18, 2022, starting at 7 pm, I’ll be celebrating the publication of my book on Jimmy Wilsey, “Wicked Game: The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey,” reading excerpts from the book and answering questions, at The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway at Columbus Avenue in San Francisco. Before the reading, beginning at 6 pm, recordings that Jimmy played on, some quite rare, will be playing. The Beat Museum is across the street and down the block from where the Mabuhay Gardens was located (where Jimmy played many shows in the Avengers, and in Silvertone with Chris Isaak as well.)
“Wicked Game: The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey” tells the story of the brilliant but troubled guitarist who was the “heart and soul” of one of America’s greatest punk bands, the Avengers, and who wrote and played the haunting intro and other guitar parts for the Chris Isaak hit “Wicked Game.” As even Isaak has acknowledged, Wilsey was key to that song becoming a top 10 hit that has been streamed over 350 million times.
Jimmy’s story is tragic. At one point he had a movie star girlfriend, was appearing on ‘The Tonight Show,’ and touring the world with “Wicked Game” a hit in 10 countries, but he became a heroin addict and died homeless nearly three and a half years ago.
I’m donating 25 percent of my royalties to Jimmy’s teenage son Waylon. The publisher is also donating a percentage to Waylon.
Marc Zegans, a superb poet with many books of poetry published, writes: “In addition to telling a complex life story [about Jimmy Wilsey], Michael’s book offers a wonderful inside view of early days of the San Francisco Punk scene and of the internal mechanics of the music industry. It’s also a conceptually grounded exploration of the nature, psychology and ravages of addiction.”
At the cool Australian music site i94 Bar, a reviewer who calls himself JD Stayfree wrote “The World Is Only Going To Break Your Heart,” a heartfelt gonzo exploration into how certain recordings, including those made by Jimmy Wilsey and Chris Isaak, have had an impact on his life. “I will be listening to those Chris Issak/James Calvin Wilsey records for the rest of my life, and I know many of my old garage band hombres will always be listening to the Avengers. I am ever so grateful that this sharp writer, Michael Goldberg, put so much passion and dedication into telling Wilsey’s story—about 400 pages of highs and lows and winning and losing and heartbreak and the whole human drama. Only the lonely love Chris Isaak and James Calvin Wilsey like I do. Greatness to behold. Get the book, you’ll be glad you did.”
“Wicked Game: The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey” is based on new and extensive interviews—with over 60 of Jimmy’s friends, family, musicians he played with and other acquaintances—conducted during the past three and a half years. Additionally, Goldberg had four hours of interviews he did with Jimmy himself in 1987 and 1991, access to a three hour interview Jimmy did in 2018, and over ten hours of interviews he did with Chris Isaak from 1982 into 1995. The 414 page book contains over 150 photos and other images—photographers (some of SF’s best rock photographers) include the great avant-garde artist Bruce Conner, Blondie co-founder Chris Stein, Ruby Ray, Chester Simpson, Sue Brisk, Hugh Brown, Marcus Leatherdale, Michael Zagaris, James Stark and others. Flyers are by Avengers singer-songwriter Penelope Houston and Wilsey and others.
Join Michael Goldberg at The Beat Museum for an unforgettable evening.
“Addicted To Noise: The Music Writings of Michael Goldberg” collects the best of my music journalism from the past 45+ years. The book includes interviews with Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, Sleater-Kinney, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Flipper, John Fogerty, Neil Young and Rick James, and stories about Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson, John Lee Hooker, James Brown, the Clash, Prince, Michael Jackson, the Flamin’ Groovies, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Laurie Anderson, Stevie Wonder, George Clinton, Devo, San Francisco punks Crime, the Sex Pistols, Sly Stone, Chris Isaak and more. Plus short takes on Muddy Waters, Townes Van Zandt, Talking Heads, Captain Beefheart, Professor Longhair and others. And lots more! Foreword by Greil Marcus.
“Throughout these interviews and essays, Goldberg shows us how consequential music can be. His stance is both as passionate fan and learned critic as he grapples with these artists on their own terms, capturing them at crucial moments, challenging their personas and making the case for their work. He has written a captivating, essential, and personal history of the complications and revelations contained in the ideal of rock & roll authenticity.” – Dana Spiotta, author of Eat the Document, Stone Arabia, and Innocents and Others
Simon Warner wrote about how the cover of the book is based on the original 1953 cover of William Burroughs’ “Junkie” at his “Rock and the Beat Generation” Substack blog. Both covers are reproduced there.
The book will be published in November by Backbeat Books. You can pre-order it right now if you’d like. Michael’s latest book, “Wicked Game: The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey,” can be pre-ordered here.
My new book, which is on the great guitarist James Calvin Wilsey, will be published on June 1, 2022, and is now available for pre-order. Jimmy was the “heart and soul” of the amazing San Francisco punk band, the Avengers. He wrote and played the guitar parts for the Chris Isaak hit “Wicked Game” and, as even Isaak has acknowledged, Wilsey was key to that song becoming a top 10 hit in 1991 in 10 countries including the U.S
I’m giving 25% of every $1 I am paid starting with the first sale to Jimmy’s teenage son Waylon. The publisher is also donating a percentage.
That song has been streamed over 300 million times on Spotify. Just in the three years that I spent writing the book, it was streamed about 200 million times – 30 years after it was a hit.
Here’s one of the back cover blurbs:
“A riveting biography of a brilliant but doomed guitarist who helped usher in San Francisco punk, played haunted guitar for Chris Isaak, then remade himself as a Downtown LA loftista musician and IT guy before self destructing as a homeless junky. This reads like a classic noir spiral and is hard to put down. Goldberg describes the twisted path of addiction and life’s dark side but also wild joy, inspired creation and for a time, unlimited possibility in the life of James Wilsey. Filled with local color, music history, and eyewitness interviews.” – Denise Hamilton, author of the Eve Diamond crime novels and editor of the “Los Angeles Noir” collections
Advance praise: “Here’s the story of an unsung genius that, in many ways, is the story of every working musician, a cautionary tale of crappy apartments and cool guitars, of untold temptations, abject surrender and the pawnshop at the beginning and end of the arc. It’s a story of youth, beauty and inspiration on the razor’s edge, of love and compulsion, solidarity and betrayal, of a quiet man who played loud. Of a dark song and darker fate. And of San Francisco in the era of the Mabuhay Gardens, $150 rent and Persian Brown. Michael Goldberg’s book about his friend Jimmy Wilsey will give you chills. Not since Ben Fong-Torres’s biography of Gram Parsons (one of Wilsey’s musical forebearers) has there been a more heartrending portrait of a rock star.” – Robert Duncan, former Creem magazine writer and author “Loudmouth” and “The Noise”
When California’s unprecedented animal welfare legislation, Proposition 2, passed in 2008, animal activists cheered. Many residents who voted for the law believed the result would be “cage-free” hens thanks to how the proposition was marketed.
Sure, the law wouldn’t take effect until January 2015, but when it did we all assumed that the millions of California laying hens would finally be freed from the horrible confinement of the small battery cages – which provide each bird with as little as 67 square inches, substantially less than an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper – in which most birds who lay eggs live out their short two-year lives.
Among those celebrating the victory was Princeton’s Peter Singer, author of the landmark book “Animal Liberation.” Newsweek magazine published an essay by Singer who wrote in 2008 that the new law might signal the beginning of a major societal shift in the public’s attitudes toward animals.
Yet slightly more than a year after Prop 2 took effect in January 2015, the law is a failure, and its promise “has turned out to be more fiction than reality,” according to the international animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), who during 2015 found “crowded, filthy conditions” and “hundreds of diseased animals, some dying or already dead” at one of the states largest and most well-known egg suppliers, JS West of Modesto, CA – a company that has received an AA rating from the USDA.
Additionally, DxE found that the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act (Prop 2) requires no inspection of farms where laying hens live, and that there was no enforcement of the law during 2015 despite evidence that the law was violated by at least three farms in the state including the one with the AA rating, JS West, which houses 1.5 million hens. According to a 2015 California Shell Egg Food Safety (SEFS ) inspection report, JS West was “not compliant” in providing the SEFS minimal space requirement of 116 square inches per bird, even less than what is required by Prop 2.
A high-ranking California animal services officer who viewed the DxE video of conditions at JS West said during a recent interview that she believes Prop 2 is “virtually unenforceable.”
“The crowding is so severe that most of the birds will never have a moment where they have sufficient free space,” veterinarian Dr. Sherstin Rosenberg wrote in a statement provided to DxE after viewing the DxE footage.
“Putting hens in 116 square inches of space – that is beyond hell,” the animal services officer said. “You get these birds that are just psychotic out of their minds. They resort to cannibalism, they’re stressed, they’re mad, they’re diseased.”
In a statement to the Modesto Bee, JS West denied that they are in violation of Prop 2, without explaining the “not compliant” Shell Egg Food Safety inspection rating one of its barns got last year.
For some, Bob Dylan’s trio of mid-to-late ’60s albums are three of the best albums ever recorded.
On Nov. 6, 2015 we will have the opportunity to hear the numerous recordings that were made as Dylan created those epic albums when The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12 is released.
The new Bootleg series set was announced on Bob Dylan’s website today.
Here is an unofficial track listing for the six-disc version.
Disc 1
1.Love Minus Zero / No Limit (Take 1, Breakdown)
2.Love Minus Zero / No Limit (Take 2, Acoustic)
3.Love Minus Zero / No Limit (Take 3 Remake, Compl…
4.Love Minus Zero / No Limit (Take 1 Remake, Compl…
5.I’ll Keep It with Mine (Take 1, Piano Demo)
6.It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Take 1)
7.Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream (Take 1, Fragment)
8.Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream (Take 2, Complete)
9.She Belongs to Me (Take 1, Solo Acoustic)
10.She Belongs to Me (Take 2 Remake, Complete)
11.She Belongs to Me (Take 1 Remake, Complete)
12.Subterranean Homesick Blues (Take 1)
13.Subterranean Homesick Blues (Take 1, Alternate T…
14.Outlaw Blues (Take 1, Complete)
15.Outlaw Blues (Take 2, Alternate Take)
16.On the Road Again (Take 1, Complete)
17.On the Road Again (Take 4, Alternate Take)
18.On the Road Again (Take 1 Remake, Complete)
19.On the Road Again (Take 7 Remake, Complete)
20.Farewell, Angelina (Take 1, Solo Acoustic)
21.If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Take 1, Complete)
22.If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Take 2, Alternate Take)
23.You Don’t Have to Do That (Take 1, Solo Acoustic)
Disc 2
1.California (Take 1, Solo Acoustic)
2.It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (Take 1, False Start)
3.Mr. Tambourine Man (Takes 1-2, False Starts)
4.Mr. Tambourine Man (Take 3 with Band, Incomplete)
5.It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Take 1)
6.It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Take 8)
7.It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Take 3)
8.It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Take 3 Remake)
9.Sitting On a Barbed Wire Fence (Take 2)
10.Tombstone Blues (Take 1, Alternate Take)
11.Tombstone Blues (Take 9)
12.Positively 4th Street (Takes 1-3, False Starts)
13.Positively 4th Street (Take 4, Complete)
14.Positively 4th Street (Take 5, Alternate Take)
15.Desolation Row (Take 1, Alternate Take)
16.Desolation Row (Take 2, Piano Demo)
17.Desolation Row (Take 5 Remake, Complete)
18.From a Buick 6 (Take 1, False Start)
19.From a Buick 6 (Take 4)
Disc 3
1.Like a Rolling Stone (Takes 1-3, Rehearsal)
2.Like a Rolling Stone (Take 4, Rehearsal)
3.Like a Rolling Stone (Take 5, Rehearsal)
4.Like a Rolling Stone (Rehearsal Remake)
5.Like a Rolling Stone (Take 1 Remake, Rehearsal)
6.Like a Rolling Stone (Takes 2-3 Remake, False Start)
7.Like a Rolling Stone (Take 4 Remake)
8.Like a Rolling Stone (Take 5 Remake, Rehearsal)
9.Like a Rolling Stone (Take 6 Remake, False Start)
10.Like a Rolling Stone (Take 8 Remake, Breakdown)
11.Like a Rolling Stone (Takes 9-10 Remake, False Start)
12.Like a Rolling Stone (Take 11, Alternate Take)
13.Like a Rolling Stone (Take 12 Remake, False Start)
14.Like a Rolling Stone (Take 13 Remake, Breakdown)
15.Like a Rolling Stone (Take 14 Remake, False Start)
16.Like a Rolling Stone (Take 15 Remake, Breakdown)
17.Like a Rolling Stone (Master Take, Guitar)
18.Like a Rolling Stone (Master Take, Vocals, Guitar)
19.Like a Rolling Stone (Master Take, Piano, Bass)
20.Like a Rolling Stone (Master Take, Drums, Organ)
Disc 4
1.Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? (Take 1)
2.Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? (Take 17)
3.Highway 61 Revisited (Take 3, Alternate Take)
4.Highway 61 Revisited (Take 5, Complete)
5.Highway 61 Revisited (Take 7, False Start)
6.Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Take 1, Breakdown)
7.Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Take 3, Rehearsal)
8.Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Take 13, Complete)
9.Queen Jane Approximately (Take 2, Complete)
10.Queen Jane Approximately (Take 5, Alternate Take)
11.Ballad of a Thin Man (Take 2, Breakdown)
12.Medicine Sunday (Take 1)
13.Jet Pilot (Take 1)
14.I Wanna Be Your Lover (Take 1, Fragment)
15.I Wanna Be Your Lover (Take 6, Complete)
16.Instrumental (Take 2, Complete)
17.Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? (Take 6)
18.Visions of Johanna (Take 1, Rehearsal)
19.Visions of Johanna (Take 5, Rehearsal)
Disc 5
1.Visions of Johanna (Take 7, Complete)
2.Visions of Johanna (Take 8)
3.Visions of Johanna (Take 14, Complete)
4.She’s Your Lover Now (Take 1, Breakdown)
5.She’s Your Lover Now (Take 6, Rehearsal)
6.She’s Your Lover Now (Take 15)
7.She’s Your Lover Now (Take 16, Complete)
8.One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later) (Take 2)
9.One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later) (Take 4)…
10.One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later) (Take 19)
11.Lunatic Princess (Take 1)
12.Fourth Time Around (Take 11, Complete)
13.Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Take 3, Complete)
14.Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Take 8, Alternate Take)
15.Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (Take 1, Rehearsal)
Disc 6
1.Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again (Take 1)
2.Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again (Rehearsal)
3.Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again (Take 5)
4.Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again (Take 13, Alternate take)
5.Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again (Take 14, complete)
6.Absolutely Sweet Marie (Take 1, Alternate Take)
7.Just Like a Woman (Take 1, Complete)
8.Just Like a Woman (Take 4, Alternate Take)
9.Just Like a Woman (Take 8, Complete)
10.Pledging My Time (Take 1, Alternate Take)
11.Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine) (Take 1)
12.Temporary Like Achilles (Take 3, Complete)
13.Obviously Five Believers (Take 3, Complete)
14.I Want You (Take 4, Alternate Take)
15.Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands (Take 1, Complete)
