Category Archives: books

Eight Questions: Interview With ‘True Love Scars’ Author Michael Goldberg

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Early this year I read an incredible book about self-publishing called “Write. Publish. Repeat. (The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success) by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant.

Turned out these guys, Platt and Truant, along with writer David Wright, have got a cottage industry going. They have written a lot of novels during the past few years and they’re selling books. Enough books that the three of them are making a living off the sales.

They have a website, Sterling & Stone, where, along with blogging about writing and their various projects, David Wright conducts interviews with writers and other artists.

He calls his interview series “Eight Questions.”

He asked me to participate in an interview, and I was happy to do so.

(By the way, from now until Saturday Octover 11, 2014, the Kindle version of my novel, True Love Scars, is on sale for $2.99 here.)

Here’s how the interview begins:

Michael Goldberg was a Senior Writer at Rolling Stone for a decade and wrote for Esquire, downbeat, Wired, Details, NME, British Mirabella, Creem, Crawdaddy, New York Rocker and many other publications. Goldberg founded the first web rock ‘n’ roll magazine in ’94, Addicted To Noise. Newsweek called him an “internet visionary.” Goldberg was editor-in-chief of SonicNet in the late ’90s, published Neumu.net during the first half of the 2000s and was editor-in-chief at MOG (now Beats Music) in the late 2000s. He currently publishes a popular music blog, Days Of The Crazy-Wild. Goldberg spent over six years writing the Freak Scene Dream Trilogy of which True Love Scars is the first book.

What is your daily creative routine like?

I’ve been a professional writer for nearly 40 years. For years I wrote stories about musicians and the music business. When I was writing journalism fulltime, there were days when I spent the whole day researching and preparing to interview an artist and did no writing. There were days when I just hung out with a musician or a band and took detailed notes and interviewed them. There were days when I spent the entire day on the phone doing additional reporting for the story. And there were days (and nights) when all I did was write. One time I flew to London, spent a week researching a cover story on Boy George, flew to New York and wrote the story on deadline in the New York Rolling Stone office in a borrowed office.

So I learned that I didn’t need a specific routine, or rather, the routine was that every day I got up and did what needed to be done to further the story. Prepare. Report. Write. But I’m an obsessive, workaholic. When I’m working on a project, I’m 150% focused on it and all my waking and sleeping mind is focused on is that project.

So when I started seriously working on what turned into three novels – the Freak Scene Dream Trilogy, of which True Love Scars is the first – I obsessively worked on that project. I brought my laptop everywhere. I wrote in cafes, airports, on planes, on hotel beds, in my office, on the dining room table…

When I went for walks I would make notes on my iPhone or on scarps of paper.

I probably wrote for at least six hours a day, sometimes eight or nine hours, seven days a week. I worked that way for over six years. I wrote and revised, wrote and revised, wrote and revised. When the first draft was done I went back to the beginning and wrote and revised, wrote and revised. Same for the third draft. Every word in the book was scrutinized. I probably spent three or four years getting the unique voice that tells the story just right.

I led a fiction writing group for three years – Sept. 2010 ‘til Oct. 2013 – and what I told the writers in my group, over and over, was they had to write every day. And I really believe that. When you write every day, your subconscious is working overtime on your book. Obviously it’s best if you can write for a couple hours each day, but even 15 minutes keeps the novel or short story alive in your subconscious.

Right now I’m in novel promotion mode which means I’m focused, 24/7, on promoting my first novel, True Love Scars.

I get up at 7:30 or 8 am and I get a bowl or uncooked oatmeal, blueberries, cut up apple, almond milk, and flax and eat it while I scan the New York Times. I’ve also got Feedly on my iphone with writing/publishing news. I scan through all the stories that happened after I went to bed. I run up to my office and do a quick blog post or two to my Days of the Crazy-Wild culture blog.

Then I go take my dog for a walk, go to the gym for an hour workout (very, very important to survive as a writer). Get home and work for an hour or two – emailing media people, doing blog posts about a new review of my book or an interview that ran somewhere, maybe come up with a new ad for Goodreads, research other sites where I might be able to promote the book, etc. etc. Eat lunch – an almond butter sandwich and a huge salad with vinegar and some vegan chili for a dressing, and then it’s time to get back to work. I’ll work from 2 to 6 or 6:30, have dinner and hang out with my wife and then by 8 pm we both get back to work and work on our projects until 10 or 10:30 and then I’ll read for an hour or so.

What are some of your best creative habits and what are some of the bad ones you struggle with?

I’m very self-disciplined. When I was working on the trilogy, I worked pretty much every day, seven days a week, for years and years. I read my work aloud every week to a veteran novelist who taught me a lot about writing fiction. I would read for two hours – he would stop me every 15 minutes or so and give me feedback. He was able to help me see what needed more work. Sometimes I’d be writing and revising a chapter for two months.

I don’t believe in writer’s block. I don’t really believe in the idea of inspiration. In other words, I sit down and I start writing. And if I don’t have anything to say, well I’ll start writing about how I don’t have anything to say. Weirdly, I always have something to say. And I don’t believe in waiting for inspiration. There are times when I’m totally in the zone and a scene is unfolding in this unbelievable way and the voice is perfect and words and phrases are appearing out of thin air and it’s mind-blowing. Other times it’s just all about getting my idea of what happens next down on the page knowing that I’ll be revising and revising and revising and so I never worry about whether the writing is any good ‘cause I know I’ll be fixing it anyway. Often, the next day, when I look at what I wrote, I find that much of it is useable, and even if some isn’t, it’s a hell of a lot easier to sit down to 3000 words and edit it into shape, than to sit down to a blank page. So the trick is to vomit what’s inside onto the page without any editing and then come back and edit.

Read the rest here.

I do want to note that at the end of the interview, I was asked: What do you want your legacy to be?

I answered the question, but after my final comment, I added :-), but that didn’t make the edit.

So when you read that final answer, keep in mind two things:

1) I’m smiling as I answer that question.

2) We all got a right to dream of greatness.

—

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Photo Gallery + Music: The Great Woody Guthrie In New York

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Photo by Lester Balog.

These photos of Woody Guthrie are part of a new three CD set, My Name Is New York; Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town.

Both Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen are just two of the many, many musicians influenced by Woody Guthrie.

The press materials for the set describe it like this:

‘My Name Is New York; Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town’ is a three-disc collection that offers an intimate portrait of Woody’s NYC life through storytelling and music. Produced by Steve Rosenthal, Michael Kleff and Woody’s daughter Nora Guthrie, ‘My Name is New York’ presents two discs of an audio tour and stories that contextualize Woody’s New York with new interviews, song snippets and a history narrated by Nora, plus a third disc of music, including some never before heard demos and previously unpublished songs from the Archives. THere is also a book which can be purchased with the CDs or separately.

These photos of Woody are obviously very cool. Below them is a new video made by the New York Times about Woody’s years in New York. It includes Woody singing songs he wrote while in New York.

Photo by Alfred Puhn.

Woody Guthrie, “New York Town”:

Photo by Eric Schaal.

Woody Guthrie, “Tom Joad”:

Photo by Eric Schaal.

Billy Bragg and Wilco, “Go Down To The Water”:

Photo courtesy of the Seeger family.

“Vigilante Man”:

Photo courtesy of Norah Guthrie.

Ry Cooder, “Vigilante Man”:

Photo by Eric Schaal.

“My Name Is New York” promo:

Photo by Marjorie Guthrie.

Woody Guthrie, “Jesus Christ”:

Bob Dylan and The Band, “I Ain’t Got No Home,” Carnegie Hall, 1968:

Bob Dylan and The Band, “Grand Coulee Dam,” Carnegie Hall, 1968:

Grand Coulee Dam by Bob Dylan & The Band on Grooveshark

New York Times video about Woody Guthrie in New York:

You can get the set here.

Here’s info on the CD set and book from the Woody Guthrie website:

The CD set:

3-CD guide to 19 locations in New York City where Woody Guthrie lived and wrote.

It’s the story of Woody’s 27 years living here in the city, and we visit 19 historic locations – in this 3-CD set – where Woody lived and worked. Now, for the first time, you’ll actually be able to hear these stories told by those who knew him best, in many different ways and through various encounters and circumstances; music partners Pete Seeger, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Sonny Terry, and Bess Lomax Hawes, Woody’s first wife Mary Guthrie, Woody’s merchant marine buddy Jimmy Longhi, Bob Dylan, Woody’s second wife Marjorie Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, Nora Guthrie and many others share their memories with you first-hand.

3-CD Track Listing:

Disc 1: February 16, 1940 — November 1942
1. 59th Street at 5th Avenue, Manhattan
2. 101 West 43rd Street, Manhattan
3. 57 East 4th Street, Manhattan
4. 31 East 21st Street, Manhattan
5. 5 West 101st Street, Manhattan
6. 70 East 12th Street, Manhattan
7. 130 West 10th Street, Manhattan
8. 430 6th Avenue, Manhattan
9. 148 West 14th Street, Manhattan
10. 647 Hudson Street, Manhattan

Disc 2: December, 1942 — October 3, 1967
1. 74 Charles Street, Manhattan
2. 3815 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn
3. 3520 Mermaid Avenue, Brooklyn
4. 49 Murdock Court, Brooklyn
5. 517 East 5th Street, Manhattan
6. Brooklyn State Hospital, 681 Clarkson Avenue, Brooklyn
7. 159-13 85th Street, Queens
8. Creedmore State Hospital, Queens
9. Final Resting Place: Atlantic Ocean, Brooklyn

Music Bonus CD Tracklist
1. “New York Town” (Woody Guthrie/Cisco Houston/Sonny Terry)
2. “New York Trains” (Del McCoury)
3. “Union Maid” (Almanac Singers)
4. “My New York City” (Mike + Ruthy)
5. “Tom Joad” (Woody Guthrie)
6. “Man’s A Fool” (Woody Guthrie/Sonny Terry) home tape
7. “Vigilante Man” (Woody Guthrie)
8. “Union Air in Union Square” (Lowry Hamner)
9. “Round and Round Hitler’s Grave” (Almanac Singers)
10. “Jesus Christ” (Woody Guthrie)
11. “Beatitudes” (Reverend Billy & the Stop Shopping Choir)
12. “This Land Is Your Land” (Woody Guthrie)
13. “Go Coney Island, Roll On The Sand” (Demolition String Band with Stephan Said)
14. “Howdi Do” (Ramblin’ Jack Elliott)
15. “My Name Is New York” (Woody Guthrie) home demo tape
16. “Go Down to the Water” (Billy Bragg & Wilco)

Total time: 167:34

The book:

A pocket-sized guide to 19 locations in New York City where Woody Guthrie lived and wrote.

Includes:

– Historic text and photographs from each location

– Chronological listing of songs written in NYC

– Original song lyrics and never before published documents from the Woody Guthrie Archives

– Excerpts from Woody Guthrie’s NYC address book

Dust bowl troubadour Woody Guthrie first arrived in New York City on February 16, 1940. Although he continued to ramble, for 27 years— from 1940 until his death in 1967—New York was the city he called home and always returned to.

For the first time, this wonderful New York story comes to life with historical photos, documents, and previously unpublished lyrics from the Woody Guthrie Archives. Highlighting 19 significant locations, this little guide provides an expansive yet intimate portrait of Woody Guthrie’s NYC life. We invite you to walk the streets, ride the buses and subways, or sit down and relax on some of the stoops, park benches, or beaches where Woody Guthrie did—always strumming away on his guitar, always working on a new song.

Many of Woody’s most popular songs were written in apartments, lofts, and other locations around “New York Town.” That song, along with “Jesus Christ,” “Vigilante Man,” “Hard Travelin’,” “Tom Joad,” “Reuben James,” “All You Fascists Bound to Lose,” and “1913 Massacre,” are among the more than 600 he composed in The Big Apple. Most surprisingly, his iconic “This Land Is Your Land,” was written at a small rooming house on 43rd Street and Sixth Avenue, on February 23, 1940 within a few days of his arrival. With new friends Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee and the Almanac Singers he was at the center of a new movement—introducing and popularizing rural, roots, topical, and protest music to modern, urban audiences.

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Music Critics To Read at LitQuake Event – Gina Arnold, Joel Selvin, Michael Goldberg & More

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At this year’s LitQuake festival, a who’s who of music writers including University of San Francisco professor/ former rock critic Gina Arnold (author of the book “Exile In Guyville”), former San Francisco Chronicle pop music critic Joel Selvin (“Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues”), Kerouac/Grateful Dead biographer Dennis McNally (“A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead”) will read from their most recent books on Friday, October 17, 2014 at the Make-Out Room in San Francisco’s Mission district.

The high profile lineup also includes Addicted To Noise founder/former Rolling Stone Senior Writer Michael Goldberg (“True Love Scars”), musician Bruce Cockburn (“Rumours of Glory”), rock journalist and author Denise Sullivan (“Shaman’s Blues: The Art and Influences Behind Jim Morrison and the Doors”), rock historian and college teacher Richie Unterberger (“Jingle Jangle Morning: Folk-Rock in the 1960s”) and best-selling authors Keith and Kent Zimmerman (“Shining Star: Braving the Elements of Earth, Wind & Fire”).

Providing music will be Camper Van Beethoven cofounder Victor Krummenacher.

The evening will start at 7 pm and admission is a bargain at $10.

I think this will be a great evening. Kinda of like a greatest hits of recent music books. Each of us will read our best 7 minutes.

We’ll have our books for sale, and if you want a personal message written by the author, all you have to do is ask.

Meanwhile, I’ve got the Kindle version of my book. True Love Scars, on sale this week for $2.99. I can tell you it would be a bargain at twice the price.

[There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Another 5 Star Review: “‘True Love Scars’ adolescent narrator burns the pyre of hippie idealism”

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Pixilated Cheap Hooch logo.

This was a great weekend for True Love Scars, my rock ‘n’ roll novel.

First Andrew Phillips, ex-Editor-in-Chief of Mog and a former editor at Flavorpill, posted this excellent five star review at Goodreads:

True Love Scars’ adolescent narrator burns the pyre of hippie idealism as a revelation to the dark face of its excess. His coming of age is not without its grand revelations, but, can any summer be one of love when the price of admission is friends, family, and sanity?

Any piece by Michael Goldberg has a post-beat, hippie-savant poetry all its own, but this is a rare work, a passionate, immersive experience in the sound, attitude and language of an era.

Then on Sunday afternoon I was interviewed on the very cool Cheap Hooch radio program on San Francisco’s underground Radio Valencia station by DJ Holly.

Cheap Hooch, which airs every Sunday from 4 to 6 pm, features a laid-back fluid crew led by DJ Holly. She plays the coolest obscure Punk, Garage, Trash, Soul, Rockabilly and Primitive Rock n’ Roll. To get a feel for the show, stream it here.

Here is a huge list of Cheap Hooch shows you can stream or download.

Soon the show I was on (October 5, 2014) will be available to stream and I’ll do a post with the link.

Finally, I’ve been meaning to post this cool review of True Love Scars by Days Of The Crazy-Wild follower John Dunne:

Just finished the novel and, apart from minor reservations about the protracted sex scene with Michael’s (NOT MIKE’S!) friends and the sisters, I devoured every page. I feel that, in a novel already fairly steeped in sex, that scene was gratuitous. That’s the bad news out of the way.

Otherwise, I was moved to laughter and, occasionally, something near tears by the narrator’s misguided antics. I loved all the music allusions and, rather childishly, felt proud of myself for ‘getting’ them all. It’s great to read someone unafraid to write in great depth about something he clearly loves, in this case, music. This is extra welcome in a literary world that too often panders to publishers’ demands and readers’ expectations.

As a Dylan fan – my wife would say nutcase – the references, both obvious and oblique, added another layer of enjoyment and satisfaction. If you have any interest in Dylan at all, read this book. If you haven’t, read it anyway. I loved it nearly as much as Angelina, my all-time favourite Dylan song.

—

[There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

World’s Best Roots Music Record Store Now Carries Rock ‘N’ Roll Novel ‘True Love Scars’

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Known around the world for carrying the best in roots music (and world music) – and rootsy world music.

While you can always order my rock ‘n’ roll novel, “True Love Scars,” from any physical book store, I’m thrilled to have the book carried and in stock at one of my favorite record stories, the irreplaceable Down Home Music, located in the down home capital of the world, El Cerrito California.

El Cerrito, which is located between Berkeley and Richmond, has a reputation for great music.

Both Down Home Music and Arhoolie have been based in El Cerrito for decades.

Arhoolie was founded in El Cerrito in 1960, when the late Chris Strachwitz released Mance Lipscomb’s Texas Sharecropper and Songster.

Down Home Music, Strachwitz’s record store, has been at 10341 San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito since 1976, and the folks there can be reached by phone at (510) 525-4827. The store is open each week Thursday through Sunday, from 11 am – 7 pm.

Also worth noting: the great John Fogerty grew up in El Cerrito, which is where Creedence Clearwater Revival formed and were based during their ’60s and early ’70s heyday.

Les Blank, the award-winning filmmaker who made many important music documentaries including “The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins, lived in El Cerrito. Bob Dylan thinks enough of Les Blank that he has included “The Blues Accordin’ To Lightnin’ Hopkins” as the only film recommended on his website.

The excellent community world music radio station, KECG, which is based in El Cerrito, can be listened to here.

And James Brown, of course, played in nearby Richmond in the ’60s.

For more on “True Love Scars,” head here.

Culture Critic Greil Marcus Curates Ambitious French-American Festival Albertine – Mary Gaitskill, Percival Everett & Many More!

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Mary Gaitskill will appear on a panel at Festival Albertine.

The culture critic (and Bob Dylan expert) Greil Marcus has organized a stunning French-American “intellectual exchange” in the form of the six-day Festival Albertine which will take place from October 14 through October 19, 2014, at the new Albertine bookshop in New York.

All of the panels will be videotaped and made available online via the bookstore’s website, http://www.albertine.com, after the festival so that those who cannot attend can see them.

Marcus has always moved smoothly through highbrow and popular culture, and the festival reflects that. Novelists and graphic novelists, movie directors and TV show auteurs, economics professors and fashion designers, French and American historians and rock, book and film critics will take part in the festival.

Novelist Percival Everett, author of “Erasure.”

The lineup for the six evenings includes: Novelists Mary Gaitskill (“Two Girls, Fat and Thin”) and Percival Everett (“Erasure”), director Olivier Assayas (“Après- Mai”), Joseph Stiglitz (“Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy”), Marjane Satrapi (“Persepolis”), the mathematician John Nash, TV show creators Alexandra Clert (“Engrenages”) and Matthew Weiner (“Mad Men”), historians Françoise Mélonio and Arthur Goldhammer and others.

For info about specific panels and the schedule, head over to the Albertine website.

Although there is no panel devoted directly to rock music, a number of the panelists are or have been immersed in the music. In addition to Marcus, there is former New York Times chief rock critic John Rockwell, former Newsweek pop critic James Miller, “Streets of Fire” screenwriter Larry Gross, and Mary Davis (author of “Classic Chic: Music, Fashion and Modernism”).

Marjane Satrapi, the creator of “Persepolis.”

Albertine opened its doors yesterday (September 27, 2014). The book store and the festival, named after Proust’s muse, Albertine, are the brainchild of French diplomat Antonin Baudry, cultural counselor of the French Embassy in the United States, and, using the pen name Abel Lanzac, co-author of the graphic novel “Quai d’Orsay.”

In an essay that explains why the need for Albertine, Baudry wrote:

“Her naissance is important because so many books were missing in New York, the very heart of the world, before she arrived. Her presence will matter because there are essential ideas to uncover and crucial debates to be had between the old Continent and the new. In the 21st Century, without considering perspectives from near and far, should we be so confident in our definitions of good, evil, beauty; fairness on the battlefield, justice; a good society, a good life, or even literature?

“One can answer each of these questions on his or her own, but to collectively attack them and examine each of their nuances—and from points of view illuminated by the insight of foreign lights—will lead us further. The world is in rapid flux. As new powers emerge or re-emerge on the political, economic and intellectual realms, their presence inspires us to reinforce deep existing friendships. For friendship is always more valuable, precious and rare in complex and dangerous times than during periods of calm and certainty.”

The book store currently contains 14,000 books including, according to the Albertine website, “contemporary and classic titles from 30 French-speaking countries in genres including novels, non-fiction, art, comic, or children’s books.” Visitors are welcome to find a comfortable chair and read any of them.

To get the French-American debate — what he calls the “French-American intellectual exchange” — underway, Baudry decided to kick things off with a festival and enlisted Marcus to curate the week-long event.

“Antonin read [Marcus’ landmark books] ‘The Shape of Things to Come’– as ‘L’Amerique et ses prophètes,’ the French title — and ‘Lipstick Traces,'” Marcus said when asked how he came to curate the festival. “I’d never been asked to do something like it, unless you count co-editing ‘A New Literary History of America.'”

Olivier Assayas, director of Après- Mai.

In his essay explaining the need for the bookstore and festival, Baudry detailed why he chose Greil Marcus to curate it:

Our first question was, Who should curate and shape this debate? We made two decisions concerning this choice—decisions that mirror the entire vision of the Albertine experience. Firstly, the curator must be an American, and secondly, it must be Greil Marcus. Why an American—and not a French person—to curate a French festival at the French Embassy? Because that is the essence of a true dialogue. For Festival Albertine’s to be fruitful in America, speakers must be selected by American ears, eyes and intelligence. And these ears, eyes and this intelligence had to be Greil’s.

Greil Marcus’ masterful work defines him as one of the most relevant and stimulating living thinkers of America. Greil touches the foundational issues of society. Along with many of his books, The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice addresses questions and issues so fundamental
to America that it perfectly sets the stage for deep analysis of our cultures in comparison. Greil’s texts deliver the intellectual keys to unlock channels of transatlantic dialogue, discussion, and compelling debate.

Moreover, Greil is the founder of a true analytic method. He offers both a broader and more precise conception of history in Lipstick Traces when he writes, “and what is history, anyway? Is history simply a matter of events that leave behind those things that can be weighed and measured – new institutions, new maps, new rulers, new winners and losers–or is it also the result of moments that seem to leave nothing behind, nothing but the mystery of spectral connections between people long separated by place and time, but somehow speaking the same language?”

The bookstore is located in the French embassy. At http://www.albertine.com is this history of the historic building:

Albertine is housed in the official landmark Payne Whitney mansion in Manhattan. In 1902, former Standard Oil Company treasurer Oliver Hazard Payne commissioned the Italian Renaissance mansion as a wedding gift to his nephew Payne Whitney. Between 1902 and 1906, Stanford White, the famed architect of the Washington Square Arch, designed and oversaw construction of the mansion. Since 1952, the mansion has housed the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. The bookshop within the mansion was born in 2014, and its interiors were created by celebrated French designer Jacques Garcia (Chateau du Champ de Bataille in Normandy, France and The NoMad Hotel in New York City)… in the model of a grand private French library. The two-floor space includes a reading room and inviting nooks furnished with lush sofas and armchairs.

I asked Marcus what ten books he would suggest someone planning to attend the festival or watch the videos should read.

The list:

Olivier Assayas, “A Post-May Adolescence”

Joseph Stiglitz, “Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy”

James Miller, “The Passion of Michel Foucault”

May Davis, “Classic Chic: Music, Fashion and Modernism”

Marjane Satrapi, “Persepolis”

Antonin Baudry aka Abel Lanzac, “Weapons of Mass Diplomacy”

Emmanuel Carrère, “The Moustache” and “Limonov”

Mary Gaitskill, “Two Girls, Fat and Thin”

Percival Everett, “Erasure”

—

[Note: I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Audio: Dylan-Heavy Soundtrack To ‘True Love Scars’ – Part Two – Listen Now!

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My rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars, is heavy with references to music.

So I’ve been creating Spotify playlists for the soundtrack.

Today I added a second playlist to the True Love Scars Soundtrack area of my blog.

You can check both playlists out right now.

Here’s the new one:

And you’ll find them both here.

I’ll be adding more in the weeks ahead.

[I just published True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

If You’re Under 25 & Write About Music, the Wilko Johnson Writing Award Contest Is For you!

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Wilko Johnson

The second annual Wilko Johnson Writing Award contest is currently open for business.

If you’re 25 or younger and write about music, you’ve got until midnight, Friday October 17, 2014, to submit your entry, a 350-word essay addressing this question:

“’The charts are dead!’: Is the Top 40 still relevant in 2014?”

All the details are here.

The contest, which is part of the Louder Than Words literary festival, is named after the acclaimed British guitarist Wilko Johnson, best known as a member of Dr. Feelgood in the ‘70s; early this year Johnson’s collaboration with Roger Daltry of The Who, Going Back Home, charted at No. 3 in the U.K.

“It’s named after Johnson because it is a competition for young writers and Wilko Johnson was a teacher – he has an English degree from Newcastle Univeristy,” explained Louder Than Words co-curator, Simon Warner, author of “Text and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture.”

“In addition, he [Johnson] is a capable and committed wordsmith in his own right,” Warner said. “Beyond that, too, he is a respected, avid and obsessive reader – appreciationg words associated with music and in books and journalism, national and international.”

The winner will be chosen by a “panel of high calibre judges drawn from related industries – writing, the academy, the music business,” Warner said.

The winner will be announced on Wednesday, November 5, 2014 and the award will be presented at the festival on Sunday, November 16, 2014.

The winner will receive: a full weekend festival pass, a complete set of 100 titles from Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 album series, and will be published on the Rock’s Back Pages website.

Louder Than Words will take place November 14-16, 2014 at The Palace hotel in Manchester, England.

As described on the Louder Than Words website, the festival includes “’in conversation with’ sessions, panel discussions, interviews, workshops, performances and casual opportunities for engaging with performaners, authors, editors, publicists, reviewers, press, artists and aficionados.”

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Is ‘True Love Scars’ the Great Rock Novel? Simon Warner Considers the Pros & Cons

Bob Dylan, book, books, essay, Fiction, Michael Goldberg, Music, news, Review, sex, True Love Scars, Writing, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
“True Love Scars” rises to #18 on the Amazon Bestselling Literary Satire chart.

Fantastic review by Simon Warner, author of “Text and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture.”

TRUE LOVE SCARS
Michael Goldberg (Neumu Press)

Review by Simon Warner

The great rock novel? The pursuit of that ultimate piece of fiction that distils the primal energy, the ecstatic power, the neurotic craziness, of popular music has been something of a holy grail in recent decades and, in True Love Scars – a deeply ironic nod to Buddy Holly’s ‘True Love Ways’ – one-time Rolling Stone journalist Michael Goldberg is the latest contender for this Lonsdale Belt of rock‘n’roll writing.

His protagonist Michael Stein is a Californian teenager in the later 1960s, tangled to distraction in the sound and image of his hero Bob Dylan, a paradoxical blend of cocksure kid and deluded hipster, bruising his fragile ego in the choppy shallows of high school romance, then sabotaging his increasingly complicated love tangles in a haze of drug indulgence and casual disloyalty, and all to a backbeat of Highway 61 Revisited, the Stones and the Doors.

It’s the story of a disaffected geek and self-imagined king of cool who turns out to be much more naïve nerd, as his promising upward trajectory hurtles into reverse. But True Love Scars, the first part of Goldberg’s ‘Freak Scene Dream Trilogy’, is as much about style – the way he tells the tale – as it is about content. Penned in a staccato amphetamine grammar, its narrative is fractured and deranged, often unsettling but frequently compelling, an unsparing portrait of the teen condition: assured then despairing, would-be sex god then impotent has-been, from erection to dejection, an only child battling the wills of his domineering father and interfering mom in the anonymous, suburban fringes of Marin County.

Goldberg’s work recalls a number of those post-war stylists who have tried to capture the uncertainties of adolescence into adulthood, the lure of escape and the quest for forbidden fruit. It has elements of Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, a flavour of Richard Fariña and his smart college satire Been Down So Long It Seems Like Up to Me, and more than a dash of that frenetic gonzo gabble that Hunter S. Thompson utilised to frame the madness of the modern world as the American dream unravelled, around the very time that Stein is doing his incompetent best to grow up. The great rock novel? Perhaps we still await it but, for sure, this writer has made a creditworthy tilt at this literary crown, and produced a very good one.

Simon Warner is the author of Text and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture. He’s a lecturer, Popular Music Studies, School of Music, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

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Review: Rolling Stone magazine digs ‘True Love Scars’ Novel – Goldberg Compared To Lester Bangs

Bob Dylan, book, books, drugs, Michael Goldberg, Music, news, Review, sex, True Love Scars, Writing, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Rolling Stone TLS review

In a review of my novel, True Love Scars, in the new Rolling Stone (Taylor Swift on the cover), reviewer Colin Fleming compares me to Lester Bangs!

Too much!

Here’s the review:

Getting Lost in the ‘Real’ Sixties

A veteran rock writer explores the crazy side of Sixties nostalgia

True Love Scars

Michael Goldberg Neumu

If Lester Bangs had ever published a novel, it might have read something like this frothing debut by longtime music journalist Michael Goldberg. (It’s part one of a series called The Freak Scene Dream Trilogy.)

The year is 1972, and the book’s chatterbox narrator, 19-year-old Michael Stein, is 
the kind of Sixties-besotted college kid who shaves his hair off because John Lennon and Yoko Ono did it. His quandary: trying to figure out how to reclaim the “authentic real” spirit of the 1960s as the decade fades into memory. Stein spends most of the book flashing back to one sex-and-drugs-steeped Sixties misadventure after another.

If you’ve ever obsessed over bootlegs or argued with your friends late into the night about which Beatles or Bob Dylan album is the best, True Love Scars will hit home.

Goldberg’s style recalls the rush of the earliest rock criticism. He was a senior writer at ROLLING STONE during the Eighties, and he founded Addicted to Noise,
 an important online music publication, in 1994. His intimacy with the classic records Stein fetishizes comes through again and again. Yet, unlike his protagonist, Goldberg doesn’t idealize the Sixties. Instead, he’s fascinated by the ways in which we crave authenticity.

Readers from any musical era will come away with a deeper appreciation of how nostalgia can shape our lives, for better and for worse. COLIN FLEMING

[There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

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