NEWS!
Down Home Music present:
A Post-Beat Happening
words + guitar
Novelist Michael Goldberg +
Experimental guitarist Henry Kaiser
On December 13, 2014, beginning at 3 pm, two exceptionally talented artists will perform together for the first time at the world-renowned world music/roots music record emporium, Down Home Music, located at 10341 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, CA.
Author and rock journalist Michael Goldberg will read from his critically acclaimed rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars, as Grammy award winning musician Henry Kaiser improvises on electric guitar.
Inspired by the fabled Beat jazz readings of the ‘50s, Goldberg and Kaiser will join together to make a new kind of post-Beat, post-rock noise.
There is no admission charge; Goldberg’s novel and Kaiser’s CDs will be available. Come one, come all!
NEWS! This feature on me and True Love Scars ran in the November 19, 2014 issue of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Read it here.
NEWS! Great review of True Love Scars at PopMatters.
NEWS! I’ll be reading from True Love Scars at a special LitQuake event on Friday, October 17, 2014 in San Francisco at The Make-Out Room. “Rock’n’Soul Circus: A Cavalcade of Stars” features stellar music writers including Gina Arnold, Joel Selvin, Denise Sullivan, Dennis McNally, Richie Unterberger, Keith and Kent Zimmerman and more. Read my post about the event here.
For more info on this great evening and to get a ticket now, head here.
NEWS! I’ve added two additional playlists to the True Love Scars soundtrack page. Check them out here.
NEWS! Rolling Stone reviews “True Love Scars” in a recent issue issue (Taylor Swift on the cover) and compares me to Lester Bangs. Read the review here.
NEWS! Renowned British critic/lecturer Simon Warner has reviewed True Love Scars: He writes in part, “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 utilized 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.” Read the full review here.
NEWS! Book critic Des Cowley digs “True Love Scars.” Read his review at Addicted To Noise Australia. Like right here.
NEWS! Former Billboard columnist Roy Trakin loves “True Love Scars.” Read his review here.
NEWS! Great turnout at my reading at Book Passage in Marin County. Read about it and hear the entire reading here.
NEWS! A bunch more rave reviews at Amazon! Check them out here.
NEWS! Just posted an arty video with me reading from the first chapter of True Love Scars.
NEWS! Just got these reviews at GoodReads. One is 5 out of 5 stars and two are 4 out of 5 stars.
Intense, Crazy Journey – 4 stars
By Norm Honbo on July 12, 2014
“Michael Goldberg’s intense, often painful debut novel is a teenager’s crazy journey to transcend his middle class nothingness in the late 60’s when everything is possible but nothing seems stable or reliable. Taking the name Writerman fifteen-year-old Michael Stein transforms his love of music into a singularly distinctive voice that reflects his desire to write about Dylan, Lennon, the Stones and others of his early years. It’s the rhythm of his voice that adds another dimension to Steins character, Writerman
“The emotional heart of this first novel is Stein’s agonizing yearning to find purity and perfection with his first love, Sweet Sarah. Through high school, the two strive to overcome traumatic situations that batter them time and again. Stein’s insecurities and immaturity leaves him broken until all that’s left are wrong choices. True Love Scars is the teen age boy’s distressing three year journey into the self-destructive depths of what he calls The Days of the Crazy Wild.
“It’s an impressive first novel of Michael Goldberg’s Freak Scene Dream Trilogy. I want to find out what will happen as this novel leaves a recovering 19-year-old Writerman wandering into a new Crazy Wild.”
Novelist Brendan Halpin wrote:
“A crazy fever dream of a coming-of-age novel, featuring a young man who falls in love and subsequently goes off the rails on a crazy train. The narrative voice is really distinctive, and it definitely took me a few pages to get used to it, but I wound up getting caught up in the crazy musical flow of it all and was carried effortlessly through the pages.”
Michele Swide wrote:
“Michael Goldberg’s True Love Scars is a must read…. The reader is captivated immediately with his hero, Writerman Mike, a sensitive, astute observer who struggles to make sense of a tilted universe…”
Check the full reviews here.
NEWS! I will be reading from True Love Scars at Book Passage in Marin County on August 21, 2014 at 7 pm. It would be great to see you there. Book Passage is located at:
51 Tamal Vista Blvd
Corte Madera, CA
(415) 927-0960
There’s a page for me and the book here.
MORE NEWS: I was on a panel at Lit Quake’s Digital Publishing Conference on June 21, 2014. My panel, Reinventing Your Career in the Digital Age, ran from 4 to 5 pm. The conference was excellent.
AND MORE NEWS: I’ve just created a True Love Scars soundtrack page where I’ve posted a Spotify playlist of the songs that are referenced in the first two chapters of the book. Each week I’ll be adding an additional playlist to the True Love Scars soundtrack page. Check it out!