This article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel about my novel, True Love Scars, was published recently.
I think the article does a great job of conveying some of what the book is about.
Writes journalist Wallace Baine:
The period of the early 1970s isn’t just a setting for Michael Goldberg’s new novel “True Love Scars.” It’s the orientation for everything in the book, the language, the tone, the references, the narrative.
“I was trying to get at the experience of being young in that time period,” said UC Santa Cruz grad Goldberg, a long-time writer for Rolling Stone. “Not just the drugs and the sex, but the deeper stuff, trying to figure out who you are in the world. I was trying to take the rock & roll of that time and get it on the page.”
The result is an unusual story, fueled by a prose designed to evoke the rambunctious, radical music of the era, with a rhythm and poetic sensibility much more like the rock records of the time than many other novels.
And at the end of the story:
[Goldberg] talks about one scene in the book taking place on the houseboats of Sausalito. “I was listening to the Stones’ (1971 album) ‘Sticky Fingers’ over and over again while I was writing that, really trying to get the mood of that album on the page. I wanted the chapter to feel like what it was like to listen to some of those songs in that period.
“Frankly, I think the ‘sound’ of the narration is quite original. The big idea that I kept in mind as I wrote was that anything goes, that this was as if a 24-year-old and his friend went to a bar in 1975, had a few drinks and then the 24-year-old turned to his friend and said, ‘Let me tell you how my heart was broken…’”
I’ll be doing a very special reading in the Bay Area on Dec. 13 at 3 pm. As I read, Grammy-winning experimental guitarist Henry Kaiser will improvise on guitar.
The event, titled “a post-beat happening – words + guitar,” will take place at Down Home Music in El Cerrito, CA. Be there!
—
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
Yesterday the pop culture site PopMatters, posted a terrific review of my novel “True Love Scars.”
PopMatters contributing editor Greg M. Schwartz writes:
…the novel is a whirlwind tale of a young music fanatic’s quest for true love, high times and “the authentic real” (not necessarily in that order).
Teenage protagonist Michael Stein, aka “Writerman”, lives in Marin County and longs to be a musician, or at least a music writer. He’s into almost all of the musical icons of the era, especially Bob Dylan. Writerman is obsessed with finding his “Visions of Johanna” chick, who eventually appears in the form of Sweet Sarah. But conflict is ordained from the start. Chapter One begins with Writerman speaking in a sort of fever dream about how he betrayed and lost Sarah and has been on a quest to redeem his crushed soul ever since.
And later in the review, talking about the narrator’s obsession with Bob Dylan, Schwartz writes:
He can analyze those Dylan lyrics all day. He and a girl who’s charmingly fond of speaking in Dylan lyrics pore over Dylan’s albums in a scene from 1965, going over his evolution as an artist. “First time I heard that Dylan song it saved my life,” Writerman says of “Like a Rolling Stone”. It’s a sentiment that speaks for several generations of rock ‘n’ rollers, from those who came of age in Goldberg’s era to the present. They get deep into Dylanology in the scene as Writerman speaks of how Dylan opened his eyes to “how almost nothing is what it appears to be and I think that’s when I got it in my head I got to figure out the authentic real, see the world for what it is and not the facade of delusional humans erect in front of the truth.”
That’s what great rock ‘n’ roll can do, and True Love Scars is deeply dialed in to rock’s dichotomy of enlightening powers versus stonered party time.
Kim Gordon, formerly a key member of Sonic Youth and now half of Body/Head, will have her memoir, “Girl in a Band,” published on February 24, 2015.
From the press release:
Often described as aloof, Kim Gordon truly opens up in Girl in a Band. Telling the story of her childhood, her life in art, her move to New York City, her love affairs, her marriage, her relationship with her daughter, and her band, this is a rich and beautifully written memoir. At the heart of the book is the examination of what partnership means—and what happens when it dissolves. An atmospheric look at the New York of the 80s and 90s that gave rise to Sonic Youth, as well as the Alternative revolution in popular music that Sonic Youth helped usher in, paving the way for Nirvana, Hole, Smashing Pumpkins and many other acts. One of the most revered people in modern rock and roll, Kim Gordon is also a highly regarded fashion icon, visual artist, and the source of much fascination.
[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.]
On October 28, 2014 the first complete book of Bob Dylan’s lyrics will be published in a limited edition of 3500 copies. Priced at $200 for the 960 page, 13.3 pound book, Amazon is currently taking advance orders for the book at a discounted price of $126.74.
The New York Times can a story today, which said, in part:
The songs are presented chronologically, including alternative versions released as part of Mr. Dylan’s archival “Bootleg Series.” The album covers, front and back, are reproduced.
The way the songs are laid out is meant “to help the eye see what the ear hears,” Mr. Ricks said. “If you print the songs flush left,” he added, “it doesn’t represent, visually, the audible experience.” So refrains, choruses and bridges are indented. And where Mr. Dylan intended a line, however long, to be unbroken, it sprawls across the 13-inch-wide page.
How did the editors know which lines were meant to be unbroken? Did Mr. Dylan provide feedback or comments? Mr. Karp said he had heard that Mr. Dylan provided notebooks and manuscripts. Mr. Ricks refused to elaborate.
“I think the right thing for us,” he said, “is not to go into the question of the particular kinds of help and assistance and advice that we were in a position to receive.”
From Amazon.com:
“The Lyrics: Since 1962” (Hardcover – October 28, 2014)
by Bob Dylan (Author), Christopher Ricks (Editor), Lisa Nemrow (Editor), Julie Nemrow (Editor)
Hardcover: 960 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 28, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1476797706
ISBN-13: 978-1476797700
Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 12.4 x 2.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.3 pounds
A major publishing event—a beautiful, comprehensive collection of the lyrics of Bob Dylan with artwork from thirty-three albums, edited and with an introduction by Christopher Ricks.
As it was well put by Al Kooper (the man behind the organ on “Like a Rolling Stone”), “Bob is the equivalent of William Shakespeare. What Shakespeare did in his time, Bob does in his time.” Christopher Ricks, editor of T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, Tennyson, and The Oxford Book of English Verse, has no argument with Mr. Kooper’s assessment, and Dylan is attended to accordingly in this authoritative edition of his lyrics.
In the words of Ricks: “For fifty years, all the world has delighted in Bob Dylan’s books of words and more than words: provocative, mysterious, touching, baffling, not-to-be-pinned-down, intriguing, and a reminder that genius is free to do as it chooses. And, again and again, these are not the words that he sings on the initially released albums.”
This edition changes things, giving us the words from officially released studio and live recordings, as well as selected variant lyrics and revisions to these, recent revisions and retrospective ones; and, from the archives, words that, till now, have not been published.
The Lyrics, edited with diligence by Christopher Ricks, Lisa Nemrow, and Julie Nemrow. As set down, as sung, and as sung again.
While you wait, here’s Dylan, Ry Cooder and Van Dyke Parks performing Woody Guthrie’s “Do Re Mi” at the Malibu Performing Arts Center in January 2009:
[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.]
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.
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.]
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:
New York Times video about Woody Guthrie in New York:
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.]
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.
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.
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.
“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.]
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
