E135 -Top 5 ’70s American Punk Albums (with Author/Music Journalist Michael Goldberg)

This week, O3L is comin' at you L.A.M.F.!  (Oh, that's Los Angeles Milk Family, of course...)

We're talking American punk rock in the '70s.  Our Third Lad this week is not only someone who experienced the music firsthand, but was one of the writers who championed and chronicled many of the greatest names in not only punk rock, but music in general.   Michael Goldberg joined us for Episode 114 following his riveting book on the life of Jimmy Wilsey, Wicked Game, and returns to O3L to celebrate his latest release, Addicted to Noise: The Music Writings of Michael Goldberg, out now on Backbeat Books.

Addicted To Noise collects the best interviews, profiles and essays Goldberg has written during his 40-plus years as a journalist. From combative interviews with Frank Zappa and Tom Waits to essays on how Jack Kerouac influenced Bob Dylan and the lasting importance of San Francisco’s first punk rock club, Goldberg, as novelist Dana Spiotta wrote, “shows us how consequential music can be.”

Contained within these pages: interviews with Sleater-Kinney, Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Flipper, John Fogerty, Neil Young and Rick James, and profiles of Robbie Robertson, John Lee Hooker, James Brown, the Clash, Prince, Michael Jackson, the Flamin’ Groovies, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, X, Laurie Anderson, Brian Wilson, the Ramones, George Clinton, the Sex Pistols, Richard Thomson, Gil Scott-Heron, Stevie Wonder, George Clinton, Devo, San Francisco punks Crime and more. Plus short takes on Muddy Waters, Townes Van Zandt, Captain Beefheart, Professor Longhair and others. Also 50+ full page photos of some of the artists.

As Greil Marcus writes in the Foreword, “You can feel the atmosphere: someone has walked into a room with a pencil in his hand—as the words go in perhaps the first song about a music critic, not counting Chuck Berry’s aside about the writers at the rhythm reviews—and suddenly people are relaxed. … He isn’t after your secrets. He doesn’t want to ruin your career to make his. He doesn’t care what you think you need to hide. He actually is interested in why and how you make your music and what you think of it. So people open up, very quickly, and, very quickly, as a reader, you’re not reading something you’ve read before.”

The stories originally appeared in Rolling Stone, Downbeat, Esquire, New Musical Express, California magazine, Addicted To Noise, San Francisco Chronicle, Vibe, Creem, New York Rocker, and more.

In the O3L Spotlight this week, we celebrate the return of late '80s London indie poppers The Jack Rubies!  We play their new single, "Hidey Hole," which happens to conveniently be now available at: https://thejackrubies.bandcamp.com.

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