Tag Archives: excerpt

Rock’s Back Pages ‘Rock Critic Excerpt’ From “The Flowers Lied”

RBP - final 2

Those awesome editors at Rock’s Back Pages have featured me and an excerpt from my new rock novel, The Flowers Lied, on the home page of their site.

In the excerpt. which is the third chapter of the book. the narrator, Michael Stein AKA Writerman, meets two of his rock critic heroes for the first time when he visits them at The Pad, the rather decrepit apartment where both critics live and work.

The introduction to the excerpt begins:

Michael Goldberg’s rock ‘n’ roll coming-of-age novel, The Flowers Lied, has just been published. Richard Meltzer wrote that Goldberg’s first novel, True Love Scars, was “Radioactive as Godzilla.” Goldberg has been called a “21st Century Kerouac” by Kerouac biographer Dennis McNally and compared to Lester Bangs by Rolling Stone. The new novel focuses on Writerman (Michael Stein) a sophomore at The University, which is located in Northern California on hill above a beach town not unlike Santa Cruz. He’s a music freak and wannabe writer – he struggles with a Captain Beefheart album review, and tries and fails to type a single word of the Great American Novel he is so desperate to write. He pursues a hip but traumatized 18-year-old artist named Elise, who introduces him to tequila and Almaden Red. And he becomes best friends with Jim AKA Thee Freakster Bro, the over-the-top, gregarious writer/poet/music obsessive stoner he first meets in True Love Scars.

Read the entire excerpt at Rock’s Back Pages. Enjoy!

– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post –

In The Dylan Zone: How Bob Dylan Changed My Life – Rock’s Back Pages Excerpts ‘True Love Scars’

Today the British music site, Rock’s Back Pages, features “In The Dylan Zone,” a long excerpt from my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.

The excerpt is all about what it’s like to hear Bob Dylan for the first time, how it changed the narrator’s life, and the life of the girl he is dating. It’s powerful stuff and if you’re a Dylan fan, I think you’ll be able to relate.

You’ll find the excerpt here at Rock’s Back Pages.

So I have a favor to ask of any of you who have enjoyed posts at this Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog during the near-year that I’ve been posting here. I’m asking for your support, and the way you can support me is to buy a copy of my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars. The Kindle version is cheap — $2.99 — which is less than a penny a day. And if you do buy a copy, please leave a comment on this post so I can thank you. And if you read the book and like it, please post a short review at Amazon.

Here are the Amazon links:

Amazon US True Love Scars (Freak Scene Dream Trilogy Book 1)

Amazon UK

Amazon DE

Amazon FR

Amazon AU

There’s also a different, shorter excerpt in the latest issue of the online music zine, Perfect Sound Forever, which also went live yesterday.

You can read that excerpt here.

Introducing the excerpt, Perfect Sound Forever founder/editor Jason Gross writes:

“Writer/editor Michael Goldberg has had a pretty storied career. After working as an editor at Rolling Stone for 10 years, he went on to found the first online music magazine, called Addicted To Noise, and later became an editor and VP at another pioneering music site SonicNet (which would later fall under MTV’s umbrella).

“Goldberg is now turning his attention to fiction, coming up with the first book of a projected trilogy – True Love Scars, a stream of conscious coming-of-age story of a 19-year-old California kid who crawls through the refuse of the early ‘70s with an obsession for music, writing and women.”

Perfect Sound Forever has been covering great music since the mid-‘90s.

Gross has also been involved in getting some great compilation reissues released including two Kill Rock Star albums; one for Kleenex and one for Essential Logic.

Rock’s Back Pages excerpt.

Perfect Sound Forever excerpt.