Tag Archives: The Ramones

“Jukebox: Photographs 1967 – 2023” Due Soon

blues, folk, Music, punk, reggae, rock, soul, , , , , , , , ,
Jukebox cover
Cover of Goldberg’s new book, “Jukebox: Photographs 1967 – 2023.”

My new book, “Jukebox: Photographs 1967 – 2023,” gathers together more than 50 years of photographs of musicians I’ve taken. The book, due from HoZac Records and Books (www.hozacrecords.com) in late July, is 10 inches by 9 inches with one photograph on each page (with just a couple of exceptions). There are about 250 photos in the book.

The book’s Foreword is written by acclaimed music book author Joel Selvin. There is a limited edition of 150 hard cover books; only 99 of those are left. They can be preordered now only at the HoZac Records and Books website.

The softcover version of the book can be preordered here.

Many of the photographs have never been seen including shots of Jerry Garcia at his house in Larkspur that I took when I was 17 in 1970.

The book includes photos of the Who from 1970, the Rolling Stones from 1975, Patti Smith from 1975 and 2022, Professor Longhair on stage and at his hotel room in 1977, the great director Nicholas Ray (“Rebel Without a Cause,” “Johnny Guitar”) in 1977, Townes Van Zandt in 1978, Emmylou Harris in 1978 and 2017, Bettye LaVette in 2023, the Sex Pistols at their last show in 1978, plus Debbie Harry, Crime, Tom Verlaine, John Cale, Lou Reed, the Blue Oyster Cult, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Muddy Waters, the Ramones, Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Bob Dylan, Toots and the Maytals, the Meters, Neil Young, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead and many more.

Two photos of Jerry Garcia at the Dead guitarist’s house that I took in 1970.

“Good photographs are designed to make you feel like you are ‘there,’ and those are the kind of photographs Michael Goldberg takes. His live shots make you feel like part of the audience, while his audience shots make you a member of the band, basking in the adulation. His best portraits make you feel like you’ve just shared a secret with the subject. This is a wonderful overview of 50 years of great musicians from rock, blues, and folk and should be in your library right now!” said Roberta Bayley, formerly chief photographer for Punk magazine; photographer for her book, Blondie Unseen; photographer for the first Ramones album cover.

“Who knew intrepid Rolling Stone interviewer Michael Goldberg was a shutterbug? Here’s the abundant evidence – fifty years of snapping candid backstage moments and dramatic live performances from his privileged behind-the-scenes access. Who didn’t he shoot? Come for the big names – Stones, Dead, Van, The Band; stay for the beautiful faces from the distant past – Tim Buckley, Professor Longhair, Sal Valentino. An extraordinary portfolio from any shooter, let alone one we know primarily as a writer,” said Joel Selvin, author of numerous books including Hollywood Eden andThe Haight: Love, Rock, and Revolution The Photography of Jim Marshall.

The Haight Street Art Center in San Francisco will present “Jukebox: the Music Photographs of Michael Goldberg,” a selection of photographs drawn from my new book, “Jukebox: Photographs 1967 – 2023.” The show will run from July 25 through September 22, concurrent with “We Are the One: San Francisco Punk, 1970s –1980s,” which I curated, and there will be an opening party on August 2. Books will be available and I will be signing them.

The Haight Street Art Center is located at 215 Haight Street in San Francisco. More info at haightstreetart.org or call 415-363-6150.

The Last Ramone is Gone

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Oh fuck. What a sad day.

Tommy Ramone, dead at 65.

Did you hear me? Oh fuck!!!

Already gone: Joey, Johnny and Dee Dee.

And now Tommy.

From Rolling Stone:

“Tom died yesterday, July 11, at 12:15 p.m. at his home in Ridgewood, Queens,” Andy Schwartz, publisher of New York Rocker magazine, said on behalf of Ramone’s family. “He was in hospice care following treatment for cancer of the bile duct.”

And how can this be? How can The Ramones be dead?

I remember it all so well.

Reading about The Ramones in the Village Voice, and the anticipation leading up to the release of their first album in 1976.

And what an album. You put it on and it was over almost before you realized it. The songs were so short. I think the whole album clocks in at 30 minutes.

And then they were coming to the Bay Area!

We’d already seen Patti Smith, and she was the greatest of course. But The Ramones were something else.

It was as if The Ramones had invented a new kind of rock ‘n’ roll. The lyrics to their songs were a kind of haiku, as my wife Leslie described it. And the songs were so short. And they mostly sounded like subtle variations on the same song. One song. One.

You wanna get an idea of how radical The Ramones music was in 1976? Go put on a Doobie Brothers album from the early ‘70s, or an album by Journey. Then follow it with The Ramones “Beat On The Brat.”

It’s like someone taking a sledgehammer to a refrigerator and smashing the thing to bits.

Yeah, get it?

I met the original band – Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy in August 1976 when they came out here. Out West. We sat next to a swimming pool at a cheap South of Market Street motel, and I attempted to interview them. I was 23, and new at interviewing bands. Their skin was an anemic white. Like they never had been out in the sun before. (There’s a photo by Jenny Lens of Joey Ramone lounging near the pool here.)

They didn’t say much.

They were so New York. So cool. They looked just like the cover of that first album. Same clothes – Black leather jackets, ripped jeans, and well-worn t-shirts.

They played in a small room at the back of North Beach bar, The Savoy, on upper Grant Avenue, just a half block or so from the Café Trieste, you know, where some of the Beats hung out.

It was hot and sweaty and packed. How did all these people know about The Ramones? All these people amounting to maybe 80 people. Maybe.

The music was loud. I’d never heard rock played at such a volume in such a small room.

But it wasn’t just the volume. It was everything. And we knew it, whose of us who were there. In 1976, this was the New Thing. The ‘60s were already long gone, but it was The Ramones who ushered in what came next.

Their music, and all of punk, is now old hat too. That’s what happens.

Tommy Ramone. Sixty-five years old. Much too young to die.

Imagining Tommy Ramone at 65, when I want to remember Tommy and Joey and Johnny and Dee Dee just as they were in 1976, that’s a hard pill.

The Ramones, 1974:

The Ramones, Arturo’s loft, 1975:

The Ramones, Max’s Kansas City, 1976:

The Ramones in England, 1977:

“I Wanna Be Sedated” and “The KKK Took My Baby Away”:

The Ramones:

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Video: Eddie Vedder Plays ‘The Needle and the Damage Done,’ ‘Last Kiss’ in Brazil + More

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Tuesday night at Citibank Hall in São Paulo, Brazil, Eddie Vedder played Neil Young;s “The Needle and the Damage Done.”

[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.]

Cat Power’s “Good Woman” (partial):

“Last Kiss”:

The Ramones “I Believe in Miracles”:

The Beatles, “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”:

– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-