E193: Michael Goldberg on photography + Taj Mahal + Addicted to Noise

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For the first episode of 2025, former Rolling Stone staffer and Bay Area photographer Michael Goldberg joins us to reminisce about his music journalism and discuss his new book Jukebox.

We start by asking our guest about the influences of San Franciscan "shooters" from Herb Greene to Annie Liebowitz, with special emphasis on Jim Marshall and Baron Wolman. Michael then recounts the story of how — as a 17-year-old living in Mill Valley — he came to interview the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia in 1970 for his self-published zine Hard Road.

From there we hear about some of the photos Michael took in the '70s, from Frank Zappa in 1975 to the Sex Pistols' final show in 1978. Mention of the great Taj Mahal — photographed by our guest a decade after the country-blues/world-music pioneer posed for Baron Wolman in Topanga — takes us to clips from (and discussion of) a 1982 audio interview with Taj by John Hutchinson.

Finally we ask Michael about his stellar writing career from the San Francisco Chronicle to Rolling Stone — and finally to his trailblazing '90s online magazine Addicted to Noise, for whom he interviewed Prince in 1998.

Many thanks to special guest Michael Goldberg. Jukebox: Photographs 1967–2023 is published by Hozac Books and available now.

Pieces discussed: Introduction to Jukebox, An interview with Baron Wolman, Jim Marshall's jazz images, Jim Marshall, Taj Mahal audio, An audience with Prince, the Beach Boys, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Eric B. & Rakim and the Smash Hits Tour 2000.