"Loudmouth: A Novel"/Robert Duncan [Episode 73]

Thomas Ransom, born to a severely dysfunctional southern family transplanted to New York City, is left to his own devices by neglectful parents, and spends his childhood shadowing his criminally-inclined half-brother and roaming the city with hard-drinking teenage pals. He eventually finds an outlet as the flamboyant singer of a downtown rock band, and later as the young editor of the Detroit-based magazine that invented punk, only to return to New York, at the height of the 1970s bacchanal, and crash. But it isn’t music that saves him. It’s a soft-spoken painter, who turns out to be the most outrageous character of all. With echoes of Almost Famous and Just Kids, “Loudmouth” tracks an impassioned musician and writer out among the punks, hippies, and wild geniuses of rock when music was the center of the world. Author Robert Duncan was barely out of his teens when he started writing for the influential music magazine Creem, becoming its managing editor at 22. He went on to write for Rolling Stone, Circus, Life, and dozens of other publications, interviewing hundreds of rock stars at the top of their game. In the process, Duncan became a rock Zelig: he shares tales of his time with a young, scrawny Bruce Springsteen while driving him around Detroit; he introduces The Clash‘s Mick Jones and Joe Strummer to a broken-down piano player of dubious ability, leading to a hilariously disastrous recording session with the band; he works alongside legendary rock critic Lester Bangs, witnesses his tragic spiral, and finally discovers him dead of an OD in the apartment next door. Robert is also the author of the first ever biography on KISS – 1978’s “KISS”. Robert joins us from his home near San Francisco to talk about all of those experiences which provided the fuel for his debut novel “Loudmouth”! Purchase a copy of "Loudmouth: A Novel" and to find out more about author Robert Duncan, visit his website: www.duncanwrites.com The Booked On Rock Website: https://www.bookedonrock.com Follow The Booked On Rock with Eric Senich: FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/bookedonrockpodcast TWITTER: https://twitter.com/bookedonrock INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/bookedonrockpodcast Support Your Local Bookstore! Find your nearest independent bookstore here: https://www.indiebound.org/indie-store-finder Contact The Booked On Rock Podcast: thebookedonrockpodcast@gmail.com The Booked On Rock Music: “Whoosh” & “Nasty” by Crowander ( https://www.crowander.com )