DoT EP86: "Walk This Way" Author Geoff Edgers with New Music from Nat Freedberg

The Department of Tangents Podcast

If you are a fan of music or comedy, you should already know Geoff Edgers. He was a longtime arts writer with The Boston Globe before moving to The Washington Post, where he has written some extraordinary pieces on Roseanne Barr, Chevy Chase, Norm Macdonald, and the article that his new book, Walk This Way, is based on. He makes it clear he is a reporter, not an analyst. So what you get from his writing is the facts about fascinating subjects. You hear from both Chase and his detractors. You see text exchanges between him and Macdonald. You see Roseanne speaking publicly in Israel. He doesn’t have to dress up a story because he knows how to show you the most interesting and relevant parts.

There are some who say the subtitle to Edgers’s book, Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song That Changed American Music Forever, is hyperbole. I can attest that it is not. I was in seventh grade when the Run-DMC/Aerosmith version of “Walk This Way” came out, and I could see the impact firsthand, starting with myself. We discuss this in the conversation, but I can tell you I was a kid who didn’t think rap was music because it didn’t have guitars or “real instruments.” That made me a prime target producer Rick Rubin wanted to reach, and it worked. Not just on me, but others I knew as a kid who reacted to that song the way I did. It opened up my world a bit, and if that didn’t happen knowingly for everyone, it did make them shake their ass, which is a damn fine start.

The conversation picks up with Edgers in his home office talking about a Clash podcast narrated by Chuck D, and how the timeline for how music changed from the 60s to the 80s moves so briskly. You can find him on Facebook and Twitter, read his work in The Washington Post and The Boston Globe, and find Walk This Way at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Powell’s Books, and all the hippest booksellers.

This week’s featured track, “Something Good About Love” by Nat Freedberg. Some of you might know Nat better as Lord Bendover from The Upper Crust, guest on EP32 of the Department of Tangents Podcast and hard-hitting purveyors of rocque n’ roll who performed for years in their powdered wigs and finery. Freedberg has taken off the golden coat, but he still wields his Gibson SG, and he has put out an incredibly tasty solo album called Better Late Than Never. I don’t want to give too much away before next week’s episode, when you can hear about the Crust and this, Freedberg’s first solo album in nearly forty years of recording music. But your homework is to listen to it in full, with all of its wonderful surprises, so you can full enjoy the episode.