Welcome back to the Deep Dive. So, our mission
here, as always, is to wade through this huge
pile of source material, articles, reviews, all
of it, and basically give you the essential stuff,
the core knowledge you need to be, well, deeply
informed. And today, we're digging into a writer
whose whole career seems built on this fascinating,
maybe even necessary contradiction, Nicholas
P. Touches. And just so we're all on the same
page, it's pronounced. Right. Tashes. And we
should probably start with, well, the kind of
praise that just sets the bar incredibly high
from the get go. Yeah. So back in 1982, he publishes
this biography of Jerry Lee Lewis, you know,
the absolute wild man of rock and roll. Hellfire.
Exactly. Hellfire. And the reaction was just
definitive. Rolling Stone magazine. I mean. The
institution itself called it, and this is the
quote, the best rock and roll biography ever
written. The best ever. Yeah. Okay. So that's
our starting point. And honestly, that kind of
praise alone, it cements his place, right? In
music history, at least. But that's just scratching
the surface, isn't it? I mean, our mission today
really is to go way beyond just the rock writing.
We need to unpack the whole spectrum of what
this guy achieved, how he took that raw kind
of urgent energy you find in the best rock journalism.
We started applying it to subjects all over the
map. Heavyweight boxers, obscure country singers.
Sicilian financiers. Right. And even ancient
Roman history. There's this incredible range.
We're talking about a biographer, an essayist,
a novelist, a poet. Someone who really did seem
to set out to like transcend where he started.
And, you know, the sources really back this up.
They say he succeeded. Critically, he succeeded
in transcending that genre. Which is fascinating
because a deep dive into Tosh's, it almost feels
like a masterclass, doesn't it? How a writer
can grab hold of a field like rock criticism,
which, let's be honest, can be seen as kind of
popular, maybe even disposable sometimes. And
then use that as a launchpad, a launchpad into
really high level, serious literary work. That's
exactly it. He wasn't just writing about low
culture or what some might call low culture.
He was injecting it with this incredibly high
literary style, giving it a kind of mythological
weight. You know, the kind usually save for like
the classics. He turned the American outlaw figure
into something. Yeah. Epic. Absolutely. OK, so
let's unpack how he got there, because his starting
point, it's about as far from the traditional
literary path as you can imagine. We go back
1949. Newark, New Jersey. Real working class
grit. That seems key to understanding his voice.
Indeed. October 23, 1949, Newark. And right away,
his background gives us a huge clue to his unique
perspective. His grandparents were Arboreshi.
Arboreshi. OK, explain that a bit. So they belong
to this historic Albanian minority community,
people who emigrated centuries ago from a village
called Castle Vecchio di Puglia in Apulia, Italy.
Huh. OK, that feels important. More than just
like a dot on the map. It's cultural, right?
It suggests this early connection maybe to diaspora,
to cultural survival, almost being an outsider
looking in. Precisely. You hit it. His ancestors
were, in a way, these preserved outsiders living
within Italy itself. So it likely gave him this
inherent, maybe deep seated appreciation for.
cultural undergrounds for narratives that exist,
you know, outside the mainstream. Which is exactly
where he looked for his subjects later on. Exactly.
And this kind of inherent outsider thing, it
was then sort of compounded by his education
or maybe more accurately, his lack of conventional
education. Yeah. The sources are clear on this.
The guy who wrote these biographies that people
treat like serious literature, he. barely finished
high school. No. No college. That's vital, isn't
it? He wasn't learning his craft in some MFA
program. He was learning it on the streets, maybe
even literally in the swamps later on, and just
through the sheer hustle of trying to make a
living. And that hustle, it led him through the
series of early jobs that, well, they read like
a list designed to forge a writer's sensibility,
you know, broaden his range. These jobs tell
you so much about his early character, his willingness
to just confront the weird corners of American
life. Okay, lay them out for us. Well, First,
pretty straightforward. A porter for his family's
business back in Jersey. Okay. Grinding working
class stuff. Purely. Then he moves into, well,
maybe the slightly awkward underbelly of glamour,
you could say. He worked as a paste -up artist
for the Lovable Underwear Company in New York
City. Lovable Underwear. Seriously. Okay, that's
a jump. From hauling boxes in Newark to designing
ads for lingerie in Manhattan. It's a striking
narrative beat, isn't it? Puts him right in the
thick of low -level media, the fashion world.
He's seeing how appeal is constructed, right?
Manufactured glamour. The gap between the surface
and the reality underneath. You can totally see
how that might inform his later stuff, like the
Dean Martin biography, that whole dirty business
of dreams idea. Absolutely. It's about observing
that gap. But then comes the real pivot, the
job that just seals his reputation as this totally
uncompromising individual. This is the snake
hunting. This is the snake hunting. Early 1970s,
Toshes doesn't head off to some writer's retreat.
Nope. He moves to Florida. And he gets a job
as a snake hunter for the Miami Serpentarium.
Wow. Okay, that's not just an anecdote, is it?
It's like a mission statement written in venom.
It really is a statement of character. A snake
hunter. Think about it. The guy who had later
chronicled the darkest truths of American life,
he spent time literally seeking out poisonous
reptiles in the wild. It kind of embodies that
whole dirty business attitude he wrote about
later. That willingness to face danger, go where
others wouldn't, handle toxic subjects carefully.
With precision and focus. Exactly. That deep
investigative hunger, the need to go right to
the source, no matter how remote or frankly.
dangerous that feels like the core connection
between his life and his art. He wasn't scared
of the metaphorical venom in someone like Sonny
Liston's life story. Not at all. And yet, despite
this incredibly wild, non -traditional background,
he didn't actually struggle to get published,
did he? No, apparently not. His talent seems
to have been pretty undeniable right from the
start. He got his first piece published in Fusion
magazine when he was only 19. 19, which just
shows this incredible precocity, this confidence.
He found his voice and, crucially, his subject
matter almost immediately. Early rock and roll,
those oddball records that most critics were
just ignoring. He didn't need anyone to teach
him the rules, it seems. He was too busy making
his own. Pretty much. 19 years old, already writing
with that grit, focusing on the marginalized
figures of American music. It really sets the
stage for a career defined by, well... And his
rise, it timed perfectly with what we now look
back on as like the golden age of American music
journalism. He made a name for himself really
quickly, writing these groundbreaking pieces
for huge magazines like Cream, like Rolling Stone.
Right. But importantly, he wasn't just chasing
the big stars, was he? He was also the reviews
editor for Country Music Magazine. Yeah, which
again signals that deep interest in the roots,
right? They often overlooked foundational stuff
in American music. And this is where the sources
really push him beyond just being a great music
critic. The claim is huge. He's described as
To transcend the genre. That means using rock
and roll, its immediate explosive energy as a
lens to explore these deeper, almost mythological
American themes. He was part of that wave, wasn't
he? Writers who really changed the game for rock
writing. Totally. The sources put him right alongside
figures like Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer, that
whole crew. A handful of other notable, as one
source puts it. What did they do differently?
Well, they injected rock writing with real literary
ambition. They weren't just reviewing albums.
They were writing about the experience of the
music, the chaos, the culture around it, the
philosophy maybe of the artists themselves. They
elevated it, you know, to a new plateau of serious
writing. OK, but here's the tension, right? He's
getting famous within these big institutions
like Rolling Stone. I mean, the ultimate rock
establishment mag back then. But at the same
time, he's all about the outsider, sticking it
to the man. How did he square that? He didn't
square it. He blew it up. The classic story,
the perfect anecdote that captures that rebellious
streak, that intellectual subversion, is why
he left Rolling Stone. He got fired. Fired. Why?
Because he and Richard Meltzer cooked up this
scheme where they filed record reviews under
each other's bylines. Wait, they just swapped
names on reviews? Yep. That's more than just
a prank, though, isn't it? It feels like a statement.
Like a critique disguised as a stunt. Oh, absolutely.
It wasn't just, you know, mislabeling for fun,
it was a pretty radical comment on authorship,
on the whole journalistic establishment. By swapping
bylines, they were basically asking, hey, does
the expert's name matter more than what's actually
being said than the truth of the writing? Subverting
the whole idea of the expert voice and the power
of the masthead. Exactly. That act pretty much
cemented his rep as this iconic lass, someone
who just refused to play by the rules of the
institution. And that spirit rebellion. Dedication
to the marginalized, it seems like it directly
informs his first big books, right? Yeah. Which
were all about digging up the messy, often uncomfortable
roots of American music. His focus was always
on the origins, yeah. His first book, Country,
the biggest music in America, came out in 77.
But later, it got retitled smartly, I think,
to Country, The Twisted Roots of Rock and Roll.
Ah, Twisted Roots. That title says it all, doesn't
it? He wasn't interested in the polished final
product. He wanted the dark, complicated, often
contradictory history behind it. Precisely. And
that focus really solidified with his next big
one, Unsung Heroes of Rock and Roll, The Birth
of Rock in the Wild Years Before Elvis. That
was 1984. Unsung Heroes. That book feels really
important. Oh, it's arguably one of the most
crucial pieces of rock history from that era
because it fundamentally challenged the accepted
story, the canon. Tosh's argued that the real
explosive energy of rock wasn't just born with
Elvis in 56. Right. He was bubbling up for years
before that. Exactly. With all these obscure,
often totally forgotten figures, black artists,
white artists, country, blues, proto -rock guys,
people history had overlooked. And the fact that
the book kept getting re -released, new editions
in 91 and 99. It shows it wasn't just history.
He was actively redefining it. Making the case
again and again for the importance of the margins,
the obscure, the messy beginnings of the stars
we ended up worshipping. Yeah, redefining it
for new generations. It's a landmark work in
that sense. Which brings us right back to the
book that kind of defines his career apex. The
one that really broke him out of just the rock
critic box. Hellfire. The Jerry Lee Lewis story.
1982. We have to talk about this claim. The best
rock and roll biography ever written. What makes
it stand out so much? Why is it considered so
definitive? Well, I think Hellfire became definitive
because Tasha's approached Jerry Lewis not just
as a musician or a celebrity, but as a genuine
American mythological figure. Mythological. Yeah,
Lewis was the perfect subject for him, really,
because he embodied these profound, often really
destructive contradictions. Here's this Pentecostal
Christian piano player, right, where he's on
fire and brimstone theology, but he's constantly
fighting this internal war, salvation versus
sin, fame versus damnation. It's that theological
tension that Tosh zeroes in on, isn't it? He
doesn't treat Lewis's life like... you know,
just a tabloid scandal sheet. It's more like
this epic battle for the soul of a really flawed
genius. Exactly right. And the prose reflects
that. It's less journalistic, much more literary.
It's fragmented. It's lyrical. And it's driven
by this relentless focus on Lewis's inner demons,
his internal landscape. He takes the raw facts,
the underage cousin marriage, the absolutely
wild performances, the destructive behavior,
and he elevates it all. Makes it feel like, I
don't know, Greek tragedy. or maybe more like
a Southern Gothic epic. That's a great comparison,
Southern Gothic epic. It's written with this
narrative force that just captures the fever
pitch of Lewis's music itself and also the deep
hypocrisy of the society that was judging him.
And once he proved he could do that, he realized
he could take that approach anywhere, couldn't
he? Apply that mythological framework to... basically
any American outsider. That's the genius move
of his post -Hellfire career, absolutely. He
didn't just keep writing music books. He immediately
demonstrated that this unique, searing style
could work for figures way outside the music
world. But they all shared that same core conflict,
right? Lives lived intensely, dangerously, often
tragically, right on the edge of the American
dream. The sheer breadth of his subjects after
Lewis, it shows this profound intellectual thread
connecting seemingly really different people.
They're all studies in power, in ambition, and
ultimately the price you pay for operating outside
the lines of conventional morality. Okay, let's
trace that path. The most obvious next step for
music seems to be Dean Martin, the singer, the
entertainer. Right. Dino. Living high in the
dirty business of dreams, 1992. And Martin gets
the same unflinching gaze. Now, why Martin, you
might ask? Why not Sinatra, the more obvious,
maybe dominant figure? Good question. Because
Martin, for Tasha's, was a study in this almost
effortless detachment. He was the cool crooner
operating in the orbit of the rat pack, the mob,
that collision point of glamour and grit. Tasha
saw Martin as the ultimate cynic. A guy who knew
the whole game was just a dirty business dreams.
And he just played his part with this kind of
knowing shrug. Fascinating take. Then he makes
a really sharp turn into pure sports tragedy.
The American underclass with the heavyweight
boxer Sonny Liston. The devil and Sonny Liston.
That was 2000. Liston is just. archetypal tosh's
isn't he this huge silent menacing figure a figure
of violence who was also deeply exploited and
ultimately consumed by the underworld characters
who controlled him yeah tosh has treated liston's
life his mysterious past his rise that shocking
defeat by ali his really ambiguous death he treated
it all with the gravity of like Shakespearean
fatalists. He wasn't just reporting on a boxer.
He was analyzing how American violence and exploitation
create their own tragic heroes. And in between,
he still found time to dip back in the music
history, right? With Where Dead Voices Gather
in 2001. Yeah, focusing on Emmett Miller, a white
country singer who used blackface. Incredibly
controversial figure, but crucial to the development
of country and Western. Again, Tosh is going
right for those ethically complex, uncomfortable
roots. OK, now here's where the trajectory gets
really wild and forces you to see Tosh's not
just as a biographer, but almost as a historian
of the global underworld. He wrote an authorized
biography of Hall and Oates. He did. Dangerous
Dances, 1984. A bit of a commercial outlier,
maybe. But then immediately after that, he makes
this unbelievable leap. He writes about the Sicilian
financier Michelle Sindona in Power on Earth,
1986. Yeah. From Daryl Hall and John Oates. To
a Sicilian banker neck deep in Vatican financial
scandals, organized crime, global political intrigue.
I mean, that pivot just confirms it, doesn't
it? Tosches wasn't just interested in the, let's
say, emotional violence of rock or boxing. He
was fascinated by the mechanisms of power, the
ones that operate in the shadows, especially
those with a European historical context, which
maybe connects subtly back to his own Arboretum
heritage. That's a really insightful connection.
And he kept that focus on the intellectual architects
of crime, didn't he? With his book on Arnold
Rothstein, King of the Jews in 2005. Rothstein,
the gambler, the racketeer, the guy supposedly
behind fixing the 1919 World Series. He kind
of embodies that shift from old world vice to
modern, organized American crime. So you look
at all these subjects together, Jerry Lee Lewis
defying God, Sonny Liston defying the odds, Arnold
Rothstein defying the law. What's the common
thread? They're all men who tried to grab control
of their own destiny, right? To get power? find
meaning outside of polite society, no matter
the cost, spiritual or literal. That's it. And
Tosh's genius was treating them not as, you know,
criminals or sociological case studies, but as
modern American myths fully deserving of the
highest literary attention he could give them.
And while he's tackling these huge biographical
projects, he's still working as a journalist
to keeping his eye sharp. Absolutely. Contributing
editor at Vanity Fair, publishing in places like
Esquire, Open City, constantly applying that
same sharp investigative lens across different
formats. And we should mention that collaboration,
too, with the French painter Thierry Alonso -Gravure.
Right on the book, Never Trust a Loving God.
Which just sounds like the most perfect Tasha's
title ever, doesn't it? So by the late 80s, he's
got this established fame from the biographies,
the journalism, which seems to free him up to.
Really focus seriously on fiction, right? Long
form fiction. Exactly. And this is where he could
really synthesize everything. That high -low
aesthetic, blending street -level crime grit
with this deep historical and often theological
weight. Let's run through the novels because
they show this real commitment to the purely
literary form, often using narrative structures
that kind of mirror his nonlinear mythological
way of doing biography. He started with cut numbers
in 88. Correct. Then Trinity is in 1994. And
then came the one that got maybe the most attention.
In the hand of Dante, 2002. Yeah, that was arguably
his most ambitious novel. It explicitly weaves
together historical literature, Dante himself,
with like rare manuscript theft, modern crime.
It basically takes the structure he used for
Lewis or Rothstein and turns it inward into fiction.
It got huge critical buzz, really solidified
him as a major novelist. And he kept going. Me
and the Devil in 2012. And then that deeply historical
one under Tiberius in 2015. Five novels total.
Plus, we should mention a poetry. collection,
Chaldea and I Dig Girls from 1999, and a short
work, Johnny's First Cigarette, in 2014. I mean,
this is the output of a serious, dedicated literary
artist, not just biographer dabbling. No question.
And that seriousness, that literary commitment,
may be best underlined by the list of writers
he cited as his influences. It's surprising.
Yeah. And diverse. It really is. You might expect,
I don't know, Bukowski or maybe Raymond Chandler,
given the subject matter sometimes. Right. But
what you get instead is this incredible blend
of the ancient and the fragmented modern, and
it perfectly explains the epic scope of his writing.
Okay, lay them out for us. Who did he claim?
Hesiod, Sappho, Christopher Marlowe, Ezra Pound,
William Faulkner, and Charles Olsen. Wow. Okay.
Hesiod and Sappho, ancient Greeks, foundational
voices of Western myth and poetry. Right next
to Ezra Pound, the high modernist architect of
difficulty, fragmentation, and Faulkner, the
master of Southern Gothic decay. And Marlowe.
It makes perfect sense, though, doesn't it, when
you think about it that way? It explains why
he saw someone like Jerry Lee Lewis through the
lens of classical tragedy. Yeah. He wasn't just
seeing a piano player pounding away in a bar.
He was seeing a figure grappling with eternal
human stuff. Sin, ambition, fate on this grand
epic scale. That high -low mix wasn't just style
for him. It was philosophical. It was deeply
embedded. And for listeners who want to really
explore that range, the Nick Toshus reader, which
came out in 2000, is probably the perfect place
to start. Collects writings from across his whole
career. Good recommendation. And while literature
was clearly his main focus later on, his persona,
his voice, it was magnetic enough that he popped
up in pop culture sometimes, right? Giving people
a glimpse of the man behind the myths he wrote
about. Yeah, the one most people probably remember
is his TV appearance with Anthony Borghain. Oh,
right. On No Reservations, the disappearing Manhattan
episode from 2009. They shared a drink at Sophie's,
that legendary dive bar in the East Village.
Exactly. And it wasn't just some standard celebrity
interview, was it? No, not at all. It was Tasha's,
the ultimate chronicler of the authentic American
underworld, basically lamenting how fast the
city was changing. gentrification, the loss of
that gritty character. It was the perfect voice
for that conversation, wasn't he? Mourning the
displacement of the very types of characters,
the outliers, the wise guys, the poets that filled
his own books. It was a poignant moment. And
he stayed connected to music, too, not just as
a critic, but sometimes as a collaborator. He
actually released some musical works. There was
Blue Eyes and Exit Wounds with the novelist Hubert
Selby Jr. back in 98. Wow. Selby Jr., another
chronicler of the depths. Right. And then later,
auto -hagiography with Austin Bruckner in 2018.
And he'd show up in documentaries, too, often
as the voice of authority on his subjects. Yeah,
like Louis Prima, the wildest, in 99. And he
was the obvious choice, really, to provide insight
on his collaborator in Hubert Selby Jr., It'll
Be Better Tomorrow, in 2005. He was consistently
the guy you went to for the unvarnished truth
about the dangerous side of American art. So
when you think about the lasting impact of a
writer like Tasha's, someone who often worked
a bit outside the mainstream critical buzz, but
commanded this really intense admiration. How
do you measure that? Sometimes it's by who admired
him, right? Absolutely. And in Tasha's case,
we have probably the ultimate high profile endorsement,
the actor Johnny Depp. Depp wasn't just a fan,
he was practically an evangelist for Tosh's work.
Yeah, I read about that. Depp's admiration was
deep. And the quote from him really captures
that immersive quality of Tosh's writing we've
been talking about. Depp said reading one of
his books was like having this intense personal
experience with him. Right. And he went on, didn't
he? Saying something like hanging out with him
is very much like being in one of his books.
Yeah. Which is profound, actually. It suggests
the writing was so authentic, so steeped in the
world it described, that... the line between
the author, the subject, the writing itself just
kind of dissolved. He lived the style he wrote
about, that uncompromising outsider viewpoint.
He managed to fully inhabit it. And the ultimate
proof of that commitment, maybe, and the sort
of tangible value placed on the legacy of this
guy who started out hunting snakes, it comes
down to money, in a way. A big investment. You're
talking about the literary estate. Exactly. The
sources confirm that Johnny Depp actually bought
Nick Tosh's entire literary estate for $1 .2
million. $1 .2 million? That's... Well, it's
a powerful statement, isn't it? More than just
fandom. It ensures that his whole body of work,
the biographies, the journalism, the novels,
the poetry, it's all going to be actively managed,
protected. It guarantees it'll survive, stay
visible for future readers, future scholars.
It's the highest kind of market validation, really.
A sign that his work is seen as essential American
literature, not just, you know, cult rock writing.
Couldn't agree more. And Nick Toshes, he passed
away on October 20, 2019 in Manhattan. Just three
days before what would have been his 70th birthday.
A true New Yorker, a lifelong writer, and his
influence clearly is still being felt. Yeah.
So if we try to boil it all down, synthesize
his whole career, I think the key takeaway for
listeners is that Nick Toshes was this kind of
supreme literary alchemist. Alchemist. How so?
Well, he proved that the American outsider, whether
it was a rock god like Jerry Lee Lewis or a tragic
boxer like Sonny Liston or even a historical
gangster like Arnold Rothstein. that these figures
were worthy of the same intense literary seriousness,
the same mythological scope that we usually reserve
for, you know, his ancient influences like Hesiod
and Sappho or the modernist giants like Pound
and Faulkner. He didn't just document the lowline.
He elevated it, transmuted it into high art.
And that transformation, that's why he sticks
with you, I think. It makes me think back to
that. Dean Martin biography titled Dino, Living
High in the Dirty Business of Dreams. That phrase,
dirty business of dreams, considering all the
different people he wrote about, all driven by
this huge, often self -destructive ambition.
What specific part of that dirty business do
you think he captured best? Was it the spiritual
conflict, the raw violence? the financial corruption?
That's a great question. They're all in there,
aren't they? They are. And maybe a follow -up
for you, the listener, to think about. Based
on that archetype, he kept returning to that
tragic self -made figure caught between worlds.
Who else? What other unsung hero or maybe anti
-hero do you think should have been next on his
list? Who else deserved the full Tasha's treatment?
Yeah, who would he have tackled next? Especially
thinking about modern figures. It's a fascinating
thought experiment. Definitely something to chew
on. Well, thank you for joining us for this deep
dive into... the extraordinary life and utterly
uncompromising work of Nick Tosh's. We really
hope this gives you that definitive shortcut
to understanding this essential American iconoclast.