Abraham Josephine Riesman

Hello, homos, sapiens and superior alike.

My name is Josephine Riesman.

And I'm Becca Petunia.

And we are two trans women here to talk about something completely different from anything you've ever heard before on this show.

No Beck covers there at all.

It's all original music, and it was put together inspired by musicians, uh, writing songs based on them reading the book.

I gave them advance copies, this small group of musicians I trusted, and each one of them, or each one of these acts, put together a track for this album that we are calling Loser Babies, music inspired by Josephine Riesman's The Last Temptation of Beck, which was, of course, pushing us into Push based on the novel, Push by Sapphire, whatever.

You know, it, it gets a long title, but Loser Babies is what will suffice today.

If you're interested, grab the Backstage Pass by clicking the link in the show notes, or go to bookedonrock.com. Just $5 a month.

All right, now on to our guest, Josephine Riesman, who has a brand-new book titled The Last Temptation of Beck: The Untold Story of a Pop Messiah.

She explores the complicated story behind one of the most distinctive and enigmatic artists to emerge from the 1990s.

Drawing on interviews with people closest to Beck and previously unpublished documents, Reesman examines Beck's rise from the Los Angeles underground, the mythology that grew around him, and the questions of fame, faith, authenticity, and identity that followed.

So he comes back to this over and over again.

But Spanish, a- and his stepfather is, is, is Mexican American, Stone Corio, so he was surrounded by a certain degree of Spanish growing up and throughout his LA existence.

Josephine Riesman, the author of The Last Temptation of Beck: The Untold Story of a Pop Messiah: "Once Loser explodes on radio, now he's found the fame that he had talked about wanting, yet he panicked when major labels came calling." Talk about that and his fear of selling out.

You have to remember, this is the '90s, when the cardinal sin was being perceived as a sellout or, um, a wannabe or a poser or, we didn't have the term yet, but basically a nepo baby.