Episode 40 with Chuck Goshert

When Black Athletes drummer Rob Haight took him to see Black Flag at The Farm in 1984, Chuck knew he had found a home in the punk scene. In 1986 he started Poultry Magic with Benicia High pals Paul Curran, Cliff Helmholtz and Skot Pelkey, and lived the East Bay punk dream of playing Gilman for the first time in 1987. Through the 1980s and 1990s he went on to start or join a number of bands (including early Lookout band Monsula), worked security, live sound and the store at Gilman, and finally finished college after 7 years.

He moved to Indiana to get a PhD in literature and philosophy, and since 2001 he’s been an English professor at Utah Valley University, teaching courses in critical theory, cultural studies, US literature and LGBTQ literature and culture. His scholarly writing focuses on connecting experimental art with radical politics in Asian American and LGBTQ literature and culture, and on teaching research writing to beginning college students. He occasionally writes about punk history and culture for academic audiences, including a 2020 article about Gilman’s early years, which Paul Curran called “Maybe the only academic thing about punk that I’ve ever been able to get on board with.”

Along the way he continued to play music, somehow ending up in the right places at the right times: in Indiana for the midwest emo explosion of the mid-late 90s, then in Salt Lake City for its post-hardcore breakout in the early 2000s. He started American Maw with Kevin McCracken in 2017 and they played their first shows in late 2019-early 2020, just in time for a Covid hiatus.