Sylvie Simmons
Encyclopedia
Sylvie Simmons is a London-born music journalist, named as a "principal player" in Paul Gorman
's book on the history of the rock music press In Their Own Write (Sanctuary Publishing, 2001). A widely regarded writer and rock historian, she is one of very few women to be included among the predominantly male rock elite.
She is also the author of a number of books, including biography
and cult fiction
.
and became US correspondent for Sounds, one of the three major UK rock music weeklies of the period. She wrote a weekly column, 'Hollywood Highs', and interviewed a wide range of artists, including Rod Stewart
, Mick Jagger
, Johnny Rotten, Steely Dan
, Adam Ant
, Black Sabbath
, The Clash
and Michael Jackson
.
During the '80s, when Los Angeles witnessed an upsurge in heavy metal
and glam rock
, Simmons wrote what are regarded as the definitive features on the movement, being the first journalist to bring then-unknown acts like Guns N' Roses
and Mötley Crüe
to international attention. (She would go on to co-author the first book on Mötley Crüe with rock writer Malcolm Dome
, Lude, Crude And Rude, 1994, out of print).
When Sounds editor Geoff Barton
founded UK heavy metal magazine Kerrang!
, he asked Simmons to be its L.A correspondent. She did so, under the pseudonym Laura Canyon, while continuing to write under her own name for Sounds (her photograph in Sounds showed her as a brunette, and in Kerrang! as a blonde). At this time she also wrote a weekly music column for the Knight-Ridder newspaper syndicate and a monthly column for the Japanese magazine Music Life, was a co-host of the syndicated US rock radio show London Wavelength, wrote for a number of European publications and was a regular and well-regarded contributor to cult US magazine Creem
.
in 1984, where, with the exception of three years spent living in France
and her frequent travels in the United States she continues to live.
Subsequently her work has appeared, and is still featured, in a number of major publications including among many others Q
magazine, The Guardian
, The Times
, The Radio Times, The Independent
, Rolling Stone
, Harp
, Blender
, San Francisco Chronicle
, and chiefly, MOJO
magazine, for which she has written since its first issue and is Contributing Editor and Americana
columnist (Simmons curated a compilation of Americana music, "Rough Guide To Americana", on the World Music Network, in 2001)
She has also compiled and/or authored a number of liner notes for artists ranging from David Bowie
to Emmylou Harris
, Leonard Cohen
to the Red Hot Chili Peppers
. The best-known is the widely-regarded book she wrote, at the request of Johnny Cash
and Rick Rubin
, for a Johnny Cash
box set "Unearthed" (American Recordings, 2003). This turned out to be Cash's first posthumous release, and their interview - conducted over a one-week period at Cash's home less than six weeks before he died - the last major interview Cash would give.
In addition she is the author of several acclaimed books. These include the biographies of Neil Young, the inaugural release in MOJO Magazine's MOJO Heroes book series, and the highly acclaimed Serge Gainsbourg
: A Fistful Of Gitanes (J. G. Ballard
chose it as his book of the year) which has been translated from the English original into five languages (various publishers, including Da Capo
, ISBN 0-306-81183-9 Helter Skelter
and Mondadori/Random House
).
In 2004 Simmons' first book of fiction was published, Too Weird For Ziggy, (Black Cat, ISBN 0-8021-4156-0) a collection of rock-related, interlinked short stories about the strangeness of celebrity, for which the US publishing house Grove/Atlantic resurrected its Black Cat imprint (previously home to William S. Burroughs
and Henry Miller
). The book bore testimonials from Sharon Osbourne
, Marianne Faithfull
, Slash
of Guns 'N Roses, Lemmy of Motörhead and Tori Amos
, and was widely praised.
Another Simmons story, "I Hate His Fingers", appeared in the 2007 collection London Noir, edited by Cathi Unsworth
, Serpent's Tail
, ISBN 1-85242-930-5.
Her non-fiction work, including critiques and essays, has appeared in many books, among them Girls Will Be Boys by Liz Evans (1997), the various editions of The MOJO Collection: The Greatest Albums Of All Time (Canongate, 2001) and Creem: America's Only Rock & Roll Magazine (Harper Collins, 2007).
Simmons has made frequent appearances as an interviewee on the radio, on TV and in film and DVD documentaries. The most recent includes The Seven Ages of Rock (BBC2, 2007; VH1
2008) and the feature film and dvd Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of Smile (director David Leaf
, 2004). She is a featured speaker at worldwide festivals and conferences, including SpitLit, London; Serge Gainsbourg Een Hommage, Amsterdam; Litquake
, San Francisco; South by Southwest
, Austin; and Porchlight, the American storytelling series, where Simmons is sometimes known to end her slot with a ukulele
performance.
Paul Gorman
Paul Gorman is an English writer.-Career:From 1978, Gorman worked on weekly news for trade publications. In 1983, Gorman won the Periodical Publishers Association award for campaigning journalism for a series of investigative food industry articles and in 1990 was appointed west coast bureau chief...
's book on the history of the rock music press In Their Own Write (Sanctuary Publishing, 2001). A widely regarded writer and rock historian, she is one of very few women to be included among the predominantly male rock elite.
She is also the author of a number of books, including biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
and cult fiction
Cult Fiction
-Personel:* Matt Beck - guitar* Chris Raines - drums* Jon Spencer - vocals* Dan Tulloh - guitar...
.
1977-1984
In 1977 Simmons decamped to Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and became US correspondent for Sounds, one of the three major UK rock music weeklies of the period. She wrote a weekly column, 'Hollywood Highs', and interviewed a wide range of artists, including Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
, Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
, Johnny Rotten, Steely Dan
Steely Dan
Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop...
, Adam Ant
Adam Ant
Adam Ant is an English musician who gained popularity as the lead singer of New Wave/post-punk group Adam and the Ants and later as a solo artist, scoring ten UK top ten hits between 1980 and 1983, including three No.1s...
, Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
, The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
and Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
.
During the '80s, when Los Angeles witnessed an upsurge in heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
and glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
, Simmons wrote what are regarded as the definitive features on the movement, being the first journalist to bring then-unknown acts like Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...
and Mötley Crüe
Mötley Crüe
Mötley Crüe is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1981. The group was founded by bass guitarist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, who were later joined by lead guitarist Mick Mars and lead singer Vince Neil...
to international attention. (She would go on to co-author the first book on Mötley Crüe with rock writer Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome has been an English writer and journalist about metal since 1979. In addition to writing books, he has been a journalist for Record Mirror, Kerrang!, Metal Hammer and Classic Rock among others. He also co-runs and DJs on the online radio station TotalRock.-Selected books:*Dome, Malcolm...
, Lude, Crude And Rude, 1994, out of print).
When Sounds editor Geoff Barton
Geoff Barton
Geoff Barton is a British journalist who founded Kerrang! heavy metal magazine and was an editor of Sounds music magazine.He joined Sounds at the age of nineteen after completing a journalism course at the London College of Printing. He specialised in covering rock music and helped popularise the...
founded UK heavy metal magazine Kerrang!
Kerrang!
Kerrang! is a UK-based magazine devoted to rock music published by Bauer Media Group. It was first published on June 6, 1981 as a one-off supplement in the Sounds newspaper...
, he asked Simmons to be its L.A correspondent. She did so, under the pseudonym Laura Canyon, while continuing to write under her own name for Sounds (her photograph in Sounds showed her as a brunette, and in Kerrang! as a blonde). At this time she also wrote a weekly music column for the Knight-Ridder newspaper syndicate and a monthly column for the Japanese magazine Music Life, was a co-host of the syndicated US rock radio show London Wavelength, wrote for a number of European publications and was a regular and well-regarded contributor to cult US magazine Creem
Creem
Creem , "America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine," was a monthly rock 'n' roll publication first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. It suspended production in 1989 but received a short-lived renaissance in the early 1990s as a glossy tabloid...
.
1984-2008
She moved back to North LondonNorth London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...
in 1984, where, with the exception of three years spent living in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and her frequent travels in the United States she continues to live.
Subsequently her work has appeared, and is still featured, in a number of major publications including among many others Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
magazine, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, The Radio Times, The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, Harp
HARP (magazine)
Harp was a print and online magazine that provided in-depth information on current music, mainly the adult album alternative genre, which encompasses a large variety of music...
, Blender
Blender (magazine)
Blender was an American music magazine that billed itself as "the ultimate guide to music and more". It was also known for sometimes steamy pictorials of celebrities....
, San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, and chiefly, MOJO
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
magazine, for which she has written since its first issue and is Contributing Editor and Americana
Americana
Americana refers to artifacts, or a collection of artifacts, related to the history, geography, folklore and cultural heritage of the United States. Many kinds of material fall within the definition of Americana: paintings, prints and drawings; license plates or entire vehicles, household objects,...
columnist (Simmons curated a compilation of Americana music, "Rough Guide To Americana", on the World Music Network, in 2001)
She has also compiled and/or authored a number of liner notes for artists ranging from David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
to Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
, Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
to the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
. The best-known is the widely-regarded book she wrote, at the request of Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
and Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin
Frederick Jay "Rick" Rubin is an American record producer and the co-president of Columbia Records. Along with Russell Simmons, Rubin was the co-founder of Def Jam Records and also established American Recordings...
, for a Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
box set "Unearthed" (American Recordings, 2003). This turned out to be Cash's first posthumous release, and their interview - conducted over a one-week period at Cash's home less than six weeks before he died - the last major interview Cash would give.
In addition she is the author of several acclaimed books. These include the biographies of Neil Young, the inaugural release in MOJO Magazine's MOJO Heroes book series, and the highly acclaimed Serge Gainsbourg
Serge Gainsbourg
Serge Gainsbourg, born Lucien Ginsburg was a French singer-songwriter, actor and director. Gainsbourg's extremely varied musical style and individuality make him difficult to categorize...
: A Fistful Of Gitanes (J. G. Ballard
J. G. Ballard
James Graham Ballard was an English novelist, short story writer, and prominent member of the New Wave movement in science fiction...
chose it as his book of the year) which has been translated from the English original into five languages (various publishers, including Da Capo
Da capo
Da Capo is a musical term in Italian, meaning from the beginning . It is often abbreviated D.C. It is a composer or publisher's directive to repeat the previous part of music, often used to save space. In small pieces this might be the same thing as a repeat, but in larger works D.C...
, ISBN 0-306-81183-9 Helter Skelter
Helter Skelter
"Helter Skelter" is a song written by Paul McCartney, credited to Lennon–McCartney, and recorded by The Beatles on their eponymous LP The Beatles, better known as The White Album...
and Mondadori/Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
).
In 2004 Simmons' first book of fiction was published, Too Weird For Ziggy, (Black Cat, ISBN 0-8021-4156-0) a collection of rock-related, interlinked short stories about the strangeness of celebrity, for which the US publishing house Grove/Atlantic resurrected its Black Cat imprint (previously home to William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
and Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
). The book bore testimonials from Sharon Osbourne
Sharon Osbourne
Sharon Rachel Osbourne is an English television host, author, music manager, businesswoman and promoter as well as the wife of heavy metal singer-songwriter Ozzy Osbourne....
, Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....
, Slash
Slash (musician)
Saul Hudson , known by his stage name Slash, is a British-American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the former lead guitarist of the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During his later years with Guns N'...
of Guns 'N Roses, Lemmy of Motörhead and Tori Amos
Tori Amos
Tori Amos is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. She was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument...
, and was widely praised.
Another Simmons story, "I Hate His Fingers", appeared in the 2007 collection London Noir, edited by Cathi Unsworth
Cathi Unsworth
Cathi Unsworth is an English writer and journalist. After working for Melody Maker and Bizarre, she began writing novels, with The Not Knowing in 2005 and The Singer in 2007, on Serpent's Tail...
, Serpent's Tail
Serpent's Tail
Serpent's Tail is a British independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Pete Ayrton. It is notable for its translated works, particularly European crime fiction, and is the British publisher of Elfriede Jelinek and Lionel Shriver...
, ISBN 1-85242-930-5.
Her non-fiction work, including critiques and essays, has appeared in many books, among them Girls Will Be Boys by Liz Evans (1997), the various editions of The MOJO Collection: The Greatest Albums Of All Time (Canongate, 2001) and Creem: America's Only Rock & Roll Magazine (Harper Collins, 2007).
Simmons has made frequent appearances as an interviewee on the radio, on TV and in film and DVD documentaries. The most recent includes The Seven Ages of Rock (BBC2, 2007; VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
2008) and the feature film and dvd Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of Smile (director David Leaf
David Leaf
David Leaf is an American writer, producer and director known for documentaries, music programs and pop culture retrospectives. Among his best known documentaries are The Night James Brown Saved Boston , The U.S. vs. John Lennon and Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of SMiLE...
, 2004). She is a featured speaker at worldwide festivals and conferences, including SpitLit, London; Serge Gainsbourg Een Hommage, Amsterdam; Litquake
Litquake
Litquake is San Francisco's annual literary festival. Originally starting out as Litstock for a single day on July 16, 1999, it ran for two years under the same name before going dark in 2001 after 9/11...
, San Francisco; South by Southwest
South by Southwest
South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...
, Austin; and Porchlight, the American storytelling series, where Simmons is sometimes known to end her slot with a ukulele
Ukulele
The ukulele, ; from ; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings....
performance.
External links
- sylviesimmons.com
- http://www.redroom.com/author/sylvie-simmons
- http://www.getreadytorock.com/bstage_heroes/sylvie_simmons.html
- http://www.pw.org/mag/is_blackcat.htm
- http://www.canongate.net/SylvieSimmons
- http://www.groveatlantic.com
- http://2006.sxsw.com/music/conference/panels/?action=bio&id=30984