Sylvie Simmons
Sylvie Simmons writes for MOJO magazine and is a regular contributor to The Guardian. Since she first started writing about rock music in 1977, her features and reviews have appeared in countless publications and books worldwide, including Sounds, Creem, Q, Rolling Stone, The Independent, Kerrang! and The Sunday Times. Like her 2001 study of Serge Gainsbourg, A Fistful Of Gitanes, Sylvie's 2012 biography of Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man, was widely acclaimed.
346 articles
List of articles in the library
Willy DeVille: It's De Ville Thing
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 13 August 1977
IT STARTED IN '71. Willy deVille, a black-Irish New Yorker, came to London in search of a band. None appeared. After a few frustrating months ...
Be Bop Deluxe: Be-Bop Deluxe: Santa Monica Civic
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, September 1977
SANTA MONICA CIVIC is not the best place to see a rock concert in Los Angeles. It's got about as much rock atmosphere as the ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 17 September 1977
'LOS ANGELES Police Department reminds you the use of fire works is illegal,' warned the notice outside the Los Angeles Forum. With all the bravado ...
Foreigner, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ted Nugent: Lynyrd Skynyrd/ Foreigner/Ted Nugent: Rock And Roll All Nite
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 17 September 1977
AN AFTERNOON of heavy rock at the Los Angeles sports stadium. Score: Lynyrd Skynyrd – Win. Foreigner – Place. Nugent – Show. ...
Be-Bop Deluxe: Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica, CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 8 October 1977
SANTA MONICA Civic is not the best place to see a rock concert in Los Angeles. It's got about as much rock atmosphere as the ...
Steely Dan Dare to give Sylvie Simmons a more-open-than-usual interview
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 22 October 1977
IT'S NOT every day that Steely Dan bare their souls to the public. But amid the palm trees and coke bottles at the Bel Air ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Record Mirror, 19 November 1977
A Right Pair Of Jokers ...
Steve Miller: The Forum, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 3 December 1977
THERE WAS a time when Steve Miller used to burn up the stage; there was a time when Steve Miller's giant ego dominated the show; ...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Whisky a Go Go, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 10 December 1977
THE YELLOW posters outside the Los Angeles Whisky and the yellow pins handed to the punters make him out a Buddy Holly figure who murders ...
Meat Loaf: The Roxy, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 14 January 1978
Ingredients:Meat Loaf (around 250lbs) from Dallas, Texas; lead singer with Ted Nugent on platinum album Free For All; monster-singer Eddie with half a brain in ...
Talking Heads/Heaters: Whisky A Go Go, Los Angeles, CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 14 January 1978
HEATERS: A band for people who like little boys. A punkoid Our Kid, with mop-tops, waistcoats, ties and short-sleeved shirts. A cute little bassist, a ...
The Ramones, The Runaways: The Ramones/The Runaways: Santa Monica Civic, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 18 February 1978
RAMONES: singing about sun and surf while their home town suffered blizzards. 'Obladi-oblada' for the blank generation ...
Eric Clapton: Santa Monica Civic, Santa Monica CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 25 February 1978
IN A GESTURE distinctly un God-like, Eric Clapton spurned the arena-sized venues of his last few tours to favour 6,000 Los Angelenos in a two-night ...
Be-Bop Deluxe: Ol’ Bill: Be-Bop Deluxe’s Bill Nelson
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Record Mirror, 25 February 1978
"THE AMERICAN interviewers have been saying, 'Hey, are you going to wear the suits again this time?' and I say, 'We've worn them the last ...
Detective: Watching The Detective
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 18 March 1978
LOS ANGELES is a city full of Englishmen and Anglophiles. British bands don't play here any more, they live here. Londoners hanging out at the ...
The Tubes: The Pantages Theatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 1 April 1978
THE PANTAGES Theatre; plush and Rainbow-esque. Recently the home of Hello Dolly, good clean family entertainment. The Tubes are here for a week. ...
Aerosmith, Bob Welch, Dave Mason, Foreigner, Heart, Santana, Ted Nugent: The California Jam Festival
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 8 April 1978
THERE WEREN'T even traffic jams. ...
Root Boy Slim & the Sex Change Band: Roxy, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 15 April 1978
Ageing fatty is next big thing, say Steely Dan. ...
Judas Priest, No Dice: Judas Priest/No Dice: Whisky a Go Go, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 29 April 1978
JUDAS PRIEST had a captive audience, No Dice made a mark, and Gary Valentine just about escaped alive. Proving that heavy metal lives, good old-fashioned ...
Be-Bop Deluxe: Be Bop Deluxe: The Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 6 May 1978
GOING TO The Shrine in sleazy downtown LA is a bit like going to the pictures, a sort of giant Odeon with lumpy seats and ...
Foghat, Eddie Money: Forum, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 6 May 1978
US teens flip for old Brits ...
Aerosmith: Santa Monica Civic, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 13 May 1978
AEROSMITH ARE in Los Angeles doing a series of small hall back-to-the-people gigs. ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 13 May 1978
SPEND TOO much time in the sun and you will soon dry up. Let this be a warning to all who make the sound of ...
Van Halen: Platform Boots Still Make It
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 13 May 1978
COLUMBUS, Ohio. Van Halen, just called back for an encore, are basking in the unexpected adulation. The support band takes a bow. "Thank you Cleveland", ...
Angel: Angels With Tarty Faces?
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 3 June 1978
ANGEL: 'The boys come because the girls come...our audience is anywhere from 8 to c-cup.' ...
The Godz: The Smell Of Burning Leather…
Profile by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 3 June 1978
"WE'RE A rock and roll band!" spits the ugly rock junkie Eric Moore at the handful of people ogling the stage. "That heavy metal shit's ...
Bob Dylan: Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 10 June 1978
THE CAMERAS panned over a line of deck chairs and sleeping bags sprouting people grinning and flashing peace signs and the man in the ticket ...
Rainbow, REO Speedwagon: REO Speedwagon/Rainbow: Los Angeles, California
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 10 June 1978
REO Rattled By Rampant Rainbow ...
The Beach Boys, Jan & Dean: The Beach Boys: Four Girls For Every Boy
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 17 June 1978
IMPORTANT DATES in the history of surfing music: ...
The Dickies: More Than Just Another Crazy Band From L.A.
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 17 June 1978
Dickies n. pl. 1: Fake undershirts originating in U.S. high schools in the mid 60s, when "creeps" who wanted to look like the Beatles without ...
Tom Robinson Band: The Starwood, LA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 24 June 1978
CONSIDERING THE relative lack of any amount of hype, the Starwood was respectably full, if respectable' is a word you could use to describe the ...
The Dictators: The Starwood, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 26 August 1978
FOR A START, L.A. is about as distant from the Bronx as Tunbridge Wells, and not just geographically, here they are very serious about punk/rock/whatever, ...
Blue Oyster Cult, UFO: Blue Oyster Cult/UFO: Live In Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 2 September 1978
THEY DON'T have a Trades Descriptions Act in the States. If they did, then the Cult might be in trouble. Their ads (and, what's more, ...
The Who: Sweat, Bollocks & Guts
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 2 September 1978
IN ORDER that you wouldn’t get lost in the huge Universal Studios complex, accidentally find yourself on a glam-tram and off on a tourist-view of ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 16 September 1978
'Joke supergroup' have last laugh ...
Ted Nugent: Long Beach Arena, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 23 September 1978
ISN'T IT nice to know that in this ever-changing world there is always something you can rely on to stay the same? Apart from a ...
Electric Light Orchestra: Anaheim Stadium, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 30 September 1978
I KNOW those were pretty strange-looking cigarettes the people from Jet Records were handing out on the coach down from LA to Anaheim stadium, but ...
Jan & Dean: Jan and Dean: Starwood Club, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 7 October 1978
THEY'VE RENAMED LA's Starwood club the Surfwood for the night. ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 14 October 1978
I SHOULD have been prepared for it, being in San Francisco and all that, but I hardly expected that a Boston concert would find me ...
Crazy Horse, Neil Young: Neil Young & Crazy Horse: The Forum, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 11 November 1978
COMES A time when even Neil Young has to do something different with his live shows than the acoustic set followed by hard-rock-with-band bit. ...
Foreigner: Live in Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 25 November 1978
FOREIGNER ARE pretty much a thinking man's Bay City Rollers. ...
Queen: Municipal Auditorium, New Orleans
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 2 December 1978
IT'S BEEN five years or so since Queen last played in New Orleans and the fans, having heard the glowing reports of last year's US ...
Bob Dylan: The Forum, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 9 December 1978
THE 18,000 people who presumably didn't pitch tent early enough to make Dylan's sold-out summer date in L. A. but packed into the Forum this ...
Moon Martin, The Runaways: The Runaways, Moon Martin: Whisky A Go Go, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 27 January 1979
THEY CAME down the stairs on to the stage to screams from the sardined crowd and whistles from the majority male contingent, despite the rejection ...
Linda Ronstadt: The Forum, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 10 February 1979
GOING TO a Linda Ronstadt concert, apart from finding yourself in the midst of unbridled passionate devotion like a born-again fanatics convention, is like sitting ...
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 17 February 1979
"SO YOU think we lost the battle — then go home and weep about it. Sometimes you’ve got to wake up in the morning and ...
Earth, Wind & Fire: One Nation Under a Groove
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 24 February 1979
COSMIC KARMA QUESTIONNAIRE COMPILED BY SYLVIE SIMMONS ...
Peter Tosh: Roxy, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 17 March 1979
A LONG LINE snaked round the corner from the squalid end of Santa Monica Boulevard. Disinterested-looking cops in riot helmets were scattered all around. People ...
Toto: The Roxy, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 17 March 1979
We're an American b(l)and ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 7 April 1979
Dateline Hollywood: SYLVIE SIMMONS demurely averts her gaze from the tight satin loonpants and sez: Gimme the track-by-track lowdown on the new album. At least, ...
The Police: The Whisky, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 14 April 1979
THERE'S SOMETHING schizophrenic about this group. An English band with an American drummer, a Californian who knows how to bash out rock and roll – ...
Dire Straits: The Roxy, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 21 April 1979
IF THERE really is the third British Invasion the Californians keep talking about, platinum-sellers Dire Straits, welcomed to L.A. by bunting across the Sunset Strip ...
Judas Priest: The Starwood, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 21 April 1979
THIRD NIGHT at the Starwood and they're still packing them in. Limbs flailing through the dry ice that fills the stand-up section in imaginary guitar ...
The Tubes: Tube in Charlie's Angels oral sex shocker
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 5 May 1979
Jerk in the box FEE WAYBILL explains The Tubes' new-look TV Times. I didn't realise there was so much in it gasps SYLVIE SIMMONS ...
Joe Jackson: Further Thoughts On The Foolishness Of Polka Dot Ties
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 2 June 1979
"I THINK people realised it's about time they had some decent music over here", says the man behind the desk at the top of the ...
Allman Brothers Band: The Allman Brothers Band: Live in Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 2 June 1979
THE CROWD is going apeshit. A five-figure bunch of America's Finest with cowboy hats and beer bellies are whooping it up like it's New Year's ...
Tom Robinson Band: Live in Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 2 June 1979
"EDUCATION", CLAIMS the motto six feet above the head of Tom Robinson for his second time in LA, "is learning to use the tools which ...
Rickie Lee Jones: The Roxy, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 23 June 1979
CHUCK E.’S IN the audience. Got up just in time for the show. No doubt Chuck E.’s also in love. He’s definitely in business. The ...
Gloria Gaynor, Village People: Village People, Gloria Gaynor: Greek Theatre, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 30 June 1979
TONIGHT I learnt why discos are held indoors. The Beautiful People look a bit silly with water splashing around in their transparent sandals and rain ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 7 July 1979
ENCAPSULATED VERSION: five-piece group from as near to Boston as matters bust their balls and abuse their bodies digging their way out of the grime ...
Penetration: The Whisky, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 7 July 1979
I'D SEEN the name around several times, but I'd never seen the band until tonight. Strange how your luck can change. ...
The Beach Boys: Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 7 July 1979
POTTED PALM trees, fishing nets, dry ice aka sea mist, the Captain (sans Tenille) and a backing band in a boat. Degenerate drummer in Brian-sized ...
The Roches: The Whisky, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 7 July 1979
THE ROCHES. Pronounced as in bugs. Maggie and Terre and Suzzy, three sisters somewhere in their 20s. ...
Rod Stewart: The Forum, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 21 July 1979
YOU DON'T have to be hungry to make good rock and roll, but it helps. Sitting through a Rod Stewart show is like watching a ...
The Knack: Royce Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 11 August 1979
Let's hear it for the little guys ...
Nils Lofgren: The Second Coming of Nils Lofgren
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 18 August 1979
IT'S A COMMON complaint among watchers of American late-night television. Everything is going along as normal, all the right cliches are being spoken, when you ...
Mahogany Rush: Why Does This Man Look Like This On The Verge Of 1980?
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 22 September 1979
SYLYIE SIMMONS MEETS FRANK MARINO OF MAHOGANY RUSH AND MANAGES TO TALK ABOUT THINGS OTHER THAN HIS SHIRT, BOOTS AND THE PIMPLE ON HIS FACE ...
AC/DC: Long Beach Arena, Long Beach CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 13 October 1979
AC/DC discover harmony... after a fashion ...
Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne: Ozzy Osbourne: How Black Was My Sabbath
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 13 October 1979
Angry Ozzy Osbourne gives his first interview since the Sabs split to SYLVIE SIMMONS in Los Angeles. ...
Talking Heads: Greek Theatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 13 October 1979
DON'T KNOW quite what it is, but those skinny American men with high voices have got something. Maybe it's the weekly shot of Charles Atlas ...
The Police are the best reggae group in America
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 15 December 1979
A WHOLE NEW PERSPECTIVE ON JAMAICAN MUSIC BY SYLVIE SIMMONS ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 12 January 1980
HOWCUM? ASKS SYLVIE SIMMONS ...
Fleetwood Mac: The Forum, Inglewood CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 12 January 1980
Tusk force ...
Dead Kennedys, Sham 69: Sham 69, Dead Kennedys: Whisky a Go Go, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 12 January 1980
SOME PEOPLE join a band to get out of the crowd. Jello Biafra, I'm convinced, joined the Dead Kennedys to guarantee a space in the ...
The Tubes: The Roxy, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 2 February 1980
A TUBES show without the props is a bit like the Royal Family without Princess Margaret: a lot of money for something expendably traditional without ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: The Forum, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 2 February 1980
LIGHTERS COME on round the arena, a couple of firecrackers go off, then on strides Petty with his rockstar lope, leans into the microphone with ...
The Sports: The Whisky, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 9 February 1980
LITTLE RIVER Band, Livvy Newton-John, Sherbet. Is it really any wonder people think that Australian rock is something kangaroos jump over (or in the case ...
Pink Floyd: Memorial Sports Arena, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 23 February 1980
WELL IT figures, doesn't it? ...
Rick Derringer: The Roxy, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 23 February 1980
RICK DERRINGER, walking away with both the Alvin Lee Memorial Award and the Suzi Quatro lookalike rosette, played a set at The Roxy that shook ...
The Specials: The Whisky, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 1 March 1980
WE GOT to hear the second – the best – half of the show twice. The first time sardined in the long line outside the ...
ZZ Top: Long Beach Arena, California
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 15 March 1980
ALMOST THREE years ago ZZ Top became ZZ Stop, pensioned off the steers and circus animals Texas-style that went with their live performances and went ...
Madness: The Whisky, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 5 April 1980
Prince Buster cracks LA at last ...
Rush: The Moustache That Conquered The World
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 5 April 1980
SOMEWHERE in America in that black hole known as the Midwest, little bands are slogging their balls off to become big bands, and big bands ...
The Jam: Civic Theater, Santa Monica
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 5 April 1980
HERE IN peanut butter land they call jam jelly and it's transparent, slick and insubstantial, easily assimilated sweetness. Maybe that's why The Jam are having ...
The Go-Go's: Ready Steady Go-Go's
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 12 April 1980
GO-GO'S: 1. Bouncing entertainment; choreographed Happy Pill; females showing a hell of a lot for little reward. 2. Hollywood pink-punk band; all of the above ...
Beat, The (U.S.): The Beat (US): Beating For Pleasure
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 19 April 1980
THE KNACK without the goofball, Tom Petty without the peroxide and angst, the Beatles without the suffix. ...
Public Image Ltd.: PiL in Hollywood
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 24 May 1980
HUDDLED ROUND the side with a crowd of disco dancers waiting for their fifteen minutes of fame, watching a fake Doobie Brothers run through their ...
X: Beyond the Valley of the Doors
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 28 June 1980
HOLLYWOOD PUNK. Sounds about as real and desirable as cocktail-lounge muzak. If there's anything genuine or worthwhile in there it certainly isn't easy to find. ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 5 July 1980
THE CLOSE QUARTERS in Nashville Tennessee claims to be America's only rock and roll hotel. Bar's open day and night, drugs no problem, you can ...
Aerosmith, Joe Perry: Joe Perry: I've Done It All
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 5 July 1980
'I've been through millions of dollars I've wrecked expensive cars. I've done it all!' ...
American Spring, The Surf Punks: The Surf Punks; American Spring: The Starwood, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 9 August 1980
AMERICAN SPRING – Brian Wilson's wife Marilyn and various in-laws – came out from under a pebble after five years of seclusion, threatening to become ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 20 September 1980
I'M HERE to testify they've done it! Gone back, right along the de-evolutionary scale, down to the Bill and Ben stage. What an achievement! Five ...
The Beat, Talking Heads: Talking Heads and The Beat at the Greek Theater Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 8 November 1980
THIS WAS no mere toe-tapper. We're talking worn shoe-leather tonight, holes in the soles and corns on the toes, sore feet in a venue more ...
Bruce Springsteen: Los Angeles Sports Arena, California
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, New Musical Express, 22 November 1980
IT'S EASY to see why the girls go so much on him. You got the excitable adolescent of 'Rosalita', 'Crush On You' – hey hey ...
The Stranglers: Well They Said Anything Could Happen...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 10 January 1981
Duff equipment, Close Encounters and bog-wall poetry… The Stranglers in America ...
Elvis Costello, Squeeze: Sports Arena, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 7 February 1981
The feeding of the 15,000 ...
The Plasmatics: Confessions of a Ballbuster
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 7 February 1981
THE AMPLIFIERS are screaming. Well wouldn't you be? Ritchie Stotts in Playboy bunny garb has just mountaineered them; Wendy O Williams in shaving foam that ...
Elvis Costello: Elvis goes eyebrow
Report by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 28 February 1981
Mr Costello and a high class chatshow confrontation witnessed by Sylvie Simmons ...
REO Speedwagon: The Prairie Dog Has His Day
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 2 May 1981
Fifteen years of slogging around the mid-west of America in clapped-out Chevrolets and crashing planes has finally put REO Speedwagon on the No. 1 album ...
Jack Nitzsche: Interview with Jack Nitzsche
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, unpublished, June 1981
KNOCKING ON HEAVENS DOOR… ST. GILES CRIPPLEGATE ...
Van Halen: The Forum, Inglewood CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 25 July 1981
Skintight savages ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 29 August 1981
FIRST THINGS FIRST. When X get to England (sometime in September hopefully) see them. They're good. ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, September 1981
"Young Americans listen when I say/There's people putting us down/I know they say we've gone lazy/To tell you the truth we've seen better days/Don't need ...
Journey to the Centre of the AORth
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, October 1981
by Sylvie Simmons in San Francisco ...
Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks: Fleetwood Mac: Stevie Nicks, Macramé Goddess
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, 1982
TO STEAL from Groucho Marx (after all we're talking nicks), the trouble with doing interviews is having to sit down next to someone you don't ...
Blue Oyster Cult: Country Club, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 16 January 1982
FIRST TIME I've seen Blue Oyster Cult in ages. Actually seen them. Last time HM's Santas-little-helpers played in the neighbourhood was one of those monstrous ...
Ozzy Osbourne: LA Sports Arena, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 23 January 1982
ACT ONE Scene One: Outside, on the coldest night of the year, the wind is howling. But a noise more unearthly still emanates from the ...
Mötley Crüe: Crüesin' and Blüesin'
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 20 February 1982
"FIRST YOU got to cut it real jaggedy. And you need this stuff." ...
AC/DC: Death Pooches Lick The Cosmic Milk Bone
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, May 1982
THEY ALL LOOK like they'd benefit from a Jerry Lewis telethon. Seventeen thousand diseased and uncontrollable bodies. ...
The Blasters: 'Beyond Revivalism' Revival
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, May 1982
We got Louisiana boogie and the Delta bluesWe got country swing and rockabilly tooWe got jazz country western and Chicago bluesIt's the greatest music that ...
Foreigner: Fame, 4 Tune + 4 Play
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 1 May 1982
Sylvie Simmons joins the FOREIGNER legion to meet Mick Jones ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 29 May 1982
SEATTLE'S SPACE Needle is the architectural equivalent of the male nipple. Just sticks up there, totally redundant except as an amusing thing to play with ...
Quarterflash: One Quarter Flash, Three Parts Foolish
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, June 1982
IN THE UNITED STATES, statistics show, a girl is walking out on her no-good man every 15 minutes. Statistics also show that 15 minutes later ...
J. Geils Band: The J. Geils Band
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, July 1982
TUCSON’S GOT McDonalds’s and bars and Sears and Taco Belles, but there any resemblance to life as we know it stops. It’s hot as a ...
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 1 July 1982
Sylvie Simmons goes strictly Texas in Las Vegas. ZZ Top are in town... ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 21 August 1982
WIMP ROCK. Every time you turn on the radio out here, there it is, hitting your ears with all the strength and power of a ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 28 August 1982
STUCK IN a jam on the Hollywood Freeway, staring for five miles at a yellow Smiley bumper sticker telling me to have a nice day, ...
Van Halen: The Philosophy Of Diving Down
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, September 1982
HANG 'EM HIGH HUMP 'EM LOW ...
Duran Duran: World Domination By 1984
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 11 September 1982
THEIR AMBITION – Simon's least, and in all probability the rest of them – is to one day become Bryan Ferry. They didn't say that ...
Circle Jerks: Love The One You're With...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, October 1982
THERE'S PEOPLE diving off the sides. A somersault – look! a bellyflop! – a couple of thrilling jack-knives. The one wearing the bathing cap – ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, October 1982
SURE AIN'T NO Howard Johnsons. There's a woman in the lobby looks like a Kentucky Fried Chicken leg let loose in Freddie Mercury's wardrobe; all ...
Billy Squier: The Man Who Hides In His Apartment
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 9 October 1982
DALLAS, TEXAS: How to pull a rock star. Go to the front of the stage, reach up for a leg and grab. ...
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five: Live in Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 13 November 1982
FLASH – AAAAH! Saviour of the Universe. Saviour of my sanity, anyway. "The Message" shines out from amongst the New Musik murk they play out ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 18 December 1982
BACK IN the days before Asteroids took over, Kiss was the pagan religion for America's pimpled adolescents. ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 1983
ACCORDING TO my copy of the Weekly World News, the end of the world is due precisely on the 30th October. That's just around the ...
The Motels: Take The El Out Of MOTELS And It's Motes
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, February 1983
IN A SMOKE-FILLED cell up in Capitol Towers, that awesome Hollywood edifice modeled on an Ajax can, Martha Davis and Marty Jourard sit blinking under ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: Long After Maturity
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, April 1983
STAR TRECK. Scene One: Writer meets Star. ...
Toni Basil: How to Cheerlead & Influence People!
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, May 1983
TONI BASIL'S MICKEY MANIA ...
Michael Jackson: No Angel, But No Osmond Either
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, June 1983
DOWNTOWN BETWEEN the Pacific American Fish Co. and the Hotel St. Agnes Hospitality Kitchen there's an alley. Cars block each end, no escape. And silhouetted ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, October 1983
A DREAM. I'm lounging on the balcony of a Beverly Hills hotel staring out over the pool when there's a knock on the door. In ...
Fastway, Motorhead: Fastway: Unholy Spawn Of The Dual Metallicus
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, December 1983
NOTHING (except the last Journey single) lasts forever. Six-and-a-half years they were together. 6 and 1/2. Plenty of time to emerge as ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, February 1984
THE PERFECT WORLD...Little waterfalls tinkle cheerfully down the hillside and rabbits and chipmunks scamper playfully in the long grass of the sun-dappled meadow; bluebirds tweet ...
Brian May, Queen: If Queen Won't, Brian May
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, March 1984
SO HERE I am back in the giant Ajax can on Vine Street and waiting for Brian May. I look at my watch; the little ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, June 1984
LOS ANGELES — Alcatrazz. A fine name for a heavy band. Visions of toughness, Clint Eastwood, bars, Clint Eastwood, implacability, Clint Eastwood. Better than Graham Crackers anyway, ...
The Thompson Twins: Double Trouble
Report by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 16 June 1984
I'VE BEEN figuring out ways to break this to you; best to just take a deep breath and hope they print it. There was absolutely, ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, July 1984
JOHN WAYNE didn't do too much for anyone, but he left a fine legacy of shirts – and they look even better on the Alarm. ...
The Scorpions: Scorpions: Stinging Scorchers Or Virgin Killers?
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, August 1984
IF, AS JAH ROTH says, there's a little bit of Van Halen in everyone on a Saturday night, there's likely a whole lot of Scorpions ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 3 November 1984
"WE ALL CAME IN at different times. Paicey and I walked in – we'd booked a conference room in Greenwich, Connecticut overlooking the harbour, and ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, March 1985
DEEP PURPLE. Two words that mean so much to so many. It's been 13 years since DP – the DP, Gillan, Glover, Paice, Lord and ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, April 1985
IT'S A TOUGH life in today's pop world. In these dark days of decreasing sales, with tight-fisted conservative little brats putting their pocket money into ...
Foreigner: Feels Like The Fifth Time
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, June 1985
THERE ARE TIMES when you truly appreciate Foreigner. For instance, like when Madonna's 'Like A Virgin' comes on the air. A navel she may have, ...
Alison Moyet: Yaz, Alf & Other Three-Letter Words
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, September 1985
"BIG POP STAR." Alison Moyet stares into her tonic water; the ice obliges by cracking with emphasis. "It seems to have become quite an obsession ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, October 1985
AT THE END of the day nothing in pop music matters much anyway except the lead singer of the Shangri-Las. But there's a space where ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, February 1986
PADDY MCALOON likes words like a dog likes lampposts, darting from one to the next, meandering back again, cocking his conversational leg to spray another ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 6 February 1986
SYLVIE SIMMONS travels to Frankfurt in Germany and gets Sixx of the best from gutter-level gürus MÖTLEY CRÜE. ...
ZZ Top: All The Things You Ever Wanted To Know About ZZ Top
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, March 1986
Do you sleep with your beards over or under the bedclothes?Billy Gibbons: Well, there's only one way to find that out.... ...
The Cure: There Is No Easy Cure
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, March 1986
"LOVE CURES A NIGHTMARE. A vivid recurring nightmare turned Cure leader Robert Smith into a nervous wreck. Now, as the group rockets through the charts, ...
Twisted Sister: Kemper Arena, Kansas City MO
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 6 March 1986
SOUND OF THE SUBURBS ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, April 1986
IT IS NO COINCIDENCE that supergroup rhymes with gloop. Supergroups are what Rolling Stone puts on the pages it can't flog to Camels and condom ...
W.A.S.P.: The Lore Of The Lawless
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 15 May 1986
Is BLACKIE still tacky? Have W.A.S.P. s new-found stadiarock sensibilities caused 'em to abandon their old 'wild, funny and outrageous' ways? SYLVIE SIMMONS asks the ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, July 1986
SOME PEOPLE collect plastic airline coffee stirrers. Ozzy Osbourne collects scandals. Or rather scandal – unlike the South East London garbage service – collects Ozzy, ...
Julian Lennon: Julian's Treatment
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, August 1986
THERE'S SEVERAL people I wouldn't want to be, and one of them's Julian Lennon. ...
Samantha Fox: Touch Me (Jive Records HIP 39) KK¼
Review by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 21 August 1986
TWO-AND-a-quarter 'K's — the minimum I can give the thing. One 'K' and the Kerrang! boyz would start tittering about yeah, they'd like to give ...
Judas Priest: Leathered, Studded Dudes Or…
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, September 1986
COWS ARE VERY useful except in India. There are varying degrees of cow-use – milk, cheese, burgers, cheeseburgers – but none so useful as the ...
Metallica: I Confronted Metallica On Their Own Terms!
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, October 1986
METALLICA. YOU KNOW the story. Those that don't are doomed to have me repeat it. ...
Iron Maiden: When It's Time To Rock...
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 2 October 1986
Somewhere in Yugoslavia, IRON MAIDEN are gearing themselves up for a mammoth assault on the planet's concert stages. SYLVIE SIMMONS braves bolshy Eastern European bureaucrats ...
The Moody Blues Are Older Than You
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, December 1986
"SOMETIMES WE'RE a little misunderstood and people think that maybe we have a lot of answers which we don't have. Really," Justin Hayward leans forward ...
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mega Metal Kerrang!, 1987
Would you regard this issue off Mega Metal Kerrang! as 'subversive', 'pornographic' or 'objectionable'? No, of course you wouldn't – 'harmless fun' is a term ...
The Human League: Give Human League A Chance
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, March 1987
THEY LIVE IN Sheffield. Because they like it there. Because it's ordinary but sort of esoteric at the same time, straightforward but not stupid, arty ...
Cyndi Lauper: Doing That Primitive Thing
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, April 1987
SHE WOULD HAVE been born in the back of a New York taxi if they hadn't crossed her mother's legs and stuffed her back in ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 16 April 1987
Last year an LA indie album hit the streets called Look What The Cat Dragged In. It took 12 days and $23,000 to record. A ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 11 June 1987
"KNOW WHAT I want to do? Really want to do? Go over to Japan and pollute it. I'm not talking about drugs, I'm talking about ...
Heart: Speaking Pelican? Like Hell They Can!
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, September 1987
ON THE SOFA from the right: Ann Wilson, Denny Carmassi, Howard Leese. All in black. Easy on the eyes on a filthy British day. Don't ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, October 1987
WARREN ZEVON has perfected the art of squirming without perceptible movement. Crumpled on a couch in a windowless record company boxroom, the man with the ...
Great White: Mississippi Nights, St Louis, Missouri, and Newport Music Hall, Columbus Ohio
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 28 November 1987
FIRST NIGHT a club the size of a bootbox, tiny lung cancerous place by the side of the river (backstage's the top step of an ...
Heart: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit MI
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 28 November 1987
HEART OF THE MATTER ...
Mick Jagger: Noble Savage, Primitive Cool & All
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, February 1988
HE WALKS INTO the room radiating presence in an offhand sort of way, and people cower. He just looks so disconcertingly...well, Jaggeresque. ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, March 1988
HELL, AT LEAST he's trying. Plenty have called him pretentious – quoting Shakespeare to drunks, diddling Jung, sporting philosophers and musicians like designer accessories – ...
Screaming Blue Messiahs: A Box Of Screaming Blue Messiahs
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, April 1988
THERE'S A WHITE Madonna and a black Prince, a metal Priest and a buffy Saint Marie and three Screaming Blue Messiahs: Bill Carter, Chris Thompson ...
Steve Winwood: The Steve Winwood Chronicles
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, July 1988
HE SEEMS QUITE MONK-LIKE – steady stare, fish-pale complexion and a faraway look that, if I'd brought a compass, I could guarantee went in the ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, RAW, 7 March 1989
They say 'Every Rose Has Its Thorn'. Or at least POISON do in the title of their current hit single. And certainly the Los Angeles ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Revolution, September 1989
LAST TIME I saw Robert Smith of the Cure, he was lying on a bed of spider webs and being swallowed by and giant gummy ...
W.A.S.P.: Penelope Spheeris: The "Mad Surgeon" of Film
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, RAW, 6 September 1989
That's American director PENELOPE SPHEERIS, whose documentary on the LA Metal scene The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years has just opened ...
Guns N' Roses: Tears Before Bedtime?
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Q, July 1991
Axl fired the band. The band fired Axl. Then they made up – and fired the drummer instead. Slash checked into rehab — than checked ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Music Life, 17 November 1991
THE PLUSH CONRAD HOTEL at Chelsea Harbour has for some reason (maybe it's the copious amount of Moet & Chandon champagne in the minibar!) become ...
Duff McKagan, Guns N' Roses: Guns N’ Roses: Duff McKagan talks
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 1993
"SO, WHEN WE got back from the Appetite tour, I bought this big house, bought all this furniture, I was by myself, I was divorced, ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone (Germany), 1994
"YOU'D BE amazed at how similar Kennett is to Twin Peaks. We have three stop lights, one police station, one high school, everyone knows everyone, ...
Björk: Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 1994
LAST TIME I SAW BJÖRK ON STAGE SHE WAS WITH THE Sugarcubes and I didn’t really see her at all: either Einar the Irritating or ...
Sinead O'Connor: Universal Mother
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1994
AN ALBUM ABOUT MOTHERS – MOTHER as God, mother as Ireland, mother as sex, mother as violence, giver of life, saver of life, withholder of ...
J.J. Cale: Hammersmith Apollo, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1994
WHISPERING BOB Harris introduces him as "very simply a legend", this grizzled geezer who's spent the intermission on stage with his back to the audience ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Country Music International, 1995
His cult movie roles and haunting balladry made him a star of stage and screen. But the epitome of American Cool still doesn’t know to ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1995
YOU'D THINK he’d be pissed off, but the title of his new album — Peacemaker — should have given me a clue. The man still ...
10cc, R.E.M.: Conference Call: Mike Mills talks to 10cc!
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1995
ON THE receiving end of the PR’s pointy red fingernail: Sylvie Simmons... ...
Counting Crows — Adam Duritz interviewed
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1995
BACKSTAGE AT the Shepherd's Bush Empire, Adam Duritz is opening a gift from a fan. Coasters. Normal ones, the sort you'd buy your dad for ...
David Bowie, Morrissey: David Bowie/Morrissey: London, Wembley Arena
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1995
THE THIRD OF four nights of two thinnish white pop Dukes with great barbers and a well-honed sense of alienation. Seventies icon Bowie and 80s ...
Gary Moore, Peter Green: Gary Moore on Peter Green
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1995
"TONIGHT IS a bit different", says Gary Moore from the stage to a packed London theatre. "We’re celebrating the music of a very special man." ...
Green Day: Brixton Academy, London
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, RAW, 1995
Billie Joe: "People suddenly see you as this voice of a generation. And you’re kinda going, Huh? All I was doing was pulling my pants ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1995
"KING CRIMSON," says Adrian Belew, "does a brand of music that no-one else does, a sound that no-one else makes." Robert Fripp calls it "the ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1995
"THE LAST couple of years", says Thom Yorke, "have been pretty mind-altering." Thom, 26, is so thin and sharp-edged you’d cut yourself if you touched ...
Terence Trent D'Arby: Terence Trent D’Arby Vibrates
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone (Germany), 1995
SITTING ON a four-poster bed framed by blood-red curtains, Terence Trent D’Arby sucks on a huge bottle of Evian water and talks. And talks and ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 1995
Incredible but true facts about ZZ Top. 1. Jimi Hendrix gave Billy Gibbons a guitar. 2. Dusty Hill wrote 'Tush' in ten minutes during a ...
Sheryl Crow: As Sheryl Crow Flies
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 1995
EIGHT YEARS BACK, a young music teacher from Kennett, a tiny Bible Belt town ("Twin Peaks. Three stop lights, one police station, one high school.") ...
Guns N' Roses: "I Never Liked Our New Guitarist!" Slash Stabbed in the Back as Axl Hires New Gun!
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 14 January 1995
Rucks! Law-suits! The future of GN'R! Slash tells all in a killer Kerrang! world exclusive! ...
Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemons: Soul On Ice: Clarence Clemons
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 1995
HE'S HUGE, AS A LEGEND SHOULD BE. Solid as a monument. A big man, built like the American football player that be was before a ...
Guns N' Roses, Slash: In Bed With... Slash
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, July 1995
WHEN WERE you first aware of the birds and the bees? ...
The Pretenders: Jacob Street Studios, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, August 1995
MIDWAY THROUGH, Chrissie Hynde turns to her audience of mainly invited guests and smiles. "This is easy, isn’t it? This is obviously the way to ...
Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music: Bryan Ferry
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, October 1995
You’ve just celebrated your 50th birthday. Traumatic? ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone (Germany), November 1995
ROCK MUSIC – we’d never have believed it if they’d told us back then – has grown up. What was once dicks and fists has ...
Garbage: The Last Word: Shirley Manson
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, December 1995
LAST MAN YOU FANTASISED ABOUT? ...
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Request, 1996
"It was a good scene even when it was shitty, wasn’t it?"– Derek Taylor, Beatles publicist, 1970. ...
The Black Crowes: Black Crowes: The Garage, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Request, 1996
CHRIS ROBINSON could captain the Deep South Olympics grinning team. Where we see a squat, black-ceilinged closet on the Holloway Road, Chris evidently sees some ...
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Request, 1996
Bon Jovi release a retrospective Best Of album this Autumn. Jon Bon Jovi looks back at the band's past and their ten years of music. ...
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1996
"HELLO", says Gavin Rossdale, slumped against the sofa on the trailer floor after a day of interviews. "We’re Bush — calculating, conniving, formulaic opportunists. Who ...
Chris Isaak: Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Country Music International, 1996
"FEELS GOOD to be back home in London", Chris Isaak shouts, and half the packed Shepherds Bush Empire erupts into a scream. The female half. ...
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1996
DIRE STRAITS is dead. Or as good as. The grave may open once in a while for the odd charity appearance, but as to another ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1996
Donovan’s comeback album, produced by bearded eccentric Rick Rubin, owner of American Records and the man behind The Beastie Boys, Slayer and Johnny Cash’s acclaimed ...
Guns N' Roses: Guns N’ Roses: Together Again?
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 1996
GUNS N’Roses is back from the dead. Five years after the release of their last new material — the epic Use Your Illusion I and ...
Sting: I Ask The Questions by Sylvie Simmons: Sting
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mail On Sunday, 1996
STING – pop star, actor, philisopher , father, Rover car salesman and generally all-round bit of a god – is trying to steal my job. ...
Donovan: I Ask The Questions: Donovan
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mail On Sunday, 1996
THE CURLY hair’s still there, the elfin face, incense wafts about the room, but there is something amiss. That’s it: Donovan is wearing a suit. ...
Meat Loaf: I Ask The Questions: Meat Loaf
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mail On Sunday, 1996
A DUSTY abandoned cinema in London. There are cobwebs and chandeliers. There is a large man on a balcony in a tuxedo and American tan ...
Lemmy, Motorhead: In Bed With Lemmy
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 1996
When were you first aware of the birds and the bees? ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 1996
KISS MY ASS, they're thinking of calling the KISS tribute album . "If people think I'm smug about any of this stuff", says Gene Simmons, ...
Kula Shaker and the New Psychedelia
Report by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1996
BRITPOP’s ‘60s revivalism has brought in its wake all manner of cosmic hoo-hah. Hallucinogens have taken over from cigarettes-and-alcohol as the switched-on Englishman’s millenium-blues-buster of ...
Little Axe: Sugar Hill to Stoke Newington
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1996
THE MAN the critics are calling the missing link between Jimi Hendrix and King Tubby is sitting in a grim pub in an untrendy part ...
Mötley Crüe: Motley Update: Mayhem!
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 1996
MOTLEY CRUE go in the studio in November straight from their US club tour to start work on their new album, tentatively titled Personality Number ...
Guns N' Roses, Slash: Q&A with Slash
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 1996
YOU HAVE a house in the Hollywood Hills, you have a wife, you have housepets, you're the most unpunk I've ever seen you. A fine ...
Blind Melon: RIP: An Interview with Shannon Hoon
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Request, 1996
SHANNON HOON, Blind Melon vocalist, died on a tour bus on October 21st in a hotel parking lot in New Orleans. To complete the rock ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1996
Set List: Everything’s Fine Right Now/ Lonely Exile/ Tom & Alexei/ Scotland Yet/ Red Hair/ October Song-Maya/ Favourite Sins/ Killing The Dragon/ Fathers/ Love Letter ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1996
THEY'RE LIVING in a house, a very big house, in the country. "Actually", says Robert Smith, showing me around the candlelit ground floor, smoky log ...
Willie Nelson: The Barbican, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1996
HE STEPS out onstage to a standing ovation and his grizzled, beautifully-ruined face breaks into that huge grin. For a moment the spindly bloke looks ...
David Sylvian: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 1996
ACOUSTIC GUITAR, DHOTI, sensible shoes. Who'd have thought it, back in the techno tailor's dummy days of lipstick, peroxide and synthesizers? ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 1996
Sting cannot be escaped. He's on TV (a commercial for Rover cars) in a film (The Grotesque), on two movie soundtracks (Leaving Las Vegas and ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, June 1996
IN THE catering trailer, the tables are jammed with people so disparate it’s hard to believe they belong to the same species. The ones wearing ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, June 1996
BACK IN THE EARLY '60s, in their Golden Eagle residency days, The Spencer Davis Group played the whole gamut of American R&B from John Lee ...
The Black Crowes: Three Snakes and One Charm
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, August 1996
The band's fourth album, recorded over a two-month period in a house in Atlanta. Jack Puig co-produces once again. ...
Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Phoenix Festival, Long Marston, Stratford-upon-Avon
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, September 1996
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER field. Phoenix smells of tent-rubber and scorching skin, the crowd red and sweating like vacuum-packed beetroot. They’ve survived the eight-hour, 12-mail tailbacks. ...
Guns N' Roses: Neurotic Outsiders: Duff and Matt talk records
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, September 1996
The first record you ever bought Matt: 1966, A Hard Day’s Night. I saw The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show — I was ...
Radiohead: T In The Park, Strathclyde
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, September 1996
WHOEVER PUT "great" and "outdoors" in the same sentence was not a rock fan. Rock needs four walls and a roof. In the case of ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 1996
Turning tears on her pillow into pearls ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1996
Second album by Deep Purple’s mark II line-up of Ian Gillan, Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Roger Glover and Ian Paice, rereleased on its 25th anniversary. ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1996
"WHEN I WAS VERY SMALL," says Holly Palmer, "my dad used to say, 'Holly, you're buzzing'. There'd be these funny noises coming from my mouth. ...
Kula Shaker: The Kilburn National, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1996
JUST WHEN we’d accepted that Camden Town was the new Jerusalem and Noel and Liam God’s chosen, just when we declared we were glad to ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, Spring 1996
MOJO: Does making albums get harder or easier with time? ...
The Sex Pistols: Return of The Sex Pistols
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, Summer 1996
The jury’s out. It’s either the ultimate joke, the perfect punch-line — plump, forty, pimple-free Johnny Rotten with a tan only sensible living and serious ...
The Sex Pistols: Finsbury Park, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, Summer 1996
"WELL?" Johnny Rotten asked the 30,000-strong crowd dotting the park — not a sell-out, despite weeks of hype and a festival-sized bill, though more than ...
Mark Eitzel, R.E.M.: Mark Eitzel with Peter Buck: Union Chapel, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1997
AN OLD CHAPEL in Islington, North London, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s old ‘hood. The stage is set up around the pulpit; the audience sits in ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone (Germany), 1997
MATTHEW SWEET is proud to be Pop. It wasn’t always that way. "It used to be that I was afraid of Pop", says Sweet, earnestly. ...
The Cure: An interview with Robert Smith
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1997
THE ROAD to Christmas is choked with compilation albums. Greatest Hits and Best Ofs, collections of the safe-and-familiar-plus-bonus-new-track clog up the record shops at this ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone (Germany), 1997
"I’M COMPLETELY undisciplined", Karl Wallinger gives a dopey grin in answer to the inevitable question: why has it taken four years to follow up the ...
Prince: The Best of the Patchy Years
Guide by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, February 1997
IN MANY WAYS the ultimate ‘80s self-made man, Prince spent the decade inventing and reinventing himself. The scope of the man’s ambition was mindboggling; the ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 1997
THE SOUND IS delicate and strange: the same weirdo innocence as the saucer-eyed little girl on the sleeve — and the melodies mostly downbeat. But ...
The Black Crowes: The Garage, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 1997
CHRIS ROBINSON HAS perfected the skinny, rollin'-eyed, raggedy Jesus look you don't see outside of by-pass protests and early '70s festival documentaries. ...
Crazy Horse, Neil Young: Crazy Horse: Ralph, Billy, Poncho... and Neil
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 1997
THERE'S A SCENE in Year Of The Horse, looks like one of those scenic theme park rides, where Neil Young and crewperson are sitting talking ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 1997
Neil Young plus electricity plus us, the ticket-holders. It's been a volatile but vital combination for over three decades. On the eve of the great ...
Roger McGuinn: Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, August 1997
A BLACK EXECUTIVE chair sits in the middle of an empty stage in a in a puddle of swirling, blobby, cod-psychedelic lights. It’s as if ...
Leonard Cohen: More Best Of (Columbia)
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 1997
A CATCH-UP collection of the best of the past couple of decades for those who fell in love with, or to, early Len and may ...
The Doors: 10 Questions for The Doors’ Ray Manzarek
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1997
EVER SINCE Jim Morrison’s death there have been many Elvis-style, alive-and-well-and- pumping-gas ‘sightings’. Has it ever crossed your mind they may be right? ...
Jimmy Page/Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin: Page & Plant
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1998
THE VERY IDEA of MTV as deus ex machina is enough to send shudders down the hardiest spine. But MTV it was who approached Robert ...
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, 1998
20 YEARS ago in San Francisco, a young man from the South London suburbs made one of the biggest-selling rock ‘n’ roll records of all ...
Sheryl Crow: Abbey Road Studios, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1998
IT'S ALL very odd. A big, tall, whitewashed room with padded walls: at one end sits Sheryl Crow with longtime guitar player Tim Smith – ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 1998
Kiss/ Hotter Than Hell// Dressed To Kill/ Alive!/ Destroyer/ Rock And Roll Over/ Love Gun/ Alive II/ Double Platinum/ Dynasty/ Unmasked/ Music From The Elder/ ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, February 1998
AC/DC's box- set tribute to late vocalist Bon Scott comes in packs of four or five CDs (remastered Back In Black optional). Includes rare and/or ...
Black Sabbath: NEC, Birmingham
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, February 1998
BLACK SABBATH. Industrial hell turned up to 11, baptised in blood and leather, and leather is cows and cows are sacred, and Heavy Metal doesn't ...
The High Llamas: High Llamas: Sean O'Hagan on Cold And Bouncy
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, February 1998
Sylvie Simmons talks to Sean O'Hagan ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 1998
THE BARRICADES on the pavement outside Claridges are draped with small girls in big Dr Martins who are gazing at a door. The door is ...
Jimmy Page/Robert Plant: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant: Walking Into Clarksdale
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mat Snow, MOJO, May 1998
WHEN, IN 1994, MTV approached Robert Plant – otherwise engaged making records with unknown youngbloods, and saying rude things about Jimmy Page for working with ...
Tori Amos: From The Choirgirl Hotel
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 1998
IT'S NOT at all what I expected. I'd spoken to Tori just before the album was completed, and the few finished tracks I'd heard were ...
The Plasmatics: Wendy O. Williams — Punk Dominatrix
Obituary by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, June 1998
"I LIKE THE sound of a gun, Wendy O. Williams once said. "It terrifies me. It makes the experience a little more intense." The gunshot ...
Willie Nelson: 10 Questions for Willie Nelson
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1998
Does writing and making records get harder or easier with time? ...
Manic Street Preachers: This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1998
FOLLOW-UP TO 1996's chart-topping Everything Must Go. Named after a line in a speech by miner's son and NHS founder Aneurin Bevan. ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 1998
R.E.M., MORE than just about any band you can name, were whacked mightily with the Great Rock Dilemma stick: how does an intelligent, introspective, underground ...
Iggy Pop: London, Shepherds Bush Empire
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1999
HE WALKS through the cones of striped, sick-white lights, shirt off, a graceful, sinewy man with an impossible six-pack and road-map veins. He sits down ...
The Black Crowes: Black Crowes: By Your Side
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 1999
THIS ALBUM rocks. And rolls. And nigh on rollicks. Where their last album loped, this one struts. The record it's most like is their 1990 ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 1999
THERE'S NOTHING BILL Callahan likes better than watching a Polaroid develop, "struck in this transition state, always surprising me". Some might say he needs to ...
The Del McCoury Band, Steve Earle: How Blue Was My Grass? Steve Earle & The Del McCoury Band
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 1999
DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT from 1997’s El Corazon, this excellent album is, in essence, a tribute to the late ‘Father of Bluegrass’ Bill Monroe, performed with Monroe’s ...
David Sylvian, Japan: David Sylvian
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 1999
He was the sensitive soul who fronted south London’s dodgiest glam-rockers, the World’s Most Lovely Man who chose tortured sainthood, pop’s preening popinjay who reinvented ...
Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music: 10 Questions for Bryan Ferry
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1999
Geordie space-crooner considers glam, going to the pictures with Eno, playing tennis against Tony Blair and life before rock. ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1999
Named after the NY street where Iggy and the ex Mrs Pop lived. Ten songs and three spoken word pieces recorded in a former East ...
Johnny Dowd: He’s About a Remover
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1999
"I’M REAL GOOD AT LOADING equipment. It’s funny ‘cos that’s always one thing that musicians gripe about, but it’s almost a relief for me after ...
Tom Jones: The Super Furry Animal
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1999
Welsh before it was fashionable, prefers a straight glass to a line, no stranger to ladies’ lingerie, possessed of legendary staying power... He is Tom ...
Pink Floyd: The Story of The Wall
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1999
ON JUNE 16 THIS YEAR Rick Wright finally did what every therapist advises: confronted his Nemesis. "I think I'm the only one who's actually seen ...
AC/DC: Rock's oldest juvenile delinquents greet the 21st century
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 2000
AC/DC: Stiff Upper Lip (EMI Liberty) ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, August 2000
Three themed, career-spanning compilations, selected and introduced by the Man In Black. Extra linernotes by June Carter (Love), U2's Bono (God) and Quentin Tarantino (Murder). ...
Victoria Williams: Water to Drink
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, September 2000
The helium-voiced singer's desert-recorded album, featuring Van Dyke Parks, Mark Olson, John Convertino (Giant Sand), DJ Bonebrake (X), Greg Leisz (k.d.lang), Danny Frankel (Marianne Faithfull) ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2000
Alt country wastrel goes it alone in the Apple. ...
Ozzy Osbourne: Ten questions for Ozzy Osbourne
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2000
Mr John Osbourne on running the marathon, talking to horses, and "drinking the occasional beer". ...
AC/DC Celebrate Their Quarter Century
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 2000
They've got all the essential ingredients: sweat, noise, booze – and choking on vomit. As AC/DC celebrate their quarter century, Sylvie Simmons toasts a band ...
Serge Gainsbourg: A Rake's Progress
Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 2001
IF YOU WALK into the Montparnasse cemetery, the first thing you see is the enormous stone double bed where Charles Pigeon – the inventor of ...
Bonnie "Prince" Billy: Ease Down The Road
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 2001
There's a party on his patio, and Will Oldham's in a hellish good mood. All hail His Royal Happiness, says Sylvie Simmons. ...
Lucinda Williams: Even Cowgirls Get The Blues
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, August 2001
A HOT SUNDAY AFTERNOON. PEOPLE IN CUT-OFFS AND STETSONS sprawl along the banks of the Cumberland River, sucking beers, fanning themselves with stiff paper fans ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2001
He stole hearts and sought refuge in Hydra, bagged a celebrity fiancée, then disappeared to a monastery. Sylvie Simmons talks through the many lives of ...
The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 2002
Brian Wilson and 10-piece band perform, from start to finish, the album that topped MOJO's 100 Greatest Albums Of All Time poll, plus career-encompassing opening ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 2002
A year ago, Kurt Wagner was laying floors. Now his country-soul collective Lambchop have become Nashville's strangest success story ...
Marianne Faithfull With Special Guests: Only Connect Festival, Barbican, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 2002
SHE SLINKS on wearing a black suit with impossibly tight trousers and smoking a cigarette. Four young men play 'Sex With Strangers' dry, cobwebby beat, ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 2002
NOT A DOUBLE but two individual albums, released at the same time. Your choice. There's Alice, skewed and drowsy, with wonky percussion and soft, smudged, ...
Arthur Lee: 10 Questions for Arthur Lee
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, June 2002
On your recent US warm-up date you asked, "What did the monkey say after the pitbull bit off his tail?" ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, June 2002
UNPLUGGED IS one of Leon Russell's "least favourite terms in modern music". But unplugged, more or less, is what this is – recorded at the ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2002
THE PA IN THIS grim, dispiriting venue – outright winner of the industrial-estate self-storage-unit-impersonating-lkea-during-the-sales lookalike contest – has started, somewhat disconcertingly, to blare out 'Fanfare ...
Neil Young: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2002
DANGEROUS PLACE, Brixton. Neil Young figured he should alert the 4,300 fans who packed out his first night at the Academy that if he played ...
The Blasters: Testament: The Complete Slash Recordings
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2002
2-CD set featuring The Blasters (1980), Non Fiction ('83), Hard Line ('85) a covers EP and seven unreleased extras. ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, September 2002
"BLOOD", "FIRE", "dust", "dark", "empty" – the same words keep recurring. Lights shutting out, black hole in the sun, buildings burning, that lonely desperation that ...
Peter Gabriel: Gods And Monkeys
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 2002
Gabriel's long-awaited follow-up to '92's US. Musicians include Peter Green, The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Daniel Lanois and Nusrat Fatch All Khan. ...
The Rolling Stones: Rolling Stones: Shattered
Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 2002
FEBRUARY 1977. KEITH RICHARDS, SLEEPING like a baby, is being carried around his hotel room in the arms of a Canadian Mountie. There are other ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 2002
BETWEEN HIS spare solo debut Heartbreaker and last year's swaggering Gold – the one where he sounded like he'd swallowed a jukebox of Stones, Who ...
The Carter Family: Into The Valley
Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2002
FIRST KILL YOUR HOG. SKIN IT, singe off the hairs and leave the hide to soften. Tug it over a round frame, whittle out a ...
Johnny Cash: The Man Comes Around (American Recordings)
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 2002
WEIGHTED DOWN by the difficult circumstances behind its recording – illness, hospitalisations, two bouts of pneumonia this past year alone, speculation that the increasingly fragile ...
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 2003
Thirty-five years ago, ex-felon Johnny Cash was invited to perform in two of America's toughest prisons – one of which he was no stranger to ...
Ozzy Osbourne: The Death of Randy Rhoads
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 2003
"RANDY WAS my best friend," says Ozzy Osbourne. "He was also the greatest musician I have ever known. Back when we had no dough, we ...
Townes Van Zandt: Wanderin' Star
Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 2003
What do you do when you're really down? Listen to Townes Van Zandt Sylvie Simmons charts the artistic triumphs and personal disasters of sadness's most ...
Obituary by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2003
A country matriarch says goodbye. ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2003
Composing concept albums, directing movies, baiting republicans, Neil Young in 2003 remains as complex and slippery as ever. "Shakey's been very busy lately," he tells ...
The Band of Blacky Ranchette: Still Lookin' Good To Me
Review by Sylvie Simmons, The Guardian, 2 October 2003
...
The Byrds, David Crosby: David Crosby: A Long Strange Trip
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2003
Over the past 40 years David Crosby has done it all, from crafting transcendental, psychedelic harmonies for the Byrds and CSNY to living a life ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2003
Thirteenth and final studio album. Guest appearances by an impressive list of pals. ...
Ryan Adams: "I've Been Jumping Off Bridges"
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, The Guardian, 21 November 2003
THE ONE GOOD thing about projectile vomiting is that at least your T-shirt stays clean. Ryan Adams's frat-house top is a spotless scarlet, its brightness ...
Ed Harcourt: Bush Hall, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, The Guardian, 18 December 2003
THE SOUND MAN is got up as Santa and a roadie is dressed as an elf. There's tinsel around the mic stand and an inflatable ...
Frank Zappa: Shhhh… Genius At Work
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 2004
Zappa spent much of his final 10 years slaving over a hot mixing desk. Sylvie Simmons met him in the studio as he tried to ...
Brian Wilson — Grin and bear it
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, The Guardian, 23 January 2004
WHEN BRIAN WILSON had his nervous breakdown in the 1960s, he was working on a concept album called Smile. His fellow Beach Boys dismissed it ...
Lambchop: Aw Cmon /No You Cmon
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, February 2004
Not a double album, we're told, though you can't buy one without the other. Nashville country-soul collective's seventh (and eighth) full-length release(s). ...
The Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson: Smile? Don't mind if I do…
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 2004
It was due in January 1967. But the Beach Boys' Smile LP was shelved when its creator Brian Wilson refused to finish it. Now he ...
Jolie Holland: Spectral Americana
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 2004
HERE'S SOMETHING eerie and ectoplasmic about Jolie Holland's solo debut, Catalpa. The beguiling voice and haunting music sound channelled from some mysterious backwoods past. Holland, ...
The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson: Hello Goodbye: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 2004
Hello: September 1961 ...
David Byrne: 10 Questions for David Byrne
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 2004
The angular former Talking Heads frontman on love, war, the ariasof Verdi and Bizet, and the problems of "art by committee". ...
Jim White: Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 2004
Two years on from No Such Place, the prodigal Southerner makes a third metaphysical voyage. ...
Jolie Holland, Iron & Wine, Little Richard: Little Richard et al.: South By South West, Austin
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 2004
A marguerita-fuelled Glastonbury taking over a whole town for five days would have a hard time matching the glory and madness of this enormous musical ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, The Guardian, 13 May 2004
OF ALL OF THE underground country artists from the Texas panhandle (Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, etc) none is as quite as maverick, ...
The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Red Hot Chili Peppers: American Spice
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, The Independent, 16 June 2004
ANTHONY KEIDIS'S house, an expanse of glass and whiteness, is right on top of the Hollywood Hills. Walk down the steps into the vast, white, ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2004
After an eight-year wait, a new studio album from the musician Eric Clapton said he wouldn't mind being. ...
The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2004
Clowntime is over for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the L.A. punks who defied death, grunge and a burning crack den to play the music ...
Hayseed Dixie: Borderline, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, The Guardian, 12 August 2004
"I'M HERE TO TESTIFY", says front man Barley Scotch in one of many beer-fuelled, between-song spiels, "that Hank Williams' 'Lost Highway' and AC/DC's 'Highway to ...
Crosby and Nash: David Crosby and Graham Nash: Crosby & Nash (Sanctuary)
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, September 2004
Two CDs-worth of the duo's first new material in nearly three decades. ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Harp, September 2004
JORDAN IS a model. To be more precise, Jordan is a 'glamour' model. A blonde with monolithic, man-made breasts that make as regular an appearance ...
Howe Gelb, Giant Sand: Howe Gelb: True Grit
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, The Guardian, 3 September 2004
Howe Gelb, of Giant Sand, may be the hardest-working man in alt-country. But as he releases yet another record, he'd rather talk about mojitos and ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 2004
"HE COMES IN for coffee sometimes. Reads some poetry. They told me he was a musician. Tom Wait. Never heard of Tom Wait." Little Amsterdam's ...
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2004
A year on, the world is still reeling from the death of Johnny Cash, the speed-crazed rock'n'roller who became America's defining voice. From tragedy to ...
Alison Krauss and Union Station: Lonely Runs Both Ways
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 2005
Contradictory country star's studio follow-up to 2002's double live album, Live. ...
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 2005
"THE WORK," Cave told MOJO, "of a genius." Though his tongue was presumably not too many miles from his cheek, he was spot on. This ...
Richard Buckner: Dents and Shells
Review by Sylvie Simmons, The Guardian, 14 January 2005
THERE ARE THREE kinds of American folk artist: those who sit, contented, on a back porch contemplating America's landscape and ways; those for whom its ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, February 2005
Wooed by Dylan, ripped off by Jagger, too hardcore for Burroughs. A drug addict who recovered to make grainy, dramatic music rife with sex and ...
The Gun Club, Jeffrey Lee Pierce: The Ballad Of Jeffrey Lee Pierce
Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 2005
He coulda been a contender. Instead, the Gun Club's avatar of prescient, blues-blasted voodoo rock destroyed himself in a shower of drugs and booze. Sylvie ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 2005
Listen up limeys! From the Velvets to The Raven, Lou Reed has remained pure, "professional" and the scourge of "asshole journalists". And he's still here. ...
Beck: The Man Who Wasn't There
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, June 2005
Beck's back, with a b-boy bouillabaisse to compare with his grooviest work. But behind the impassive visage, what's really going on? And can he really ...
Devendra Banhart: Cripple Crow
Review by Sylvie Simmons, The Guardian, 16 September 2005
DEVENDRA BANHART, the itinerant Texan minstrel with a base in San Francisco, has come a long way since his low-fidelity, high-word-count debut Oh Me Oh ...
Neil Young: Ryman Auditorium, Nashville
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2005
From rock opera to Grand Ole Opry. Neil Young and a cast of dozens play Nashville. ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2006
… but not when you have the constitution of a warthog and you're the Lewis gun of the bass guitar. Cue tales of Sid Vicious, ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2006
A "metal folk protest album", says Neil. Made in 10 days, and remarkably good too. ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: Rock Of Ages
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 2006
Hard-headed master of the American rock song, soft-hearted support system to superannuated superstars, Tom Petty crowns 30 years' making albums with his best since Wallflowers. ...
Drive-By Truckers: Brighter Than Creation's Dark
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 2008
Seventh studio album by the Athens, Georgia-based Southern rockers finds them regrouped and stronger than ever. ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Q, May 2008
Stevie Nicks is the epitome of California rock excess. While in Fleetwood Mac, she sold millions and snorted half of Colombia. Solo, she sold millions ...
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, September 2009
IT'S A SUNNY morning in San Francisco but the hotel conference room is dark, empty except for an enormous table circled by chairs. One of ...
Midlake: 'I Wish I'd Heard Black Sabbath in High School'
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, The Guardian, 28 January 2010
Texas rockers Midlake grew up playing jazz, but fell headlong into a love affair with vintage rock. Here they talk about their latest fixations, and ...
Phosphorescent: Muchacho (Dead Oceans)
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 2013
Guys and dolls: Houck embraces his inner Eno. ...
Steve Earle: Travellin' man. Songs by the New Depression's chronicler
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 2013
THERE'S NO myth quite so enduring in American popular music as a highway — folk, country, pop or rock'n'roll, it runs endlessly through them all, ...
J.J. Cale: Real Gone: J.J. Cale
Obituary by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2013
Call him the breeze. The originator of the Tulsa Sound died age 74 of a heart attack in California. ...
The Rolling Stones: Anita Pallenberg on Exile On Main Street
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Please Kill Me!, 20 June 2017
IT WAS JUST a moment in time, a time when legends lived like fucking legends. I remember as a kid seeing paparazzi photos in the ...
The Innocence Mission: See You Tomorrow (Bella Union)
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, February 2020
Follow-up up 2018's Sun On The Square. ...
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