The bizarre world of rock and roll is uncovered by novelist Sylvie Simmons
– and a lot of it is very, very weird, writes Tom Foot

Too Weird for Ziggy by Sylvie Simmons
Atlantic Works, £7.99

SYLVIE Simmons thinks she has got it pretty good. She lives in San Francisco, follows rock and roll around the world for a top music magazine, and now has a new best seller.
Simmons grew up in NW1, cutting her teeth as a music journalist in Kentish Town and Camden Town. “In those days, Camden was the rock and roll centre of the universe,” she says. Much of Too Weird For Ziggy is written from the perspective of a Camden journalist. That person is clearly a younger Ms Simmons. Only a true Camdenite would have the inside track on the area. Her chapter ‘Love Stain’ ends: “Camden Council is notoriously crap at cleaning up.”
Simmons, who has been on the road with many famous groups and even interviewed the troubled star Michael Jackson, is best known for her acclaimed biography of Serge Gainsbourg, A Fistful of Gitanes. Gainsbourg rose to fame in the mid 1950s with a succession of hits and a high profile relationship with actress Jane Birkin, who supplied the ecstatic highs for the banned Je T’aime.
Simmons’ first work of fiction, Too Weird for Ziggy, has its own celebrity couple, Spike and Pussy. The novel explores the bizarre world of rock and roll, cleverly weaving together a selection of short stories from insanely focused PR men, fans blinded by hero-worship and rock stars on the verge of mental breakdown. “It’s like a rock version of Sex and the City,” says the author.
The title comes from a real story Simmons heard on the road – of a party that was too weird even for Iggy (Pop). But even though Iggy read and liked the book, he didn’t want his name to be used. His solicitors weighed in and the title had to be changed.
“That was a shame because he really liked it – I guess you could say the book really was too weird for Iggy. Sometimes I feel like going round all the book shops and scrubbing out the Z.”
Ms Simmons is now the LA correspondent for music magazine Sounds. Before that she spent 11 years writing for Mojo. She says she is one of the few ‘lifers’ left in the world of music journalism. With obscene dialogue and stories including a lead singer growing breasts on tour, an MTV sponsored séance, and a lead singer who hoards her own hair and fingernail clippings, you get the feeling only a ‘lifer’ could have written this book.
“It’s a great subject,” she says. “Because it has no boundaries you can get away with writing whatever you like – anything is possible.”
Simmons recalls the time she spent on the road with country singer Johnny Cash. “He used to get up to all sorts. Amphetamines, you name it. I remember once he was found frozen to a tree. If you believe that about Johnny Cash, you can believe any of my stories.”
But whilst the stories are memorable for their absurdity, they are also remarkably dark.
“I wanted to show the degradation of fame,” she says, “people don’t think about that enough.” Ms Simmons certainly seems to have benefited from keeping at arms length from the world she reports on.
She retains a real zest for life and comes across like a rock star without the burden of celebrity. She was even stalked by an obsessed fan with a mixture of death threats and confessions of love in her post box. Simmons admits her work draws heavily on her own experience.
She said: “I can’t understand writing about something you don’t know. I wouldn’t be able to do that. All these stories come from little kernels of my life. I was riffing on experience.”
Simmons’ turn of phrase is key to understanding what Too Weird For Ziggy is all about. She feels that her words are like notes, and that reading the book is a musical as well as a literary experience. “I call it a literary rock album,” she says, “with 18 chapters instead of tracks.” The blurb on the back reads: “Too Weird for Ziggy has the devastating humour, punch and hook of a great pop tune.”
With many more tales to tell, Sylvie Simmons’ first work of fiction is unlikely to be her last.