Michael Simmons

Danny Goldberg

About a Man: On Managing Kurt Cobain

Michael Simmons
Music biz macher, political activist and author Danny Goldberg’s new book is Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain (Ecco), a reminiscence of his time as Nirvana’s co-manager and confidante to the band’s late leader....
Credit: Ryan Hartford/CAP UCLA

Joan Baez Takes a Knee — The Queen of Folk's Last Waltz

Michael Simmons
Last Saturday, Royce Hall at UCLA in Westwood was sold out for Joan Baez’s Fare Thee Well…Tour 2018. At the age of 77, the folk music icon and political activist decided to end formal touring after almost 60 years on the road with one last go around the U.S., U.K. and Europe. Before the concert her fans milled about Royce Hall’s lobby and outdoor patio. While all ages were represented, the majority were old enough to have seen her perform in the 1960s....
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Beatles Stories

Michael Simmons
  Of Fabs & Fans   Cultural fragmentation is a pervasive marker of The Twenty-Worst Century, however virtually everyone adores The Beatles. Director Seth Swi...

Hendrix on Hendrix

Michael Simmons
  Books   Best Proof That One Can Talk While Playing Guitar With One’s Teeth   “Once you are dead, you are made for life,” said Jimi Hendrix in 1969, a ye...
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Oliver Stone

Michael Simmons
Despite our creation myth, the story of America can be legitimately explained as one motherfucker after another chopping down the cherry tree and not copping to it. Along with metaphorical trees, millions of Indians, blacks, Latinos, Asians, dissidents, free thinkers - and citizens of other nations - were bugled to......
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Poems for Sociopaths

Michael Simmons
"At last, their smugness is united: their compatible vacuity, their insufferable beaming. They were meant for each other . . . ." So reads a portion of the opening poem from John Tottenham's new collection, Antiepithalamia & Other Poems of Regret and Resentment (Penny-Ante Editions). Epithalamia are classical odes to......
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Sincerely L. Cohen

Michael Simmons
Sincerely L. Cohen As a young teenager, Leonard Cohen literally hypnotized the clothes off the family maid, an act followed by lifelong obsessions with the mysteries of consciousness and naked dames. Author/journalist/ukulele goddess Sylvie Simmons spent three years researching and writing the definitive Cohen biography I'm Your Man (Ecco), and......
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Michael Ochs

Michael Simmons
In 1977, Michael Ochs founded and made available the most comprehensive collection of rock photography in the world — the aptly named Michael Ochs Archives. "It brought out my mischievous side when clients or artists came down to see a specific picture," Ochs remembers. For instance, after showing standard Supremes......