After watching Oliver Stone’s movie The Doors four times Dean Goodman left his job in 1992 and flew from New Zealand to Jim Morrison’s old haunt of Venice Beach. Hooked on the Los Angeles lifestyle, he landed a job at Reuters news agency writing about pop music.
Now, 22 years later he has recorded his often bizarre experiences in a book, Strange Days: The Adventures of a Grumpy Rock ‘n ‘Roll Journalist in Los Angeles.
Travelling around the city by bus, he landed interviews with most of the leading music figures of the 90s. He relates his interviews with David Bowie, Michael Hutchence and Gene Simmons among many others, and tells of talking with the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten in the bar of Ye Olde King’s Head in Santa Monica. The interview ended with Rotten storming out, leaving his Guinness, which Goodman promptly drank.
He also relates how Steve Tyler’s drug-fuelled behaviour threatened Aerosmith’s comeback, what Queen drummer Roger Taylor told him about Freddie Mercury’s AIDS-related death, why Billy Idol was ridiculed for embracing the Internet and how Phil Collins’s fans deserted him.
Goodman is not afraid to tell stories against himself, among them how his exclusive story of the Spice Girls splitting up caused a sensation in the British newspapers and was instantly denied by the Spice Girls themselves.
The book, written with humour and insight, is a must-read for those who were either interested or involved in the Los Angeles rock scene of the 90s.
– John Hiscock
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