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I don't know why I thought I might enjoy this. I read "I'm With The Band" a number of years ago and found Des Barres to be a horrendous writer and little material salacious enough to make it a guilty pleasure. I guess I thought it would be a good beach read. She's still a terrible writer, her giggly style grew tiresome (if not downright annoying) fairly quickly, and frankly her interviews with other notorious groupies were either boring or just kind of sad. So many of them left unloving homes at pretty young ages, hoping for the dream of marrying a rock star, living a totally glamorous life. Two exceptions were the chapters on Gail Zappa and on Pleather, a male groupie that seemed to be part of the Seattle/NW scene in the 90's. Both came off as much more literate and thoughtful than the others profiled, and ultimately much more believable as sympathetic muses that could and would actually help TCB in terms of the business/BS part of the job, allowing musicians to focus on what they do best.
i can't believe i read this totally sexist filthy book and then i couldn't get enough of it. i read half of it with my mouth hanging open - not because of the sex stuff, but because of the characters in the book. i always thought that the groupie excuse of wanting to be closer to the music never worked, because you could just play music. then one of the groupies in the book said that it hurt her hands to play guitar so she just quit. so, ladies, it's not about the music. it's about screwing the guy playing the music. let's tell it like it is. anyway, this trainwreck of a book is totally entertaining and equally horrifying - with pictures of cocks!
What did I learn? Oh, my! I learned that Jimmy Page likes to lecture young girls, Jimi Hendrix was a sweet, fun fellow, Tom Jones is a cad, groupies are ancient at 15, if you're really good, they'll put you in a song, it's very extremely important for girls to be skinny, and Elvis is apparently the best conversationalist in the history of Rock and Roll. This could be utter trash, however, Pamela Des Barres is a deceptively good writer. There's a dismal overtone that rather depressed me, and I think it might be the editor/publisher at fault. What's with that awful cover photo?
Having previously published her own experiences as a glamorous, gracious companion to rock stars, Pamela Des Barres is the perfect author for this collection of interviews with groupies. A number of the subjects have led full, fascinating lives (Gail Zappa was my favorite). However, despite their protests to the contrary, most of the people in this book are stereotypical groupies. They get an ego boost, and a sense of personal validation from being a "chosen one," even if they're only "chosen" for a quickie in a bathroom. Miss Pamela's bubbly, albeit trite writing style was the only thing that kept me going to the end. I couldn't give this book more than two stars, because I found it so overwhelmingly sad and lonely. These women see themselves as high priestesses in service of the music, but mostly they resemble human sacrifices--willingly offering their bodies, and hearts to rocker appetites. At best, no one regretted sleeping with rock stars (they had other regrets, but not regarding groupie sex). Sill, very few have found lasting love anywhere else in their lives.
This is a series of interviews with (in the groupie/Heavy Metal/Hard Rock/ Punk scene) women, and one man who profess to be groupies. The gossipy tone of the author's voice wore a little thin for me toward then end. There's a lot of cheap, sordid and vulgar here, but that pretty much goes with the turf and I'd probably have been disappointed if it wasn't there. I picked up the book at the library with the idea that I'd learn more about the rock stars, but I should have known - and there's no false marketing here - the story is about the groupies themselves. It's serves that subject well.
A werewolf gang-war mini-epic written in free verse (!!!). If it had stopped...
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