And if it weren’t for us, they would not be who they are.” Page was more meaningful still. Groupies enhanced these people’s lives in a huge way. “I was the muse,” she adds, “and I don’t care what people say about that. It was my duty as a muse to take care of this brilliant genius who inspired so many. When he’d wake up screaming about being a murdering fuck I could calm him. “He was such a needy soul… I was a stabilising thing for him. Wild nights out: Des Barres on the town with Keith Moon of the Who. I knew that whenever he came to town he’d call no one but me,” Des Barres recalls, wistful even now for the tragic Moon the Loon, who died in 1978 aged 32. “I was Keith’s LA girl, and there was no doubt about it. But her relationship with Who drummer Keith Moon was considerably more important, even though she was simultaneously seeing renegade country singer Waylon Jennings. But before we get into that – and the still-no-holds-barred Des Barres, now 69, will happily get into that – let’s view a highlights reel.Īs depicted in the book, the gateway crush for the teenager who Robert Plant and Mick Jagger would come to call “Miss Pamela” was the singer with San Diego band Iron Butterfly. If groupie behaviour was judged then – the loose morals of silly girls, exploited by lascivious rock stars – it can appear even less savoury today. But they do so totally willingly, sometimes hoping for a romance, or a one-night stand – or sometimes hoping to marry them,” Des Barres hoots. “A fan is content with an autograph or a look from the stage, or a selfie. “A groupie is someone who loves the music so much she wants to be around the people who make it,” she explains.
A groupie is someone who loves the music so much she wants to be around the people who make it She alchemised adolescent Beatles fandom into a new type of ardour: that of the groupie. Led Zep, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, the Kinks, the Who… These were many of the greatest acts of the cultural revolution, and Pamela – who turned 20 in 1968 – knew them all. Photograph: Ed Caraeff/Morgan Media/Getty Images
Girls in the band: the GTOs, Los Angeles, 1969 (Pamela is in front).
0 kommentar(er)
