PAMELA DES BARRES: THE LIFE OF A ROCK 'N' ROLL GROUPIE

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PAMELA DES BARRES: THE LIFE OF A ROCK 'N' ROLL GROUPIE

“I rushed home from school every day to throb along to Mick while he sang ‘I’m a king bee baby, let me put it in’ [...] Someday I will touch and feel him, I know it. Mick my dear, dear PENIS!’’

Pamela Des Barres was not the first virtuous schoolgirl in heat to be giddy and lovesick for rock n roll and its idols. She certainly proved to possess cosmic clairvoyant capabilities, though, as within the space of few years she would be seducing a myriad of rock deities, including her delectable teen-dream Mick Jagger. Like many of the post-war baby boomers growing up in the sixties, Pamela was catapulted from traditional suburbia to its antithesis; radical and unorthodox hippiedom. It was no surprise then, that the vocation she pursued was as one of the first and most famous groupies. Now a published author, Pamela has released a set of memoirs that recount her adventures as an original groupie and share her unique experiences of what it was like to be part of a generation that threw caution to the wind.

THE WEST IS THE BEST

The first (and best) of Pamela’s memoirs to chronicle her super groupie past, ‘I’m With The Band’, is a deeply personal foray into her involvement with the Laurel Canyon music scene of the late 1960's. Affectionately named ‘Gods Golden Backyard’, The Laurel Canyon neighbourhood of Los Angeles achieved considerable notoriety as the epicentre of the heady ‘hippie’ counterculture movement. At a time when the incensed Californian air was heavy with protest and moral drama, and significant cultural shifts were beginning to take shape, an impressionable, doe-eyed Pamela found herself in the eye of a very trippy storm. Spending her formative years at seminal music bar Whisky a Go Go, the beating heart of the burgeoning hippie movement, she made the acquaintance of musicians such as the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Love. Pamela later met two incredibly forward thinking musicians who would change the course of her life forever; Captain Beefheart and creative mentor of her groupie group (the GTO’s), Frank Zappa. Pamela’s narrative gives a delicious, acid-hazed snapshot of the hippie lifestyle; the thrill of being part of the first generation to rebel, to taste sexual liberation and to expand its consciousness. Beautifully unapologetic, ‘I’m With The Band’ shines an unflinching light onto the groupie phenomenon; Pamela gives a detailed account of a free-love lifestyle wild enough to shake the palms on the Sunset Strip. The Golden State’s groupie supreme dallied, fellated and fucked her way through what seems like an endless list of revered rock royalty; Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Jim Morrison, Robert Plant, Keith Moon and Noel Redding all get a mention. Bizarrely, there remains a very innocent and vulnerable element to her character, even as she casually recalls some of the more shocking anecdotes from her past such as Jimmy Page’s S&M penchant and Chuck Berry’s No. 2 fetish. Let it be remembered, however, that this chapter in history was not merely a fornication free-for-all, and that the ideals of the movement ran deeper than sexual promiscuity.  The fervently anti-authoritarian hippie movement advocated a total rejection of the stagnant, conservative American values and outdated ideas that existed, in favour of peace, communalism and sexual freedom. At long last colour exploded into the dull grey landscape of post-war America. Love was ubiquitous, emotional utopia close...

A LIBERAL REBELLION

Love them or loathe them, no historian could deny the profound impact that hippies and their far-out philosophy made on the Western world. There are of course those who will refute that it was in any way positive, insisting the movement was nothing more than a series of events perpetrated by a purple-hazed youth, which spawned negative consequences for society such as the popularisation of drugs. The hypocritical Nicolas Sarkozy once blamed the sixties for ‘a crisis of morality’, yet without this decade, the twice-divorced French president almost certainly wouldn’t be president at all. The Sixties movement stood for freedom, equality and acceptance of diversity and their ethics remain to this day. We are indebted to the counterculture movement for the many freedoms we now have; it was a time that created a rising consciousness of homosexuality and bisexuality, of gender roles and racism. However, it’s perhaps true, also, that the liberal ideals of the movement were a double edged sword and that ideas of changing the world for the better were actually counterproductive. Is the flower power generation in some way accountable for the present-day ‘Me’ generation? The ‘Me’ generation, or its alternative Apple-inspired moniker the ‘iGeneration’? It seems that nowadays morality is a choice, not a duty.

That said, it would be impossible and ignorant to classify the status quo as being wholly symptomatic of a single movement. Disregarding the positive or negative consequences, what the hippie movement essentially did was contest authority, an action always worthy of great applause. Those who are willing to challenge authority are imperative to society - and such a generation has seldom been more essential than it is in the post-recession era of privatisation and impending plutocracy.

To end on a - legally - high note, rumours are a-circulating of a film adaptation of ‘I’m With The Band’, with Zooey Deschanel touted to play Pamela, if the film is anywhere near as impressive as the book, it’ll be a box smash.