GROUPIE GETS THE SPOTLIGHT
Pamela Des Barres, linked to the biggest names in rock, will tell stories from her life Sunday at the Whisky
Pamela Des Barres knows the Sunset Strip has changed since its rock 'n' roll heyday in the '60s and '70s when she, then known as Miss Pamela, roamed its sidewalks.
But these days, amid the ghosts of bands and fans and venues, you can sometimes still find Des Barres, a memoirist of that heady time and place, and when you do, well, odds are good she's at the Whisky a Go Go, her home away from home in those glamorous days gone by.
“I do these rock 'n' roll tours,” says Des Barres, who's been called the most famous groupie who ever lived, a title she laughs off as the result of telling tales and naming names in her 1987 autobiography, “I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie.”
“We go into the Whisky and I said, `This is where this and that happened,' ” she says of the occasional tours she leads. “I mean, no one can even believe that I saw live on that little stage the Who, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. On that tiny stage. No one can believe that.
“But it was such a hip place,” Des Barres says. “You know, like, Zeppelin would play the Forum one night and then get up onstage at the Whisky. It's a magical place.
“Because of Zappa, who I was aligned with in many different ways, I was there a lot,” she says. “He played there quite a bit. The GTOs, the girl group we put together with Frank, we opened for Alice (Cooper) and the Mothers there one time. Our first real gig was at the Whisky.
“So it's really a very special place. The walls ooze, shall we say?”
On Sunday, Des Barres will return to that tiny stage inside the landmark Whisky in West Hollywood for a live show called “Take Another Little Piece of My Heart,” after the second memoir she published, in 1992, which borrowed its title from the Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company hit “Piece of My Heart” from 1968.
It's a show she debuted at the Whisky on Sept. 9, her 75th birthday, which mixes readings from her memoirs with asides that the books inspire, bits of music from the artists she loved or who inspired her, while photographs and video clips are shown on a screen behind her.
She'll probably talk about her girlhood crushes on Elvis Presley, Dion and Paul McCartney, which she dutifully chronicled in the diaries she religiously kept from girlhood through young adulthood. She'll definitely talk about some of the famous musicians she fell for as a fan and sometimes lover, names that include Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, Chris Hillman of the Byrds and Keith Moon of the Who.
“Whatever comes to my mind — it's very off the cuff,” Des Barres says of the night that will also include a Q-and-A hosted by her rock star exhusband, Michael Des Barres. “Just about my crazy, amazing, unpredictable, insane, glorious life in the '60s and early '70s.”
In an interview edited for length and clarity, Des Barres talked about her show and books, the bands and men she knew in different degrees of intimacy, and what people get wrong about groupies.
QTell me more about what special things you've planned for your show at the Whisky.
AGram Parsons was a good friend of mine, and I share a piece of clothing that I made for him, that his ex-wife gave me. And Polly Parsons, his daughter, is my producer, and she's directing this one, actually.
That's a full-circle thing. Gram called me one evening (in 1969) and said, `My fiancée Nancy's in town with my daughter Polly. I wanted to take her out to dinner; could you come babysit?' I was 19 years old, just enamored with all things Gram and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Byrds, everything. Of course, I was thrilled to do that. So I met Polly when she was not quite a year and a half old and now she's my manager.
It's pretty far out. Talk about fullcircle, cosmic American music, man.
QWhat's it like to do this show onstage at the Whisky, a club where you spent countless nights watching bands from the audience?
AOh, it's incomprehensible. I was not up on the stage with the GTOs. We performed our act on the dance floor. Which at that time, the dance floor was elevated and had a little fence around it. It was almost a stage. But yeah, it's very different, looking out into the audience from the stage. It's just incredible what went on there through the years.
Jim Morrison. I've got incredible Jim Morrison stories I tell about the Whisky there. (The Doors) played several nights in a row there regularly. Sometimes people can't relate to that. They think of Jim Morrison as this Greek god and everything. But he was a guy.
QSo when you're telling these stories, what's it like to be taken back to when you were a teenage girl from Reseda going over the hill to Hollywood night after night to hit the scene?
AI was 16. I was still in high school when I met Captain Beefheart at the Teenage Fair because his cousin went to my high school. I didn't really get involved with romantic relationships with musicians until I was really 19. But I was there. I was on the Strip. I was at all the shows.
I was making out with some of these people, but, you know, I was still very old-fashioned, really. Brought up in the '50s. So I wanted to be in love to give my all, so to speak.
QHow many diaries do you have from back then? Is it like a bookshelf filled with them?
AOh, yeah. I started writing in my diary when I was — I think it was my eighth or ninth Christmas. My mom got me a diary, those little diaries that lock, you know. And I already loved to write, so I just felt obligated to write in that thing.
QI want to ask you about the term groupie. On your podcast (“Pamela Des Barres' Pajama Party”) recently, you described the essence of being a groupie as love.
AThat's it. We loved the music. We wanted to be around it. Also, for me, where did it come from? How did they do that? Can I do anything near that level of genius and brilliance? Any great art touches the audience member and makes an equal with that person, I believe. Like a Springsteen show, people are 100% united. I've never missed him, because besides being a massive fan, I want to feel that from thousands of people. I want to be immersed in it.
QI don't think people understand that. I think they think it's just people having sex with rock stars when it's not really that.
AWell, that's part of it. But everyone was having sex. Everyone. We just happened to have it with really cool people. People that everyone else wanted to have sex with. (Laughs.)
QExactly.
(Laughs.)
AAnd it was a time when you could do that. A rare time when all of a sudden women had some rights, and I took advantage of it. I mean, I took the birth control pill in front of people on the Sunset Strip, and I assume that was an act of feminism. That's what really pisses me off, too. They say “groupies” — I get accused still of being a submissive slut, you know, and it's just absurd. Absurd.
QWhat's next for you? I've heard you might take this show on the road.
AWell, in November I did the show in London and it was great. Polly has gotten me a booking agent and we're trying to line up some venues in New York and San Francisco and Austin. Nashville. I'm hoping to take it out on the road.
My other stuff, I just finished a book with Jane Petty, Tom Petty's wife of 25 years. It's called “American Girl,” and it's about their relationship. I'm just now writing my third memoir, “Sex, God, and Rock and Roll,” about my lifelong spiritual quest.