I'm With the Band by Pamela Des Barres
Confessions of a Groupie
First published in 1987, I'm With the Band chronicles the life of the legendary rock groupie of the 60s and 70s – Pamela Des Barres. Eighteen years later, this steamy tell-all was re-released with a new foreword by Dave Navarro and updates from the author herself.
Part memories, part journal entries, this memoir reveals the most private thoughts of a girl who not only slept with the biggest rock stars of the time, but loved and idolized them and the music they were making. As Des Barres wrote herself, “This is a story of a young girl stepping into the brave new world of the free-loving, freewheeling ‘60s – an era where anything could happen and it always did.”
The Queen of the Hips and the Rocks
As a teenager growing up in Reseda, California, Pamela Miller dreamed of falling in love and marrying a rock star. By the time she graduated high school, she was a regular on Sunset Strip, becoming a part of Hollywood’s local rock scene. “When it came right down to it, rock and roll groups were my life,” she wrote.
Spending most of her nights at the local hot spots, making friends and meeting band members, Pamela Miller soon became known as “the Queen of the Hips and the Rocks” on the Strip. Over the next few years, she would have relationships and sordid love affairs with some of the world’s greatest rock stars, including Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison, Jimmy Page, Waylon Jennings, Jimi Hendrix's guitarist, Noel Redding, and Michael Des Barres, the man she ended up marrying.
Confessions of a Groupie
Des Barres tells her story honestly and sweetly, revealing all the raw details. Her innocence and neediness come out in her smart and savvy tone as she bares all her secrets. To Des Barres, the drugs, alcohol and multitude of lovers were not to be looked down upon, they were a part of a life striving for love, a generation witnessing a revolution, a time of musical history that will never be matched.
The readers are given a rare glimpse into the lives of some very famous people and invited to places they could never imagine otherwise.
Imagine lying in bed with Jimmy Page, listening to the test pressing of Led Zeppelin II. Imagine touring with Led Zeppelin. Or living with Frank and Gail Zappa. Or making out with Jim Morrison backstage.
Imagine becoming famous yourself.
The GTO’s
After meeting Frank Zappa, Pamela Miller became a member of a girl group called The GTO’s. It was a name that Mr. Zappa chose and it had endless possibilities. Girls Together Only, Girls Together Outrageously, Overtly, Outlandishly, Openly, Organically were heading the groupie phenomenon and Pamela Miller quickly became Miss Pamela. The group recorded an album and even made the centerfold of Rolling Stone magazine.
Miss Pamela was living the life most people only dream about. But she still longed to marry a rock star.
The Future of a Rock Groupie
“I desperately wanted someone to be true to. I needed a rock and roll rock to lean on; a foundation, some gorgeous hunk to wake up with in the steamy afternoons,” Des Barres wrote.
Pamela met Michael Des Barres on January 24, 1974; it was his birthday. They were married four years later and have a son, Nicholas Dean, named after James Dean. They divorced after 13 years of marriage.
Pamela Des Barres has since written three more books, Let’s Spend the Night Together, Take Another Little Piece of my Heart, and Rock Bottom.
Des Barres, Pamela. I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, 2005, Chicago Review Press, Inc., (ISBN: 13: 978-1-55652-589-6; ISBN: 10: 1-55652-589-3)
I'm With the Band
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