An essay by Gioia / gioiagiovani

Photography: Alain Egues / alainegues

Styling: Hercules Terres / hercules_terres

Hair & Makeup: David Leegrenda / davidleegrenda

Model: Nick Falke
@ model werk

And if rock stars were thought to have nothing to lose, the same treatment was reserved for those who accompanied the rock stars on their travels: musical journeys and journeys psychedelics, physical and spiritual travels. Who were these people? Well, they were what jazz musicians called „band rat“, the Australians „band moll“; those who were defined by the newspapers as „star-fuckers“ (Rolling Stone). They were the other side of rock: groupies. “The thing I noticed immediately about these women was that they had spent a lot of time putting themselves together in ways that were so creative, you couldn’t believe it [...] they mixed together outfits of the day with things from antique clothing stores to create a real vision. They weren’t appearing half-naked to get the men’s attention. They were dressing up to put on a show. „ - says Baron Wolman, the photographer who blew up a Rolling Stone issue with the „groupie case“. And it was a real show, not surprisingly they became from sex symbols real style icons: according to designer Phillip Bloch it was them that created the vintage rock look. They were photographed in topless with pride, pursuing a personal identity. They mixed current clothes with ancient clothes to create a real vision, at times being extravagant and flashy. They wanted to break the rules.

In 1969 the word / groupies / appeared as the title of an autobiographical novel by Jenny Fabian, who made a lot of success thanks to the writer‘s groupies past life. When the book came out, intellectuals and writers, continually fell in love with her. At the time she was a 19-year-old freak following stars like Syd Barret of Pink Flyod, Andy Summers of The Police, passing through Animals, Soft Machine and Jimi Hendrix. What can I say? She had a lot of fun. However, the word at that time meant those girls who “haunted the rock groups from the underground scene”. It did not have, as Fabian explains, the meaning it has now: today groupies are everywhere, from theater, to music, to politics, while at the time it referred exclusively to rock context. Or rather, to more adult rock, the one inaugurated in ‚63 with the release of Times are changing by Bob Dylan, which found its maximum expression in the years of the double culture, made electrifying and deeply aware also by the use of drugs such as acids and psychedelics: it‘s all happening. And as the counter-culture of rock ‚n‘ roll grew, so too did the condition of musicians who would soon be known as „rock stars“. And no rock star, he was a real rock star without his „star-fuckers“. Today some feminists might disagree, and even at the time they abhorred groupies, they said that, in the end, they „perpetuated the patriarchal myth“. “The groupie is either a victim of brainwashing or was she an independent woman instead? Did she make her choices consciously? She could do as she pleased, or she had to please men, in the name of free love?„ Rolling Stone magazine wondered in 1969.

Gerald Rochman, Los Angeles Free Clinic psychologist, explained, about the groupies, who dealt with sex “the same way an accountant treats his new Buick: as a status symbol. Sex isn‘t a big deal within the community „continues Rochman“ it‘s just part of the sharing process „. It‘s true. Groupie and musicians, they were two souls that completed one another. They shared everything: food, houses, money, streets, backstage.

Richald Goldstein, famous critic of rock music, explained that the real groupies they had a very high reputation: “They had been chosen, but they too had chosen. THE musicians were selected by them. It was a mutual transmission of prestige through sex „. Some knew more about music than the artists themselves. Meanwhile, rock bands needed as much publicity as possible from newspapers, and being an established groupies allowed you to attract attention. Were seductive creatures, they lived an uninhibited life. “Groupies are very influential on the record market because they know so many people. If you‘re a hit with the groupies, you‘ll sell 15,000 records in L.A. alone „he replied Hoe to Rolling Stone. The status of a musician and that of a groupies fed each other, they were, to a certain extent sense, employees: they generated the exact answer to the logic of the music market. They were therefore loves deeply conditioned by music and the use of substances, but this did not necessarily take away from the authenticity of the relationships, on the contrary: “musicians impress me primarily as minds, as creative forces. What I love is good, solid music that makes you feel. But I don‘t hang out with musicians. „Speaking is Dusty Street, now remembered as a legendary rock radio DJ, but in her 20’s she was already touring among great musicians and was just entering the world of recording engineer with Mercury Records. Strictly speaking groupies, on the other hand, not only dated rock stars, they did all of the possible to make as many acquaintances as possible, and by doing this they acquired one deep, but also superficial, security. And anyway, let‘s remember that groupies, they were all different people. There was no one and only reason that pushed them to choose this lifestyle. For example, they had a sizeable fan base, the duo that made itself call The Plaster Casters of Chicago: they used to collect plastic dildos of the rock stars. The key operator was Cynthia Plaster Caster, whose first sculpture was dedicated to Jimi Hendrix‘s genitals in 1968. Brilliant. Frank Zappa, Noel Redding followed and other. Kiss dedicated the song „Plaster Caster“ to her.

There were the LA groupies, which were different from the New York ones, which were different from those of San Francisco. The former were the craziest, the most bizarre one. Frank Zappa was a strong supporter of them and, in this regard, remembers: „The incidence of lesbianism between groupies is high. Very high; and they think nothing of it. It‘s good that they can be bisexual. It shows they’re adapting to their needs. If it feels good, do it! With a dog, with a ketchup bottle, anyway at all it‘s groovy. „ It was not, however, a life without judgments. Pamela (Penny) Des Barres, remembered as one of the most amazing one, publishing in 1987 her biography “Confession of a groupie” telling: “I was considered a whore submissive, especially by other women. Yet I did what I wanted, it wasn‘t one what feminist wanted? Women came to me and asked me how I could degrade myself into that way and I would reply that I was sorry if I had slept with Mick Jagger and they didn’t”. Penny dresses up in her role as a groupie at a very young age, about 14 years old. She had relationships with real rock monuments such as Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Gram Parsons, as well Mick Jagger. Nancy Spungen, on the other hand, was Sid Vicious‘s girlfriend and was murdered under mysterious circumstances in 1978 in a hotel in New York where she lived with her partner.

When it was said that sexual liberation was a courtesy of men, in a certain sense, it‘s true: the groupies got drugs, fashionable clothes, even other girls if necessary to meet the needs of the musicians. They gave them what they immediately had to give. It is for this reason that groupies boys weren‘t always well accepted. So, those who existed, they were relegated to tasks such as tidying up records, helping with clothes, chauffering services. They wanted to be part of the whole, and they succeeded too, but they often ended up as the nurses of the musicians.

Anyways, yes, on the one hand, they were very submissive: but all women were submissive at the time. What counts is that in this order (or disorder) of things, they were able to experience a freedom which, in ordinary life, was not allowed. What matters is that, in a time when there was no room for women in the world of music, they earned it. „In plastic terms - sensual terms - where can you get more sensations? You get to ball, smoke dope, dress weird, be groovy, be around nothing but groovy people - all at once.”

Fine little girl She waits for me She‘s as plastic as she can be
She paints her face with plastic goo And wrecks her hair with shampoo Plastic people

Oh baby now - You‘re such a drag

Frank Zappa „Plastic People“

„Sally Mann, who was previously known as Spencer Dryden‘s girlfriend, the drummer for Jefferson Airplane, she now works as a lawyer.“

It would have been nice to be part of this world, in which “the extraordinary is banal, and the banality is a guilt. „Rolling Stone* Groupies and Other Electric Ladies collects the photographic service entirely dedicated to world of groupies.