Rock Groupies (October 2006 - November 2010)

[dinahgrace]

This thread is dedicated to those groupies of the 60'/70's in the world of rock 'n' roll.

Post pictures of any of your favorite groupie, rumors & happenings, who were their rockstar boyfriends, what you think of their fashion styles, or just any info about them.

You can post band aids too.

 

[dinahgrace]

Groupie definition:

What is a groupie?

A groupie is a person who, while she/he may be a fan on some level, seeks intimacy (most often physical, sometimes emotional) with a famous person.

Groupie is derived from group, meaning a musical band.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupie

 

[dinahgrace]

In film

Perhaps the best-known work dealing with groupies is the 2000http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000 Cameron Crowe movie, Almost Famous (although the groupie characters insist that they are, instead, "Band Aides"). Groupie is defined in that movie as follows:http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/almost_famous.html "Groupies sleep with rock stars because they want to be near somebody famous." Later, a character, looking at some groupies, says: "They don't even know what it is to be a fan. You know, to truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts."
In the movie Bull Durham, Susan Sarandon played a character named after groupies called Baseball Annieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Baseball_Annie&action=edit.
In the 2002 comedy movie, The Banger Sisters, Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn both play middle aged women who were groupies on the Sunset Strip in the 1970s. They meet up 20 years later in Phoenix, Arizonahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix,_Arizona and the encounter forces them both come to grips with their past. Hawn's character, Suzette, is an unemployed bartender, still wild as ever and somewhat delusional about her importance as a groupie. Sarandon's character, Lavinia, had re-invented herself by marrying a wealthy lawyer with political ambitions. She's become a suburban housewife who doesn't want her family to know that she was a groupie as a youth.
In The School of Rock, a young girl adamantly refuses to be given the role of 'groupie' as she says: "Groupies are sluts! They sleep with the band!" To which all she gets in reply: "No....they're like cheerleadershttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheerleaders."
In the biopic Sid and Nancy, Chloe Webb portrays Nancy Spungen, a punk and rock band groupie prior to becoming the girlfriend of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious.

In print

Pamela Des Barres wrote two books detailing her experiences as a groupie, I'm With The Band (1987) and Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up (1993), as well as another non-fiction book, Rock Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon.
Bebe Buell wrote a book about her experiences entitled Rebel Heart. Buell has gone on record as saying she does not consider herself a groupie. However, she is still labelled as such.
Karrine Steffans authored Diary of a Video Vixen. The book detailed her liaisons with famous hip-hop stars and athletes as well as the time she spent as a video girl and groupie.
Germaine Greer, the feminist writer and academic, told the New York Timeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times in an 1971 inteview that she had been a "supergroupie." "Supergroupies don't have to hang around hotel corridors," she said. "When you are one, as I have been, you get invited backstage. I think groupies are important because they demystify sex; they accept it as physical, and they aren't possessive about their conquests."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupie

 

[dinahgrace]

Songs about groupies:

Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
Gold Digger - Kanye West
Hey Baby - No Doubt
Little Martha - The Allman Brothers Band
Little T and A - The Rolling Stones
Livin' Lovin' Maid (she's just a woman) - Led Zeppelin
Move - Ludacris
Plaster Caster - Kiss
Psycho - System Of A Down
Ruby Tuesday - The Rolling Stones
Sick Again - Led Zeppelin
Some Girls - The Rolling Stones
Star Star - The Rolling Stones
Summer '68 - Pink Floyd
Superstar - The Carpenters
Sweet Little Sixteen - Chuck Berry
We're An American Band - Grand Funk

http://www.songfacts.com/search_fact.php?addsearch=1&about=More+songs+about+groupies

 

[dinahgrace]

Cynthia Plaster Caster

This is Cynthia Plaster Caster, "Queen of all Groupies".
​

A documentary, Plaster Caster has been filmed about her, and she has inspired at least one song: "Plaster Caster" by KISS.

http://pages.ripco.net/~economy/cynthia.html

 

[Whitelinen]

Interesting thread

Are you sure this shouldn't belong to the sub-forum of Star Style, Icons of the Past? I think this could bring up more discussion there...

 

[dinahgrace]

Thanks for that suggestion!

I think this thread can be in both Star Style and the art of noise, but I actually think that the moderators themselves placed it in the art of noise because when I started this thread, I decided to put it in the entertainment spot.

 

[Whitelinen]

Yes, it was in the Entertainment Spot when I wrote that.

I'd love to know more about groupies who are not well-known.

But what exactly is the definition of a groupie? What is your definition?

 

[dinahgrace]

I'd love to know more about groupies who are not well-known.

Me too, that's one of the main the reasons why I started this thread.

My definition of a groupie is a woman or a teenager (because some of the youngest groupies are about 13/14, can you belive that?) who is inlove with her idol and leaves home, goes to their concerts, meets with them, parties with them, and become their girlfriend, then go on tour with them, then eventually get dumped.

Being a groupie is not all about glamour and being famous, it's tough too. Imagine being dumped at a young age without knowing what love is all about.

Hang on White linen, i'll post some more groupie stuff.

Meanwhile, I saw vid of a 14 yr old. girl playing a guitar on Yahoo, she's amazing, thought you might like it.

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=388f2fd6bfd84caddbd6bcc3269e9ec6.914284&cache=1

 

[Whitelinen]

Thanks

 

[dinahgrace]

Lori Maddox

OK here's another groupie:

LORI MADDOX
(ex-girlfriend of Jimmy Page)
​

Jimmy Page and Lori Maddox​

Also known as: Lori Lightning, Lori Mattix
Born: 1958
Hometown: Los Angeles, California, USA

Romantically linked to: Jimmy Page, David Bowie, Angie Bowie

Lori Maddox was part of the wild Hollywood teenage groupie scene in the early 1970s. She reportedly lost her virginity at age 13 to David Bowie and Angie Bowie. One of her best friends was Sable Starr, who was the unofficial queen of the scene at the time. Lori, who was also known as Lori Lightning and Lori Mattix, wasn't as experienced as Sable, but Lori also became a regular at famous Hollywood groupie hangouts, like the Rainbow Bar & Grill, Rodney's English Disco, the Continental Hyatt House (also known as "The Riot House"), and the Whisky. Like Sable, Lori was often featured in Star magazine (a short-lived '70s magazine, not the Star magazine that's currently a tabloid), which often had articles detailing the activities of music groupies.


When Lori was 14 years old, she met a man who would change her life: Jimmy Page, guitarist of Led Zeppelin. Jimmy first spotted her when an associate of his showed Jimmy a picture of Lori. Jimmy was intrigued, and when Led Zeppelin stopped in Los Angeles on their 1972 tour, Jimmy immediately tried to get together with Lori. Even though Jimmy was dating groupie Pamela Des Barres at the time (back when she was known as Pamela Miller, aka Miss Pamela of the GTO's), Jimmy pursued Lori relentlessly. Lori has said she was still a virgin at the time and she was afraid of Jimmy at first. But Lori has contradicted herself by reportedly saying that she wasn't a virgin when she met Jimmy. Because of her groupie activities before she met Jimmy, it's more likely that she wasn't a virgin by the time she got together with him.


According to Lori, after Jimmy tried and failed several times to get together with her, Jimmy had Led Zeppelin's tour manager "kidnap" Lori and bring her back to the Continental Hyatt, the hotel where Led Zeppelin was staying. Lori was brought to Jimmy's room, where as she described in the Led Zeppelin book "Hammer Of The Gods": "It was dimly lit by candles...and Jimmy was just sitting there in a corner, wearing this hat slouched over his eyes and holding a cane. It was really mysterious and weird...He looked just like a gangster. It was magnificent."


That night, Jimmy and Lori began a torrid affair, but they had to keep their relationship a secret from the public since Lori was underage and Jimmy was at risk of being arrested. Jimmy was still seeing Pamela (and other women), and the relationship with Pamela reached a dramatic end when Jimmy took Pamela to a Led Zeppelin party but he left the party with Lori. Pamela was said to be very bitter about being dumped by Jimmy, and Pamela considered Lori an "enemy" of hers for years.


Lori and Jimmy were said to be very much in love and they carried on a relationship for the next year and a half. Lori often traveled with Led Zeppelin on tour, but that didn't stop Jimmy from having affairs with other women. Jimmy eventually began dating Bebe Buell and he dumped Lori. A humiliated Lori tried to get back together with Jimmy, but he continually snubbed her. Lori was reportedly devastated and people who know her say she's never really recovered. Although Jimmy and Lori briefly got back together in the early '80s, they never went back to the passionate love affair they had when she was a teenager.


After drifting out of the groupie scene, Lori held a series of low-paying jobs. She currently works as a buyer and manager at a fashion boutique in Los Angeles. Lori occasionally gives interviews where she talks about her groupie days (especially her relationship with Jimmy Page), but for the most part, she has stayed out of the public eye.

http://www.stryder.de/rest/Groupie_Central_Lori_%20Maddox.html

 

[tifa]

Cool thread

I love it when you're at gigs and you see these awful girls who think they're groupies. I once got caught up in a fight with some who seemed to think they were, hiliarious Gosh, now I sound like a groupie! Trust me, I'm not though I've had opportunities..

 

[MulletProof]

I've always felt...intimidated by groupies.

 

[tangerine]

Sable Starr

I sourced this bio and pics from a fan page, http://www.geocities.com/sablethestarr. There is more detailed (and frankly, better-written) information in the excellent book Please Kill Me: An Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain.

Sable Starr was born in California in 1958 as Sable Shields. She grew up in a wealthy suburb called Palos Verdes.

By her teens, she has already become the uncrowned queen of the new generation of groupies which came after the GTO's, by hanging out in clubs like the Rodey Bingenheimer English Disco or the Whiskey-A-Go-Go. Sable got to know members of Led Zeppelin, T-Rex, Mott The Hoople and Iggy Pop with whom she had an affair when she was 13. Iggy later dated her sister Corel.

By this time, in 1973, Sable met Johnny Thunders, the New York Dolls' guitar player. When she learnt that the Dolls were coming to LA, she gathered with some friends to offer them a warm welcome, they even brough gifts for them. Sable chose to give a gift to Johnny, Frederick's lingerie, which was her favorite. They fell in love with each other and, for Johnny, Sable even said goodbye to her life as a groupie.

The beginning of their relationship was a great time. They would spend all their time together, wandering through LA (they even managed to get busted for jaywalking across Hollywood Boulevard and were ordered to pay a fine to the traffic division of the juvenile court) or just staying in the hotel room.

When the Dolls came back to New York, Johnny took Sable with him. They wanted to live together, Johnny's mother helped them to find a place to live in, an appartment on West 24th street, and furniture for it. It was hard for Sable to bear New York's cold winter, but Johnny took her for a buggy ride and bought her a red setter puppy for Christmas.

But their happiness didn't last long. Johnny was very jealous and his growing use of ***** lead him to psychotic-like states that made him aggressive and difficult to bear. Sable, trapped between her still very strong love for Johnny and her need to be happy, eventually cut her wrist. But she was found in time by the New York Dolls' second guitar player, Syl Sylvain who took her to Bellevue hospital.

She was given the chance to choose between going to the psychiatric wing or coming back to her parents. She came back to her parents. Then, she started dating Johnny again until she left him for good in 1974.

Sable later begun to split her time between LA and NY, were she met people like Debbie Harry. She used to see Johnny there as well, but then just as a friend. She dated Richard Hell for a while and came back to LA and to school and started a new, normal life.

She now lives in Nevada with her two children,Christian and Donnay,and works at Harrod's Casino as a 21 dealer.

Johnny Thunders, Sable Starr, Iggy Pop

Johnny and Sable
​

I like Sable because both Iggy and Johnny Thunders did and especially because Johnny Thunders never really got over her, according to many of the people around him. He wrote the Heartbreakers' song "I Love You" for her, and several other songs as well.

 

[tifa]

I've always felt...intimidated by groupies.

Usually they're very wasted scary girls so I can understand that..

 

[KhaoticKharma]

The 1% conservative in me is conservative about groupies... I just think there are better ways to show your love for someone than following them on tour and being their sex toys.

I would rather be a rockstar wife than a groupie, even if the rocker was cheating on me... in the divorce, the wives always get the houses and cars and money

 

[dinahgrace]

Stable & Lori

StableStarr and Lori with members of Robert & John

Lori and Stable

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=96484987

 

[dinahgrace]

StableStarr and Lori with members of Robert & John

I forgot to mention, Morgana Welch in the center.
Her myspace: http://www.myspace.com/hollywood_diaries

 

[ivypixie]

Ah, such a nice nostalgic thread to the '60s and '70s world of rock , I doubt it would've been the same without the groupies.

Esp thanks to you dinahgrace, for that article about Lori Maddox. That was new for me.

 

[Whitelinen]

Keep it going Dinah Grace