Rock Groupies (October 2006 - November 2010)

[60swildchild]

The Case of The ****-Sure Groupies​

Ellen Sander, The Realist, November 1968​

THE CHORDS come flooding out of the amplifiers like a tonal wave, swelling to an impossible amplitude, blaring, ringing, pounding. A broad beam of noise is shot beating into the swarming crowd with great resonant thrusts and throbs. The amplifiers are complaining.

They press up against the stage, the young ones, their faces bathed in delight or clenched in crumpled ecstatic agony. They lean over the edge of the platform, clutching gifts and beads or notes or the group's latest album. And some reach, reach out, squirm on their bellies trying to get up over the edge of the stage, just maybe to-touch-one-of-them... once.

And when it was over
The lights turned on and the curtain fell down
They stood at the stage door and begged for a scream
The agents had paid for the black limousine
That waited outside in the rain. Did you see them?
Did you seeeeeee them?
– 'Broken Arrow', Neil Young, The Buffalo Springfield

"Did you see them, did you seeeee them, oh, Cathy, they're so beautiful! Look at that hair, that blonde hair – ooooh, those faces, Cathy, look at those faces! Oh, wow, the drummer, Cathy, the bass player! Let's go in back to the stage door, Cathy, Cathy, maybe we can meet them, talk to them, something, Cathy, let's go outside and see if we can catch them on their way out! Maybe we can meet them, talk to them, anything! Cathy, come on!!!"
Groupies. Their legions, bless their little rock and roll hearts. are growing geometrically. Often they work in pairs, sometimes in gangs. Their techniques for getting back-stage, which run from bribing, ****ing or knocking out security guards, and their methods of tracking a group down would put a private dick to shame.

(You call all the better hotels in town. If you're looking for the Stones, ask for a Mr. Jones, not Mr. Jagger because that way it's less suspicious.)

When I have the opportunity to watch them in action, it is not without a genuine sense of admiration that I note their acuity. And rarely can I refuse a trembling, pleading teeny when she begs me to take her with me as I flash my press card at the security men that guard the dressing room areas at rock concerts.

Cops and security men are a fixture at rock concerts. They belong there as much as do the fans and the group and the rock and roll press entourage. They personify the balance of tensions between rock and conservative society. They try to stop the kids from scaling the stage and causing riots.

Occasionally they succeed.

But when they try to keep the groupies from their prey, they haven't got much of a chance. For the groupies are girlchild guerillas with a missionary zeal. They'll cooperate with each other to outfox whatever stands between them and the rock and roll boys – but only to a point. That is, they'll gang a door to get inside, but once it's broken in, it's every girl for herself, unless there's been a previous agreement.

When the Buffalo Springfield first came to New York a crowd of groupies stood in the back of the house and divvied the boys up. If more than one girl wanted a certain Springfield they had it out as to which manner of lovemaking each would apply to what and to whom, right then and there so there'd he no squabbles when they got to him.
Some girls are specialists. The lead-singer-****ers are a particularly strong contingent, and lead singers who write are considered a tour de force by any groupie's measure. They dress like creatures out of some glorious romantic drama, scrawl gross amount of black around their eyes and wear the biggest, most gaudy baubles they can find, so maybe, maybe he'll see me.

The great ones, the super groupies, have real class.

There's one beautiful long lithe spade chick from New York. Lilly, with her enormous dyed bubble head and enormous dark glasses, who's been to Los Angeles to visit the Doors and been to London to live with the Stones. There's Cindy and Morgan who live in San Francisco and make clothing for the groups – and don't you know those fittings get pretty intimate.

In L. A. there are the G. T.O's, Misses Christine, Lucy, Pamela, Sandy, Sparkie, Cynderella and Mercy, a gaggle of groupies who have had this card printed up that they give to groups. They are said to have written torrid poetry about their rock and roll conquest which Frank Zappa may set to music for an album.

"The level of involvement with today's music is quite amazing. One example: Groupies. These girls, who devote their lives to pop music, feel they owe something to it, so they make the ultimate gesture of worship, human sacrifice. They offer their bodies to the music or its nearest personal representative, the pop musician. These girls are everywhere. It is one of the amazingly beautiful products of the sexual revolution."

– Frank Zappa, The Mothers of Invention in Life Magazine

Zappa knows. I'm very close to believing that Zappa knows where it's all at. When I first heard about the Plaster Casters of Chicago via the pop grapevine which claimed Zappa as the source, I honestly didn't believe it. Yo-ho, another paranoid Zappa fantasy unleashed on the unsuspecting great unwashed.

Some weeks later I was rapping late at night with Marshall Efron when this friend of his, the road manager from the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, comes in and oh, how's everything and the group is going great, one chick handed Frank Cook a note after a set which said "Dear Fuzzy, I came five times during your drum solo." and aren't these chicks outasite?

And I threw in the tidbit I'd heard about these groupies in Chicago, wow, I heard they make plaster casts of the groups' cocks, Zappa is spreading the word and who knows, may he it's true.

And the road manager. he laughs and whips out this card that says "The Plaster Casters of Chicago, Life-Like Models of Hampton Wicks – Rennie and Lisa" with phone numbers...

 

[60swildchild]

"Fly Jefferson Airplane, Get You There on Time"
– Donovan

In Chicago's Aragon Ballroom, the Airplane and Blue Cheer and the Fraternity of Man are playing and it's Friday night. What's left of the Steve Miller Blues Band is in town and Terry Reid is expected any day. Chicago, long renowned as a music town, could that weekend be called a Groupie Happy Hunting Ground. A stocked pond, in fact.

The Plaster Casters weren't hard to find. I chose the Aragon Ballroom because the Airplane was there for one night only. My escort was a local record company executive who kept looking in mirrors and running his fingers over his dried lips throughout the whole adventure. In less than an hour a stagehand brought them to me.

I take them upstairs. They are thrilled that I came all the way from New York to find them. They are both draped in black antique-y looking capes and shawls and whenever and whatever they move, something – hair, fringe, capesleeve or skirtbottom – is hanging, fluttering, swaying.

Rennie is 21, pretty in a round, soft kind of way. She has expressive, animated eyes, a petulant mouth, and her dark hair falls like a protective curtain around her face. By day she's an IBM keypunch operator and her father works in civil service.

Lisa is 17, chubby and very young looking, almost innocent. She has one of those millions of expressionless midwestern faces that nobody gives a damn about. She still goes to school and her father is a Chicago cop.

They've both been grouping for almost five years, and they told me rather proudly that all of their sexual experience has been with groups.

They started working as a team because both of them are very shy and they share a penchant for English groups. Being very shy girls, even now, who don't converse easily with boys they don't know, they walk up to them and ask. "How's your rig?"
Rig?

"Rig. It's cockney slang for disk. There are a lot of those slang words. Rennie learned most of them from the Hollies. Up the stairs, means take a ****. Bristol cities are t*tties, daisy roots are boots, chopper, rig and hampton wick, they all mean ****, and charva means ****. Eye magazine printed it 'charver.' Eye magazine. So unhip!"
In those early days. before they were Plaster Casters, they would use the cockney slang in their letters to groups. It was the sort of in thing that none of the other Chicago groupies were hip to.

To the Hollies:
Rig Men.

Are your hampton wicks looking for some Chicago Charva? If so, look no further. Your two barcleys bankers from the Chicago Charva Chapter have arrived. We'd love to satisfy any needs you may have. For appointment or more info, call...

To the Beatles:
Dear Beatles.

We happen to know that you hold the record for charva championship around the world. We suppose that's why you've got such healthy looking hampton wicks. Tight pants tell a lot of stories, you know. And from the way yours projects at the zipper we can tell you've got four rocks of gibraltar stashed away. Maybe this is the secret behind your success. If your rigs get nervous from being cramped up and need a little exercise when you're in Chicago. we are the girls for you. We're two barclays bankers, our bank has convenient night hours and you can make all the deposits you like...

 

[60swildchild]

To the Rolling Stones:
Dear Keith (Richards),

We watched you on teevee the other night and the first thing that grabbed our eyes was your hampton wick. After that we did a little besides studying it. We're not kidding, you've got a very fine tool. And the way your pants project themselves at the zipper. we figure you've got a beauty of a rig. Sometimes we hope you'd whip it out or something. but they don't have cameras that would televise anything that large, do they? Hey. tell Mick (Jagger) he doesn't have to worry about the size of his, either: we noticed that (really, who could help, but?)

Keith, we're serious. We judge boys primarily by their hamptons because they're so exciting to look at and contribute so much to a healthy relationship. We can hardly wait until you come to Chicago in November: maybe then we can find out more about what's inside your pants...

"I'd like to cast Jagger." flashed Rennie defiantly. "I'd like to see about this!" And she whips out her wallet and thumbs through the plastic encased memorabilia until she comes to this picture of Mick Jagger's crotch she clipped out of Tiger Beat. There is a hypertrophic bulge outlined by his pants. Wow, it looks like a tumor!
"I think it looks like a bar of Sweetheart Soap. I heard that he was once caught in the men's room before a TV appearance, stuffing paper towels into his pants. They told him to take it out and he wouldn't so they got even with by not shooting 'im from the waist down."

Dear Brian:

I am in one of "your" moods at the moment. I was looking at your picture and what a pity your rig wasn't so noticeable. I saw it once on telly and what a grand thing it was!! Well, I can't help it, I'm in a hampton bag and I just can't climb out of it. Only Andrew's hot one is as creamy as yours ... here goes:

Your televised body is something to pant on
Above all else sticks out your hampton
I know it seems a lot of much
but in your eyes I see a toosh
I'm not the type whose eyes first goes
To long blonde hair or delicate nose.
At the art institute l studied perspective
To ignore the way yours projects would be disrespective
Pointing downward like a lance
Pounding hard inside the pants
Extraordinary is your rig
Is a fact that cinches.
Pray tell. Brian, how many inches?

It all started when the Beatles came to Chicago, lo those many years ago. There they were in the third row, Lisa in her early teens, and shrewd; Rennie so fetching in a dark lowcut dress, black lace nylons and big round glasses. They were screaming and laughing and crying while John Paul. George and Ringo were singing 'Please Please Me' and Lisa was getting violently restless.

"Let's go downstairs." she urged. "Maybe we can meet them."

And they went downstairs and outside and there was the Beatles' limousine, and cluster of girls with the same idea were already there. Lisa grabbed Rennie's arm and yelled "Run!" and they ran down the block to be there when the car passed them.

Rennie hurriedly scrawled a sign that said "Charva" and held it up as the astonished four rode past. "McCartney just kept staring and staring at us – he couldn't believe his eyes!"

For the Who, their acronymous sign read "Welcome Hamptons Outstanding."

And for the Raiders, the first sign read: "HAIL – the Conquering RIG!"

That was before they learned the Paul Revere and the Raiders word for rig: lanoola. And at the next Raiders concert, with due respect, they held up a sign which gloated: LANOOLA. The Raiders, they dug that.

After the set – it was a Catholic high school dance, and there were all these nuns around – one of the Raiders stepped to the front of the stage and thanked everyone for being such a great audience and thanks especially to (lickerish wink) Lanoola.
The next day a review of the concert appeared in the Chicago Tribune which contained the following paragraph:

"The Raiders... left after wishing a special thanks to Lanoola who went limp on the sidelines where she was standing holding a name sign."

The paragraph title was:

LANOOLA GOES LIMP!

Oh, they laughed ghoul that one. That was far out. Reading about yourselves in the Chicago Tribune. Too much.

How did they graduate from super groupies to Plaster Casters? Oh, it was very respectable and with the highest artistic intentions. It was about two years ago and Rennie was an art major at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle Campus. They started doing plaster casts in class and the assignment was to cast something – anything – and bring it in.

Rennie, now very much the experienced lady and not at all inhibited about such things, thought: Why not a rig? Why not. indeed? So a fellow student became the first plaster cast.

Lisa's part of the job was to "plate" him (um, er, that is, give him head) so that he'd get hard: "That's the way to look at a rig, right?"

Then they lubricated him with vaseline.

Rennie jammed a vase full of casting material over his rig, let it set and removed it. They poured plaster into the impression and made a near perfect cast.

"We didn't get all of it, just about half – it looks like a salt shaker."

 

[60swildchild]

Before that they tested some poor quaking little neighborhood boy and he was so terrified that it got soft. "It turned out like a bas relief. We didn't know to go straight in at the time."

"The first popstar we tried was da-da-da-da from the Procol Harum but please don't mention his name See, the mold failed and it didn't come out at all and he begged us not to tell anyone because he didn't want people to think his rig failed. Then we got Hendrix. Oh. and don't forget Ogilvie. Ogilvie, he was the road manager for the Mandala – mmm – one of the worst groups. We got him right in this very room!"

(Which was a dressing room, upstairs in the Aragon Ballroom. a little narrow and a little drafty.)
Ogilvie is the road manager. "That's what a lot of groups do, set their road managers on us. They're afraid of losing their precious rigs."

There's this story going around, I tell them, that Hendrix almost did lose his because the mold material got so hard they couldn't remove it. "Oh. Nooooooo." And they convulse with laughter.

"What happened," they gasp, "is a few of his pubic hairs got stuck in the mold. Otherwise it would have just slipped out as soon ac it got soft. We were frantic. fifteen minutes he was in there. We just picked the hairs out of it, carefully, so we wouldn't hurt him. I was frantic. I thought he'd hate us or kill us. He was so – impressive – and I was so nervous. And I'm going, 'I'm sorry, it never happened this way before' and he's going, 'No. it's all right'. Fifteen minutes he was in there and he said he liked he said it felt like a ****! And you heard that the plaster got stuck on his rig? Oh, no. ohnononono – it just shows you how things get twisted!"

And the process? "You mix the mold material. We use dental alginates, it's wonderful – is gets all the little veins and crevices and indentations and everything. While I (Rennie) mix, Lisa does the plating. Then we get the rig down into (the alginates) straight. The guy has to help, he has to reach back and push his balls into the mixture. He has to keep his rig hard, too. After it few seconds the alginates harden, the rig gets soft and falls out."

Then they got Noel Redding, Rennie's ultimate best favorite popstar, the one that got her started on bass players. She's had a thing for bass players ever since that day last March when she casted Noel.

Tonight she is here at the Aragon to talk to Spencer Dryden of the Airplane. a serious discussion, you know, he's a friend of Zappa's and all that. But the Steve Miller Blues Band is in town and that bass player – but that's tomorrow night. Tonight it's the Airplane and though they're as sick as dogs they're in rare musical form.

They grind out that clumsy sweet and violent San Francisco rock, and evangelical harmonies wash over the room like a caress. The audience is tranfixed. Blue Cheer and the Fraternity of Man are here also, but the Plaster Casters of Chicago don't want them, nosiree, no. They're – uggggg, no – Blue Cheer... Yahhh. You've got to have some sense of distinction.

 

[60swildchild]

'Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby'
– The Rolling Stones

There was a fateful day for the Plaster Casters, one day in April, 1963, shortly after they casted Noel Redding, Noel, lovely Noel. The Cream were in town and Lisa found out where they were staying. They rang up Eric Clapton and he said sure. come on up and talk to me.

They went upstairs and told him about the castings. No, no, Clapton said, not tonight. Tomorrow for sure. And I have this friend who probably wants to meet you, they'd both do casts then, he promised.

And, since life truly moves in psychic cycles, the friend was of course Frank Zappa and Rennie thought, oh, no, that ugly, gross thing. But Zappa flipped out, flipped out he did, when he talked to them and they all became extremely close friends. But both of them, Zappa and Clapton, copped out when it came to the castings. And Rennie is still a little bitter about that.

They call Zappa their "sponsor" now; he tries to protect them from any derogation. He confiscated their diaries and plans to publish them along with the diaries of the GTO's. "It's an important sociological document," he told me. And he wants to have a Plaster Caster exhibit in an art show or museum as soon as the collection is ready.

He has ideas, like playing the cockstar's music behind the exhibition of his plaster casted rig. ****-Rock. Why not? I suggested a tool kit, but Zappa just laughed. Zappa's manager, Herb Cohen (says Rennie) came up with the idea of making lollipops out of the casts and selling them under the slogan. "Suck your favorite star." Haw haw. What a capitalist!

Rennie is an artist, she don't look back. She feels if her collection were put in the hands of somebody who believed in it, it would be a significant thing... a tribute to and reflection of the sexual revolution, a radical change in morality...

Lisa, on the other hand – she's only 17 – is not so sure she wants to continue to be a Plaster Caster. She did officially resign but she's going to keep helping Rennie until she finds someone else.

For one thing, it's Rennie telling all the boys in the bands that Lisa is the best plater in the world. "Suppose I plate them and they don't like it?"

And also some people are grimly censorious of the whole idea of plaster castings and it's beginning to bring her down. "It's okay for Rennie, she only lives for the moment, but I want a heavy thing with a guy someday and I'm afraid this would prevent it."
"Nothing's perfect," Rennie snaps, "everyone can't like you. You've got to make up your mind that you're a pioneer."

The Plaster Casters are, by now, legend. They have fans. they are frequent dramatis personae of the rock grapevine. and recently they discovered two imposters: Alice and Candy are copping their thing! Getting to groups by saying they're the Plaster Casters!
Rennie, whose dedication is a joy bordering on abandon. hopes they don't learn how to plaster cast – it would spoil her exclusivity. Because they're getting more famous by the moment. Spencer Dryden told them that Friday night that groups in San Francisco were writing tunes about them. And they're still reading about themselves. though the coverage has been somewhat tangential.

The Chicago Tribune: "The Yardbirds were in high spirits. They had just seen about 300 girls at the Civic Opera House to receive gifts and sign autographs. They received everything from imported caviar and kumquats to instant psychiatric kits, 69 sweatshirts (Rennie gave him that), stuffed animals and incense. One girl was on crutches and took moving pictures. Another brought along her plaster kit to get a mold of Jeff Beck's leg forever!"

His leg, indeed!

Playboy: "Roland Ginzel, whose paintings have unfailingly captured the existential spirit of the famed author's work (Nabokov's Dispair)... is currently teaching in Chicago and has works hanging in the permanent collection of the Art Institute in Chicago and the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and has exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City."

But Playboy left out what must certainly be considered as Roland Ginzel's most significant contribution to contemporary art. Roland Ginzel, after all, was the professor who taught Rennie how to plaster cast.

And in the middle of a review of Jimi Hendrix's latest album. Electric Ladyland, published in the Chicago Circle Focus, all by itself, set off with asterisks:

********************************
Ask Jimi Hendrix about Plaster Casters
********************************

And the adventures, the grouping, the meetings, the chase and the casualties. There was that time in July '67 with the Monkees. Oh, those dumb Monkees. They were in the lobby of the hotel and their was a lot of security around. Getting upstairs was going to be a problem, they thought. But the Monkees had heard about the Plaster Casters and, oh, yes. wanted to see this, they did, and they sent down for them.

"We approached Davy Jones and he said yeh, it would be great, you could have duplicates made and sell them in stores." But Davy went into the other room and got Peter Tork, brought him out with nothing on, he did, and said "Okay, here." And there were about thirty people around, some of the Buffalo Springfield were there and oh, it was a scene.

"Bright one over here," Rennie flips her hand toward Lisa, "takes hold of his rig and starts hand-jobbing him. They're all sitting around waiting for me to do something. I grabbed his rig too. We both had our hands on it. Somebody got on the piano and started playing 'Lovely Rita Meter Maid'. It was – like a movie!

"Then Dewey Martin of the Springfield takes off his pants and drags me over to the couch – too much!"

Later Rennie got up and went into the kitchen. Opening the can of alginates she cut her hand severly on the metal strip. There was blood all over the place and they had to tourniquet her. Then they all got mad and went to bed. "They're so stupid. The Mon-keeees!"

Then there was that awful time with the Detroit Wheels, though it's funny when she thinks about it now. Rennie didn't particularly like that organ player who brought her to the hotel room, but she was nuts about his music. "He was kind of a turd," she recalls.
"There was another one in the group that I liked and I thought if the drummer took me back with him to the hotel, I'd get to see the other one." No such luck. Rennie was in the room, stuck there with the drummer.

"I wouldn't ball him. He had my clothes off and he threw me out of bed. He wouldn't give me my clothes back, he just said 'Okay, get out.' And I had just gotten this new outfit from my mother – she'd be sure to notice – not that I was nude, but that I didn't have my new outfit with me."

But that was back when they were very young and didn't really know who they wanted. It's different these days; more organized, more professional. Rennie is dieting like mad for next week when Hendrix will be back in town and she can get to Noel again. And Saturday night, tomorrow. there is the Steve Miller Band...

 

[60swildchild]

IT IS NOW Saturday early evening and we are in Lisa's house in a flouncy girl's bedroom, all pink and white and precious. And there are posters and popstars' pictures and hundreds of albums, Traffic, Procol Harum, Rhinocerous, the Beatles, the Stones – pretty good taste, I must confess, not a chicken**** album in the bunch.

And Rennie is assembling the plaster kit, putting all the paraphernalia in a little briefcase with a sign on it, "The Plaster Casters of Chicago." That briefcase has become their trademark, and a well respected one at that. The underground radio station knows about them and so do all the club owners who let them into the clubs for free now.

After all, they're celebrities in their own right.

They lovingly show me the casts and allow me to photograph them and other mementos, the signs, the apparatus in the plaster casting kit and all. And I read their letters and they proudly show me their clipping file. But it's getting late, you know, the Steve Miller Band goes on in an hour and The Cellar is all the way out in the suburbs so we'd just better hurry.

I knew they were going to be in Chicago that weekend. Their press agent, Mike Gershman, had called from L. A. to inform me of the activities of another client in New York. Did I want to do the story? No, no time, but who's going to be in Chicago this weekend? He was really in no position to refuse to help me, and I asked him would he ask Steve Miller to cooperate, I really want to witness a casting and I had a pretty good idea the Plaster Casters would go for him, such a pretty face, So I had called Miller earlier that day and I told him I'd already located the Plaster Casters and would be arriving at the club with them.

"Whew!" he answered. "I've just been sitting here writing a tune and now, this, wow, it makes it all so freaky." But Steve Miller already knew about the Plaster Casters – remember, they're legend in San Francisco, legend.

We arrive at this little *******-of-a-club out in the Illinois sticks full of beery high school kids. They are generally noisy except for a small crowd of blues heads and girls three and four deep hanging glassy-eyed over the stage. The vibrations are fair to middling and I have a sinking feeling things are not going to work out.

The Miller Band is down to three – leader Steve Miller; Tim Davis, the drummer and the bass player, Lonnie Turner. Rennie has her eyes on Lonnie, that girl doesn't miss a trick, she's-edging-toward-the-backstage-door-working-her-way-through-the-crowd.
But the set is over and – omigod, no! – there's Lisa, talking to Lonnie. And Rennie bristles and trembles and g-l-a-r-e-s at her. But Lisa doesn't see and Rennie, crestfallen, makes her way into the tiny dressing room in back of the stage where Miller is in a really weird mood.

"Did you see that kid give me a cheeseburger? A cheeseburger, he handed me a ****ing cheeseburger!"

Miller is rapping to some friends, an ex-member of the band and his wife. and to distract Rennie, I point out a graffito on the dressing room wall. Someone has written Whatever became of the plaster castors (sic) and Rennie cracks up, that's very funny. She takes out a magic marker pen and corrects the spelling error. Very dignified.

I introduce Rennie to Miller. "How do I know you're the real plaster caster?" he demands, all too eagerly. Rennie is not prepared for this. She hands him the card. Very proper. But Rennie's mind is elsewhere, with Lonnie. the bass player who is maybe her very second best favorite popstar next to Noel Redding.

Lisa is still talking to Lonnie. "We usually divide them up between ourselves," Rennie complains miserably. "She knows I like him ... what's she doing to me?"

And there is another complication. There's Gail, this grotesque skinny painted Henna redhead who knew the Miller band in San Francisco and she wants Lonnie too, oh, no!
And now Rennie is chastising Lisa for talking to Lonnie first and they're both upset and they're not sure they want to go to the Holiday Inn after all, but, well, we have a ride and everything, and Ron has to go look after the Blue Cheer and we don't want to do that, do we. So? Are we going – yes? – no? – Yes.

We get to the Holiday Inn in Elk Grove and walk into the room and there are Steve Miller and Tim Davis from the band and some company and – damn! – Gail! – who somehow got there before us. And oh, there's going to be trouble. Groupies, even Plaster Casters, must deal with competition on some honorable level (like the Plaster Casters give out the GTO's cards and the GTO's return the favor) and there's Gail. Ahead of them. Entitled. What a bringdown.

Miller is still bitchy. "Let's hear this, girls, what is this about what you do?" But Rennie is in no mood to discuss it, no mood at all. Lonnie is in his room across the hall and Miller is badgering her mercilessly. Marie is there and Lisa is whining because after all, it's so uptight and she's all but retired from being a plaster caster and she just doesn't want to be there at all, not after how Rennie bitched at her for talking to Lonnie first. I resign myself that I'm not going to see a plaster casting tonight. ****!

 

[60swildchild]

The girls are going into Lonnie's room because that's where they left the kit. I assume they'll gather it up and we'll all go home. Tim, the drummer, a swaggering randy tall black man, checks out Lonnie's room and comes back guffawing. "They chickened out! I was all ready but they don't wanna cast tonight. I told them if they had a change of heart. I'm ready – my jools will still be here!"

Where's Lisa? Someone comes out of the road manager's room and says she's in there if I'm looking for her. They're playing the new Beatles album and, yes, it's cool to go in there. I knock on the door but it's open and I walk in and there's the road manager lying on his back on the bed with nothing on, there's a towel under his *** and Lisa is fondling his rig and absently looking at the color TV where Abbie Hoffman is doing verbal jousting with Chicago City College Cancellor Shebat, Dizzy Gillespie, Robert Q. Lewis, Pete Seeger and some others. It doesn't look as if he's doing too well but the sound is off and I can't tell. The Beatles album is playing and there in the corner on a chair is Gail with her eyes glued hungrily on the bed scene.

I'm, ah – unsettled. I turn and stare at the TV pretending to be intrigued while I panic and try to figure out how to split the room fast without putting everyone on a bummer. I turn and leave all in one gasp, mumbling something about cigarettes.

I close the door behind me and across the hall Tim's door is opening. Steve Miller is gone. The guests and friends are leaving. Rennie, I correctly surmise, is with Lonnie. Lisa was with the road manager. And I'm standing here in the hall with my face hanging out. It's the middle of the night and I'm not even sure where the hell I am, what does "Elk Grove" mean to me? I don't know what cab company to call, the desk is closed and I forget the address of the place I'm staying and whatthe****amigonnado? I stand there, that's what I do. I am hoping that Tim is, um, a gentleman...

THE MORNING after. The boys in the band are checking out of the hotel and everybody is saying goodbye and Steve Miller is really irritable. He's looking at me, half surprised to see me there. He knows Rennie was with Lonnie and Lisa was with the road manager and he's figuring I was with Tim, and boy, he's pretty crabby 'cause he spent the night alone. And in my mind I'm going hahahahah, eat your heart out you stupid garbagemouth, bugging the Plaster Casters like that, hahabahah.

We girls call a cab and eat breakfast in the dining room while we wait for it to arrive. When it comes and we have to take a few minutes to pay the check, get the change, leave the tip, meanwhile the driver is trying to convince this prostitute to come in the cab with us, he'll take her along because her cab is late.

But I want to talk about plaster casting in the cab and I tell him I don't want another passenger in the car. The driver shrugs and casts the hooker an apologetic, maybe a disappointed, look and we walk outside. "They probably want to make love to each other," the hooker spits.

On the way back to the house I am made aware of another dynamic. Gail is very pissed. She wanted Lonnie too. And that makes it almost certain that she'll go after Noel when Hendrix gets into town the first week in December. It's sort of like defending her honor in groupie society. And Rennie is so upset...

I'm still disappointed I didn't get to see a plaster cast. Lisa gives me cherry-flavored cigarette papers and Rennie kisses me goodbye at the airpoirt. I leave Chicago with my tapes and my photographs, but somehow without my favorite shirt, and I fly back to New York.

I've received a letter from Rennie.

Dear Ellen,

Here is your shirt (it is magnificent!) Ron drove me over to the hotel and I started getting scared when he started talking about, do we ever plate people without casting 'em, Gut I stared out the window the entire journey and he didn't pursue it further.
What groups do we want pictures of? Oh, goodness almost everybody, if you'd really like to know. Well, Hendrix, Procol Harum, Traffic, Jeff Beck, The Who & Steppenwolf and Dianne's and my fave raves but could I get anything on the Bee Gees, Small Faces, Doors or The Herd for my groupie compatriots. Oop – almost forgot – and Rhinocerous!
Only six more shopping days 'til Jimi Hendrix. Does my stomach ever know it! (For the week before Hendrix comes to town, my stomach always goes nuts.)

Maybe by the time you get this we will have casted Terry Reid. Oh, boy!!

When are you coming back to Chicago? When, when? I am already missing you, my dear Ellen. Do you have any pictures up there of yourself that you can send me? Send them along with a nice fat letter, would you? SOON!!!

Practically all my love (Noel's got the rest)

Rennie

On the envelope there is a design constructed out of the letters in "Ellen," and in the corner is this note: "Partially finished token of my love to you. Due to Terry Reid's road manager calling up and saying come on over (and NO ONE knows they're in town yet). So must cease this and hasten to get the kit ready."

On the back of the envelope. neatly lettered:

"TODAY TERRY REID, TOMORROW THE WORLD!"

Maybe by now they do indeed have Terry Reid casted. But then again, maybe not. Because Rennie is a true plaster caster, yes, an artist, a pioneer, right up there in the front lines of the new morality. But rock and roll rigs, object d'art or no, are rigs nonetheless and ever so, well, distracting.
And Rennie, bless her little rock and roll heart, is first and foremost a super groupie. And that's a very high art in itself.

Editors note: Originally, pseudonyms were used in this article. Now, however, the girls want not only their correct names published but also their photo, because of the increasing imposter problem. So, "Lisa" is actually Dianne and "Rennie" is Cynthia, who writes: "Here is the best of what we hastily scrounged up at 2 in the morning at the Oak Park Arms with my very old Polaroid. I'm even sticking this in the mailbox at an ungodly hour, I'm so anxious with our competitors closing in on us all the time."

© Ellen Sander, 1968
http://www.rocksbackpages.com/

 

[HeatherAnne]

Does anyone have any info on French singer/model/actress Danièle Ciarlet, AKA Zouzou? I know she dated Brian Jones and according to IMDB she was close with John Lennon, George Harrison and Marianne Faithfull. It's so hard to find anything on her, but she's my latest 60's girl crush.

pics from www.myspace.com/148765961

 

[atooomic]

besides the information that you posted, she dated jack nicholson and she was romantically envolved with brian jones, and they lived together for about one year

here's a little picture (middle), from nucool.files.wordpress.com

dansmoncafe.blogspot.com

flickr.com user addariver

 

[HeatherAnne]

Thanks atooomic. It seems like she had quite a drug addiction, which obviously took quite a toll on her but in the videos I've seen she was quite beautiful when she was younger and seemed to live quite an interesting life.

Danièle Ciarlet, AKA Zouzou, is today one of the most revered - even though quite obscure for most - icons of the 60s Parisian scene. Discovered at age 16 by then young design artist Jean-Paul Goude, she briefly modelled for Yves Saint Laurent, and, as a tireless night-clubber, is better known, in the mid-60s, under the nickname "Zouzou la twisteuse". Shortly after that, she was romantically involved with Rolling Stones member Brian Jones, whom she followed around the world. She was also a good friend of John Lennon and George Harrison and was photographed by Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton, got to meet Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol and most of all, Jack Nicholson who was, along with Marianne Faithfull, very... faithful friends. She also recorded two EPs as a singer at the end of the 60s, and a duet with Dani, another French 60s icon.

After a few roles in underground and experimental French films (under the direction of Philippe Garrel or Yves Lagrange), she got a cinematographic breakthrough in 1972 with Eric Rohmer's L'amour l'après-midi, and developed an international career as an actress, a career which unfortunately, and progressively, slowed down because of her addiction to heroin. She spent seven years on the Cariibean Island of Saint Barthélémy so as to shape up, but her return to Paris, in the mid-80s, was followed by two jail incarcerations due to mild drug dealings. In the mid-90s, she was drug free at last, and, to get a fresh start, she sold the newspapers "La rue" and "Le réverbère" (the equivalent of British "The Big Issue") in the Parisian metro. In November 2003, an autobiography entitled "Zouzou jusqu'à l'aube" ("Zouzou until Dawn") was released, where she told with an ultimate honesty the extreme ups and downs of her incredible life. A compilation of all her songs was also released, and a documentary, "Zouzou l'héroïne", told in images the fate of probably one of the most beautiful woman of the world, revered as the "female Marlon Brando" when she burst into the Parisian scene, more than 40 years ago.

-IMDB

 

[cygnenoir]

I'm not certain if I've ever posted in this thread but it's one of my very favorites!

I love the pictures - so much inspiration. I adore Zouzou, Sable, Lori, Bebe. Cyrinda was probably my favorite in her David Jo years.

Here's a question someone here will know the answer to. I've been reading about Bebe forever, but I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone about her. Is her name pronouced "Bee Bee" or "Bay Bay"?

 

[atooomic]

i think it's "bee bee", at least that's how i've heard people saying her name

 

[atooomic]

more pictures of bebe, it's so easy to find pictures of her. oh boy


livejournal vintagegroupies

 

[JerNYC Man]

Okay Atooomic. I have the topper of all Bebe pics. My source is Facebook. From 1973- seems old and bent but holy s**t! So gorgeous and I see the Penny Lane inspiration that Cameron Crowe must have seen.

 

[atooomic]

pretty shot, she looks really young! in '73 she was 20 years old, right?

 

[JerNYC Man]

pretty shot, she looks really young! in '73 she was 20 years old, right?

Yea- I think. If she was born in 1953 as according to some bios I have read, that means she was barely 20.
I think this shot embodies her. It is breathtaking.

 

[atooomic]

thanks for sharing this picture. really nice one

 

[atooomic]

livejournal

 

[JerNYC Man]

New interview up now to go with this upcoming show tomorrow night in NJ
http://www.theaquarian.com/2009/08/18/shoreworld-bebe-buell-air-kisses-for-the-masses

 

[EvaLaDiva]

Suki Potier, girlfriend of Rolling Stones' Brian Jones from 1967 to 1969:


Brian and Suki at London's Heathrow Airport, on their way to Marbella - July 27, 1967


Suki and Brian in Austria - 1968

Photos courtesy of minimadmodmuses.multiply.com