I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie by Pamela Des Barres, Dave Navarro (Foreword by)

From the Publisher

The stylish, exuberant, and remarkably sweet confession of one of the most famous groupies of the 1960s and 70s is back in print in this new edition that includes an afterword on the author's last 15 years of adventures. As soon as she graduated from high school, Pamela Des Barres headed for the Sunset Strip, where she knocked on rock stars' backstage doors and immersed herself in the drugs, danger, and ecstasy of the freewheeling 1960s. Over the next 10 years she had affairs with Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Waylon Jennings, Chris Hillman, Noel Redding, and Jim Morrison, among others. She traveled with Led Zeppelin; lived in sin with Don Johnson; turned down a date with Elvis Presley; and was close friends with Robert Plant, Gram Parsons, Ray Davies, and Frank Zappa. As a member of the GTO's, a girl group masterminded by Frank Zappa, she was in the thick of the most revolutionary renaissance in the history of modern popular music. Warm, witty, and sexy, this kiss-and-tell–all stands out as the perfect chronicle of one of rock 'n' roll's most thrilling eras.

Slate.com

"Sunny, uninhibited prose."

Indie-music.com

"Her prose is...glittery, raw and real."

The WOW Report

"This new edition should spur enough interest again that . . . her story can be made into the movie it needs to be."

Publishers Weekly

Fortunately, Des Barres injects humor into these accounts of degradation, which exemplify the subculture of rock music. As a California teenager during the wild 1960s, she attached herself to members of various rock bands and other celebrities. More bragging than confessional, the story explicitly details this particular groupie's sexual exploits with Mick Jagger, the late Brandon de Wilde, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page (he liked using whips and handcuffs to enhance sex, we're told here), future Miami Vice star Don Johnson and many others. Now in her 30s, Des Barres has recovered from longtime drug abuse as has her husband, Michael, a musician. Though still ``making the scene,'' they have settled down somewhat, as parents of a son. There are profoundly sad, shocking revelations here, and the reader understands why John Lennon glanced at the groupie and her adolescent female gang in 1964, ``his face full of contempt and sorrow.'' Photos not seen by PW. (June 29)

Library Journal

Ultimate rock groupie Des Barres dishes the dirt by the truckload in this 1987 remembrance of the rockers with whom she rubbed elbows--and other body parts. The text is thick with photos, and this edition contains a new foreword by Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

• ISBN: 1556525893
  
• ISBN-13: 9781556525896
• Format: Paperback, 320pp
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
• Pub. Date: October 2005
• Edition Description: Updated
• Sales Rank: 10,828