Pamela De Barres: I’m With the Band

One Groovy Muse

I just finished reading one of the best guilty pleasure books I’ve read in a long time. Pamela De Barres deliciously candid I’m With the Band, Confessions of a Groupie. All I can say is, what on Earth took me so long?

Teenage diary entries overflowing with fantasies of being Paul McCartney’s bride, lusty nights spent backstage with musical icons Jim Morrison, Jimmy Page and Mick Jagger, it’s like reading an open love letter to the 1960s.

Miss Pamela wanted to rock all night and the The Sunset Strip was her stomping ground. She takes you with her on every exhilarating, occasionally humiliating adventure with total humility. From forming the worlds first all groupie girl band “The GTO’s” with musical mastermind Frank Zappa to lovelorn walks of shame through Laurel Canyon, to swooning onstage with Led Zeppelin as they play to 80,000 people.

Every page of her passionate personal journey brings to life, loud music, crazy parties, kooky characters, and an LA only the people who were there to experience it will ever know.

Miss Pamela’s look walked the razor sharp edge of innocence and debauchery with instinctual ease.

What really resonated with me was her endlessly resilient spirit and profound lust for life—okay mostly lust for musicians. But really…

Miss Pamela from Reseda, California you are my current “Fave Rave.” Thank you for stumbling through your perfectly imperfect life looking for love and finding absolution through music and the men who play it, but mostly for thinking it was wise to write it all down. May you forever be a muse.