Wednesday, July 7, 2010

LIKE A ROLLING STONE.








If you know me on any sort of level, you will know that I have a deep fascination with the groupies or the women of the night of the 1960s and 70s.






I dont know what it is about this era and this breed of woman that has me so in rapture with their thoughts and motions in this time.








And as I sit here sipping on a glass of red wine at 4:30 in the afternoon, I cant help but reminsce on the countless minutes I have spent engulfed in their life stories, wishing and hoping that I can touch on the flightless ascent into free love, cheap wine and rock and roll that was their lives at one point.










I think it is a trait that you are born with. What with an innate fondness for music and musicians coupled with a carefree attitude that could be a combination of free spirit and Quaaludes.

Whatever the formula may be to be a groupie, I think that it is carried on in one way or another in the girl children of music's past, and passed on through the strum of a chord or a look in an eye.

It has also gotten me thinking about how groupies are viewed by the rock stars that so often frequent their flowers, and what they thought about groupies of that time.

Velvet Revolver drummer Matt Sorum said,
"Now you want to know the reason why I became a rock star?.......GROUPIES!!!"

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin said of Texan groupies,

"Down there theyve got the richest groupies in the world. Some of them followed our jet in their own jet plane."


Davy Jones, made popular by The Brady Bunch tells it like it is,

"As far as groupies go, I never saw them." Poor Davy.



Even Mark Wahlberg, of Marky Mark fame showed his cockiness at the time.

"When I was a rapper, the groupies didnt have to try too hard with me. Just show up at the hotel."



Even the beautiful texan Jerry Hall who became the wife of Mick Jagger who remained together for 22 years admitted,

"I'm a bit of a groupie."



I think this intimate escape into the world of the groupie is a welcome imaginary thought that I have daily, especially when listening to music. It must be one of those things, like a sociopath, that is just sewn into your spirit and there isnt much explanation to understand it all.




I would love to end up with a musician. I am attracted to those types of men, not because they are musicians, but because they all seem to have a certain quality that is attractive to me. Maybe its that vulnerability through song, or the freedom to express creatively without fear. But I know i am not alone.




The groupies of the 60s and 70s were such a rare population that mirrored true beauty, which could be collaborated with the fact that maybe music doesnt only make beautiful songs, but beautiful babies. Take Liv Tyler for example (the lovechild of Bebe Buell, pictured above, and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith).



However, the flighty but intoxicating times of the groupie somehow took a sour turn in the eighties, turning what was once considered an art form, into a lewd act of sucking some half baked hair ball off in the toilets before he went on stage to butcher an eight minute power ballad that still doesnt make sense to this day.




The Groupie went from a free lovin, free wheeling into a hairspray super slut that indulged in slinging some drummers balls into her mouth and then proceeds to hum the national anthem.
E.g:
















Now....
















As for this day and age, well I can barely bring myself to comment. Reality TV killed music in many ways which also started in the 80s with the launch of MTV. However, shows such as Flavor of Love and Rock of Love (as much as I appreciate their entertainment value) have exploited and cheapened the image of the groupie in new and horrifying ways.
Look at those sluts.
The groupie of the 21st Century has unfortunately been regarded as a pair of fake tits and a mouth that could swallow a sprite can.
It is disappointing.
Some little girls long to be teachers or doctors or housewives
I long to be a groupie.
To bring back the time when fucking a rock star wasnt about how low a girls standards or self esteem were, but about expressing just as creatively and freely how much they loved the music.
I truly believe in that, call me naive or a slut, I dont mind.
I think it was a time that women were empowered ( Google GTO's if you disagree).
By the way, on the topic of being a groupie.
Im a pretty big groupie for this girl:
Anita Pallenberg/ Bridie Sullivan.

1 comment:

  1. I think its that whole era, everyone was so optimistic and everyone thought they were on the cusp of a social revolution the world had never seen before and so they threw themselves into this new phenomenon with entirely uninhibited vigour. Nowdays we are a cynical and shamelssly materialistic generation and the trashiness of modern groupies reflects that. It is now very individual and done without the passion and free-spirited rapture of earlier genrations

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