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Music / Musik » alt.fan.frank-zappa » Sweet Seduction
| Sweet Seduction [message #240174] |
Do, 16 März 2006 03:55 |
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http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/03.15.06/lust-0611. html
Teen Angel: Pamela Des Barres made the scene when she was just 16.
Sweet Seduction
Two women relate highly personal tales of fandom
By Sara Bir
Pamela Des Barres has become the go-to gal for juicy, insider tidbits
in various rock-related documentaries and VH1 specials. There we see
her brunette-framed talking head, looking and sounding not unlike a
friendly next-door neighbor who stopped by to have some tea, recounting
sunnily sordid remembrances of the L.A. glory days in the late 1960s
and early '70s, when she was a sweet, golden-haired flower child.
Perhaps the present-day franchising of her groupie persona is cleverly
engineered, but perhaps it is not. She was, after all, there--there
being Jimmy Page's limo, Mick Jagger's crotch and Keith Moon's thrashed
hotel rooms--and it's all but impossible for any rock-loving human, let
alone television producer, to resist the pull of an all-access
perspective.
Des Barres cemented her groupie-goddess status with her free-spirited
1987 tell-all book I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie. It
covers her life as a young rock muse, from her preteen grieving for an
enlisted Elvis to her marriage to walking-glam-rock-disaster Michael
Des Barres. In between, hearts break, body liquids swap,
chemical-fueled revelations abound and music thrives.
I'm with the Band was out of print for years until 2005, when an
updated edition came out on Chicago Review Press. The book is still
eminently readable, offering all the fun of a trashy read without
resorting to sensationalism or mean-spiritedness. Des Barres' writing
is as gauzy and flowing as her threadbare satin and antique lace
ensembles of the late '60s; she adopts a sort of Beat/teenybopper
style, striving for the Deep and Profound. But even when her
gushy-gushy leanings get the best of her, Des Barres' sentiments always
ring with joie de vivre, unleashing positive vibes galore.
In his forward to the updated edition, wanker guitarist Dave Navarro
calls Des Barres "one of the most unique and important rock historians
of our time." I initially found this proclamation laughable, a
statement dripped from Navarro's pen to score some kiss-ass points with
his pal Miss Pamela. But after some consideration, I felt ashamed of my
snobbism. Just because Des Barres' writing does not reek of the
academic postulation and dry reductionism of "serious" rock
criticism--she's not part of the boys' club with Christgau, Marcus, et
al.--does not discount her insights. If anything, it deems them more
primal, more direct and more powerful. "Mick Jagger personified a
penis," she says of her earliest erotic dalliances with the Stones. If
that's not 100 percent rock 'n' roll, I don't know what is.
Even at her most debauched, the Des Barres of I'm with the Band strives
to become a good human being of some impact on the world. Her constant
run-ins with world-famous musicians simultaneously distract her from
this goal and help her to attain it. "Something came over me in the
presence of rock idols, something vile and despicable, something
wondrous and holy." That something is awe, but she still manages to see
the boys behind the gods. "I hope I brought some warm flesh and blood
to the myth, before it's too late," she writes, fearing that giants of
rock such as Hendrix, Zappa and Morrison will be "mythologized and made
more (or less) than human."
Glam Slam: Pamela and Michael Des Barres, photographed on the day they
met.
The moral conflict in Karen Schoemer's Great Pretenders: My Strange
Love Affair with 50s Pop Music ($25; Free Press) is much less one of
behavior than it is one of taste. An adult with rock-critic experience
at Newsweek, Rolling Stone and the New York Times under her belt,
Schoemer found herself impossibly drawn to the bleachy-clean world of
1950s pop crooners.
Schoemer struggles with this attraction, listening to thrift-store
copies of Pat Boone and Georgia Gibbs albums in a desperate attempt to
glean legitimate musical greatness. And she fails miserably--the music
repulses her--but she perseveres, hungrily searching for a magic nugget
of truth, a key to unlocking the mystery of the music that molded the
expectations of her parents' generation. It is only when she accepts
her leanings ("It never clicked in my mind that I could be a critic who
liked bad music") that she is free to love the songs unabashedly,
hearing them anew with ears untainted by universal notions of the
soullessness of 1950s pop.
Schoemer tracked down dozens of former teen idols and interviewed them,
all the while grappling with the validity of her mission. One by one,
the real lives behind the soothingly vapid ballads surface, and
Schoemer succumbs. She develops a crush of sorts on Pat Boone and
receives a surprising jolt of pure musical energy at a Frankie Laine
supper-club concert. "Are we really looking for artistry in pop music,
or is three minutes of ridiculous distraction enough?" she ponders.
We're trained to believe that there's a huge cultural and musical gulf
between Led Zeppelin and Patti Page, but encounters with each render
Des Barres and Schoemer starstruck. The thrill of spending time with
performers whose gifts of musical talent--and, to a greater extent,
charisma--make them, to us mortals, somewhat superhuman, and packs a
fierce sting and draw. It's only natural to want to enter into this
sacred place as completely as possible. Doe-eyed Des Barres realized
she could with her body, while Schoemer found her entr=E9e through
journalism. But whatever the means, both authors joyfully celebrate
what it is to be a fan.
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| Re: Sweet Seduction [message #240196 ] |
Do, 16 März 2006 20:42 |
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You can see a pic of her at 16 years old.
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