Lost Notes: Groupies

Nov 20, 2024

As the first wave of LA punk started to take hold in Hollywood, both on and off the Sunset Strip, the girls of the rock n roll underground flattened scene hierarchy by carrying the torch of the sexually charged, “I do what I want” spirit exemplified by the most notorious Hollywood groupies–in creative and unexpected ways. Then, Lori, Morgana, Dee Dee, and Pamela look back on their rock'n'roll lives, and consider their own personal mythologies.

Nov 20, 2024

In the mid 1970s, as glam rock fizzled out, new kids began to trickle in on the block–kids who looked up to the groupies as party girl icons, as rock’n’roll legends, who went out there and got what they wanted…come hell or high platforms. Kid Congo Powers, Alice Bag, Pleasant Gehman, and Theresa Kereakas all were pulled towards the glitter and guitars and debauchery, and give their first-hand teenage accounts of those crucial years where glam burnt out and in its embers, early LA punk started cooking.

Nov 18, 2024

Hello Lost Notes fans! The final two episodes of Groupies: Women of the Sunset Strip from the Pill to Punk are coming later this week. But first, we want to share an episode of the podcast Dressed : The History of Fashion . Mary Wilson is a founding member of one of the most iconic, successful—and stylish— 1960s singing groups of all time: The Supremes. Mary has been collecting and archiving the gowns the Supremes wore and shares many of the glittery details with Dressed. New episodes of Dressed drop on Wednesdays and Fridays. Want more Dressed : The History of Fashion ? Dressed 's website and online fashion history courses Dressed 's Instagram

Nov 13, 2024

Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco. The Continental Hyatt House. The Rainbow Bar & Grill. Glam rock was the genre du jour and there was no more convenient or welcoming a circuit for an intrepid teenage groupie to land in than the Strip in the early 1970s. As for Led Zeppelin, LA became their spiritual home-away-from-home (read: wives). From flying in on their private jet, the Starship, to cruising down Sunset picking up groupies in their white stretch limo, the Slutmobile, Led Zeppelin’s superstardom marked a new era, and level, to groupiedom.

Nov 6, 2024

A teen magazine so daring, so outrageous, so scandalizing and sexually suggestive that it only lasted…five issues. Star Magazine: from the publishing empire that brought you Hot Rod, Motor Trend, Guns & Ammo, and later in the 90s, Sassy, there was, in 1973, a red-hot new music rag that glamorized the teenage groupie lifestyle rampant on the Sunset Strip. Or did it? We asked the original staff who made the magazine: who, exactly, was a Star girl?

Oct 30, 2024

As a girl, Dee Dee Keel ditched the doldrums of Venice for the thrills of Hollywood. Just a few years later, she would soon become the woman behind the world-famous Whisky A Go-Go... as well as an infamously active groupie. Meanwhile, Morgana Welch, a scene-savvy Beverly Hills High Schooler, gets in with Rodney Bingenheimer, Led Zeppelin, and other powerful party boys and scene insiders, as she tries to chart her own path into the rock n roll lifestyle—Hollywood encounter by Hollywood encounter.

Oct 23, 2024

Venice Beach teen Dee Dee Keel was desperate to find out what was happening behind the scenes, in the clubs and hotel rooms of Hollywood: so she tracked an intriguing local rocker, Jim Morrison, on his way to the Strip. That’s where she first saw Miss Pamela in all her groupie glamour. By 1969, Pamela Des Barres was no longer a Valley teenybopper; she had transformed into a rock icon-in-the-making. Her freaky clique of Laurel Canyon sprites were ordained by Frank Zappa to become the world’s first all-girl band of all-girl groupies, the GTOs. Soon, they had the likes of the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Who, and Led Zeppelin taking notice, just as Rolling Stone dedicated an entire issue to the groupie phenomenon and made the GTOs its centerfold.

Oct 16, 2024

The origin story of Miss Pamela Des Barres, the original queen of the groupies, author of the iconic memoir, I’m With the Band . From her mid-Sixties teenage bop room Beatlemania, to in a few short and sexy years, having Mick Jagger on the prowl looking for her – Pamela learned quickly, through friendships with Captain Beefhart and Frank Zappa, that she was something special.