Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies

by Pamela Des Barres

  Eric Burdon and the Animals were faves, but when it came time to work, Cynthia became flummoxed due to another giant crush. "I tried to cast Eric, but it was a mold failure-and he wouldn't let me do it again. I was distracted by the guitarist, John Weider. He was helping me mix the mold and that made me fuck it up. I was turned on by him, but of course I was too fat."

  Right around this difficult time, Dianne fell in love with a drag queen and retired her plating crown. Used and abused by Zeppelin and minus her beloved partner, Cynthia's artistic vision never wavered. "First I did it to meet the bands, secondly it satisfied my collector's impulse-I used to collect stamps before that. It was Frank Zappa who told me it was an art form. I said, `You are telling me it's an art form, so it must be an art form.'"

  Frank's earnest heart was in the right place, but when he imported her to town, Cynthia and La-La Land didn't exactly merge. "I hated L.A. The first week I did not like the people I met, they didn't seem to like me. Put it this way: I didn't laugh for ten days, until I met Alice Cooper-he had Midwestern humor like mine."

  As she tried to adjust to the frantic Hollywood pace, Cynthia thankfully found a new plater called Harlow. This capricious original already had a scintillating past as a member of the gender-bending Cockettes, and together she and Cynthia immortalized a few rock boys. "I casted somebody from a band called the Churls; I casted the drummer Keith Webb from the Terry Reid Band; Eddie Brigati, the singer in the Young Rascals; and Aynsley Dunbar from the Mothers. And Zal Yanovsky from the Lovin' Spoonful. That one turned out good and it was a good experience."

  Because of her teenage addiction to musical theatre, Cynthia pursued playwright/actor/singer Anthony Newley and enlisted my pal Iva Turner as plater. "Cynthia was one of the few people I knew who loved Anthony Newley as much as I did," Iva tells me. "In fact, we shared the fantasy that he might want to be carted some day, and made a pact that I would be his plater. So, when she called and excitedly gasped, `Guess who's coming over!' I guessed it on the first try and rushed to her apartment. Mr. Newley arrived a few minutes later. He was adorable, sexy, and enthusiastic about being inducted into the Plaster Caster Hall of Fame. After a bit of preliminary chitchat around the dining room table, Cynthia went into the kitchen and began scooping alginates, while I coaxed our honoree into the bedroom. As I lovingly labored to bring Mr. Newley's cock to its full potential, I could hear Cynthia counting down the seconds, `Ten, nine, eight. . .' and when she got to one, the door seemed to blast open, Mr. Newley jumped to his feet, Ms. Plaster Caster held the container to his crotch, and together they shoved his hard cock into the mixture. `It's cold!' he declared. (Don't worry. I warmed him up later.) Cynthia was the consummate professional. Gently removing his pubic hairs from the mold, she congratulated him on a job well done. She could tell immediately that the cast was going to be a good one, and if you look at Mr. Newley's cast, you'll see that she was absolutely right. It's a beautiful example of her signature amalgamation of sex and art."

  While Cynthia mixed plaster, and the GTO's continued romping around Hollywood, Mr. Zappa attempted another brave undertaking. He wanted to capture the groupie spirit by publishing Cynthia's diaries, along with mine. He even asked Noel Redding, who kept copious road notes, if he'd like to round out the proceedings. Cynthia and I spent long days reading our diaries aloud while Frank's proper secretary, the veddy British Pauline, typed up the frisky endearments for future generations. Sadly, even the possibility of her own fame couldn't keep Cynthia in Tinsel Town.

  Her Hollywood apartment was robbed, and Frank's shyster manager, Herb Cohen, offered to put her all-important casts into his vault for "safekeeping." "I was passive and easily intimidated, I didn't want to argue: Frank trusted him and I trusted him, so I agreed." As if being burglarized wasn't bad enough, she got hit by a car and was badly hurt crossing the street on the Sunset Strip. At that point, even Mr. Zappa's enthusiasm wasn't enough to hold her here. Cynthia wanted to go home. "Times were changing: for one thing, when in Chicago, bands wanted to be casted, but in L.A., they only wanted to date beautiful models. And the sexual revolution was changing in 1971; people were starting to get married instead of sleeping with strangers. It was no longer trendy to be in my collection, I guess, so I didn't capture people of the magnitude of Jimi Hendrix. Suddenly, everything was going wrong; it was a really bogus time for me."

  Back in Chicago, Cynthia settled into a normal typesetting job and didn't whip up any alginates for ten long years. "I didn't care for the '70s music. The rock was getting too hard for me, and I worked a straight job. Plaster casting does not lend itself to the time I had to go to bed. Usually the golden hour for a dick to go in my mold was 3:00 A.M., and I had to get up for work three hours later." In the early '80s, Cynthia came out of semiretirement. "Punk rock started up and that's when the music got really exciting for me again."

  Due to the gathering obsession and keen yearning for the days of Hendrix, the Doors, and Zeppelin, the more mythological the '60s heyday became, and the more Cynthia found she was garnering a new kind of respect. And she was once again svelte and miniskirted. "It was different, yeah. I was no longer fat, I got more respect, people wanted to be on the same mantel with Jimi Hendrix. It started building over the space of fifteen or twenty years-and to this day, the pace is still mounting."

  In 1986, my first book, I'm with the Band, became a bestseller, and Cynthia and I were happily reunited on the first salacious groupie expose on MTV. "Even before I moved to L.A., the media jumped on the Plaster Casters, and I didn't expect that. Slowly even more media became interested and started to call me an icon. I try not to think about it too much or it makes me crazy." Cynthia smiles. "But it does come in handy when things are down. The fan mail keeps me goin'-it really helps."

  The icon continued pursuing musicians that moved her, and in the '80s and early '90s she generated a plethora of artistic achievements, among them Jon Langford of the Mekons, Chris Connelly of the Revolting Cocks, the Dead Kennedy's Jello Biafra, and Richard Lloyd, the guitarist for Television.

  Encouraged by the burgeoning fascination with her "sweet babies," Cynthia politely asked Herb Cohen to return her casts. His response left her stupefied. "In the late '80s it became apparent that I should get them back because interest was building. I said, `I'd like 'em back, please,' and Herb said, `No, I own them.' I thought, `I can't afford to get them back. Holy fucking shit: now what?' At various points of my life I felt like a loser. I could never win; people took advantage of my passive nature. And this Herb Cohen trial was a turning point in my life. I didn't think it was humanly possible, but I actually found lawyers to represent me for nothing because they loved the idea of the case. My attorney thought what had happened to me was horrible."

  It took five years for the Case of the Stolen Plaster Casts to come to trial at a Los Angeles County courthouse, and Cynthia made the front page of the Calendar section of the L.A. Times. "Exhibits A through Z were the casts. I know the paparazzi were there to shoot them. I had to testify about dicks on the stand for two days, and you, my doll, were my only witness." Yes, I was a character witness for a true character, and even in the face of attempted character assassination, I was confident that the precious truth would prevail. A puny, fresh-faced bumpkin attorney brandished one of my bygone "love letters" to Cynthia as proof that we had been lesbian lovers, insisting that my testimony would therefore be tainted. With C-minus dramatics, he scornfully recited my flower-child prose.

  "February 10, 1969: My true love, my dear pinata face, how I love you and long to see you. Please come here to work. I loved your letter, my sweet. Write sooner than soon as I will have my heart tied to the mailbox. If each long mile between us were just a single kiss, I'd buy a mileage ticket, and not a mile I'd miss .. The judge wasn't going for it. At the end of the four-day spectacle in which the bronzed penises in question stood proudly in the hallowed halls of American justice, Cynthia was awarded her casts, and Herb had to fork over $10,000 for the pleasure of returning
them to their rightful owner.

  Cynthia became an equal opportunity plaster caster a few years back when she started casting rocker girl's mammary glands. "I was liking as many girl bands as boy bands, and girls were not just great singers, but instrumentalists and songwriters, so it was long overdue. The first girl I casted was my friend Suzy Beal from L7, and it worked like a charm. I've casted both sisters in the Demolition Doll Rods, the only band I have a complete set of: Danny's dick, and Christine Doll Rod and Margaret Doll Rod's tits. I've got Laetitia from Stereolab, Sally of the Mekons, Karen of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs." Cynthia and I have been talking about casting each other's titties sometime in the future, a thrilling possibility.

  Cynthia's untamed life in art was captured in 2003 when the documentary DVD Plaster Caster: The Rock and Roll Adventures of Super-Groupie Cynthia Plaster Caster was released by Fragment Films. I was interviewed and so was our long-ago faverave Noel Redding, who passed away soon after filming. "Before the shoot, he called me long-distance," she says, still impressed by all those miles between Cork County, Ireland, and Chicago, Illinois. "God, I'm proud and honored and really sad, too, that his last appearance on film was in my cockumentary."

  Considering that most folks believe Cynthia to be a left-field eccentric, I ask if she thinks of what she does as outsider art. "I've been trying to figure out whether I'm an outsider or not. A lot of people believe a true outsider is insane, unlike me. I know what I do is absurd and funny, and most outsiders don't realize their work is absurd. In fact, the reason I do it is to be as absurd as possible." Cynthia's work has actually become accepted by much of the mainstream, but how does she feel about actually being revered by her fans? "It sure is bizarre, but I'm lovin' it. I just want to have a good time. I've really been burnin' to write my book-and I would love to find the time to draw. I've been doing still lifes of very still dicks and tits. Some people do gardening, some people do still lifer."

  In 2002, Cynthia founded the Cynthia P. Caster Foundation, a legally sanctioned not-for-profit institution whose mission is to give cash to cutting-edge musicians and artists in need of financial assistance. The foundation raises money through donations and the selling of Cynthia's magnificent limited-edition art objects, which include her art school sketches of the Beatles, the Byrds, Noel Redding, and Jeff Beck's crotch (you'll have to read her book for that story).

  Up for grabs at her Web site for a mere $1,500 is a numbered replica of the Hendrix cast, which Cynthia describes thusly:

  The Godfather of Whopper Choppers in my collection! Because this was one of my first shots at plaster casting, the end result came out kind of gnarly. I prematurely cracked the mold open, only to find a still-moist, broken cast inside. So yes, Jimi did in fact, break the mold! But thanks to Elmer's Glue, I managed to reconnect the head to the shaft to the testicles. Very statuesque and antique-looking; like Grecian art. The Canadian underground paper Georgia Straight called it the "Penis de Milo." There's no denying that Jimi towers over most of my collection. His long, thick shaft combined with his disproportionately small head brings a shudder to the spinal cord!

  She has had art showings at superchic art galleries in New York and San Francisco and also does hilarious spoken-word show-and-tells at open-minded universities and rock clubs. We did a rave-filled night together not long ago at L.A.'s Viper Room and happily brought the house up.

  It's way past bedtime, and as we stand in front of my bathroom mirror, rubbing endless creams into our somehow dewy faces, Cynthia and I discuss the impact the Warden has made on her life. I find it astounding that she still speaks to her aged mother almost every day. No matter where Cynthia happens to be on the planet, the Warden thinks she's safely tucked into her apartment in Chicago. "I'd call what she did to me terrorism," she says ardently. "I feared her more than anything when I was a little girl. I studied psychology in college about how really strong hereditary and emotional disorders were-I was afraid I was gonna turn into her."

  Through pioneering artistry and scorching soul-searching, Cynthia has finally come to the conclusion that she is not an extension of her mother; and for almost forty years she has pulled the proverbial wool over her mama's sneaky eyes. Amazingly, the ninety-year-old harridan still has no idea that her infamous daughter is the notorious Cynthia Plaster Caster of Chicago.

  For over three years, Cynthia has made ends meet without having to work an insufferably confining nine-to-five job. Her only line of work these days is being Cynthia Plaster Caster. "I feel more me. I feel like I fit into my skin more compactly. I say whatever I want to say and it makes me say even more. I have never felt more me than I do right now."

  or & oe & q ~ e P

  Hey Little Girl,

  You Wanna Come on the Bus?

  he auspicious winter of 1965 brought the unruly Rolling Stones live, unkempt, and in person to the Long Beach Arena, and I waited in line all night to get tickets close enough to see Mick Jagger ooze shimmering sweat. Unless you were a rock fan in the mid-'60s, you cannot fathom the raw, blatant sexpower that the Stones unleashed, a ferocious blast that decidedly altered chipper high-school student Pam Miller from Reseda, California, forever and evermore.

  Safely sequestered in my seat that November night, I watched agog as several fans seemed to lose all semblance of normalcy. Aroused in spanking new ways, fire-eyed girls hastily unbuttoned their pert cotton blouses, hurling unsullied white Maid- enforms onto the stage where five British ruffians played music that sneered.

  Halfway through the short, strutting set, one brave fan had somehow gotten backstage and was rabidly descending the long gold drapes behind the band, scuttling closer to Charlie Watts like a demented spider in a matching pastel sweater set. Landing on stage, the star of her own teen dream, she managed to glom onto Keith Richards's leg before being hauled off by a crew-cut guard. As manic as I was about the Stones, I did not remove my slightly padded bra, nor dare attempt such a high-risk feat, but I envied those who made sure they were precisely in the spinning center of the action.

  Years later, in my early groupie prime, I prided myself on being an indispensable Whisky a Go Go girl. I was invited into the all-important club most evenings and didn't have to pay because my unbridled dancing got people out of their seats and onto the floor. And yes, there were many nights I was escorted through the door on the arm of a rock god. Even though I considered myself a vital part of the Hollywood music scene, I secretly revered the sassy girls who worked at the venerable rock club. The ticket takers, waitresses, the girls who ran the office for owners Mario and Elmer-they all seemed to harbor hushed secrets behind their long bangs and heavily made-up eyes. These girls never missed a show or a beat. They were first to know who was coming to town, they were always allowed backstage, they had automatic cachet and respect-and often had first dibs on the most coveted local and visiting rock stars.

  One of these intimidating dolls was Dee Dee Lewis, a slim strawberry blonde who won the highly prized job of Whisky office manager after her lovely predecessor, Gail Sloatman, met Frank Zappa and became what we all wanted to be. I vividly remember Dee Dee's thick mod-girl lashes, tomboy stance, and in-crowd allure.

  Lucky for me, it's a small rock world we live in, and when she heard I was working on a book about groupie histories, Dee Dee contacted me through my Web site. This is her response to my e-mail asking whom she had "groupied" with: "Here goes: Jeff Beck, Cozy Powell, Chick Churchill, David Cassidy, the entire Hollies band, Ian Paice, Keef Hartley, Johnny Almond, Tony Stevens (traveled with Foghat, Humble Pie), Peter Grant (yes, I went BIG!), Lee from Chicago, many, many roadies (I didn't mind if I got to hang with the bands), Iggy & the Stooges (married the light man; lived with Iggy), Van Halen, Motley Crue, Ratt, married Ron Keel, and toured the world with many famous bands . . ." I called her instantly, and after a few minutes on the phone, I knew she had to have her own chapter.

  Dee Dee Keel (nee Lewis) arrived at my door carrying loads of scrapbooks and photo albums. A mother of six, the stillstr
iking strawberry blonde looks far younger than her fiftysome years, and she is bubbling over, seemingly pent-up with tawdry tales she can't wait to disclose. She makes no apologies for her devil-may-care dalliances with the boys who played Satan's music. Her ribald memories are essential to her, and she joyfully wears them like a coat of many conquests.

  To jump into the thick of it, I suggest we begin at the middle. "I think my favorite adventure was with Jeff Beck. He was what I aspired to, followed through with, and ultimately attained. The odd thing about the Whisky was that the girls who worked there had little camps. They'd see an album cover and say, `He's mine,' and I wondered, `How do you know who's gonna like who?' At first, I couldn't figure out how I'd get this one because everybody wanted him. Since I had just started working there, and was low on the totem pole, I coolly said, `I'll take Cozy Powell.' At that time Cozy and Jeff Beck were very close. My devious side knew if I did something spectacular, it would get back to Jeff." So how did she go about meeting Beck's notorious drummer? "I simply left a message for Cozy at the hotel, then found out who he knew in London and the names of a couple obscure places he frequented, so when he returned my call I was ready, `Hey, it's Dee Dee from the so-and-so club!' I named the people I supposedly met him with, and he said, `Wow, what are you doing in L.A.?"'

  I am duly impressed, and Dee Dee still seems happily amazed that the ruse worked so well. When the strangers met up at the Whisky that night, Cozy said, "You know, my memory's a bit rusty-come give me a sock in the jaw so I'll remember who you are." Dee Dee giggles, recalling that she hadn't told her Whisky coworkers about her mischievous stunt. "I loved myself! I bought this purple velvet cape and wore skintight jeans and boots. You should have seen the looks on everyone's faces when Cozy walked in. And I thought, 'OK, it's show time. What am I gonna do?" She had nothing to worry about; Cozy acted like Dee Dee was a long lost lover. "I could tell all the girls were wondering, `How did she do that?' I was thinking, `I'm in deep trouble.' So I recruited one of the waitresses, Charlotte, to hang out with us, and we had a great time. At the end of the night he said, `Are you gonna take me home with you?' and I said, `Sure am-with her,' and he said, `Right on!' I figured I had to show him what I got if I expected him to tell Jeff something phenomenal happened-and the three of us played all night long."