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

by Pamela Des Barres

  I wonder why Connie is so vitriolic about the Clinton skirmish. Apparently Big Bill later denied that it ever happened, and honesty is paramount to Connie. Her mom warned her to keep mum, but the tale of the groupie and the governor soon got around and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ran the sordid tale on the front page. When denials came from the governor's office, the right-wing American Spectator asked Connie to take a lie detector test. "They were so out to get his sorry fucking ass, they said, `We'll pay if you'll do it,' and I said, `Hey, I've got the balls to take it.' They said there was a 50/50 chance I might not pass and I had to live with that. I smoked dope, I drank wine the night before, and told the polygrapher exactly how much I drank, how much I smoked. I said, `Look, I was nervous, but I guarantee you, I'm telling you the truth.' They gave me the test three times and I passed it all three times."

  Connie may have aced the lie detector test, but the odds were with Clinton, and the scathing press and negative fallout wore her to a frazzle. She still fumes with anger. "I started talking about what he was way before Paula Jones. The Clinton deal almost put me on the streets. He is a bigger groupie than either of us ever was; he may not be sucking any dick, but it ain't all about the dick sucking, it's about the handshaking and glad-handing. I might be a slut and a whore, but I ain't no liar."

  I wonder if Connie ever attempted to settle down, and she tells me that only once did she give domesticity a try. "I got engaged spring of '83-he was a bond daddy, one of those guys who sells stocks and bonds-and he always had blow. We got along great until a gig came to town, then we didn't get along worth a fuck. I told him from the get-go that I'm gonna keep goin'. But he was enamored about who I am, you know, `Oh, I'm dating Sweet, Sweet Connie, she's got celebrity status.' Plus I got him to the gigs because he was selling blow. But I'd tell him, `Don't be hov- erin' over me because I'm gonna be gone, I'm gonna be way out of your line of vision-in the bus, in the dressing room, I'm not gonna be wantin' to hang around with you.' When there weren't gigs, we were havin' a great time; havin' great sex-he had a huge cock-and my parents were happy. Their little girl was finally gonna give up all that bullshit and get married. My mother and I looked for a dress, and I knew better than to get a white one, so we got a little sundress because I wanted something I could wear to gigs. I've still got it. He and I sort of tried to hang on to the threads, but one thing led to another and we broke up."

  Fortunately, Connie has always been listed in the phone book, and shortly after her engagement unraveled, she got a surprise call from a certain raconteur. "He said, `Connie, this is Jimmy Page,' and I said, `I don't believe you.'" Jimmy put Phil Carlo on the phone, a record exec she knew from her days with John Bonham. "He said, `Connie, it's Phil-that was Jimmy. We want you to come to Dallas. He's doing the ARMS tour and we'll prepay your ticket.' I was substituting that day and went to the airport when school let out." Connie spent the next three days trading rooms with Jimmy and Phil. "I did make Jimmy mad because it was during my anorexia period and Phil called me aside and said, `Jimmy does not want you throwing up in his suite anymore.' The anorexia manifested when I got engaged. I was torn between what's right and `I wanna keep doing what I wanna do!' I thought, `I'll just kill myself.' It didn't work out, but it made people take notice." Did she still have ribald relations with Jimmy even though he didn't want her hurling in his suite? "Yeah, as much as possible, but I mainly gave him head. He was doin' a lot of nose candy." Connie pauses to light up a bowl. She offers me a hit of pot, but I have to decline because I'm on the job. "The majority of the time I was with Jimmy he spent bitching about Robert. And I know what they were bitching about: they were blaming each other for Bonham's death. But Phil was fabulous."

  When her dad died in October 1984 with bad blood still brewing, Connie drowned her grief with another pop star. "Rick Springfield came to town and I guess I really needed to let my hair down. It was the first gig I'd been to since my dad died and Rick and his crew treated me real good, gave me passes and let me hang out in the dressing room. I got it on with his massage therapist, and they made a movie to watch on the airplane. He was Dr. Noah Drake on General Hospital. It was just something to get my mind off the fact that we had buried my dad, and two days after the funeral, my mother stopped speaking to me."

  Since that day over twenty years ago, Connie and her longsuffering mother have been estranged. Has she ever had the desire to patch things up? "Well, yeah, but she's got an unlisted phone number and if I show up she'll probably have me arrested."

  Connie bought her house in Little Rock when she sold her diaries about her unrepentant life. I applaud this brash, unabashed woman, and I'm glad she'll always have a place to hang her laminated passes. As I gather up the photos and articles she's given me, I ask the same cliche question that everybody asks me: does she regret anything she's done? "Not really-nothing that's related to the music business anyway. Actually," she grins, taking another drag, "I'm very happy, very content." I tell her I love how she proudly admits that she's a bit off her rocker. "Notoriety will drive anybody nuts," she says simply.

  Connie Hamzy may have reached the ripe middle age of fifty, but she has no intention of behaving like an adult anytime soon. "As long as I can do this, yeah, I'll do it, but hell! Now I gotta pace myself a little differently. But I'm gonna make up for lost time this weekend. Like, OK: I know the lay of the land on Dylan and Willie comin'-they're doin' Memphis the night before they

  Sweet Connie can't wait to get on the road again, and that's a natural fact.

  qeP, (5 /C"'

  1l 1l l T' I

  Crazy, Crazy Nights

  is a soggy, gray afternoon in Seattle, and I'm sitting in one of a zillion rustic coffee houses, waiting for a compelling woman I met on the Internet to arrive and divulge her wanton tales. From her e-mails, Gayle O'Connor seems to be a seasoned, unrepentant, music-crazed biker chick, and I can't wait to take a trip back to her 1970s groupie years. I've just ordered my second chaff tea when I hear the unmistakable thunderous vroomvroom of a gargantuan motorcycle. I peer out the window to watch Gayle climb from the snazzy Harley-Davidson, pull off her helmet to reveal short, spiky platinum hair, and stride purposefully into the caffeine establishment. I had told her about my ludicrously red hair, and she recognizes me as soon as I reach the bottom of the stairs to greet her. Gayle is clothed top to bottom in black leather. Her eyes sparkle, crinkling at the corners, and her teeth are impossibly white. She gives me a hearty, firm handshake, and her smile pulls me right in.

  She orders a large black coffee and we take our drinks to a quiet table upstairs. Gayle speaks in quick, clipped sentences and laughs raucously and easily. From my first question, she is off and sprinting.

  "My first rock and roll memory? I was nine years old, sitting in the bedroom with my sister, listening to the Rolling Stones-early stuff, like `Paint It Black.' In '68, '69, we lived in Laos. My dad was in the Vietnam War. He was with the CIA, Air America stuff, going into the jungle, training the troops. He was a raging alcoholic, and there was a lot of drinking overseas. They only had one radio station in Laos, one hour on Sundays. The bathroom was the only place we could get reception, so we'd sit in there and listen to American music. The first album I had to have was the soundtrack to Easy Rider. And the Beatles' White Album had just come out. My very first concert was the Monkees. Peter Tork was my first rock and roll crush. Micky Dolenz came to my high school for our homecoming game, but that was years later, and no big deal at that point. I was probably out smoking pot.

  "I was the rebel in my family, but my mom thought I was really good. I'm in the middle. My two sisters and brother always grouped together, and I was way over on the other side. They would always tell my mom, `Gayle is the worst. You don't know what she's up to.' Starting in my teens, they separated themselves from me. My younger sister thought my older sister walked on water. And my brother was full of teen angst because my mom and dad split up. My dad left and didn't contact us: no Christmas cards, no presents, no nothing. Afte
r that, we were basically raised by two women with no man around. You can read between the lines if you want to.

  "I remember I had a poem on my bedroom mirror, even before I started the groupie scene, that said, `Music is my first love/ it will be my last/ Music of the future/ music of the past/ To live without my music/ would be impossible to do/ In this world of troubles/ my music pulls me through.' I would shut the bedroom door and blast Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. I started taking drugs in seventh grade, starting with LSD. I was altered at thirteen! I did a lot of LSD and a lot of pot all through school. I was drinking then too, and the very first time I drank, I blacked out. I used my allowance to buy it. And I stole money from my mom. I stole a lot. I was a big thief.

  "My first concert was here in Seattle-Alice Cooper. It was '73, and I was a junior in high school. I went with my friend Michelle, and I had this blue halter dress, but my mom wouldn't let me wear it, so I changed on the way. I had a big star painted over one of my eyes, with glitter. Some guy from Alice's entourage gave us passes, and we ended up backstage. They were going to Vancouver and said, `You girls should come to Canada.' So Michelle and I packed a bag and got a ride to the border. But we weren't allowed to cross because we didn't have concert tickets. We said, `Oh, no, no. We're with the band.' But the border patrol said, `Sure, right,' and sent us away. So we went through the woods in our huge wedgie platform shoes-mine were green snake skin-and kept heading north, heading north. We hid anytime a car went by, and stayed in the woods. Swear to God! And I was only seventeen. Eventually, we hitchhiked and got a ride to the Bay Shore Inn where the band was staying. It was the middle of the night and we ran into a couple of roadies in the lobby. Bottom line: my friend ended up in one bed, and I ended up in the other. I wasn't a virgin, but I'd only slept with maybe two guys. I guess I was ready to embrace the rock and roll experience because I didn't say no. We got passes for Alice Cooper, partied like crazy, and came home.

  "That was the beginning, and once I started, it was on. I needed to do it more because it made me feel like I was somebody. It was very heady. The guys were famous and I was with them, getting in and out of limos. I suppose they were just flings, although I wanted more. I wanted be their girlfriend, but I didn't go about it in quite the right way. My next big groupie experience was with Bad Company. I was with Phil Carlo from Atlantic. He was a beautiful man. I went to San Francisco with them, and then to Arizona for a couple weeks with Phil. He was taking a sabbatical and called and said, `Do you wanna join me?' We rode horses and stayed at the Camelback Inn, where we sat in the swimming pool and drank. What a life. Oh, and Mick Fleetwood was one of my first big ones. I look at pictures of him now and I'm mortified. He was one of my first big ones. He was at least twenty years older than me. That was before I got picky, but he was very nice, so I don't want to say anything assholey.

  "My first job out of high school was selling clothes at jeans West, a slick clothing store. I robbed them blind. When I left that job, I was nineteen and started topless dancing. I was making a ton of money stripping, enough to keep myself in drugs and booze. During that time, Kansas came to town and I was with their manager, Jeff Glixman. He was beautiful, with a big nose, and long, curly hair. It was the first time I tried MDA, which is the ecstasy of today. It didn't matter if I was with a roadie or a manager, I just wanted to be a part of that scene and be set apart from normal people. I wanted to be special and I was. It was such a fantasy life. I'd get so sad when they left and promised to call. Sometimes they would and a lot of times they wouldn't. But sometimes my goal was exactly what I got, and then I got outta there. Next! It was power.

  "I had a wild night with Stephen Stills in L.A. He was nasty, yeah, we had a nasty time. He was pretty raw. But he was also very rude afterward. He was great when it was to his advantage, but then he became hurtful. He was one of those. I did spend the night, but the next day, he was done. I had a crazy night with Davy Johnstone from Elton John's band. Apparently he was dating Kiki Dee for a while. I remember being in bed with him, sitting on top of him while he was on the phone with Miss Dee. I remember thinking, `I am so it right now!' There were a lot of guys I felt good about. I partied with Peter Frampton's group one night. There was Barry Brandt from Angel, and David Flett, the guitar player from Manfred Mann-I had a great time with him. But before they even came to town, Roger Earl, the drummer for Foghat, was the only one I had to have. I said, `That will be mine, somehow. I don't know how, but that will be mine.' There was something about him. That's when I learned about going down to the local radio station when bands were being interviewed.

  "I ended up with Pat Travers when he came to Seattle and he asked me to go to Portland with him on the bus. On the way back, I was really tired, so I crawled into one of the beds to sleep. I woke up and felt hands on me; touching my hair, rubbing up behind me. I reached back to grab his hair. Pat had long blond hair, but this person had short hair. I sat up and said, `What the fuck?' It was one of the roadies. Pat had told him, `Go ahead.' I was devastated and so hurt. That was mean. Pat Travers was an asshole, and you feel free to put that in print.

  "I went backstage and met Chicago. Walter Parazaider, one of the sax players in Chicago, was a huge one for me. I have pictures of him in boxers with this little stuffed Pooh bear. He was very married. A lot of them were very married. Ringo Starr came to a party for Chicago. And for me, the Beatles are on another plane. I dated George Harrison's road manager or PR guy, can't remember which. I was in the car with him and he said, `I gotta stop at George's house.' It was up there in the hills. He told me the story about the street signs getting stolen-Blue Jay Way. We walked in and I was standing in George Harrison's house-in front of one of the Beatles! He was very nice and polite. I didn't know if I could say, `Oh my God!' I didn't, because I was being cool. Oh, and one of the best was Alto Reed. He played in the J. Geils Band and with Bob Seger in the Silver Bullet Band. He was awesome. He was so real. No man had ever told me that my body parts were beautiful. I'll never forget it. I was mortified because I was so young. He sat down there between my legs, touching me, looking at me, then looking into my eyes, saying, `Just look at it. It's beautiful.' He's the one who taught me to be vocal, how to talk during sex. I just got goose bumps thinking about that. Then in '76, KISS came to town.

  "First I slept with Paul Stanley, and then I slept with Gene Simmons. Gene was fantastic! He is so smart and polite. He's just real. We had a great time. I hung out with him at the Sunset Marquis, and they left town three weeks later. I was living with this girl, Debbie. The phone rang and it was Gene. I said, `Hey, what's up?' I was gesturing to Debbie, going, `It's Gene, oh my God!' He said, `We're taking a break before we do the next album. I was wondering if you'd like to come to New York for a couple of weeks?'

  "Did I take him up on it? Yes, of course. Did he pick me up at the airport? No, of course not. He was staying on Riverside Drive. I got there and I was dyin'! We shopped, went to restaurants, did normal things. It was during the time KISS wore makeup, so we could just walk down the street. Now mind you, he was wearing six-inch platforms and skull rings on all his fingers. He had skintight jeans and was so tall anyway. Nobody recognized him, but he still looked like a freak. The night I really remember was at a well-known restaurant. We went to the door and there was a private party for Hall & Oates going on. So the doorman said, `I'm sorry, there's a private party.' And Gene, very eloquently said, `Oh, well, thank you anyway.' We started to walk away, then the doorman said, `Hey, wait a minute, aren't you Gene Simmons? Oh, you can come in!' I was twenty years old, and in this room was Rod Stewart, the Rolling Stones, Hall & Oates, Bad Company. I was standing against a cigarette machine with my heart racing, thinking, `I can't believe I'm here!' And I was with Gene so it was a huge night.

  "Gene's mom came to visit and she was very Jewish. His real name is Chaim, and she'd always call him that. She wanted to feed us and kept asking, `Are you hungry? You want to eat something? Let's feed him, he's too skinny!' One day we went dow
nstairs and the table was just filled with food. She was a sweetheart. Gene had a hobby of cutting and pasting every single article ever written about KISS-German magazines, Chinese, Japanese-an unbelievable collection of everything written about him. One day I was sitting downstairs with his mom, looking at these KISS scrapbooks, and we finally went through the ones we had. So I said, `Let me go upstairs and get some more.' So Gene gives me more scrapbooks for us to look at. I unzip one, and it's filled with naked women and beaver shots. I about died, but his mom says to me, `Oh, my son, I know he's kind of a naughty boy, but he's a good boy.' Poor mom. I took my pictures out of his scrapbook. Yeah, I took mine right out of his little book.

  "Gene knew I had already been with Paul Stanley, but he didn't care. And when I wound up with Gene, did Paul care? No, he didn't. Those were the days. Gene took me to the studio one afternoon, and it was the first time I hung out with Peter Criss, and we just clicked. Gene was very square. When I even had a glass of wine at dinner, he would say, `Are you OK to talk? To walk? You've had some wine.' So after the session that night, Peter and his wife, Lydia, came to dinner with us. Well, the chemistry between Peter and I was just raw. We went back to Gene's house after dinner. When I went to get something to drink, Peter came after me, and in the kitchen, it just happened. We were on each other like flies on shit. With Gene and Lydia right upstairs! I was going to be leaving in three days, and I thought, `What am I doing? I'm here in New York with Gene and I'm making out with Peter. Oh my God, what are we going to do?' So we go back upstairs, and I'm trying to be cool. About five o'clock in the morning, I was in bed with Gene and the phone rang. He answered the phone, handed it to me, saying, `It's for you.' It was Peter saying, `Can you get away? I'll meet you downstairs.' Gene turned over and went back to sleep, so I slid out of bed, went downstairs, and jumped in Peter's sports car, and we roared off. We went to his manager's apartment for three days. It was a very white New York apartment. We fucked our brains out, ordered in, and did so much blow. Oh, Peter was off the hook. And hung like a horse. Peter was huge! Oh, it was on! I called Gene and he said, `I think it's probably time you come get your stuff, huh?' He was cool. I went and got my stuff, and to this day when I see Gene, he's totally cool.