Free Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies by Pamela Des Barres Page B

sex doesn't get different, it just gets better."
    Even with all that love and understanding, Frank was on the road a lot and had his own fervid groupies. How did Gail deal with that niggling little detail? "Well everyone had groupies. I mean, you couldn't get around them. There are certain aspects that were not easy and not fun, and it's not like you could be consoled or cry on his shoulder over it. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

    Was there ever a time when she thought about leaving Frank? "I never thought about leaving him because of another woman, but I did think about leaving him because sometimes it was way too much. When we were at the log cabin, I did leave." What?? I am stunned. She actually fled their idyllic Laurel Canyon sanctuary? "Yeah, I just said, `I've had enough,' and walked out one day. I wrote Frank a note in lipstick on the upstairs bathroom mirror so only he could see it, took the baby, and got on a plane. We had become a crash pad! Anybody could live there at any time, there were no locks on any doors, and Moon and I were not a priority. It felt dangerous for me and my munchkin. What you didn't know was that I had no means of transportation; I had to hitchhike to do the laundry. I had to put my thumb out on Laurel Canyon Boulevard to go to the fucking grocery store. There wasn't even a proper floor in the kitchen. Nobody had any time. And then they'd say, `How come there's no food in the house?' Well, I don't know, why don't you ask Mercy?"
    Has Gail noticed any difference in the groupie scene through the years? "There's always going to be groupies for this art form or that art form. Think about how many groupies there were for a guy in a uniform during the war! I happen to be very partial to real rock 'n' roll; what they're calling `rock' now pales. It's not even a substitute. Just like original rock will never be that way again, there were people who were interested in musicians in a different way."
    I was never ashamed of being a groupie. I bask and revel in the glorious, twangy odes that my songwriter boyfriend, Mike Stinson, writes for me, and I still consider myself a muse.
    "I think those of us who were in service to the music-we were vestal virgins," Gail says. "But you have to realize that vestal virgins were not actually virgins, they were just unfettered by other restraints, totally devoted and in service to whoever it was that they were reserving themselves for. My observations tell me that the early groupie movement was part of a huge shift in consciousness: part of an awareness that was impossible to ignore. Whether it was a nasty sound on the guitar, or what the lyrics said, the people making that music were telling you that everything you suspected about the world you were entering was true. Rock musicians were saying there is an alternative-there is another way to think about things."

    I tell Gail that I believe Bob Dylan, my absolute hero, heralded that much-needed shift in consciousness. "Well, I didn't think of Dylan in the sense of hard-core rock and roll, but I did recognize that he was changing what I thought of as an art form. I knew the origin of the songs that people around him in the New York folk scene were singing and writing about. Some were seriously interested in the history behind it and others were performing pop music. Peter, Paul, and Mary were singing traditional folk music, but with Dylan there was a big difference. What he was writing about was totally consistent with the huge shift in consciousness. In that sense he was as much rock and roll as anybody in rock and roll. I remember when I first got to Hollywood, I went to a huge party in the hills. There were big, giant open doors that led out onto a wide balcony. I stepped out to look around, and there was nobody out there. I was alone, standing at this balustrade, and it was a beautiful, beautiful night. I was in California and I thought, `This is fantastic.' As I turned around and headed for the