Helpful Score: 7
I don't know if it was because it was dated, immature, or just your typical girl drooling over rock stars, but I couldn't get into this. I found myself rolling my eyes quite a bit, and flipping ahead to find more lurid details. Nonetheless, I put it down. Not fun or a quick read as I had hoped; boring and juvenile is more like it.
Helpful Score: 4
This book is wonderfully written, surprising, touching, heartbreaking and vulnerable. I'm very glad she wrote this book. I know that the character penny lane played in the movie Almost famous was loosely based on this author. She must have been very charismatic aside from beautiful. It was very refreshing to hear the woman's perspective It made me want to read more of her books. You just can't help wishing good things for such a kind and warm spirit. We are all vulnerable human beings, with both flaws and gifts. How wonderful to go dancing through life as she did, living life to it's fullest. I tried explaining this book to some friends, for the most part they didn't understand, I suspect that is the general misconception, however they are wrong, and I will wait for them to read the book to talk to them about it.
Helpful Score: 3
Great chewing gum for the mind, and interesting cultural history. If you're a boomer who really wanted to run free with rock-n-rollers, this will be a treat for you. Pamela is a happy and spiritual being, and always has been, and no doubt this was part of her appeal to so many musicians. Carry on, Miss Pamela!
Helpful Score: 1
Great book. Keeps your interest from the start
Sandra H. (Sanandee) reviewed I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie on + 715 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
tell all book on Mick Jagger, Don Johnson, Jimmy Page, Jim Morrison and on and on...
CHRIS A. (3almeidaboys) reviewed I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie on + 8 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Not as fun of a read as I hoped! Very simplistic writing and very dry!
Barbara A. (barbwired) reviewed I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie on + 130 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
The stylish, exuberant, and remarkably sweet confession of one of the most famous groupies of the 1960s and 70s is back in print in this new edition that includes an afterword on the author's last 15 years of adventures. As soon as she graduated from high school, Pamela Des Barres headed for the Sunset Strip, where she knocked on rock stars' backstage doors and immersed herself in the drugs, danger, and ecstasy of the freewheeling 1960s. Over the next 10 years she had affairs with Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Waylon Jennings, Chris Hillman, Noel Redding, and Jim Morrison, among others. She traveled with Led Zeppelin; lived in sin with Don Johnson; turned down a date with Elvis Presley; and was close friends with Robert Plant, Gram Parsons, Ray Davies, and Frank Zappa. As a member of the GTO's, a girl group masterminded by Frank Zappa, she was in the thick of the most revolutionary renaissance in the history of modern popular music. Warm, witty, and sexy, this kiss-and-tell-all stands out as the perfect chronicle of one of rock 'n' roll's most thrilling eras.
Karen H. (SashaFletch) reviewed I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie on + 121 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I loved this book! I am now reading the sequel to it: Take Another Little Piece of My Heart. As a young teenager in the 70's, I had heard of Miss Pamela, but never knew anything about her. Yes, this book is filled with all the big Rock and Roll names and all the outrageous, drugged-out, sexual exploits that you would expect from this book. But what I took away the most from this book, was Pamela's spirit. A spirit so loving and open that I totally admire her and wish I was like her, being the complete, uptight opposite. She is now one of my female heroines of all time.
Boring, whiny, adolescent.
Lorrie B. (mallygirl) reviewed I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie on + 170 more book reviews
I read this book as a teenager and I really liked it! I remember I loved duran duran, and then there was a band called the powerstation or something like that and a few of the members of duran duran were in it, so I got the book because Micheal Des Barres wife wrote it. Good book of a tell all groupie who ends up marrying someone famous. Pretty juicy!
Denise J. (deelite258) reviewed I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie on + 17 more book reviews
wow this girl was wild loved the book brought back alot of memories from the 60s anf the 70s I wasnt a groupie but saw alot of concerts
Jeannie H. (ilovebooksanddogs) -
I gave this book 4 stars because I really did like it but then again...... I really didn't. I'm so conflicted on how to review this book. I'm not sure how to describe the way Pamela writes, poetic at times, self fullfilling at others, plain out not understandable throughout most of it...she rambles a lot.
Still I have to say that I enjoyed this book because of the era.....the history of a place in time that will never be again. Rock n roll, hippies, free love, groupies, drugs, sex and all that wild stuff. Exactly why I picked this book up to read! I wanted to be scandalized...but. Big BUT!
What bothered me most about this book was that she never figured herself out. I saw over and over again an insecure, low-self esteem teenager reaching out to anyone that would love her, and her allowing herself to be used over and over in ways that a normal person would never allow. She would fall in love with a rock n roller one day, sleep with him and the very next day be with another rock star, in love with him, sleeping with him, then a week later after being used and dumped she would immediately jump on the band wagon and be with another rock star having sex with him, doing drugs, then the next day be off with another rock star, having sex with him, in love with him, then when dumped, she never loved him, etc, etc...I mean this girl was just all over the place. A BIG rubber ball. I started to feel so damn sorry for her! I gave up counting how many men she was having sex with at one time because I ran out of fingers and toes!!
I'm not trying to judge her but hard not to when throughout the book she judges other girls who are doing the same thing she is. She was not above judging them, calling them names, making fun of them, and the older she got the more judgemental she became of the younger groupies trying to step in to take her place. That kind of got under my skin pretty quickly.
Still, this is a fascinating read about a place in time that is gone and will never be again. I loved the history of rock bands that I grew up with and the names she threw around. This is her first book, she has written 4 more after this one that I know of and she throws a LOT of names around. If you are interested in rock n roll, sex, rock stars, movie stars, groupies, drugs, and just plain crazyiness this is the book to read. I did like it, just didn't like seeing a beautiful young woman debase herself in this manner. I think that sums it up for me!
4 likes
Still I have to say that I enjoyed this book because of the era.....the history of a place in time that will never be again. Rock n roll, hippies, free love, groupies, drugs, sex and all that wild stuff. Exactly why I picked this book up to read! I wanted to be scandalized...but. Big BUT!
What bothered me most about this book was that she never figured herself out. I saw over and over again an insecure, low-self esteem teenager reaching out to anyone that would love her, and her allowing herself to be used over and over in ways that a normal person would never allow. She would fall in love with a rock n roller one day, sleep with him and the very next day be with another rock star, in love with him, sleeping with him, then a week later after being used and dumped she would immediately jump on the band wagon and be with another rock star having sex with him, doing drugs, then the next day be off with another rock star, having sex with him, in love with him, then when dumped, she never loved him, etc, etc...I mean this girl was just all over the place. A BIG rubber ball. I started to feel so damn sorry for her! I gave up counting how many men she was having sex with at one time because I ran out of fingers and toes!!
I'm not trying to judge her but hard not to when throughout the book she judges other girls who are doing the same thing she is. She was not above judging them, calling them names, making fun of them, and the older she got the more judgemental she became of the younger groupies trying to step in to take her place. That kind of got under my skin pretty quickly.
Still, this is a fascinating read about a place in time that is gone and will never be again. I loved the history of rock bands that I grew up with and the names she threw around. This is her first book, she has written 4 more after this one that I know of and she throws a LOT of names around. If you are interested in rock n roll, sex, rock stars, movie stars, groupies, drugs, and just plain crazyiness this is the book to read. I did like it, just didn't like seeing a beautiful young woman debase herself in this manner. I think that sums it up for me!
4 likes
Dianne D. (WestieMom) reviewed I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie on + 74 more book reviews
This book is a real hoot. If you were a child of the 60's & 70's you will remember all of the stars that she slept with. Her big claim to fame is that she made plaster casts of ... (well, use you imagination) of all of the men she slept with. I wonder where the collection is now??
