Si è conclusa domenica scorsa la kermesse filozappiana che puntualmente di questa stagione si svolge a Bad Doberan (Germania), il celebre Zappanale, giunto quest'anno alla sua trentacinquesima edizione battagliando più del solito con problemi organizzativi, incerta disponibilità dei musicisti, condizioni meteo atroci e costi per viaggi e trasporti ormai alle stelle. Chi non ha potuto andarci di persona può fortunatamente trovarne documentazione audio e video sul web, grazie alla copertura quasi completa che da qualche anno garantisce - anche in live streaming - la berlinese rockradio.de. E non manca uno degli appuntamenti extra-musicali più attesi, l'incontro con Pamela Des Barres, la più illustre delle storiche Girls Together Outrageously.
She fell in love with rock ’n’ roll as a little girl in sunny Reseda, swooning along to the dreamy sounds of Elvis and Dion spinning on her turntable. While she was in high school, Pamela’s friend Victor Hayden introduced her to his cousin, the psychedelic pioneer Captain Beefheart, and her odds of living a normal-formal life were obliterated. Eighteen years old, and eight miles high on an intoxicating mix of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and that burgeoning music scene over the hill, Pamela packed her bags for Hollyweird. It was just down the road by car, but it was a whole different planet from Reseda.
Pamela spent the rest of the 1960s in rock’s cradle of civilization, meeting, befriending, or dating all of her (and your) musical heroes—The Byrds, the Doors, Buffalo Springfield, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Gram Parsons, The Who, and countless others. Once Frank Zappa got to know Pamela and her merry band of freewheelin’ girlfriends, he helped hone them into a performance art and music troupe he called the GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously), famously producing their only studio release, 1969’s cult classic Permanent Damage. Throughout her time opening for The Mothers of Invention with the GTOs, doing handstands in Jim Morrison’s living room, sitting in at protests, accompanying Mick Jagger to Altamont, and nannying for the Zappas, Pamela kept detailed diaries. These priceless primary sources about the birth of Los Angeles as we know it formed the basis for Pamela’s legendary memoir, I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie.
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