I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie

Good book

For years I have wanted to read this book and I'm glad I finally did. Des Barres does a great job at describing a young teens angst at discovering and exploring her budding sexuality during the 60's. Her candor is refreshing and I love how she describes her various encounters in an innocent and non-graphic way. If you are looking for a graphic book, this is not it. Her writing is almost "ladylike"....she gets her point across without coming across as slutty.As far as an insiders view to the 60's "music scene", Des Barres does open the door for the reader to step into the world of some of the greatest bands of all time (Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin) for a behind the scenes look into their backstage shenanigans, all which seem somehow to be sexual in nature. (Surprise anyone?)Overall, this is a pretty good book and an easy read; pure literary "fluff". Some parts are a little slow....but they only last for a page or two. Entertaining.....would make a good movie.Oh, yeah.....I have a new appreciation for Frank Zappa now....check out his stuff on iTunes.

First things first. This book is autobiographical. The author, Pamela Des Barres, was a groupie who had sex with a lot of men, most of them musicians, some of them quite famous. She is totally unapologetic for having been a free-spirited, morally unencumbered teenager and young adult in the Sixties and Seventies. (Based on the content of many of the reviews here, these facts seem to be misunderstood by many, so I thought I'd better clear it up first.)I found this book a very interesting read. The author is very lighthearted about most of her exploits, and some of them seem to have been a great deal of fun. It's all drugs, sex, and rock and roll.There is, however, a very dark undercurrent in this book. There are some very sombre, even mournful moments in the book. Some of the stories do highlight the grim side of the whole rock and roll lifestyle, and the author's apparent oblivion to that (or her denial of it) only serves to create greater contrast. If she intended this, this book is a brilliant piece of writing and Pamela Des Barres is an enormously talented and subtle writer. I'm pretty sure, though, that she didn't do it on purpose. I think she really is (or was) shallow and unaware, because the almost artificially cheerful-to-the-point-of-giddy light she shines on her adventures has the quality of one who wants to view the past through rose coloured spectacles.I found this book a very good read, and the picture it gave me of a time and place was very clear. Coming of age in the Sixties, drugs, sex, and rock and roll, irresponsibility and no-holds-barred promiscuity involving famous people, and one rather shallow young woman's adventures in an era now long gone... This could have been great fiction. Although if it were, it would probably have had tighter editing and more coherence as a narrative. As it's actually based on the author's own life, it makes it that much more engaging.

I'm With The Band / 9780450506376I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn't get much past the first third of the book. Somehow, impossibly, this fascinating life story just could not hold my interest."I'm With The Band" is maybe a cautionary tale of the difficulties of writing an autobiography and the importance of a good editor. Pamela tells her life-story chronologically, but the chapters of her book have nothing to tie them together, no high highs or low lows around which the text is meaningfully organized. Everything just sort of flows from her early teenage years onward, carefully inter-spaced with increasingly longer entries from her diaries kept during those times. I think a skilled ghost writer or capable editor could have shaped this story into something with a little more punch, and a little less repetition.Things I liked about this book, though, include: a very sex-positive and people-positive look at a fascinating time and a fascinating life. The writing, though sometimes repetitive as young Pamela bounces from new causes and new bands and new friends, is very earnest and largely feels extremely honest and open. It's very fascinating to read about the sit-ins, the be-ins, the drugs, the bands, and the people as though you're really there seeing everything through Pamela's eyes, and the diary excerpts underscore that these experiences aren't wholly filtered through the lens of memory and nostalgia.Things I didn't like about this book: sometimes there's some shaming of other women, as when Pamela speculates that certain people who didn't live her lifestyle are probably miserable now anyway, but I imagine that Pamela has been given her fair share of flack so I won't judge her for being a little defensive. The disorganization of the material means that there are a lot of names to keep track of as they fade in and out of Pamela's life and it's sometimes hard to keep straight who everyone is. Without organized 'themes' in chapters, the writing starts to become a little repetitive: Pamela finds a new cause, a new friend, a new boy, a new band, a new drug, or a new job; falls intensely in love with the new thing; and is slowly pushed away from the cause/friend/band/boy/drug/job as it becomes increasingly unhealthy and/or a bad fit for her. I can see someone sticking with the narrative for the experience of the times, but for me I started to just get very sad at how many people weren't treating Pamela as nicely as I felt they should.Also, the Kindle edition of this book has some errors that proved distracting (such as extraneous periods that slipped into sentences every so often) and the "teen speak" is a little heavy at times in the narrative, such as the desire to use triple adjectives like 'he was dreamydreamydreamy' and similar sentiments.Finally, and this is going to sound a bit voyeuristic, but in a novel that advertises to be a "kiss-and-tell-all", it's very frustrating to me that in at least the first third of the book, scenes are written so vaguely that I have no idea what's going on. A recurring theme with the first third is Pamela's virginity and who she chooses to give it to, and I lost count of the times when I *thought* PIV intercourse had occurred, only for Pamela to bring up a few pages later that she was still a virgin. I'm not expecting graphic detail, but when everything is cloaked in vague descriptions and heated metaphors, it's really hard to follow the story. I note that Pamela describes her book as more of a coming-of-age tale in the introduction, and I think that's accurate -- at least for the parts I read.Whether or not you will enjoy this novel will probably depend on what you're looking for. If you want an honest, open romp through the past and a close look at the drugs and rock of the period, I think this book will probably deliver. If you want a sexy tell-all that starts fast and keeps you hooked, I'm not sure that you won't find the book to be a touch of a slog.~ Ana Mardoll

Gives you a very good look into the music world, the musicians & the groupies.Tastefully written

Pour ceux qui la connaissent (euh...pas intimement, mais plutôt sa "carrière"), ce livre pourrait (aurait pu) être beaucoup mieux écrit, beaucoup plus intéressant, beaucoup plus tout quoi.....Moi qui suis fan absolu de musique, j'ai abandonné aux 2/3 du livre...Pourtant il y avait tellement à raconter sur les musiciens de cette époque....

Scritto disunito e frammentato. Si fa fatica a seguire il filo del racconto. Anche l'impaginazione è scarsa al pari della stampa tipografica.

Miss Pamela's memoir takes you through a who's who of late sixties, early seventies music royalty. Engaging, sweet and never boring, I learnt so much about the music of the time and found myself downloading the soundtrack of her life during this time.

The book was new and the reading amazing! I would read more about Pamela, well I will as soon as I find another one book like this!