Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies (15 page)

Her last encounter with Zeppelin's guitar wizard was ten years ago. Over dinner, Jimmy pulled all the old romantic lines out of his crushed-velvet pocket, and Catherine was close to caving in. "Thank goodness I caught myself in time. He looked different, but his eyes were exactly the same. When I gazed into his eyes, it was Mr. Page, all right. I thought `Maybe,' then, `Nnnnoooo: He was still too dangerous. The hand grenade is totally viable."

Music continues to be paramount in Catherine's life. Whenever Al Green comes to town, she's front and center, swaying and swooning. Among the family photos on her library table there's a recent shot of her beaming at Smokey Robinson the night they met at a charity event. "I've been exposed to every kind of music there is since I was a baby girl. My great-greatgrandmother was a classical violinist, my great-grandfather was a concert pianist; and my grandfather played with all the big bands and wrote boogie-woogie. I miss the sound of a guitar or piano in my house. I miss the music vibe all around. After all, I was right in the middle of the revolution that changed the world."

Kicks

rom the moment my creative mentor, Frank Zappa, titillated me with the tale of Cynthia Plaster Caster back in 1968, I have been fascinated by her brazen art. Riotously enamored with rock stars myself, I was also impressed by the ingenious way she set about meeting her personal faves. Frank believed Cynthia was an innovative groundbreaker and had decided that the shy, chubby, dark-haired girl from Chicago should join his wacky ranks, even though her particular art form couldn't be captured on vinyl. Thankfully, our squealy first meeting was captured when Frank introduced us on the phone and recorded our giggly call for a track on Permanent Damage, the album with my all-girl group, the GTO's.

Cynthia has been praised as "The Rodin of Rock," an apt description for such an undeniable artiste. I have watched people blush and stammer, fume and pontificate, laugh uproariously and bow down to her audacity, her spunk (so to speak) when discussing the merits of Cynthia's artwork. Some of them might not consider what she does (making plaster replicas of rock stars' penises) to be an art form, but those folks are supremely uptight, shortsighted, and don't have a very good sense of humor.

Just to set the record straight, I looked up the word artist in Webster's:

One who professes and practices an imaginative art.

That's for sure! And the meaning of art truly helps describe what Cynthia does so well:

skill acquired by experience, study, or observation (the art of making friends); an occupation requiring knowledge or skill (the art of organ building); the conscious use of skill and creative imagination.

God bless Merriam-Webster, I couldn't have put it any better myself! Cynthia and I have been friends since the day Frank threw two kinky kindred spirits together. We found we were besotted with the same spindly, frizzy-haired British rock star, Noel Redding, and bonded immediately. I've long known about her stifling upbringing and thorny, troublesome relationship with her mother, a portentous, pious presence she still calls "the Warden." I have been privy to many of her infamous antics and treasure trove of plaster casts. I've had the unparalleled pleasure of sleeping among the many shapes and sizes during my frequent visits to her pad in the Windy City. Something about their proud, silent presence makes me feel right at home.

I'm always chuffed when our fun-intensive schedules allow for a little visit, so when Cynthia called to tell me one of her favorite new bands, the Redwalls, asked her to appear in their upcoming video here in L.A., I jumped for joy. Of course, I invited her to stay with me, and in between our lively dinner party and shopping sprees, Cynthia and I manage to curl up on the couch and trip the light fantastic.

Just like me, young Cynthia was struck hard by the limey lightning bolt called the Beatles. Up until then, she had been a devotee of show tunes and live theater, and when she saw a picture of the four mop tops in their matching outfits, she thought they were a new comedy troupe. "Then I heard `I Wanna Hold Your Hand' and was blown away-because they were goodlooking and made proportionately great music." Virginal and completely ignorant about the facts of life, Cynthia still realized there were far more fascinating prospects to consider. "Fuck the high school swills. This is what I wanna date!"

Swimming, gymnastics, and ignorant high school lads were all but forgotten as the Brits triumphantly invaded U.S. soil. "As each new British Invasion band arrived, I got more interested, but so did more and more other girls: competition, and this growing number was becoming a big problem for me." In 1965 the disorderly Rolling Stones came to town to record 12 X 5 at Chess Records. "I realized they stayed at a hotel, so that had to be mecca. I also figured out that when I called I should ask for the least popular band member, and that's how I found the Stones at the Water Tower Hotel. I asked for Bill Wyman."

The first day Cynthia showed up with her best friend, Pest, there were three girls waiting at the hotel; the next day there were six. Cynthia giddily gave Brian Jones a box of cough drops and got Mick and Keith's autographs, but knew there had to be a far superior way to meet the bands.

Up until Cynthia briefly met Gene Clark of the Byrds, she thought all she wanted was to make out with her musical heroes. "We talked to Gene and he said, `Oh, you're virgins, huh? Why?' `Well, why shouldn't we be virgins, huh?' `Because sex feels good!' `What, Gene? You're kidding!' Pest didn't believe it either, and we wondered, `How does it feel good?' I mean, nobody in high school talked about it."

Cynthia's mother had thrown her father out of the house years earlier due to heavy boozing, and had no use for the opposite sex. Not only was the Warden was a hard, chilly taskmistress, she neglected to tell her daughter a single thing about s-e-x except that she considered it to be a very evil deed. "I'd been wanking off since I was five, but didn't know that was considered sex. I didn't know what the fuck it was! I never talked about it to anybody and nobody asked me about it until I was thirteen and my high school music teacher saw me wanking off behind my desk and yelled, `What are you doing?' as I moaned loudly. It so embarrassed me that I didn't do it again for a long time."

The first British group the girls managed to spend valuable time with was the Hollies. "They were the first band I actually hung out with, one-on-one. But not the cute ones; they were Bobby Elliott, the drummer, and the teddy-bear bass player, Eric Haydock. We somehow got into their hotel room and laughed with them-we loved British humor. And because they were not the main rock stars in the band, we felt more like their equals."

Their semi-comfy experience must have triggered "I want more of this!"

"Yeah, it subconsciously told me I could hold a conversation with them. I was more comfortable if they made me laugh and I could make them laugh. This was a real important discovery because I figured that was the only way I could get laid, which I found out was something that was supposed to feel good; part of the sexual process that my mother said was a very bad thing for me." When Cynthia read in the paper that the Beatles took their girlfriends along on a vacation to the Virgin Islands, she naturally assumed they'd be sharing hotel rooms.

"I figured that fun/sexual reproduction was going on in the Virgin Islands, and thought, `Okay, if that's what they want, that's what I want.' The same time this realization came about, we learned about Cockney rhyming slang. Most importantly, we learned the dirty words. The slang for `dick' was Hampton Wick and `wank' was Barclay's Bank, which was the key to opening the door behind the hotel room doors-our first really successful means of getting close to rock stars and indulging in conversation."

Clever, clever, clever. As the competition got as stiff as youknow-what and girls piled up in the lobbies, Cynthia and Pest were on the fast track to possible pop paradise. They began leaving naughty letters for the bands. "We incorporated Cockney rhyming slang into these goofy notes, like, `Hello, Gerry and the Pacemakers. We are the Barclay's Bankers of Chicago. We have convenient nighttime hours. Would you like to make a deposit?"

Cynthia slipped the Pacemakers a note, including her phone number, through the window of the tour bus. "I gave it to the drummer. They all looked me over and I thought nothing of it until he called me at home. The Warden's in the next room of our little bitty apartment, looking at me. I was so impressed because back then, long distance was very expensive, probably put through by an operator. He called all the way from Ohio and found out very soon that I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about in the note, and politely hung up." Cynthia handed over a few more bold missives and got more calls and scathing looks from the Warden, but fate was about to dial her number.

In April 1966, the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars was in Chicago and this particular tour starred Paul Revere and the Raiders. "Their song `Kicks' was number one on the charts, which was really hot! Because as you know, part of the appeal of being a groupie is to impress your friends with the fame and success of the band-especially when we were young. It was a real treat, besides the fact the guys were good-looking and talented.

"I was an art major, and was on my way out of art class to meet Pest and find the hotel. We didn't know how we were gonna meet them, but presumed we'd try the `passing the note' trick. I stopped dead in my tracks when my art teacher gave us the homework assignment: `Make a plaster cast,' he said, and the object had to be solid. `Solid! Wait a moment,' I thought. `Don't Hampton Wicks get solid? Okay, let's make it really absurd.' I took extra plaster, put it in a brown paper bag, and wrote PLASTER so it was official looking. I couldn't wait to tell Pest, and her reaction was the same as mine-we screamed our heads off! We took the kit to the hotel and found Paul Revere and the Raiders rooms.

Cynthia had never even seen a penis, and didn't have a clue how to handle one when she and Pest knocked on the first hotel room door. The Raiders were good sports, telling the girls they'd come up with a great idea, sending them on to the next room until they finally got to the singer, Mark Lindsay.