The Last of the Groupies: In Memory of Nancy Spungen

Nancy Spungen (1958-1978)

 

What d'you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with 

a society that abandons her and treats her like trash? 

You get what you fucking deserve!

I. 

 

It might be argued that Nancy Spungen was the last of the great American groupies [1]. 

 

For whilst there were - and probably still are - many young girls happy to starfuck their way to notoriety post-Nancy, I can't think of any by name and in the #MeToo era even the term groupie now seems dated and problematic.

 

Similarly, whilst the rock 'n' roll circus continued after the Sex Pistols imploded in 1978 - the year of Miss Spungen's death - it has never really recovered from the blow dealt it by punk and I'm pretty sure that when cultural historians look back a hundred years from now, rock's golden age will be identified as lasting from the mid-1950s until the end of the '70s (i.e., from Elvis to Sid Vicious). 

 

 

II. 

 

It would be wrong to pretend that Nancy was simply a nice Jewish girl at heart. Because, whilst she was indeed Jewish and raised in a respectable middle-class home, she wasn't composed of sugar and spice, so much as madness and spite and all things vice [2]. 

 

An emotionally disturbed infant and young child, prone to screaming fits and violent behaviour, Nancy was already prescribed barbiturates at just a few months of age in an attempt to pacify her [3]. Finally, at fifteen, having attempted suicide the year before, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

 

An obviously bright girl, Nancy excelled at elementary school, but made few friends. At age eleven, however, she was expelled due to repeated absenteeism. She had also by this age threatened to kill her babysitter with a pair of scissors and attacked her shrink after being accused of simply wanting attention and this also caused the school authorities some concern.  

 

Nevertheless, Nancy graduated from high school in April 1974 and was accepted into the University of Colorado. Unfortunately, after being twice arrested - firstly for purchasing marijuana from an undercover police officer and then for being discovered in possession of stolen property - her student life was cut short. Indeed, it was only on condition that she leave the state of Colorado and agree to parental supervision that Nancy avoided jail. 

 

At seventeen, Nancy left home and moved to New York City. Here she supported herself by whatever means she could; a little bit of freelance music journalism, some temporary work at a clothes store, stripping, and prostitution. She also decided she wanted to become a groupie and began to follow various rock bands, including Aerosmith, The New York Dolls, and the Ramones [4].

 

In 1977, Nancy flew to London with The Heartbreakers and decided she wanted to get herself a Sex Pistol. Initialy she had set her sights on Rotten, but when he showed no interest, she turned her attention to Sid. And so began a fateful eighteen-month relationship that came to a bloody end at the Chelsea Hotel in October 1978; one I have written of elsewhere on Torpedo the Ark: click here.   

 

Nancy was buried in the King David Memorial Park in Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Deborah, published a memoir in 1983 with a title taken from a poem by Vicious: I Don't Want to Live This Life [5]. 

 

Whilst often still demonised by those who should know better (and, in many cases, didn't know her), Nancy Spungen has cemented her place within popular culture and I do think, over forty years since her death (aged just twenty), we might retrospectively view her with a little more kindness.  

         

 

Notes

 

[1] For an earlier post on groupies - those muses with dirty faces - click here.

 

[2] Having said that, I don't think Nancy deserved the epiphet Nauseating placed before her name, no matter how unpleasant she may have seemed. For whilst even his fellow band members may have found her behaviour objectionable, there's no doubting that Sid was besotted with Nancy, describing her as an intelligent and humorous woman who possessed not only beautiful eyes, but the most beautiful wet pussy in the world - and a fab taste in clothes. 

      Ultimately, perhaps being nauseating is preferable to being nice anyway; certainly when one recalls that the latter derives from the Latin nescius, meaning unknowing, ignorant, foolish - terms which cannot be applied to the streetwise Miss Spungen. 

 

[3] Although no brain damage was recorded at the time of her birth, one wonders if the fact Nancy had emerged into the world bright blue due to oxygen deprivation played a part in her later mental health problems; after all, no one likes to be strangled by their own umbilical cord (or carry an unconscious memory of such). 

 

[4] When I say follow, I of course mean rather more than this; Nancy supplied numerous rock stars with drugs and sexual favours. Before meeting Sid, she had slept with many of those on the New York scene at that time; David Johansen, Johnny Thunders, Syl Sylvain, Jerry Nolan, Richard Hell, Iggy Pop ... et al. 

 

[5] Those who are interested can listen to Deborah Spungen talk about her daughter, her book, her memories of Sid Vicious, etc. in a 42-minute radio interview (23 Nov 1983): available on YouTube: click here.  

 

 

Muses with Dirty Faces: In Praise of the Groupie

 

Four of the GTOs looking fabulous and freaky in 1969
Photo by Ed Caraeff / Morgan Media / Getty Images

 

 

I. 

 

Are groupies still a thing in the era of #MeToo, or are they now an extinct species of young female fan who voluntarily performed sexual services in order to demonstrate their devotion to the rock gods they worshipped and followed on tour ...? [1]  

 

 

II.

 

Although the term originated in the music scene of the 1960s, the phenomenon itself was much older and wider. Indeed, some argue that Mary Magdalene was the mother of all groupies, travelling with Jesus and his gang of disciples known as the Apostles, happy to show her support in whatever way was asked of her [2]. 

 

But it's the groupies of the 1960s and '70s who are best remembered and who, in their day, were almost as famous as the musicians they fucked [3]. 

 

Girls such as Pamela Des Barres [4], 'Sweet' Connie Hamzy [5], Cynthia 'Plaster Caster' Albritton [6], and Barbara 'The Butter Queen' Cope [7], were certainly not regular girlfriends - although they were sometimes regarded as surrogates - but they were much more than ordinary fans; if they weren't expecting engagement rings, neither were they interested in simply collecting autographs or having a one night stand. 

 

The groupies wanted to be an integral part of the scene; as vital in their own way as roadies, able to access all areas and legitimately declare: I'm with the band and I kind of admire them for that - as well as their declaration of agency: these girls did not regard themselves as victims or as being exploited; they knew what they wanted, what they were doing, what the rewards and dangers of a rock 'n' roll lifestyle were. 

 

Having said that, there was a very obvious power imbalance (or inequality) built into the rock star-groupie relationship and so questions of agency and consent do arise and remain complex and problematic. 

 

And this is particularly so when it comes to the so-called baby groupies - i.e., underage girls such as Sable Starr [8] and Lori Mattix [9]. The latter was only fourteen when she (allegedly) lost her virginity to David Bowie and not much older when she began her illicit affair with Led Zepplin's Jimmy Page, the couple seen here at Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco in LA, in 1972:    

 

 

      

Notes

 

[1] I'm certainly not the first to ask this question; see, for example, Thea De Gallier's article 'I wouldn't want this for anybody's daughter': will #MeToo mean the end of the rock 'n' roll groupie?' in The Guardian (15 Mar 2018): click here. 

      It's hard to imagine in an age when allegations of inappropriate behaviour and sexual misconduct are made at the drop of a hat and issues around consent and male entitlement are widely discussed, that the wild Bacchanalian excesses of the 1960s and '70s would be tolerated now. 

 

[2] In the Gnostic texts, Mary Magdalene's uniquely close relationship with Jesus is often emphasised. In the Gospel of Philip, for example, she is described as a companion to the latter, whom he would openly kiss on the mouth. This has led some scholars to conclude that there was a sexual component to their relationship. 

      The portrayal of Mary as a promiscuous woman or prostitute began in 591 when Pope Gregory I conflated her with Mary of Bethany (Luke 10:39) and the unnamed sinful woman who anointed Jesus's feet in Luke 7:36-50. This view of her has persisted in popular culture, giving rise to the idea of Mary as the original groupie. 

      See: Pamela Des Barres, Rock Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon (1996), who develops the idea that a groupie is to a rock band as Mary Magdalene was to Jesus.

 

[3] This is evidenced by the fact that the February 1969 edition of Rolling Stone was devoted to the topic of groupies and that Time magazine also published an article on the girls of rock, discussing their manners and morals. The documentary film, Groupies (dir. Ron Dorfman and Peter Nevard) was released the following year. 

 

[4] Pamela Des Barres (b. 1948) is an American groupie, writer, musician, and actress. She is best known for her 1987 memoir, I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, which details her experiences in the Los Angeles rock music scene of the 1960s and 1970s. She was also a member of the experimental all-girl group - composed of groupies - the GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously). 

 

[5] 'Sweet' Connie Hamzy, aka Connie Flowers (1955-2021), was an American groupie who claimed to have had sex with numerous rock musicians and that she was propositioned by Bill Clinton in 1984, when he was the governor of Arkansas. 

 

[6] Cynthia Plaster Caster, born Cynthia Albritton (1947-2022), was an American groupie and visual artist notorious for creating plaster casts of the erect penises belonging to her famous lovers. She began this unusual practice with the assistance of rock stars in 1968, but later included the cocks of filmmakers and other artists, producing 50 phallic works in all. 

 

[7] Barbara Cope (1950-2018) was an American groupie, known in the late 1960s and early 1970s as The Butter Queen, due to her penchant for using butter as lubricant during her sexual encounters with rock stars. Cope claimed to have visited 52 major cities in the United States while following bands, and travelled to 11 different countries with them. She retired from groupie life in 1972, having had sex (again according to her own account) with around 2,000 musicians. 

 

[8] Sable Starr (1957-2009), often described as the queen of the groupie scene in LA during the early 1970s, was also (due to her age) one of the so-called baby groupies; she lost her virginity to a guitarist when she was twelve. In an interview in 1973, she claimed to be acquainted with many famous rock stars, including Rod Stewart, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, and Marc Bolan. At 16 she met Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls and went to live with him in NYC. This did not turn out well. Later, she had a affair with Richard Hell, befriended Nancy Spungen, and participated in the local punk rock scene, but by the early 1980s her groupie days were over.    

 

[9] Lori Mattix (b. 1958), sometimes known as Lori Maddox, or Lori Lightning, is a former American child model and baby groupie of the 1970s. In an interview in 2015, she claimed to have been fucked by Bowie, Jagger, and Jimmy Page whilst she was underage. True or not, she had begun frequenting clubs on Sunset Strip with her friend Sable Starr whe she was 13 and her story has been widely discussed by commentators keen to highlight the sexual exploitation of minors within the music industry.   

 

Further reading (for those who are interested): 

Kathryn Bromwich, 'Groupies revisited: the women with triple-A access to the 60s', The Observer (15 Nov 2015): click here. 

 

Craig McLean, 'Good time girl: memories of super groupie Pamela Des Barres', The Observer (6 May 2018): click here. 

 

 

And for a follow up post to this one, on Nancy Spungen - last of the great American groupies - click here.