I stood outside the stage door, my heart thumping in my chest. I looked around the grubby sidewalk of the street downtown; I wasn't the only one out here. There was the usual collection of lowlifes hanging around trying to bum smokes, guitar geeks that wanted to talk about gear and I wasn't the only girl nervously checking her makeup and fixing her stockings. The band had just finished up their set and would be out the door any minute. The bouncer eyed the small crowd, looking for troublemakers and problematic drunks.
How had I come to be out here; dressed in a black camisole and miniskirt, my face made up like a Glamour Shot and wearing higher heels than I was ever inclined to otherwise? I was just some girl from the suburbs, barely a woman and just experienced enough to know what I wanted and I was determined to get it. It wasn't really about the sex. Ok that was a lie. Of course it was about the sex. Music is sex.
I remember the first time my friend Helena mentioned a great new local band. I hadn't gone with any expectations other than of hearing yet another mediocre indie rock outfit. This was different. The music was... powerful I guess is the right word. Every song spoke directly to me. I know that sounds conceited, but when music really hits me that is how it feels. My knees went weak. I was overwhelmed with emotions and sensations. I stood still and floated in a moment of bliss where sight and sound and everything else became perfect.
That's when I really saw HIM for the first time. He was playing lead guitar. His jaw was tensed and his lips were puckered slightly in concentration as he focused on a solo. He was so beautiful I wanted to cry. Or maybe to laugh with joy. I had never felt so much all at once. Raw energy surged back and forth and around the room. Just as he finished with a flourish he looked me in the eye I swear I almost came right there in the middle of the bar. I was hooked.
I tried to make every show of theirs I could, treating them like my own personal Grateful Dead. If I was a little worn out the next day at work or had to struggle to find the cover I didn't care. Seeing them was my drug. The electric look that would sear between him and me was more addictive than any high from drugs. I needed it. I had to have it.
I was single and had been for months. Oh I had the occasional date and even the occasional lay, but none of it was half as satisfying as standing in a crowded club with a hundred other people. Even crammed in shoulder to shoulder it felt more intimate than the best sex I had ever had. I had been going to their shows for about four months when I noticed them, the girls gathered on the side of the stage. They were always doing little things to help the band out; fetching drinks, untangling cords and I swear I even saw one sewing a button back on a pair of pants. In return the band showered smiles on them, bought the girls extra drinks and generally left with one or more of them after a show. "Ugh, groupies," I heard the derisive dismissal of the group by a pair of sorority girls.
Groupies? Do those even exist anymore? I remembered hearing vague stories of the GTO's, the Plaster Casters and others from the 60's and 70's; the notorious groupie gangs that made rock and roll so infamous in the era before the Moral Majority. But I didn't really know anything more than vague names; Ms. Pamela, Cherry Vanilla, and Linda Eastman- Paul McCartney's deceased wife. When I got home I logged on to my computer and started looking up some of the more ribald details I had heard about. With the exception of the Led Zeppelin mud-shark incident, which almost everyone says never happened; I was surprised to find out that far from being thought of as sluts most of the women were venerated by the male musicians. In the UK especially the women were more than just easy access sexual partners; they were the keys to almost every band's support network.
The more I read, the more turned on I got. The more turned on I got the more I knew in that this was what I wanted. This was what I had been looking for; a synergistic relationship between artist and admirer.
A little hesitantly at the next show I walked over and said hi to the girls by the stage. Surprised to get a good reaction out of one of the other women in the room one of them motioned me over to stand by her. I did, keeping my eyes glued to my favorite guitar player. She noticed my attention and whispered, "You like Will, huh?"
Shamefaced, I blushed and nodded in response. "Oh sweetie, you're just his type too. But let me guess. You've never...."
"Oh, I'm not a virgin," I quickly answered turning even redder.
She giggled and said "I doubted that hon, but you've never....picked up a musician have you?"
I shook my head, some of my embarrassment receding but far from all of it. "Sweetheart it's easier than you think. Next show put on the sexiest outfit you own and wait by the stage door for when they load out after the gig. I'm sure Will will come right to you. He's barely taken his eyes off you the whole set."
I shook my head in disbelief, it couldn't be that simple! I started to stumble together a response when my new friend shushed me. "This is my favorite song. Why don't we meet up for coffee tomorrow and you can ask me whatever you want?"
The next day I met up with my new friend Nancy at the corner café and couldn't stop myself from immediately asking, "How did you start....." I wasn't sure how to finish that question. What was the politically correct term for a groupie?
She laughed as she sat down and stirred sugar into her coffee. "First of all, we don't care what you call us. Call us groupies, call us sluts, call us whatever name you can come up with. It doesn't really matter what people label us. We're having fun and living our lives the way we want and what others think of it doesn't matter. I've had pastors try and preach and mothers try and moralize, but what earthly reason is there to deny ourselves a good time? We're all adults."
