The stylish, exuberant, and remarkably sweet confession of one of the most famous groupies of the 1960s and 70s is back in print in this new edition that includes an afterword on the author's last 15 years of adventures. As soon as she graduated from high school, Pamela Des Barres headed for the Sunset Strip, where she knocked on rock stars' backstage doors and immersed herself in the drugs, danger, and ecstasy of the freewheeling 1960s. Over the next 10 years she had affairs with Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Waylon Jennings, Chris Hillman, Noel Redding, and Jim Morrison, among others. She traveled with Led Zeppelin; lived in sin with Don Johnson; turned down a date with Elvis Presley; and was close friends with Robert Plant, Gram Parsons, Ray Davies, and Frank Zappa. As a member of the GTO's, a girl group masterminded by Frank Zappa, she was in the thick of the most revolutionary renaissance in the history of modern popular music. Warm, witty, and sexy, this kiss-and-tell–all stands out as the perfect chronicle of one of rock 'n' roll's most thrilling eras.

Best of all is her command of language. She loved rock stars for almost 20 years, and she changes her tone to fit the era and the rock star she's obsessing over. I also lent mine and never got it back, so I can't refer to it, but she first loved from afar someone like Paul Anka because he was "a dream date"; 60s conquests like Gram Parsons were "groovy and spiritual"; Jimmy Page had "dark, chilling powers" (and whips in his suitcase). The scene where she finally gets Mick Jagger and all she can do it flash back to masturbating to Stones records is a gem.

The book is gossipy, smart, self-aware, and refreshingly unapologetic about sexual behavior that most of the world still reviles. [...]

57 of 63 found the following review helpful:


Rock On Pamela!  Oct 22, 2005 By Love2Read
I read this book a long time ago, before this latest re-release. It was so funny and I wish so much that I could have known Pamela Des Barres because her sense of adventure and her uncanny knack of putting it all down in print left me in awe of her.

She led the life that I could only have dreamed of leading. Of course, there are people out there who would call her names and scorn her for what she did in her past, but all I can say is "You go Girl!"

I suppose you could call this book No Holds Barres, because she was so candid and she let us all into her world and it was a world full of magic and love and such fun. I think Pamela would laugh if she could see the copy of my paperback book. It is covered in suntan oil and the ghosts of many Pina Coladas, since this was like my bible for many summers of laying by the pool.

So many of the people she met went on to lead productive lives and are still in the limelight, others met an unfortunate demise, but one thing for sure, they all loved Miss Pamela and she loved them back. I think anyone would be lucky to have a friend like her. You would never get bored because the tales she has to tell would keep you interested for an eternity.

Read the book, it's a rock and roll journey you don't want to miss.

Love you Miss Pamela

from a devoted groupie!

35 of 39 found the following review helpful:


A great book for chicks & classic rock fans  Apr 15, 1999 By Lori Newell
This book is especially enjoyable if you're into celebrity "name-dropping" books. You won't believe some of the famous men that made Pamela's acquaintance! I don't name-drop, so read the book for yourself if you're intrigued. I will say, however, that among them are several musicians of the 60's & 70's and one actor who briefly made white suits popular again.

This book will also be of interest to true classic rock fans.

While the author is no Shakespeare, she sure knows how to spin a tale! I admire her because she followed her heart and lived an "alternative" but fulfilling lifestyle when other women her age married young and started breeding. Bravo to Pamela for lavishing in her youth and "getting it out of her system"!

Read this if you're looking for something fun that'll keep you turning the pages...but not thinking too hard...

30 of 33 found the following review helpful:


The literary equivalent of a bad hangover  Mar 29, 2008 By Odysseus "A Traveller"
Reading this book reminded me of that enervating feeling I once felt, circa 1979 or so, during a midnight viewing of Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same." It was a flash of horror in which my excitement over the rock n' roll life (I was in a band at that time, my head filled with ambitions and pretensions) gave way to a feeling of aimlessness: What is with all this cheesy medeival imagery? How come these guys don't look cool, but just scrawny and strung-out? Do I really need to hear an eight-minute drum solo? What the hell have I been doing wasting my time with all this?

Des Barres' book left me with a similar feeling of the blahs: some books make it seem like there was more to the 1960s-70s rock culture than previously realized. This book makes one feel like there was a lot less.

I picked up the book hoping that it would bring the sights, sounds, and philosophy of a unique time back to life. It didn't. Despite having had dalliances with titanic figures ranging from Mick Jagger to Jimmy Page to Gram Parsons to Don Johnson, the author conveys very little of their artistry. In fact, she rarely tries to discuss or describe their music at all: passages on what makes a Mick Jagger or a Jim Morrison sexy sound as though they could have been written about any high school bad boy, musician or no.

And indeed, that adolescent attitude pervades this book. The book begins with the author entering a boy-crazy period in high school, and is related largely through excerpts from her diary, replete with CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation marks(!!!!!!) about how COOL this guy is and how WHEN HE KISSED ME I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO FAINT!! Blecch. Most of the remainder of the book has a similar tone, merely transplanted to a larger stage.

The effect is more trivializing than anything else. I had hoped this book would reveal something about this woman and her ability to connect with these creative figures. Instead, this book made it sound like her life was nothing more than a series of hedonistic distractions, draped over a nothingness. The book makes the reader feel not as though her generation was liberated from the hidebound ways of the previous ones, having moved on to higher, more exciting pleasures, but rather that no more original ideas existed in her life or in her head than finding the next naughty guy to sleep with.

That's perhaps a bit harsh: she does deliver a couple of winning passages in the book, one on the excitement of a Led Zeppelin performance, another on her less-than-stellar acting debut. She also managed to convince me that she had an aesthetic value or two, specifically in advocating for the Burrito Brothers' injection of folk/country influences into the psychadelic scene.

But the lingering images of the book are the downers: the poor three-year-old son of irresponsible substance-abusing-party-addicts who let him plummet to his death through a skylight -- barely interrupting their partying lifestyle for a few months. The look of scorn and contempt on John Lennon's face, when witnessing the author's pathetic attempts to put meaning in her life by flinging herself at the band. I didn't find myself judging the author so much as feeling badly for her. Well, I *did* judge her writing, I suppose, and not favorably.

It's not a terrible book; it's too light a read to be that. But if you are looking for a book to make you feel that the 1960s were a time fraught with meaning and revolutionary philosophy, you'd be well advised to avoid this one.

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