I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie

Fortunately, Des Barres injects humor into these accounts of degradation, which exemplify the subculture of rock music. As a California teenager during the wild 1960s, she attached herself to members of various rock bands and other celebrities. More bragging than confessional, the story explicitly details this particular groupie's sexual exploits with Mick Jagger, the late Brandon de Wilde, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page (he liked using whips and handcuffs to enhance sex, we're told here), future Miami Vice star Don Johnson and many others. Now in her 30s, Des Barres has recovered from longtime drug abuse as has her husband, Michael, a musician. Though still ""making the scene,'' they have settled down somewhat, as parents of a son. There are profoundly sad, shocking revelations here, and the reader understands why John Lennon glanced at the groupie and her adolescent female gang in 1964, ``his face full of contempt and sorrow.'' Photos not seen by PW. (June 29)