"But I still have sadness because I fell madly in love with Peter. He was probably my first real love. I thought he was going to leave Lydia and come to me. He got in a whole bunch of trouble because he delayed the recording of the album. I have no idea where his wife thought he was. The next time KISS came to L.A., I spent the entire week with Peter at the hotel. They were photographed for the Christmas cover of Circus magazine with fake snow all over them, holding red candles. I still have that red candle. Peter brought it back for me. He had this drug box that we kept our blow in, with three plastic containers. I still have that little jewel case too. A month after KISS left town, I found out I was pregnant. He was the only one I had been with, so it was his. I was devastated. I called him and he said, `Since we can't have it together, then ..: Whatever guys say to make you get an abortion. So I got the abortion the day before Thanksgiving in 1977. And I cried and cried.
"Usually, I partied with roadies, managers, just having a good time. My friends would ask, `Why are you hanging out with him? He's just a roadie.' I wasn't starstruck in a way that would make me sleep with somebody I thought was an asshole. If David Lee Roth had been nice, I'd have slept with him in a heartbeat! But he was an asshole. I was at a party for the Who, and I was a stripper at the time. Another woman there who was also stripper. Roger Daltrey turned to her and said, `Why don't you fucking dance for us?' and I looked at him and said, `Why don't you fucking sing for us? She's not working right now!' He was cocky and belligerent, like David Lee Roth. They thought they were God's gift. Roger Daltrey? An asshole and short! But that night, we were all partying and it was pretty crazy. Keith Moon sat next to me on the bed, locked my eyes, and proceeded to act out the Randy Newman song `(Beware of the) Naked Man'-'Old lady standing on the corner/middle of the cold, cold night. . .' He was so crazy. He put his room key in my hand, closed his fingers over it, and said, Be there in an hour.' I said, `I don't think so,' and handed it right back to him. I started talking with Pete Townshend, and I could tell he was coming on to me. I chose Pete that night, and he was friggin' wild. I was wearing boots that I bought at Nordstrom-red cowboy boots. He picked me up and took me in the shower. He turned the water on, and we did it against the shower wall. I had my fucking red boots on and they got ruined, and I'll never forget it, 'cause Nordstrom took 'em back! Yeah, Pete was really nasty. We had great sex. It was off the hook, all over the room, and it was just raw. And he was cool the next day. He was nice. I remember leaving there feeling really good. You know, I wasn't there to fuck the stars. If it happened, it happened. When I ended up sleeping with people of Pete Townshend's caliber, I thought, `Wow, I guess I just slept with Pete Townshend!'
"One night that really stands out was when Foreigner came to town. I was with Rick, I don't remember his last name or what he played, but he was the only Rick in Foreigner. When they came to Seattle, a lot of bands wanted to see Jimi Hendrix's grave. So we'd jump in the limo and I'd take 'em out there. That night, Foreigner wanted a really nice dinner. So we went to Iver's Seafood House and I was the only woman at the table. It was the whole band and the management. They put me at the head of the table and I chose the wine. I was treated like a queen that night.
"In the late '80s, I was dating a married man, Tom. A band I partied with was in town that night and I had a pass to the show. My phone rang on my way out the door, and Tom said, `If you want me, I'm walking out on my wife. Come get me now.' I made a choice to not go to the show. I picked up Tom instead, and that was the start of my life with him. I actually took him to a couple concerts with me. I took him to meet Patrick Moraz from the Moody Blues. By the way, Patrick and I are back in touch. I sent an e-mail to his Web site and got a note back-I could just hear his sweet British accent-'Oh, how are you my love? I think about you often.' So Tom and I got married in '89, and he was just happy that he married a woman who fucked Jimmy Buffett, because Jimmy Buffett is his icon. It was at a party after a concert, and Jimmy had a broken leg at the time. I was in the kitchen making drinks and he was hobbling around. He made some comment about what a great bartender I was, and maybe I'd like to be his private bartender. We ended up leaving the party and having our own! Let's put it this way, he was on the bottom.
"I got into bodybuilding because I missed the lights. I started lifting and exercising, and the trainer at the gym said, `Wow, you have great potential to be a bodybuilder.' He was right, because I've got the symmetry. So I started lifting, and decided to compete before I was forty. I took second in my first show! I did that for six years during my marriage. We moved around a lot because of Tom's jobs. My son, Seamus, was born in Sacramento and he's lived in San Diego, Florida, Texas, and now Seattle. Tom and I were together for twelve years. What happened was we started having three-ways. We were in San Diego, and Seamus was about eight. I said to Tom, `I think I'm gay.' He said, `No, you're not.' I was crying, and said, `Yeah, I think I am.' He said, `I think you have the propensity to like women too. I'm willing to let you explore that side of who you are.' So I proceeded to meet a woman and fall in love. Tammy was a big bodybuilder with a gorgeous body. I'd gotten sober in '87 and hadn't had a drink in eleven years. Well, Tammy introduced me to GHB, and that was the beginning of my demise. It took me down really far. It's a drug that affects the same dopamine receptors as alcohol and makes you feel high and giddy, like you're the life of the party. It only lasts an hour or so, then you need another little dose or scoop. Tammy told me it would enhance my bodybuilding, but I had stopped going to AA and forgot I was a dopehead. If you sip a little bit too much-one minute, you're there, the next minute, you're out. Just out. I have a scar on my chin to prove it. But it wasn't until I bought my first drink that I thought, `Wow. I'm drinking. I haven't had a drink in sixteen years.' In April 2001, I checked myself into a women's treatment center here in Seattle. I was their first GHB case, and my withdrawals were very scary, acidlike. I was lying in bed with the ceiling moving, fighting it. Then I thought, `You know what, Gayle? If this is what it is, just go with it.' While in treatment I met a girl named Melody and started having an affair. When I got out, I left my husband in a horrible way. He was still madly in love, hoping we could resurrect us because of the treatment. Instead, I went off with this woman and my son.
"The only job I could find, at the age of forty-four, was making $12 an hour. Talk about humbling. Mel and I split up, then I met my girlfriend Deb. And over time, with Tom working his program, and me working mine, we've come to a better place. Now I'm a marketing director for a legal software company. Who'da thunk it? But I'm still edgy. I worked in the library of a law firm for fifteen years, and no one would have guessed. I'm a chameleon. I can play the part, put on the suit, but I can totally go the other way. But they respect my work, so I get away with it. I bought my house a year ago. I'm an avid Harley rider. I have an '05 Softtail Deluxe. I love my bike. I'm glad I didn't ride before, because I probably would've wrecked it. That's why God didn't bring it into my life until now. So I ride with friends, and life is good. And guess what? I'm five years sober today, April 11. I'll betcha there are some men who read this that'll say, `Thank God she quit drinking!' I'm going to the meeting tonight where I checked myself in to rehab, to get my five-year coin. I've got good friends; I'm healthy, which is a miracle. I love what I do. Deb and I have broken up more than once, but what else is new? Welcome to the world of lesbian relationships. She thinks it's horrific that I'm doing this interview, but I see that time in my life as full of great experiences, and so much fun! I have absolutely no regrets, but Deb thinks you should put experiences like I had under the rug. She takes more of my mom's attitude, and I say, `Get over yourself! It was a blast!' Her problem, not mine. Being in recovery, I certainly have codependency problems, and that's all about letting go of your partner's issues. C'mon, that was twenty-five years ago, a whole different era.
"Many times I've sat in reflection, and because of all my using and drinking, I blew what could have been a dream life with one of these guys. I could have turned
a few of those relationships into something more. I was probably pretty rough to be around sometimes. There's a Moody Blues video, and it begins with a woman ironing in her kitchen. She had obviously been a groupie, and she starts thinking back about her wild life, wondering, `How did I get here?' And there were many years when I felt `Wow, my life is so boring, look what it's come to. Now, in sobriety, I treasure the memories, but when I buy a ticket and go to a concert, I don't want to be in the friggin' audience in my seat! I want to be up front, up close, I want to feel a part of it. About ten years ago I went to an Aerosmith concert by myself. I was watching the show and this roadie handed me a pass and said, `Come back after the show.' `Oh my God,' I thought, `I'm almost forty years old and I've still got it!"
Slow Dazzle
few years ago I was invited to speak as part of the firstever groupie panel at Austin's annual South by Southwest Music Conference by the queen bee of Austin's mind-blowing music scene, Margaret Moser. It was one of the best-attended panels that year, and we had an unbridled blast enlightening the industry hipsters about the tricks and trials of groupiedom. Margaret and I hit it off like we'd been hanging out for decades.
When she invited me to another groupie panel at the ROCKRGRL Music Conference in Seattle, we crazy-glued our bond and also got to swap sensuous tidbits with Penny Trumbull, formerly Pennie Lane, founder of Portland's Flying Garter Girls.
A few years younger than me, Margaret used the GTO's as role models when she pulled together a group of love-minded, music-blinded dolls to create the Texas Blondes. They became notorious in no time, and although their reign lasted barely three years, the comely clique made an enduring impression.
I've been enjoying Austin since that first groupie panel, and this honest-to-god music city has become one of my homes away from home. I've made lots of friends, including Margaret's flamboyant younger brother, Stephen, who writes the uninhibited style column for the Austin Chronicle.
Margaret has been married a couple of times, and is now happily in love with Burnin' Mike Vernon, guitarist in one of Austin's most revered bands, 3 Balls of Fire. It's SXSW time again, and in between our absurdly chaotic schedules (checking out hot bands), I somehow finagle a chatty hour alone with her over plates of spicy Mexican food. She is a senior staff writer at the Chronicle, and for over twenty years has produced the prestigious Austin Music Awards. Just last night she inducted the cult band the 13th Floor Elevators into the Austin Hall of Fame.
"I come from a literary background that encouraged reading of all kinds," Margaret tells me, dipping chips into fresh salsa. "I'm the one who read the cereal box at the breakfast table. I read anything, but also read between the lines. Not just people being written about, but the ones doing the writing. I remember being in eighth grade, looking at Janis Joplin's 45, `Down On Me.' The song on the flip side was called `Bye-Bye Baby' by Powell St. John. I had no idea who that was, but the name stuck in my mind. I read music labels the way other girls didn't. `What does producer mean? Who are these people on the liner notes?' So to induct Powell St. John as part of the Elevators-and remember looking at that Joplin label-it was full circle for me."
How did Margaret go from reading about the music world to being in the thick of it? "You didn't have a lot of options in San Antonio; even kids who liked the Monkees didn't care who was writing the songs. Could N. Diamond who wrote `I'm a Believer' be the same Neil Diamond my mother listens to? Are C. King and G. Goffin the same people writing those girl-group records? I was connecting the information, but it wasn't going anywhere because I didn't have kindred spirits. But when I picked up the Rolling Stone groupie issue, I thought, `Yeah, hey! This is what I wanna do!' I didn't have the sense that groupies were sluts-they looked like glamorous, fun-loving young women to me. I felt like an outcast, so it was a way to distinguish myself and be somebody on my own. I'd go back to school after a show, and think, `Ha ha, you jackasses paid five bucks for a concert last night, and I was backstage.' My first experience emulating the GTO's was in '71. I made baby-doll outfits with my girlfriends, with hands sewn over the breasts. I was putting together my first written collection called `The Groupie Papers,' and I reviewed records, but didn't know how to get them published. I didn't have the guy mentality like Cameron Crowe. So groupiedom was my way in, my entree. I went in on my knees and kept my eyes wide open."
I always enjoy finding out how it all began. "The first time I weaseled my way backstage was for Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen. I just nosed around, and the bug bit me. The first musician I slept with was Norman Mayell, who was drumming for Blue Cheer. The next thing I remember was a concert with Badfinger, Leon Russell, and Quicksilver. We were hanging over the backstage waving at the guys, letting them look up our dresses. I ended up sleeping with John Galley who played keyboards with Leon Russell-I've always had it bad for keyboard and bass players. Then I was with Robert Cardwell from Mother Earth. He was my first experience with cocaine and a big dick, and that notched the whole thing up. I'd get there around three P.M. for Jethro Tull or John Mayall's sound check and weasel my way backstage and wind up with somebody!"
At sixteen, Margaret fell in love with Gary Kellaher, an eighteen-year-old like-minded music lover, and after moving around, they wound up in Austin in 1973. "Willie Nelson just had his first picnic; ZZ Top had the Barn Dance, and this was a dope-smokin' hippie haven. We were home! And there were all these young, upcoming musicians, including a set of brothers: Jimmie Vaughan and his younger brother, Stevie Ray. I started gearing more toward the blues, hanging out with all the blues musicians.
By spring 1976, Margaret was freewheelin' again and looking for her own creative outlet. "I picked up the local underground newspaper and they were looking for somebody to clean the office, and I thought, `That's for me!' I started tidying up and answering phones at the Austin Sun, and the first thing I did was nose around the music department. There was a new column called Backstage. We were at a staff meeting and the editor asked, `What's gonna be in Backstage this week?' Nobody said anything, so I said, `I know Randy California from Spirit. I can get an interview with him.'"
Although she had only met Spirit's singer once, Margaret was tight with the owners of the Armadillo club. "It was the cultural center of Austin's hip community, and I could sail backstage anytime I wanted to. People like Waylon Jennings and Gram Parsons played there. Spirit did a show, and I got the job to interview Randy California. I hadn't a clue as to what I was doing. I took some notes with me and he was so hot-I remember how sexy he was-and he said, `Do you wanna do the interview back at the hotel?' I said `Sure!' We ended up in the bathtub, and later I sat on the toilet in my underwear, interviewing him for the Sun. The sex was pretty quick-I'm sure there was cocaine involved-but I do remember him sinking down in that huge bathtub, his beautiful, curly hair all wet over his shoulders. I did my little interview, which I didn't fact-check, and messed up the name of his label. But I turned it in and they printed it. That was my way in, and I made myself fairly indispensable at the paper. I was just starting my writing career and Rolling Thunder came to town. What a zoo! I took a cab to the Driscoll and the party was in full swing. I was dressed to the nines, walking up the marble staircase, and down the stairs comes Bob Dylan. He was so handsome, and he was Bob Dylan. He smiled at me, took my hand, and said, `Nice to meet you. Hope I see you later.' I was just as high as could be-I don't think I've ever been higher; there was cocaine flying around like crazy. Everybody was in and out of the bathroom, so I walked in there and ran into Mick Ronson. He grabbed me, pulled my dress up, and was fucking me within thirty seconds. I hardly knew who Mick Ronson was, except that he was really handsome: I wasn't into Bowie, but I liked this guy's accent and he sure was cute. So I wrapped my legs around him and we went at it."
I know Margaret still frequents Austin's divine Driscoll Hotel. Does she ever walk by the restroom and recall that decadent night? "I was there in November with John Cale, laughing my ass off about it. I was in that bathroom with Mick Ronson fo
r twenty minutes, having sex and snorting coke. Afterward, I went into one of the bedrooms and saw Roger McGuinn. He was wearing a big belt buckle covered with rhinestones-it had to have been the size of your tape recorder-and I was dazzled by it. I was wearing one of those '70s dresses, made of Nyestra- shiny, clingy polyester that snagged on anything. I was staring at Roger because I thought he was so handsome. He was sitting on the bed and I was standing up, and he grabbed me and started kissing my breasts. I said, `You've been a hero of mine since seventh grade,' and he said, `How old were you in seventh grade?' I said, `Oh, eleven or twelve,' and he said, `Did you have to wear a school uniform?' I thought, `Maybe he'd like me to wear anklets and black patent leather shoes too.' I was completely entranced, and next thing I knew we were in the bathroom and-yes, I know, sloppy seconds and all that. From the waist down, my Nyestra dress was shredded. It was never wearable again, but I kept it anyway."
Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies Page 22