Originally published in Mojo, July 1997

Before Jenny Fabian, groupies hardly existed… well, they probably did, but the general public, i.e. Mr. and Mrs. Beswick of Pursey, knew nothing about them (even though their daughter, Lindsay, was on the prowl for someone out of the Climax Chicago Blues Band).

But then Miss Fabian cropped on their television set, being interviewed and spilling beans about how she kept with loadsa rocksters and how she was not alone in this. Loadsa girls were at it.

“Ooh, she’s nothing but a common tart,” exclaimed Mrs. Beswick, turning channels to something with that nice Hughie Green on. Mr. Beswick mumbled in agreement (though, secretly, he rather fancied Miss Fabian himself).

Jenny had co-authored a novel, you see. It was called Groupie, was loosely-based on the exploits of Fabian herself, and was to cause shock-waves around the known universe (sort of). Because up until now it had been something of a secret that gals actually enjoyed having sex with men with long hair (the more famous the man, the lengthier the hair, the better) and even—gasp!—ingesting mind-altering drugs. Yes, published a quarter of a century ago—and about to be reissued for nostalgia’s sake—Groupie caused a mild sensation.

1997 and Jenny Fabian has lived to tell the tale (again—though she’s rather coy when it comes to the sexual activity portions). She is sitting on my sofa drinking coffee and eating nice cheese that I bought for her especially from the Italian delicatessen down the road. She does not resemble, as I imagined she would, some addled old withered hippie chick from yesteryear whose brains have all gone to pot (sic). No. She comes across more as a “that’s a very stupid question” that seems to threaten me with extra pep and detention whenever I ask her anything out-of-bounds, such as exactly which celebrated rock stars she “did it” with, and when, and where, and what was it like and, I’d like to ask, how big were their knobs, but I don’t broach that subject at all because she is, really, rather frightening.

“What about Jimi Hendrix?” is a typical question from me. “Well, I met him. He was very smashed. But I NEVER HAD SEX WITH JIMI HENDRIX,” is a typical, snappish reply.

“I’m a middle-aged woman now, so I have to behave,” she tells me, following up by asking me if it’s alright if she puffs away at the remnants of a “joint” she just happens to have about her person. Before I can give my assent, she is a smoking away and I, of the non-pot-smoking-fraternity, am getting “contact high,” as we used to call it. Ahem.

Tell me all about Groupie, modom.

“Well, I think that word was around before I was. I can’t tell you about the term. We didn’t call the book Groupie initially; we called it Underneath It All. But how it all started was I was living in Notting Hill Gate and I was hanging out with the Pink Floyd and I saw Syd [Barrett, of course] and I thought, ‘Ooh, ooh, anything to be close to him.’”

There was a relationship between the so-called “crazy diamond” and writer-to-be. What was Syd like?

“I don’t know. Nobody knows, do they? He was obviously full of magic. And other things. You had only to look at him to know that you wanted to know more. The fact that he was having trouble with his psyche—well, he’s the classic romantic, isn’t he? He was fairly weird, didn’t say a lot. But I found him incredibly kind and gentle and polite. A frightfully well brought-up boy. Just nice. I saw him years later.”

What was that meeting like?

“I’m not going to say what happened. Jolly bad luck…

“After Syd flipped, I was working on the Daily Telegraph magazine but I was gravitating to the wrong sort of people, because I like the wrong sort of people, and I met a dealer. I was still going to UFO [legendary niterie] and Middle Earth [ditto] and hanging around with Pink Floyd, and I saw this group—I won’t tell you who it was because that wouldn’t be fair [Swizz—Ed]—and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll have one of them.’ It was easier in those days to make contact with the people onstage. And then I was taken to UFO on my first acid trip. It was absolutely brilliant. I was given acid by this guy, who I suppose I must have been going out with, my memories are not that clear, and, well, I got fired from the Daily Telegraph because I got busted. It’s very muddling, this story, isn’t it?”

It is a trifle.

Then she hooked up with Andy Summers, much later of the Police, but then with the rather grisly Dantalian’s Chariot.

“Dantalian’s Chariot were very good, weren’t they?”

No.

“YES they were,” she goes, back in schoolmarm mode and about to deliver me a stern wigging in the beak’s office. “What’s wrong with Andy Summers? He was lovely to look at. Though he was quite a serious individual. The affair lasted for ages. A whole 10 days. This all sounds very superficial, doesn’t it? But things were different then.”

They certainly were. Look at Family, the successful-for-two-seconds group of yesteryear. Who would have ever imagined that they—portrayed in Groupie as ‘Relation’ (isn’t that a clever touch?)—were a band of ugly-pub sex beasts?

“What are you talking about?” barks Ms Fabian, stubbing out her “spliff.” “They don’t have sex in the book. Well, no more than any healthy young rock musicians. Jim King [a tall chap who used to blow down things in a progressive fashion that was all the rage at the time] leaned his head on my breasts at one stage. The thing is I can’t remember much of this. I don’t know half the things I did.”

Golly! That annoying adage about if you can remember the ‘60s you weren’t there is somewhat true, then?

“Shut up. Stop interrupting. I was trying to tell you about Family.” Whoops. “Jim King was quite a mouse. Roger Chapman didn’t seem to have any sex. Ric Grech, well, he’s dead anyway. I must say he DID like a bit of sex. Charlie Whitney never had ANY sex. Whether I gave it to him once or not, I have no idea.”

Crikey!

Perhaps Jenny Fabian’s wonky memory is due to the great quantities of LSD she took all those years ago. Who can say?

“I don’t regret taking LSD. Everybody should take it. No problemo [sic]. I took so much LSD there came a point when I knew I had to stop. But I never had a bad trip except the one where I thought I was in a bunker in the war and I was being bombed. LSD is incredible. We used to have bottles of the stuff. We had no way of measuring it. We’d just dip matchsticks in and stick those up our noses. And then see God or Jimi or Jesus or somebody. That was strong stuff…

“I never had sex with Roger Daltrey.”

Thank Gawd for that. That WOULD give a so-called “groupie” a bad name…

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