We’re looking forward to introducing you to Lucretia Tye Jasmine. Check out our conversation below.
Lucretia, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. Who are you learning from right now?
My best self. When I’m in doubt or turmoil – and if I can remember in the midst to do so – I ask for guidance from the me I want to be.
Here is art I made that relates: “Wonder Woman Stamp”
Attributions
1 Wonder Woman postage stamp
Pink nail polish, blue and black ink
1 1/2 x 1”
2017
Artist Statement
I painted a pink pussy hat on a Wonder Woman stamp. I based the art on the 2017 marches in advocacy of the rights and protections of girls and women everywhere, and protesting Donald Trump’s presidency.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m a Los-Angeles based artist, writer and zine-maker from Kentucky. A lot of my work is about countercultural feminisms, specializing in golden era groupies, 1990s riot grrrl, and vegan ecofeminism.
I earned my BFA with honors from NYU in 1988, and my MFA from CalArts in 2006. I’ve created two mixtape zines, or oral histories: riot grrrl Los Angeles 1992-1995, and The Groupie Gospels. My debut book, ’70s Teen Pop (Bloomsbury, 2023), discusses how teen pop worked subversively during the 1970s, challenging the status quo it seemed to represent. Forthcoming are The Golden Era of Groupies: 1965-1978 (Chicago Review Press) and it’s accompanying Groupie Feminism art series (2026), and a riot grrrl art exhibition in France centered around my riot grrrl work (2026).
Alien She, The New York Times, the Chelsea Hotel, the Getty Center, the Museum of Popular Culture, the Punk Museum Los Angeles, the documentary series, This Is Pop (2021) and the U.S. Library of Congress have featured or collected my creative work. My regular bylines for Please Kill Me and The Los Angeles Beat can be found online. My zines are housed at ABC No Rio; Duke University’s Rare Book archives; The Fales Special Collections Library at NYU; and the RILM (Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale) Archive of Popular Music Magazines.
I created a flyer called “Groupie Cover Girl” for my Groupie Feminism art series. It’s related to my book, The Golden Era of Groupies: 1965-1978. Here are the attributions and artist statement for the flyer,:
“Groupie Cover Girl”
from the Groupie Feminism art series
Attributions
Betty and Veronica comic book cover
Cut and paste
Heart-shaped gemstone stickers
16 3/4” x 11 1/2”
2025
Pictured from center clockwise are:
Betty Cooper with Cherry Vanilla on ZigZag magazine cover
Veronica Lodge with “Groupies” issue of Rolling Stone magazine with Karen Seltenrich on the cover
Nancy Spungen
GTO’s
Groupie license plate
Emmaretta Marks
Lithofayne Pridgon
Barbara the Butter Queen
Jenni Dean
The Plaster Casters, Cynthia and Dianne
Devon Wilson
LA Queens
Audrey Hamilton (with Robert Plant)
Sweet Connie
GTO’s
Pamela Des Barres
Star Magazine covers of Shray Meecham, Karen Umphrey, Patty Clark
Heart-shaped gemstone stickers in various colors: blue, gold, white, red, pink, green, purple, deep blue, fuschia
Stars with foxes that I cut out from copies I made of Star magazine covers after copying them in various sizes, and then pasted on the copy of the Betty and Veronica comic book cover
Artist Statement
Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge first appeared in Pep comics, Betty in 1941 and Veronica in 1942. Betty was based on Betty Tokar Jankovich, Archie on movie star Mickey Rooney, and Veronica on a combination of Agatha Popoff and movie star, Veronica Lake. The cartoon characters of Betty, Veronica and Archie were co-created by publisher, John Goldwater, writer, Vic Bloom, and artist, Bob Montana. Bob dated Betty TokarJankovich, and Agatha Popoff was a rich classmate of Bob’s.
In the comics, Betty and Veronica are frenemies, teen-aged best friends in love with the same classmate, Archie (and, maybe, with each other), Betty and Veronica got their own comics with their names in the title, formed a band with Archie, co-starred in an animated television series I watched as a kid, had an actual hit song, and are featured in a contemporary TV series.
I loved their hit song! Don Kirshner reportedly said he wanted to work with a band that didn’t talk back, so he created The Archies, a cartoon pop band for the animated TV show of the same name, which ran for one year in 1968. The Archies played bubblegum pop by session musicians hired by Don for the TV series, a series based on the comic book that began in 1941. The best-selling song of 1969 was theirs: “Sugar, Sugar,” just as groupie feminism was cresting.
Many of their comics feature groupie or music-related themes. I showcase many of those in an art assemblage from my Groupie Feminism art series, “Groupie School Desk.”
Groupies emerged in the 1960s on the cusp of Second Wave feminism as the avant-garde of the sexual revolution, navigating old-fashioned double standards with daring independence. Fans with the band, groupies went further than just going to the shows. Ardent fans who befriended and sometimes bedded, lived with and/or married musicians, groupies led their lives as though they were equal to men in creative and sexual freedom.
Groupies from that era astound me. They took risks and lived their lives adventurously, venturing exchanges of creative and sexual freedom with the musicians they liked and loved. Backstage antics and hotel-room lore from the golden era of groupies established a new kind of cultural mythology based on fact, featuring groupies who became famous. But sexism and corporate interests impeded women’s liberation, and groupies were often dismissed as playthings in the power ballad of music history.
The G-word is confounding. Music writer, Danyel Smith, told me, “I don’t know why women who enjoy music and hang out backstage have to have a whole name that makes them less than what they are.” Patriarchal language tries to control and diminish females through sexual slurs. And yet! As music scholar, Lisa Rhodes, points out, without groupies there’d be no rock stars.
Understanding the relevance of groupies is crucial to understanding music and women’s history. Paradoxical with their reflected glory and often unmarried independence, it’simportant to understand them in terms of evolving self-government. Groupies further our sense of music by embodying the intersection of feminism and music.
In my book about groupies, forthcoming from Chicago Review Press, The Golden Era of Groupies: 1965-1978, I begin my groupieology in 1965 when the term “groupie” most likely originated, and I end it in 1978 with the mysterious death of a punk rock groupie. Many of the groupies I discuss are all pictured in this artwork, and include: Lithofayne Pridgon, the muse and musician from Georgia; Cherry Vanilla, the Warhol Superstar from Queens; Jenni Dean, the rhythm guitarist from New Jersey; Emmaretta Marks, the musical artist from Washington, D.C. who performed in Hair; Cynthia Plaster Caster, the art student who made casts of musicians’ genitals, from Chicago; GTO’s, the all-girl art rock band from California; Cleo Odzer from Manhattan, who appeared on the vinyl documentary album, 1969’s The Groupies, then earned a Ph.D. in anthropology; Devon Wilson from Wisconsin, written about in songs by Betty Davis and Jimi Hendrix; underage LA Queens in California who graced the pages of Star magazine; the oft-heralded from the stage, Barbara the Butter Queen, from Texas; gold-glittered schoolteacher, Sweet Connie, from Arkansas; and feminist punk rocker, Nancy Spungen, from Pennsylvania.
During the golden era of groupies, some freedoms were granted to girls and women for the first time: owning property, living alone and unmarried, obtaining an individual bank account and credit card. Birth control was available. Abortion was legalized. But: the Equal Rights Amendment did not pass. Sexual harassment wasn’t legally defined until 1980. Husbands could rape wives legally until the early 1990’s. Eating disorders disabled women, including some of the aforementioned groupies. Some musicians were violent to groupies, and some groupies’ lives bordered on sex trafficking. Women are still struggling to earn a wage equal to men for equal work, and females lost the right to safe and legal abortions in 2022. Music journalist, Holly George-Warren, told me that “the reality is, it is the men who are mostly in power, and have abused that power.”
Which makes it all the more important to consider groupies. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that their stories be told, heard, and preserved. Because women’s experiences are often belittled, insulted, diminished, disregarded, or erased. Especially if they are sexual or outrageous. GTO and SuperGroupie, Pamela Des Barres, told me that even today people respond to her best-selling memoir, 1987’s I’m with the Band, with a “finger-pointing jeer.”
I’ve conducted interviews with groupies, music journalists, photographers, and musicians. I’ve presented at conferences and museums, and written several published articles and short stories, about groupies. I organized the standing-room only reading with Q & A, Writers Together Outrageously, featuring two of the original GTOs and their record producer’s daughter, Moon Zappa. I’ve guest DJ’d my Groupie Playlist on the radio, and exhibited my Groupie Feminism art series. I’ve amassed my own private collection of groupie artifacts.
Golden era groupies have their own groupies today. It’s why I replaced pin-ups of Archie in Veronica’s locker with the groupies I discuss in this artist statement (and in my Groupie Feminism art series, my Groupie Gospels mixtapezine, and my book, The Golden Era of Groupies: 1965-1978 ), and it’s why I replaced the words “Archie” and “his” with “a groupie” and “her” in Betty’s word bubble.
Fans have tattooed their bodies with the names and likenesses of groupies such as Pamela Des Barres; art and cartoons have been inspired by GTOs; fashions and styles featured in magazines and on runways have been inspired by golden era groupies; podcasts and professors discuss groupies; Hollywood movies such as Sid and Nancy(1986); Almost Famous (2000); The Banger Sisters (2002); and Drive Away Dolls (2024) have been based on some of the groupies I consider here, and popular TV shows have referred to groupies: Lorelaireads Des Barres’s bestselling book, 1987’s I’m with the Band, on an episode of Gilmore Girls (2000-2007), and Donna reads Star magazine in an episode of That ’70s Show (1998-2006).
Some say the groupie issue saved Rolling Stone magazine from bankruptcy. Musicians have said the reason they became musicians at all was for the groupies. Groupies call radio stations and request songs, buy concert tickets and go to concerts, buy the music in various formats, crowd the merchtable and buy the swag. They wear the concert t-shirts. And stylishly at that. Groupies bring the party to the front row, backstage, in the limo on the plane to the hotel room. They make crucial introductions, such as GTO Miss Christine for Alice Cooper to Frank Zappa (getting Alice a record contract), or Betty Davis for Miles Davis to Jimi Hendrix (making Miles dress cool). They feed clothe caress and have sex with the musicians. The sweat and glory!
The devotion a groupie feels is wild and concentrated, like an essential oil, delicate and strong, like blood, tender and empowering, like breath.
I created the flyer, “Groupie Cover Girl,” to go with my book. And also because I am fascinated by groupies. I’ve wondered about them, and wished I had been one. For this artwork, I found pictures of the groupies I discuss in my book, made copies of the pictures, printed them out, and pasted them onto a color copy of the Betty and Veronica cover. I cut out the letters from copies of the cover to create new words in Betty’s thought bubble, and added a groupie book for Veronica and a groupie magazine for Betty. In this manner I changed the focus from men to women, emphasizing women’s points-of-view. I made it a flyer because bands promote themselves that way.
Bibliography
Audrey Hamilton with Robert Plant, photographer unknown but probably @ 1977
Barbara the Butter Queen from her Facebook page, retrieved @ 2021 (and as of this writing in 2025, her page is no longer there!)
Betty and Veronica comic book cover
Vol. 2, No 85
March, 1995
Cherry Vanilla at the Roxy in the U.K., 1977 Photograph by Ray Stevenson
ZigZag cover, 1977 from author’s collection
Vanilla, Cherry. Lick Me How I Became Cherry Vanilla (by way of the Copacabana, Madison Avenue, the Fillmore East, Andy Warhol, David Bowie, and the Police)
Chicago Review Press Chicago: 2010
Devon Wilson in a photograph by Baron Wolman
“The Cop of the Year” Interview by Daphne Davis
Rags magazine
June, 1970
p 47
Emmaretta Marks in a photograph by Baron Wolman
“Groupies: The Ultimate Girlfriends” by Susan Edmiston
Cosmopolitan
November, 1969 pp 144-145
Groupie license plate, photograph by Lucretia Tye Jasmine of Pamela Des Barres’s car in her driveway at home in Reseda, CA, 2017. A license to roam! As Holly George-Warren told me, she likes to think that groupies were “stomping down the street with a girl power vibe.” So do I. Unescorted by men, unmarried, popping the pill (“I popped the pill on the Sunset Strip,” said SuperGroupie and bestselling author, Pamela Des Barres). walking in the sexual liberation and Second Wave Feminism that was the zeitgeist.
“Groupies” issue
Rolling Stone magazine
Photograph by Baron Wolman of Karen
No. 27 February 15, 1969
GTO’s on the cover of Aum magazine
May, 1969
Photograph by Ed Caraeff of GTO’s (Cynderella, Pamela, Christine, Sandra)
GTO’s in a photograph by Baron Wolman
Camera magazine
no. 10 “The Groupies” October 1969
p 37
Jenni Dean in a photograph by Baron Wolman
“Groupies: The Ultimate Girlfriends” by Susan Edmiston
Cosmopolitan
November, 1969 pp 144-145
LA Queens
Lori Lightning and peers in a photograph by Julien Wasser
“Elements of Style I Was Afraid They’d All Be California Girls” by David Marsh
Creem magazine
August, 1974
p 41
LA Queens
Star magazine covers:
February, 1973 by Jean Pagliuso of Shray Mecham
March, 1973 by Jean Pagliuso of Shray Mecham
April, 1973 by Jean Pagliuso of Karen Umphrey
May, 1973 by Jean Pagliuso of Patty Clark
June, 1973 by Jean Pagliuso of Karen Umphrey
LA Queens
Queenie, Shray and Sable
Photograph by Richard Creamer
“Sunset Strip Groupies: Who, What, When & How (Wow!)” by Carole Pickel
Star, June, 1973
p 60
Lithofayne Pridgon from her YouTube channel:
her private collection, found on YouTube channel named “Lithofayne Faytoe,” 11.24.2023. (As of this writing, the channel isn’t there anymore! Thank the groupie goddess I took screenshots with my iPhone of the channel’s photos on my television, and tape-recorded the songs on my Casio cassette recorder, as they played on my television. For those who want to know about the music, here are the songs: “The Bad Part About It,” “Behind Every Successful Man,” “Drivin Wheel LithofayneStyle MSWMM,””Dust My Broom/Yonder Wall,” “How Long,” “Plain Old Blues Instrumental,” “Rent Day Blues,” and “Thank You So Much.” (The only reason I took the photos and taped the music is because I was leaving town, unsure of YouTube access at my hotel, and had to keep writing my chapter about her for my groupie book and I very much wanted to include that information in my writing about Lithofayne!)
Nancy Spungen in a photo of Nancy from her mom’s memoir.
Spungen, Deborah. And I Don’t Want to Live This Life New York Fawcett Crest 1983
Pamela Des Barres in the “I Am the Light” photograph at Chuck Wein’s house, the Wizard. Photograph by Lee Lawrence, @ 1971
The Plasters Casters, Cynthia and Dianne
Photograph by Baron Wolman
1969
Sweet Connie in a photograph by Larry Kolden
“Sweet, Sweet Connie” by Crescent Dragonwagon
Cosmopolitan
August, 1974
p 8
I created art to go with my mixtape zine about riot grrrl, the oral history riot grrrl Los Angeles: 1992-1995. Here are the attributions and artist statement:
Riot Grrrl Sewing Patterns
Attributions
15 sewing patterns
Color pencil on covers
Fourteen are 5 1/2” x 8”
One is 6 1/2” x 8 1/4”
Pictured in this article are:
Butterick pattern 5887
5 1/2” x 8”
Color pencil on paper
2024
Artist Statement
Riot Grrrl is a Third Wave Feminism music and art movement. It began in the mid-1980s, gaining its name and national media attention in the early 1990s. Riot Grrrl’s DIY (do-it-yourself) infrastructure allowed girls and women to create their own art and music scenes, unconstrained by the institutionalized gender roles that have long oppressed girls and women. DIY also ignored musical specialization and expertise in favor of just making music and sharing instruments (the drummer in one song might play guitar in the next, for example). Making zines, forming bands, and holding meetings, benefits, rallies, and conventions are legendary riot grrrl actions that have had lasting impact. As my mom, Lucretia Baldwin “Teka” Ward observed, the impact of riot grrrl is herstorical, with art and music as overt action.
Riot Grrrl refers to the “girl” word instead of the word “woman” because girls have the anarchic power of anger and chaos before they get sublimated into perfume packets promising perfection. Before girls are gendered into submission. And the growl in the spelling of “grrrl” indicates that rage.
There’s a sexualization of girls and youth that riot grrrl played with, maybe perhaps as a way to attract attention or maybe as a way to work out one’s own sexual process, or maybe because kneesocks, short skirts and barrettes are adorable. And it’s fun to not care if your underwear or bra straps show. My mom observed that the riot grrrl look is seductive and girlish. When it’s paired with the sound of punk – which sounds childlike and all-consuming in its clamour – the vitality reminds me of the energy of being a kid. The grit of punk is like the dirt on your skin from being outside playing.
When I joined riot grrrl Los Angeles in 1992, we riot grrrls made a zine. One of the riot grrrls contributed lyrics I loved. Years later, @ 1998, I ran into her at the Betsey Johnson store in the Beverly Center! What on earth were two riot grrrls doing in that joint, a fancy mall? She worked at Betsey Johnson. I was buying nail polish! I chose the Butterick pattern of Betsey Johnson because it’s riot grrrl-related and plus I really love that lavender dress.
My cousin, the hair stylist artist Echo DeVore, said “just for the riot grrrl record” one night when we discussed reasons to turn my riot grrrl mixtape zine into a book. It’s an oral history I did on cassette tapes from 2010-2021 with riot grrrls, almost all of whom I met when we were in riot grrrl during the early 1990s. Echo told me she thinks of bands, not any individual person, when she thinks of riot grrrl. I love that because it seems as though just a few famous people are always mentioned or quoted in riot grrrl discussions, but there were so many more of us, and most of us made zines and/or were in bands, too. I liked what Echo said so much that I quoted her on McCall’s sewing pattern #5120, the one with an illustration of a girl holding up a vinyl record.
I like the 1970s sewing patterns and packets so very much, I think because they have that riot grrrl vibe of DIY exploration and the look and feel of tattered romance. The clamour of glamour!
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What’s a moment that really shaped how you see the world?
The one time I attended the Kentucky Derby, I was up in the green room, and I glanced up at the large screen which showed the horse race. It was a close-up of a horse running hard, body and face straining. Trapped in a harness, controlled by a whip-wielding human. I recognized the entrapment of the animal and the animal’s fear, fury and misery.
KY is my hometown, it’s where I spent the first eighteen years of my life, and every year the annual Derby in Louisville, KY makes me mourn. Almost everyone else is cheering, horse-betting, drunk. It’s a kind of hell.
I made art about my love and respect for the living beings who are not human. Here are the attributions and artist statement for one of the artworks:
“Your Love of Beauty Kills Me”
Attributions
Rose petals, velvet, pins
Acrylic on canvas
32” x 32”
2008
Artist Statement
When I was a child I thought butterfly catchers were peaceful people until I realized they trapped butterflies and killed them.
I also thought people who cut flowers were kind beauty-lovers until I realized they were mutilating the flowers by cutting them up and taking them from their natural homes.
The rose petals were naturally fallen from flowers living in their natural environment.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
Being fat in a fatphobic culture, being poor and egalitarian in a capitalist hierarchy, and being a vegan feminist in a speciesist patriarchy can feel very wounding. Healing the wounds is a daily effort. Making art, writing, listening to music, and interpreting my experiences in ways that are truthful but not self-damning heals me.
My artwork, “Bulimia and Me,” relates to that question. Here are the attributions and artist statement:
“Bulimia and Me”
Attributions
Betty and Me comic book cover cut and paste
Nov., 1983 No. 136
Various collage images found on Etsy and from screenshots of vintage commercials found online: Milk of Magnesia bottle; Caress soap; Reach toothbrush; Ex-Lax box with its chocolate and pill; Love’s Baby Soft mist; AquaFresh toothpaste; Zest soap; Syrup of Ipecac; Love’s Baby Soft scent collection (mist, lotion, powder, bath); Cottonelle toilet paper in pink; Swan mineral oil.
I made another copy of the cover, and cut out from that the letters I needed to alter the comic book title and caption in the collage.
I printed the screenshots I took with my iPhone of the images, ads, or commercials that I found online, printing them out in various sizes, and pasted those onto a copy of the original comic book cover.
16 1/2” x 11 1/2” cover with collaged cover
11” x 8 1/2” collaged cover
2025
Artist Statement
I was bulimic from aged 14 until I was 23. I had a two day relapse at age 30, and a five month relapse at age 33. The eating disorder was my best friend. And like with any abusive bestie, it was so difficult to let go.
The images I cut and pasted onto the comic book cover are of items in the purging process.
I made the print dark so Betty looked sunburnt. When I was bulimic as a teen and young adult, I was also obsessed with being as tan as possible because I thought a dark tan made me look thinner. Mom and I called my sun-worshipping addiction tanorexia.
I knew laxatives and purge-stimulants and tanning were dangerous but such was my desire to be and look thin that I just didn’t care about the dangers.
I’ve been abstinent from bulimia (and tanorexia!) for many many years. Thankfully.
So much better for me to make art about being bulimic and/or tanorexic than to be bulimic and/or tanorexic.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
That we must not exploit, harm, entrap, or eat animals, birds, bugs, or fish. That means: no dairy, no meat, no honey, no silk. No leather. No fur. That means buying and consuming only vegan and cruelty-free products including products such as make-up, nail polish, perfumes, cleaning supplies, musical instruments, shoes, jewelry and clothing. That means no animal testing or science experiments and classroom experiments on nonhuman beings. No exploitation, no abuse of critters in films/TV/radio/art/music/sorcery. That means no horse-racing or bullfighting or zoos or circuses or aquariums or Sea Worlds or slaughterhouses or puppy farms or forced breeding or horse-drawn carriages, for example.
Here is art I made that relates:
“Wonder Woman Wondering if the Doves at the Concert are Okay”
from the Groupie Feminism Art Series
Attributions
Free Kitten’s 45 vinyl and jacket, Special Groupie (1993).
Groupie’s 45 vinyl and jacket. “All My Friends Are Pets” (1997).
Led Zeppelin’s singer, Robert Plant, onstage at San Francisco, CA’s Kezar Stadium on June 2, 1973. Photograph by Neal Preston.
Octopus image from a candle lid I purchased at Auntie Em’s restaurant in Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA, @ 2011. Skeem Candles, “Midnight Orchid.” Auntie Em’s was owned by one of the co-founders of the all-female all-punk band, the Red Aunts.
Wonder Woman 790
October, 2022
Variant cover by W. Scott Forbes
Blue paper
2025
Artist Statement
I made this artwork because the photo of Robert Plant and the art of Wonder Woman are so gorgeous! And because over the years I kept remembering the doves at the Led Zeppelin concert – were they ok? When I was a kid growing up in the 1970s I’d heard they’d released doves or pigeons at one of their concerts and I’d seen the photos. What happened to the birds?
When I found the Wonder Woman comic many years later, I fell in love with the gentleness of the comic book cover’s artwork; the seagulls seemed happy and Wonder Woman among them seemed like she could be trusted with them. Wonder Woman looks like a strong protector of the birds, too.
“Birds” is slang for females. I’ve learned that many terms that refer to females are also references to critters. I think this is because patriarchy and its language creates a hierarchy of domination and exploitation.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about the females with the band, girlfriends and wives and groupies sometimes called birds. I’ve done a lot of writing and art about groupies. So the title of this artwork, “Wonder Woman Wondering if the Doves at the Concert are OK,” is also about them.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about how humans handle critters. And about veganism, and vegetarian ecofeminism.
Led Zeppelin and Vanilla Fudge fished from the balcony of the Edgewater hotel in Seattle, WA, in the late 1960s, hanging the fish like coats in the hotel room closets. They raped a groupie with one of the fish as some of the bandmates, their entourage, and a wife or two watched and filmed. I wrote an as yet unpublished short story about it.
Led Zeppelin guitarist, Jimmy Page, reportedly kept octopi in his hotel bathroom for sex. I wrote an as yet unpublished short story about a groupie rescuing the octopus, escaping from the hotel with her, and setting her free in the ocean.
Led Zeppelin cheered as a fan had sex with a dog.
Black Sabbath singer, Ozzy Osbourne, married for about forty-three years to Sharon and known for biting off the head of a bat at a concert and the heads off two doves during a record label meeting, also killed Sharon’s seventeen cats. He reportedly snorted ants, shot chicken and birds, and threw raw animal organs into the audience. Fans threw cats, frogs, snakes, and chickens onto the stage and several of the critters died.
Alice Cooper threw a live chicken into the audience and the audience tore the chicken apart. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were in the audience at that 1969 concert, and thought that the killing was art because it was chaos.
A music journalist told me she knew a sports star who raped a chicken, tearing the chicken apart in the process, then threw the chicken into a fire.
Musicians (and their fans, and their lovers) have harmed animals, sea life, and the people – and critters – who love them. So this artwork was made with that in mind. I wish it to be an antidote.
The first recording on a phonograph with actual playback was a nursery rhyme about two friends: a girl and a lamb. “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was recorded around 1877, with Thomas Edison’s recitation. The rhyme was based on a true story, and written around 1829 by Sara Josepha Hale and/or John Roulstone. The poem is about being kind to animals.
The first recorded jazz song, 1917’s “Livery Stable Blues,” included instrumental sounds that mimicked the language of barnyard animals.
Country, with its poetic rollicking and lullaby rocking, blues, with its emotion-based resourceful revelations, and jazz, with its collaborative individuality and heartthrob icons, are the basis of the rock ‘n roll music I refer to in this artwork.
I made the art by making color copies of the vinyl and their jackets and the candle lid, and by making a color copy of the comic book cover, and by printing out from the computer the black and white concert image. I cut out the shapes of the doves from the comic book cover copies and placed them amidst the comic book cover copy and the concert print. Some of the doves are in color and some are in black and white. I didn’t paste them onto the blue background because I want them to be free to fly.
Bibliography
The Birthplace of Country Music. “Thomas Edison: From “Mary Had a Little Lamb” to Recorded Music.” December 22, 2020.
https://birthplaceofcountrymusic.org/thomas-edison-from-mary-had-a-little-lamb-to-recorded-music/ Digital link. Accessed 9.8.25.
Davis, Stephen. Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga. United States of America: !t Books, 1985.
DeRiso, Nick. “How a Chicken Got Torn to Shreds at an Alice Cooper Show.” Ultimate Classic Rock. June 26, 2024. https://ultimateclassicrock.com/alice-cooper-chicken-killed-concert/ Digital link. Accessed 8.28.25.
Fordham, John. “50 Great Moments in Jazz:The Original Dixieland Jazz Band Release Livery Stable Blues.” The Guardian. January 26, 2009. https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2009/jan/26/original-dixieland-jazz-band Digital link. Accessed 9.8.25.
Forgotten Chapters of Boston’s Literary History. “Chapter One.” https://www.bostonliteraryhistory.com/chapter-4/sarah-josepha-hale-1788%e2%80%931879-%e2%80%9cmary%e2%80%99s-lamb%e2%80%9d-poems-our-children-designed-families-sabbath.html Digital link. Accessed 9.8.25.
Free Kitten. Special Groupie. 1993.
Groupie. “All My Friends Are Pets”. 1997.
Hale, Sarah Josepha. “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Poetry Foundation.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46954/mary-had-a-little-lamb Digital link. Accessed 9.8.25.
Jonze, Tim. “Neal Preston’s Best Photograph: Robert Plant Catches a Dove.” The Guardian. October 4, 2018.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/04/neal-preston-best-photograph-robert-plant-led-zeppelin-dove Digital link. Accessed 8.28.25.
Led Zeppelin’s singer, Robert Plant, onstage at San Francisco, CA’s Kezar Stadium on June 2, 1973. Photograph by Neal Preston.
Mzimba, Lizo. “Did Ozzy Osbourne Really Bite the Head Off a Live Bat?”
BBC News. July 23, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c72ppzwek90o Digital link. Accessed 8.28.25.
Octopus image from a candle lid I purchased at Auntie Em’s restaurant in Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA, 2011. Skeem Candles, “Midnight Orchid.” Auntie Em’s was owned by one of the co-founders of the all-female all-punk band, the Red Aunts.
Spitz, Bob. Led Zeppelin: The Biography. United States of America: Penguin Books, 2021.
TOI Entertainment Desk. “When Ozzy Osbourne Revealed He Killed 17 Cats Under the Influence of Drugs, Described it as a Turning Point in his Life.” The Times of India. MSN.com. July, 2025.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/english/music/when-ozzy-osbourne-revealed-he-killed-17-cats-under-the-influence-of-drugs-described-it-as-a-turning-point-in-his-life/articleshow/122857061.cms Digital link. Accessed 8.28.25.
Wonder Woman 790
October, 2022.
Variant cover by W. Scott Forbes.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
Comparing myself unfavorably to other people. And I would make more art and writing!
Here is art I made that relates:
“My Spectacular Groupie Diary”
The Groupie Feminism art series
Attributions
Betty & Veronica comic book cover, No 13, Feb. 1995
Cut and paste of diary covers and name of comic
Pen and paper
10 1/2” x 14”
2025
Artist Statement
This artwork is inspired by the Betty & Veronica comic book cover, which made me think about groupie diaries real, rumored, and imagined: Pamela Des Barres’s I’m With the Band (a best-selling book that’s been in print since its 1987 publication date, a memoir based on her diaries)! Margaret Moser’s imagined Pearl Necklaces and No Regrets: How I Went From Backstage to Printed Page, and her article, “Lust for Life: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Ex-Groupie”! Cynthia Plaster Caster’s meticulous art-making journals, and her much anticipated memoir, Plaster of Paradise! Lithofayne Pridgon’s voluminous and precise notebooks! Sabel Starr’s rumored little black book of bedded rock stars! The imagined Intimate Adventures of Sweet SweetConnie! Cherry Vanilla’s Pop Tarts Compositions book, which is like a collage diary! And my own fantasy-filled diaries about imaginary meetings with musicians!
I replaced “Betty’s Diary” with “a diary” on her diary cover by cutting and pasting from her diary, and replaced “Veronica’s Diary” with “A Groupie’s Diary” by cutting and pasting from her diary and writing by hand on it.
I added pictures of vinyl albums I love, all featuring songs about or bands related to groupies. I took photos of the vinyl albums, then printed them out, and cut and pasted them over the faces of the Betty and Veronica gang, matching the color of the vinyl’s label or the color of the vinyl itself to hair color or hat color.
I added the vinyl albums to this artwork about diaries because vinyl albums, like diaries, are records. Also because groupies love music! Here are the records:
“Dancing Queen” 45 by Abba; “Groupie (Superstar)” 45 by Delaney & Bonnie and Friends featuring Eric Clapton; “Special Groupie” 45 by Free Kitten; “We’re an American Band” 45 by Grand Funk Railroad; “All My Friends Are Pets” 45 by Groupie; “You Got Me” 33 1/3 by The Roots featuring ErykahBadu and Eve; “Fox on the Run” 45 by Sweet; and “Superstar/Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do” 33 1/3 by Luther Vandross. I included a 45 by The Groupies because of their band name, and because the bassist, Gordon McLaren, was married to Luz (Lucy) Offerrall, one of the original GTO’s, an all-girl band of art-rock dancers known as a “groupie group.” And I included a 45 by Groupie because of their band name.
I made sure to include groupie songs or bands that refer to critters because I’m a vegan ecofeminist.
The music continues to inform my ever-evolving understanding of how groupies personify the intersection of music and feminism. The songs are included in my “Groupie Playlist” and more pictures of the albums are in my “Music Groupie School Desk,” two art assemblages from my Groupie Feminism art series. The actual vinyl with jackets are safe and sound in my Groupie Archives.
The pink diary with the leopard-print heart and lock with two keys that covers their names in the comic book’s title is from my “Groupie Suitcase”, an assemblage in the Groupie Feminism art series. I made copies of the diary’s cover then cut and pasted them onto the comic book’s title.
The actual diary is filled with excerpts from: my own diaries; the short story I wrote in 2006, Pop Star Sparkling (based on a fantasy I wrote in my diary in 1977), and published in 2009; the collection of short fiction based on groupie rock star legends, Power Ballads, unpublished and that I wrote from about 2005-2014; and my two novels, The Groupie Gospels, and The Adventures of Annabelle Ballantyne, unpublished and written from 2006-2021. It also includes a few excerpts from notes I made about interviews I did from 2011–2025 with groupies, musicians, music journalists and music photographers for my mixtape zine, The Groupie Gospels, an oral history about groupies. My forthcoming book, The Golden Era of Groupies: 1965-1978, is based on those diary notes, and my debut book, ‘70s Teen Pop (Bloomsbury, 2023) includes some of those notes.
Bibliography
Comic book cover. Betty & Veronica. No 13. Archie Comic Publications, Inc., February, 1995.
Des Barres, Pamela. I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie. United States of America: William Morrow and Company, 1987.
Moser, Margaret. “Lust for Life: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Ex-Groupie.” The Austin Chronicle. August 11, 2000. https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2000-08-11/78202/ Digital link. Accessed 7.24.25.
Pearl Necklaces and No Regrets: How I Went From Backstage to Printed Page. Imagined.
Plaster Caster, Cynthia. Art-making notes and Plaster of Paradise. I’ve read her renowned journals and book proposal so I know they’re real! Written in her lifetime. (born 1947-died 2022)
Pridgon, Lithofayne. Notebooks. Legendary – and I’ve verified their existence with her family! In her lifetime. (born 1940- died 2021)
Starr, Sabel. Little black book of bedded rock stars. Rumored. (born 1957-died 2009)
Sweet Sweet Connie. The Intimate Adventures of Sweet SweetConnie. Imagined. (born 1955-died 2021)
Lucretia Tye Jasmine. Diary fantasies and creative fiction: Pop Star Sparkling, Power Ballads, The Groupie Gospels, The Adventures of Annabelle Ballantyne. Imagined and written. (1977-1984; 2006-2021) My own diaries. (1972-present) Selected notes from The Groupie Gospels. (2011-2025)
Cherry Vanilla. Pop Tarts Compositions. USA: Vanilla Paper, Inc., 1974.
Discography
Abba. “Dancing Queen”. 1976.
Delaney & Bonnie and Friends Featuring Eric Clapton. “Groupie (Superstar)”. 1969.
Free Kitten. Special Groupie. 1993.
Grand Funk Railroad. “We’re an American Band”. 1973.
Groupie. “All My Friends Are Pets”. 1997.
The Groupies. “You Changed Again”. 1967, 2005. (Gordon is not listed on the jacket’s liner notes of the 45 but research indicates he founded the band).
The Groupies album. Conversations by anonymous groupies. 1969.
The Roots, featuring Erykah Badu and Eve. “You Got Me”. 1999.
Sweet. “Fox on the Run”. 1974.
Luther Vandross. “Superstar/Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do)”. 1983.
“My Confidential Groupie Diary”
The Groupie Feminism art series
Attributions and Artist Statement
High School Confidential Diary, Volume 1, Number 9, October 1961
Album Covers, l to r:
Lust for Life by Lana Del Rey (2017)
Love Gun by Kiss (1977)
Shadow Dancing by Andy Gibb (1978)
Pop Star Sparkling byline and excerpts (2009)
Orange fabric with satin piping for bed-skirt
10 1/2” x 18”
2025
When I was eleven years old in 1977, I began writing fantasies about musicians. I wrote the stories in my diary. I’d been reading romance comics for a few years, and that year I discovered pornography. The visual porn bothered me but I fell in love with the written word. So I wrote a novella about my having love affairs and sexcapades with numerous musicians. My confidential groupie diary!
In 1982, I penned a feature script about underage best friends who run away from home and have adventures, including a tour with musicians. It had the best soundtrack! My last year of high school, 1983-1984, I wrote a fantasy for the high school newspaper, a continuing saga written in several installments about my getting to know a rock star.
In 2005, I re-wrote one of the fantasies from memory, hoping to publish it in a girlie magazine I co-founded with a few classmates from graduate school. The magazine, Touché, was to feature naked men and great interviews, thought-provoking articles, and stellar fiction. Our tagline was “going to any length.”
The magazine never happened, but I made a zine based on our one and only photo shoot. And sent out the fantasy I’d re-written to one of my favorite journals, PRISM international. It’s one of the first pieces of writing I ever got published. The story is based on the first rock ‘n’ roll fantasy I ever wrote, starring me, Andy Gibb and KISS.
Over the next several years, I wrote fictional accounts of rock star groupie stories I’d heard or read, a novella about two groupies, and a novel about an underage fan meeting a pop star, befriending groupies, and going on the road with them. None of it published yet. I interviewed groupies, musicians, music journalists and music photographers, recording with permission almost all of the interviews onto cassette tapes, and wrote my notes about what they said and how I felt about it in numerous diaries. Those interviews and notes are the basis of my book, The Golden Era of Groupies: 1965-1978, forthcoming from Chicago Review Press, and some are included in my debut published book, ‘70s Teen Pop (Bloomsbury, 2023).
My mom’s diaries are something I always knew she kept, for as far back as I can remember. She’s very private, so I never even thought about reading them, but one time when I was in college she and I had so much fun as she read to me from her teen diary. And so much sorrow as she told me about a time my father, when they were first dating, read her diaries, and he was enraged with her for writing about other boys. The thing is, she knew she loved my dad – she was just making up stories for her diary. It was around the time this comic book came out. My mom as a teen looked exactly like the teen on this comic book cover!
My grandmother kept diaries, too. Hers looked very official with their supple binding! I admired them along her bookshelves. I figured my mom and grandmom wrote about their lives, their thoughts, their ideas and dreams.
I began my first diary when I was in third grade when my mom’s best friend gave a diary to me. The lined pages made it seem serious, and like a challenging homework assignment. I wasn’t sure what to write in it. What was important enough to write? A few years later, when my mom gave a Nothing Book to me – a hard-cover book with woven maroon covers, and blank unlined pages in various colors – it felt like freedom to create.
The comic book cover for High School Confidential Diary reminded me of my mom, and my own diary-writing. So I modified the cover with a cut and paste collage of album covers by Andy and KISS and Lana Del Rey, along with my byline and excerpts of the fantasy, and kept the teen-aged girl intact. I added fabric as a bed skirt over the excerpts.
In the fantasy I’m wearing a dress that looks a lot like what Lana Del Rey wears on her album cover! She looks almost exactly like how I imagined myself looking in my fantasy. And her album has a song about a groupie.
The KISS album has a song about a groupie, too, the artist Cynthia Plaster Caster!
The following is the excerpt from my short fantasy story, Pop Star Sparkling, which I slightly tweaked for this artist statement, and which I placed on the comic book cover under the sheer orange bed-skirt:
The year before I loved Andy, I loved the band Kiss. They played hard rock. They wore costumes, and make-up, and they had their own comic book. I read they put their own blood in the comic book’s ink. I loved Ace Frehley, their lead guitarist and sometimes singer, best. But also Paul Stanley, their lead singer and rhythm guitarist. On the way home from my career I see them walking down the street. The whole band! The band on my turntable, the band shouting out loud in my headset, the band painted in black, silver, and white with just a little bit of red on my mirror at home. They’re in costume and wearing their platform boots. They all follow me. We look like shiny sequins in motion on rich velvet.
Paul, the one with the star on his eye and the red kiss lips, waits until I unlock my door then he walks fast up to me and slams the door behind us. Somehow, my front room feels like an outdoor garden. There are huge potted plants, the smell of a thousand tiny white flowers, the sound of a miniature waterfall. What are you doing, I ask, but he grabs me and kisses me. It feels good, but scary, like when I listen to his music – I am never sure what will happen next, and so I keep listening. I run my hands through his long, dark hair. I really like your skirt, he whispers as he lifts it and kisses me some more. His hands – those long, strong guitar-playing fingers – on my bare thighs. His red-lipsticked mouth opens. His tongue is pink and soft, and tastes that way too, like candy. I remember Andy and push Paul away. Let’s just go for a walk, he says, so we walk to a stream by my house. We hold hands, swinging them back and forth, and now I am wearing a long white skirt with three tiers in it and a white top with off-the- shoulder sleeves made of lace. The skirt flows even when I stand still. Paul kisses my exposed shoulder. His make-up is bright in the starlight.
What happened next is strictly confidential! (But you can read about it in PRISM international!)
Bibliography
Comic book cover. High School Confidential Diary. Volume 1, Number 9. Charlton Comics Group, October, 1961.
Del Rey, Lana. Lust for Life. Polydor Records, 2017.
Kiss. Love Gun. Casablanca Record & FilmWorks, Inc., 1977.
Gibb, Andy. Shadow Dancing. RSO Records, Inc., 1978.
Lucretia Tye Jasmine. “Pop Star Sparkling”. PRISM international. Fall, 2009.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: lucretia_tye_jasmine
- Linkedin: Lucretia Tye Jasmine
- Twitter: @LucretiaTyeJas
- Facebook: Lucretia Tye Jasmine
- Other: https://www.lucretiatyejasmine.com/
Image Credits
All photos by Lucretia Tye Jasmine except the one of Tye; that photograph is by Debbie Bean
