One rock ‘n’ roll legend (or legendary footnote) determined not to just fade away, supergroupie Cynthia Plaster Caster notoriously began making sculptural molds of rock stars’ private parts some 35 years ago. These days she’s a middle-aged Chicagoan who calls said objets d’art “my sweet babies,” and keeps adding to the litter as an unreconstructed indie rock fan.
Cynthia — her real last name is off-limits lest a still-oblivious octogenarian mother find out just what she’s been up to — has spent intervening years since her late ’60s/early ’70s “glory days” as a humble office worker. But pic chronicles her recent return to, ahem, her roots; she’s quit dayjobbing and is prepping for a first-ever public exhibit of her oeuvre at an New York City art gallery.
Punkily youthful in her presumed early 50s, Cynthia recently won a drawn-out court battle to reclaim early anatomical statuettes from the erstwhile friend to whom she’d once entrusted them for safekeeping. With “babies” back in mama’s care, she’s trying to turn groupie infamy into a viable rent-paying career.
Though she wasn’t the sole original “Chicago Plaster Caster,” Cynthia was the one with the idea (which led her to lose virginity to Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & the Raiders, she says), and former comrades have chosen not to maintain or admit that identity in later life. In their heyday, the Plaster Casters “did” everyone from Jimi Hendrix (a man of truly “epic” dimensions, as bronzed posterity attests) to Anthony Newley. Cynthia had standards, though. She refused purported entreaties from Kiss guitarist Gene Simmons, whom she thought “a jerk.” (He wrote a song called “Plaster Caster” anyway.) Frank Zappa actually contributed funds as a bemused “patron of the arts.”
In more recent years, Cynthia has “cast” punk stars including Pete Shelley (the Buzzcocks), Jon Langford (the Mekons), Jello Biafra (the Dead Kennedys) and one-man-band Momus, aka Nick Currie — all of whom are duly interviewed here. We also see the skittish — on both sides — preparations for personal historic preservation made by current underground faves Bill of SubPop retro-instrumentalists 5ive Style and the rather cretinous Danny of Demolition Doll Rods.
Other commentators tapped include early subjects Noel Redding (The Jimi Hendrix Experience), Eric Burdon (The Animals) and Wayne Kramer (MC5); plus art-world pundits as well as academe Camille Paglia, who credits Cynthia with enlightening her to “rock music as a pagan form” of primitive-orgiastic expression.
-Dennis Harvey, Variety, June 22, 2001 reviewed from SF DocFest 2001
Filmmaker Jeff Economy expected to attend.
Tickets: Here
