Casting Director: Cynthia Plaster Caster on the “biggest rig” she ever saw
All hail Cynthia Plaster Caster.
If you don’t know her by name, you almost certainly know her by reputation, especially if you’ve spent much time on this side of the music internet.
Born Cynthia Albritton in Chicago, Illinois, on May 24th, 1947, by the time she was in college, she was living a life wilder, more free and more fun than most would ever live in a lifetime. Her time at the University of Illinois Chicago introduced her to her home town’s nascent hippy scene, which in turn introduced her to two of the three major themes in her life. Rock ‘n’ roll music and free love.
In fact, the combination of those two with the third, sculpting, would change her life forever. In one of her art classes, a teacher gave her class an assignment to “plaster cast something solid”. Cynthia, the absolute hero that she was, had been clearly enjoying her time in the Chicago hippy scene to the fullest because her first thought when asked to find “something solid”, were dicks. And a truly brilliant idea was born.
Cynthia’s idea was simple. You begin by getting someone with a penis erect. Off to a strong start here, aren’t we? Then, after some sweet-talking and possibly some other forms of persuasion (I couldn’t possibly comment), you lifecast said friend’s member, removing it when their hard-on wears off. By Cynthia’s own admission, this was more or less some “shtick to get laid”, but possibly through sheer novelty alone, she stayed at it. So to speak.
Pretty soon afterwards, she began to take the process seriously as art in its own right, leaving her with a fighting pit’s worth of cocks by the end of the decade.
Go on then, who was the biggest in Cynthia Plaster Caster’s collection?
She wasn’t the only one to see the art in it. Despite never getting cast himself, Frank Zappa was such a huge fan of the work of Cynthia Plaster Caster that he became a patron of hers. Moving her to Los Angeles in 1971 and assisting in the storage of the casts once they were complete. Zappa only became aware of her work thanks to the first major name that Cynthia cast. A man who would prove to be huge in every single way!
In February 1968, Jimi Hendrix played two shows at the Chicago Civic Opera House. After the show, Hendrix and the two other members (hehe) of his Experience (hehe) were approached by Cynthia and two of her friends with a baffling offer. Cynthia had already experimented with friends of hers, but Hendrix was to be her first famous offering. The guitar genius was only too happy to oblige, and the diary entry that Cynthia wrote of the night speaks for itself.
After a surprisingly professional rundown of the date, time and names of everyone involved from Hendrix downward, Cynthia answers the question on everyone’s mind with the very first, immortal line. “We needed a ratio of 28:28 and found this just barely sufficient – Hendrix has got just about the biggest rig I’ve ever seen!” She then goes into detail on the process of casting Hendrix’s Little Wing and how the sheer girth of the thing nearly made the cast fall in on itself in the days after it was completed.
However, after some reassembly, the cast was complete. You can see it for yourself with a quick Google search and know that at no point was Cynthia lying about any of this. It’s a hell of a thing, and we wouldn’t know that for sure without Cynthia Plaster Caster.
All, and I can’t stress this enough, hail.