Back in 1986 when I started 11th grade we we're introduced to a new student by the name of Bobby. Bobby was a punk rocker. He had the leather jacket, ripped jeans and spiked hair. In fact that's what he told everyone to call him "Spike". He also had an English accent. As time went on Spike eventually got his ass kicked by the jocks and the dirtbags on an almost daily basis, which made him one of us, whether we wanted him or not. As we all got to know Spike little things about him started to leak out, like how his real name wasn't Bobby but Peter and how he was actually 3 years older than us. This means he was actually my sisters age, but she was away at college and he was sitting behind me in English class. When I got to ask her if she remembered the guy she said she did but barely, She remembers all the girls thought he was hot because he sort of looked like Billy Idol and in fact "Billy" is what he was calling himself when she knew of him. And he didn't have an English accent. Seems like he got into a lot of trouble when he was known as Billy and somehow ran away to his aunt's house somewhere in England where he stayed for a few years but was never allowed into the school system. He eventually proved to be a real wanker in England as well and got sent back to his Mom in America. Embarrassed to find himself left-back he adopted the name Bobby when re-enrolling for classes then got pissed when people didn't call him Spike. Spike ended up getting left back again before eventually graduating in '89 at the age of 22. The really screwed up thing was when I was starting my sophmore year at Pratt I heard people talking about this English asshole who just came in as a freshman who looked like Billy Idol. His name was Peter but told everybody to call him "Slash". When we finally bumped into each other a few days later he pleaded with me not to let other people know that we knew each other. I obliged, whatever, no big deal to me. He eventually flunked out after 3 semesters and finally disappeared. Thats when I spilled the beans one night at a party and let everybody in on Peter's secret. He had duped everyone but at the same time no one seemed surprised.When I first met "Bobby/Spike" he wore a green army jacket with patches all over the back. One of them was "UK Subs" and another was "X-Ray Spex". Two bands I never heard of but two bands I immediately went out and bought. Thanks Peter/Billy/Bobby/Spike/Slash I'll always remember you.
Lizziegreeneyes says
and what memories those must be for you *d* ;P
Great one :) Thanks for the intro - you're not no nor never have you been caught fakin' a British accent for any extended period of time, right luv ???
Cheerio ya ole wankah ;)
fistula spume says
I'd change it to something pretty if I wouldn't lose all my posts. I lurve that X-Ray Spex album. I really love the title track "Germ Free Adolescents". Reminds me of an early Cranberries song for some reason. That is a pretty crazy story. I've known some people like that but never to that degree.
Lizziegreeneyes says
*SO TOTALLY UNECESSARY FOR ME TO KNOW*...
I still have issues with this pic
(even though I know it's a fake) - anytime I hear the word seeds or anything having to do with wormy things
annieander says
Sounds like I got you thinking about 1986. We had a guy at our school that looked EXACTLY like Prince.
He would dress like this for class. He would so ACT IT!
Great story D.
dachmo says
**Fisty** Don't go changin'...
**Lizzie** I first saw that image but incorporated on to a womens nerple, That image scarred me for life!
**Pete** I said Captain and you said what? ...
**Annie** We had one of those too, and a couple of Pat Benatars and a few Madonnas.
**Flux** Yes I'm finally mastering the Kings English.
contrabandwidth says
Oh do tell, I have tried (not in vein mind you, but...let's just say I googled both words once) what is a Fistula Spume, and have a vague idea, but do tell. Oh BTW, great post. I think most people's first punk albums come from reading someones patch and going out and buying said bands album. How's that for word of mouth (or word of denim/leather)?
Max Load says
I used to know a guy called John. He had Billy Idol hair but was taller and nowhere near as timid. John was universally bad. He told all his mates he had shagged their girlfriends, even if he hadn't. You could tell when he really had because he would show you the photos. He called his daughter Siouxsie. He stole the hifi from his school and tried to sell it in the pub. He used to hit his mum if she refused to cook him frozen pizzas. He refused to talk to his dad after he got Alzheimers and drove his mother to an early grave. He was crap and everyone knew it. But he was plausible too. Sometimes I'd see him begging on trains and pretend not to recognise him: he didn't need to, he just did it for fun. When his mum died he moved back into her suburban house and turned it into a nightclub. Way after all the utilities had been disconnected ( I hate to think what it must have been like inside by this time) I saw in the paper that someone had been stabbed on his doorstep.He seemed to get away with that because nobody there had a clue what was going on. Then he got throat cancer and died when he was about forty. Not many tears were shed, but some people went to the funeral just to make sure. He was the biggest liar and cheat I've ever met. He was adoptedby good Quaker people and he destroyed their lives. And after reading that story, I wonder if he had a twin.
dachmo says
**Contra** my mother is on dialysis due to diabetes shuting her kidneys down. Dialysis entails cleaning the blood because your body/kidneys no longer do it for you. Normally the kidneys clean all toxins and and help take the excess fluid out of your blood stream and excret by way of urine. That said, a fistula is made so that the dialysis machine can have a "docking station" directly into a main artery. it's usually a large thick vein pulled from your leg that sits just below the skin on your forearm. If the dialysis procedure isn't done properly she could get an infection or abscess which results in a slightly foamy look. It has only happened once and was actually not as bad as it sounds, that is as long as it's taken care of other wise it could be as bad as it sounds. just so you know "fistula spume" is not a medical term, it's just Sam combining two words that really have no connection to one another.
**Max** This guy was one of those people you couldn't pity because he brought the shitstorm down on himself constantly. Maybe your guy was his uncle? :-D
**Lizzie** Thanks for keeping the nipple to yourself, I don't ever want to see it again. Even if it's a fake.
**Sam the Other Artist** No! not Tater Salad! LOL!!
Augusts1 says
Great story & song. I've heard of Xray Spex for decades but never heard a song by them(as far as I know). They're one of those bands that I was never motivated to check out but always had a bit of curiosity about them. Liking it, thanks D.
Cody B says
If you can beat 'em, join 'em anyway, steal their jacket, their lunch money, and their refined taste. It was cool of you not to blow his cover..
fistula spume says
One advantage to the fistula spume moniker is that it makes for really easy google-ing. I love combining unlike things to create something new. Hey Dachmo can you post some UK Subs? I know about them but I never got anything by them. That or do you have a song recommendation perhaps?
dachmo says
**Cody B** I didn't blow his cover until he was gone, is that what you mean?
**Fistula** That stuff is still on vinyl, I've yet to start really ripping through them. It would have to be one of their first 2 albums, my preference would be for "Brand New Age" from 1980 over "Another Kind of Blues". I have to say I never delved too deeply into their catalog but back then the guy at my local record store really pushed for either of the two as a starting point. I ended up eventually buying both and then in college bought one more (Japan Today) on a whim and didn't like it at all.
**Lester** I can't tell which way you're going with that comment. Are you sneering or are you smiling?
soulrocket says
that is a great story, dachmo.
i knew a couple of guys here with the "syd vicious syndrome".
this is rather disgusting but here it goes.. one of them called ramon had a punk rock band & they rehearsed on sundays after being drinking on saturday night. and here comes the disgusting part... they kept drinking non-stop while rehearsing and to avoid to stop playing when they felt like puking they had a big basin on the middle for that purpose. they said that was very punk rock.
dachmo says
More like alcoholic behavior. Everybody has a different opinion of what Punk Rock is, in a conversation with my parents recently the topic of Punk Rock came up and it seems like they both believe that a Punk Rocker is essentially a thieving heroin junkie. I guess their really not too far off on that assumption.
soulrocket says
true about alcoholic behaviour... this guys liked it degenerate.
my conception of punk rock was very 1977, with a capital R on rock. i liked bands like the buzzcocks, stranglers, the fall, wire... just regular kids. i had a black jacket with 1977 printed on white on the back and a "the ramones look".
dachmo says
I didn't really get into true Punk Rock until I got into college. There were a lot of guys that were the t-shirt and jeans kinda punkers and of course the guys that spent an hour on there hair kinda punks. I went for the clean cut punk look. Short short hair, Workboots (Red Wings were the best) with a thick sole and steel toes, blue jeans and a white or black button up shirt. I was easy to buy clothes for back then because that's all I wore that and a thin black jacket. I thought I was so cool.
soulrocket says
we all thought we were really cool, looking for an identity is such a painful path. i was lucky i dated a girl who was 5 years older than me and she had the greatest punk rock record collection ive seen to date.
Cody B says
Yeah dachmo, it took a lot of restraint not to let it slip out when he was still around. Great story. As for Punk Rock..I know it when I see it, but I could never define it.
Girlcrawl says
Entertaining, and slightly tragic anecdote - glad I never encountered this particular Peter/Billy/Bobby/Spike/Slash character. Poly had a voice which was distinct to say the least; the X-Ray Spex were a notable, albeit too short-lived, presence on the punk scene. Great choice!
dachmo says
Yeah, I used to wonder what kind of a shit home life did he have to make him like that and then he'd go and break a bottle over his head just to get attention. Then you would realize that he was just a d-i-c-k.
I don't know if they ever did release another album. She also had a great name Poly Styrene
goodmusiconly says
Sorry, I'm late to the game - but I love this post. Great story, and one of my favorite titles, ever, btw - totally cracks me up. :-) This reminds me, to a lesser extent, of an ex-boyfriend - "English Andy" - who had spent a couple years in England and continued to speak with a british accent long after his return. Of course I didn't know at the start that he was actually from the midwest ... At any rate I wasn't brokenhearted when we split and he started dating my friend Cheryl Lee (the same one from Twin Peaks). It didn't work out with her either, but the point is (what is my point?), he turned me on to The Cult early on and that was a good thing. Yay for posers who like cool music! ;)
Oh, and excellent song pick!
goodmusiconly says
no - she actually was "Laura Palmer" so she didn't figure prominantly (obviously) until "Fire Walk..." here she is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheryl_Lee
dachmo says
that must have sucked for her being that the whole show revolved around her murder and she never really got a chance to really be in it.
It also must of really sucked for you that she started dating your ex (bitch!)
goodmusiconly says
well, there was a shortage of handsome fellas with fake british accents at the time, so it wasn't too surprising. I wasn't exactly plotting my revenge...
(I kid, she was a good gal.)
poebegone says
LOL, great song, and great post. I went to an all-girls high school that just happened to be across the street from an all-boys high school. (Both schools took that big joke to great lengths when they merged our prom parties at some point.) Day after torturous day, I would walk by the sidewalk and the few boys who knew my name would sing Sheena Is a Punk Rocker for the very mundane reason that Sheila is one of my birth names (Now you know). One of them was this guy my friends and I called "Egghead" (Never knew his real name) whom I always thought was Mr. Cool who wouldn't so much as look at me or talk to me. I bumped into him many years later and found out he was scared to talk to me because, on the day we met, he was wearing fuschia pink punk rocker pants, and I said to him: "What's with the pants?"
Phew. Too much sharing for one day. :D
El Corazon Sangrante says
Hilarious story. I think everyone went to school with a variation of this guy. At my school it was this mexican guy named pineapple (cos he was chunky and had spiked hair) who skated. he did graduate, 4 years ahead of me, but never seemed to grow away from hanging around the high school. A misguided friend of mine was stupid enough to hook up with him during lunch break one day and came back to class with carpet burns up her ass and elbows from her sexcapade on his bedroom floor. Good times.
dachmo says
Oh yes, Rug burns! For some reason, I can't remember why, my friends and I used to call them smurfs. High School, I wouldn't trade a thing in the world to go back there.
**Poe** We may put on a tough cool exterior on the outside but we break real easy on the inside.
Anna says
David, why do I have the suspicion that Peter/Billy/Bobby/Spike/Slash was in fact....(drumroll)...you!
That whole "I once knew a guy that did that and that" just don't fly with me.
Really, David, this isn't my pot, I'm keeping it for a friend.
dachmo says
maybe he was my imaginary friend and he currently goes by the name of Dachmo! Yeah I think your on to something there Anna!
Oi, yu gaughta fag? ...Wankah!
Yup, my accents just as bad as it used to be!
Back in 1986 when I started 11th grade we we're introduced to a new student by the name of Bobby. Bobby was a punk rocker. He had the leather jacket, ripped jeans and spiked hair. In fact that's what he told everyone to call him "Spike". He also had an English accent. As time went on Spike eventually got his ass kicked by the jocks and the dirtbags on an almost daily basis, which made him one of us, whether we wanted him or not. As we all got to know Spike little things about him started to leak out, like how his real name wasn't Bobby but Peter and how he was actually 3 years older than us. This means he was actually my sisters age, but she was away at college and he was sitting behind me in English class. When I got to ask her if she remembered the guy she said she did but barely, She remembers all the girls thought he was hot because he sort of looked like Billy Idol and in fact "Billy" is what he was calling himself when she knew of him. And he didn't have an English accent. Seems like he got into a lot of trouble when he was known as Billy and somehow ran away to his aunt's house somewhere in England where he stayed for a few years but was never allowed into the school system. He eventually proved to be a real wanker in England as well and got sent back to his Mom in America. Embarrassed to find himself left-back he adopted the name Bobby when re-enrolling for classes then got pissed when people didn't call him Spike. Spike ended up getting left back again before eventually graduating in '89 at the age of 22. The really screwed up thing was when I was starting my sophmore year at Pratt I heard people talking about this English asshole who just came in as a freshman who looked like Billy Idol. His name was Peter but told everybody to call him "Slash". When we finally bumped into each other a few days later he pleaded with me not to let other people know that we knew each other. I obliged, whatever, no big deal to me. He eventually flunked out after 3 semesters and finally disappeared. Thats when I spilled the beans one night at a party and let everybody in on Peter's secret. He had duped everyone but at the same time no one seemed surprised.When I first met "Bobby/Spike" he wore a green army jacket with patches all over the back. One of them was "UK Subs" and another was "X-Ray Spex". Two bands I never heard of but two bands I immediately went out and bought. Thanks Peter/Billy/Bobby/Spike/Slash I'll always remember you.
Locating MOG account...
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