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We started to hang out at LouiseŽs, the lesbian club in Poland Street, that was also an early punk hangout. It was there that I got to know the south London gang known as the Bromley Contingent, which included Siouxsie of the Banshees and Billy Idol. WeŽd also go to the Global Village, the disco under the arches at Charing Cross, which later became Heaven. This was a strange club where IŽd first noticed the evolution of punk fashion. Soul boys and girls with flicks and wedges started to evolve into punks with safety pins and plastic bags. It was the main place in London where young people who were not just into music, but also the way they looked and expressed themselves, could go and not feel people were staring at them for the wrong reasons. |
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Steve Strange was a punk like the rest of us. I knew him from the early days up the King's Road, at the Roxy and the Vortex. Even he carried a collapsible ladder in his back pocket. Hanging around Billy Idol and the punk élite, decked head to toe in Sex clothes, borrowed from the stock room.
I was always making up wicked jokes about Steve, knowing they' get back to him. My mouth was my power over him and everyone. What I hated most about Steve was his inconsistency. he would use you and drop you when he felt like it. Often his charm was disarming. He could be genuinely nice, and that was even more scary.
He arrived unexpectedly at Great Titcfhfield Street, showing off his new look, the latest Seditionaries boots, leather bondage trousers, a walnut quiff and black contact lenses that covered his whole eye. Some local kids were laughing and pointint, "Oi, space creature, can you see me?" He looked brilliant, and we went for a drink at a local pub. |
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