| So here we go
then...the story of Raped in the
words of its founder Faebhean Kwest. Some interesting points of view and
assertions here. make of them as you will. Now Rape me scrape me Mr
Q!!! |
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Prior
to the punk scene I'd been in a rockabilly group (bit like the Stray Cats)
years before Rockabilly was popular, and had played in various venues,
including a strip club in Soho - in which the first night I was told by
the owner that I could have whatever I liked to drink or eat and could
fuck any of the (very ropey!) girls but I mustn't chew gum in the place -
as it was a "most respectable establishment see"!
I knew a lot of the crowd in the King's Road,
(as I lived very near ) who eventually became punks, early names like
Johnny Rotten Johnny Diahorrea (now that's a name!), Jack Stafford (who
joined X-Ray Spex as their guitarist), Dave Sylvian - later in Japan,
Marco Pirroni - later Adam and the Ants and a host of others so I was in
the right place at the right time - 1976 and an unswinging London.. I had previously been in a group called Swank which was
Swankers shortened down...the original name of the pistols.! Gary Olsen
(originally Gary Grant) the singer died recently - he was the fat fellow
in the British TV sit-com' "Unit 4 + 2" formed it with me as
guitarist. |
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It
could have been the Pistols with Faebhean !! |
"According
to McLaren they got some incredibly funny mad kids,' One was called Fabian
Quest and he turned his head to the wall as he tried to play guitar. When
they came to do the audition, they suddenly realised that they were at
least better than this guy."
Jon
Savage 'Englands Dreaming' Page 125 |
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I
had originally been asked to the audition for the Pistols with Steve New
(of the Rich Kids), and we both walked out of the audition saying what a
load of tripe they / it was! Malcolm McLaren never forgave me for saying
no, as I had auditioned with short bleached hair, red drainpipe trousers,
winklepickers, and a battered old Telecaster, plus my heroes were people
like Johnny Thunders, MC5 Link Wray - in an era (1975/76) when every other
person had long wavy hair, flared jeans and wanted to be in Jethro Tull or
The Moody Blues!! He thought I would have been exactly right and he
couldn't handle the idea of someone turning the great Malcolm down!
Hence, him saying such snide things about me in the magazines and papers /
books (I can send you photocopies if wanted). Particularly venomous was
Jon Savage who did a book called "England's Dreaming" in
which he got the facts all wrong on purpose and didn't even spell my name
right! (But this was because me and a couple of other lads would not sleep
with him - tired old poof!). Although later I got to know Johnny Rotten fairly well ( I once gave him a pet rat for his birthday which he
proceeded to lose in a taxi and I had to rescue it with the cabbie
screaming that a spell in the army would do us both good and John
monotonously intoning that he was a cretin - hahh- one doesn't have that
sort of erudite and urbane wit anymore!!!); the only one of the
Pistols I have really had anything to do with is Glen Matlock, who's
quite sweet and the only musical member of the whole charade.
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| I
then left Swank as it was too grey a band with members only wanting to
play locally, and formed a punk group called originally the Solicitors,
but that was such a dreadful name that me and Sean (from a Melody Maker
Ad), called it the most offensive name we could think of (Raped!).
When we auditioned Paddy he thought he was joining a group like
Kiss or Eddie and the Hot Rods! Tony - the bass player - joined from
Melody Maker (as did the others) having been the last bass player with
Steppenwolf...we did not dare tell anyone at the time that! we'd
have been lynched! we were supposed to hate that sort of music!
We rehearsed in a lunatic asylum in Notting
Hill - that figures! we were as nutty as most of the inmates! I used to
live in a flat off Gloucester Road, Southwest London, with Roz Davies
and Colm - original runners of the T.Rex Fan Club, who'd known Marc
Bolan for donkey's years, before he'd even had singles or records out
(he used to work in a Wimpeys in Hackney - bet you didn't know that!
apparently he said he was a very good burger maker!!). Hence, us
getting to know Marc B. When we said that we would like to do a '3-chord
wonder' as a song and that all the good songs seemed to have been
done(!!) Marc gave me a tape of him, David Bowie and Gloria Jones
'fucking about' in a hotel room singing ideas and bouncing song bits at
each other. It is truly dreadful but me and Sean took a few of the numbers,
polished them and hence - the single Madman (released
1978). Marc Bolan was brilliant, he was tiny, about 5'3" and
very up-front but a real sweetheart and very loveable with it. He'd just
lost loads of weight and was looking great and who knows what might have
occurred If Marc hadn't been killed in a car crash, he was going to
manage us as he absolutely loved us -along with managing (or so he said)
Generation X, and The Damned. He was going to form a Production Company
with D.Bowie... Marc was the one who coined the phrase that
we were Peacock Punks or glam-punks! (we were already using the name
Cuddly Toys privately and changed to it properly in 1978 -We had decided
to change the name when concert halls just wouldn't put us
on! and John Peel ( the DJ) and Bill Grundy( the man on the notorious
Sex Pistol TV interview) suggested that we give ourselves the silliest
name we could think off - you should have heard some of the names we
came up with! We were at one point going to call ourselves Oasis
!!! - now there's a thought...and in 1978 as well! ), A
lot of the groups that we did like and get on with - such as Psychedelic
Furs, Banshees, etc we used to socialize with but most of the average
punk groups around after mid-1977 were very straight and thought we were
too anti-establishment! (the biters bit!!!) : some of them were so
normal it was like playing a gig with your dad! We played one gig
with a so-called punk group who asked us to please say onstage that they
were not connected with us, as they didn't like the idea that me and
Sean had eyeshadow on! (nice colour too!). We used to hang around with bands
such as Gen X- a bit, because we were all from the same crowd, (Sean
went out with Josie Munns - Dave Vanian's ex-girlfriend, and I
still see Dave about occasionally at classic 'bike meets - we're
both nutty about pre'1960's motorcycles! - he's a smashing fellow !). .
Before 1977 the 1975-76 punk scene was very outrageous and a lot
of the more glamourous and adventurous punk crowd actually became the
New Romantic originators, that's why we (C.Toys) used to know bands like
Duran, Culture Club, Adam & The Ants, etc. Oddly enough, a lot
of the two-tone crowd liked us (Madness, Modettes, Selector, etc) and we
were asked to go on the bill of quite a few bands who seemed almost at
askance with us.
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Raped
heading towards the more glammy Cuddly Toys
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The
hatred that the English press had for us was quite amazing, we actually
for a time became a band that the press loved to hate. but that's the
insular, class-conscious snide Limey music press for you! We were never
prophets in our own country but other people's liked us from outside the
UK. Quite a few of the major companies
chased us, and we were going to sign to Casablanca, and another company
(who's name escapes me) who had the band Angel on the racks except that
the man who was going to sign us suddenly went very strange, gave up his
job and became a Hare Krishna! (hope they never blame us). We turned a
couple of companies down as they wanted us to change so dramatically or
they just wanted Sean...we eventually signed with Techiku in Japan (a
label a bit like Decca - old-fashioned ), as they promised us complete
artistic control(huh!). Incidentally, before I forget, we did a half
hour video for Japanese and American television which was released in some
states and in Japan in which we used the film set of Alien just before the
film came out and the two lads who directed us were responsible for quite
a few of the major video milestones of the '80's. The
clothes came from the fact that we always wanted in fact to be
rock-and-rollers rather than punks - we were much better than the
average punk group (and better looking...meow!)...Sean wanted to be David
Bowie, Tony wanted to be John Entwistle, Paddy would have loved to have
been in Sweet or New York Dolls, and I wanted to be in Led Zeppelin or be
Johnny Winter! - that's why I did my hair bleached white - to try and be
an albino! Most places actually loved it - the clothes,
attitude, it was almost pantomime, or urchins who'd raided the trunks and
suitcases of a great house of the 18th century and ended up in a
masquerade instead of the chamber orchestra. The main reason why we got a
Japanese following/record deal was due to the strong 'glamorous' image. We
really were a glam-punk group such as Adam and the Ants, and the very
early N.Romantic's. |
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Paddy
and Wayne ..two for the chop later ...gedditt !!!!! |
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