Billy Idol's Hair Melts!

The weather outside is crap. it's the first miserable day of the winter season. It took me two hours to get into the office this morning. It's just the kind of day I've been waiting for to tell my favourite Billy Idol story.

I worked for Aucoin Management during those heady days that Billy was recording Rebel Yell. One night, while still recording the album Billy came up to the office (we were in Olympic towers now) for a meeting. The New York weather was awful. I think we were on the 33rd floor (to the best of my recollection) and we watched the city grind to a halt as the snow dumped on the city. At the end of the day a couple of us decided to head downtown for dinner with Billy at Aye Caramba's on Broadway south of 8th St.

Since the roads were so horrible, we decided to take the subway rather than hail a cab. "Dancing With Myself" was just becoming a hit around that time so, though Billy looked different than most, he could still ride the subway without getting hassled.

When we got out of the station at 8th and Broadway we braced ourselves against the wind that was now blowing the snow sideways. Billy didn't have a proper winter coat. Instead, he draped a long black cloak around himself and leaned his shoulder into the wind. The image he struck was hilarious, not unlike Spock in some long forgotten episode of Star Trek.

When we got to Aye Caramba we were ushered to a table in the middle of crowed restaurant. Once we were all settled and had our drinks ordered we noticed that Billy's spiked hair had frozen solid during the walk. Each of us took turns patting the top with the frozen spikes leaving impressions in our palms.

We lingered for a couple of hours hoping the weather would abate (which it eventually did). During that time we watched as Billy's hair thawed and then wilted off to the left. It was hilarious. Even he had a good sense of humour about it.

At 10:30 we paid the bill and headed to the door. Billy excused himself to run downstairs to the washroom. A few minutes later he returned with a slightly mortified look on his face. Apparently a couple of people in the restaurant had recognized him and followed him into the washroom. When he turned around from the urinal he saw a young man and woman starring at him as he zipped up his pants. For what it's worth, this was the kind of attention he had hoped to gain for himself.

We walked with Billy back to his apartment in Sheridan Square. He invited us up for tea, which we accepted. We sat around talking about the songs he had written for the new album and then he told us the inspiration for the song "Crank Call." It turned out that there were a couple of girls that were always hanging around a phone booth outside his apartment and they were always starring at his window. He took us over to the window to show us the phone booth. When he pulled back the black curtain we were shocked to see that the two girls were indeed standing there starring at the window. Even in this weather.

There are allot of good Billy Idol stories from those days and I'll eventually get through most of them - but this was my favourite.