Vance Bockis, who was a mainstay of D.C.’s 1980s punk scene with bands like 9353, The Factory and The Obsessed, died at his Fairfax County home Saturday from complications following shoulder surgery, his family told WTOP. Bockis was 50.

As the frontman of The Factory, Bockis’ charismatic and outlandish stage persona gave his band “bravado similar to the Rolling Stones or New York Dolls,” WTOP reports. And 9353, in which Bockis played bass, gained a bit of fame beyond D.C. in its track “Famous Last
Words,” the blurred-effect video for which made its debut in 1985 on WDCA’s Creature Feature with Count Gore de Vol.

Bockis was perhaps just as well known for his music as he was for a crippling heroin addiction, a condition that left him emaciated and contributed to The Factory losing a potentially big break with CBS Records. His recovery was the subject of a 2010 documentary, Shift.

“I should be dead or I should be in prison,” Bockis says in the film.

Bockis had been clean for six years, his wife, Linda Leisz Bockis, told WTOP. He had gone into the hospital for rotator-cuff surgery, and was preparing to play the Howard Theatre with a reformed 9353, which recorded new material this year.

A service for Bockis will be held Thursday, September 13 at 6 p.m. at Fairfax County Memorial Funeral Home (9902 Braddock Road, Fairfax).