Marilyn Manson & The Spooky Kids

Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids was the predecessor of the rock band called Marilyn Manson, originally formed in 1989 by the frontman Marilyn Manson and Daisy Berkowitz in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States. With their theatrical performances, they gathered a local cult following in the early 1990s. The name was shortened to Marilyn Manson in 1992. In 1989, Brian Warner was a college student working toward a journalism degree, and gaining experience in the field by writing music articles for a South Florida lifestyle magazine, 25th Parallel. It was in this capacity that he was able to meet several of the musicians to whom his own band would later be compared, including My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. He met Scott Putesky shortly afterward and, after showing him some lyrics and poems he had written, proposed that they form a band together. Warner, guitarist Putesky, and bassist Brian Tutunick recorded their first demo tape as Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids in late 1989, taking on the stage names of Marilyn Manson, Daisy Berkowitz and Olivia Newton Bundy, respectively. They were soon joined by keyboardist Perry Pandrea, also known as Zsa Zsa Speck, who shortly left the band after the fourth show. Stephen Bier, who called himself Madonna Wayne Gacy, was his replacement; Bundy was replaced by Gidget Gein in 1990, born Brad Stewart. In 1991, drummer Fred Streithorst joined the band, with the stage name Sara Lee Lucas. The stage names used by each member were representative of a concept the band considered central: the dichotomy of good and evil, and the existence of both, together, in every whole. "Marilyn Monroe had a dark side," explained Manson in his autobiography, "just as Charles Manson has a good, intelligent side." Images of both Monroe and Manson, as well as of others equally famous and notorious, were common in the band's early promotional materials. The Spooky Kids' popularity in the area grew quickly, largely because of radio DJ Scott David of WYNX-FM, an early fan who eagerly played songs from the band's demo tapes on the air; and because of the band's highly visual concerts, which drew from performance art and used many shock techniques. It was not uncommon to see onstage naked women nailed to a cross, a child in a cage, or bloody animal body parts; Manson, Berkowitz, and Gein variously performed in women's clothing or bizarre costumes; and, for lack of a professional pyro-technician, they would occasionally set their own stage props on fire. The band would dramatically contrast these grotesque theatrics with elements drawn from the culture of the members' youth in the 1970s and 1980s: characters from that era's children's television made regular, often somewhat altered, appearances on Marilyn Manson flyers and newsletters, and were frequently sampled in the music. They continued to perform and release cassettes—shortening their name to Marilyn Manson in 1992—until the summer of 1993, when the band drew the attention of Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, who at the time had just founded his own record label, Nothing Records. They would go on to release their debut album Portrait of an American Family under the name 'Marilyn Manson' in 1994. The Spooky Kids members: Marilyn Manson - vocals (1989-present) Daisy Berkowitz - guitar (1989-1996) Olivia Newton Bundy - bass (1989-1990) Zsa Zsa Speck - keyboard (1989-1990) Gidget Gein - bass (1990-1993) Madonna Wayne Gacy - keyboard (1990-2006) Sara Lee Lucas - drums (1991-1995) Discography as Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids: 1990 - The Raw Boned Psalms (demo) 1990 - The Beaver Meat Cleaver Beat (demo) 1990 - Big Black Bus (demo) 1990 - Grist-O-Line (demo) 1991 - After School Special (demo) 1991 - Lunchbox (demo) 1992 - Live as Hell (live) 2004 - Lunch Boxes & Choklit Cows (compilation) 2004 - Thrift (single) Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.