FRIGHTENINGLY GOOD:

EMPIRE MUSICWERKS / UNIVERSAL TO RELEASE RARE COLLECTION OF

THE SPOOKY KIDS MATERIAL, APRIL 20

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Co-founding Spooky Kid / original Marilyn Manson guitarist Scott Putesky

(a.k.a. Daisy Berkowitz) produces The Spooky Kids Lunch Boxes & Choklit Cows

enhanced CD special package

            Before there was Marilyn Manson, there was The Spooky Kids.  Dark.  Loud.  Stylishly bizarre.  Gleefully dangerous and fantastically influential.  They were South Florida’s stiff middle finger answer to Seattle grunge.  They recorded tons of songs, thanks to co-founder / alluringly sinister guitarist / mad scientist producer Scott Putesky, who invented and assumed the infamous persona Daisy Berkowitz, which propelled him through his crucial tenure in The Spooky Kids and Marilyn Manson. 

The problem with all of that killer music is that it wasn’t available for mass consumption.  Sure, there were coveted second- and third-generation cassettes changing hands like filthy lucre and recreational drugs, but to go to The Spooky Kids section in the record store wasn’t a possibility; it just didn’t exist.

            As a significant Spooky Kids songwriter and sole producer of the original recordings, Putesky has had this unholy grail all along, and was awarded the rights to release it as part of a much-publicized lawsuit he won against former rock & roll partner in crime Marilyn Manson.  Putesky has freed the music from the muck and the mire, put his trademark production polish on the dings, scratches and dents, at his Miami-based state-of-the-art Toy Jungle Studios, and now to the victor goes the spoils.  Empire MusicWerks/Universal will release the first of two volumes of Spooky Kids recordings Lunch Boxes & Choklit Cows, as an enhanced CD featuring special packaging, April 20.

            “I recorded all of the demos back in the early ‘90s,” explains Putesky, who engineered and mixed, as well as produced The Spooky Kids, “and I still have the four-track machine.  I put the tracks in Pro-Tools, cleaned them up, and made them a lot better than even the original cassettes.  There are no silly additions, like a dance beat, and nothing taken away.  Half of the collection appeared as demos that we put out years ago, and the other half has never been released.  Even for hardcore fans, this is going to be interesting.”

            Putesky is not only a fastidious producer, staying true to the music’s raw energy, but he’s also a meticulous archivist who has documented everything all along with the accuracy of a museum curator.  Sometimes it pays (literally) to be a pack rat.  Or have a healthy allegiance to the past.  Or both.

            Drawing from stacks of notebooks of original artwork, concert flyers and albums full of images that he accumulated as a Spooky Kid and then as an original member of the Manson family, the celebrated ex-Jack Off Jill guitarist, who has gone on to form Stuck on Evil, and his current collaborative effort, Three Ton Gate (www.threetongate.org), has conceptualized and assembled the apropos elements that augment The Spooky Kids, styling its packaging with the look and spirit of the demos.

            Putesky insists, “I don’t want anyone to think that this is a stab at what Marilyn Manson is now; it’s not at all, and has nothing to do with that.  It’s a good product on its own.  You don’t get to hear a band’s demos very often, and when you do, it’s usually just a weaker version of their hits.  This stuff is so obscure; it’s like a buried treasure.  Just to examine the song style, what we sounded like, the quality of the lyrics, and the way we played together – it will be a lot of fun for people who aren’t familiar with us, too.”

            As for the answer to the obvious question, Brian Warner (a.k.a. Marilyn Manson) has not yet commented on The Spooky Kids.

            Putesky says, “I have tried to make contact with him several times in the past two years, only to be friendly again, not to work together, or ask him for anything or expect anything from him.  But I think he should enjoy the project and be into it, because it’s his performance, too.”

            In other words, fear not The Spooky Kids, embrace them.