Manson still loves pussy

Marilyn Manson’s 1998 autobiography, The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, is notable for several reasons. For one thing, it was its co-author (read: the dude who listened to Manson babble on and on and then actually turned those babblings into a book) Neil Strauss’ first foray into rock star hagiography, which is to say, it was ostensibly a practice run for Motley Crue’s superior The Dirt, which Strauss which would write three years later. For another thing, it was written at the height of Manson’s stardom, so the dude did not yet know the sting of releasing an album no one cared about, which means that, throughout the course of the book, he takes himself way, way, wwwwaaaayyyy too seriously. (He seems to think that he might actually be the antichrist, claims to have given Axl Rose the idea to record a Charles Manson song for “The Spaghetti Incident?!”, and more or less accuses Trent Reznor of not believing in him, despite the fact that Reznor signed him to his Nothing Records imprint, produced his first two albums, and co-wrote and played on a whole bunch of the songs on Antichrist Superstar.) And both because and despite this fact, the book is actually a really fun read. One of the highlights of MetalSucks’ Heavy Metal Literature Night a couple of weeks ago (and someday I’ll post a wrap-up and photos from that event, I swear) was a young woman reading Manson’s list of ways the reader can tell if he is gay (I say “he” because Manson claims that all women are lesbians) — for example, if you have ever gotten any semen on you, be it your own or someone else’s, you are, apparently, gay. (Allow me to congratulate each and every male reader of this site on being gay, many of you probably just this morning.)

Why am I rambling on and on about this? Because apparently Manson has hired former LA Weekly writer Erin Broadley to pen his new, authorized biography.

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Listen, I don’t think this is gonna come as a galloping shock to anyone given all the talk there’s already been about A Perfect Circle returning from their hiatus/break-up/whatever, but we just got a press release making it official. The band is apparently gonna get this party started with a five-city tour in the fall:

Shows in Phoenix (Marquee Theatre), Los Angeles (Avalon), Seattle (Showbox at The Market) and San Francisco (The Fillmore) will be three-night stops with each night featuring one of A Perfect Circle’s three albums in its entirety (Mer de Noms, Thirteenth Step and eMOTIVe).  Las Vegas (The Pearl) will be a two-night outing (Mer de Noms and Thirteenth Step).

The band will also play Jimmy Kimmel on October 27.

Two quick and random thoughts:

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So Maynard James Keenan has said that Tool are working on their next album, and that “If it comes together” they may even play some new shit live this summer. I’m always totally down for some new Tool, so I won’t even say what we’re all thinking, which is “It might be nice to a get a new Tool album in under five years for a change.” I mean, we’d heard that Tool were in writing mode back in 2008, but whatever. It’s Tool. If they need that time to make the best possible record that they can, I’ll go along with it.

But a new Tool album was always a foregone conclusion; the band may very well break our hearts and throw in the towel one day, but we are (very luckily) not there yet.

So more interesting, in a way, is the news that writing has begun on a new album for A Perfect Circle. Not “more interesting” in a APC > Tool way, ’cause, come ON, that would just be a ridiculous argument to try and make. Interesting in the “Oh, cool, A Perfect Circle really aren’t done” kinda way.

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I don’t really know what the critical consensus was on the self-titled debut solo album from ex-Hole/ex-Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, but I thought it was catchy as hell. It came out just a few months after Courtney Love’s America’s Sweetheart and certainly blew that album right the fuck out of the water, that’s for sure. If you’ve never heard it, all you really need to know to understand what kind of record it is is that Josh Homme co-wrote and appears on the album alongside James Iha, Jeorde White (a.k.a. “Twiggy Ramirez”), and some other nifty guest musicians. Either those names appeal to you, or they don’t.

ANYWAY, that was almost six years ago already, and I kinda thought maybe Ms. Auf der Maur was done with music or something. But not so! She’s just released a video for “Out of Our Minds,” the title track from her new solo album, which a press release tells me “extends into a 28-minute, HD film starring and conceived by MAdM, as well as a limited edition comic book and matching Picture Disc Vinyl illustrated by Jack Forbes from Brooklyn, NY.” Personally I’m not sure that I care about anything other than the music, but, hey, good for her for being ambitious.

So this isn’t really metal and I’m not as wild about it as I was, say, “Followed the Waves” or “Taste You”* from her last album, but it’s not bad at all:

Out of Our Minds comes out March 30. And it features a duet with Glenn Danzig!

-AR

*If you can find the French language version of “Taste You,” check it out instead of the English version. The song sounds a million times sexier en Francais.

NME.com just debuted the new Marilyn Manson video, “Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin’-Geddon,” or, as it seems to be called for the purposes of this lame ass video, “Arma-arma-arma-arma-armageddon.”

So, yeah, the song has grown on me slightly since I first heard it, but it’s still not great, and the video sucks – it’s like a parody of a cliché of Manson videos. Also, funny that Twiggy is the only other band member in the video. Also, funny that he’s playing guitar.

Manson’s new album, The High End of the Low, comes out May 26. Everything we’ve heard/seen from it so far suggests that it’s going to blow goats.

-AR

…don’t.

We still haven’t heard the full album, The High End of Low, but the band has sent out a six song sampler, featuring three songs we’ve already heard and three brand spankin’ new ones. And while the songs aren’t terrible, exactly, they certainly don’t sound anything like the band that made Antichrist Superstar or, um, anything else from the original Twiggy Ramirez-era.

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I understand that most readers of this site hate Marilyn Manson, and from a certain perspective, I understand why. But Manson is one of the last consistently decent purveyors of pop metal, and, well, some days I loves me some pop metal.

That being said… these two new Manson leaks from his forthcoming The High End of the Low are just terrible. I think that most fans were hoping that the return of Jeordie White Twiggy Ramirez to the fold would mean the return of the rock to Manson’s music – something a little more in the vein of “Irresponsible Hate Anthem” – and this just isn’t that. Which might be fine – personally, I like the Twiggyless Manson albums – but these songs are weak.

The first one, “Arma-God-Damn-Mother-Fucking-Geddon,” has one kinda funny lyric (“First you try to fuck it, then you try to eat it,”), but otherwise sounds like some third rate hipster bullshit; the second song, “The Wow,” is pretty much just a stright-up rip-off of NIN’s “Only.” Seriously. It’s stupid.

Here are the songs. A third, “We’re From America,” will apparently be avail for free download from Manson’s website later today. Although, after hearing these first two songs, I’m not very excited.

“Arma-God-Damn-Mother-Fucking-Geddon”

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I understand that Twiggy Ramirez re-joined Marilyn Manson because the money’s right, but I guess that Manson has to get something out of it, too – and it would appear that the payoff for him is some sense of nostalgia for a time when he was much, much more famous. In an interview with Rolling Stone last Friday, he revealed:

“The turning point for me was when I went to see Led Zeppelin’s reunion show, and I saw Jimmy Page and Robert Plant look at each other for a moment, and they probably said, ‘Holy shit, we wrote ‘Stairway To Heaven.’ I wanted that look again… I want to look at Twiggy and go ‘Holy shit, we wrote ‘The Beautiful People.’”

When giving interviews, I think it’s a good rule of thumb to never, ever, under any circumstances, mention Led Zeppelin and your own band in the same breath, unless maybe you are/were a member of, say, The Beatles or The Stones or some shit. ‘Cause “The Beautiful People” was a big big hit in its day and I like it and all, but “Stairway,” it ain’t.

In response to Manson’s statement, ousted Manson member Tim Skold revealed that he would be re-uniting with his old band, Shotgun Messiah, because he was inspired by “that look that Steve ‘Sex’ Summers gets when he looks over at Kristy ‘Krash’ Majors during a Pretty Boy Floyd show.”

-AR

What did you expect Jeordie White to do? With A Perfect Circle disbanded and Trent Reznor announcing that his most recent line-up of NIN is a thing of the past, the man’s in some serious need of a paycheck.

So it shouldn’t be too shocking that the artist formerly known as Twiggy Ramirez is now the artist once again known as Twiggy Ramirez and has rejoined Marilyn Manson. This is roughly akin to Slash re-joining GN’R, except less people will give a fuck.

ANYWAY, Blabbermouth very cleverly dug up this old quote from White/Ramirez from a few years back:

“I miss it sometimes. There’s a lot of parts of my life that I like so much better now. One of the reasons I’m not in [Marilyn Manson] anymore is that I started to feel a little ridiculous. . . . The time period I was in that band I meant it, all the theatrics onstage, all the characters, so to speak, without sounding too stupid or pretentious. The Twiggy Ramirez character was real. And then it began to start to feel like Gene Simmons or something. ‘Oh, I gotta put my dress on to go play.’ If I were to do that again I probably wouldn’t be that same person. I wouldn’t just do the Kiss reunion and throw the dress on and smear my makeup and start doing a bunch of drugs.”

So I guess the only way that White/Ramirez can avoid making this look like a cash grab is if he, uh, I dunno, doesn’t wear a dress on stage?

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