Mrs. Scabtree
Mrs. Scabtree
In the October 1996 issue of Guitar World, Manson and Twiggy had this to say about Mrs. Scabtree when interviewed:
Manson: Right before he [Twiggy] joined Marilyn Manson, we had two Ramirez: Videotapes of that are floating around. Ramirez: The Mrs. Scabtree single that was played on the radio down there GW: It must have been a very long song. |
Mrs. Scabtree was the second side project between Manson and Geordie White. Manson played drums, while Geordie shared vocal duties with Jessicka from Jack Off Jill. According to the ticket above, other the band also included members from The Itch and Sister Venus, and featured Pat Joyce on lead bass and Killer on rhythm bass. Video footage from this show can be found on the bonus footage for the Demystifying The Devil DVD, and we also see Scott Putesky playing guitar in the band, as well as Pogo on keyboards.
This is how Jessica described the band:
| "It was an idea that came about when a bunch of us had warehouses close together. We wrote 10 songs. Mrs. Scabtree consisted of me, Twiggy, Manson, Pogo, and several other local musicians who shall remain nameless. It involved many people crossdressing, painting their faces black, and insulting members of the audience. There were only two shows, I have both on video tape. It was definitely performance art. Actually, not even performance, just art." |
The first show was on April 5, 1993, and we're looking for the date on the second. In Demystifying the Devil, they way they explain the band is that after Manson had signed to Nothing/Interscope, the record label didn't want them to play any local shows any more. So instead they came up with this side project which was basically just a bunch of friends having fun.
According to this post on alt.music.marilyn-manson, Manson & Jessica even got arrested at one of the two shows:
| A lot of numbers on the board say "94" which might be the year, but I highly doubt that considering his eyebrowless-makeup look was already apparent in '94 when he was on the Nine Inch Nails tour. Nope, this picture dates back to when he was in Mrs. Scabtree (long time ago) with the now lead singer of Jack Off Jill, Jessicka. He was arrested for simulation of something-or-other, or basically, Brian Warner exposed himself on stage. And so was Jess. The entire night that they were in jail, the cops referred to them as "Mickey and Mallory." |
As mentioned above, they had a song called Herpes which was played on the radio in Florida and listed at least one local girl who had herpes. If you couldn't guess, this pissed off her and her boyfriend, who was the big muscular bass player from Collapsing Lungs. After they played the song at the show, she threw a drink in Geordie's face and got into a fight with Manson's girlfriend, Missie Romero, in the bathroom. All of this is detailed on Demystifying The Devil. For their second show, they change the name of the song from Herpes to Missie. The studio version of this song (or any other Scabtree song) has yet to surface, but an incomplete live version was released on From Obscurity To Purgatory, plus a shitty unofficial remix called Standing In Line was on Dancing With The Antichrist.
One other song title is know as well. At the 1993 Slammy Awards (the local equivalent of the Grammies)
Manson was presnting an award, and
after he read off the nominees he added "...and Mrs. Scabtree for "Your Mother Fucks A Sausage". That one was a late entry". The winner was
Saigon Kick for The Lizard, and since the band wasn't there to accept the award, he called Geordie up on stage and they threw the award onto the floor and broke it, hitting a girl in the crowd in the process.
Known Tracks :
1. Herpes
2. Your Mother Fucks A Sausage
3. Missie
Plus at least eight other unknown songs.
Some screen captures from Demystifying The Devil can be found in the Pictures section.