Marilyn Manson Might Make W Wanna Puke, But Glenn Danzig's Gonna Keep Him Sleeping with the Lights On

In these dark days, when over the past year we've seen President George W. Bush inaugurated, teenagers shoot up their high schools and Creed grace the cover of Spin, the people cry out for a hero. I offer you, as an individual ahead of his time, Glenn freakin' Danzig.

What, you might ask, can we as a culture learn from a man who lived in his mother's Lodi, NJ, basement until he was 33 years old, who gave a gimp Bobby Steele his Misfits walking papers because the guitarist couldn't kick out of a coffin and who, according to groupiecentral.com, is a two-minute quarterback in the sack? The answer: a hell of a lot. Glenn Anzalone, aka Glenn Danzig, successfully piloted his first band the Misfits to merchandising heaven (all those blurry skull shirts walking around St. Marks). He also led his next "super group," Samhain, to a four-CD box set that's currently helping now L.A.-based Glenn afford many a Hollywood night in his mom-free estates. Yet his most impressive accomplishment, the 1988 hard rock album simply titled Danzig, remains his least known. I can think of three good reasons why everyone in this country should get a copy.

First, what is rock 'n' roll for if not to strike fear into the hearts of aging Republicans? I can tell the trailer park kids one thing for sure: a poster of Marilyn Manson (who probably voted for Bush) above the gun rack in the kitchen isn't going to scare a guy whose dad was head of the CIA. (Remember, this is a man who hunts doves.) Marilyn might make George wanna puke, but it ain't gonna keep him sleeping with the lights on.

Now, send Dumbya a copy of the group picture inside Danzig, which photo unabashedly announces, "evil biker band here for your daughters," and you might see Jenna get her bong taken away for a few months. Unlike Marilyn Manson, Glenn Danzig didn't need a cataract contact lens to be scary. He had drummer Chuck Biscuits (Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, Social Distortion, D.O.A), a dude who was actually born crosseyed! And by the time he'd formed his third band, Glenn didn't need a devil lock in his face or any of the coffin gimmicks he'd used in the Misfits. He just got the other members to stand two feet back during the photo shoot so he would look two taller, and gave the camera his best Heathcliff, black-dog-at-the-gates stare.

That was back when rock wasn't only about anger. It was about sex too: "Father/gonna take your daughter out tonight/gonna show her my world!" That song, "Mother," was rereleased in 1994 and even scored air time on MTV. Couldn't you see Carson Daly (who's got to be an aging Republican, or a Margaret Keane painting) if the teenies outside 1515 Broadway today demanded that the uncensored video, where Glenn makes a sacrifice, be shown on TRL? "All right, up next is Danzig. We're gonna hear their smash hit song while Glenn rips the head...off a live chicken? Sweet Mary Mother of Christ!"

Speaking of the kids, who is rock 'n' roll for, if not them? Judging from a recent trip to www.realjuggalos.com, an alarming number are not all right. Look, masks and face paint signal a "phase" your parents believe you will "grow out of." Hang the group picture from Danzig on your wall and you'll give authority figures a far more unsettling image?four grown men who will never be able to pass a credit check, and in the white man's world, that means you just don't give a fuck.

Black teenagers have been killing one another for years, but ever since the Trench Coat Mafia (where's that hardcore act?), suddenly the United States has a "crisis" on their hands. I've got a message for everyone from Klebold to Crenshaw: are you tired of your peers having more friends, more money and more action? Sick of getting jumped for what you wear, or where you live? Whether you've never touched a human breast or are the middle man for your school's marijuana supply, instead of being labeled "misfits" in your local paper, tour the country under the same name and make millions. The theory that you'll never have better access to drugs and sex than when you were in high school is completely true, unless you become a successful musician. Then it's like senior year all the time, minus the parents, studying and part-time job. Killing the kids who torment you now may feel good, real good, for about a minute?after which you'll end up either dead or spending the next 50 years in jail wishing you were. Instead, use that alone time to start a band. You may not become homecoming royalty, but you also won't be the asshole at the 10-year reunion in a Remax jacket.

Most important is the music, so let's talk about it, via this week's timely release of Ozzfest 2001: The Second Millennium, with songs by Marilyn Manson, Slipknot and Papa Roach. If this is masculinity's mighty roar, you boys might as well get thee to a wine bar and a Belle and Sebastian 7-inch. Do me a favor?I want all y'all to go check out "Twist of Cain," the first track on Danzig. Marilyn Manson can program his Casio with everything from Latin to calypso, but I think he'll find there's no setting for "evil." You need riffs for that. The one from "Twist of Cain," produced by Rick "Zoso" Rubin, is an obvious lift from Zeppelin's "In My Time of Dying." So Glenn stole it from Jimmy, who stole it from Robert Johnson, who bought it off the devil. Popular music has a long tradition of "borrowing," and that's why Papa Roach should cover "Twist of Cain." At least grow some fucking chops and sample the guitar. You can even credit the song as your own on the record. Let Glenn worry about where the money for his next hair transplant is going to come from!

Naming your band after the joint you found in your couch isn't scary. WWII, and the German attack on a Polish town called Danzig that would lead to tens of millions of deaths, is scary. I mean, come on guys, any 13-year-old in a Sid Vicious t-shirt and green hair knows that! When you do sing, please, no screaming, and no distortion on the vocals. It's hokey. A simple howl from the gut, a hint of chicken blood around the corners of the mouth and the following will do: "Not of this world/and nothing bites like I do/Nothing screams out loud/in this empty night/Nothing can keep me from you."

In conclusion, I feel obligated to point out that the person who could stand to learn the most from the record that, as drummer/promoter Jon Weiss put it, "would crack people's skulls wide open if it had been released today," is Glenn Danzig himself. It's only fair to relay what happened to his band after 1988: it still periodically limps across the country despite the loss of Chuck Biscuits, guitarist John Christ and bassist Eerie Von. The recently released double CD anthology Live on the Black Hand Side, despite being the worst recorded live album I have ever heard (barring a demo I got of Danzig where the poor quality only makes "Am I Demon" and "Possession" sound refreshingly dirty), accurately documents the group's downfall.

I, like Glenn's former label American, decided to turn away after Mr. Anzalone, always on the forefront, went Nine Inch Nails on our asses. Just as when Axl took Guns back into the studio only to ask for two tabs of X and Moby's home number, it was clear to everyone but Glenn that he'd strayed too far from his roots. It was then, Glenn, that I knew, as a longtime friend and producer once said to John Cougar Mellencamp, "I could not stop you from taking this path, but I could no longer continue the journey with you." Maybe Glenn understands something we don't, and he has to walk this stretch of the road by himself. Regardless, until he returns to us, or another comes to claim his place, all are left to survey the wasteland he left behind and wail the lament: "Who sucked out the evil?"