Revision as of 13:12, 8 February 2024

Lunch Boxes & Choklit Cows
Compilation album by Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids
Released	April 20, 2004
Recorded	January 1990–November 1993
Genre	Alternative metal, heavy metal
Length	42:44
Label	Empire MusicWerks
Producer	Scott Putesky
Discogs	View at Discogs
Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids chronology
The Golden Age of Grotesque (2003) Lunch Boxes & Choklit Cows (2004) Lest We Forget – The Best Of (2004)

Lunch Boxes & Choklit Cows is the first remasters compilation album by Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids, released on April 20, 2004 by Empire MusicWerks. It spawned only one single, Thrift. Guitarist Scott Putesky (formerly known as Daisy Berkowitz) obtained the rights to these recordings in a lawsuit against Marilyn Manson, and has revealed that this release is only the first in a planned series of Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids records. The lawsuit granted Putesky the rights to 21 of these songs. Some are from demos and others have never been previously released. These are digitally remastered and Putesky says they sound better than the original cassettes because of it.

The album originally came packaged with a bonus DVD and slightly different artwork. The original cover had five cartoon figures of the band drawn by Marilyn Manson. However, after another lawsuit was filed, Putesky removed the artwork and the DVD (which contained footage of Manson and keyboardist Madonna Wayne Gacy) and re-released the album. The re-released cover features the same background as the original, albeit with the cartoon characters absent from the artwork. The Parental Advisory notice is also absent from the cover of the reissue.

Copies of the original pressing have been known to be sold on eBay at exceptionally high prices.

Track listing

1. "Red (in My) Head" – 4:24
2. "Dune Buggy" – 4:20
3. "Insect Pins" – 5:48
4. "Learning to Swim" – 4:11
5. "Negative Three" – 4:38
6. "Meat for a Queen" – 3:02
7. "White Knuckles" – 2:24
8. "Scaredy Cat" – 3:22
9. "Thingmaker" (Live in rehearsal studio) – 4:12
10. "Thrift" (Live in rehearsal studio) – 6:24

Cover gallery

Bonus DVD chapter listing

1. "White Knuckles" (Video)
2. "Meat for a Queen" (Video)
3. "Dune Buggy" (Video)
4. Spooky Gallery

Album credits

THE FAMILY JAMS

I didn't think anything would come of it. No sooner did Brian Warner and I agree to
"put a rock band together and make a million bucks" (an idea I did not take seriously)
than I found myself looking out over a packed room wondering; "why are all these people
here?" We had no drummer (just drum machine), we weren't particularly metal, not exact-
ly techno and in no way pop. Our live show was a psychedelic cartoon with a good spatter-
ing of horror movie. We used stage names combining a famous female for the first and an
infamous killer for the last. Our show flyers were often bizarre and offensive. There
was just no logical reason for people to like us - but they loved us - well, some hated us
but even if they did they sure talked about us. We were a breath of fresh air for aging
glam rockers and metal-heads and a torch of hope for industrial rock fans, I guess.

It was the early 90's and Seattle was still known only for software and rain - but not
for long. In South Florida though, bands like Young Turk, Saigon Kick, Nuclear Valdez
and the Mavericks were helping to put a place no one expected on the map. After a few
years sweating it out, practicing in a dirty old warehouse, we were the next to "make it" -
but getting signed is never what it's cracked up to be. Bands that never get signed just
barely outnumber bands that get signed and dropped. Warner was a writer for the South
Florida magazine "25th Parallel" and had interviewed Nine Inch Nail's Trent Reznor - who
let us open for NIN at Miami's Club Nu July 4th, 1990 (just a few months after making
our first demo Big Black Bus and three months after our very first show, April 28th 1990
at Churchill's Hideaway in Miami). The Club Nu show was also Brad Stewart's (Gidget Gein)
and Stephen Bier's (Madonna Wayne Gacy a.k.a. "Pogo") debut performances. Despite rotting
meat pinatas, nativity scene thefts, fire extinguisher fiascos and crowd-surfing paper
mache' (or "choklit") cows we kept getting shows. We even attended a rally protesting then-
sheriff Nick Navarro's bringing obscenity charges against 2 Live Crew and a record store
owner for selling their album. By the end of 1990 Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids
brought in live drummer Fred Streidhorst (Sara Lee Lucas) and had won Best New Band at
the south Florida Rock Awards. This is when I started to get the feeling we would
mutate into something much bigger that kids would love and parents would hate.

How did we do it? You could say that we had a wild show and that we brought theater
back to rock. You could say that we had a distinctive and original sound. You could say we
were a flash-in-the-pan that people wanted to keep on burning. I would sheepishly agree
with all those assessments but then I would remind you of the most important reason. We
developed a following of particularly loyal fans who we took to calling - very inclusive-
ly - "the spooky kids". Dressed in baggy black shirts, heavy eye liner, colored and
spiked hair, striped leggings, and thrift store boots (among many other clothing combi-
nations) they emulated the band not just in make-up and clothes but by carrying lunch-
boxes (I, however did not - I chose to be the rebel among rebels and only occasionally
carried a gas can). They bought our tapes and t-shirts and stickers and came to every
show they could. I'd like to take this time and space to thank all of you for making us
happen - a band goes nowhere without its fans and the more rabid, the better.

Photo courtesy of Laura Werder Kokus
volume one: lunchboxes and choklit cows

Trivia

• Scott Putesky completed 2 CDs of remastered Spooky Kids songs, first titled "Spooky Kids Vol.1" and the second "Spooky Kids Vol.2". "Spooky Kids Vol.1" was released commercially as "Lunch Boxes & Choklit Cows" and Vol.2 is still unreleased.
• Among the images in the compilation's liner notes are two professional photographs taken by Laura Werder in the parking lot outside Manson's home at the time,^[1] as well as a photograph of Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids' first live performance.
• The version of "Dune Buggy" that appears on on Lunch Boxes & Choklit Cows was actually taken from Lunchbox, despite the liner notes stating it derived from Grist-o-Line.
• "Insect Pins" was taken from the recording sessions of Portrait of an American Family.
• The version of "White Knuckles" that appears on the album was actually taken from The Beaver Meat Cleaver Beat, despite the liner notes stating it derived from Big Black Bus.
• The version of "Scaredy Cat" that appears on the album is different than the version recorded during the Portrait of an American Family sessions.

Personnel

• Marilyn Manson – vocals, lyrics, artwork
• Daisy Berkowitz – guitar, music, producer, liner notes
• Gidget Gein – bass, music
• Madonna Wayne Gacy – keyboards, music
• Sara Lee Lucas – drums
• Paul Klein – executive producer
• John Tovar – executive producer, memorabilia
• Mike Fuller – mastering
• Aldo Venturacci – art direction
• Sean Weeks – design, DVD authoring
• Sharon Slade – project coordinator
• Rama Barwick – project coordinator
• Richard Wolfe – legal
• Laura Werder – photo

References

1. ↑ Demystifying the Devil. Ventura Distribution. Laura Werder. October 17, 2000.

External links

• Lunch Boxes & Choklit Cows recalled bonus DVD on 's YouTube channel
• Manson Sues Spooky Kids