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Scott Mitchell Putesky, founding member of Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids, dies at 49

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October 25, 2017 at 5:14 p.m. EDT
Undated photo of Marilyn Manson & The Spooky Kids in the early 1990s, from left, Fred Streithorst (a.k.a. Sara Lee Lucas), Brian Warner (Marilyn Manson), Scott M. Putesky (Daisy Berkowitz), Brad Stewart (Gidget Gein) and Stephen Bier (Madonna Wayne Gacy). (Laura Kokus/via the Sun Sentinel)

Scott Mitchell Putesky, a founding member of the South Florida goth-rock band Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids and who used the stage alias Daisy Berkowitz, died Oct. 22 in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 49.

He had colon cancer, according to the Sun Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale.

Known by the name of its singer, Marilyn Manson, the band first stirred to life in 1989 as the invention of Mr. Putesky and Boca Raton resident Brian Warner. With kooky names and the kinky brashness of Warner's title character, Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids found local success and then national prominence beginning with their 1994 Trent Reznor-produced debut album, "Portrait of an American Family," and the 1995 EP "Smells Like Children."

While the band drew attention for its theatrical excesses, it prospered in large part because of the musical credibility provided by the gleaming, industrial-gear shredding of Mr. Putesky's guitar on early Manson songs such as "Lunchbox," "Dope Hat" and their hit cover of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)."

Rob Elba, who played the same South Florida clubs in the early 1990s with his band the Holy Terrors, said most musically creative songs made by Marilyn Manson came from Mr. Putesky.

“He was such an inventive player. Marilyn Manson has his fans, and that’s fine, but musicians, especially, know that the only good songs and music they had was when Scott was in the band,” Elba said. “The first two records had such interesting musicality to them, aside from all the gothness and all that. Brian may have been a good lyricist, but the whole music part of Marilyn Manson was 90 percent Scott.”

Citing “creative differences,” Mr. Putesky left Manson during the recording of the band’s 1996 breakout album, “Antichrist Superstar.” He told an interviewer in 2014 that Manson and Reznor let it be known that they weren’t interested in the music he had composed.

“We had a number of unreleased songs that were contenders for ‘Antichrist’ that [Manson] didn’t want to do or Trent didn’t want to record, so I was being slowly muscled out as far as my contribution,” Mr. Putesky said. He sued Manson for royalties from the six songs he is credited for on “Antichrist Superstar,” a case settled in 1998 for an amount that wasn’t disclosed.

In the late 1990s Mr. Putesky recorded with Fort Lauderdale alt-rock band Jack Off Jill and made several releases under the name Three Ton Gate. Mr. Putesky also had an associate degree in advertising design from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale and had been creating collages and drawings with markers and colored pencil.

— Sun Sentinel

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