October 22, 2017 – Scott Putesky (Marilyn Manson) aka Daisy Berkowitz was born on April 28, 1968 in Los Angeles, California.
After his high school years Putesky moved to Ft.Lauderdale and enrolled in a Graphic Design College. Putesky and Brian Warner (Marilyn Manson) met at a Fort Lauderdale club called The Reunion Room and later at a local after-party in December 1989. The two started creating the concept of Marilyn Manson & The Spooky Kids poking fun at American media hypocrisy and its obsessions with serial killers and beautiful women. (Marilyn Monroe vs Charles Manson and Daisy Duke vs David Berkowitz)
Putesky, who had at this point developed his own poetry but not yet worked lyrics into his music, began to meet up with Warner and brainstorm character and show/event ideas, after Warner asked for help starting a band as a creative outlet for his poetry writing.
Putesky played guitar, bass and keys, programmed a Yamaha RX-8 drum machine, and taught Warner about vocal performance, recording and arranging. Input from both parties gave the band its darkly psychedelic style, and as early as January 1990, they began to record songs like “Red (in My) Head”, “White Knuckles”, “Cake and Sodomy” and “Strange Same Dogma” on Putesky’s 4-track. By March they had assembled a band with Warner’s Broward Community College schoolmate Brian Tutunick and Perry Pandrea. The band played its first show at Churchills, a club in Miami April 28, 1990, opening for the popular local band “The Goods”.
Rob Elba, who played the same South Florida clubs in the early 1990s with his band the Holy Terrors, says that most musically creative songs made by Marilyn Manson came from 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 says. “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.”
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 became famous for its theatrical excesses, it prospered in large part because of the musical credibility provided by the gleaming, industrial-gear shredding of 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).”
Citing “creative differences,” Putesky left Manson during the recording of the band’s 1996 breakout album, “Antichrist Superstar.” He told Noisey 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,” 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 undisclosed amount. In the same lawsuit, Putesky was also awarded the rights to 21 unreleased recordings by Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids.
Abandoning the Daisy Berkowitz moniker in favor of his own initials SMP, Putesky began recording demos for his first solo project, Three Ton Gate was named for the massive coral gate at the entrance of the Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida. His three-song demo 3×3 was his first musical undertaking post Marilyn Manson. The tape featured rough tracks written and performed entirely by Putesky, under the name Scott Mitchell (his first and middle names). Shortly thereafter, Putesky hired Tyreah James to handle the vocals for the full-length Three Ton Gate release, “Vanishing Century” based on the 3×3 demo tapes.
Putesky produced James’s vocals in the studio for all the basic tracks at the now defunct Digital Beach Recording Studio in Fort Lauderdale. The album was released in 1997 in limited quantities, and sold out its entire run of pressings. At the same time, Putesky was playing live shows in a whimsical side project called the Linda Blairs created by Jack Off Jill singer Jessicka as an opening act for her band’s shows. The Linda Blair’s featured several unknown South Florida musicians who performed cover tunes previously recorded by female fronted 80’s rock bands and did several live performances dressed in drag. Three Ton Gate and the project with Tyreah soon faltered and was put aside.
In late 1998 Scott joined up with longtime Marilyn Manson collaborators Jack Off Jill, replacing departing member Ho Ho Spade and playing live guitar on their 1999 West Coast tour which lasted for only a handful of gigs. His first recorded work with the band was the 1998 EP Covetous Creature, to which he lent guitar and some production. By early 1999, SMP was no longer a member of Jack Off Jill. Putesky himself was vague, but he related to MTV News that the parting was amicable.
He returned once again to Ft. Lauderdale to resume work on his own music, primarily seeking a live band to perform his Three Ton Gate material. In July 2010 Putesky officially joined electro-punk band Kill Miss Pretty after collaborating with them on their single “Judy Garland”. Following this the band began working on new material including a cover of the Spooky Kids’ song “She’s Not My Girlfriend”.
Putesky revived Three Ton Gate shortly afterwards to play live under that name in a 2011 series of dates across America starting in New York City. He also stated that the second remastered Spooky Kids compilation Deform School would be made available at these dates.
In September 2013, Scott Putesky was diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer. He strongly focused on making visual arts, his other passion which can be seen on Saatchi Art. He died on October 22, 2017. He was 49.
