Marilyn Manson is one of those artists/bands that I have a very mixed relationship with. I love the early stuff, I like some of the mid-period stuff (Mechanical Animals is good but an example of where the direction tapered off) and the last few albums haven't done much for me. Manson's image has always been more important than the music. I don't mean for that to sound any worse than it does, but Manson's music has never been as consistent as his performances, which isn't to say the music is unimportant, but the visuals and controversy are what drives his art. It's rare that a Manson album maintains musical stability all the way through, as Portrait did with Scott Putesky's accompaniment and Antichrist Superstar with Trent Reznor basically joining the band in the studio. It should be easy then, at least in theory, to compare Ethyl Meatplow to Manson, what with their heavily burlesque influenced stage shows, constant barrage of sexual imagery and explicit lyrical content, except that Ethyl Meatplow had only one full length album and everything the band members have participated in since has been consistently strong, with Carla Bozulich's work receiving the most attention and her performances becoming less theatrical and far more musical.
It is with great sorrow that I find Ethyl Meatplow's sole album, Happy Days, Sweetheart, to be completely out of print and mostly forgotten. Worse yet, they're generally remembered for their early nineties, industrial sound, getting them compared to the NIN/Manson camps despite their style being unique and their sound more influenced by experimental noise and abstract performances than the industrial and dance scenes most often associated with the WaxTrax! label and its many artists. I'm sure some of this has to do with the band's members, Carla Bozulich of the Geraldine Fibbers and her own solo work, Harold Barefoot Sanders III of Eric Avery's Polar Bear, and John Napier of E. Coli, not maintaining its legacy, although it's unclear why they wouldn't want to do so. Well...
I once read that one of the band's final shows was an all ages gig in Texas where, during their performance, a couple hopped on stage and started having full blown anal sex in front of the audience. The band, having seen things like this happen at their shows before, and being unaware that it was an all ages show, allowed the act to continue, only to find out that the cops were on their way to arrest them after the performance, forcing them to pack up their goods and get gone rather quickly. Problems like those, especially when you don't have the high-powered legal support that Marilyn Manson or other similarly "shocking" performers of the nineties had, could make it a little easier for one to disown its legacy, at the least out of respect for their current happenings.
Regardless of the reasons for the band not being remembered as fondly as they should be, Happy Days, Sweetheart, should be acknowledged for what it is: nearly an hour of pounding industrial grooves, pop covered in shrouds of darkness, and most of all, soul destroying honesty and sorrow. All of this is achieved with the assistance of Barry Adamson's production and their cumulative attention to detail, as demonstrated on tracks like their frenzied cover of The Carpenter's Close To You, what with strings and a solid groove working together to create a dirge on the dance floor. Devil's Johnson could pack a club, all the while underscoring its might with lyrics comparing Satan's cock to a crack pipe. Queenie is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful uses of obscenities in a lyric I can think of, with Bozulich working up her anger against the title character, singing in an almost spoken manner that Queenie is a "f#*king b%^ch c%&t, f#*king death Queenie death", all the while sounding like she has nothing to prove, knowing she's holding the reigns. There are also moments of haunting beauty, like the peaceful Ripened Peach, or the listed closing track, Sad Bear, which sounds like an announcement of intent to release all the anger in one's soul, all the while tearing everything else out at the same time. And when you think it's all over, there is a final, unlisted track of what sounds like Bozulich's cries and shrieks, processed into ear-bleeding noise and feedback. It's the type of stuff nightmares are made of, and for people that like nightmares, it's a wonder to behold!
Ethyl Meatplow's short existence may have less to do with controversy or individual band member's problems and more about knowing they'd taken it as far as they could. If that's the case, they made the right decision. I don't want them to reform, they do wonderfully on their own and Happy Days, Sweetheart, as well as their singles and EPs, is more than enough to give proof of their short but inspired life. It's only sad because it's mostly forgotten. Grab this and inform yourself and others. Ethyl Meatplow will leave scars, but every mark tells a tale and some tales should never be forgotten.
Ethyl Meatplow - Happy Days, Sweetheart
01 Opening Precautionary Instructions
02 Suck
03 Devil's Johnson
04 Car
05 Queenie
06 Close To You
07 Tommy
08 Mustard Requiem
09 Abazab
10 Ripened Peach
11 Feed
12 Rise
13 For My Sleepy Lover
14 Sad Bear
15
PS - Gary Kail, if you haven't called Carla yet, do it already!
