Brotherhood of Glam

I used to get asked about the Brotherhood a lot so just in case anybody still cares I figured I cover that off a bit. The Brotherhood of Glam were the guitarists in Beautiful Corpse. Unlike myself these guys wore masks and kept their real identities a secret. One of them for really good reason, the other one just thought it was funny. Definitely a strong nod to Kiss with these guys. More recently I have gotten questions as to whether Glamstein is a nod to Rammstein. Stupid question, Rammstein was formed years after the Corpse made their last public appearance. Glamstein is a reference to the Mary Shelley classic, and yes he got it wrong as he is the monster not the doctor. But the idea is he is built out of pieces of other glam entities like Bowie, Liberace, Elvis, Gene Simmons etc. The name Frankenglam was also bandied about but Glamstein stuck.

If you haven't seen a picture, or seen one our shows, Glamstein was known for his sparkle. He wore no colour, no black, nothing that didn't reflect light. Head to toe in outfits made of sequin, polished metal, tinsel, pieces of glass, faux diamonds, anything to refract and reflect stage lights. The walking Christmas tree decoration. And to hide his true identity, he wore a jack-o-lantern covered in little mirrors. An actual grinning disco ball. He had the lighting guy beam lasers into on concentrated ball near the front of the stage, and when he leaned his head into it it would explode light in all directions. It was a pretty cool effect but I couldn't look at him on stage for fear of going blind. His guitar was flat black because he didn't want it to distract from the spectacle of him. Glamstein's real name will remain a mystery because he is still alive as far as I know and still wishes to avoid the Hungarian authorities. No, he isn't Attila Ambrus, he isn't that old and he hates hockey.

Lord Gothchild is less of an enigma. Just a guy that spent a lot of time practising guitar and watching The Six Million Dollar Man. That's the only reason I supported his secret identity ruse. He wanted to do it because Glamstein did and he thought it sounded cool. But also, he allegedly stalked Lee Majors for a while and I decided I didn't need that kind of publicity if there was ever a restraining order. Steve Austin is cool and everything, but stalking a dude from a TV show is pretty teenage girl for a "professional". His stage gear was a little more subtle. He did the Victorian-era ponce thing with the long flowing coats, powder wig, ruffled accents. He had this thing he built like combination rollerskates and mini stilts that made him appear extra tall and thin. He could basically lean and coast around on wheels without moving his legs much so it looked like he was floating. I stayed away from him on stage too because I was always afraid I'd knock him down. Later on he added the whole blacklight thing. He did his face, teeth and contacts in UV reactive polymer and put a blacklight spot right on his mic. When he is in his regular spot he looked like his usual ponce self. When he leaned out of the spot into the blacklight to do vocals he looked all distorted and evil. Pretty cool effect.

The net result of working with these guys on stage was I didn't have to do much to keep the show interesting. Glamstein toyed with setting his head on fire but never really got it to work the way he wanted it to. Lasers are safer anyway I kept telling him. Lord Gothchild built the Flying W guitar himself out of spare parts. It was more of a gimmick than an instrument, but he had each of the three necks in a different open tuning so he could do a three chord progression with one hand. If you haven't seen the Flying W, it was three guitars, all kind goofy looking but it was the 80's. The three guitars would click together with magnetic locks and form one three-necked super guitar. LG wanted us to play the three separate guitars for half of the song, then there was a drum and bass bridge where we did the Joining Ceremony and then he would play the three cord progression on the assembled Flying W. It was a hassle to play but the crowd was into. We generally did the Joining Ceremony during Guitarded, as that was the original intent. But sometimes we would shoe horn it into some new release to help boost interest in new material.

I can't believe there isn't a single video of this on You Tube, we have done it like a 1000 times. When the industry machine decides to bury you, they bury you deep. Nobody finds the body.

Why I Can't Drink

I was having chili fries on a patio this weekend when a white limo drove past trailing tin cans with the words Just Married across the trunk. That was when it all came flooding back to me.

I was suppose to be at this wedding because the bride's Dad was somebody that somebody important thought was important and it made them both feel even more important to make other less important people do unimportant things for their own amusement. The names are unimportant, or at the very least forgotten.

I was actually at a nearby bar working up the give a fuck to go to the wedding. Why I chose Wild Turkey to help me work up the give a fuck I'll never know, because nothing drains me of give a fuck like Wild Turkey. I did however work up a serious craving for coney fries from A&W, which was also nearby. So I paid the nice man at the bar and moved on.

I should probably mention I had just seen the Terminator. The second one, in the theater. Yeah, this was a while ago. It seems the movie made an impression on me as I kept walking up to complete strangers and saying "I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle". I thought that was hilarious. This will be important in a second.

So I walk (stagger) over to the A&W for some signature coney fries and encounter their mascot standing out front. A dude in a huge bear suit in July, sweating his nuts off and having a really bad day. Well, he thought he was having a bad day, and then I staggered up. I got right in this poor kid's face and put on my best Terminator Stare. Then as I delivered the line, I had a moment of clarity. All of the pieces fell into place, it was like the universe wanted it to happen. It was the actualization of pure cosmic stupidity. I mistook it for genius.

"I NEED you clothes, your boots...and some coney fries"

Fast forward ahead about 40 minutes and few indictable offenses, and I finally make it to the church. The ceremony is well under way, everyone is front and center, the church guy is saying something about God and love and three fold bonds when I walk in. In costume. Shit gets really quiet as I come strolling down the aisle, thinking for all the world I am doing the most obviously brilliant thing I could do in the circumstance. I mean there was the movie line, and the suit, and the wedding, it all came together. I'm singing the tuba theme from the old A&W commercials and just walking toward the wedding party.

"Buh dump buh dump..."

I made it all the way to the front of the church before anybody said anything. Appropriately it was the all important father of the bride who finally found his voice and demanded to know the obvious.

"Who in the hell are you?"

"I'm the Ring Bear"

I thought this was easily the funniest thing I or anyone had ever said in history of saying funny shit. I was braced for a tide of laughter to wash over the congregation and for the entire crowd to rise to their feet and applaude me for bringing such joy and mirth to this drab and somber occasion. It actually took people quite a while to sort out what I meant. My shock and disappointment quickly turned to frustration and rage.  I decided that maybe they were just really thick and needed me to demonstrate. So I turned to the 4 year old boy standing awestruck and wet of pants in his mini tuxedo, holding the pillow with the wedding bands and demanded in an angry and alcohol stained voice.

"Gimme the fucking rings kid. I'm the Ring Bear"

I should have said "I need your rings, your pillow and your tricycle". I realized this as I sobered up in jail the next morning. I shouldn't celebrate it either, that poor kid was probably scarred for life. I thought it was really strange that at of all places a wedding, I pull a stunt like this at not a single person got a picture. As far as the nuptials, I recognized the bride when she started screaming at me for ruining her big day. I had banged her about a week before, I don't think that marriage was going to last.

Keep howling.







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