The above video was the second one for Mother, hence why it’s called Mother ’93. It features live footage of the band performing at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater in California. At around the same time this video was in rotation on MTV, Glenn Danzig was invited to audition for the role of Wolverine in one of the early attempts to make an X-Men film. Danzig, who had the right look for the role, had to turn down the opportunity due to scheduling conflicts.
This video also inspired a classic line from Beavis and Butt-Head: “That little dance isn’t very cool.”
How about an AMV of the Day? This is really a ridiculous song but the AMV itself makes good use of it. The person who put this AMV together left a message on their profile saying that they were considering not doing anymore AMVs because of YouTube censorship. That was 12 years ago so, if nothing else, this AMV reminds us that things were just as bad in 2011 as they are today.
October is a good month for Danzig. In this music video, Glenn Danzig gets back to nature. Say what you will about Danzig because his music isn’t necessarily for everyone. But Danzig could easily shove much of today’s wimpy rockers into a locker.
The guitar tracks in CantSpeak are actually the guitar tracks for another song, Let It Be Captured, played backwards. This was inspired by the frequent accusations that Danzig hid Satanic messages in their songs that could only be heard if you played the song backwards. I don’t hear any secret messages in CantSpeak but the guitar tracks sound good.
In this video, Glenn and the band appear to be trapped in a cast-iron stomach. It’s just another day for Danzig. Real-life monsters, like Charles Manson and Saddam Hussein, also makes cameo appearances as Danzig performs.
It’s October so I had to find room for some Danzig. This song appeared on Danzig’s second album, Lucifuge and it features this band at their best. In 1990, this was the type of music that caused the nation’s moral guardians to go into tizzy. There were actual Congressional hearings! Imagine your Congressman listening to Danzig and probably playing it backwards to look for hidden messages.
Best known as one of the Danzig songs that is not a remake of Mother, DirtyBlackSummer appeared on Danzig’s third album, HowTheGodsKill. It was one of the more popular songs to appear on that album (which, overall, is considered to be one of Danzig’s best) and the band continues to regularly perform it to this day.
The video is unique because it was directed by Anton Corbijn, the Dutch photographer who directed videos from Depeche Mode, U2, and Nirvana. (He was the director behind the video for Heart–ShapedBox). Corbijn has since gone on to direct feature films as well, Control, The American, and Most Wanted Man.
Long before Hugh Jackman got the role, Glenn Danzig was considered for the role of Wolverine in a potential X-Men feature film. I think he would have rocked that roll.
Originally, I was going to post this on Sunday but this is probably not an appropriate Mother’s Day song. One rumor is that this song is about a young Satanist telling his parents not to try to lead him away from the lifestyle that he wants. Danzig, himself, once said that the mother he was singing to was meant to be Tipper Gore, who was big on banning heavy metal music and whose then-husband, Albert Gore, was actually a part of a Senate committee looking into “obscene” music.
This is the first video for Mother. Danzig redid the song in 1993 and came out with a second video as well. I prefer the first video because Danzig doesn’t dance. As Beavis and Butthead said when they viewed Danzig shaking his hips in the second video, “That little dance wasn’t very cool.”
Whenever I watched any video from Danzig, I’m reminded of what Butthead (of Beavis and Butthead fame) had to say about Danzig’s video for Mother. “That little dance isn’t very cool.” I thought about that line as I watched the video for Am I Demon. Glenn Danzig looks intimidating and scary as hell and it’s easy to imagine that Tipper Gore and all the other Karens of the 80s were freaked out by not only his lyrics but also his sideburns. The music always rocks but once Danzig starts doing his little hip-shaking dance, it’s sometimes hard to take him seriously.
I would never say that Danzig’s face, though. Danzig looks like he could easily break anyone in half if they said the wrong thing. You do not want to get on Danzig’s bad side.
Back in the day, Glenn Danzig was one of the candidates to play Wolverine in one of the early and ultimately unsuccessful attempts to make an X-Men movie. It wouldn’t have been bad casting. Danzig had the right look and, even more importantly, Wolverine didn’t dance.
“Al Gore wanted to tell people what they could listen to and what they couldn’t…it was basically coming down to the idea that he wouldn’t let anybody record any music that he didn’t think you should be doing. There was going to be an organization that would tell you what you could and couldn’t record. And certainly if you couldn’t record it, you couldn’t put it out. It was really fascist.”
— Glenn Danzig, on the inspiration for Mother
There’s been a lot of debate about what Glenn Danzig is singing about in Mother. Some people think that the song is supposed to be pro-Satanist, even though Danzig himself has said that he’s not a Satanist and is merely interested in the occult. Others think that the song is sung from the point of view of a teenager who is warning his parents that he has decided to reject their values and embrace his evil side.
More likely, the song is exactly what Danzig has often said it is. It was a song written to protest the 80s push by Tipper Gore’s Parents Music Resource Center to have the government step in and regulate music. The “mother” that Danzig is singing to was probably Tipper herself.
The above video was the second one for Mother, hence why it’s called Mother ’93. It features live footage of the band performing at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater in California. At around the same time this video was in rotation on MTV, Glenn Danzig was invited to audition for the role of Wolverine in one of the early attempts to make an X-Men film. Danzig, who had the right look for the role, had to turn down the opportunity due to scheduling conflicts.
This video also inspired a classic line from Beavis and Butt-Head: “That little dance isn’t very cool.”
Through the Shattered Lens 