My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult @ Martini Ranch

Year: 1987. Scene: A seedy Chicago bar. Groovie Mann and Buzz McCoy meet and bond over underground horror flicks and degenerate tabloid chronicles of sex, sleaze, and the occult, then plan to create their own "B movie" band. Result: My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. With 13 albums in 20 years, the band has become a major fixture in the industrial-disco sleaze-rock scene, has been credited as an influence for the Scissor Sisters and Marilyn Manson, and has been heard on such productions as Showtime's TV series Californication and the SuicideGirls: First Tour documentary. TKK's sex- and drugs-spiked cocktail fucks with you, their cut-and-paste style blending distorted vocals, dance rhythms, and sampled movie dialogue. Since their early hit "A Daisy Chain 4 Satan," this band has pushed the envelope with lyrics, videos, and album covers while balancing a continuously shifting sound. Their 1990 album Confessions of a Knife was abrasive and electronic, laced with heavy metal riffs, while Sexplosion! (released in 1991) was riddled with psychedelic house beats, and 2007's The Filthiest Show in Town evoked images of sexual excess and bewitching strippers, dangling over a 1960s-style twang. TKK's on tour to promote 2010's Sinister Whisperz (a dozen tracks spanning the band's earliest four albums, along with remixed popular hits).