First emerging from the late 1970s Los Angeles punk scene, The Mentors quickly proved to be the most obnoxious, outrageous, and reprehensible power trio of all time \u2014 and then kept upping their offensiveness factor from there. <\/p>\n
Led by drummer\/vocalist Eldon Doke, who renamed himself El Duce, The Mentors combined the drug-crazed misanthropy of GG Allin (but with way more humor) and the theatricality of Kiss (but with way less money \u2014 and way more nudity) into a rolling freak show of anti-authoritarian chaos and hedonistic abandon. <\/p>\n
Punks loved the group\u2019s attitude, while metalheads appreciated the expert musicianship of El Duce, along with bass player Dr. Heathen Scum and guitarist Sickie Wifebeater (the pseudonyms speak volumes). Everyone seemed to be in on the joke, except, of course, the actual authorities. <\/p>\n
In 1985, a group of politicians\u2019 wives gathered by Tipper Gore created the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) and mounted a hearing at the U.S. Capitol in which they demanded that \u201cextreme\u201d music be censored. As a result, Mentors\u2019 lyrics that rhymed \u201csmell my anal vapor\u201d with \u201cyour face is my toilet paper\u201d are now a permanent part of the Congressional record. <\/p>\n
While the rest of the culture caught up with The Mentors\u2019 approach to gross-out humor during the \u201990s (the decade that made mainstream hits of South Park<\/em> and Marilyn Manson), El Duce managed to ignite what may be the biggest controversy of his entire career. <\/p>\n Shortly after the 1994 suicide of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, El Duce claimed that Courtney Love, the dead rock star\u2019s widow, had offered him $50,000 to murder her husband<\/u><\/a>. He repeated the story on Jerry Springer<\/em><\/u><\/a>, in the National Enquirer<\/em>, and, most infamously, in Nick Broomfield\u2019s 1998 documentary Kurt and Courtney<\/em><\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n In that movie, El Duce says he didn\u2019t kill Cobain but he knows who did and then drops then name \u201cAllen\u201d and says he\u2019ll \u201clet the FBI catch him.\u201d Two days later, El Duce was found dead on railroad tracks in Riverside, California. <\/p>\n