Putting on shows, playing with glitter, and selling stuff.
November 5, 2016 7:08 AM   Subscribe

Tish and Snooky tell the story of how they founded Manic Panic, starting as a punk store on St Marks in the East Village.
posted by moonmilk (19 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh this is great! In the early 00s I worked at a punk shop across the street from where the Manic Panic store was (and like had been hanging out around there since I was maybe 13). I got a copy of St Marks Is Dead last Xmas and now after reading this I really want to dive into it.
posted by griphus at 7:14 AM on November 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


Whoo! I knew there would be people on metafilter who had actually been to the original Manic Panic store.
posted by moonmilk at 7:17 AM on November 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


Hah oh man, no, it was long gone by the time I got there even as a 13-year-old I think. In fact, we were all working there in in our late teens/early 20s with no sense of history, so we had no idea there had a) been a Manic Panic store or b) that it was across the street until we got a Manic Panic catalog (their dye was obviously a Big Seller) and there was a photo of the shop in the back of it and everyone was like "oh shit!"

I actually was back on St. Mark's last week, hanging out with a MeFite friend visiting from out of town. We were eating in the (excellent) ramen shop that's now where my old store was and while waiting for him outside I found almost the identical spot where I used to take smoke breaks outside of the store and it was the weirdest thing: just about everything is different now from even as short as 10 years ago, but the buildings and architecture are the same so it was like being in a parallel universe briefly.

Also as I opened up my computer from last night to type this, I realized I had closed the lid with the music playing and was greeted with the Adicts album I was playing to get in the mood for writing about St Marks for Nanowrimo last night
posted by griphus at 7:23 AM on November 5, 2016 [10 favorites]


Oops! Without thinking about timeframes I just interpreted that as "had been hanging out at the Manic Panic store".
posted by moonmilk at 7:26 AM on November 5, 2016


just about everything is different now from even as short as 10 years ago

This is why visiting the neighborhood in Manhattan I grew up in is always such a weird experience. It's completely identical the minute you get off the subway, and then a few seconds later all the signs sink in and it becomes a totally different place.
posted by Itaxpica at 8:14 AM on November 5, 2016 [4 favorites]


I was flying back to New York from Tokyo in 2003, walking down the gangway to the plane behind an older woman with long blue hair.

"I love your hair color," I said. She turned around.

"Thanks! My name's Snooky and I founded Manic Panic" she said.

She had been doing research for plans to open a Japanese-style hair salon in New York.
posted by GameDesignerBen at 8:29 AM on November 5, 2016 [26 favorites]


Interesting backstory on how Directions hair dye became Manic Panic, and the international skulduggery involved! (I didn't know about them working with the original inventor, or that Directions stole his formula. Interesting.)

When I visited New York (and later, lucky me, London) I'd cart home as much of that dye as I could afford. I still have vivid memories of the sight and smell of a freshly-opened jar of Pillarbox Red.
posted by pernoctalian at 8:48 AM on November 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


we’ve always felt like especially the people who were a little…not so fabulous, they should feel fabulous, if they want to.

Snooky: It’s just the way our mother brought us up was, to be nice to people, and not be mean.

Tish: We can’t be mean to anyone. Unless, you know, they do us wrong.


god they're great. when I was in high school and a customer of theirs, I don't think I had any idea Tish and Snooky were actual people and not made-up names for the label. also I first bought some Manic Panic when I was 16 and being shown around DC by my cool cousin and it was from a below-ground-level place in Dupont not far from where we went to get me my first ever fake ID. now twenty years later I live in DC and even though I distinctly remember this, it is almost impossible to imagine how exciting being in Dupont Circle was at the time. was, or seemed. and that wasn't even new york. or the '80s.
posted by queenofbithynia at 9:02 AM on November 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


Someone told me recently that Snooky owned Manic Panic and I assumed he meant the Jersey Shore person. I think he did, too.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 9:07 AM on November 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ha, yes, I read the title and my immediate reaction was, "THEY'RE REAL?!?!?!"
posted by potrzebie at 9:35 AM on November 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


It's no surprise to me they're real but I had no idea there was a store, or that there was a direct connection to Directions. The sense memory is high for me too as I tried every colour between the ages of 13 and 25. MP was fine but I swear Directions was scented, no one will ever be able to convince me their purple didn't smell like grape. Anyway, the best colour I ever managed was a mix of Directions Purple and MP Blue Lagoon so you really had to experiment. I wish I had more photos of those looks, there's only a few. Every so often I get the urge but someone born when I stopped being a teen is a teen now so I feel too old, a bleaching every year or two is all I go in for these days.

On the time keeps on slipping side topic, I totally feel that in Toronto too. Everytime I go to an old haunt, it's an alternate universe. Of course we constantly tear down and rebuild here, so even half the architecture drastically changes.
posted by yellowbinder at 9:46 AM on November 5, 2016


I have often walked by Manic Panic on the way to other places. But when it opened I was a hippie stoner. MP wasn't for me. I preferred The Pleasure Chest for my... needs.
posted by Splunge at 10:15 AM on November 5, 2016


no one will ever be able to convince me their purple didn't smell like grape.

if it helps, it's punky color that smells like grape candy.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 10:16 AM on November 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


I have been convinced! Lagoon Blue is a colour of theirs too, not MP! My cred is crumblingggggg
posted by yellowbinder at 10:23 AM on November 5, 2016


So many wonderful gems in this article!
posted by eamondaly at 10:24 AM on November 5, 2016


They are still singing with Russell and the Sic F*cks with their lovely Borscht Belt Punk. Chop, Chop, Chop Up Your Mother. Yes, Tish and Snooky are Sic as F*ck! (NSFW)
posted by caddis at 10:27 AM on November 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


I lost my deposit on my first apartment because we couldn't get their purple dye out of the sink's porcelain. Great times.
posted by boo_radley at 12:18 PM on November 5, 2016 [6 favorites]




This is everything. I used to wait until the day after Halloween back when they sold Manic Panic at the drugstore and convince the clerk that the hair dye was part of the Halloween stuff and get em for 25 cents a tub post-Halloween discount. I stocked up every year.
posted by deadbilly at 7:37 PM on November 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


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