Blackie Lawless To Close W.A.S.P.'s Electric Circus After Decades-Long Run

The Electric Circus in busier times, when the tent was full

In 1986, heavy metal outlaws W.A.S.P. released their third album, the seminal shock-rocker "Inside the Electric Circus."  Though it's been an institution ever since, after years of declining revenues, W.A.S.P. ringmaster Blackie Lawless announced today that the Electric Circus would be folding up its tent effective immediately.  "It's disappointing, for sure," said the 60-year-old showman, sucking in his gut.  "I mean, *I'm* still a Wild Child, but it's harder to get people to come and love me.  I dunno what went wrong."

Patrons of the Electric Circus once flocked to live W.A.S.P. gigs to be pelted with raw meat, dazzled by pyrotechnics and rocked with 80s anthems like "Harder Faster" and "Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)."  "It was a different time, and crowds were amused by simpler things," explains Wiffley Snidegarb, an anthropologist at Stanford.  "Like silent movies, flagpole sitting, and flea circuses, the antics of a pudgy man in leather pants scissor-kicking while half-assedly playing rhythm guitar were once enough to captivate a nation.  Times change, though."

High operating costs, including rising insurance premiums and a lack of bulk discounts on Spanx, also took their toll.  "Keeping an Electric Circus on the road is never cheap, even when you factor [former guitarist] Chris Holmes's booze budget out of the balance sheet," Snidegarb noted.  "The day-labor rates for unknown touring sidemen are fairly low, but that's offset by the cost of flash pots, eye makeup, wigs, CPAP machine rental and cortisone shots."

Tipper Gore, whose Parents Music Resource Council (PMRC) battled Lawless and W.A.S.P. in the 1980s, claimed victory in a press release.  "It may have taken over thirty years, but finally, decency prevails and we put Twisted Sister behind bars where they -- what?  Not them?  Well, who the biscuits is that?   Is this the one that bit the head off a bat, or the one who killed the guy from Hanoi Rocks?"

Lawless declined to elaborate on his future plans, but denied rumors that he'd be humanely transported to a public sanctuary for retired hard rockers run by Capitol Records and located in central Florida.  "You think I wanna be somebody, in somebody's zoo?" he snarled, before donning bifocals and carefully cutting a piece of Salisbury steak into small bites with saw blades mounted to wrist guards.

- Keith Bergman