Sneaker Pimps' Kelli Dayton has left the band to pursue a solo career. The group, best known for such hits as "6 Underground" and "Spin Spin Sugar," is expected to soldier on without her.

Meanwhile, guitarist Chris Corner is filling in on vocals while he and keyboardist Liam Howe continue working on their new album in a London studio. Corner and Howe currently plan to release the record, which is due out in spring 1999, under the band's name.

The two remaining members and group co-founders have not announced whether they intend to hire a new singer to replace Dayton or invite a guest or series of guests to join them for the Pimps' upcoming album.

The Sneaker Pimps' label, Virgin Records, has already signed on to handle Dayton's solo record, although the label hasn't set a release date for her album.

• Sneaker Pimps

December 5 [14:00 EDT] -- Fans in San Francisco looking for alternatives to Christmas parties and regular rock n' roll may want to check out a Live 105 radio station event called Electronica Hanukkah.

The performers on the bill include Crystal Method, Sneaker Pimps, DJ Shadow, Keoki, Meat Beat Manifesto and Josh Wink. The show, originally scheduled for the Kezar Pavilion, is going to be at the Maritime Hall on Saturday, December 6. If the season standards are preferred, however, the same station is also hosting a Green Christmas celebration the following night, with David Bowie, Everclear, The Specials and others, still scheduled at the Kezar Pavilion.

The latter event, which was already coming up short with the cancellations of Björk and the Verve, came close to being canceled altogether, reports the "San Francisco Chronicle," when the promoters, Bill Graham Presents, failed to get the proper permits for the unlicensed Kezar and another venue couldn't be found. On Wednesday, police gave the concert a thumbs-down, as did the Police Commission . Yesterday, however, the decision was overturned by Mayor -- and rock fan -- Willie Brown.

The show will go on.

• The Crystal Method
• Sneaker Pimps

September 30 [12:00 EDT] -- Billboard is reporting that the film on the rave scene being shot by video producer Jonathan Reiss is now tentatively tagged "Better Living Through Circuitry." The full length documentary was original referred to as "Rave: An Electronica Documentary."

Billboard reports that filming, which has been underway since March, is in its final stages. A theatrical release is expected in the Spring, although the producers, Cleopatra Films and Entertainment, have not confirmed a distributor.

The project features interview and performance footage of Moby, DJ Spooky, Aphex Twin, Sneaker Pimps, The Crystal Method, Alec Empire of Atari Teenage Riot, DJ Frankie Bones, Electric Skychurch and Rabbit in the Moon. Key behind-the-scenes personnel from the techno scene have also been interviewed including Todd Muellor, the producer of MTV's Amp, MixMag founder Tony Prince and New York Sputnik rave promoter Scott Richmond.

Reiss's credits include Nine Inch Nails' "Happiness in Slavery" video as well as productions for the Black Crowes, Type-O Negative and Diamanda Galas.

• Aphex Twin
• Atari Teenage Riot
• The Crystal Method
• Alec Empire
• Moby

September 16 [7:55 EDT] -- If you've been following MTV News, you know it's not just the religious right that's been comparing Marilyn Manson's music to crap lately.

Last week, the trip-hop happy Sneaker Pimps had their say about working with Manson on "Long Hard Road Out Of Hell," [550k QuickTime] the track they collaborated on for the "Spawn" soundtrack.

As you may recall ("Marilyn Manson Is No Friend Of The Sneaker Pimps" from September 9 in the MTV News Online Gallery), Sneaker Pimps' Liam Howe summarized the experience saying, "We had a chance to polish a turd."

His bandmate Kelli Dayton went on to say, "We knew that they weren't very good. We thought, when we were first approached with it, we thought, 'Well, we don't like the music, but if we can do something good...'

Now, our colleagues at MTV Latino have gotten Manson's response in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where his South American tour stopped last Friday.

"I wouldn't waste my time having hard feelings. I've already forgotten their names," [350k QuickTime] Manson said. "When we were approached to work with them, it was a bit of a favor, in a sense, because we had already written the song, and I was interested in finding a girl to sing back-up vocals on it, and Sneaker Pimps were someone who were begging, asking to be involved with us. I wasn't that familiar with them. I thought they had a good single, and the girl's voice was great. When we worked on the song, I think they were a little upset, because there wasn't much for them to do because the song was already done. Their participation, and now their opinion, is quite irrelevant to me."

Manson also disputes the Sneaker Pimps' claim that they weren't given tapes to make their own mix of the song.

"They did a mix of the song, so they obviously did receive the tapes," Manson told MTV Latino. "I have a mix of the song. They were begging and begging and asking for us to use it, and I said, 'Okay that's fine. We can put it as a remix.' Now they've come back and said they don't want us to use it. I think they're very confused, very confused individuals."

Manson's Latin American tour wraps up Wednesday in Mexico City, then he'll shoot a video for "Long Hard Road Out Of Hell" (obviously, without the Sneaker Pimps).

Manson, by the way, has inspired protests in Chile against his alleged Satanism from both a bishop and a trucker's union... honest.

• Marilyn Manson
• Sneaker Pimps

And finally, "Electronica" is an annoying new name for the sort of electro-music that's been a rock-and-pop staple at least since the mid-seventies, when the German band Kraftwerk erupted out of Dusseldorf with their "man-machine" act. Today, this music constitutes a genre unto itself, as was demonstrated during last week's "CMJ New Music Marathon" here in New York. At the CMJ concert, such burble-and-tweet acts as Crystal Method, Fluke, Sneaker Pimps, and the venerable Aphex Twin headlined their own show, and we were there.

JON FUGLER, Fluke: It's a live thing. It's about being large, L-A-R-G-E.

RACHEL STEWART, Fluke: It is totally about being large.

MTV: As once faceless electronica artists leap from the underground to the mainstream, their stage shows and their personas are swelling. As the scene shifts from clubs to more visual media outlets, acts like Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers are gaining success by putting their best face forward -- leaving some purists wondering if the music is taking a back seat to the look.

KEN JORDAN, The Crystal Method: I think that is a lot of B.S. When we were growing up and we liked a band, we liked to know more about them. What they looked like, how they dress, what is their favorite TV show. I think that is natural.

LIAM HOWE, Sneaker Pimps: I think that pop music has always been about personality and the music -- it has been the combination of the two.

JORDAN: We're not doing anything to jump out and be publicity hounds, but at the same time, we aren't hiding either. We are not wearing masks.

MTV: No, that would be the French duo, Daft Punk. They lead a legion of reclusive artists who are intent on remaining faceless in the press and in their videos.

HOWE: To be anonymous and kind of dance-oriented is kind of exciting on an underground level. But when it comes to actually selling records, we try to have a personality and try to have integrity.

MTV: And while it may be true that image helps sell records, it's still the music, not the marketing, that matters most.

JORDAN: Labels or publicists or promo people, they really think that they have to set up everything and tell people before they hear it that it is going to be this and it is going to be that... But okay, you play the music and it's like yeah, it's cool.

FAN: I really don't care how they look on stage. What comes out, comes out, and if it makes you move, it makes you move.

FAN 2: The music like goes through my whole body and I love it. The noise it is beautiful.

RICHARD, Aphex Twin: I just always considered myself as a mutant mucking around in his bedroom. That is what I will always see myself as. I have just somehow managed to make a really good career out of it.

Electro... whatever. That about wraps it up for this edition of "The Week In Rock." Do join us next week when we'll be celebrating our tenth anniversary, if you can believe it, with LL Cool J and the most unbelievable book of the year by rock relic Kenny Loggins. We'll see you then.

• Aphex Twin
• Fluke
• Sneaker Pimps

September 9 [7:55 EDT] -- If you liked the recent collaboration between Marilyn Manson and the Sneaker Pimps that turned up on the "Spawn" soundtrack, then you're one up on the Sneaker Pimps.

While the band was down with the project in theory, when they were in New York last week to kick off the annual CMJ Music Marathon, they said they were less than thrilled with the execution of "It's A Long Hard Road Out Of Hell."

"Kind of dance meets metal or rock or whatever, and there's collaborations like Goldie and Metallica which is dandy," Sneaker Pimps' Liam Howe told MTV News. "But, we kind of went to it..."

"Naive," Chris Corner added. "We were all really excited about it though."

"Yeah, thinking that we had a chance to polish a turd," Howe said.

"We knew that they weren't very good," singer Kelli Dayton said. "And we thought, when we were first approached with it, we thought, 'Well, we don't like the music, but if we can do something good...' But we weren't there at the final mix, which was a mistake, so we have to come back... It was crap anyway, the song was crap." [1MB QuickTime]

The Sneaker Pimps also claim that Manson failed to send them a master tape of the "Spawn" track so they could do a final mix more to their liking.

No comment yet from the Manson camp.

Ironically, Manson himself was on hand when the Sneaker Pimps took the stage for their CMJ show, which also featured sets from the Crystal Method, Aphex Twin, Fluke, and Daft Punk. We'll have more from that show, and the increasing emphasis on the cult of personality in electronic music, on this week's edition of "The Week In Rock."

• Marilyn Manson
• Sneaker Pimps

June 11 [16:00 EDT] -- The "Spawn" soundtrack, which teams hard rock's finest with their electronica counterparts, will turn up in stores next month.

The soundtrack, which teams Henry Rollins with Goldie, Slayer with Atari Teenage Riot, and Marilyn Manson with Sneaker Pimps among others, should arrive in record stores on July 29. [For more, see "Marilyn Manson Enters Studio With Sneaker Pimps As Uproar Continues" from June 4]

The set also features Filter and Crystal Method, KoRn and the Dust Brothers, and Soul Coughing and Ronnie Size, and is the musical to the big screen adaptation of Todd McFarlane's "Spawn" comic book.

In addition to sparking a motion picture, "Spawn" (the top selling comic in the U.S.) has inspired an animated series on HBO, and a line of action figures from McFarlane Toys (who also produce a line of recently released Kiss action figures).

None too surprisingly, the hybrid-fueled soundtrack comes from the folks at Immortal Records, who released the rock-and-rap tag team soundtrack to 1993's "Judgment Night" (which boasted efforts from Cypress Hill with Pearl Jam and Ice-T with Slayer among others).

The latest re-working of Spawn, starring Michael Jai White, Martin Sheen, and John Leguizamo will hit theaters on August 1.

• Atari Teenage Riot
• Alec Empire
• Marilyn Manson
• Henry Rollins
• Sneaker Pimps

June 4 [16:00 EDT] -- Having gone to court to secure his right to play on Ozzy Osbourne's Ozzfest date at the New Jersey Meadowlands on June 15 (an appearance venue managers did their best to scuttle) Marilyn Manson is under fire once again, this time in the midwest.

Manson and his band were part of the bill for the Ozzfest show that was scheduled to take place at Float-Rite Park on the Apple River in Somerset, Wisconsin on June 22. However, that concert was moved to nearby Minneapolis after local politicians threatened to not renew the park's concert permit if Manson performed.

The show's promoter blamed this sudden hostility on the usual allegations of devil worship, and said the uproar caught one park official completely by surprise (he thought Marilyn Manson was a woman).

Manson himself forges on, however, and will be going into a New York studio this week to record a song with the trip-hop outfit the Sneaker Pimps for the upcoming metal-meets-electronica soundtrack for the movie "Spawn."

Other combos to be featured on the soundtrack include KoRn with the Dust Brothers, Filter with Crystal Method, Henry Rollins with Goldie, and Slayer with Atari Teenage Riot.

If the soundtrack sounds like it has the makings of a particularly dark and nasty outing, keep in mind the story behind it: the film, due in August, is based on a comic about a black CIA operative who returns from the dead to avenge his own murder.

• Marilyn Manson
• Sneaker Pimps

April 11 [16:00 EST] -- The Sneaker Pimps will bring the trip hop sounds they flaunt on "Becoming X" to stages across the U.S. when the group begins a month-long tour in Atlanta next week.

The group, whose track "6 Underground" is prominently featured on the soundtrack to "The Saint," launches its North American tour next Wednesday, and wraps up on May 13 in Portland.

Here's where you can catch them:

• 4/16 - Atlanta, GA @ Point
• 4/18 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
• 4/20 - Baltimore, MD @ Fletcher's
• 4/21 - Philadelphia, PA @ Five Spot
• 4/23 - New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
• 4/24 - Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell's
• 4/25 - Providence, RI @ Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel
• 4/26 - Boston, MA @ Axis
• 4/27 - Montreal, QUE @ Foufounes Electriques
• 4/29 - Toronto, ONT @ Horseshoe Tavern
• 4/30 - Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall
• 5/2 - Cincinnati, OH @ Top Cats
• 5/3 - Chicago, IL @ Metro
• 5/4 - Milwaukee, WI @ Rave
• 5/5 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
• 5/8 - Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
• 5/11 - Vancouver, BC @ Richard's On Richards
• 5/12 - Seattle, WA @ Show Box
• 5/13 - Portland, OR @ La Luna

• Sneaker Pimps