KURT: In other music news, Marilyn Manson paranoia reached fever pitch on Thursday in the heart of Hootie country: Columbia, South Carolina, where Manson's April 20th concert at the University of South Carolina Coliseum was canceled. Bowing to strong civic and religious group pressure, the school and the concert promoter, Cellar Door Productions, pulled the plug, with the school using a buy-out clause in its contract with Cellar Door. Manson's manager says the band has not been paid yet and claims the school may have violated its contract. The anti-Manson pressure was reportedly launched by state treasurer Richard Eckstrom, who first learned about the band at a church service.

The show was canceled the same day that state legislators introduced a bill to bar the use of any state facility for a concert by Marilyn Manson, a bill that sounds kind of unconstitutional to the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Marilyn Manson himself called Friday to describe his

South Carolina foes as "Fascist bigots," and asked, "What do you expect from a state that still flies the Confederate flag?

Manson also canceled, although only for technical reasons, Friday's show in Jackson, Mississippi. Tickets for that show were to be honored at Saturday night's show two hours away in Biloxi.