The band has now been mentioned in New York's Daily News, even. Unfortunately for the band, there is good press and there is "holy crap, that's bad press." And their mention is definitely the latter.
Following in the grand tradition of bands getting blamed -- directly or indirectly -- for a psychopath's acts and/or someone's suicide, Otep has been mentioned in relation to the woman in Queens, NY, who bound, gagged, and castrated a 55-year-old man.
As is the tradition today, the crack reporters at the Daily News found the woman's MySpace page, and noted, "The angry song "Ghostflowers" by the metal band OTEP plays on the page." They cherry picked the lyrics, "I will be avenged/ these are the secrets/ that kill" from the song, as well.
Not surprisingly, the song doesn't say "go and castrate someone." And is pretty irrelevant to the whole thing, other than the standard "music makes you violent" sensationalism.
Here is the song in question:
Yep. That got repeated mentions in an article about a a chick who castrated a man she "lured to her home via e-mail."
Never mind the fact that reading deep meaning into MySpace is absurd [I usually update mine when I am drunk and/or bored, how about you?] -- adding the mentions of the band is, plain and simple, journalistic bullshit.
There has been no response from Otep yet, and shockingly, Marilyn Manson has also been quiet, and has yet to give an interview saying, "I hope nobody blames ME for this...."
