Draft:Manny Martinez (musician)

Manny Martinez (1954 - 2023), known professionally as Manny, was best known as the original drummer for The Misfits.

Early life
Born in New York, NY on January 3rd,1954, Manny began learning to play the drums at 5 or 6 years old, after his father bought him a Zinbar drum kit from a Bronx pawn shop. At some point, he practiced under Buddy Rich, who was the house drummer at his uncle's New York club. .

After moving to Lodi, NJ as a teen, Manny graduated from Lodi High School in 1971, and played drums in a number of Lodi, NJ bands, including an unnamed country-rock band , Sheba , and P.O.N.Y. (Prostitutes Of New York) with Lodi natives Tony Leek, Stevie Linder, and Glenn Danzig.

With the Misfits
In 1976, after playing a somewhat disastrous show at Club 57, P.O.N.Y. bassist Tony Leek left, and the band broke up. At the same time, Glenn had tired of doing cover songs and decided to start an all-original band called The Misfits, with Manny. The pair went to work on several of the dozen or so pre-existing songs Glenn had already written. They practiced in Manny's basement with Glenn singing/playing keyboards and Manny on drums. Within weeks, Manny introduced Glenn to Jerry Only, who had recently received a bass as a late Christmas present. Jerry joined the band and cemented the initial lineup, as featured on the band's first single, 1977's Cough/Cool, for which the cover photo was shot in Manny's basement. After 4 shows as a 3-piece, the band would add guitarist Franche Coma to the lineup in October of that year, and perform the rest of the 1977 shows as a 4-piece. Manny played approximately 8 shows with The Misfits in New York, New Jersey, and Toronto, Ontario.

In December of that same year, Manny played his last two shows with the band in Toronto, on December 21 and 22, at Shock Theatre. Luckily for fans, local photographer Paul Till found himself present for one of the two shows, and captured quite a few images of the band, which included some of the few photos of Manny that exist. In April of 2001, those photos became widely available in book form, when Paul published "The Misfits Shock Theatre."

In the remaining days of 1977, Manny left the band and was later replaced by Jim Catania, another Lodi native.

Post-Misfits
After leaving the Misfits, Manny would go on to play in other bands regionally, including a female-fronted original group, as well as an Elvis Presley tribute act that played shows across the region. Manny would eventually take a break from playing in bands to focus on a more stable working life with his family and his dogs that he loved like children.

Manny would resurface online with the social media boom and could be found interacting with his fans in several Misfits forums and groups on Facebook. He loved all of his fans and was all too happy to sign autographs and photos that fans would send to him. He could be seen in a few online interviews on YouTube as well, which further helped to reconnect Manny to his fans.

In March of 2022, Manny took part in a recording session with Robby Bloodshed that also included Stevie Linder, effectively reuniting 1/2 of P.O.N.Y. for a single track on Bloodshed's 2022 release, "Dripping Red."

Equipment
The first kit Manny used in The Misfits was a white Slingerland drum set, which was destroyed in a fire at Manny's house (along with approximately 75-100 cough/cool singles). Following the fire, Manny used a Slingerland Phantom acrylic drum set with Rogers hardware, Zildjian Avetis cymbals and Vic Firth American Jazz sticks.

Death
On December 15th, 2023,Manny passed away in Pennsylvania. No details on the cause of death were given.