POISON PEN

How’s this for a really lame heavy-metal feud? In Hit Parader magazine, Geffen Records’ glam-rockers Guns ‘N Roses took a potshot at rival mascara-rockers Poison, saying the Capitol Records band was a bunch of “posers” who represent “everything bad about rock ‘n’ roll.” Poison went after an easy target--the band’s publicist, Geffen p.r. chief Bryn Bridenthal.

Bridenthal said that she ran into Poison bandmates Bobby Dall and Bret Michaels at a Forum Club party after a Motley Crue concert: “First Bobby went into a tirade, yelling and screaming about the article, and then he threw a cup of beer in my face. I got dried off, but before I could leave, Bobby and Bret grabbed my arm, threw another drink in my face and, when I was blinded, dumped a bucket of champagne or ice water over my head.”

Days later she received a call from Dall, who “refused to apologize and yelled at me some more.”

Any way to treat a lady? “No way,” Bridenthal said angrily. “I’d like to pull down their pants at high noon on Main Street. There’s a code--even in heavy-metal--that you can be a jerk to your friends or other bands, but I’m gonna see to it that they don’t ever act this way to a woman again.”

Bridenthal’s boss, Geffen Records pres Eddie Rosenblatt, said he was “infuriated”: “Absolutely inexcusable, especially from a bunch of one-hit wonders who haven’t even shown the simple courtesy of apologizing. If they want to pick on somebody, they can start with me. I may be on the wrong side of 50, but it’ll be a lot more fair of a fight than attacking a woman who’d just been out of the hospital for a month.”

Poison band members and management exec Tom Mohler refused comment. But the group apparently sees it as a joke. Its p.r. firm, Jensen Communications, issued a statement: “Bryn misunderstood the gesture. We saw the baseball players do it. We thought that throwing champagne was a sign of friendship.”