by Nicole Powers

“The raging snark.”
– Moby

Moby could be described as a reluctant celebrity. He first found his way into the collective consciousness with the 1992 rave anthem “Go.” In the faceless world of techno culture success remained within his comfort zone. For the remainder of the decade he released his increasingly hybrid electronic-based music with little fanfare outside of the dance world. His 1999 album Play, barely made a ripple in the ocean of record sales when it first came out.

However, after a series of high profile film, TV and ad licenses, Play was propelled into the mainstream and Moby into the media maelstrom with it. Track 5 from the album, “South Side,” a little duet with Gwen Stefani, subsequently gained momentum, becoming an MTV staple for many months. It reached number 14 in the Billboard Hot 100 and number 3 on the Modern Rock singles chart in 2001. Play went on to sell over 10 million copies worldwide.

As film director David Lynch succinctly puts it, “Success is just as dangerous as failure, maybe more.” In the years since “South Side” graced the charts, Moby has not exactly been chasing similar commercial success — far from it — however many automatically assume he has. After all, money and fame are the goals of every artist right?

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Luscious Suicide in Grime

• INTO: Small government, the right to privacy, the right to bear arms. Drinking fine organic red wine and local beer made with spring water, copulating daily, getting my empty skin-canvas covered with art from my favorite minds.
• NOT INTO: Big government, chlorine and fluoride being added to water, being exposed to toxins in daily life, electro-magnetic chaos, stress, high definition TV’s, pesticides, genetically modified foods/animals…”
• MAKES ME HAPPY: Any day where a crooked politician is publicly embarrassed, and made to fumble on their own words and backpedal desperately.
• MAKES ME SAD: The intentional “dumbing down” and distraction of society to repress uprising, free thought, and speech. People excessively eating mass produced, abused animals…
• HOBBIES: Snowboarding, jogging, gardening, paint-ball, wake boarding, drunk-ass bocci ball in the sunshine, metal working, painting, Roller-Derby, hiking, road tripping.
• 5 THINNGS I CAN”T LIVE WITHOUT: METAL!! (In a loud shrieking voice), hydrogen peroxide, Dr.Bronners, tea tree oil, snowboarding.
• VICES: The chronic, those little succulent Thai patties from zen gardens, goji / acai / mangosteen / noni juices.
• I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: Perusing Infowars.com/ and Prisonplanet.com/, reading, planting things, maintaining as much greenery indoors as possible, hanging out with nature.

Get to know Luscious better over at SuicideGirls.com!

by SnakePlissken

Linkin Park. George W getting two terms. Surprise diarrhea. Justin Bieber haircuts. That stuff that forms at the edge of your lips when you’re really thirsty. Getting rid of the bodies. The smell of cat shit. The lack of new Quantum Leap episodes. Bleeding from my urethra. Other people’s farts. Low sodium soy sauce. The current trend of replacing “s” with “z” in fucking everything. Douchebagz who intentionally leave stickerz on their hatz. That guy who fucked me over on that sack I fronted him in 2000. Paper cuts. Wacky morning DJ’s. People who frown upon bad fucking words. Turkey bacon. That big mole on my back that most likely is cancerous. White guys with cornrows. These are all things I hate with a goddamn passion. Not quite “back a truck into a Luby’s Cafeteria and shoot everybody with a deer rifle” caliber homicidal irritation, but pretty close. Only two things are worse to me; Clamato and Budweiser. And now they’ve put them together and called it Chelada.

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by Brett Warner

Love him or hate him, Kanye West is America’s favorite asshole. His endlessly hyped new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy hits stores next week, though little of that hype concerns the music itself. Whether apologizing to George W. Bush, rambling on Twitter, canceling appearances, or claiming that Coldplay are bigger than The Beatles, Kanye seems dead set on further alienating his “haters” and keeping his fans in perpetually defensive mode. In spite of – or perhaps, because of – his talents, Kanye is a uniquely positioned pop culture scapegoat. Too self involved and misinformed to realize how he sounds to the rest of us, Mr. West has a knack for stealing the spotlight from other obnoxious, egotistical celebrity artists – of which there are plenty.

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by Jay Hathaway

“I had been in a sexually hibernated state of mind…”
– Kevin Barnes

Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes has been experimenting with pop music for almost 20 years, all the way back to recording home demos in high school. He started of Montreal in 1997 in Athens, GA, and fell in with the Elephant 6 collective, which included bands like Elf Power, Neutral Milk Hotel, and The Apples in Stereo. Since then, of Montreal has put out nine records, including Barnes’ biggest critical success, 2007’s Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?

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Sysca Suicide in Nice n Easy

• MAKES ME HAPPY: When Maedusa posts new testimonials on my profile.
• MAKES ME SAD: I hate interns.
• HOBBIES: Photography, illustration, css, sex, parties, sex, shopping, walking, sex, writing.
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T DO WITHOUT: Laptop, water, music, Clarins cream, a place to hide.
• VICES: Always come for more.
• I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: I’ve got no fucking free time.

Get to know Sysca better over at SuicideGirls.com!

by Damon Martin

In a real world context, Benjamin Franklin may have very well been right, but those rules don’t apply when talking about the comic book universe. Like a bad soap opera where the lead character is bound to find out that his wife – whom has just made a full recovery from a terminal illness – is also his long lost sister, comic books are notorious for never letting any character stay dead for too long.

That leads us to the February 2011 Marvel Previews in which they tease us with the “Death of Spider-Man.” Sure, the sticky guy has flatlined a time or two in his day, but this will be the first major run where the character is billed as meeting his ultimate demise. While Marvel is apparently being very hush-hush about the events surrounding the eventual “death” of Spider-Man, the big goal of course is to raise sales for the Spider-Man titles before they rub him out.

Comic book deaths however are a cautionary tale because the concept is rarely very final in the land of the superhero. The genre has exploited this device for years, and many fans tire of the ubiquitous “dead hero/miraculous resurrection” storylines. With Peter Parker apparently the next hero on the chopping block, let’s look at some famous comic book deaths and how the heroes came back to life:

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