by Tamara Palmer
“From the heart and honest.”
– Vera Ramone King
Vera Ramone King’s book Poisoned Heart: I Married Dee Dee Ramone documents her 17-year marriage to the bassist and lead songwriter of seminal punk rockers The Ramones. In vivid and loving detail, she recounts the rise and demise of her lover and best friend, who succumbed to a heroin overdose in 2002. She offers the untold story of how she continually kept him alive even amidst bouts of terrifying abuse from her husband, illuminating a vital link in the band’s masterful and enduring legacy.
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by Tamara Palmer
“We were fans of the Smiths and Morrissey.”
– Nina Diaz: Girl In A Coma
Morrissey and his legendary former band The Smiths continue to have a far-reaching impact on music and style, reaching artists and fans across international and genre boundaries alike. Some, such as San Antonio-based rock trio Girl in a Coma (sisters Nina and Phanie Diaz and Jenn Alva), who are second-gen fans, have paid the ultimate homage by naming their group after one of his songs – in this case, 1987’s “Girlfriend in a Coma.”
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by Nicole Powers
“Yeah, maybe I am a little crazy, but whatever.”
– Marilyn Manson
There’s nothing half-hearted about the new album from Marilyn Manson, The High End of Low, which explores love, hate, revenge, loss and despair. Off stage, many find Manson’s passion disconcerting, but the singer/songwriter considers anything that veers towards apathy to be inherently “worthless.” It’s therefore not surprising to hear that during the recording process Manson pushed himself and his band to extremes, the resulting album returning him to the kind of form he’s not seen in a decade.
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by Ryan Stewart
“Donny doesnt give a fuck.”
-Eli Roth
Donny doesnt give a fuck, is how Eli Roth sums up the bloody-minded motivations of his character in Quentin Tarantinos delirious new WWII film, Inglourious Basterds. A Boston-bred Jewish kid turned soldier who is fully aware of the existence and breadth of the Holocaust as its occurring, and is motivated by inconsolable rage towards Nazis as a result, Donny is one of many carefully-sculpted, subtly modernized characters in a film that is itself a counterfactual kaleidoscope, cut loose from the moorings of history and propelled solely by the emotional impulses of its makers. Donny’s blind, seething anger, and the justice he dispenses with a baseball bat are the secret weapons of the Basterds, an unlikely platoon of Jewish-American soldiers dropped into Nazi-occupied France by the Allies to act as a roving insurgency, capturing and mutilating Nazi stragglers in order to unnerve the German high command. At least, thats their mission until they become tasked with something even grander – a top-secret assignment to target the Nazi leadership, which is personally shepherded by a cigar-chomping Winston Churchill.
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by Fred Topel
“You don’t have to look like me to be considered beautiful and sexy.”
– Brittany Daniel
When the aliens come, the only ones left to fight back will be the good looking Hollywood heroes. Independence Day gave us Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman and Vivica A. Fox. Signs left us in the hands (and basement) of Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix. Now Skyline has strapping male leads Eric Balfour (who plays Jarrod) and Donald Faison (Terry), to keep their girlfriends safe and fight off invaders. Brittany Daniel plays Candice, described as Terry’s self-absorbed socialite girlfriend.
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by Ryan Stewart
“If you met yourself in person, would you see only faults?”
-Duncan Jones
If the new film Moon puts you in mind of David Bowie’s lyrical, space-is-a-lonely-place ballad, “Space Oddity,” that’s probably not a total coincidence – it was directed by his 38 year-old son, Duncan Jones, who formerly went under the much less conservative name, Zowie Bowie. After years of directing commercials and trying to move on from what he describes as a youth marked by isolation and periods of self-discovery, Jones has emerged with a new identity as a respected indie filmmaker.
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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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