Popular Goth-rock-porn periodical MK Magazine (Music Kulture) has hit the Net with mk-magazine.com.
Originally started as a tribute to his favorite band, Type O Negative, MK Ultra Magazine was first published in January 1995 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by former rock journalist and radio DJ Alex Zander, MK before he relocated to Chicago in 1998.
“My audience is too bold, loud, aggressive and heavy for the stereotypical Goth scene,” Zander told AVN.com of his fans. “At the same time, we're too dark and spooky for hard rock and metal fans. How do you describe a person who likes to fuck, stay up late, listen to intense music, watch underground film, is fashion conscious and satirizes the mainstream culture?”
MK Ultra carried on for several years before taking a brief hiatus only to return with a new look in October 2002. Wrapped in a color cover and featuring a full-color pullout of an MK Ultra Ultra ViXXXen, the magazine was picked up by Tower Records worldwide and Desert Moon Periodicals, who distribute MK Ultra at stores like Borders Books and Music and hundreds of independent retailers worldwide.
By summer 2003, Zander dropped the “Ultra” and launched the trashier, nastier, more fun MK with a new staff and new enthusiasm. Though a Website was launched in 1998, it has recently been redesigned and re-launched at www.mk-magazine.com to celebrate the rebirth and give fans a place to turn for even more content.
“I started the site as a natural progression and extension of the magazine,” Zander said. “The Website originated as a tool to create more interest in the magazine. However, since we became MK Magazine we focus a lot more on the sex, drugs and rock-n-roll lifestyle.”
The site features highlights from the bi-monthly magazine as well as much exclusive content.
“I try to keep both of the entities separate from the other,” he noted. “Occasionally we post interviews and highlights from the magazine. But I want people to buy the magazine and view the Website daily. The Website is the ultimate marketing tool to sell the magazine for me. Besides, the content of the online home of MK Magazine is much too vast to exist in print. The Website is massive in content.
“For the last year we have averaged around 500 thousand hits per month; now with the new imprint it's closer to a million per month. We update it every day with news that fits my lifestyle, and things that interest me. I found over the years these interests [serve] a niche of the populace that do not have any other outlet. This was a discovery that came completely by accident. In essence, I created the Website that I always wanted to see.”
Among the exclusive features of the Website is Zander’s 'Diary Of A Damned Man,’ daily rock and porn news, an in-depth photo gallery, an online shop through Amazon.com and, of course, the aforementioned ViXXXens.
“I don't think there is one free site out there that is home to the girls we've dubbed the ViXXXens, which is the most popular portion of mk-magazine.com. I receive a bevy of submissions each month, and I choose very few of those. They have to first appeal to my eye, and then I choose the photos that walk the fine line of sexy and hardcore. I've been called the Larry Flynt or Hugh Hefner of the underground. And those are two of my biggest influences. Also you'll find a lot of our gals in graveyards and posing in violent or suicidal settings, which they've created. We also put ourselves right backstage with the bands after the shows, and we bring our ViXXXens with us, and that is something a lot of people aren't able to do.”
Armed with video vixens, black leather and a rock-n-roll attitude, MK Magazine is taking their brand of Goth-flavored sex from the Windy City to the newsstands of the world via the Internet with one goal in mind: “To build a network that will help people become more aware that there are more choices, and better choices in entertainment, than what they are offered by mainstream cookie-cutter media outlets,” said Zander. “Now is that too much to ask?”
