We are all gonna die. That's a sobering thought to start a webpage, isn't it?. Some find spectacular ways to make their final exit. Others are the victims of circumstance. And then there are those who leave this world in the most pathetic and mundane of ways.

However, death can be an excellent career move. Elvis presley has been dead for a quarter-century yet he still earns over $35 million (U.S.) per year. John Lennon earns about $20 million. Jimi hendrix and Bob Marley over $10 million. And Frank Sinatra takes in about $6 million a year. Another guy who has done spectacularly well by crossing over to the other side is Brad Nowell , singer-the ex-singer-for Sublime.

For nine long years, Sublime was basically just another punk-y band from long beach, California. During that time, they managed to record just two albums, neither of which did very well at all. But as they finished their third record, Sublime had a feeling that things were finally going their way. It was early 1996. All forms of California punk had gone crazy - Green Day, Rancid, Offspring. What's more, Sublime had just recorded what everyone thought to be a killer album. Few people had any doubt that this was the record that was going to push them to the top.

The only problem lay with Brad because he was a recovering heroin addict. For five years, he was in and out of rehab centres, but by the beginning of 1996, it looked like he was finally straight. On the evening of May 24, Brad fell off the wagon. He went on a 36 hour binge, a week after he had been married, just hours before a sold out show and five days before a big European tour.

Early on the morning of May 25th, Brad woke up early and decided to take his dog out for a walk. He tried to get Sublime bassist Eric Wilson to come with him, but Eric wanted to stay in bed. Just before noon, drummer Bud Gaugh woke up in his room at the ocean view motel in San Francisco and found Brad dead of a heroin overdose. After being straight for so long, his body just couldn't handle the strength of the dosage. He slipped into a coma, all his organs shut down -- and he died.

Kirsty MacColl was a British singer who had several hits over the years, most famously "Fairytale Of New York" the duet with Shane McGowan that we end up hearing every christmas. She was also married for a while to Steve Lillywhite, a very famous British record producer. And Kirsty was in big demand as a background singer in the studio.

On December 18, 2000, she and her two sons were scuba-diving off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico. After about half an hour, her eldest son surfaced and became dizzy and disoriented.

At the same time, a 35-foot powerboat entered the area moving at a pretty good clip. Kirsty saw that her son was directly in the path of this boat-and just as it was about to hit him, Kirsty pushed him out of the way. The boat ran into Kirsty almost head on. She was sucked under and was killed instantly as the propeller hit her in the chest. Kirsty MacColl died saving her son.

It's not very often that we hear about a musician being murdered, but here's one example. Mia Zapata was a singer for a Seattle group called The Gits. On July 7, 1993, she was walking home from a seattle bar called "The Comet". At about two in the morning, along one of the busiest streets in the city, Mia was grabbed by someone, raped and strangled. Her body was dumped in an alleyway in another part of town. Mia's killer has never been found. Her death had a huge effect on the Seattle music community. Her friends in a band called "Seven Year Bitch" dedicated a song called "M.I.A." on their next album. And a number of other musicians helped organize something called "home alive," an organization designed to promote women's self-defense, weapons safey and simple common sense. One of the first "Home Alive" benefits was hosted by Nirvana .

We still really don't know what happened to INXS singer Michael Hutchence on that morning in november 1997. November 22, 1997, started normally enough. INXS was back home in Sydney filming a TV special for Australian TV. Everyone was pumped up for this documentary commemorating the 20th anniversary of INXS. Afterwards, Michael went out for dinner with his father and stepmother at a restaurant called the "Flavour Of India".

He seemed fine, laughing and joking with everyone. But something wasn't quite right. His father asked if things were okay but Michael said it was nothing. After dinner - this would be about 10:30 - Michael went back to his suite, room 524 at the Ritz-Carlton Double Bay hotel. On the way up in the elevator, he joked with three girls.

When he got back to his room, he called Bob Geldof, the ex-husand of his wife, British TV host Paula Yates . Michael wanted to persuade Bob to drop the court injunction against Paula and let the three kids come to Australia for Christmas, but Geldof refused. There was a long, loud argument that went on for about 20 minutes, with Hutchence saying things like "Your children hate you. I'm their father, little man. When are you going to realize that?".

After he hung up, Michael went on one last bender. He called up Kym Wilson , an Australian soap opera star and ex-girlfriend. She and her boyfriend came to the hotel where they banged back a bunch of daiquiris, champagne and beer in the hotel bar before going up to Michael's room.

Hotel staff say they left the bar at around two in the morning. Kym and her boyfriend left the hotel around four. Meanwhile a bouquet of roses had been sent to Paula, who was back in England. This is where the story gets murky. We know that Michael made a number of phone calls over the next few hours, including one to Michelle Bennett , another ex-girlfriend. We also know that no matter who he called, all he got was answering machines.

Early in the morning and looking really rough, he went down to the front desk and asked the clerk to mail two letters he had written: one to Paula, the other to a friend in Hong Kong. That was the last time anyone saw him alive.

Depressed, drunk and exhausted, Michael apparently went into a violent rage back in the room, scattering five different types of prescription pills all over the room, breaking his hand when he punched the wall and throwing some of the furniture around, cutting up his face in the process. And then sometime between 9:50 and 10:30 that morning, he took a leather belt, fastened it to a door and hanged himself.

Michael's body was found by a maid at around noon on Saturday, November 23, 1997. Michelle Bennett, one of the ex-girlfriends Michael called, had sensed something was wrong from the tone of Michael's message on her machine. She rushed to the hotel and when no one answered her knocks, she slipped a note under the door, but she was too late.

The rumours began immediately. The most popular explanation was that it was a sex game gone wrong. Some people are into a kick called "auto-erotic asphyxiation," where they are strangled to the point of passing out. They maintain that this enhances sexual pleasure. Anywhere from five hundred to a thousand people die every year playing this game.

And Michael did have a history of sexual kinks. Even his mother went on record as saying that Michael had been with a group of sadomasochists a few months earlier. A magazine published some posed bondage shots of Michael. And in one of his last interviews, Michael did speak of trying to achieve "the ultimate sexual high".

Another theory was that Michael was convinced he had a brain tumour and that he was going to kill himself before the tumour did. Cat scans proved there was not tumour -- but just like Kurt Cobain and his stomach problems, at least one friend maintained that Michael said he "do a kurt" before the cancer got to him.

The funeral was held on November 27th, 1997, and broadcast live on Australian TV. The story of Michael Hutchence gets even weirder and sadder. Paula Yates never recovered from Michael's death. She was found dead in her London home on September 17, 2000. She died of an overdose, but no one is sure whether it was deliberate or accidental.

One of the most colourful characters of recent years was Joe C, the smallest member of Kid Rock's posse. Joe Calleja was the very first guy to join Kid Rock's "Twisted Brown Trucker" band. The Kid Rock first noticed Joe at a gig in 1994 for two reasons. Number 1: back when the Kid was still struggling to get heard by anyone, Joe was at almost every-and what's more, he knew all the words to all the songs.

The second reason was a little more obvious. Joe was less than three feet tall. His buddies used to stand on him on the tables down front. At first, Kid Rock thought that someone kept bringing their child to all his gigs. But when Joe showed up backstage with a fistful of joints one night, the truth came out. Joe had something called celiac disease. Celiac disease is a fairly common intestinal disorder, although most people can control it just fine through diet. But Joe had a particular serious case since he was very, very young and it somehow led to other complications that stunted his growth. It also messed up his kidneys to the point were he was taking up 72 pills and spending up to eight hours hooked up to a kidney dialysis machine.

After hanging out with Kid Rock, Joe was offered a job rapping with the band. Kid Rock bought him a karaoke machine and showed him how it was done. And that's when "Joe Calleja" became "Joe c". And Joe C was with the band on Kid's Rock's 1998 breakthrough, Devil Without A Cause.

No one outside of Joe's family and close friends really knew how sick he was. He tried to go on the road with Kid Rock as much as he could, but he got tired very, very, very easily. Even sitting for interviews was an ordeal. The disease finally took its toll on November 16, 2000 when Joe C died in his sleep at his home in Taylor, Michigan. He was 26.

Here's another example of sudden death. Dennis Danell was a founding member of L.A. punk legends, Social Distortion . It was him and Mike Ness that got things going back at the beginning. Back on february 29, 2000, dennis was walking down the driveway of his home in Newport Beach, California - he was out to get the paper or the mail or something - and he drooped dead. No drugs, no alcohol, no foul play. Dennis Danell just dropped dead at age 38.

Rememebr Tripping Daisy ?. They had a huge hit with the song "Possum Kingdom" a few years back. Part of the reason they never managed to keep it going was because their guitarist Wes Berggren died of an overdose in october 1999.

And every "Kids In The Hall" fans knows who "Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet" are. They're the band who contributed the opening theme to their tv show. Great trio-but they broke up back in 1996. On Februrary 17, 2001, bass player Reid Russel Diamond died at his home in Toronto as the results of complications relatied to cancer. He was 42.

And finally, there was Joey Ramone. His real name was Jeff Hyman . And together with the rest of The Ramones, Joey helped define the very nature of punk in the early and mid 70s. If it hadn't been for The Ramones, we might not have Green Day or Rancid or Blink 182 . Actually, we can go further back than that. One of the most important concerts of all time took place on London, England, on July 4, 1976. At that gig, The Ramones demonstrated the power and fury and fun of New York-style punk to an audience full of wannabe British punks. They were so blown away by what they heard and saw that night that some music historians maintain that this one show kick-started the whole British punk explosion that summer.

I had a chance to talk to Joey many times over the years. In fact, a couple of years ago, we had some long conversations about him maybe writing something for one of my books. But even then-back in about 1997-he wasn't feeling all that well, so we never got to work together.

I'll remember Joey as a guy with a great sense of humour and an amazing passion for music . He also genuinely cared for the fans. I remember being at an autograph session with him and watching him talk to each and every person that came up to have something signed. We'll miss him.