Embed and breakfast man: Gary Numan and Nine Inch Nails

For no real reason, let's just enjoy Gary Numan joining Trent Reznor to run through Cars at a London date in 2009:



[Buy: The Pleasure Principle]

Embed and breakfast man: David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails

Back in 1995, Bowie and NIN toured together.

Why, yes: they did play together:



David Williams filmed this; he's slowly sharing the fruits of the dates in his Vimeo stream.

UPDATE [08-01-12]: That video has vanished from the internet, but... as ever, there's an alternative source:

Nine Inch Nails: The fear that drives the band

What is it that keeps Trent Reznor going? A face in his head, that's what:

Now when I’m offstage, I’m not same guy onstage but it’s driven by the same place. I’d never want to be Gene Simmons, an old man who puts on makeup to entertain kids, like a clown going to work ... In my paranoia, I fear that if I don’t stop this, it could become that. Because it’s nice to get a paycheck, and now the only way to get a paycheck is to play live, so it’s all those things swirling around in my head.

Reznor is pretty sharp on the challenges facing people who rely on music for their paycheques:

It’s a kind of Mafia-type run business .. They have systematically taken advantage of artists over the years from The Beatles onwards. You [the artists] do all the work, they loan you money to make records, then you pay them back and they own everything. To see that system collapse is an exciting thing. There isn’t a clear answer on what the right thing to do is right now, and as a musician you’re up against a pretty difficult scenario: most kids feel it’s OK to steal music, and do freely ... The good news is that people are excited and interested in music ...

It's perhaps disappointing to hear him use the RIAA phrase "steal music"...

As an artist it’s your job to capitalize on that. It means generally swallowing a bitter pill and saying, ‘Hey, people don’t want to buy music, so let me give it to you. I’ll find another way to make money but I want you on my side and hearing my music. So let’s get rid of this walled garden of having to pay to hear it, here it is, give it to your friends. Hey, try to come to our show if you can, or you can buy this T-shirt of ours if you like, and that will help us out. Or, here’s a nice version of our album that we put in a cool package for a premium price and we’re only selling a couple thousands of them.’

... because it's clear that what he means is not that people are stealing at all; they're just not placing any cash value on the digital product. It's not theft, it's the market exerting its logic, Trent - which is what you show by your responses.

The Reznor's edge: Trent quits

Just as Tim Westwood tweets that "I'm feelin bad", Trent Reznor decides it's time to wind up the Twitterage:

I approached that as a place to be less formal and more off-the-cuff, honest and "human". I was not expecting to broadcast details of my love life there, but it happened because I'm in love and it's all I think about and that's that. If this has bummed you out or destroyed what you've projected on me, fair enough - it's probably time for you to leave. You are right, I'm not the same person I was in 1994 (and I'm happy about that). Are you?

So, for a while, Twitter was like this kind of Eden-y place. So what was the serpent?

Metal Sludge. Who they, Trent?

Metal Sludge is the home of the absolutely worst people I've ever come across. It's populated mainly by unattractive plump females who publicly fantasize about having sex with guys in bands. Kind of like a role-playing game where people NOBODY will fuck make up stories about their incredible sexual encounters with people they WISH they could fuck. It would be kind of funny in a sad and pathetic way except the fun doesn't stop there - hate and good old-fashioned outright blatant racism are also encouraged to spice things up and remind you how truly ugly these scourges are. TRULY ugly on the inside (the outside is obvious).

The throwing of "plump" onto that list of failings jars somewhat.

Anyway, Metal Sludgers are now popping up on Twitter, and so Trent is sloping off elsewhere:

I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it's now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule.

Does Reznor have an answer?

I had thought a while ago about attempting to start a mainstream public forum that required real verification of it's participants for purposes of context. The idea was to have a place where you can actually discuss whatever and have some idea of who you're conversing with. For example, if we were discussing drumming techniques and you can see that someone participating in the discussion is a drum instructor vs. a 13 year old kid Googling answers, you'd have the proper context in which to have a potentially valid discussion. If we were discussing EDLC's heart condition and a real cardiologist speaks up, I'd value his opinion over, say FredFuckFaceWhateverHisLastFuckingNameIs's "opinion". Know what I mean? Anyway, we're in a world where the mainstream social networks want any and all people to boost user numbers for the big selloff and are not concerned with the quality of experience.

The question, I suppose, is how do you 'prove' your experience? And the knock-on one of how do you help others to weigh the value of that experience - sure, the examples Reznor offers are pretty clear-cut. But if, say, you're looking for a steer on the tube strike, how would you know if should give more weight to a Tweet from someone in the Mayor's office against a member of the RMT negotiating team? It might have been nice had Trent kept some of his energies for working on an answer to that sort of question, rather than just withdrawing.

But then he has other things to focus on:

With all of that said, I have business in the real world to attend to including wrapping up the live version of NIN, DOING some cool new shit and spending as much time as possible with the most amazing woman in the world.

Web 2.0's loss is music and romance's gain.

Just one question, though: could he not have just blocked people on Twitter who he felt were Sludge? You don't have to follow everyone back, after all - isn't it your choice how many signal follows to noise follows you have?

Aiden wants to be treated like Nine Inch Nails

Apple's wobble and revision when faced with the Nine Inch Nails iPhone app has now knocked on into being a question of moral relevance, with Aiden demanding to know why, if the NIN app is fine, theirs is being blocked:

What can I really say that Trent Reznor hasn't? "I want to fuck you like an animal?" Oh wait, he said that. "I am a big man and I have a big gun. Got me a big ol’ dick and I like to have fun, held it against your forehead, I'll make you suck it, maybe I'll put a hole in your head, you know, just for the fuck of it." Yeah, he said that, too, all on a record called The Downward Spiral. I have purchased that album five times in my life. I first got it on Cassette when it came out in 1994, I bought it a couple of times on CD and last year I purchased it on iTunes right after I went out and picked up the vinyl. Why? Because it's a great fucking record.

I don't want to go on the same rant as him, although I probably share the exact same feelings.

So what if a crappy punk band from Seattle sings about the deception of religion as a whole? So what if they sing about Catholic priests molesting little boys? Who really cares at all if they wail about a Hungarian Countess that was born in the 1500's and killed over 600 women? Who Cares? The PMRC? Ted Haggard? Congress? Jesus? Oh wait, no… JESUS ISN’T FUCKING REAL.

Yes, maybe we talked a little bit of shit while doing the commentary for the iPhone app about Christianity, about sex and about... Fuck I can't even remember because it's so fucking insignificant. Why don't you be a little clearer in what it was that we need to watch out for? Oh wait... I thought I lived in America where my freedom of speech right was protected by the constitution?

That's right, I forgot. I actually live in Hell. Oops. Remind me to tell someone I have a complaint to submit in the box on the wall.

Aside from the content issue, the app was also rejected because you want to "protect" the value of the iTunes store and having an app with embedded content "competes" with what is ultimately your monopoly. Ironic and hypocritical, no, since Apple owns both channels?

I just want to say thank you Apple for not approving our iPhone app. Thank you so much. To celebrate this great occasion, I'm going to visit your iTunes Music Store and download The Slim Shady LP; I really want to hear that song he sings about killing his wife and dumping her body in the ocean. Awesome!!!

William Control / AIDEN

PS: Any by the way, we have sold over 325,000 albums so far in our career without widespread mainstream media exposure. So, we must be relevant to someone.

There's a point in there somewhere, although it's a little bit lost in the pointless detailing of how many records the band have sold, and the somewhat overwrought writing of the complaint. I guess that's only to be expected, given the band, though.

Nails hammer Apple

To be frank, ranked in the list of Apple embarrassments, the Nine Inch Nails u-turn won't really make the top ten (it's no Newton) but the decision to restore Nine Inch Nails' app to the app store is quite important. It suggests that Apple have managed to get back a bit of perspective after the wobble post-baby shaker.

Curiously, Cupertino have nothing to say about the change of heart:

Apple have refused to explain their change of heart, saying: "It's not something we comment on."

- but they were happy enough to comment on the time they reversed their decision and did ban baby shaker. So, still a small problem with consistency, there.

Apple pulls Nails

The Nine Inch Nails iPhone app was something a triumph for everyone involved - it showed Apple's mobile platform was capable of sexy, alluring, grown-up uses; it gave Trent Reznor reach into a different market. It was wonderful.

Was. Apple have now yanked it because of 'offensive content'. Presumably, in the same way that post-Brand, the BBC have gone compliance crazy, having had its reputation tarnished by the baby shaking monstrosity, Apple are now hitting the delete button as soon as anything that would upset the faintest of maiden aunts is discovered.

Trent Reznor goes a bit Kanye West

Breaking off from lambasting his former label for closing down the planned 3D concert tour, Trent Reznor apologises for going a wee bit Kanye:

This was an amazing tour and production - certainly the best thing I've ever been involved with and likely the final tour for NIN on this scale. Thank you to those that came out to see it and forgive me for having a Kanye West moment, but this was FOR SURE the best show of the year and any bullshit end-of-the-year poll you may read in the next few weeks that says otherwise simply has it wrong. Those of you who saw it know I'm right.

It seems when you go down with a touch of the Kanyes, it can be really hard to fight off the infection.

Head like a hole; throat liked a splintered, debarked willow

You can give away your music. You can even make the bits to remix it available free. But even then, you can't protect your throat from market forces. Trent Reznor has canceled shows, and croaked out an apology:

"Just want to personally say how sorry I am to have to do this. I never take postponing a show lightly and if there were any possible way I could pull this off I would. This is a very frustrating and maddening situation for me and I appreciate your understanding. I'll make it up to you."

"I'll make it up to you" makes it sound less like he's an unwell man who's pulled gigs and more like a husband who's decided to play golf rather than going to see his wife's choir performance.

Now Trent Reznor takes on Ticketmaster

Having had a bit of chip away at the record labels, Nine Inch Nails are now trying to shake up online ticket sales. Or at least make them a bit more fan-friendly. Yes, you have to be registered to gain access, but unlike Glastonbury, where the registration confers upon you nothing more than the right to compete with everyone else to buy tickets, being registered with NIN comes with benefits: presale access, mostly. You pick up your ticket on the door, and go straight in - supposedly bypassing the risk of scalpers.

It'll be interesting to see how it works - and also what happens to the tickets which don't get sold this way. Will it mean genuine but unregistered NIN fans end up having to pay more for touted tickets in a tighter market?

Trent Reznor calls Radiohead

Although there might not seem to be too much difference between Trent Reznor and Radiohead's pay-if-you-like models for album releases, Trent Reznor reckons he's actually purer that Thom Yorke, on the grounds that the Nine Inch Nails downloads are of a superior audio quality:

"What they did was a cool thing; I think the way they parlayed it into a marketing gimmick has certainly been shrewd," he told ABC's Michael Atkin. "But if you look at what they did, though, it was very much a bait and switch to get you to pay for a MySpace-quality stream as a way to promote a very traditional record sale."

"There's nothing wrong with that - I but don't see that as a big revolution [that] they're kinda getting credit for."

"What they did right: they surprised the world with a new record, and it was available digitally first. What they did wrong: by making it such a low quality thing, not even including artwork ... to me that feels insincere."

'Not including artwork' - yes, because a small thumbnail of an album cover to pop up on coverflow really does add something to the experience. And since Radiohead allowed people to pay what they believed the downloads were worth, surely you can't argue that people didn't get what they paid for? The very opposite, surely?

Reznor launches new album on Pirate Bay

Trent Reznor's new, label-free career has launched, with a nine-track sampler from his new record popping up on Pirate Bay and other places that, if you visited, would make the BPI want to steal your computer.

Yes, a nine-track sampler. The new album, Ghosts, actually has thirty-six tracks. Which is more than you'd get on a normal, RIAA brand album, too.

Reznor says:

Now that we're no longer constrained by a record label, we've decided to personally upload Ghosts I, the first of the four volumes, to various torrent sites, because we believe BitTorrent is a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilize new technologies instead of fighting them.

We encourage you to share the music of Ghosts I with your friends, post it on your website, play it on your podcast, use it for video projects, etc. It's licensed for all non-commercial use under Creative Commons.

We've also made a 40 page PDF book to accompany the album. If you'd like to download it for free...

...Undoubtedly you'll be able to find the complete collection on the same torrent network you found this file...

...but if you're interested in the release, we encourage you to check it out at ghosts.nin.com, where the complete Ghosts I-IV is available directly from us in a variety of DRM-free digital formats, including FLAC lossless, for only $5. You can also order it on CD, or as a deluxe package with multitrack audio files, high definition audio on Blu-ray disc, and a large hard-bound boo

For five bucks? Blimey, that's cheaper than Wal-Mart

Universal pulls NIN remix site

Plans for a Nine Inch Nails fan remix site have had to be pulled, as Universal records had a legal panic that it might torpedo their case against Google, as Trent Reznor wearily explains:

My former record company and current owner of all these master files, Universal, is currently involved in a lawsuit with other media titans Google (YouTube) and News Corp (MySpace). Universal is contending that these sites do not have what is referred to as "safe harbor" under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and therefore are in copyright violation because users have uploaded music and video content that is owned by Universal. Universal feels that if they host our remix site, they will be opening themselves up to the accusation that they are sponsoring the same technical violation of copyright they are suing these companies for. Their premise is that if any fan decides to remix one of my masters with material Universal doesn't own - a "mash-up", a sample, whatever - and upload it to the site, there is no safe harbor under the DMCA (according to Universal) and they will be doing exactly what MySpace and YouTube are doing. This behavior may get hauled out in court and impact their lawsuit. Because of this they no longer will host our remix site, and are insisting that Nine Inch Nails host it. In exchange for this they will continue to let me upload my Universal masters and make them available to fans, BUT shift the liability of hosting them to me. Part of the arrangement is having user licenses that the fans sign (not unlike those on MySpace or You Tube) saying they will not use unauthorized materials. If they WERE to do such a thing, everybody sues everybody and the world abruptly ends.

While I am profoundly perturbed with this stance as content owners continue to stifle all innovation in the face of the digital revolution, it is consistent with what they have done in the past. So... we are challenged at the last second to find a way of bringing this idea to life without getting splashed by the urine as these media companies piss all over each other’s feet. We have a cool and innovative site ready to launch but we're currently scratching our heads as to how to proceed.

So, rather than embrace the chance to try and do something new, Universal have been forced to cling to the legally unworkable belief that the hosts are responsible for the use made of their site in the hope of getting a few quid out of Google. It's all a bit pathetic.

Nine Inch show nails

We've been waiting for Trent Reznor's next digital move, and here it is: Niggy Tardust, an album by Saul Williams. It's free in MP3, $5 in higher quality and produced by Reznor.

Reznor is quick to point out he's not merely using Williams as a stalking-horse to try out the idea:

Radiohead is one of my favorite bands, and if I were sitting on a finished Nine Inch Nails record right now, I would do exactly the same thing they're doing. I think that right now, the music industry is between business models.

When Reznor says "the exact same thing", presumably that's not including the eye-wateringly expensive physical version. Presumably.

Reznor: We are the pigs

Amongst the evil, evil music-hating users of the OInK filesharing network - and, indeed, outing himself as a user - is one Trent Reznor:

I'll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn't the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don't feel cool when I go there. I'm tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up. I feel like I'm being hustled when I visit there, and I don't think their product is that great.

It's a fair point: who isn't tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up? Perhaps Steve Jobs should be looking at inviting people to create an iTunes store front that feels more like, say, a Fopp than a Zavvi. At the very least.

[Thanks to Michael M for the link]

No ongoing NIN

Trent Reznor has cogitated, and the upshot is: he ain't pushing on with Nine Inch Nails:

"At this point, I want to switch things around a bit. I see other ways I can present Nine Inch Nails' material in concert. Something more challenging, something new. I don't want it to go stale.

"The idea of five guys making music for two hours, while it's the culmination of fine-tuning over a lot of years, has got to change. I want to whittle things down."

He really can't think of other ways to present NIN's music in concert? What about by having clowns play the instruments? Or wearing a Bernie Clifton style ostrich costume? Or simply smiling a bit? Come on Trent, there must be loads of things you could try...

Trent doesn't care how many records he sells

It might be kind of obvious from his embrace of industrial metal and songs about buggering pigs and S&M imagery, but Trent Reznor isn't exactly in it for the sales:

I felt very strongly about the whole process of this record. I didn't care if it had singles on it, or got played on the radio; I don't care about MTV... at all. I don't care about how many records I sell — I mean, I hope people like the record and I hope people get the record, but I'm not doing this just to make a product that fits into a mould that a record label would like to make, there's enough people doing that. I don't feel like doing it [laughs] so I approached the whole thing with a kind of 'Fuck it, I'm going to do what I think is cool.' And some of it was... every time I sat down I was concerned about someone preaching to me, 'It has to have a strong melody, it has to have a bridge and...' Fuck all that. It has that button and it makes a noise that sounds cool to me. Nothing wrong with that."

Presumably this is just his way of ruling himself out the next series of Dancing With The Stars.

Nails slash Pumpkins

Trent Reznor wasn't especially thrilled with this year's Reading-Leeds, especially the company he was asked to keep:

"I was never a big SMASHING PUMPKINS fan back when they were the PUMPKINS, not to shit on Billy or anything but I don't hear anything that would make me want to care. I think trying to resurrect the name SMASHING PUMPKINS... it's all a bit corporate for me."

"I heard the lineup for another day and that sounded a lot better than the lineup on the day we are playing, so I doubt you will see me on the side of the stage for FALL OUT BOY!"

It's a pity. They could have done with someone with Reznor's aim in the crowd.

Kerrang: Lostprophets still "best" British band

It'll come as something of a surprise to most people, but - according to the Kerrang Awards - Lostprophets are still the best band in Britain.

Say what you like about K!, but their awards are about the only rock music prize with a profile in the UK which doesn't shuffle the same winners as everyone else. Not a sniff for Amy Winehouse.

The winners in full, then:

Kerrang! Hall Of Fame: Judas Priest
Icon: Nine Inch Nails
International band: Panic At The Disco
British band: Lostprophets
Hard rock hero: Machine Head
Spirit of independence: Enter Shikari
Classic songwriter: Deftones
Best video: Fall Out Boy - This Ain't A Scence
Best album: Machine Head - The Blackening
Best single: 30 Seconds To Mars - The Kill
Best live band: Enter Shikari
Best international newcomer: Madina Lake
Best British newcomer: Gallows

We didn't say the winners were any better than at the NME awards, just different.

Incidentally, last year's Best British Newcomer was Bring Me The Horizon. Shortly before they disappeared over it.

[2006 Kerrang awards]

The man hates NIN. Apart from the TV man.

Nine Inch Nails are going to have to try and pull of a difficult act, if Trent Reznor is simultaneously going to be able to trade on his edgy outside status and simultaneously successfully pitch a series based on the latest album.

We're not even sure how you spin a series off the back of an album, and we really hope that it doesn't become a common idea. The last thing we need is Back To Bedlam: The Series.