THE NIN HOTLINE

Tuesday, 7/31/07

I got my valenok in hi-def ultra realism

If you enjoyed Russian Survivalism, you'll be happy to hear that the video is now live. Thanks to Mad! Divoff for the tip.

Great journalism!

You may remember that nin.com recently had a picture of the band stranded at the airport due to a visa malfunction. Well, it seems that the website contactmusic.com has jumped to the conclusion that this means that the russian dates have been cancelled entirely, and without doing any type of research whatsoever, posted this misinformation for the public to read and flip out over. Apparently some other websites have been doing this as well. As such, we've been getting a number of people emailing us to either ask us or simply tell us that the shows are cancelled.

The shows are not cancelled. The band is in Russia right now. If anything changes, you'll hear about it from us and/or nin.com, not some hokey fly-by-night website that all of 20 people give a shit about.

Missed a nin.com update? Check the archive.

Chris Lopo has begun archiving and organizing the photo updates to nin.com at his website. Thankfully, he is not also archiving the comments. Thanks for the heads up, Chris!
Friday, 7/27/07

On the road again

As Josh Freese and his band prepare to leave for another round of wacky adventures in strange, exotic locales, The Meathead Perspective sends them off the best way it knows how, with another sloppily executed Flash cartoon that fills me with shame and regret. Bye, guys!

add your two cents to nin.com v6.9

The official Nine Inch Nails website has undergone another revision today, implementing Blogger.com to allow for easier updates, as well as user comments (247 already as of this update.) - awesome! The style has also migrated away from the look of [WITH_TEETH] towards something more compatible with Year Zero.

This new version also includes RSS & Atom feeds.
Wednesday, 7/25/07

NIN + Accordian = Russian Survivalism

I'm not sure this will make the official remix album, but this Russian take on Survivalism by Xvostya garnered a few emails in my inbox, so I thought I would share it here. It's almost entirely acoustic, recorded over the course of 3 hours using the instruments described here. Good fun.

Additional German date added to tour

In case you haven't joined the Spiral yet, here's news from the mailing list:

Nine Inch Nails have added a September 3rd show in Munich, Germany at Circus Krone. Spiral members will have access to pre-sale tickets from July 27th through the 30th, although you are limited to two tickets per member. More information will be made available on the NIN tour page soon. Thanks to SlingShotSavior and Reinah for the tip!

nin-thevoid.com archive - flashback to 2002

One thing I really hate to see is when a site with a lot of effort put into it disappears entirely from the web. When possible, I try and get in touch with the owner of a site like that to retrieve the content in the hope that I can at some point host it again. This is how we manage to have 600 pre-With-Teeth era articles in our archives - collected by Keith & Tracy back when Keith ran SmashedUpSanity.com.

When nin-thevoid.com went down back in April 2002, I contacted Brent Smith to see about getting a copy of his site, and he sent along a CD-R with everything on it, which was awesome, but at the time, I was dealing with bandwidth issues at my ISP, and putting up a flash and graphics heavy site was not something I could get away with. I think I can now. So finally, The Void is hosted here. I think it's an interesting snapshot from a time when everything wasn't quite so consolidated (for better or for worse).

Note that since site is essentially exactly the same as it was in 2002, there may be some broken links here and there, and with the advent of tabbed browsing, some of the link behavior is strange in modern browsers. Nonetheless, have a look around when you get the chance. Thanks again to Brent Smith for sending this along way back when ;)
Wednesday, 7/18/07

See Rob Halford's nipples

We got an email from "bmoloney" about this article concerning Rob Halford's as-yet unreleased collaboration with Trent Reznor. Check it out.

**update: I was focusing on Mr. Halford's pecs for too long to realize that the project being discussed, Two (or 2wo), was in fact released on Nothing Records, and that this article concerns efforts to re-release the album.

***update: Matt's totally gay for me.
Tuesday, 7/17/07

NIN brings 2007 Performance to the US

Well, only in Hawaii. The tour page on nin.com now includes a September 18th stop in Honolulu, specifically at the Blaisdell Arena. This marks the first return to Hawaii in over thirteen years, the last show being a club venue warm-up for the Self Destruct tour at the end of March in 1994, according to The NIN Historian. Thanks for the update, LeeHam!

Year Zero on Vinyl

Collectors rejoice! Year Zero is being released on vinyl. What Records in the UK is advertising a "limited edition" deluxe etched double 180 gram vinyl set. The set comes in a 6 panel gatefold sleeve and includes a 12 page LP sized booklet. Disc 2 is one sided, with the rear being etched. You can pre-order at the link above, or with various sellers on eBay. Thanks to everyone for writing in.
Monday, 7/16/07

At last, a valid reason to own an iPhone

Those of you who are cool enough to have the new Apple iPhone (link included in case you have never heard of it) will be thrilled beyond belief to learn that nin.com is now offering some "dope" wallpapers that are formatted for the iPhone and officially endorsed by Trent Reznor (I guess)! We're still waiting for the official NIN wallpapers for the Microsoft Zune, but I'm sure they'll be available any day now.

Thanks to "prsgod" and "Yoshata," who took the time out of their hectic daily schedules to let us know about this!

Edit: As I was completely overcome with excitement over the iPhone news, I forgot to mention that there are some new "Year Zero" wallpapers for your computer as well. God, I'm so stupid.
Friday, 7/13/07

new NEARLY clip online at jeromedillon.net

The first in a series of clips to be released on jeromedillon.net debuts today - a rough clip of a track called the spike, featuring Lucia Micarelli on violin. Click on the image at the bottom right for the preview. Once you have a listen, if you have a moment then head over to the message board and let 'em know what you think.
Wednesday, 7/11/07

Trent in "Best Benefit Performances"

In light of the (unfortunately, rather lame) Live Earth concert this past weekend, Spinner threw together a list of the 10 best benefit performances, and Trent's performance at the 2006 Bridge School Benefit came in at number 7. They've embedded a fairly decent YouTube video clip from the show as well (note: if you have a full length video recording of either day, I'd love to get a copy), and there's a comments section you know you're dying to post something ridiculous in. Thanks to Kelly for the heads up.

Read about the Versa RAY video fence thing

The Versa RAY by Element Labs made it's debut with Nine Inch Nails' most recent US tour, and they wrote a little article about how they came to implement it.

When Martin Phillips took over the show design for Nine Inch Nails' With Teeth tour, he knew that video projection on an opera gauze screen would be impractical on an outdoor amphitheater tour. "But it had played such a key part in the previous legs of the tour that we were loath to lose its drama and spectacle," he explains. "I was looking for a way to put the band IN the video footage."

It's a cool read if you're into the technical aspects of the Nine Inch Nails tour. Don't forget to hail s8n for sending the link in.

Flavor Flav + NIN

Neil sent in a bunch of information about the 2007 Beijing Pop Festival that NIN is set to perform at. Rather than rephrase everything he said, I'm going to copy and paste, because I think he covers everything pretty well himself:

NIN... The 2007 Beijing Pop Festival (Sept 8 and 9, noon to 10PM) lineup has finally been confirmed on the Mainland. I assume NIN will be headlining the second night (Sunday, 9/9). The full lineup is as follows:

Nine Inch Nails
Public Enemy
Marky Ramone(Ex. Ramones)
New York Dolls
Brett Anderson(Ex.Suede)

Mumiy Troll(Russia), XTX (Xie Tian Xiao), Muma & Third Party, Brain Failure (Beijing punk band), Thin Man, Joyside, The Honeys (Shanghai indie rock), and Shelftalker.

Most of these smaller bands are local Chinese acts (aside from that one Russian band). The Honeys and Brain Failure are well-respected in the Chinese underground scene, so it should be good support. In any case, the bill-pairing of Flava Flav and Trent Reznor is something no one should miss.

Since the local government can be quite fickle with "decency" and their permit-granting, I'm hoping that the CCP doesn't get a hold of the "Closer" chorus... Until NIN takes the stage, there's always a chance that the plug will be pulled (Jay-Z had a permit snatched away at the last minute in 2006). Since this is a dream come true for me (missed the With Teeth tour because I've been living in China), I'll keep my fingers tightly crossed. More information can be found here.

Tickets are onsale now at 400-818-3333 or www.piaowutong.com. A 1-day ticket is 200 RMB (250 at the door); a 2-day pass is 380 RMB (about 50 USD).

Russian tour openers announced

Announced probably isn't the word I should use, because I received this via email from Quasar of nin.ru: In Moscow, Nine Inch Nails' supporting band will be Intacto - no doubt related to the fact that one of the Russian NIN gig's organizers plays in the band. In St. Petersburg, NIN will be preceeded by Theodor Bastard, who Quasar notes is "well-known russian noise-experimental band... they played with Peter Christopherson in [St. Petersburg] at the live tribute to Jhon Balance."

Visit nin.ru for more information, but only if you can read Russian. If you can't, we've got English threads for both the Moscow show and the St. Petersburg show over at Echoing the Sound. Thanks as always, Quasar.
Monday, 7/09/07

Sept 16 Sydney NIN show gets upgraded

eatyourblud sent this in a few days ago, but I completely forgot to post it.

Due to an overwhelming demand for tickets, the Nine Inch Nails concert scheduled for Sunday 16 September at Big Top Luna Park has been moved to the Hordern Pavilion.

Existing tickets for Sunday 16 September (including tickets for the original concert dated Friday 11 May) remain valid for the Hordern Pavilion. Ticket holders will just need to head to the venue and present their tickets as usual for entry to the concert.

Additional tickets for this performance will go on sale 9am, Thursday 12 July.

After two concerts originally scheduled for May were postponed, Sydney Nine Inch Nails fans have waited patiently for September to roll around. And their patience is sure to be rewarded, with the band heading to Australia for just two special shows off the back of touring Europe and the UK.


From the looks of it, these will be the only Aussie shows on this leg. Should we hear of any additional dates down under, we'll post about it... a couple days later, at this rate. Thanks Mark!

No, not -that- Closure

We got an email or two about this listing on Amazon for a September 12 release of "Closure." Don't jump to conclusions though, as this Sony Pictures release is actually something entirely different. There is still no official release date for the Nine Inch Nails double-video release by the same name. Otherwise, nice catch Rusty & Blake!
Friday, 7/06/07

Universal will not renew iTunes contract

In another demonstration of hard-headed greed and short-sightedness, it looks as though Universal Music is changing how they interact with iTunes, the #3 distributor of music behind Wal-Mart and Best Buy. Universal, on the other hand, releases one out of every three records put out all around the world. Universal owns Interscope, with whom Nine Inch Nails has been signed for over 15 years.

This doesn't necessarily mean that you won't be able to pick up NIN releases on iTunes anymore, but "Universal wants to be able to offer some music by some bands exclusively through other online music services." Universal and the other major record labels have been pushing for higher prices as well as demanding an even larger cut than they're currently extorting.
Wednesday, 7/04/07

TR update re Saul Williams album

Thanks to the many of you who wrote in about the new update from Trent on nin.com regarding the completion of Saul Williams' new album. (Oddly, the date from his last posting didn't update.. Speaking of that, happy fourth, everyone. America! Fuck yeah!)
Monday, 7/02/07

Feds nab NIN bootleg merchant

bmoloney sent in this 93x news blurb which cites Blabbermouth (which in turn cites the Associated Press) concerning
a 27-year-old Lafayette, Louisiana, man [William F. Pritchard, Jr] faces possible prison time and more than $50,000 in restitution after admitting he copied hundreds of "bootleg" concert recordings -- including those by Nine Inch Nails and Korn -- in a case that has nabbed music retailers in three states, including Alabama.

On one hand, Ouch! On the other hand, if he was selling bootlegs, that's really stupid, and kind of rude. I've certainly got (more than?) my fair share of live recordings, but I don't burn them and put them up on eBay.