THE NIN HOTLINE

Thursday, 4/30/09

NIN confirmed for the A.Roma Festival

tour.nin.com have confirmed that NIN will play the A.Roma festival in Rome (duh) on the 22nd July.

Only one more to go, if this tweet is still correct!
Wednesday, 4/29/09

Geek out to Sudjam talking about Google Earth and Nine Inch Nails

Google just posted a TechTalk to YouTube of a presentation by Craig Johnston & Brian Hull from Sudjam talking for about a half hour about integrating various online technologies, primarily explaining different ways they've integrated Google Earth into the NIN community (we're called a "technologically sophisticated community", I'm guessing they missed all my whining about moving servers a few months ago). It also goes into the development of the nin:access iPhone app.

Having probably experienced a lot of this yourselves, maybe it's a bit of a review, but if you're new to NIN, it's a nice review of some of the really slick stuff that NIN's been doing on the net over the last couple of years.

Tuesday, 4/28/09

Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek NIN/JA Warmup Party Austin, TX on THURSDAY

I got an email from an old pal Avi Ghosh about a screening of Colin Cooper's edit of Lights in the Sky in Texas.

There is this independent movie theatre here called The Alamo Drafthouse and they are hosting a special NIN/JA party free of admission celebrating the upcoming tour (Austin date 05/12) by showing the Lights In The Sky edit from Colin Cooper and giving away free tickets. Here's the shimmy from their website:


Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek for our special NIN/JA Warmup Party! We couldn't be more excited about the upcoming show here in Austin, TX so we teamed up with Rhino Records to bring you a FREE screening of the new Jane's Addiction Box Set DVD, followed by a screening of Colin Cooper's edit of the fan made "Lights in the Sky Over Victoria" from last year's NIN tour. We have some awesome prizes to give out including the new Jane's Addiction box set, CD's and a pair of tickets to the show. Come early on April 30th to make sure you get in and celebrate the night with us, in all our Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction obsessions!

There's more info on the website for the Draft House, but in short, the party starts at 8pm on Thursday.

Avi sent this to me a whole week ago, and we got a few news submissions about it, but I've been terribly neglectful and apologize for only sharing this with you now. It sounds like it'd be a good time, and I suggest you check it out if you're in the area. Avi: I just grabbed your new album now, I'll send you a review soon. Soonish. As soon as I can.

Open Camera Policy and Schedule for NINJA 09

Trent Reznor has been kind enough to share the details about the open camera policy for the upcoming NINJA tour. Head here for all the gory details. Here are a few highlights and some basic need-to-knows -
I have a nice SLR camera and lens and I want to shoot photos. YES.
I have a high-quality camcorder and want to record video / audio. YES.
I have a shoulder-mounted broadcast-quality video camera and want to shoot the show. NO.
I have a flash-based audio recorder with a stereo hand-held mic and want to record the show. YES.
I have a full Pro-Tools rig running off a generator and want to record the show. NO.
I don't have any recording devices but I'd kind of like to make out with Ilan. NO (probably).
Also, TR has confirmed the set times for both weekday and weekend shows (weekends meaning Friday-Sunday) here. The main info -
For WEEKDAY shows:
Street Sweeper Social Club: 7:00 - 7:30pm
Nine Inch Nails: 7:45 - 9:15pm
Jane's Addiction: 9:30 - close

For WEEKEND shows:
Street Sweeper Social Club: 7:30 - 8:00pm
Nine Inch Nails: 8:15 - 9:45pm
Jane's Addiction: 10:00 - close
Yes, Jane's Addiction is closing. No, this is not a bad thing. Yes, that is my opinion and does not reflect the opinion of the staff. The tour starts on the opening day of Star Trek, May 8th, 2009.
Thursday, 4/23/09

NIN at CokeLive Peninsula

This time, the CokeLive Peninsula festival in Romania, as confirmed by the event. The event takes place between 23-26 July and also features The Prodigy and Tiesto.

Thanks to MAD for the link.

Reminder: LITS over Victoria screening in Vancouver this Saturday

Colin Cooper shot me an email this morning with some final details about this Saturday's screening of NIN: LITS over Victoria in Vancouver -
Hello all. Saturday's screening is only a couple of days away. Here are a few important notes:

As of yesterday, seating reservations were completely booked. However, two parties just cancelled, causing 8 seats to come back up for grabs. Contact me ASAP if you want to reserve any of them.

Reservation holders: Please try your best to be at the venue with your entire party when doors open at 1:30pm. To ensure that we are out by the end of our allotted time, I will be starting the show at 2pm sharp. If you show up late and block everyone's view while trying to find a seat... you will surely be hated passionately for years to come.

Make sure the reservation holder has a piece of photo ID. You'll need this to confirm your booking at the door.

A photographer and videographer will be documenting portions of the event. I will be posting the resulting images and footage online at a later date.

AND.... for an added bit of fun.... after the show is over, one lucky audience member will be going home with a tastefully framed 11"x14" print from Front Row Center's Lights In The Sky photo collection (taken by Rob Sheridan). Details will be given at the show.

I'll see you on Saturday!
Wednesday, 4/22/09

Finally confirmed

Rock Werchter, Idroscalo, Rock n Coke, and solo dates in Hungary and Prague have finally been confirmed by the NIN camp. Check here, here, and here for more info. Final four coming tomorrow morning (PST I assume) apparently!

LiveNation widget contest - poorly organized? Bullshit? Both?

Remember that contest LiveNation put out ("Bad idea, bad execution and no input from the acts")? Post a buggy Flash widget to your site, spam people with it for a chance to win free tickets, with the grand prize being an expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles to see Nine Inch Nails? The contest closed April 13th, with really terrible results. Well, unless you were Atrain, who was in 1st place, sharing with 149 people during the course of the contest. He was contacted by LiveNation a couple of days ago as the winner - a good bit later than the 72 hour wait mentioned in the contest rules.

However, no one else in the top 5 has heard anything from anyone involved with the contest. I know this because I'm was in 2nd and 5th place at the close of the contest, and because the 3rd and 4th place winners have contacted me, also having not heard anything about winning.

Why was I in both 2nd and 5th place? Signing up for the contest the first time, I believe I was getting the wrong share codes, as people were testing my links out and I was getting no record of it on the leaderboard, so I created a second account, which worked only a little bit better. bwary went into greater depth on ETS, and was able to determine exactly how many people successfully were recorded using the widget as of April 14.

We get 60,000 visitors a month to the NIN Hotline. I also published a link to our widget on Echoing The Sound to a thread that's been viewed thousands of times - and somehow this widget only recorded 29 referrals from us. In fact, based on bwary's numbers, only 686 people installed the widget, period. The fourth place winner made it to fourth place by referring four people.

The whole thing couldn't have been handled more poorly. Way to go, LiveNation!
Wednesday, 4/15/09

Paris and Athens added to NIN tour Schedule!

07.07.09 Paris, Le Zenith

20.07.09 Athens, Vrahon Theatre

Two extremely beautiful cities - look them up on your new-fangled iphone apps!

Free NIN:Access released for the iPhone

Chowerhawk wrote in just now with a link to the iTunes store page for nin: access - the free app for the iPhone that you've been anxiously waiting for so that you can get all 'nearby' with LtRandazzo.
Monday, 4/13/09

Josh Freese is a pretty cool dude!

Josh Freese provides the Lefsetz Letter an update on his album's package sales. This letter appeared in April 10th's Email Newsletter issue. Thanks to SwimFan for the heads up.

Wired also wrote an article with more details about the $20,000 package experience. You can find that article here.

From: Josh Freese
Subject: Checking in with an update.

Hi there Bob. How are ya?

So, I wanted to check in and give you an update on what's been going on just after the first week or so of my records release. My label, "Outerscope Records (that's me, my girlfriend and our nanny when the kids are asleep) is proud to report that I've sold about 150 of the $50 of the packages and all 25 of the $250 packages (those went in the first 24 hours.) In less than a week I have sold 4 of the $500, 2 of the $2,500, 2 of the $5,000, and the big old $20,000 package! No one has bought the $75,000 package yet but I've had someone fairly serious inquiries about it (still only "talk" at this point though.)

Any-hoo, I just started my "lunches" with people and I've been on the phone nonstop for the past few weeks with people who have bought the record (and a phone call option). It's actually been completely hectic and I've just finally got my head above water for a minute. My friends were joking the other day that I may be the only person in the music business that considers himself to be selling TOO MANY RECORDS right now! These phone calls and lunches are a lot to keep up with and I've hardly just begun. I still stay "BRING IT!" though. I made my bed and now I gotta' sleep in it.

I'm still waiting for some numbers regarding how many downloads or just regular CD's I've sold but my expectations aren't very high. But if it all stopped right now I can walk away feeling successful about the whole thing and I am pleasantly surprised at how many of the "packages" have sold. I truly did not expect them to sell so well. And sure it's been great to make some money doing it, but the most rewarding part has been getting feedback from people about how much they liked what I'd come up with. Or how much they laughed while reading the stuff at their desk or in the studio with their friends huddled around the computer. Getting the nod from smart, creative people always feels good. I've received emails and phone calls ranging from guys in Pearl Jam, to Tony Hawk to Trent Reznor to Billy Gibbons to Devo to top producers and label people all loving it and giving me big props on the whole thing. I had the head of marketing at a very prestigious and famous company (who shall remain nameless) tell me that she "hung her head in shame for a week after seeing my marketing plan." It was like, here she was doing this for a living and some dumb-ass rock drummer came along and smoked her at her own game... or something along those lines (sorry, I think I just pulled a muscle from patting myself on the back.) We had a laugh about it and I thanked her for the compliment. Point being, it's been nice receiving so many accolades from people I admire and from professionals who deal in this world every day. I also love the fact that this has nothing to do with drumming and writing music but EVERYTHING to do with being creative and unique.

I've got 6 of my 25 lunches under my belt now and it feels pretty good (and weird.) I've got one tomorrow and I'm doing 2 back to back on Saturday. I schedule all lunches from 11 AM to Noon so I can continue on with my "normal life" of showing up and doing sessions. So far people seem surprised and appreciative when I call them at home in Texas or Iowa or Greece or Australia (called all those places and another 100 cities so far.) The guy from Florida that bought the $20,000 package and I have been joined at the hip since Sunday and I won't even go into all the stuff that we've done in the past 4 days but I've already gone above and beyond for him and we're continuing to have a blast. I'll start posting stuff soon on my website and on youtube but just to give you a quick idea...mini-golf with Maynard James Keenan, pizza at Mark Mothersbaugh's house, sensory deprivation tank sessions, a signed snare drum I used on a Nine Inch Nails tour, slumber party at the Queen Mary, going to gigs of mine with me, pulling items out of my closet, etc, etc......He's a great kid and a friend for life. We're having him check out of his hotel and stay at our house tomorrow night. It's a LONG, LONG story that I'll write about later. You can laugh when I say this but it's true when I tell you that he came into my life for a reason other than just the $$. I actually feel bad about taking the $$ because at this point I'm not hanging out with him or pretending to be his friend for the cash. He got all of his stuff (and a bunch more that wasn't on the original menu) a while ago. He's a sweet 19 year old kid who's had a really rough last couple years (like REALLY fucking rough.) Like....this money he spent to come out here is part of a inheritance he received (you can fill in the blanks there.) I feel like his big brother and I'm trying to make this one of the best weeks of his life. OK, we're getting a little too heavy here SO...for now here's a shot of me and my first lunch date last week at the ol' Cheesecake Factory. His name's Andre w, he's a photographer for the OC Weekly and a super guy! Bob....if you want I'l throw ya a free $500 package and we can go floating in Venice and then whip over to Sizzler sometime. I'm telling ya man....you'd dig it! Trust me...I'm a drummer.

Josh F-

Visit the Lefsetz Letter.
Sunday, 4/12/09

Trent Reznor speaks to The Observer about iPhone app and more

iPhone apps are changing the world of software and the way we work and play

An excerpt:

Now Trent Reznor, lead singer in a band at the vanguard of bringing technology into the music industry, plans to take things a step further, creating an app that will transform the experience of being a Nine Inch Nails fan.

NIN: Access, which is awaiting approval from Apple, could be one way forward for a music industry decimated by downloading in recent years. The application, which will be downloadable free, will let users start multiple conversations with strangers at gigs, locate other NIN fans in their vicinity, stream music, download photos and upload their own remixes. It will create an NIN community orchestrated by the band itself - not by any record company and not via any of the many social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook.

"People are going to steal your music whether you like it or not; it's out there, it's free," said Reznor in an interview with the Observer. "You're never going to make a lot of money selling records like you used to, that's a fact. It's over."

.....


The concept took shape for Nine Inch Nails one night last summer when Reznor was "fooling around" with his phone backstage before a gig and noticed fans queuing to get in were already uploading pictures of the scene. "So we then communicated with them and said, 'We're backstage' and that freaked them out," explained Reznor. "But that got the wheels turning and we thought, 'How can we develop that?' "

The fact that NIN are not tied to a record label frees them to experiment with such new ideas. "Record labels do not know how to deal with the new media environment that they're confronted with," he added. "They've made their fortunes selling plastic discs and now no one wants to buy plastic discs - they're just trying to get their fingers in every other pie, but they're so greedy and ignorant they're not prepared to do what they have to do." The key to success, argued Reznor, is not to see the apps primarily as a way to make money: "All we're trying to do is make something cool. Something that as a fan you'd say, 'Hey, I want to have that'. If we can monetise it, then that's fine, no problem."

The notion of thousands of fans talking at a concert via their iPhone may sound hellish to old-fashioned gig goers. "On a personal level, I do find that kind of silly," agreed Reznor. "I tend to not take cameras on vacation any more as I want to experience that moment as a human, not as a documenter. At a concert, it's up to them, I can't tell them how to experience a concert. If that makes you feel like you had a better time, holding a phone up the whole time, then OK."
Friday, 4/10/09

Nine Inch Nails announce arena dates in the UK

14.07.09 - Manchester MEN Arena and 15.07.09 London o2 Arena

Jesus Christ. I have some phonecalls to make!
Wednesday, 4/08/09

Ticket brokers being investigated for unfair practices

This doesn't qualify as normal NIN news, but it is somewhat of an appropriate follow-up to TR's post a month or so ago about ticket brokers that buy up as many tickets as possible and drive up prices to make an extra chunk of change who are employed or connected to companies like Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Time posted a story yesterday about authorities in New Jersey looking into the practices of these brokers to see if they're fair.
"Now, authorities in New Jersey and elsewhere are investigating this industry sub-sector, to see if brokers have an unfair advantage over the average fan in buying tickets at face value.

"State and federal investigators have subpoenaed or requested information from Ticketmaster, to learn more about the brokers who sell tickets through a company subsidiary, TicketsNow. Among other things, officials want to find out how they get the tickets."
It's a good read, though it is a shame to see that this is finally being looked into by the authorities now since these practices have been taking place for decades. Maybe if more artists like Reznor would come out and condemn these companies, we'll begin to seem them fade off unceremoniously into the sunset. To read the whole story, head here.

Thanks to Mr. MDK for sending this in. We now resume our regularly scheduled programming.

Nine Inch Nails Confirmados!

...for the Paredes de Coura festival in Portugal this summer, which takes place over the last weekend of July. Click here to see the festival website confirmation.

Thanks to Nuno Foros for letting us know - hopefully this will be added to nin.com soon, along with Rock Werchter and Idroscalo!
Tuesday, 4/07/09

Final Details for 4/25 LITS Screening in Vancouver

We posted an update last week about Colin Cooper's plans to screen his edit of the LITS Over Victoria show in Vancouver last week and now have the final details for the event. From Colin -
The screening will be held at the Pacific Cinematheque in downtown Vancouver on Saturday, April 25th @ 2:00pm (doors open at 1:30pm). My time-of-day choices were limited and in order to secure what I felt was the best technical set-up of all available options, I had to settle for an afternoon slot. The Cinematheque is located at 1131 Howe Street (between Helmcken and Davie) and is easily accessible by public transit (various buses stop directly in front of the building).

The show runs approximately 2 hours and 12 minutes. The venue must be completely emptied by 4:45pm or the management will administer a fierce spanking. Thus, any post-screening mingling will have to be moved outside of the main doors.

The screen's diagonal measurement is approximately 36 feet. The sound will almost certainly be stereo (i.e., no surround). I had a tech screening yesterday and both audio and visual components were quite tasty.

Venue capacity is only 200 and the event will not be ticketed. Interested parties should contact me at mr.g.westlake@gmail.com in order to secure a seat. Emails should include your name and the number of people in your party (including yourself). I will respond to confirm your reservation. Those who have already made contact in response to the previous Hotline posting will hear from me shortly to confirm attendance. In the event that reservations do not fill the venue, walk-ins will be welcome at the doors.


For those who are curious, Colin is the person Trent mentioned in the Digg Dialogg interview with Kevin Rose that was put online earlier today. As a reminder, the event is COMPLETELY FREE. Once again, many thanks go out to Colin for his time and dedication with this!

Digg Dialogg iss Upp!

What's the most embarrassing song on Trent's iPod? Is he going to save the future of music? Is Tapeworm dead forever? Click below (or here)to find out!
Monday, 4/06/09

NIN iPhone app coming VERY soon!

Wired.com have a cool interview up about the upcoming NIN iPhone app:

Everything you apparently wanted to know about the NIN iPhone app

Note to self: purchase iPhone.

Apparently our own Randazzo makes a brief appearance in the video too!



It's also up in HD over at Vimeo
Friday, 4/03/09

Two Germans and One Dutch Date Doo-Dah, Doo-dah

Berlin! Dusseldorf! And the date may of us have been waiting for...Amsterdam!

06.29.09 Dusseldorf, Germany [Philipshalle]
06.30.09 Berlin, Germany [Berlin Arena]
07.08.09 Amsterdam, Holland [Heineken Music Hall]

Tickets are onsale from Tuesday afternoon.
Thursday, 4/02/09

LiveNation's awesome "Official Nine Inch Nails Store"

Okay, while I have to admit that $22 is not a bad price for a
Girl's "Bacteria" Hoodie - even if they only have it in XL, what the deuce is up with the NIN/Jane's Addiction Premium Ticket Package? For $250, you get:

  • Exclusive NIN/Jane's Addiction Concert Shirt
  • Collectible NIN/Jane's Addiction Tour Poster
  • Commemorative NIN/Jane's Addiction VIP Laminate

Oh, unless you're size XXL. Then it's $253.95. Can't make this stuff up folks. I guess you get a ticket with your fancy pants laminate, but it doesn't ask you what show you're going to, only what size shirt you wear. They don't have a photo of any of that though.

The shirts are interestingly not available at the real official Nine Inch Nails store or at our awesomely cheap and fast store, as they are new old stock from the 2006 tour.

I'll wrap up this snarky, pissy post by stating squarely that the LiveNation-designed widget sucks. I've got a pretty good notion that it's giving most of our (okay, my) "points" to a (nice enough) dude in Nebraska somehow - which is kinda alright, because NIN hasn't played in Omaha in about a decade. Nonetheless, in the event that one of the NIN Hotline accounts (i.e. Leviathant or Cunnybungler) makes it into the top five, I'll try and figure out a way to give the tickets to one of you viewers, and I'll certainly be giving the box sets to one of you, because I'm lucky enough to already have a Super Mega Deluxe Edition Ghosts box set. JUST SAYIN.

P.S. even though the LiveNation contest is only open to US Residents, anyone can win in our re-gifting extravaganza. Unless we win plane tickets. I don't know if we can transfer those.

May the best spammer win! Livenation announces NINJA contest

We got an email from Wikkid about a contest that's opened up on Livenation.com (without any input from the acts they're promoting, apparently). Straight out of the "Internet Marketing 2004" playbook:

Win a Flyaway with the Official NINJA Tour Widget!

Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction are giving you a chance to win a flyaway to their show in Los Angeles just by sharing the official NINJA Tour Widget!

Register for the NINJA Tour Widget and begin earning points by sharing it with your friends online today! The person with most points on April 13th will recieve a trip to Southern California to see the bands live at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre Irvine on May 20th.**

Be sure to read the official contest rules to make sure that sharing earns you points!


The widget looks like this:

Note: Widget has been removed because it makes surfing in Opera (and sometimes Firefox) especially unbearable. Also, the contest is over.

I guess if you share it with enough people you get points, and the person with the most points gets flown out to LA and gets a bunch of signed stuff. So while I utilize our MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook accounts (we don't have a Facebook account, I think) to spam the shit out of you, see if you can out-spam us! (I'm not really going to spam the shit out of you, this post is the last you'll see of us mentioning this widget.)

Personally, I think the widget is entirely too large, particularly given that widget rhymes with midget. It probably shouldn't be 400x500, that won't fit in anyone's sidebar. That's just rude.

Poland and Luxembourg get some NIN

The nin.com tour page has confirmed two new European dates this summer:

23rd June in Poznan, Poland
8th July in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

which has turned this into something a caffeinated spider would make!
Wednesday, 4/01/09

NEW NIN ALBUM - STROBE LIGHT - AVAILABLE NOW!

STROBE LIGHT!!!1Head on over to nin.com/pub/strobelight/ to download the new Nine Inch Nails album, Strobe Light RIGHT NOW!

Produced by Timbaland, Strobe Light brings a new dynamic to Nine Inch Nails lore while ushering in a new wave of creativity. Clearly, no one has ever thought of an amazing collaboration of this dynamic before and it continues to show that Trent Reznor truly is the Beethoven of our time. Featuring amazing artists like Sheryl Crow, Fergie, Chris Martin from Coldplay, Maynard James Keenan & Justin Timberlake, Strobe Light is sure to rock your fragile little mind.

Such amazing songs include black t-shirt, pussygrinder, on the list (she's not), and still hurts (featuring alicia keys), a truly heartbreaking and beautiful song.

Grab Strobe Light NOW for the low, low price of $18.98 plus a $10 digital delivery convenience fee!

3-part CD single for 1,000,000 to be released

Here at the NIN Hotline, we've always tried to pick up some of the slack where the official channel has overlooked fan concerns. For all the efforts we've made in the nearly ten years we've been running though, Nine Inch Nails has done a great job of catching up. With each release, they post high quality artwork online. They've got a forum that's like the larger, slightly more retarded version of Echoing the Sound. They're going to beat us to the iPhone app we were going to make (April Fools! I don't have time for that shit) and lately, it's becoming harder as a fan site to keep up.

So instead, we're looking back at what might have been left behind while Trent Reznor's embraced technology and forward-thinking.

I am proud to announce that we have made a deal with CD manufacturers in Germany and Switzerland to release Halo 28: 1,000,000 - a three part slimcase CD imported from Europe.

***update*** I can't say where I got it from, but we received a 40 second sample of 1,000,000 (version) after posting the news. Our source says the final track time is well over nine minutes long.

The track listing is as follows:

1,000,000 pt 1:

1) 1,000,000 (album version)
2) 1,000,000 (radio edit)


1,000,000 pt 2:

1) 1,000,000 (album version)
2) 1,000,000 (version) (sample)



1,000,000 pt 3:

1) 1,000,000 (radio edit)
2) 1,000,000 (live at rehearsal)


Additionally, there is a very limited release 12" promo vinyl edition of the single...

side a) 1,000,000 (album version)
side b) 1,000,000 (Lilly Allen club mix)

I haven't heard the remixes yet, but chances are the b-side of the vinyl is going to be the best of the bunch. We're working on finding out who mixed the (version) on Halo 28 pt 2, and sources are leaning toward the same people who did the (edit) mix of Every Day Is Exactly The Same on that card slipcase German edition of the single.

Each CD should be available for £18.99, and we are looking at a release date of June 8, 2009. We would like to thank Universal Music Group for being totally awesome in helping us out on this project, we've put a LOT of work into it, and hope you enjoy. ~@~