THE NIN HOTLINE

Wednesday, 9/20/23

From the vaults of Rob Sheridan
Rob Sheridan, before founding Glitch Goods or creating High Level, was of course the force behind Nine Inch Nails' art direction for 15 years, his work spanning eras from The Fragile through Hesitation Marks.

Along the way, he's picked up a few things, and lately he's been unpacking some old boxes and turning up a few surprises - new-old-stock merch, printer proofs of album art, tour posters he designed, and promotional lithographs. Everyone who's subscribed to his Patreon not only got a sneak peek, but got first dibs. That's not to say that what's left is slim pickings; to call them rare would be underselling how unique they are. Keep in mind that before you click through - the prices reflect this. Rob's an independent artist, not a collector.

See a list of what's available over on eBay, including signed artwork from Hesitation Marks, The Fragile, Things Falling Apart, the Gone Girl score, and one of my favorite NIN posters from the Fragility tour - designed by David Carson, I distinctly remember unrolling this one in my apartment in York, Pennsylvania and doing a double-take at what looked at first like damage. There's even a pristine ABSOLUT NOTHING poster, with about as close to direct provenance as you could hope for:

This is an original ABSOLUT NOTHING poster from my personal collection that I had framed 20 years ago. I know this poster has been something of a legend amongst fans/collectors who have wondered its origin, and in that regard I am no different. I got this poster from the NYC Interscope/Nothing Records office circa 2001/2002, I had seen the design around and was happy they had one sitting around that I could have. This was not an official NIN poster, at least not in the sense that it was designed (or to my knowledge even approved) by us in the NIN camp.

The story continues in the listing, but don't expect the mystery to be solved. Back in 2002, we chased down a tenuous link to Research Chemical Propagana, but have yet to nail down exactly who designed and printed these infamous posters.

Good luck, and happy bidding!

Reported by leviathant at 17:13

Tuesday, 9/12/23

NINLive quits Twitter
There's been change brewing at ninlive.com for a while. Of course, it's been an amazing resource for documentation of the concerts Nine Inch Nails has performed, with audio and video recordings going all the way back to 1988, with hundreds of these resources getting updated with alternate recordings or higher-generation sources of classic footage. The inimitable Ryan Jonik has been a one-man archiving machine, coordinating with the community to locate every last recorded minute and share what can be shared, so folks can revisit their favorite concert, or for fans who don't have the good fortune to have been to a show, give them a taste of what it's like seeing and hearing NIN translate studio albums to visceral concert experiences.

One important step towards this next iteration of the NIN Live Archive is a refocusing on the platform itself. Every time a new recording goes live, Ryan opens up an HTML editor, copies and pastes and edits some code, and uploads that to his server. It's a lot of work, and it also means that all of the information he's collected over the years sits unorganized in thousands of separate files. When it's ready, the new NIN Live Archive experience is going to be updated to be a more modern site: dynamic pages populated by a database. In many ways, the information stays the same - but with the data being organized into a database, this offers new opportunities when it comes to perusing the vast collection of recordings, and related information. I suspect it will also make Ryan's ongoing side quest so, so much easier.

And with a focus on the dot com, we see a retirement of the Twitter account.

It's time to put this to bed. Been a great run on Twitter. This is one of the first social media accounts for ninlive (or some may remember it as RITC). Lots of great things came out of it. NIN followed the account, I met the band from one tweet, countless interactions with other fans talking about our favorite band. And most importantly, found a lot of new sources for the archive. This account will stay up for posterity. If for some reason you need to find a tweet. The archive is still open at ninlive.com where you can download live recordings from 1988-2022 and beyond. There will be some updates to it in the coming months that I think all will be excited for.

RJ

It's a bold move! We still get more interaction on Twitter than any other social network, regrettably. It's like the Walmart episode of South Park, which I realize is older than some of the fans I saw at the 2022 shows, but I digress. I haven't bugged Ryan for a behind-the-scenes tour yet, and I don't want to hype you up too much, but I'm looking forward to the next generation of NINlive.com.

Reported by leviathant at 18:52

Analog Motion - Rob Sheridan's early NIN photography
As someone who's allergic to subscriptions, there are three things I subscribe to online. There's Adobe's Photoshop + Lightroom bundle - my penance for having pirated Photoshop since version 4. There's Webworm by David Farrier, who was a NIN forum dork like so many of us well before he became the guy who made Tickled (watch it without spoilers, you only get once chance) and Dark Tourist on Netflix, among other things. And finally, I'm a member of Rob Sheridan's Patreon, where you can find all kinds of stories and assets from someone who's famously generous in sharing pretty freely.

Sometimes that means I get early access to what he's working on before he shares it, but the latest thing he's put out there is a collection of "failed" photography from when he first joined Nine Inch Nails on tour. Shot on film in 35mm in challenging lighting conditions, these had laid abandoned for two decades, discarded for "better" photos that we'd see on the contemporary nin.com tour pages, or in the Fragility Tour book, and other places. Resurfaced, the way that the 'incorrect' exposures captured the light and motion of what was happening on stage actually fits really well, in my opinion, with the lucid, artistic imagery of The Fragile era.

Rob has shared these photos across a variety of social media platforms - I'll withhold my lament on that topic for another day - but I think the best place to check them out is on his trusty Tumblr account. Or maybe on Bluesky. Or, skip the platforms, and go straight to rob-sheridan.com.

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Reported by leviathant at 18:28