THE NIN HOTLINE

Missed out on the die-cut translucent red 7" single that was exclusive to SDCC, but still want to hear As Alive As You Need Me To Be coming alive from the grooves of a platter of vinyl? At noon EST, nin.com listed a 7" vinyl single, pressed to black vinyl, with "Empathetic Response" as a B-side. Pre-order now for $15, which is going to be as cheap as you'll ever see this, and it's set to ship on August 22.

At the SDCC booth for TRON ARES, along with the limited edition die-cut 7" single, there were a variety of goodies with new graphics on them. Included with the purchase of the single were a bumper sticker as well as a pin.

There's also a hoodie and a t-shirt on sale, with signage indicating they're part of an exclusive line of merch that will be available at Hot Topic.

These new motifs are the work of John Henselmeier under the direction of Casey Jones. You can read more, and see clean shots of the work at Henselmeier's Instagram post on the topic.

This week, news broke that the Tron booth at the San Diego Comi Con included a merch booth for TRON ARES x NIN goodies, including a die-cut 7" single for "As Alive As You Need Me To Be" limited to 2,500 copies, exclusive to SDCC at a price of $25. As of posting, 206 of these have sold on eBay, generally for $190-$450, with an additional 135 on the market now for between $132 and $600. By the evening of the first day, a 'story' on the official nin instagram account (not to be confused with the one that charges a premium to share other people's content) that "We've held a few back for you" - it's a fair guess that they'll probably be available on the official US store soon.

And if you miss that sale, please keep in mind a few things: this record isn't just for NIN fans, it's for Tron fans, and for the NIN+Tron fans that got their shit together to go SDCC anticipating that something cool would be there. While labeled "Halo 35/Null 21" I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that the single will be more widely available in physical formats around the world, whether they're a die-cut transparent red phonograph record, or something different. Comic Con exclusives have a history of being resold at exorbitant prices, with their market value typically taking a nose dive within a few months. Please don't pay $450 for this thing.

We break from our regularly scheduled TRON ARES NIN news for a human interest story out of Portland, Oregon. Besides having the second largest urban park in America (only beat out by Fairmount Park in Philadelphia), as well as a nice walkable urban center, Portland is home to the US headquarters of that iconic UK footwear brand, Doctor Martens. You may remember Doc Martens for their chaotic collaboration celebrating 30 years of The Downward Spiral last year, in which the boots they teased ahead of the release were not among the ones you could buy, and the ones you could buy online sold out around the world in, without exaggeration, minutes - in-store stock was gone within a day or two. Coincidentally, I was in London that week and figured I'd grab a pair from the flagship store in Camden, but I learned the warehouses were empty, and all stock was gone.

I can't complain too hard, because I was sent a pair of the exclusive boots by the generous people who were involved in the collaboration. And I wear them, because boots are meant to be worn, not left on a shelf.

A lot of those commercially available boots immediately got listed on eBay, where you can still pay 3-4x retail for the chance to buy a pair from a scalper, err, reseller.

Or, if you're like one Redditor in Oregon, you might stumble across one of the 100 exclusive commercially unavailable embossed black boots for $100. Unworn, with tags. Given the proximity of the thrift/consignment shop to the US Doctor Martens headquarters, there's a good chance they were dropped off by a DM employee who didn't take the eBay route, where the same boots have sold for $547 (Portland), $999.99 (Richmond), and $1499 (Los Angeles)

It's exciting to see them go to someone who's so enthusiastic to have landed them - I love a good thrift shop find.

While I was cramming down lunch and listening to the new single again and again, a new trailer for Tron:Ares also launched today, which reveals more of the plot for the film that's debuting on October 10th. Somewhat notably, the music underscoring the film sounds like it's from the new NIN single, "As Alive As You Need Me To Be", but it may be an early mix.

Film scores are often different from the commercially released soundtracks, and in years past, sometimes the "score" version of the music becomes available ahead of awards season in a "For Your Consideration" release - in the past, found only on promotional CDs sent to select people in the industry, but more recently, also made available online in MP3 format.

Keep in mind, the commercial releases often undergo additional mixing and mastering, and are usually the best representation of the intent of the music. But those in-the-film "For Your Consideration" mixes are, to me, an interesting peek into the creation process.

By the time you've read this, thousands have already listened to As Alive As You Need Me To Be, and pre-ordered the TRON:ARES soundtrack on vinyl or CD from the official NIN store. There's also a bunch of places where you can stream and pre-save the album, if that's more your thing. The soundtrack officially releases September 19th. Boys Noize has a production credit. It's going to go hard.

And you know we're talking about it on Echoing the Sound - you just have to click through some anti-bot stuff (appropriately enough) these days to get there.

This photo via nincatalog on Instagram shows a t-shirt sold at the Paris, France concert on July 7. The lyric t-shirt has been sold since the start of the Peel It Back Tour. The design has varied from show to show featuring well known songs like “Closer” and “Wish” but this one is unrecognizable. It says “AS ALIVE AS YOU NEED ME TO BE”. Is this a new nin song? Does this mean there is new Nine Inch Nails music on the horizon? What do you think?