THE NIN HOTLINE

I admit, that might not be the actual reason for the one hour delay, but the release of Saul's album has been pushed back an hour, according to an update at nin.com.

Normally we don't go out of our way to promote stuff by NIN members' girlfriends (mainly because most of them don't actually have girlfriends), but I thought this merited an exception. Drummer/Lord-and-Savior Josh Freese posted this on his MySpace:


"Funny little Volvo Commercial

Hello everybody,
So......my girlfriend made and entered a contest on Indie 103.1 by making a Volvo commercial on her laptop. There were 30 entries and we made the top 9. Its up to people to vote on em now by texting and writing "Volvo3" to 68683. You can only text to the number 68683 cuz its obviously not a regular numbe (can't call). You can also click the following link:
https://indie1031.com/9839_test_page.php?id=16

At the bottom of the page select "Volvo3" and hit "submit". You can vote as many times as you want though once (or twice) would be sufficient and cool!
Thanks for the help. I just want to win cuz it'd be a funny story and then I could make a way out, celebratory "making of the Volvo C30 commercial". The way it looks on youtube and the Indie site is WAY blurry but it normally looks pretty good. I'm going to try and post a better looking one soon (regardless of the outcome of all this). The contest ends on Nov 8th.
Thanks for any support here.

Josh F"

So, you know what to do. Thanks "Marisa G".

We just got an update at nin.com clarifying that The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! will be released tonight at midnight, Eastern Time. No strings attached, no bait & switch... from 192kbps up to lossless, along with a PDF with lyrics and art, either free or $5 Along with that announcement, a third song from the album, "Banged and Blown Through" has been posted. Check it out, and pick the album release up tonight and give it a few spins plays. If you like it, tell your friends.

Amy Moore and guildmaster sent in links to Ben Westhoff's interview with Saul Williams and Trent Reznor for NY Magazine regarding the upcoming release of Niggy Tardust! (Digg it and spread the word), where the two talk about the way once-helpful labels have dropped the ball, Trent discusses his OiNK account, and what they paid for In Rainbows. A companion piece of sorts just went up at CNET, where Greg Sandoval speaks at length about and with Trent on similar topics (but gets no Digg love because the nymag article beat 'em to the punch).

P.S. You really, really gotta check out Saul's new album come Thursday. I'm going to bug you about that more once it's released and you can hear it for yourself.

Just a few days before the release of The Inevitable Rise & Liberation of Niggy Tardust!, a couple of tracks have found their way online. If you haven't already found them yourself, here's a link with both songs AND their lyrics. It's like a promo single being released ahead of the album, except no careless DJ can list this promo on eBay. If you like what you hear, tell your friends about the album.

In case you haven't already seen it over at reddit or Digg, Rob Sheridan's got a fantastic article up at demonbaby called When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief History of Record Industry Suicide. Sure, it's a long read, but it's a very good read, and it's the kind of article you should pass along to your friends.

**update: Seeing as I managed to spell Saul's last name wrong in my Digg headline, I put a new link up on Digg.

Trent Reznor just announced on nin.com that he is a man of his word. Long before Radiohead went the tip jar route, he said "If I could do what I want right now, I would put out my next album, you could download it from my site at as high a bit-rate as you want, pay $4 through PayPal." While he can't do that with his remix CD, he's passed the idea on to Saul Williams, whose latest album he produced. You can read the details at NiggyTardust.com, where the full tracklisting has been posted. You can download the album at 192kbps for absolutely nothing (cheaper than In Rainbows and higher bitrate to boot), and if you like what you hear, you can go back and show your support by paying $5 for a copy of the album at either 192kbps, 320kbps, or Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) -- i.e., pure lossless CD quality audio.

Anyway, some people in the press have been countering anti-label moves by Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, saying that smaller acts still need labels and can't pull this sort of thing off. Here is an excellent opportunity to prove that wrong. This is an amazing album by a guy who is, to quote Trent, 'not the household name (yet!) that Radiohead is.' Here's another chance to take another shot at the system, and get some fantastic music in the process. I've posted a Digg story about this, I'd love it if you could help spread the word to other news sites.

I've been given the chance to hear the album, and it's pretty fucking awesome, although I find it difficult to describe. Maybe I'll do up a little review later on. Do yourself a favor and come November 1st, download the free version and give it a few listens.

To add to the pile of NIN collectibles being auctioned off to help ItsJustDave out in light of his surprise surgery, we now have an authentic smashed NIN keyboard donated directly by Alessandro Cortini... I know you probably know this, but the guy plays keyboards, among other things, with Nine Inch Nails. This M-Audio controller keyboard met its untimely end at a show in Madison Square Garden on November 3rd, 2005. As with all the other auctions in this series, proceeds go towards helping out ItsJustDave, who has had a bit of a medical scare. Big thanks to Alessandro along with everyone else who's helping out in all the ways they are.

Swindley's update was well spoken and low key, but I felt the need to play the hype card on this item, in case you didn't notice it among the auctions that just went up. Among the items at auction raising funds to support ItsJustDave post-surgery is a never before available set of 1996 VHS tapes with performances by Meat Beat Manifesto, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails featuring Clint from PWEI (and the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack), Kevin from Prick, and Richard Patrick, playing songs by NIN, Prick, and PWEI. See for yourself - the auction page has Screen shots and more info.

As Levi mentioned in his update below, the NIN online community has banded together to help raise money for fellow Hotline staff member and long time NIN enthusiast, ItsJustDave. In addition to Levi's donation of all Amazon.com "Y34RZ3R0R3MIX3D" proceeds [see the nifty sidebar on the right to place your pre-order] some of the collectors over at echoingthesound have graciously volunteered some of the items in their collection to be auctioned off via eBay, with all proceeds going to Dave. Its heart-warming to see such a collective effort to give back to one of the best and most active fans of the band, who over the years has given us so much. Be sure to hop over to eBay to check out some of the items up for sale, or if you prefer, you can make a donation directly to Dave via echoingthesound.

After chasing down a lot of really inane bullshit, through the hard work of many helpful volunteer editors (most notably BotleySmith and Drewcifer3000), the nine inch nails page on Wikipedia has become a featured article! Out of the two million articles on Wikipedia right now (oh, this post will sure look funny in five years), only about 1,600 are featured. Articles undergo rigorous flogging over accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style in order to reach featured status, so congrats to everyone who's worked to get the article to this point.

Thanks to Rich for the heads up: Amazon.com has just posted a pre-order for the new remix CD/DVD combo, currently priced at $19.99. As mentioned on nin.com, this will also be available on vinyl and as digital downloads from iTunes and Amazon.

**update**
Without getting into specifics, one of our volunteer staff ItsJustDave has been racking up some medical bills lately, with a high probability of racking up even higher medical bills. Typically, when I link to Amazon, purchases made there will share anywhere from 4-7% of the sale with me, and this keeps me from having to flat out ask for help with hosting. For all R3MIX orders, this affiliate money is instead going to Dave to help him out. This guy has brought all kinds of hard-to-find NIN-related stuff to light for well over a decade.

There's also a set of auctions being organized by fellow collectors to help out. Just keep an eye on that thread for more information.

Hey guys, miss me? Anyways, Adam Willis sent in a link to the Pirate Robot Midget Myspace Page, which as of yesterday, has a preview of their "My Violent Heart" remix for Y34RZ3R0R3MIX3D. Adam points out that the remix is first song on "NEW RMXS MEDLEY". Enjoy!

Real Low Vibe sent in this fun blog entry from radio KEXP in Seattle. It's part of the Review Revue, where they find the DJ copies of a CD or record and post the comments written on it by various DJs over the years. Fun reading, and they hint that they'll be posting a similar entry for their vinyl copy of Pretty Hate Machine.

Are you a fan of mediocre website updates? Then today's your lucky day!!! You can thank me later.

Head on over to nin.com and you'll be able to read all of the details about the many versions of Y34RZ3R0R3MIX3D. The album will officially be available on November 20th, which we had reported a few days ago, both online and in stores.

Again, we're reporting it here because it's really big news fucking awesome.

**update: minor edit by Leviathant

About a month ago, The Limitless Potential was released on Painful Convictions, to no small amount of fanfare. One complaint that arose was the lack of availability of higher quality versions of the tracks. After chasing down a number of remixers, now all but five tracks on the compilation are available as high bitrate MP3s. So if you go nuts when you hear compression artifacts in hihats and cymbals, go back and download the higher bitrate versions and feel somewhat more satisfied about yourself.

Max sent in a link to Billboard's latest article about NIN, where it mentions the November 20 release of Y34RZ3R0R3MIX30R3D which is slated to be released through Interscope. Perhaps not the last NIN release for the label, "Interscope holds the rights to release a greatest hits collection at some point in the future." They also mention that Trent has only just begun recording the follow-up to Year Zero, having chose to wait until released from contractual obligation before putting anything to tape. Or hard drive.

Digg this shit! Trent just posted the news on nin.com and we're repeating it here, given the non-archival nature of aforementioned blog.

Indeed! Henk sent the news in, but Steve nearly beat him to the punch with an email bringing the news via HitsDailyDouble.

What's a guy to do when his boss is busy working on a remix album among other things? If you're Alessandro Cortini, you're celebrating the release of a new collection full of remixes from your second EP, Enemies & Immigrants while preparing to release your first full-length album for your band, Modwheelmood. For those not in the know, Modwheelmood is fronted by Alessandro with his friend, Pelle Hillstrom. They have two EPs to their name and are currently signed to Buddyhead, which is under the control of this guy.

I could tell you all about what they sound like but I'd rather give you a few links that'll put you on the path to acquiring their music. Their first EP, ?, is available at CD Baby and the iTunes music store. Enemies & Immigrants is also on iTunes but the best place to get it is at the Amazon MP3 Store where it's less than six bucks. The remix album, Things Will Change is available at the iTunes music store and a few other online music stores, but it's around ten bucks, which isn't too bad. Their first full-length album, Pearls to Pigs, Vol. 1 will be out soon.

For more info, you can check out www.modwheelmood.com or visit their MySpace page, which is updated regularly.

I thought I'd post this because I still get emails about this topic now and again. For a number of years now, people have quoted Chuck Palahniuk as having said some things about a musical version of Fight Club. While we have no reason to not trust these random people, we also don't have any reason to trust them. So fast forward a couple of years, and after a few messages on MySpace, a fellow named Mike finds an old digital camera video he shot while Chuck was making the rounds in 2005. The camera dies at a fairly inconvenient spot, but he still manages to catch a reiteration that backs his story up.

I'm pretty sure that at this point we've had some denials that this is taking place, and given that over two years have passed since the filming of this video, it's safe to say this isn't happening, but for all those who wrote in about Chuck's comments and we ignored you... well, next time, drag your digital camera to the book signing like this dude.

The PRP has announced:
Reliable sources have indicated that this is better than rumor, although the official t-shirt emails we've been getting probably aren't authentic.

Following up on the popularity of his Russian take on Survivalism, Xvostya sent me a link to his take on Head Like a Hole, Russian style. He sent me this over a week ago, and it's just in the last half hour that I had a chance to listen. Enjoy!

I'm sorry, I mean "Worse Than Failure." Remember when NIN voting bots faced off against voting bots for The Bribery Bravery? Nick L. remembers, and sent it in to one of my daily stops on the intertubes. Good times, good times.

Speaking of fucked up polls, an Oasis fan site that doesn't even rank on Quantcast took home the BT DMA People's Choice Award. I got an email last year from one Melanie Robinson fed up with the BT DMA "fraud," and couldn't be bothered with the idea at the time because I was too busy. Now that there's all of jack shit going on with Nine Inch Nails, I'm getting the idea in my head to perhaps create a new online pissing match for fan sites of all shades, shapes and sizes. Part of the fun is seeing where you rank, based on votes your fans send in, but what good is that if it's all vague, rigged and corporatized?

I'll need some serious servers to pull something like that off, but I think it'd be a fun thing to put together. It'd be like Band Madness, except it doesn't mysteriously stop without warning. What are your thoughts? Let me know if you think it's a good idea, fun idea, or stupid idea, or whatever. Can you tell it's Friday and I've got less than a half hour before I go home?

I was chatting with the guys over at Goodrock yesterday, and it turns out that they squeezed some new shirts out of NIN's current merch company -- you can now get a nice gray zipper hoodie on the cheap (as hoodies go) and they got reprints of "The Hand That Feeds" and the green DNA smear shirt for $13 a pop. I also noticed they have one of the Designers Republic tour shirts up, so head on over and take a look.