THE NIN HOTLINE

In a change from the last two videos, some hand-held backstage video went up on NIN's official YouTube profile, shot as the band takes the stage performing HYPERPOWER! at the Birmingham show on August 28. If that's not enough YouTube for you, here's another fan video for you, hot off the flash card. Recorded by birty1515 at Wolverhampton, it's a clip of The Great Destroyer. It's certainly not as high quality as the official clip, but it gives you an idea of how even the most electronic elements of the live show can mutate with each show.

Around the time the album Year Zero was released, we posted a story about some kids spray painting "Art is Resistance" and the AIR flag on a local high school building -- and getting caught. The story wasn't that big -- the police in the area weren't real hot to lay blame on the band for these guys' actions. Nonetheless, I kind of hoped to find more information about what happened. Well, scrounging around YouTube, I found a posting by zimperliese of the news coverage by the local CBS station, featuring somewhat baffled news anchors.

Ahead of the band's first performances in China, nin.com has been updated with a page that will mean nothing to you unless you can read Chinese. It's aimed at new fans of the band, and doesn't really say anything you don't already know, considering you're reading this page. On the other hand, if you can't read Chinese, but are interested in more info about the Beijing Pop Festival, check out the Beijing thread on ETS, where elodia elucidates on the VIP seating reserved for the rich and powerful, and provides a photo of how close you can get to the stage if you're not among those VIPs. Definitely going to be an interesting show, one way or another. Thanks to everyone who wrote in about the new page.

BBC2 is streaming a fantastic video of the final portion of Nine Inch Nails' powerful set from the Carling Weekend in Reading. You can stream the video in Windows Media or RealPlayer format at the BBC website, or have a look through this related thread on ETS for information on how to save a copy to view any time you like (and be sure to thank kenthebear). This may prove to be the better option, as the streaming video from Carling Weekend will only be available through September 3rd.

And while we're on the topic of festivals in the UK, I'm going to copy a post from Trent at The Spiral regarding recent headlines you may have seen. Don't fret, Smashing Pumpkins fans - "there's no spat with the Smashing Pumpkins - simply NME looking for a headline!" Fallout Boy, however, is totally fair game.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in! P.S. vote for the nin hotline, if you haven't already.

According to Alec Empire's Myspace page and Eat Your Heart Out Records, Alec Empire & The Hellish Vortex will perform with Nine Inch Nails at Circus Krone in Munich, Germany on September 3rd.

Thanks to
olololo and Hannah for cluing us in on the news.

After 13 years, Nine Inch Nails returned to Ireland playing a gig with the Foo Fighters at Marley Park on the 22nd. Given that they were playing in full-on daylight, the set list was completely different from any other show this tour as a result. "A friend of mine was working for the camera crew and he said he was called in early in the day by NIN's production office and told to be wary of 'flying mic stands, guitars and water bottles' as it was to be 'nothing but shit-kicking hits.' And it was!" wrote etinarcadiaego at the ETS Tour Journal for the show. Graham Butler recorded and posted this video of The Hand That Feeds, check it out:

Well, not my company, but the company I work for. I might have mentioned from time to time that I work for a pretty cool Philadelphia Web design company, and I might have even mentioned the bar on the first floor. Well, it hasn't been open but six months, and it's already trendy, so much so that we've made it into MyFoxPhilly's 2007 Hot List. The point of all this is, if you've got about 10 seconds to spare, could you vote for National Mechanics -- if we win, I've got a ton of leftover AIR patches and stickers that I'll give out there :p

By the way, here's Nine Inch Nails performing The Day The World Went Away at the Lowlands festival earlier this week, as filmed by HenkWWW.

We got a gazillion emails letting us know that bugging the shit out of Harmonix/MTV games appears to have worked, as they are including The Hand That Feeds as a master track on the upcoming Guitar Hero follow-up, Rock Band. Besides the preceeding Joystiq.com link, Gamespot UK and Shacknews are reporting this news as well. Thanks to Andrew, Jerad, Ell, Dave, LabiaMajora, and Ike Krull!

Mike Finke and Jason Lynes both mention an article at Pitchfork (whom I generally avoid linking to anymore) where they say "it looks like this thing is actually going to be pretty fuckin' awesome." I'll save you the trouble of visiting their website and rehash.

They touch on Bill Laswell's wicked remix of Vessel, name the two Ladytron mixes that are slated for the album, rehash that The Faint are taking on Meet Your Master, and bring news that Fennesz is contributing a remix, Sam Fogarino from Interpol is remixing The Good Soldier.

New Order's Stephen Morris has his hands on a track, The Knife's Olof Dreijer is remixing a track, as is Saul Williams, and while they mention Paul Epworth (Phones) and Switch as shit-hot producers, they apparently haven't heard Switch's abysmal 'Gonzo Midget Gay Porn Orgy' remix of Capital G. The Phones 666 RPM mix, that's not so bad. Both were available via a UK promo around the time Capital G was released as a vinyl single.

On top of all that, Kerrang mentioned the possibility of fan remixes showing up on this album. There was a rumor on ETS about a September 25th release date, but from what we hear, this was something put out by Interscope without really running it past, you know, that one guy, Trent Reznor. Still, with artwork having been posted, and more track information coming out of the woodwork, it's probably not too much longer til we get to hear the remix album, and it's looking more and more like it's going to be a really good one.

I was lucky enough to have some pretty cool job opportunities early enough in life to realize that if I get good enough at something I like, I won't ever have to work at K-Mart ever again. I realize it can be very difficult to find work you like that pays enough to live off of, but if you can find that magic combination, seize that opportunity. That brings us to today's clip, filmed by cop9583 at the Lowlands Festival just a couple of days ago. For all the ups and downs involved in a long tour, it seems this NIN lighting tech (?) is still getting the payoff of an enjoyable show. Hopefully I've typed enough at this point that the YouTube embed tags don't show up in the RSS feed and break everything.

I know I just made a stupid cartoon less than a month ago, but somehow I ended up making another one already. Sorry.

You may have heard about the NIN performance at the Ankkarock festival in Finland. The organizers of this particular festival kinda fucked up and set off fireworks in the middle of Hurt. Shamxrock was recording Trent's performance and managed to capture pretty much everything. Rather than continue to read my description of this, why not have a look for yourself, it's kind of surreal. Thanks to shamxrock for posting this to YouTube. (On that note: If you email me about your video clips and I don't get back to you, I apologize, but I'm stupidly busy this week)

European journalist Francois Duchateau sent us in some interesting news this morning regarding another new NIN remix. Ladytron, who opened for NIN on the 2007 European Tour, is remixing "The Beginning of the End". Francois conducted an interview with Ladytron's Daniel Hunt for Germany's "Synthesizer Magazin" in which Hunt talks about the remix. Francois also sent us a copy of the article for you to enjoy (that is, if you can read German). If not, you can read this partial translation, thanks to our friend Jörn.

Another year, another shot at this old game. The BT Digital Music Awards' People's Choice is taking votes again. If you've got a moment, send along a vote for this site. They ask for your email address, but in all the years I've been submitting, I've yet to receive any junk from these guys. Anyway, I'll probably start hounding you all when we get closer to the deadline of September 30th (thanks Rui), but please help us represent. Conversely, if you are planning to vote for a different fan site, I'm interested in seeing what they do better than us, so I can ruthlessly steal their ideas, muahahaha.

Jim, Jaz, Eternal Infamy, and Andrewa sent in news that nin.com has updated with an awesome clip of The Great Destroyer, live. If you don't catch the video on the official site, you'll be able to see it on the official NIN YouTube profile.

News kind of dies down as a tour is going on, so I'm taking a cue from other fan sites and will try to make a habit of finding standout YouTube clips from shows on this tour. These obviously pale in comparison to the official video clips being posted, but it'll give you something else to look at while waiting for the next official update. First up, The Beginning of the End from the Ankkarock festival, shot by adihash123. Surprisingly decent sound for such a close-up shot.

As originally reported about 2 months ago, Omaha-based synth pop band The Faint will be taking part in the upcoming NIN remix album by deconstructing "Meet Your Master". The Faint's official website and manager have confirmed this as true. Thanks to everyone who wrote in with the news.

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Okay, fuck that shit. nin.com has just posted the cover art for the new remix album, which apparently is cleverly titled "Year Zero Remixed." This is what it looks like!

You may have already caught the video for Me, I'm Not on nin.com earlier, but it's since disappeared from the front page. If you'd like to see it (again), visit https://www.youtube.com/ninofficial, where videos will continue to be posted throughout the tour. Don't forget to post about your swinger personals site in the video comments!

Tonight, after about a week of forgetting to post it, I'm finally getting Cliff off my back and uploading our interview with Aaron North. Contributing interrogators include Cliff, Swindley, Tony Randazzo, and myself. The dude not only got back to us super quick, but he didn't eschew any of our questions. To find out who would win in a fight between Trent Reznor or Chris Benoit, read on. When you're done reading that, you should watch this video from 1994.

So apparently there's an interview with Trent Reznor in the latest issue of Kerrang, and d-signet shared a little bit of it with us, via paraphrasing. "I've got a producer on board and have met with writers ... I'm meeting the people to make this happen in a couple of weeks...we may have to write a new soundtrack album, but there's already the Year Zero album attached to it so, who knows...I'm more interested in it being a TV project than film right now." Not an exact quote from the article. Trent also talks a bit about the remix album, but I want to see the exact text before I post any more details.

So why do I hate Contact Music? From what I can tell, they've lifted the story about the TV show from Kerrang without a modicum of credit to the original source. These are the same guys who said the Russian tour was canceled. Since Contact Music picked up on the story, fellow bottom-feeder advertising holes teentelevision.com and starpulse.com have run the story as well. Contact music has a history of quoting out of context, and in the case of the Russian Tour news, just making shit up. Die die die, Contact Music.


**update: You can read the text of the Kerrang! article yourself at Echoing the Sound, thanks to Silly Putty from Easton.

Mike from Fender sent us an email regarding a contest they are running at Fender.co.uk. You can win a Fender Strat guitar, signed by all members of NIN, by signing up for the free Fender magazine, "Frontline In Home". Follow the above link to read up on all the details and sign up for a chance to win. Make sure to note you'll have to be at least 18 years of age, and a resident of the European Union to be eligible to win.

You may or may not have noticed, but the image in the link to FACTION has changed. That's because they've just updated with the next two Year Zero inspired shirts for Survivalism and The Good Soldier along with a surprise reprinting for the original AIR Army Insignia shirt that sold out quickly when it was first introduced.

The newsletter that just came out on Monday also announced that the latest batch of shirts have finally arrived from the printers and are supposed to be shipping out very soon. Inquiring minds should subscribe to said newsletter as it is the best source of information about new shirt designs and when new shirts will begin shipping.

Thanks to everyone who keeps emaling me and asking about this.

"Hyperpower!"
"The Beginning of the End"
"Last"
"Survivalism"
"March of the Pigs"
"Closer"
"Capital G"
"Burn"
"Gave Up"
"Me, I'm Not"
"The Great Destroyer"
"Eraser"
"Only"
"Wish"
"The Good Soldier"
"No, You Don't"
"Suck"
"The Hand That Feeds"
"Head Like A Hole"
"Hurt"

I stole that from the NIN Wiki article on the first date of the tour.