Six weeks of eating road (plus a turkey and a lemon cake from mom, which had taken some of the edge off), and we roll into Bear Creek Music Festival in Live Oak, Florida.

Until this weekend we had played in 44 states and Florida was not one of them. Bear Creek was to be a highlight of this tour, if not THE highlight. My expectations were high for the set and the impact that we would have. Expectations almost always get me into trouble.

(Stay with me, this gets worse before it gets much, much better.)

So we come crawling in from a six-week whirlwind and the first of our two sets for the weekend is at the “Purple Hat” stage. This is a HUGE, perfectly round, sky-high, purple-striped circus tent set in the middle of a field. Ever see “Killer Clowns From Outer Space?” It’s that!

As it turns out, we were the first set of the weekend in the tent. Production wasn’t ready for us. 15 minutes into our start time, we’re still trying to figure out which lines are running where and the mix on stage was terrible when we started. Crazy light show, fog machine, everything LOOKED awesome and insane. But this was at like five in the afternoon. The crowd started fairly sparse for a festival and got sparser. It took me maybe three-quarters of the set before I realized that no one could hear the words I was singing. Every sound bounced hard around the huge tent.

We played good, I think; we executed. And it was actually a good turnout considering it was our first time in Florida. I turned around to James at one point and shouted that I couldn’t see him. Through the thick fog-machine smoke and crazy lights, I definitely couldn’t.

This is where it gets tricky for me to explain stuff in a blog. There are certain things maybe I SHOULDN’T share here. I don’t want to take away from the experience for any fans who read this. But I’m also not a fan of smoke and mirrors. A set like this one, when my brain gets way too involved and I’m exhausted and I feel no connection to the songs, to the audience, to the band, it IS the end if the world for me. I want to run and hide and yell and scream an fall into a dark hole and just cry. This is all on me. The crowd was fine, the band was good. There is no comment here or reassurance that can keep this from happening sometime in the future. It’s just the way it is with me. The more that I’m aware of it, the more I can work it out on my own. It just happens, you can’t win them all.

Our next set was on the main stage at 10:30 the next morning. So I wanted to make sure I was rested and not rage too much Friday night. Checked out some music (it was everywhere), loved Toubab Krewe again, met Cody from North Mississippi All-Stars, met Trombone Shorty, finally saw his super high energy set. But we skipped out back to the hotel before Lettuce went on.

*NIGHT and DAY*

Woke up the next morning and groggily made our way to the main amphitheater by 9am. We knew the stage guys, our friends from New Riders of the Purple Stage’s crew. I immediately felt right at home. The stage sounded excellent. Sound check was relaxed as the sun shone through the moss-covered trees above us.

The set made one woman cry. I think it was “75 and Sunny” and then “How Many Times?” Not a big turnout, as expected on the Saturday morning at a festival, but the crowd was great. The words got accross. They listened. They danced. They batted around an orange balloon.

It felt GREAT. Life was good again. I always knew it was, but you know… You pour out music for a living and you wear your heart on your sleeve. Six weeks, six years from home, the rough ones hurt. And the good ones keep getting better.

*INSPIRATION*

This would be a LONG blog if I tried to describe accurately all of the ways in which I was inspired this weekend. Bear Creek turned out to be one of the better musical experiences of my life so far. Amazing players everywhere just THROWING IT DOWN.

Derek Trucks came down to sit in with Lettuce. He lives in the neighborhood.

Soulive was the unannounced “mystery band.”

Papa Mali had Fred Wesley sitting in, with the “Dirty Horns” (Ryan Zoidis and Sam Kininger), plus Bernie Worrell, Stanton Moore. I saw a kid have a seizure in front of me during that set. I think he ended up OK, the ambulance was right on it. This was early in the afternoon.

The Slip. The Slip. The Slip. In the same tent we had played. Killing it. Garage a Trois before that. Soulive later on and Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe at the end of the night. All in that monstrous circus tent. Not to mention our boy Zach Deputy dressed in a sequined robe, throwing a revival in there in between the other sets! My attitude towards that tent did a complete 180 by the end of the weekend. The sound could bounce, but some serious stuff went down in there. I kept wishing we could go back and do our first set over again. Oh well, it was a lesson.

We were served a delicious dinner and I had some mushrooms for dessert. I was ON FIRE Saturday night.

I told Derek Trucks twice that he was a true voice of our generation and he said he was looking forward to hearing the CDs I gave him.

I sweated and stalked and congratulated and thanked and hugged just about every musician who inspired me. Hope I didn’t come on too strong, but I spoke from the heart. Ryan Zoidis, Adam Deitch, Bra Barr, Eric Krasno, John Staten, Kofi Burbridge, Sam Kininger, Joe Russo, Zach, Brian Jordan, too many to name.

The absolute highlight of my weekend involved a run-in with Brad Barr from The Slip, my aforementioned dessert, and a letter from my girl at home.

*”PEACE IS EVERY STEP.”*

The good festivals, the really good ones, make you feel like a better person at the end of it than you were coming in. Things have evolved. You have been inspired and elevated, not just been drunk and high and raging. Bear Creek 2009 was a good one. It was a testament to the religion of music and I was blown away by how many true believers there are. I can only hope they have us back.

And through ALL this music that I’ve been bombarded with in the last 72 hours, I can definitely pick a favorite:

Surprise Me Mr. Davis.

Nathan Moore writes and plays magic. (Nathan also literally DOES magic. This weekend I saw him make a 20 dollar bill float and also make a torn up newspaper seamlessly come back together again in one motion). The writing is just stellar and his stage presence is of pure joy and gratitude. And when The Slip back up Nathan on stage, the four are called Surprise Me Mr. Davis.

They hit home for me like Martin Sexton did five years ago (and always will, in other ways). This is what inspires me, this is where I want to go.

And I’m looking forward to the shows this week but I also want to go home. I want to practice and most of all I want to write. And most, most of all I want to thank my girlfriend for her letters.

Wild Nothing – Shoegazer pop to the tune of My Bloody Valentine meets The Cure with interesting hint of rockabilly at times.

Spinning Leaves – Rustic psychedelic folk led by two people with the help of FIFTY other musicians in Philly

Surprise Me Mr. Davis = The Slip + Nathan Moore – Just good old rock music drawing on blues, soul, folk, and alt-country, sometimes all within the same song, to create a unique style of their own.  Kindred spirits of the The Band.

Ryan Montbleau Band – Soulful folky rock.  This niche is getting crowded these days, but somehow Ryan can forge ahead and make his music his own.

Big Light – What can I say…?  I’m on an folk rock kick.  Definitely check these guys out too.

Do you think you’re band is better than these guys?  Email Me (subject:  5 New Bands) with one song that defines you and a brief one or two sentence description of your sound.

Waazzaaa! Tubesteak is coming at you with fresh jams from his new Hotlanta studio. After checking some of the previous podcast jams, Tube sensed some complacency — which was hopefully avoided in volume eight of our podcast. Included is some serious rock as well as some mellow pieces — all of which lean to the more avant-garde side.

Click here to listen to and download the Decent Community Podcast.

You should know that this podcast is more exploratory and probably contains some unfamiliar jams — but therein lies the premise! It’s like getting fresh vegetables from your local farm stand, instead of going to the big ole chain supermarche’ (french for supermarket). Give it a listen — I’ll bet cash you’re feeling these tracks!

I’d never heard any NIN before this. Shameful, I know. But maybe it’s a testament to how far this kind of business model can reach.

When I heard about a new NIN album being released, entirely for free online, I thought I’d give them a go. I’m a pretty open-minded guy, I may as well see what these guys are all about.

It turned out to be worth my time. A great deal. Not only did it knock down all my previous assumptions about the band (I was a young, unexperienced teenager, and “Nine Inch Nails” sounded like a massive hardcore metal band to me), but it introduced me to some great music.

A blend of distorted synths and rolling drum rhythms, the album progresses nicely from a built up introduction (“999,999″), through some almost dance-like, just plain infectious songs (“Letting You”, “Discipline”), to some instrumentals, and then building up for a finish. Lyrically, there are some great chorus lines that you’ll find yourself singing along with as well.

This is the only NIN album I’ve heard (I can hear all the long-time fans sighing in sheer desperation already), so I have nothing to compare it to. I’m sure all the NIN fans out there have acquired this LP ages ago. But for those of you unfamiliar with the band and it’s music, download The Slip and give it a try. It’s a good album, and will be quite eye-opening for the people out there who were previously unaware of the bands real style of music.

Score: 7/10.

NIN: The Slip [Download here]

This is an article I wrote when Nine Inch Nails had just released ‘The Slip’ and Radiohead released ‘In Rainbows’ via the medium of the internet. It’s about releasing music digitally, featuring an interview with Scroobius Pip from Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip,  as well as others.

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“Two Weeks.”

Another cryptic message left on the homepage of nin.com, the website of modern industrial pioneers Nine Inch Nails. The same cryptic message was left two weeks before the release of Nine Inch Nails’ all-instrumental album Ghosts, a record which could only be acquired via the website. It contained 4 volumes of music, with each volume having 9 tracks. It came in 4 different packages – you could download the first volume absolutely free of charge straight onto your hard drive or get all 4 volumes for a meagre $5. The other two were physical copies of the volumes which would be posted a couple of months after the internet release. So, just what was NIN main-man Trent Reznor planning this time around?

Rumours have been spreading like wildfire around the internet. Some have suggested they are possible tour announcements. Some have said that it is the official announcement of Robin Finck re-joining the band after his short lived stint with rock legends Guns N Roses. Some have said that it is the dissolving of membership payments to the official NIN fanclub, The Spiral. The fact of the matter is, nobody really knew what the ever-mysterious Reznor was up to.

Until May 5^th, that is.

May 5^th was the date that signalled the end of the ‘two weeks’ and I awoke early to see what the fuss was really about. I navigated my way to the NIN homepage and I couldn’t believe what I saw.

It was another brand new album from NIN, The Slip. Another 10 brand new tracks. Another internet only release. And to top it all off – it was completely free of charge. Just a few months after the release of Ghosts, NIN have been into the studio, created another 10 original pieces of music, mixed and mastered the lot and uploaded it to the eager digital community, all for absolutely no charge.

Experimental indie titans Radiohead have done something similar with the release of their latest LP In Rainbows. They allowed the digital community to select a price for their record and thats what they would pay. Personally I paid exactly £0.00 for it because I am a cheapskate, but there are some who have paid £5 or even the full RRP of an album released into the shops, typically £9.99 or £10.99. The whole digital distribution scene has definitely caused a stir amongst industry bigwigs and other music artists who stick to more conventional methods of release.

I made contact with Scroobius Pip, one half of up and coming UK hip hop electronic duo Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, to discuss his views on digital releases.

“I think they have been great ideas,” claimed Pip. “But they could only be done by bands that already have that huge status. Radiohead managed to do this and THEN sign a record deal to release the album on CD. If you aren’t already a huge band then labels wouldn’t touch an album that has already been given away.”

Do you feel that this is an area of the music industry that you want to be part of?

“If we ever get to the stage where we can afford to give our album away for free that’d be great. Sadly, if small bands did that then they wouldn’t be able to keep making music for long! Day jobs to pay the rent can get in the way of the music writing process.”

Musical behemoths like Radiohead and NIN can almost certainly afford to release their albums without the £10.99 tag that you would find in record stores like HMV. Ghosts reportedly made $1.6m from 700,000 downloads – not bad for an album with no hype or advertising. This of course means that much of the $1.6m will go straight into the pocket of Reznor as opposed to a label which, according to a post on nin.com, “screws the customer”.

So, will the digital distribution of music change the industry?

Nick R from south coast indie stars The Plymouths claims, “It won’t change completely… A lot like to buy the singles online and buy the physical album. We all love buying really good albums and nothing beats the physical CD…It’s going to be a continuing thing for sure, but it looks like there will be a greater emphasis on going to gigs as it could be that bands won’t earn the same amount with the decline in normal record sales.”

Gideon Conn, the front man for the folk pop band of the same name, thinks, “It already has done massively! People can walk around with their entire music collection in their pocket! It’s fantastic – but not such good news for independent labels and independent record shops… and the digital music industry has spawned that great evil of our time – the ringtone! “

I was gonna make this about how the landscape of the music business is changing and how these big name bands (Radiohead, NIN, Coldplay, et al) are bucking the system by sidestepping labels and connecting with their fanbase directly online but I’d just rather post a list of albums available for free on the internetz (most of this stuff has been available online for a minute but I’ve just become privy to it):

• Coldplay – LeftRightLeftRightLeft
• Mayday! – Technology
• Mayday! – The Thinnest Line
• NIN|JA – EP
• NIN – The Slip

Naturally, I’m hoping someone actually reads this and maybe gives me a heads up on other groups getting in on the act. (Weren’t Oasis and Jamiroquai following up on NIN & Radiohead?)

NINE INCH NAILS 2009

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While im at it, there is also nin’s the slip that has been available for a while. Great landmark album.

nine inch nails: the slip.

That’s right! go to the Nine Inch Nails webpage to download the new full lenght album, The Slip, for free!

Trent Reznor…. Genius….

MARILYN MANSON With TRENT REZNOR

New MANSON album, ‘THE HIGH END OF THE LOW’, is out. All kinds of details and tour dates HERE.

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A couple of weeks ago, I went on a Nine Inch Nails bender and listened to nothing but NIN for about 10 days straight (it was largely thanks to this trailer for Terminator: Salvation, which is one of the better movie trailers I’ve seen in quite some time). Invariably, I wound up returning to NIN’s 2008 album The Slip. And I got to thinking how brilliant it is.

It’s not brilliant in terms of the music – personally, I much prefer The Fragile. But it is brilliant in terms of how well it embraces digital music distribution.

For one, it is distributed for free online under a creative commons license, which means that not only can anyone interested get a copy at no cost, they can do whatever they want with it – copy it, redistribute, use it in a podcast, remix it, sample it, WHATEVER.*

One problem I think some content producers have with internet distribution is that once you release something in the ether of the interwebs, you pretty much give up all control over it. You can’t stop someone from messing around with it and you can never, ever delete it. For people who still think that their content belongs to them once it’s been released to an audience, this is scary. NIN obviously has no trouble with it, which is nice to see.

Another neat thing about The Slip is how well it incorporates visual media into the digital release. If you’re listening to it on an iPod Touch, for example, each song is displayed with its own cover art and if you tap to click over to the alternate screen, you get an alternate piece of artwork with the lyrics superimposed over-top.

I think this was the first time I’d seen an album that so cohesively incorporates visual elements into the album experience and does so with such a sharp eye to the way that the album will be experienced through hand-held digital players (if anyone has examples of others, I’m interested to hear about them).

To me, this album represents a moment analagous to when learners of new languages go from composing in their maternal language and translating to the acquired one to thinking and composing entirely in the new language.

Up to now (or, I guess, May 2008 when The Slip came out), the approach to media on the internet seemed to be to put stuff online, but to continue to try to apply and enforce the old rules of distribution (e.g., by controlling redistribution based on copyright). As the RIAA can probably tell you, that wasn’t a huge success. The Slip is an example of someone fully embracing new media – or, if you will, finally thinking in the new language of digital distribution.

It’s a pretty neat development and I hope it continues.

NINE INCH NAILS 2009

* w/ JANE’S ADDICTION, STREET SWEEPER SOCIAL CLUB
+++ w/ JANE’S ADDICTION
xxx w/ STREET SWEEPER SOCIAL CLUB

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Trent has won the Webby Award for Artist of the Year. The award recognizes the free release of The Slip and NIN’s increasing level of online connectedness with fans.

Update: Nine Inch Nails has also been awarded Creative Review’s Annual “Best In Book” for their interactive stage design on 2008’s Lights In The Sky tour.

posted by nin pr at 7:29am

discuss @ nin.com

MARIQUEEN MAANDIG And TRENT REZNOR

NINE INCH NAILS mainman Trent Reznor is engaged to fellow musician Mariqueen Maandig, of the band WEST INDIAN GIRL.

Read more HERE.

MARIQUEEN MAANDIG And TRENT REZNOR

Upcoming NINE INCH NAILS tour dates with JANE’S ADDICTION:

May 08 – West Palm Beach, FL @ Cruzan Amphitheatre
May 09 – Tampa, FL @ Ford Amphitheatre
May 10 – Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood Amphitheatre
May 14 – Albuquerque, NM @ Journal Pavilion
May 15 – Phoenix, AZ @ Cricket Wireless Pavilion
May 16 – Chula Vista, CA @ Cricket Wireless Amphitheater
May 18 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Pearl
May 20 – Irvine, CA @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheater Irvine Meadows
May 22 – Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
May 26 – Englewood, CO @ Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre
May 27 – Kansas City, MO @ Starlight Theatre
May 30 – Noblesville, IN @ Verizon Wireless Music Center
May 31 – Clarkston, MI @ DTE Energy Music Theatre
Jun. 02 – Toronto, ON @ Molson Amphitheatre
Jun. 03 – Darien Lake, NY @ Darien Lake Amphitheatre
Jun. 05 – Camden, NJ @ Tweeter Center At The Waterfront
Jun. 06 – Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center
Jun. 07 – Wantagh, NY @ Nikon at Jones Beach Music Theater
Jun. 09 – Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion
Jun. 10 – Burgettstown, PA @ Post. Gazette Pavilion
Jun. 12 – Charlotte, NC @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre

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Un piccolo commercial per GUNP (www.gunp.it) il contenitore che racchiude i podcast indipendenti italiani, colonna sonora dei Nine Inch Nails, tutto creative commons ovviamente!

So my Janes Addiction box set came in today. I was super excited because when I opened the FedEx box I saw that it was signed by the whole band.  Super cool of all of them!  Thanks Dave Navarro for your little Twitter quiz… and thanks for quoting Taxi Driver

So I put this awesomeness in between Trent Reznors microphone and my autographed Slip cd.  yay!

Airplane/Primitive by The Slip

After last years success with Ghosts I-IV, Trent Reznor is back at it with Nine Inch Nails‘ newest release, The Slip. The album is free, so go grab a copy in one of several file formats (MP3, FLAC, M4A, and WAVE).

First things first, this is back to what we’ve come to really expect from Nine Inch Nails, industrial rock. That’s not to say that Ghost’s more atmospheric instrumental music was bad, just not what I was expecting. This album is chock-full of up-tempo music and vintage Reznor singing and ranting. Just take a listen to this gem called “1,000,000.”

Here’s the coolest part: The Slip was released under Creative Commons License, which means you can remix and repost any and/or all the songs from the album, as long as it’s not for commercial purposes and you give credit to Nine Inch Nails.

Give it a listen and tell me what you think of the album.You can also remix a few songs, get them posted to YouTube or wherever, and leave the link here for everyone to listen to.

I thought I’d share one of the best Slip shows I have. They’ve been one of my favorite bands over the last few years. I hope you enjoy. I believe this is an FM broadcast rip.  I no longer have the original text files of info on who recorded this and whatnot. Sound Quality A++

The Slip – 2006-03-31 Madison WI Club 770

Jam/Proud
Even Rats
Sleepyhead
Airplane/Primitive
Get Me With Fuji
Wine and White Soda
Reddish Moon
Spice Groove
Children of December
Baba O\'Reily
If One Of Us Should Fall

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Download this album for free from the official NIN site: http://theslip.nin.com/

Download The Slip a free album from the official NIN website, to thank fans for their continued support: http://theslip.nin.com/

NIN is on tour with Janes Addiction:

Tour Dates: http://www.ninja2009.com/

Still album version of The Becoming

By Audrey M. Marks

I figure after a week on the job, I should demystify the newest byline at the Sun papers. Yes, I’m the new “Valerie”.
Audrey Marks, 26, and I’m a Sagittarius. (What you didn’t know was I just sang that last part, like a 70s disco hit, at a mere whisper.)
I’ve been in the newspaper business in some capacity (reporter, editor, freelancer, quote digger-upper, Fallujah expert) for four years and at HCN, proprietor of the Sun, for a year.
So when I’m not busy talking to people and writing, I spend a chunk of my time talking music with anyone who will listen and talk back. For full disclosure I’m a big alternative music fan. Yes, I still have flannel shirts and construction boots in my closet just waiting for the day grunge returns.
But until that renaissance, I scout out old music I may have missed (the band Clutch is my newest obsession) and wait with bated breath for the next single or release from my favorite bands. (Come on Maynard, is there going to be a new Tool release this year or what?)
I write this because I found out Marilyn Manson is getting ready to release a new album in April. On Friday he’s going to post a free single on his web site and I couldn’t be more excited. I mean new music and it’s free, what’s not to like?
I know Manson is perceived as weird, dark, controversial, but whatever. I wasn’t always a fan. After reading his piece in Rolling Stone after the shootings at Columbine, I changed my opinion. Love or hate what he said it was intelligent. Even though I liked his opinion piece, it didn’t make me listen to his music.
But my cousin Carl loved Manson and he would bug me to listen to his CDs all the time. I finally caved and turns out I really dig it. After reading the press release announcing the new album I am pretty psyched.
“The record sounds very final, but it’s almost optimistic – though that feels like a strange word to use. It’s a phoenix from the fire and a redemption resurrection,” Manson said of the album.
I’m sold.
Aside from the music, I’m fascinated by how people consume music. With the popularity of Apple’s iPod and the ease of iTunes, digital music has completely changed the industry. Album sales have declined, but the number of downloads are through the roof. And Apple isn’t the only one cashing in; there are retailers like Napster, Wal-Mart, and Amazon that are raking in the dough on the music download scene.
Bands like Nine Inch Nails (NIN) and Radiohead have embraced the technology their fans love by offering free downloads or a pay what you like plan. Do I think this is genius? Yes. Will it work and be as profitable for all bands? No way (See Saul Williams, the release was awesome but it didn’t make much money). Radiohead and NIN have an extremely large (and rabid) fan bases. These fans would follow their “music gods” to the end of the earth and then buy whatever they were peddling.
For example, last year NIN released “The Slip” for free. But I know for a fact, people downloaded the content and then went out and bought the CD. My brother did. There is merit in financially supporting artists you dig and that’s something I could get behind. Plus all the artwork in the CD booklet was amazing.
I was in college when people were abusing Audiogalaxy and Napster (back when it was free AND illegal). I used these services, but after a year quit. I did not have thousands of dollars for when I was caught and prosecuted and that’s when I began writing. And when you are making a living writing, producing music or other intellectual content nothing will burn you more when you see someone stealing it and posting it on their web site.
Don’t believe me? Google my byline “Audrey M. Marks” and you’ll see a host of hits that are unauthorized re-postings of my stories. I love the fact people are reading news sites and enjoying them and sharing information. What I don’t love are these sites profiting from my work. Thus, I now buy my music. Well, except when the bands I love give it away for free.
The other brilliant side of free music, even if you aren’t a die-hard fan you can get a listen and little taste that gets you hooked. Even if it isn’t your thing you can check it out, expand your horizons and if you hate it well you didn’t pay for it so don’t complain. So dear reader a toast: to a new release, a new job, finding new music and my personal desire that Chris Cornell won’t make any more stupid albums and return to his rock roots.