Nine Inch Nails Get Disciplined

Nine Inch Nails fans who remember the days when we waited five years or so between NIN albums must be absolutely losing their shit right now. Over the course of the last five years, we’ve gotten With Teeth, Year Zero, Ghosts I-IV, a live DVD, and tour after tour. And now, Trent Reznor and company have released their latest single, “Discipline,” to radio, and to Internet fans the world over via their official Website. The chorus of the song features the line, “I need your discipline,” but, as longtime fan, I have to say to Mr. Reznor: “No you don’t!” Dude, if you were any more disciplined right now, you’d be Neidermeyer guest-starring in a Twisted Sister video.

Anyway, the single is “teh awesum,” as the kids say. Isn’t that what the kids say? Well, whatever it is the kids say nowadays to describe something wicked cool, that’s what this single is.

And perhaps it’s our first clue about what’s coming in two weeks.

Two Weeks Till NIN News

Trent Reznor has posted the cryptic message “2 weeks!” on nin.com for the second time this year. The last time he posted that message, it was two weeks before the impromptu release of the latest Nine Inch Nails record, Ghosts I-IV. What will come two weeks from now, on May 5? Another album? An update to the Website? Fans at Echoing the Sound are speculating even as I type this.

Me, I think the announcement will be that Hannah Montana really is opening for NIN this summer.

Geek Force FiveCast 011 (Video)

I took a break from prepping my classes for this week to geek out about the announcement of a three-hour Lost season finale and the arrival of my copy of the physical CD version of Ghosts I-IV by Nine Inch Nails.

Robin Finck Returns to Nine Inch Nails

If the official Nine Inch Nails Flickr stream is to be believed, guitarist Robin Finck has rejoined Nine Inch Nails. The Flickr peanut gallery seems to be very much behind this move. Me, I’m not loving it (yet). While I love Robin Finck, and while he will forever be a part of the “classic” NIN line-up in my mind, I think that the With Teeth-era line-up, the one featuring Aaron North and Jeordie White, put on far more entertaining and far more consistently solid shows than the Finck/Lohner line-up ever did. I challenge you to listen to In This Twilight (Live 2005-2007), the only Nine Inch Nails bootleg you simply need to own, and then tell me that the 2005-2007 version of Nine Inch Nails can ever be topped. These guys played songs like “Heresy” and “Last,” personal favorites of mine that older versions of the band seemed afraid to touch, and they pulled those songs off. They really did.

All that aside, you can be damn sure that I’m going to try my hardest to find the money and the time to see whatever version of the band is on the road this summer. They play the Worcester Centrum DCU Center on August 8. Anyone else going?

Y Kant Tori Read Comic Books?

Comic Book Resources has a new, vastly-improved layout today, as well as a story on a forthcoming comic book based on the music of Tori Amos. It sounds like it will be very interesting, and maybe even very good.

[Comic Book Tattoo] features no stories that simply illustrate her heavily narrative lyrics. “We didn’t want a book that just had interpretations of the songs; comic book versions of music videos,” Hoseley explained. “It was important to both Tori and I that this stand on its own as a killer set of comic stories regardless of whether you were a fan of Tori’s or, for that matter, if you were even aware of her music. The stories had to be great comic stories first and foremost, and that drove most of the creative and editorial choices.”

The “girls” that will be featured in the collection include “Leather,” “Caught A Light Sneeze,” and one of my personal favorites (yes, because of the backing vocals by Trent Reznor) “Past the Mission.”

It’s being put out by Image Comics and not Marvel, and so therefore doesn’t really fall under the umbrella of my Geek Force Five, but I’m going to file this one under Marvel Comics anyway, just because I can, and because it makes more sense there than under Geek Force Reserves.

Hannah Montana to Open for Nine Inch Nails

Editor’s Note: In case the date-stamp didn’t make it clear, this article was part of GF5’s April Fool’s Day Joke for 2008.

Last week, Trent Reznor announced that the touring version of his band Nine Inch Nails would reform for a series of North American concerts this summer. What he didn’t announce, Geek Force insiders have learned, is that tweeny-bopper sensation Hannah Montana would be joining the tour as the opening act for select dates.

“The show’s structure will echo that of the NIN-Bowie tour from the early 90s,” writes our insider. “Except it’ll go in reverse. Montana will go on first, then Trent will join her for a song or two—probably singing backup on her new cover of Tori Amos’s “Past the Mission”, from what I hear—and then the whole band will come out and do their thing.”

Our source also reports that a radio show collaborations might be part of the deal. Longtime Nine Inch Nails fanatics will recall that Trent Reznor jammed with tourmate Peter Murphy during a series of stripped-down radio gigs on the last full-scale NIN tour.

Geek Force FiveCast 003 (Video)

The third episode of a semi-regular show/podcast from GeekForceFive.com, this time complete with screaming toddler ambience! Today, we cover 1) Steve Jobs on the cover of Fortune; 2) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts A and B; 3) Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead dominating Last.fm; 4) A possible Widmore flashback on Lost; and 5) the wrapping of Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

You can watch the video here, and on a couple of other video sharing sites across the Interweb. And, if you’d like, you can subscribe to the show as a podcast via PodShow.com. I hope to get it listed in the iTunes Store soon, as well.

Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead Dominate Last.fm Charts

The cutting-edge music distribution tactics employed by Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead in recent months seem to be paying off. The latest offerings from each band, NIN’s Ghosts I-IV and Radiohead’s In Rainbows, dominated the track charts at Last.fm this past week, writes leviathant of The NIN Hotline. I’ve taken a screen-shot of the glorious news and posted it above.

Me, I couldn’t be happier that this method of distribution is working out so well (and, also, that my using Last.fm to religiously track what I’m listening to helped contribute to this great news). I only hope that the financial realities Trent Reznor mentioned in an interview with Australia’s Triple J (transcribed here) don’t preclude smaller artists from getting into game eventually.

My friend Andy distributed the first album by his band The Pluto Tapes via iTunes last year. Maybe he’ll stop by and let us know what the reality is for small artists looking to get their music out there.

Geek Force FiveCast 002 (Video)

5 stories, in 5 minutes or less, five days a week (or thereabouts)! The second episode of a semi-regular show/podcast from GeekForceFive.com. Today, we cover 1) Walking in Boston; 2) Addicted to Lost Video (YouTube); 3) Drew Carey on the Price is Right; 4) Interview with Trent Reznor about Ghosts I-IV; and 5) Star Wars Live Action on TV.

You can watch the video here, and on a couple of other video sharing sites across the Interweb. And, if you’d like, you can subscribe to the show as a podcast via PodShow.com. I hope to get it listed in the iTunes Store soon, as well.

Crossover Craziness: NIN and the Dresden Dolls

One of the first things I learned about the new Nine Inch Nails record, Ghosts I-IV, was that Dresden Dolls drummer Brian Viglione had recorded drums for a couple of tracks. I am a huge fan of the Dolls, and I still think that they were the best opening act that I’ve ever seen at a NIN show, so this was most welcome news. The Boston Herald’s Michael Marotta posted a brief article on Brian’s involvement on the Herald’s Website today. It’s not particularly illuminating, but it’s nice to see the hometown heroes getting a bit of attention.

The Dresden Dolls’s newsletter provided a bit more insight, and a board member at Echoing the Sound has been kind enough to transcribe it. Here’s a snippet:

Here’s a little re-cap of that weekend:

Day 1: Trent said, “I thought a fun art project for today would be to have you put some things together to play on and we could improv some stuff tonight. I don’t really have room for a big drum kit and all the mics here, but, let your imagination go and we’ll help you piece together what you need. When you get something together, we’ll record tonight. Go nuts, see you in a few hours.”

So I put this together from stuff around his house, Home Depot, and the grocery store.

It sounded cool as hell.

Brian can be heard on two tracks of Ghosts I-IV, and they’re two of the better ones, in my humble opinion (and that’s saying something on an album where, to my ear, there aren’t any glaring weak spots). I love crossovers, man, whether they’re in comics, films, or even in music. Yay for Brian for landing this gig, and yay for Trent for giving the New Hampshire boy a chance.