vroom, vroom! so are we going to be able to actually see some of your animated art here at da? vroom, vroom... (motorcycle noises courtesy of mr. toad's wild ride)

The vids I'd love to post, but I'm primarily concerned about quality. I design my stuff at absolutely massive sizes and have managed to keep most of the detail in the animation. I'm considering making something up for the Saatchi Gallery webpage - they allow 100meg uploads.
I'm more than happy to post a DVD over to you. If you want to drop me a note with your address I can make one up in NTSC and send it over.

Year Zero
For a start the title has got to get you in. It has the connotations of ground zero (world trade centre) and the war on terrorism bull shit they want us to swallow.
I haven’t been an avid NIN fan but I have been listening to them over the years, and I think it just gets better.
The sort of NIN I love is ‘Right where it Belongs’ and ‘Only’ from the With Teeth cd. One other one is ‘Persistence of Loss’ from the Still cd which I believe was a web only release. I am extra familiar with these because they were put into various compilations (the compilers group I belong to) and as stand alone pieces they are sheer genius. I have found that a full NIN cd is overwhelming and I lose the brilliance of the detail in each song. Can’t explain it any better than that. However, Year Zero seems to have more clarity for me. It’s not a mash of typical NIN sound, maybe more definition between each song. Maybe it’s the wonderful lyrics too.
On my first listen I immediately thought too much glitch. I thought glitch reached its peak a few years ago and wondered why Resnor was overloading us with it. Then it dawned on me that its part of the message or theme of the cd. A corrupted sound - corrupted politics, corrupted society etc. Clever. The theme of the cd also made me think of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ in the general terms of exposing societies unconscious conformity. Mark doesn’t agree with me on that one, he thinks that ‘With Teeth’ is the Wall equivalent.
The stand out tracks for me:
2. Beginning of the End – love it but its way too short. Could listen to it over and over.
3. Survivalism – good strong message. ‘Bloated bellies still not full’ says it so well.
6. Me I’m Not – great melody.
7. Capital G - Who or what is the G. God, greed, George? Maybe all, take your pick.
9. The Warning
11. Meet Your Master
12. The Greater Good – like the end, slowly breathe us in. Powerful stuff.
13. Great Destroyer – a favourite. Love his singing and the big fat bass with the glitch. It pulls the inside of my head around. Imagine this one live. I think my ears would bleed.
14. Another Version of the Truth – like the minimalism and the haunting piano. A good track. Sadness and loss.
15. In this Twilight – another big favourite, gives me goosebumps.
16. Zero Sum – love that little piano melody. I thought it was the same as the one in ‘Right where it belongs’. Shame on us …..and all we ever were just zeros and ones. Brilliant ending.
All powerful stuff and I haven’t read all of the lyrics yet. Glad I bought it.
I might even work my way backwards and buy some more and have a NIN collection!

Thanks for reading my ramble, as you can tell I don’t get to talk about music much and I get a bit excited. Mark and I have great conversations about it when we have our weekly phone call, but that’s it. It’s really great I found another sensitive sole who responds to what they hear.

Do you like Jeff Beck? He’s a guitarist and he has a track on ‘You had it Coming’ called Roys Toy. There is this awesome sample of a big revvy V8 with wonderful guitar. You gotta hear this, its great! It could be your signature song! LOL Vroom Vroom Don’t forget MotoGP this weekend and have a good one. Sue

Awesome, awesome summation Sue. I have to totally agree with you there. I like NIN a lot, but don't really have many albums. Downward Spiral, With_Teeth and the new one. I've listened to them all over the years, but couldn't call myself a diehard fan. Like you I find a whole album all at once a bit too much sometimes.
One of the things I find too much is what you call "Glitch" - too many superfluous sounds, too many dead ends. I'd really like to hear Reznor simplify things a bit, which was one of the strengths of With_Teeth. Very song oriented. The guy is a genius though, no doubting that.
My favourite NIN song though is the Johnny Cash cover of "Hurt". Truly brilliant. Trent Reznor said that after hearing the Johnny Cash version he'd never play it live again as Cash had made the song his own. The accompanying video is truly brilliant.

Sue, I'm more than happy to read the ramble. Sometimes it takes me a while to reply, but I'm more than happy to talk music. It's one of my (many) passions, and probably my longest-lived one. I grew up around music, sung in a band, toured around NZ, still try to keep up with the play.

Jeff Beck is an awesome guitarist, but I don't have any of his CDs. I'm going through a bit of a retro phase at the moment, so it's on the cards. I've been listening to a bit of old Rose Tattoo, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the like.

Moto GP was great, but wasn't Hayden's off spectacular? Coverage clashed with 3rd race of the V8s and I only got to see the 125s and 250s live, have only seen highlights of the main race, but it's being replayed in full later on this week, so I'll catch it then.

See, I can ramble too! LOL.

I am also atwitter with art ideas and inspiration. Running in circles, going crazy with not enough hours in the day.

--
Lp

Thank god for strong coffee, loud music and plenty of cigarettes!

It sounds like you are struggling with NIN. I am highly educated in glitch (joke) and it was regardless of whether I wanted to be or not. Mark my eldest writes and performs music - acoustic techno, for want of a better description. Some really clever stuff and he went through a phase of using the glitch. Not as much as NIN, thank goodness. Your words of superfluous and dead ends perfectly describes what annoys me about glitch. It just seems gimmicky too.
I think Resnor is playing with his audience. A game to see how far he can push the fans? An experiement? He has always sung about his discomfort with the pedestal his fan place him on, even to the point where he lost himself. I'm not suggesting that he is trying to lose fans, but maybe he thinks they are a silly bunch of sheep and would worship everything he does. Far fetched theory. Check out the NIN cd called Still. I've only listened twice but it is a lot more subdued and more crafted than the traditional NIN sound.
I'll have to check out the Johnny Cash cover and the real version. A nice little hunting expedition. I believe just about all music is on the net somewhere. Its funny how other artists become the 'owners ' of others music. It must the sign of a brilliant piece of music when it can cross genres.
Sung in a band? How many talents do you have! I'm guessing you did the metal thing, had the long hair and a heap of groupie chicks running around after you. (Sorry another lame attempt at a joke). It's a tough game to be in apart from the fun of doing it. Did you record anything?
I am always doing the retro thing, infact it's a little unusual for me to buy the cds when they are released. I am a fussy buyer, got to like more than a few tracks before I'll buy and I like to wait till the fuss has died down so I can make up my own mind if I like it or not. I have also learnt that to automatically buy the new release of a favorite artist is no guarantee that it's any good. I am a huge Doves fan, rushed out to buy the 3rd cd and it was absolute crap. Very disappointed. Maybe I am just a tight arse who hasn't got a lot of money to waste on garbage too.
Well, Motogp, what can I say except, wow. I won't say much incase you havn't seen it but it could have been anyones race. Brave boys. Yes, poor Hayden, a nasty bit of air and I feel sorry for him too. His 10yr old cousin was killed the week before on a dirt bike race. A nightmare year for him.If ever you miss a race, we record it on a hard drive, so Icould easily send over a copy.
Sue

Hi Alastair, hope the week has been good to you.
Checked out the various 'Hurt' versions. Scott has a zillion and one mp3s on his computer and I listened to the original, a live version with Bowie (apparently Bowie and Resnor did a tour together 93/94 and at one of the concerts they did a duet of the song) and Johnny Cash's version.
I would have to agree with you about Johnny Cash. Every breath and note just oozes with hurt. The emotion is so raw and real. He made it sound honest and personal, like only a person with a damaged life could convey. The lyrics seem to mean much more when he sang them, more than the emotional posturing some artists seem to over do. Very moving. Thanks for the sharing that with me.
Sue

I didn't know he'd done a version with Bowie. I must track that down.
Yep, I reckon the Johnny Cash version is awesome. He did a series of albums American Man 1-5 (I think they were called) in the years before he died. Among them he did some cool covers of modern rock songs. The same album as Hurt has a Marilyn Manson/Depeche Mode cover of 'ersonal Jesus' which is fantastic. He also did covers of Soundgarden's Rusty Cage, Danzig's Thirteen (which is probably my favourite Cash song of all time), Tom Petty's Won't Back Down (with Tom Petty), Neil Diamond's Solitary Man and a bunch of other cool songs.
Johnny Cash was pretty much responsible for igniting my current fascination with country music, him and Drive By Truckers. Now that's a band!

Yep, gimmicky is the right word. I like your theory, it fits with what I get from NIN. I think the guy has been incredible brave and honest in all his music and that can only make him stronger. If it does lose fans, then so be it. He has to live with himself every day, so staying honest to himself must be incredible important.
I kind of sung in a band, meaning I was pretty crap. I have this thing about facing my fears. Speaking and crowds was always a big one for me. What better way to confront that than sing in a band? LOL. Yep, it was the metal thing, but no there were very few groupies. Very few. LOL. We did a couple of recordings (including a cover of the Irish Rovers song Wasn't that a Party! WTF?), played in Auckland with Sepultura and did a nationwide tour of NZ with Pungent Stench (both legendary Death Metal bands). I also worked doing lighting and crew work for other bands through the years. That was cool. All the benefits of being in a band (free beer, free food, free travel) without having to actually get up on stage.


Thanks for the offer of the Moto GP recordings, those hard drive recorders are awesome aren't they. I'll keep that in mind. Sorry for blabbing so much. Once I get started on music, I can't stop. LOL.