SOUND *intake of breath* CIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITEH!

Right then, been meaning to do this for a while but put it off, but no more!

@ARRJAYKAY Sound City guide. Bands wot i fink you should see! (apparently this sort of thing requires poor spelling, no I don't understand it either but I don't make the rules)


I shall attempt to do this in as few a words as possible, I know you're busy after all

Wednesday 19th May

Mugstar 20:15-20:45 Kazmier - Noisy, awesome. What more do you need?
I Am Austin 21:00-21:30 Mojo - Drum & Bass (not DnB though!) jumpy dancey joy joy
Dog Show 21:30-22:00 Static Gallery - The 2 man gypsy found music circus of glee
We are the Grande Mello Mello 22:00-22:30 - Chilian Indy Shenanigans
Alice Klar The Shipping Forecast 22:30-23:00 - Yar Yar German techno plus scouse cheek/chique
Little Miss Strange Heebie Jeebies 23:30-00:00 - If Lou Reed was 20 now, he'd be in this band
Barberos Magnet 00:15-00:50 - 4 Men dressed as sperm playing 3 drum kits and keys. DO IT!

Thursday 20th May

Tina Refnes Heebie Jeebies 19:45-20:15 - Music to breath out to
Misery Guts The Masque 20:45-21:15 - Go, smile, come out thinking I really do know what I'm talking about
DNA Orchestra Leaf Cafe 21:10-21:35 Hauntingly good trip-hop nostalgic joy machine
Cabruêra Hannah's Bar 21:55-22:20 Music to pretend you're in a Tarentino movie by.
Minion TV Leaf Cafe 22:30-23:00 Liverpool instrumentalists will sell you that Lexus!
The Loud Mojo 23:00-23:30 Very Ronseal..... but that's good thing!
Wave Machines The Kazimier 23:30 - 00:30 like a really stoned Deadmau5 with miffed vocals, listening to these makes you happy and a top way to finish off the day

Friday 21st May

Rosie Jones Studio 2 Studio 2 20:30-21:00 Devon acoustic cheeky goodness with kittens & cows
Young Guns Masque Theatre 21:15-21:45 High Wycombe finest, not hard though is it, RAWK!
Curry & Coco Heebie Jeebies 22:00-22:30 if Robots in Disguise were men....and good
Reverend Sound System The Haigh 23:00-00:00 No Makers, side-project-tastic
The Staves 33-45 Midnight Session, calm right back down with 3 part sister harmony

Saturday 22nd May

Strait Laces Metropolitan 18:00-18:30 No idea why these are on so early, WHERE THE WOLF ROAM!
Fei Comodo Masque Theatre 19:15-19:45 Like Enter Shikari but without all the dicking about
Mr Fogg 33-45 20:00-20:30 Like playing a jónsi record at 33 not 45
Pink Film Zanzibar 21:00-21:30 Polished, ready, see now, brag later
Sound of Guns Haigh 22:00-23:00 Learn the lyrics now so you can sing along at Glasto next year
Doktor Combover Magnet 23:30-Onwards Like burlesque for your ears. Aural filth for fun and profit



That's what Brian Boitano would do and so should you

(As ever when I can't think of a suitable picture to put in I insert one of a homeless polar bear, did you spot him?)

How to Destroy Angels - This is my excited face

So we have seen announced today the collaboration of a new musical project with Husband and Wife Trent Reznor and Mariqueen Maandig AKA "how To destroy angels".

To the right was my initial reaction to this news.  Now before I go any further you can follow them on twitter HERE (already 4000 followers when I signed up) and on youtube HERE (800 subscribers already).  Have a look at the website for typically Reznor teaser trailer goodness, the kind of thing we have come to expect from Mr Reznor over the years HERE.  He really does know what he is doing.

And that's it really.  He really does know what he is doing.  Now ignoring the music entirely (no really) as where as I am very excited about what the family Trent are going to produce that's not really the point of this blog.  What I am interested in here however is what they do with it.

If you have never heard of Trent Reznor's day job "Nine Inch Nails" firstly please let me know what rent is like under rocks as I'm a bit hard up at the moment and have to move house soon and secondly allow me to bring you up to speed.  Very quickly.  There are better places to learn of it than here, but in a couple of quick sentences.  Cleveland, Indsutrial Synth Pop, late 80's, unrelenting music that still managed massive critical acclaim, Grammys and success even though if you sit down and listen to it it really really shouldn't of.  Think angry man beating the shit out of scaffolding whilst playing keyboards but still somehow putting a massive smile on your face.  No I can't work out how he did it either.  Clever bastard.  To quote Steve Huey 

"Nine Inch Nails were the most popular Industrial group ever and were largely responsible for bringing the music to a mass audience."

If you're still none the wiser really just go an have a listen to Just like you Imagined from 1999's The Fragile on Spotify as you probably heard it already as it was on the trailer for 300  

Now what I actually want to talk about is the various ways in which NiN have distributed music over the years.

Nine Inch Nails albums have been leaked via the Internet pretty much since mp3's and netscape started having a party down your interweb pipe be that via mp3.com, napster, myspace or anything even vaguely similar.  NiN are the very definition of viral distribution and better bloggers than I have waxed lyrical on them in the past.  The 2005 album With Teeth was streamed in it's entirety via myspace and when physical copies were eventually released they were packed full of pro tools and ACID pro files allowing users to experiment with Reznor's music in a manner that suited them.  That's right, the physical copies came with something fans actually WANTED.  Enhanced CD's having photo and videos etc has been nothing new but it has never really carried much water with fans.  After all download song for free or buy track and get a photo as well, not really much incentive.  This was 5 years ago, somehow everyone else hasn't followed suit.  Ah well.

2007 saw Year Zero released. A concept album with the lyrics centred around fictional characters and an internet based alternative reality game called Art Is Resistance in which the stories and content contained within the music was continued across another medium.  So listeners could have the album on and play the ARG at the same time.  In a time in which Google tell us that people "graze" media, multitasking across many different delivery methods and subjects having multiple tasks centred around the same thing has got to be a win, surely?

The there are the Easter eggs, oh the easter eggs!  Running the static at the end of My Violent Heart through a spectogram reveals the image on right.  An arm and hand interacting with the sound file.  No really, there is ACTUAL imagery in this music.  And that's one example.

Perhaps most famously (or at least the one I have seen quoted and referenced most at conferences and the like) are the albums Ghosts I-IV and The Slip which was made available in a "pay what you want scheme" (much like Radiohead's In Rainbows)  plus more expensive variants of the album available to those that wanted them (The £300 Ultra-Deluxe limited to 2500 copies edition sold out in just 3 days) and was released on Creative Commons licenses as well as large amounts of concert footage being released via bit torrents.

So that was all a very very brief description on the kind of methods Reznor has used to release his music in the past few years.  It is not an exhaustive list by any stretch and even the most casual of googlings will reveal far more in-depth descriptions.

Now of course I am not completely naive (hehe naive is an anagram of Evian).  Could any of NiN's unorthodox methodologies yielded such success if Reznor had not already been incredibly successful through more traditional  recording industries models? No probably not.  Those Eight grammy nominations before the year 2000 didn't happen by accident, he is after all a very talented musician and the Universal Music Group know a thing or to about promoting their artists but in no way whatsoever does that invalidate what he has done.

Now I seem to remember Clarkson on Top Gear saying to pay attention to the new BMW M Series (or something, I'm not really a car person) as what are extras in that car will be standard features in 10 years, much the same can be said to be true of Reznor in my belief.  When How to Destroy Angels release material in the summer I will be amazed (and a little disappointed) if it is not released and promoted via methods that I previously had no idea about and I can't wait for that. 

In a few months Trent will once more take the current distribution model by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shake and I for one can't wait to see what it looks like afterwards.

Oh and I bet the album will sound incredible as well.

rjk


**EDIT***
I am good to you, I really am