Unnecessarily Whiny Recap #1: May 2009

First things first (scroll past this paragraph if you are at all squeamish): FUCK MY BODYYYYYYYY. Since January, I’ve been suffering somewhat of a pseudo-menopause, yet every month at the same time I get the usual cramps, cravings for chocolate, general moodiness… I figured I wasn’t getting enough iron in my diet, which I sought to remedy. Well, guess what? I fixed the problem. Yay for not being prematurely menopausal! The downside is that the inevitable had to happen today of all days.

OK, it’s safe to look now.

This month has mostly been spent revising, sitting exams and desperately trying to send forms off in preparation for the mandatory exchange trip to Spain. I’m back in Ireland now, however the stress hasn’t exactly diminished; between sending off more forms, searching for a job and generally not having the best time at home, I’m just about ready to pull my hair out. Let’s hope June treats me more kindly.

It hasn’t been all bad, though; the night before last, for example, modwheelmood released a previously unheard song via their MySpace called ‘Happily Delayed’. The track coincides with the production of the physical version of the band’s three-part EP, Pearls To Pigs (which will also include 21 demos), and appears to be a cast-off from Pearls To Pigs Volume 3—who knows why it wasn’t included. Unfortunately, according to an update on the band’s website, the CD version of Pearls To Pigs has been canned for the moment. Fans going to any of the shows next month can purchase the collection on vinyl (limited to 500 copies) or digitally instead.

…I really should have posted about this Pearls To Pigs lark sooner. Oh, well.

Obviously there are still three two and a half days left in May, so life could improve in the meantime (that new track from modwheelmood certainly brightened things up, eh?). I’ll let you know how things go once I’ve finally got through the mountain of forms for that foreign exchange I really don’t want to go on…

Also, no I have not uploaded those photos to Flickr yet. I haven’t got around to picking up that ‘Putting Weird Things in My Mouth’ challenge again, either.

I really am disorganised.

-Rowan

NIN – The Day The World Went Away – May 18, Las Vegas NV

If you haven’t seen this video yet, prepare to be blown away.

Thank you, queenmel13, for the upload. I absolutely cannot wait to see these guys live. Oh, wait. I didn’t post about that, did I? Well, I’m going to two Nine Inch Nails concerts in July, one in Manchester and one in London. Surprise!

In other news, I just arrived home in Ireland this week after a very long, tiring, but enjoyable road-trip around the north of England. I took a few photos along the way, mostly of the Lake District and Chester, which I shall upload to Flickr once I’ve settled in. Expect a blog entry about it in due course.

-Rowan

Wake up and give a shit!

It was a sad day when the hype from the Nine Inch Nails ARG died down; a whole fanbase was left without a purpose. Desperate to rekindle the excitement of the ARG, the fans resorted to spotting “clues” in everything. Trent Reznor’s posts on the nin.com blog were subjected to constant scrutiny as fans picked apart his words in the hopes of finding a link to a secret website or at least some evidence that the ARG had been revived. With the release of the band’s most recent album, The Slip, which included some rather suspicious artwork, fans tried frenetically to piece together the mysterious “glyphs” accompanying each song in a bid to see the bigger picture… In the end, however, it became obvious that there just wasn’t a bigger picture to be found. The ARG was truly over.

Now, however, a new ARG is upon us… #RSARG.

Follow the movement on Twitter for round-the-clock occasional updates, and support the cause by buying this nifty RSARG shirt.

You have a voice credit card. How are you going to use it?

Please note that UK buyers can access the shirt through the UK Zazzle store, right here. If you see any other products you like on the US store, just change the link from ‘.com’ to ‘.co.uk’.

-Rowan

An Open Letter

Dear beautiful guy working at Tesco,

I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m the girl who came to your till yesterday evening, smiled at you and made idle chit-chat. I’m also the girl who came to your till today around the same time, looking particularly flustered. You don’t recall? Well, perhaps if I told you I was the one who dropped £8 worth of coins on the floor, it might jog your memory. Ah yes, it’s all coming back to you.

It’s probably not every day you get random people on the internet addressing open letters to you, but you’ve really left your mark on me and now I can’t stop thinking about you—so much so that I actually waited until I made sure I would end up at your till before going to pay for my shopping. Pathetic? Yes. Creepy? No. Well, maybe a little, but that wasn’t my intention.

Anyway. I hope you don’t hold my social ineptitude against me; I’d just really like to get to know you. Maybe next time I won’t make a fool of myself, and we’ll actually talk about something other than the rain and whether or not I have a club card. Maybe next time I’ll even get your name.

I’m counting down the minutes until our next horrifically awkward enounter.

Yours faithfully,
Rowan

Putting Weird Things in My Mouth… Revisited

I don’t know why, but whenever I commit myself to something, I always wind up not doing it. If there’s an actual clear-cut deadline, then yes I will do whatever it is that has to be done (granted, I’ll only start it at 3a.m. the night before the deadline), but if there’s no set timeframe then you can be pretty sure I’m just going to sweep it under the rug. I start off with the greatest intentions, motor into whatever project I have lined up and then suddenly lose steam. I’m perfectly happy to carry out a task to its completion until I actually say that I’m going to; it’s only once people actually have expectations of me to do it, once I’m under some sort of obligation, that I become incredibly unreliable and spend more time looking for excuses not to do it than actually doing it!

So if I have that little gleam in my eye as I excitedly announce my latest project, you can be pretty sure I’m not going to finish it any time soon—if ever.

One such instance is the ‘Putting Weird Things in My Mouth‘ challenge that I set myself in January. As you can see, it lasted for two days which is hardly impressive. Partly I gave up because there just wasn’t anything weird around to put in my mouth, which rendered the whole thing impossible. I was also under a lot of stress at the time… Mostly, however, I’m pretty sure it was just a case of laziness.

I’m writing this entry today to inform you that the challenge has been reopened. My friend Emily pointed out that the things she sent me in her care package a little while ago would be perfect for it. I’m following her suggestion, so expect blog entries about MOAR strange Japanese confectionary soon. Not “soon” as in tomorrow, and certainly not Trent Reznor “soon”, but it’ll happen at some point—don’t you worry. I also can’t tell you exactly how long this challenge will last, or how frequently I’m going to update the blog with my exploits, but we’ll see how it goes, eh?

-Rowan

The Depreciation Guild

If I told you that I was currently in love with an 8-bit/shoegaze album, you’d probably look at me like I’d gone bonkers. The fact of the matter, however, is that I’ve just recently discovered The Depreciation Guild and that is exactly how they describe their music. Imagine alt rock with melodic vocals and haunting guitar lines woven into a chiptune soundscape… Still think I’m crazy? Check it out for yourself! You can get a taste of their stuff on their MySpace profile, and their album, In Her Gentle Jaws, is available for download for free on their website (just click the yellow band labelled ‘album’ to get to the link). You can also download their debut release, Nautilus, from here (again, it’s free).

Who would’ve thought guitars and Nintendo sound chips could fit together so nicely?

-Rowan

Sugar Pitch Cortini

I’ve been checking my stats and it would appear that a lot of people hitting up the blog have found their way here by searching for the term ‘Sugar Pitch Cortini’ (ending up at this post, of course). If you don’t know what that is, it’s a video from Josh Freese’s YouTube channel which documents a variety of hilarious moments backstage at a Nine Inch Nails show and in Josh’s hotel room. The name itself comes from a sequence in which Alessandro Cortini lobs a bunch of sugar packets at Trent Reznor’s assistant, Brett.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I know why you guys have been searching for this particular phrase—you want to know what all the arguing is about at the end of the video. Well, a couple of people bought Josh’s $50 package and asked him about it as they were curious too. The general consensus around the time of the video’s appearance on YouTube was that the two arguing parties were Aaron North and Jeordie White. Apparently we were wrong! So far I’ve read two similar accounts of phone calls with Josh regarding the video with only minor differences, so I will post both. Only read on if you really want to know (it’s not that exciting)…

The following was posted by mdl70 on the nin.com forum:

It was staged.

The two people “arguing” are Trent’s and Josh’s assistants. During the tour they started doing that to mess with people and goof around. First time Josh heard it he was walking past a closed door hearing the two of them screaming at each other. He went in to see what was up and they filled him in on what they were doing: Arguing for shits and grins just to see where it goes.

Josh wanted to get that on film and told them about it. So he set up his laptop in a “Blair Witch” shot facing the corner so it looks like the camera was left running and picked up the audio from a conversation you weren’t supposed to hear. He started the recording and sat there waiting for them to start arguing — and that’s what the fake argument is about: Not knowing when Josh turned on the recorder and telling them to start arguing.

If you listen to the argument at the end of the video again, it starts “It’s been going” and “How would I know it’s going and he hasn’t said a word about it”. The rest just falls into place.

Aaron North is the guy at the end “breaking up” the argument/fight.

Josh mentioned he loved reading the comments on YouTube where people guess who was arguing and how most people thought it was Trent coming in to break it up.

So there it is…one huge joke.

I’ll include sdmart’s post here, too, as it’s slightly different:

He said it was a big joke and that the people arguing are originally Brett and Sully. Towards the middle/end, it’s Aaron that yells the loud “BULLSHIT!!”. Josh is the one at the end that yells the “Hey! Hey! Hey!” He said they put the camera in the corner like the Blair Witch Project, shot the argument like it could be real, then turned off the camera and busted up laughing.

Make of it what you will, but one thing we know for certain (if Josh is to be believed…) is that it was all fake! Kind of disappointing after all that, eh?

Also, if you’ve not bought Josh’s new album yet, I suggest you do it now! It might not be a masterpiece, but it’s fun and it’s obvious that Josh put a lot of energy and love into making it. My favourites so far are I Don’t Think That’s OK, 2002 and Because. I’m still mulling it over but I like it more with each listen.

-Rowan

I MET BOOTS FUCKING ELECTRIC A.K.A Eagles of Death Metal at ABC Glasgow, 31st March 2009

As you can see, I went to an Eagles of Death Meta(l) concert last night at the ABC in Glasgow… And it was epic. I’d give you the setlist and a blow-by-blow account of the show, but I was a bit drunk and too busy having my face melted off by Jesse Hughes’s raw sexual magnetism awesome guitar riffage. I remember Already Died and Don’t Speak (I Came to Make a Bang!), but that’s about it.

It was my first EODM gig so obviously I’m a bit biased, but it really freaking rocked. The crowd were into it, Jesse seemed to love us… All in all it was just an amazing night.

My friend Val and I stuck around outside the venue after the gig, waiting for the band to come out. We met Darlin’ Dave, Big Hands and Boots Electric himself! The Sexy Mexy was there, too, but he hurried into the bus before we got the chance to speak to him.

Aaaand here come the obligatory photos (taken by Valerie—you steal them, you die)…

I look like a twat. EAGLES OF GODDAMN DEATH METAL, MAN!

I also took a bunch of pictures of Glasgow which I shall upload to Flickr in due course, if you care.

Last but not least, it gives me great pleasure to announce the release of Nine Inch Nails’ Halo 28. Check it out!

-Rowan

Nine Inch Nails Summer Tour Update – Full Line-up Announced!

If you’ve been keeping up with the developments on nin.com, you’re probably aware that Nine Inch Nails are teaming up with Jane’s Addiction for the epic NIN/JA summer 2009 tour. Well, Trent Reznor has just announced that they’ll also be joined by Street Sweeper, featuring Tom Morello and Boots Riley. Are you as excited about NINJASS 2009 as I am??? Oh wait, I’m not excited because I’m probably never going to get to see this epic line-up. As always, check the tour page for dates, presales etc. Incidentally, no I don’t know when the presales will open so don’t ask me.

Anyway, Trent linked this abomination logo on the front page, but I thought I’d make my own to better reflect the EPICNESS of the announcement:

I PWN!

NIN have also released their new promo photo for the four-piece line-up:

No, seriously.

Oh fine, the original is here but my one is so much better. Mine totally reflects the POSITIVE GUY Trent has come to be recently. You can’t even tell I’ve tweaked it!

I need to go to bed.

-Rowan

NIN/JA Summer 2009 US Tour Dates

You probably already know this, but Nine Inch Nails released a list on nin.com of dates for their US tour with Jane’s Addiction, with the note ‘Here’s what we can tell you so far’. I’m assuming this means there are going to be more dates announced for the States, but I’m going to keep hopeful that they’ll hurry up and announced something about that European tour Trent owes us.

Here are the dates we have at the moment (and you can check the tour page of the Nine Inch Nails website right now for proof – this info is 100% official, straight from the horse’s mou… er, MacBook?):

Fri-May-08 West Palm Beach, FL [Cruzan Amphitheatre]
Sat-May-09 Tampa, FL [Ford Amphitheatre]
Sun-May-10 Atlanta, GA [Lakewood Amphitheatre]
Thu-May-14 Albuquerque, NM [Journal Pavilion]
Fri-May-15 Phoenix, AZ [Cricket Wireless Pavilion]
Sat-May-16 Chula Vista, CA [Cricket Wireless Amphitheater]
Mon-May-18 Las Vegas, NV [The Pearl]
Wed-May-20 Irvine, CA [Verizon Wireless Amphitheater – Irvine Meadows]
Fri-May-22 Mountain View, CA [Shoreline Amphitheatre]
Tue-May-26 Englewood, CO [Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre]
Wed-May-27 Kansas City, MO [Starlight Theatre]
*** Fri-May-29 Chicago, IL [Charter One Pavilion] NINE INCH NAILS Only
Sat-May-30 Noblesville, IN [Verizon Wireless Music Center]
Sun-May-31 Clarkston, MI [DTE Energy Music Theatre]
Tue-Jun-02 Toronto, ON [Molson Amphitheatre]
Wed-Jun-03 Darien Lake, NY [Darien Lake Amphitheatre]
Fri-Jun-05 Camden, NJ [Tweeter Center At The Waterfront]
Sat-Jun-06 Holmdel, NJ [PNC Bank Arts Center]
Sun-Jun-07 Wantagh, NY [Nikon at Jones Beach Music Theater]
Tue-Jun-09 Columbia, MD [Merriweather Post Pavilion]
Wed-Jun-10 Burgettstown, PA [Post-Gazette Pavilion]
Fri-Jun-12 Charlotte, NC [Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre]

Seriously, some UK dates in mid- to late-June would be really amazing.

Also WordPress seems to be playing up and I have no idea what happened to the blog homepage. I’ll try to get it fixed this evening, if there’s anything I can actually do. Never mind, I figured it out. Hopefully no one else noticed what caused it…

-Rowan