Trent Reznor & Peter Murphy Kill It

Here's something I wish happened more often: Trent Reznor and Peter Murphy teaming up along with some fellow musician friends to do some radio performances. The match up of Reznor and Murphy is so perfect I'm almost puzzled why a collaborative album or EP hasn't ever happened. Guess it's just not something they've had time for. Simply doing these radio songs in 2006 was enough. But these four performances are so great that it would be really cool if they just compiled all the radio performances they did together for a CD/DVD package and let us have that. Course, then we'd have to pay money for it, and who wants to do that anymore?

David Bowie & Trent Reznor: The Performance I Never Could Have Seen

Here's a performance that woulda really been something to see. Though I never would have had the chance, as it happened in 1994, and I was only 11 or 12 at the time. At that age I don't think I'd even discovered David Bowie yet. I did, however know about Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails, as my brother, Michael, had the Pretty Hate Machine album and, through my 11/12 year old lens, would enjoy tracks like "Head Like a Hole", "Terrible Lie", and "Ringfinger". (I think about that now and can understand why my Mom was bothered and annoyed that Michael would even listen to that album himself, let alone let me listen to it.)

So when David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails hit the stage together during NIN's Downward Spiral tour, I had no idea it was taking place. Now a lotta years have passed and my love of both Bowie and Nails has solidified into a pretty intense amount of love. So it's a real treat to see this footage of these two artists sharing the stage for an impressive performance of the NIN staple "Hurt".

*Thanks to Aaron for sending me the video link.

How to Destroy Angels Gets It Right

I already blogged about this on that other blog that no one reads. But I felt like quickly doing so again here, so this news can reach my entire reader fanbase.

All week I've been enamored with the EP from How to Destroy Angels. I kinda think they have one of the best band names in recent times. And it only gets better when you see the music video for opening track "The Space in Between." Like the band name, this video is so goth, especially when you notice that the dead couple is Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame) and his wife Mariqueen Maandig, who, with Atticus Ross (the smoking guy), comprise the band. That Reznor and his wife have now done a nice, gothic, industrial rock album together is cool enough, but to then do this video is just really awesome to me. Though others may find it to be a bit much.

The video is rather intense and gruesome, but effective and well put together. I can't get over how fabulous it is that Reznor and Maandig, married as of last year, decide to be the dead married couple in their video. It's pretty awesome in that suffocatingly or masochistically gothic way that really intrigues and amuses me. Reminds me of that great Buffy line: "When you kiss me, I want to die." As dark as this video may be, there's something really charming about this married couple collaborating on a project like this. Paradoxically, it seems to dispel some of the darkness, if that makes sense. "The Space in Between" lays the darkness on thicker than many of the other tracks on this EP, and is a track that deserves to be performed by a band called How to Destroy Angels. With a band name like that I expect their music to blot out the sun. They come closest to achieving supreme darkness on "The Space in Between" and "A Drowning." The others seem to sport a touch less of that really dark Reznor edge found in some of his Nails work. But then I remember that this is Reznor working on an album with his wife, and then it seems to make sense that the songs here would be dark, but not suffocating; they're just darkly charming, which is a really nice thing.

If you dig what you see and hear, you can download the EP for free. How to Destroy Angels has released this EP as a free download, winning them big points. Offering free downloads of albums is a really fabulous and ultimately financially successful move, as proven by Radiohead's pay-what-you-want initial release of In Rainbows, and Nine Inch Nails's, post-record label releases Ghosts I-IV and The Slip. Giving your music away for free doesn't mean you lose money. Radiohead and Nails have both made plenty of cash off the CD and vinyl releases of those free albums, not to mention the people who then went to their concerts and bought other merchandise. Yeah, these two bands are doing alright. Granted, they were both already successful and basically able to do whatever they wanted, but the principle behind file sharing and offering free music still seems sound; I've attended many concerts and purchased many CDs of bands far less successful than Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails that I discovered through "illegal" means. I have CD versions of all the aforementioned albums, because I not only like to have a tangible copy of the music I love, but also because I like to support the artists I love. What I don't support are music industry executives controlling an album's cost and the profits, keeping most of the cash for themselves instead of letting most of the cash go to the artists who made the album. The music industry has been wringing everything they can out of consumers for a long time and it has only gotten worse with the digital iTunes age.

But for now I can thank Reznor and his band mates for releasing How to Destroy Angels's EP as a free download and later offering a CD issue for me to buy (which will sound even better than the 320 kbps downloadable version). Reznor has pretty well figured out how to succeed as a musician while also pleasing fans, as evident by advice he offered last year to new/unknown bands. A band who is generous to its fans is much more likely to receive a bit of money, not just from me, but from fans at large. Aren't we all more willing to support someone who we feel is considerate of us as fans and not just as numbers to suck money out of? Such a band is much more likely to get a bit of my money through a CD purchase - or a vinyl purchase, if I could ever get a functioning, quality record player (vinyl still sounds the best, too). How to Destroy Angels, working outside the industry, is succeeding where the industry continues to fail; they've released a good EP of songs made with complete creative control, they've released it for free, and will then release a purchasable album version of the disc so that those who wish to pay - and there are many - will do so. Only the industry loses on this one, and that's fine with me.