Halloween 14

Halloween 14

1. Nina Simone, "Sinnerman"
2. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, "The Carny"
3. Fiona Apple, "Sally's Song"
4. The Sonics, "Strychnine"
5. White Zombie, I'm Your Boogie Man"
6. Echo & the Bunnymen, "The Killing Moon"
7. Clipse, "Nightmares"
8. The Coasters, "Poison Ivy"
9. Roky Erickson, "I Walked with a Zombie"
10. Swans, "The Seer Returns"
11. Metallica, "Jump in the Fire"
12. Howlin' Wolf, "I Ain't Superstitious"
13. Geto Boys, "Mind Playing Tricks on Me"
14. Peter Murphy, Trent Reznor, Jeordie White and Atticus Ross, "Warm Leatherette"
15. Têtes Noires, "Selcric"
16. Dr. John, "I Walk on Guilded Splinters"

For Ellen.

Nine Inch Nails at Prudential Center

CMJ hit the New York City area this week, and an abundance of shows, panels, screenings, showcases and industry parties flooded our town. Artists and businessmen of all sorts flocked through, representing all kinds of music, ideas and levels of success. All of them almost certainly had one thing in common: none of them could compare to the show that Nine Inch Nails brought to the Barclays Center and the Prudential Center this week. For all the talents that might have been performing nearby, there was only one genius playing in the city this week.

25 years into one of the most innovative careers in rock music, Trent Reznor, who is as much Nine Inch Nails as Prince Rogers Nelson is Prince, could have filled the arena with a microphone and a karaoke machine. Yet Reznor brings the passion and perfectionism that marks his best studio work onto the stage. Each song got a different light and LED treatment, with mesmerizing patterns guiding us through much of NIN's terrific new album, Hesitation Marks. A blue screen silhouetted the band for "Find My Way," magnifying Reznor's two-handed microphone tricks and guitarist Robin Finck's guitar god strutting. Strobe lights underscored the intensity of "Copy of A" and "Somewhat Damaged," perfectly supplementing a band that made the most abrasive dance music known to humanity.

Of course anyone with the right budget could afford a light show, but Reznor takes it to another level. For another band, it would have been distracting, either bogging down the pacing or an obvious distraction from inferior songs. Artists like Tool and Rob Zombie have extraordinary light shows, but both employ them at the cost of spontaneity, playing identical shows each night to stay in line with the mechanics. But Nine Inch Nails played a rock show, changing up the setlist, swinging their instruments and blowing through every song with a forcefulness that no machine could match. A pair of female backup singers, including Lisa Fischer from the Rolling Stones, gave NIN's music an R&B swing that worked shockingly well, revealing Reznor's funk sensibilities in the new "Satellite" and the underrated "Into the Void," wherein when Reznor traded stanzas with Fischer like an industrial Mick Jagger and Merry Clayton. At 48, Reznor is still unearthing his talents as an arranger.

But even if he weren't the composer, programmer and producer of every Nine Inch Nails record, Reznor would have been a rock star. Grappling the microphone and hurtling himself toward the crowd, he's a ferocious lead singer, bellowing stories of pain and hatred that transcend the adolescence that he wrote them in. Whether or not he's outgrown the lyrics to "Wish" or "March of the Pigs," Reznor understands that those feelings still matter to a lot of people, and he expresses them beautifully enough for us to keep coming back. By the time he finished "Head Like a Hole," with blazing searchlights dying down for a huge LED screen with the NIN logo, there was no doubt that Reznor's talents as a performer are in a league with his studio wizardry.

For the encore, Reznor introduced the band (it was his first banter of the evening) and treated us to a few more songs, including "Echoplex" and Hesitation Marks standout "While I'm Still Here," the latter including the first-ever saxophone on an NIN record. But best of all were "I'm Afraid of Americans" and the closing song "Hurt," two drastically different compositions that gave two legendary artists (David Bowie and Johnny Cash, respectively) late career comebacks. One could take it as a pat on Reznor's back, or even a reminder that he doesn't need any guest songwriters or producers as he nears 50. Those of us in attendance saw that, like Cash and Bowie, Reznor deserves to be held in the highest regard for the way he's reshaped modern music.

Openers Godspeed You Black Emperor played just one song, the perfectly-named "Behemoth," a droning, 45-minute song that has not yet appeared on an album. Their performance may not have won them any new fans, but it was an appropriate gesture for a band that recently made a mockery of their Polaris Prize and once trashed Radiohead for being "owned...by a gigantic multinational corporation."

Goblin at Webster Hall

Admit it: You had no idea that Goblin was a great band. You knew that they sounded awesome, especially when accompanied by Dario Argento's beautiful sets, mysterious props, gruesome death scenes and adequate screenplays. But who actually listens to Goblin when they're not part of a movie soundtrack?



As it turns out, seeing Goblin on their first ever American tour feels like finding out that Trent Reznor composed music outside of his film scores. Opener "Magic Thriller," (forgive the title--English is not their first language) from 2005's Back to Goblin, proved that they didn't need film to make cinematic music, and that their mojo outlasted Argento's by about 20 years. The unpredictability of songs like "Dr. Frankenstein" and "Roller" lent themselves well to improvisation, though tonally they all sounded like the albums.

Like a lot of bands that people don't know how to classify, Goblin get called "progressive." Their songs aren't especially long or bombastic, although Goblin's adventurous composition senses (there wasn't a chorus in sight all evening) helped endear them to the Rush and King Crimson fans in attendance. Their arrangements are more electronic than symphonic, with proto-industrial keyboards laying down the haunt on the subdued "Aquaman" and Profondo Rosso's "Mad Puppet," the latter's 12-bar progression showing hints of the kind of hit Goblin could have been streamlined into, had they worked with an outside producer and not a film director.

But thankfully, Goblin found their audience through film, and the show's second half was a horror movie hit list, with the title tracks to Suspiria, Tenebre, Phenomena and Profondo Rosso all performed in a thrilling sequence. "L'alba Dei Morti Viventi" and "Zombi," from the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack, played out like a Wendy Carlos nightmare, drifting into controlled psychedelia that culminated with a dancer and a whispering vocalist joining the band onstage. They were reminders of the band's celluloid history, particularly the ballet school giallo Suspiria, which I'd almost forgotten at that point.

Openers Secret Chiefs 3, avant-rock veterans featuring members of Mr. Bungle and Estradasphere, noted their place on the bill by covering a few movie themes in their set, including "The Godfather," "The Exodus" and best of all, "Halloween." Their originals, a progressive blend of jazz, surf-rock, metal and klezmer, were equally compelling.

1000 Homo DJs, "Supernaut"

When Ministry's Al Jourgensen brought some early demos to Wax Trax! co-founder Jim Nash, Nash allegedly told him "No one's going buy this. It'll take one thousand homo DJs to play this for one person to buy it."



By1990, Ministry was riding on two of the best albums of the '80s (The Land of Rape and Honey and The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste) and laughing all the way back to the Wax Trax! execs, who were happy just to release Jourgensen's outtakes. The result was Supernaut, a four-song EP under the the nom de plume 1000 Homo DJs.

Three of the songs sound like a major talent's outtakes, with even the eight-minute loop of Jello Biafra singing "Hey Asshole" showcasing Jourgensen's deft production. But I'm writing about Supernaut today in honor of its title track, a cover of the underrated Sabbath tune. Other than arguably Faith No More's version of "War Pigs," no tribute to metal's most-covered band has ever come so close to topping the original.

As we've learned through Sabbath's lineup changes, every member of the original band was integral. But even with one of rock music's most iconic frontmen and heaviest rhythm sections, Sabbath was all about the riffs. The onomatopoeia "Supernaut" shifts and shakes until it sounds like it's going to break free from your listening device, especially when emphasized by Jourgensen's tone. The vocalist, uncredited on the album, is one Trent Reznor. For industrial fanatics, it's like hearing John Lennon sing with Keith Richards.

Nine Inch Nails, "Everything"

"I'm happy with who I am now," the guy who named his first three albums Pretty Hate Machine, Broken and The Downward Spiral told Spin this month. "I feel fortunate to be where I am. We tried arranging the new songs with loud guitars, and it sounded false. Instead, we approached those old emotions in new ways that are subtler, and I think just as powerful."

It's the kind of answer people dread from their favorite artists. We often talk about how artists go bad once they get rich, sober up, get married and/or responsibly raise their kids--see Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica. We applaud the insatiable few artists who never settle down (Motörhead, Pantera, Matt Pike). We're happy when they make angry, angst-ridden art, even when it's at the expense of the artist's happiness, or worse, the artist's family and friends. We'd rather that bands never get rich, but we're OK if they die trying. 



A lot of people are going to hate "Everything" a single from Nine Inch Nails' awesome new album Hesitation Marks. It's in a major key, has a throbbing, invigorating beat and has the tightest vocal harmony that Trent Reznor has ever released.  I haven't been able to get it out of my head all week, and I hope it stays there. It makes me want to exercise, and I don't even like exercising. Then again, I didn't want to deal with Hurt, The Fragile, Survivalism or a Terrible Lie either.

Opinions vs. Observations

I could give you dozens of reasons as to why metal is better than reggae or techno. I'm happy to tell you why Death is better than Dååth, or why Suicidal Tendencies are better than Suicide Silence. At Governor's Ball last month, I watched Guns N' Roses utterly blow away Animal Collective and Kings of Leon. But in my heart of heart and brain of brains, I know that it's all just my opinion.

Then again, I don't. Consider, for example, that Trent Reznor is a better composer than Winds of Plague. This doesn't seem arguable. Understanding why something like The Downward Spiral is better than Decimate the Weak signifies an intelligent grasp of music, not an opinion. Who could argue that W.A.S.P. is better than Metallica? It would be like claiming that Dan Brown is a better writer than Kafka. I'm sure that some people actually believe it, but I'd hope that someday they'd mature enough to change their minds.

My concern about opinions and observations is where they start and where they end. There's a wide, blurry line between thinking that Nine Inch Nails is better than Animal Collective and knowing that they're better than Winds of Plague. Where does that line start and end? Is it when one artist stands the test of time? If so, how long is that? What constitutes as enough sense to decide what is an observation and what's an opinion? What gives me the authority to decide? Can observations change over time, as standards do?

The answer, my friend, is just your opinion.

Trent Reznor, Jeordie White and Peter Murphy

Playing on a Boston radio broadcast in 2006. Most supergroups are letdowns, but these performances are spellbinding.

"Warm Leatherette," originally by The Normal.



"Nightclubbing," originally by Iggy Pop.



Murphy's "A Strange Kind of Love."



Reznor's "Reptile."

Light of Day

The New York Times' distressful piece on the new Lindsay Lohan movie reminded me that the wretched Paul Schrader was once a great screenwriter. Anyone who loves movies knows about Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, but Schrader also wrote and directed one of Joan Jett's only acting roles and her only co-starring feature, 1987's underrated Light of Day.



Jett could coast on her hard-boiled charisma and still carry the movie. But in Light of Day she uncovers a zesty, expressive actress, affecting as a single mother sharing a band with her brother (Michael J. Fox) and estranged from her mom (Gena Rowlands). The plot has enough curveballs to take Light of Day above most rock films, and of course the music scenes are a blast, especially the rousing title song (penned by Bruce Springsteen) and a pre-fame cameo from Trent Reznor.

David Bowie, "I'm Afraid of Americans" (Nine Inch Nails remix)

"'Bowie is trending' pretty much describes his entire amazing career,"  comedian Robert Florence wrote on his Twitter page today. He was addressing the Goblin King's 66th birthday and announcement of his new album.



Whether he's forging new trends or capitalizing on current ones, Bowie has been one of the most forward-thinking minds in modern entertainment, moreso than can be capsulized in a 140-word comment. But let's look at one angle.

My first Bowie record was Earthling. I was young enough to believe that the best introduction to any artist was through his or her most recent work, but also impressionable enough to enjoy Earthling immensely. It does have some good songs, fun forays into electronic and industrial music that sounds neat albeit dated in the 21st century.

The only song from Earthling that has aged well is "I'm Afraid of Americans," written with Brian Eno and remixed by Bowie fanatic Trent Reznor, whom also co-stars in the music video. You've seen this before--the quinquagenarian rock star allotting himself with chic younger musicians in a bid for commercial success. But in this case, Bowie seems genuinely inspired by Reznor, his 1995 tourmate, coming up with a seething, paranoid anthem worthy of Pretty Hate Machine. Too often pigeonholed as an escapist, Bowie conjures NIN's angst with a musically and lyrically bold skewer of humanity. Unlike "Born in the U.S.A.," "Fortunate Son" or "Rockin' in the Free World," there's no confusing this song for nationalism.

"He encouraged the computer to misconstrue input, willing it to spew out bloated misshapen shards of sound that pierced and lacerated the listener," Bowie later wrote of Nine Inch Nails. "As a companion piece to Baudelaire’s To the Reader, the preface to Flowers of Evil, second to the Velvet Underground there has never been better soul lashing in rock." Maybe not, but this comes close. 

Song of the Day: Nine Inch Nails, "Big Man With a Gun"

Robert Bork, who passed away this week, once cited Nine Inch Nails' "Big Man With a Gun" as part of "Modern Liberalism and American Decline" in his book Slouching Towards Gomorrah.



"The obscenity of thought and word is staggering, but also notable is the deliberate rejection of any attempt to artistic distinction or even mediocrity," wrote Bork, adding, "It is difficult to convey just how debased rap is."

I'd never thought of Nine Inch Nails as "rap" before, but Bork may have actually found what Trent Reznor was getting out. His spat-out rhymes and electronic beats are delivered in a rap-like performance, and Reznor even told Spin magazine that "Big Man With a Gun" was written as a skewer of violence and misogyny in hip-hop. What is that satire is doing on The Downward Spiral, a labyrinthian concept album from metal's Stanley Kubrick, is puzzling. Orchestrated loops, off-meter melodies, self-hating lyrics, Nietzsche quotes and one minute-and-a-half long swipe at self-aggrandizing gangbangers?

Reznor allegedly regrets putting "Big Man With a Gun" on The Downward Spiral, and it still sounds a little out of place, hundreds of listens later. But I'm glad that it's there, throwing a left-field rant into Spiral's density and meticulousness. As a boy reading the liner notes along with every lyric (and still unable to grasp what some of them meant,) "Big Man With a Gun" left a stronger first impression on me than any of the other tracks on The Downward Spiral. It is still the first piece of art that I think of when I whenever I hear anybody associating guns with their freedom or manhood. "Big Man With a Gun" may not be representative of the album, or of NIN over all, but it defines Ted Nugent more thoroughly than "Cat Scratch Fever."

Dave Grohl Hosting Chelsea Lately

Dave Grohl has turned into alternative music's Snoop Dogg, seemingly able to publicly align himself with any sort of dorkiness and keep credibility intact. Chelsea Lately sounds like something that I'd rather claw my eyes out than watch, yet the former drummer from Scream looked great in his guest-host opening skit a few days ago. Could you imagine Billy Corgan, Trent Reznor or Eddie Vedder surviving this?



Yes, that's Dave Grohl unloading the riff to "Let There Be Rock" on E!. I hope he gets to host the Oscars next.

Album of the Day: Marilyn Manson, Mechanical Animals

Years before Lana Del Ray re-enacted the Zapruder film in a tasteless music video, Marilyn Manson did the same thing with a better actress for his song "Coma White."



If Antichrist Superstar was Marilyn Manson's Purple Rain, where he set out to make himself the Biggest Star on Earth, Mechanical Animals was his Sign 'o' the Times, where he reflected on the world from his throne. Hearkening to his hero, David Bowie, Manson reinvented himself as an alien rock star ("Omega and the Mechanical Animals") and depicted megastardom excess with surprising vulnerability. It sold about half of what Antichrist Superstar did, and was therefore the last bold artistic statement that he would make. It's also the best record that he's ever released.

For the first time ever, Manson and his mainly interchangeable band had to prove that they could follow up a hit album, and that they didn't need producer Trent Reznor to do it. Thus, the band tried something completely different. Unable to market himself as an outcast after appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone, Manson ditched Satan for Sci-Fi, coming up with a vague concept about alienated celebrity life.

The celebrity role becomes Manson--no matter how much he tours with Slayer, Marilyn Manson has always been a pop star. His first hit was a cover of Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams," but his finest homage to his synthpop heroes is his glamdustrial original "The Dope Show." Riding a beat unshamefully cribbed from Iggy Pop and Bowie's "Nightclubbing," Manson's acknowledges the temporary state of his place in the world: "They love you when you're on all the covers/When you're not then they love another."



Standing out amongst the record's glam throwbacks, "Rock is Dead" was futuristic enough to get played during the end credits of The Matrix. The "God is in the TV" rejoinder offers rewards as both statement and satire. I don't know what happened to guitarist Zim Zum, but his harmonics here leave Zakk Wylde's in the dust.



Manson wasn't the first rock star to sing about mo money mo problems, but he might have been the funniest. Usually a mediocre lyricist, Manson approached songwriting on Mechanical Animals with a sense of humor that he had lacked before, as heard on "I Don't Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me.)" Not only is it the first and last good industrial funk song, it's Manson's greatest single, the feather in his prosthetic boobs.



Manson was right. Soon he was not on all the covers and we loved another. But if he ever makes another album this good, he might work his way back.

Yamantaka // Sonic Titan at the Mercury Lounge

In the footprints of the Boredoms, Acid Mothers Temple and Boris, Japanese post-metal tends to exhibit a skewed idea of heavy metal, along the lines of what J-art scholars could imagine Black Sabbath to sound like from the cover of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Yamantaka // Sonic Titan, a Canadian septet of art school students, distinguish themselves by sounding like a band of metalheads imagining themselves as Japanese artists. Their name comes from a Buddhist deity and a Sleep song, and their music comes from another cosmos.

Entering the room in silence and war paint, Yamantaka // Sonic Titan took the stage with a set of high school-level stage props that accumulated into transcendence once the band entered, walking through the crowd under a hand-crafted dragon. Their instruments were disguised with decorated sheets and foamcore clouds, and the band was adorned in costumes that ranged from geishas to shredded garbage bags. Starting at their quietest, with the childlike "Queens," they worked their way into a noisy whirlwind on tracks like "Reverse Crystal // Murder of a Spider" and "Hoshi Neko," the latter evoking Wendy Carlos and Trent Reznor hosting a Ukiyo-e show.

Despite their DIY production, YT // ST think big. They eschew rock n' roll spontaneity in favor of a rehearsed, calculated production on a punk rock budget. The meshing of values makes for a show as idiosyncratic as their music, and by the end of their set, I felt like I had just survived a hurricane. They had played for about 40 minutes.

Openers Yvette played a promising, effects-heavy form of noise rock.