Perhaps I'll just hi-jack the NIN.com update:

I (not me, but Trent) am proud to announce the following acts will be performing with NIN on select dates.

Deerhunter
Crystal Castles
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
A Place To Bury Strangers
White Williams

Check the NIN.com performance page to see who plays what date.

Nine Inch Nails and Stone Temple Pilots have been confirmed for the Voodoo Experience's tenth-anniversary celebration this October 24, 25, 26 in New Orleans.

A special presale of a limited number of $100, three-day weekend tickets will go on sale Friday, May 2 at www.thetenthritual.com

Also, so I'm not littering the Hotline with posts today, head over to NIN.com for more information on the ticket purchase process, and keep an eye on the page for the next few days for more specific ticket information.

Finally, tickets purchased at nin.com will be cheaper than if you pick them up at Ticketmaster.

The release says it best:

UNIQUE TOUR FAN CLUB OFFERS Best Seats Available Exclusively via Limited NIN.com Personalized Pre-Sale

Nine Inch Nails has secured extremely limited allotments of the guaranteed best possible seats to every headlining show on the band's upcoming tour and reserved them for pre-sale via NIN.com. Beginning roughly 72 hours prior to each general on-sale, Nine Inch Nails fans registering under their legal names at NIN.com will be offered exclusive advance access to these prime tickets.

Additionally, in an initiative to protect NIN fans from scalpers and ticket brokers, every pre-sale ticket will be personalized with the purchaser's legal name printed on the ticket. Tickets will not be available until night of show, at which point they will be waiting for the purchaser and his/her party at designated will calls at separate entrances to be used exclusively by NIN.com pre-sale ticket holders.

Government-issued ID matching the name printed on the ticket will be required for venue entry night of show. NO tickets will be mailed in advance.

Ticket quantities are extremely limited and available on a first come first served basis.

For further information regarding tour dates, pre-sales, on-sales and other major developments, keep checking back at NIN.com.

nastylittleman.com

As suddenly as the new NIN song "Discipline" appeared out of the mist, the official video has now been released as well! That's amazing! How does Trent do it?

Head to nin.com and check out Trent signing the books for the Super-Giganto-Deluxe Editions of "Ghosts I-IV." Looks like they opted out of doing a webcast of him signing all 2500 copies, but that's OK.

And, as with everyone other update on the site since Tuesday, download the new FREE NIN single, "Discipline" right NOW. Also, head to remix.nin.com and download the multitrack files in the "Mix" section to start remixing the song. As with the single, the multitrack files are also FREE. See? This is how you release singles in the modern age of music. Too bad everyone else is still living in the 20th century.

Want to know where to get one of those kewl "action figure" TR dolls on nin.com????

??
??

You'll have to make it yourself! (Or, become famous and get fans who want to make them for you)

If you dig through the nin.com blog archive you can see photos of one of the dolls taken in Hong Kong, Sydney and Honolulu last year on the second leg of the Year Zero tour.

They (or at least the centre one all in black) were made by fan/s. So if you want your own, dig out those old Ken dolls - I know some of you still have them - and get cracking!

**Edit** Today Angulique let me know that these dolls were made with Dragon and Ultimate Soldier figures. Thanks!

"Discipline" is available for download here. As many people have noticed, the comment in the mp3 says "Go to www.nin.com May 5" and the embedded artwork can be viewed here.

Can ya Digg it?

I love me some Discipline first thing in the morning.

Anyway, nin.com has updated to say, amongst other things, "you will be able to download your own copy of the track right here later tonight for free - stop back in a few hours." So, you know, soon.

Also, some radio stations, including KROQ are reporting that they will be hosting the single for download very soon.

Thank yous to Rob, Patrick, Monica, Discobunny, Katrina, Angela and anyone I forgot!

Check out these reports, and if your local rock station plays NIN stuff, maybe you should tune in today, or call and ask them if they'll follow suit:

Katrina says: FM 102.1 (WLUM) in Milwaukee is debuting a new NIN song today that actually has words.

Alexander: a single "discipline" just got released to radio today. it was mastered yesterday.

Jim: I was just driving in Seattle and 107.7 The End just played a new NIN song called "Discipline".

Nancy: i just heard a new song on KROQ in LA called Disapline. wtf is this about I have not heard anything about a new song with words!!!

It appears this song was sent to radio stations across the United States, and most of them played it between 2:30 and 2:45pm Eastern Time, resulting in a bit of a flood of very surprised emails headed our way. The song was mastered by Alan Moulder yesterday afternoon, and turned over to radio stations less than 24 hours later!

Discuss.

You might not have noticed, but if you weren't watching, nin.com says "2 weeks" again. Last time this happened, Trent released a new album. What will they do this time? Speculate to your heart's content at ETS.

Thanks to Cort for the heads up.

Got five minutes to kill? Why not put in a good word for the amazing, overarching ARG that accompanied the release of Year Zero. "But NIN Hotline, how? What do I do?" Log on at http://pv.webbyawards.com/ - register and create an account. Click on the "Interactive Advertising" button, click on the "Branded Content" button, and then click on the "Vote" button for Year Zero.

Oh, but we're not done yet. Now click on "Integrated Campaigns", and click the "Vote" button for Year Zero.

That is all. Actually, I have one more update, perhaps more exciting...

News is a leetle slow now so here are some bits and pieces.

Some Ghosts I-IV physical release figures, if you're interested: In the US Ghosts made its debut at #14 in the Billboard 200.
In Australia Ghosts arrived at #15 in the ARIA chart.

NPR have posted their audio review of Ghosts I-IV Thanks Jim, Jonas and fulkramick.

Also, for the WTF of the week, if you want to see what how The Fragile cover looks when made from the contents of a bento box, click here! Thank you Teva for that oddity. There's also Broken and TDS done bento style as well!

*UPDATE*
Getting a SLEW of emails about show posters. Thanks to all who have emailed thus far- I'm working through ALL emails. Response has been overwhelming- WOW! Thank You!

Ok Show Posters: Been getting a ton of emails. The only show posters I have left are the following (Some are not on the site)
4-12-95 Powerstation Australia Poster
10-26 to 11-3/94 Poster Signed by Lee Bolton
10/4/95 NIN Bowie Poster Arminski
2000 Southside Festival Poster
2005 Greenfield Festival
2005 Eurockeennees Festival

I did a mass poster clean out about 2 years ago and purged a lot of them, got into the tubes this AM, all the rest are gone unfortunately.
Thanks!
*End Update*
Ok first things first- the NIN Historian Site is not shutting down. I just want to make this clear right off the bat.
Ok onto business. I am thinning out the closet, boxes, binders etc. etc. of Live NIN Memorabila I have in my possession. I have spent years collecting it, documenting it and storing it. I am looking to move a lot of the items onward to other devoted NIN fans.

http://www.theninhotline.net/nin_historian/

At present, I do not have a grand listing of every item, its price and blah blah blah. I also have a ton of work to do in order to get pictures and descriptions of other items not even listed on the site. I am offering these cherished items to the NIN COMMUNITY FIRST! These have not been on Ebay and if I have my way- they will go to good homes before ever having to breathe the "E" word!

The deal is this- scour the site, look over every nook and dark hole you can find. See something you like and have an interest- send me an email with your item of interest and price offer. I'm asking for serious offers and serious buyers. This collection took me a long time to compile, photograph, scan and present to the world. I ask for your seriousness in the offers as much as what the items are.

Rules of this sale:
1. Microphones you see on the site are NOT available
2. Itineraries are also NOT Available.
3. Some items that have pictures- I do not own. They were sent to me by crew members or fellow fans. The vast majority of items you see on the site I do own and will be up for grabs.
4. Tickets and Passes- Still have no idea how to go about this- have hundreds of tickets and nearly 100 passes. Figure it will work itself out. Would like to bulk them- but it may not be a reasonable request.
4. Email me the item you are interested in
5. Email me the price you are offering for said item.
6. I like the offer presented- we arrange payment (Paypal preferred) and we close the deal. Easy as that.

I'll answer any questions you have- email me at nin.historian@gmail.com

Please be patient- I will email you back ASAP.
Happy Hunting
NIN Historian

There's a new update on nin.com that makes "The $piral" no longer a necessary or funny grammatical error. Most excellent news. Details after clicking the link.

Interviews!
The Hungarian NIN fansite have an exclusive interview up with new member Rich Fownes (thanks Anna), as does dzn over at his Italian site


Downloads!
If you haven't had the chance to listen to some of the audio interviews Trent's given lately, The Heavens Fall have a series of handy right-clickable links (thanks Erik).

Ranks!
Ghosts continues to grace the Amazon bestsellers charts, second only to REM. Don't forget that if you prefer your music in a molestable format, or if you really can't wait the 20 days until 1st May, both the CD and vinyl are available in stores worldwide now.

If you missed the NPR interview the other day it is now up here.

Also, for something a little different, SonicState, a website for audio and software professionals, have uploaded their weekly podcast which just happens to feature John Van Eaton (long time Nine Inch Nails tech, for those who don't know.) Mike says he talks in depth about some of the touring gear, the show production process and he's got some nice things to say about TR and Ghosts. Check it out!.

Thank you very much to feeback, Mike, and Lars.

Yet another Ghosts audio interview is available on Absolute Punk.
I believe this is the fourth or fifth Ghosts audio interview released, and as Leviathant mentioned earlier he has vague plans to archive them all, so if you have all the interviews please let him or one of us know :)

Thanks to Caitlin and Deb.

Bmoloney wrote in to tell us about 42 Entertainment's Webby nominations.

Here are the links for voting and stuff:

Other Advertising: Branded Content
Integrated Campaigns
Sign up here to vote

Well done to everyone that made it a success!

Press Release.

It looks like they will be performing Ghosts material, and this tour will be a world one!

Thanks to Chowderhawk for writing in.


(addendum - the Nine Inch Nails artist page links to this. How curious!)

Another Meathead Perspective is fresh out of the oven! You know, in case you were wondering what that nasty smell was. And why the fire department is here.

42 Entertainment has posted a summary of the Year Zero Alternate Reality Game. It goes through all the parts of the ARG, including a summary of each website. This also means that the ARG is over, as 42 Entertainment does not acknowledge its projects until they are complete.
Thanks to Andrew C for the heads up.

How about at the World Café, where Alex points out that Trent will be appearing? calling? tomorrow on NPR, for the first half of the show. The second half of the show talks with Psychic TV about their new album, Hell is Invisible... Heaven is Here. If you don't get the World Café in your part of the country/world, you can listen live on xpn.org.

Along with Rage Against the Machine, Kanye West, and Radiohead(!), Nine Inch Nails will be headlining this year's installment of Lollapalooza in Chicago. The festival runs August 1-3 at Grant Park, with NIN performing on the final day. The full line up includes some great bands, including one of my personal favorites, Flogging Molly.

You can buy a three-day pass to the festival for $190, but you better hurry. Once these "advance" passes are sold out, the price hops up a whopping 15 dollars.

Thanks to everyone and their mother for writing in with the news.

Ghosts I-IV retail version is officially out in North America, the UK and Europe tomorrow, Tuesday April 8. It is already out in Australia and Japan as of April 5.

Ryan wrote in with some links to scans of the retail CD if you are interested - available here and here. (Note: big images)

Jason reported that his local Circuit City in Florida already had Ghosts out on the shelves if you haven't pre-ordered and want to get in early. Rivoid Object says Best Buy will be stocking the CD for $9.99, and alex b says good old Hot Topic will definitely have both the vinyl and CD editions.

Thanks everyone!

For your viewing discomfort, The Meathead Perspective has been updated again! Oh, and by the way, I'm not dead (jsyk).

Break out the Mr. Kotter music and check out nin.com. Also check out the news feed to the right and the NIN YouTube page here. You'll also see the name "Rich Fownes" listed in the lineup. We're digging for more info now but Fownes is a former guitarist from UNKLE and has a MySpace page linked here.

Well, didn't see that one coming.

And now for something I completely stole from ETS.

Scans from the aforementioned Australian Herald Sun interview can be found here and here. Thanks to sweeterthan for posting about it, and coles22 for scanning the article in.

Click. It's a pretty interesting read. Find out how Brian auditioned for the part, how he produced his sounds, and how he felt about supporting Nine Inch Nails.


And some extra Ghosts-related tidbits for good measure:

Ghosts Review number 5214678923462 (Thanks Negro_Joe)
According to Jason, the Circuit City in Port Charlotte, FL has Ghosts on sale for $12.99

UPDATE: Spoilsports took down Meathead's remix, but left up the Hipster Runoff mix. Poor form!

Meathead's remix for Radiohead, that is. We're trying to get at least 2,000 votes, which oughta get him in the top 3, based on figures current as of this post.

April 8th will see the first wave of physical releases of Ghosts I-IV. For those of you who haven't ordered it from nin.com, Best Buy should have them in stock. In fact, Rivoid Object (who works at Best Buy) wrote in to let us know that the CDs have arrived and are ready to go on Tuesday. What's interesting is that bestbuy.com is taking pre-orders for the vinyl edition here. The list price is $39.98 but they're selling it for $14.98, which is a helluva bargain.

Of course, the second wave with the super shiny editions will be in the mail in early May.

Ryan has written in to let us know that there is a new Nine Inch Nails site, nin-au.com, which of course includes a discussion forum.
The site and forum has an Australian focus but it is open to everyone. It is in its infancy right now (being new, and there isn't much going on NIN wise in Australia) but there are plans for it to expand with lots of NIN related content - images, multimedia, etc etc.

Feel free to come over and register or post or submit ideas regardless of whether you're Australian or not!

Touwe wrote in to let us know that Brian Viglione "has an interview coming out later this week about the drums he used while recording ghosts with trent". More info here


Also, if you happen to be bored at work or something (oh no, not me!), this blog page lists a bunch of Ghosts reviews. We thank them for thanking the hotline, and also mr.fusion for letting us know.

A new interview with Trent talking about the writing and recording of Ghosts up at Q101. Here is a direct link to the wav file.
Edit: charredremains has kindly encoded the interview into mp3 format and uploaded it Thanks!

Thank you to SwimFin and Kyle for the heads up!

In an interview in todays edition of the Australian Herald Sun's entertainment supplement, 'Hit', TR reveals that even though it's been "crippled" by the Hollywood writers strike, a proposed TV production based on the YZ concept is "still churning along".

EDIT: Interview is now online...

Pick out the errors in this next sentence.

If you wanna check out a fantastic, well written review of GHOSTS by a lovely person who probably listened to the record 100 times on Pitchfork its right here.

Cheers to Freda, Daniel and John.

*Update* Pearl Jam 52%, Nine Inch Nails 48% Daaaaamn.

NIN is up against Pearl Jam tonight in WBCN's March Madness!.

Use this online form here or call 617-931-1041 from 7pm.

After taking the Dropkick Murphy's down let's keep the ball rolling and get Pearl Jam out of the game. This match-up determines who goes into the Final Four.

Thanks Andrea and Ryan!

It's on the official site, so it must be true!

NIN will be headlining along with Kanye West, Jack Johnson, Foo Fighters, and Stone Temple Pilots. Sweet!

Thanks to impuritian, j, and tjmilian for the info.

We couldn't let April 1st pass without pulling some kind of gag, but we didn't think that readers at Digg thought the Radiohead Remix was an April Fool's joke too. Now, if you thought I was being harsh, or that I hate Radiohead or anything like that, know that bought the deluxe edition of every album save for In Rainbows. I even bought Kid A twice, as I had given my first copy to my girl at the time. I was late to the game, I admit, as I only really got into Radiohead upon hearing Kid A, and worked my way backwards. I've donated to Greenplastic when they were doing fund drives like we used to do. If Greenplastic and Atease weren't around, I probably would actually be running some variety of Radiohead news site, but they've got that covered really well. I had planned on going "radiohead hotline" for April Fool's Day a while ago, but put it aside. When I heard about the ludicrous terms of the remix setup they launched, it was too good to pass up.

All that being said, I do think it's kind of lame that you have to buy compressed multitracks through iTunes if you want to participate in this contest. I had a copy of Nude ages ago when it was bootleg only, and was glad to buy a copy of In Rainbows to get the CD quality version. ("It's never going to be CD quality [on computers], because that's what CD does. -- Jonny Greenwood). They should have released the multitracks free under Creative Commons, that way you could post them online without any fear of legal repercussion. And taking ownership of your remix when you upload it to their remix site is just rude.

Cliff and Meathead are, however, still dead.

Thanks, and happy April Fool's Day!

P.S. I wanted to share an email I got from Trevor Phillips today:
HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO CHANGE THE NIN HOTLINE TO A PUSSY ASS RADIOHEAD HOTLINE. YOU ARE A FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT. I CHECK THIS SITE EVERYDAY FOR MY NIN NEWS. I HOPE RADIOHEAD'S PLANE GOES DOWN AND YOUR MOM DIES. FUCK YOU AND FUCK RADIOHEAD.

Some of us at the NIN Hotline are incredibly shocked and saddened to announce that our very own Cliff is going to be found dead in his home late tomorrow night. We are told the New York County coroner's office has yet to determine a cause of death, but a source speaking on the condition of anonymity has indicated that the likely cause will be "the most severe wedgie anyone will have ever seen." The police haven't released any other information. We will keep you all updated as this tragic news develops. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Cliff's family and friends.

More as we get it. We're also told that Cliff's family is able to check his email, if you want to send your condolences.

All of us at the NIN Hotline are incredibly shocked and saddened to announce that our very own Meathead was found dead in his home late last night. We are told the Los Angeles County coroner's office has yet to determine a cause of death; the police haven't released any other information. We will keep you all updated as this tragic news develops. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Meathead's family and friends.

*Update* We've learned from the LA County Sheriff's office that foul play is suspected. More as we get it. We're also told that Meathead's family is able to check his email, if you want to send your condolences.