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The Coolest Thing You Will See Today

NIN: 1,000,000 Live from on stage, Sydney 2.22.09 [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

As I mentioned in a post last week, NIN is going on a sort of farewell tour this year. They've just released tour dates for the first leg here (I'll be buying up mine for June 9 in DC).

Anyway, aside from the music, obviously, there are two things that have always put NIN a cut above everyone else in my books...

1. Their accessibility to fans. Reznor has revolutionized this. From releasing complete tracks for fans to remix, to blogging, to giving away free music and albums.
2. Their live shows. I've seen a lot of really good bands live, and NIN beats them all. And that's saying a lot considering I've seen U2 live on multiple occasions.

Anyway, the clip above combines both of these elements (plus the music) into one, big awesome. NIN has put a bunch of these up on Vimeo, but I chose this because it's the first song in their set and you can feel the anticipation. You see the roadie counting down then waving them on stage, the band members slowly emerging and getting into routine. You hear the roar of the crowd as Trent finally arrives on stage. You see the guys psyching themselves up for the show, and finally rocking the s#$t out of Sydney, Australia. The unique thing is that it's all filmed from on stage with the band. Awesome.

It's things like this that really make me wish that this planned hiatus is fleeting...

Trailer Renaissance?

From time to time, we've had a post about a cool new trailer. I have to admit a good trailer still gets me pretty pumped up, but those are few and far between. As it turns out, a couple of upcoming flicks have perhaps the best use of music in a trailer I have ever seen.

First up is Terminator Salvation.I'll admit, I had little hope for this being any good when it was announced. When Christian Bale was signed as John Conner, it immediately shot to the top of my anticipated films! This trailer is AWESOME, and pushes it even higher. How perfect is the NIN song "The Day the Whole World Went Away" for a Terminator movie?



The other trailer is for the big release this weekend. I have to admit, I am not even remotely a comic book guy. I knew next to nothing about Watchmen, and when I heard they were making a movie about the graphic novel/series, I could have cared less. Then I heard Zach Snyder (300) was attached, and I was interested. When I saw this trailer a few months ago, I officially became a fan. How they dug up this Smashing Pumpkins song, I have no idea. It's literally track #71 on their Rarities and B-Sides album. For those keeping track, it's titled "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning." Maybe the most perfect song ever used for a movie trailer, based upon what I know about the Watchmen universe. I don't know how the movie can live up to this trailer!

Star Trek: TNG

Enjoy you weekend! (more here)

Media Circus

I have come to a rather obvious conclusion. The media is out of control on all fronts. This may seem obvious to everyone, but take a look at how they are actually affecting our world. Every once in a while, I've got to let one of these rants fly to try to keep my sanity.

Sports
They have ruined sports by covering every team with 27 reporters 24 hours a day 7 days a week. There just isn't that much news to report, so they just make shit up! Good trades are often ruined because of media leaks. Dissension between owners, players, managers and fans is brewed by talk radio idiots. The constant coverage feeds the egos of athletes and creates embarrassments like TO, Manny and A-Rod. ESPN makes up the news with "Original Programming." Networks buy events and then use their influence to hype said event unfairly. ESPN can influence voters in college football to set up BCS games which they cover.

Politics
They have ruined politics in the exact same way. There is such a frenzy to scoop other reporters and break a story that facts are rarely checked - even on the primetime network nightly news shows - remember Dan Rather? Accusations fly as big headlines and when proven wrong are rarely retracted or corrected. The liberal bias is an added twist. Check out this website about a new documentary named, "Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted." Don't buy the DVD or anything, but the trailer alone is scary. It proves with interviews and video what we all suspected during the 2008 election. Scary stuff.

Science
The global warning issue that Kevin brought up set me off today for this post. The media attention to this non-issue is actually driving the science. Actual facts and data are disregarded as conservative propaganda because they don't support the supposedly "obvious" truth that we are creating a global Armegeddon with our greenhouse gases and polar ice-cap melting ways!

Entertainment
The Oscars last week cemented what I had always known deep down inside. Movies are made and rewarded based upon their political message, not the merits of the film or the acting. This is why the same political speeches are uttered at all the lame awards shows. This is why Al Gore and Sean Penn get Oscars. This is why certain actors/actresses get blackballed from the industry or shut out of awards again and again. Think the Acadamy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would ever give Frank Langella an Oscar for playing hated GOP president Richard Nixon with some degree of sympathy? No way. Give it to the movie about gay politician who supports gay marriage.

Religion
Another pet peave. You know it was Darwin's 200th birthday last week. CNN published a big story online about the opinions on Darwin today. Read this link and weep. They actually did a very scientific poll through Gallop evaluating people's beliefs concerning Evolution. A quick summary of the results:

• 39% of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution"
• 25% do not believe in evolution
• 36% have no opinion either way

This was last month. An older Gallop poll also cited in the article from 2008 had these gems:

• 14% of Americans believe that humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life
  
• 44% believe that God created human beings almost overnight within the past 10,000 years
  
• 36% believe that God guided humans' evolution from animals over a much longer period of time

I weep for our nation.

Waterworld

No, I'm not putting in a post praising the movie (though I did like it). I was reading an article on Yahoo about how Antarctica's Western Glacier is melting and how seas levels are going to rise, and I wanted to do some fact finding. I went online and found the following article about the likelihood and consequences of all the world's ice melting.

It's backed up by sources, and generally does a good job of making fun of people making outrageous claims such as: 1) Scientology is a religion, 2) French people are industrious, 3) Intelligent Design and 4) we're all going to drown in 10 years when the human-caused global warming melts all the Earth's ice and causes flash floods and tsunamis everywhere!

Just a little food for thought, and few cool 'what-if' pictures. Oh, and Ted and Ali, good job getting out of New Orleans. Those of you in DC and Florida, you'd better hope those wackos aren't right!

NFL Draft Inanity

I've been following the NFL combine the past few days thanks to NFL Network HD and I must say, it's a total joke. They make such a huge deal out of 3 hundredths of a second in a 40-yd dash like it's the end of the world, then they show a video with competitors superimposed over one another and there's absolutely no discernible difference between a guy running 4.38 and 4.45. Yet because some a-hole scout or talking head harps about it, those 7 hundredths of a second can determine some kid's entire future - even though it's probably immaterial to his ability to succeed in the NFL.

Let's take a look at two separate combine participants, both DBs - Vontae Davis of Illinois (a highly touted, top-of-the-class prospect heading into the draft) and David Bruton of Notre Dame (best case - good NFL special teams player). Here's what SI.com had to say about Davis after yesterday's DB workouts...

Vontae Davis/CB/Illinois: Davis measured 5-foot-11 and 203 pounds upon arriving at the combine then completed 25 reps on the bench, a big number for a cornerback. He was fast Tuesday and clocked both of his 40-yard-dashes in the mid 4.3-second range [ed: he didn't, see below]. Davis then showed a lot of skill during defensive back drills, displaying the ability to quickly backpedal and flip his hips. NFL scouts still have questions about his character but Davis cemented himself as one of the most physically gifted cornerbacks available in April's draft.

And here's what they had to say about Bruton...

...

Yeah, nothing at all on Bruton. Now let's take a look at how they actually performed in the combine, courtesy of NFL.com (DNP = Did Not Place in NFL.com's top performers list).

40-yd Dash: Bruton 4.46, Davis 4.49
Bench Press: Davis 25, Bruton DNP
Vertical Jump: Bruton 41.5, Davis DNP
Broad Jump: Bruton 11'0", Davis DNP
3-cone Drill: Bruton 6.60, Davis 6.75
20-yd Shuttle: Davis 4.07, Bruton DNP
60-yd Shuttle: Bruton 10.96, Davis DNP

Bruton consistently outperformed Davis and got zero credit. The knock on Bruton is that he's too big (believe it or not) and can't keep up with wide receivers. Yet Bruton's results consistently matched, or were better than, the top wide receiver and tight end participants - the very people he will be going up against on future Sundays.

The NFL combine is a freaking merciless meat market. All your past accolades during actual competition are ignored, which is ridiculous. If you come in with high expectations, people are just looking to tear you down. If you come in with low expectations, you're more than likely to leave with the same. It's a place where reputations are very easily destroyed, but rarely made. And it does a discredit to anyone participating by throwing out years of evidence about their ability to succeed and replacing that with 2 hours of under-the-microscope analysis.

Mashed Potatoes!

Enjoy your weekend!

Ahhhh! Nooooooo!

The following was posted by Trent Reznor at NIN.com yesterday...

In NIN world, 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of our first releases. I've been thinking for some time now it's time to make NIN disappear for a while. Last year's "Lights in the Sky" tour was something I'm quite proud of and seems like the culmination of what I could pull off in terms of an elaborate production. It was also quite difficult to pull off technically and physically night after night and left us all a bit dazed. After some thought, we decided to book a last run of shows across the globe this year. The approach to these shows is quite different from last year - much more raw, spontaneous and less scripted. Fun for us and a different way for you to see us and wave goodbye. I reached out to Jane's to see if they'd want to join us across the US and we all felt it could be a great thing. Will it work? Will it resonate in the marketplace? Who knows. Are there big record label marketing dollars to convince you to attend? Nope.
Does it feel right to us and does it seem like it will be fun for us and you? Yes it does.
Look for tour dates soon and I hope to see you out there.

Trent

I'm an NIN junkie, and any true fan of music should at least appreciate the innovation, quality, and musicianship that Reznor pours into each of his releases. For awhile I've been realizing that a lot of the bands I've grown up with are getting pretty old. When Reznor said it'd been 20 years since PHM I said, "No f&*(ing way...". Then I did the math and became sad. What am I going to do as my NINs, QOTSAs, Radioheads, Weezers, Beastie Boys, Local Hs, and others decide to unstring their guitars? I've seen the watered down horror shows that became of such once-great acts as the Rolling Stones who didn't know when to quit and I just don't want my favorites to go that route.

Anyway, I'm truly hoping that this hiatus that Reznor describes is short-lived. He's been on such an incredible creative streak these past few years that it seems like I've gotten a new NIN fix every few months. I guess I just always expected them to keep their hard-rocking vitality alive through groupies as I slowed down, but, alas, I guess age gets to everyone eventually. Growing up sucks...

That's Some Pretty Big News

Notre Dame football held a press conference last week to announce some coaching changes. Here's the important things that came out...

• Charlie Weis will be the offensive coordinator in 2009 and may call games from the booth.
• Jon Tenuta has been named defensive coordinator and will call all defensive plays in 2009.
• Corwin Brown has been "promoted" to associate head coach.

These three items are, in my opinion, pretty huge deals for Notre Dame football - especially considering how Weis made such a big deal just last year about being a more complete head coach and dropping play-calling duties on offense. Have you ever heard of a head coach even mention voluntarily removing himself from the sideline? Brown being "promoted" by removing his play-calling duties? (Officially he's still co-DC and supposedly will assist in game planning.)

Read into it what you will, but my guess is they liked the formula that proved so successful in Hawaii. Charlie knows he's not a rah-rah guy like Corwin, so Corwin becomes the motivator and mouthpiece on the sideline while Charlie focuses on calling plays. Meanwhile, the hyper-aggressive style that was so successful for Tenuta at Georgia Tech gets implemented without hurting Corwin's feeling.

It's a pretty major shake-up, even more so if Weis does end up calling games from the booth. It also reeks of Weis' desperation in pulling out all the tricks in order to be successful next season and save his job.