But it looks like a few "idiots" have sent the man back into hiding. In the post, Reznor singles out the web community Metal Sludge, which, he writes, is "mainly populated by unattractive plump females who publicly fantasize about having sex with guys in bands." Apparently, these are the proverbial bad apples ruining things for everyone else. And Reznor has some advice for these folks: "Remember to cut along the length of vein, not across. Bigger payoff." Who says this guy isn't an asshole anymore?!

He signed off with some cryptic bits about "wrapping up the live version of NIN" and "doing some cool new shit." But, for now, it looks like one of the very few consistently readable Twitterers is taking a break from the 140-character world. Check out our Trent Reznor news archive for some of his greatest recent online hits.

Posted by Ryan Dombal on June 11, 2009 at 11:10 a.m.

Tags: Gossip, Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor

Trapped Animal:

01 Ask Ma
02 Lazy Slam
03 Pay Rent
04 Reject
05 Trapped Animals
06 Issues
07 Peer Pressure
08 Partner From Hell
09 Babylon
10 Cry Baby
11 Reggae Gypsy
12 Be It
13 Can't Relate
14 Had a Day

Posted by Tom Breihan on June 11, 2009 at 10:45 a.m.

Tags: Album, Reunion, The Slits

Tracklist:

01 Outside Plume
02 Growls Garden
03 Rainbow Voodoo
04 Look Into the Heart Now
05 Luxman Furs
06 Totem Crackerjack
07 Future Daniel
08 Primary Balloon Landing
09 Talis
10 Suns of Temper
11 Absence

Notes: Newest full-length from the British IDM producer.

Media: Stream album sampler here.

Posted by Tom Breihan on June 11, 2009 at 10:10 a.m.

Tags: Album, Clark

Helen Shapiro: "Walking Back to Happiness"

I have this real memory of English pop music, pre-Beatles English pop music, like Helen Shapiro and Dorothy Squires and people like that. I used to go with my grandmother and my mother to a hairdresser named Stefan. Stefan was a German paratrooper who had been a prisoner of war in England. He liked it so much he stayed and set up a hairdressing salon. He was also the guy who taught me how to play the drums. Stefan Jung-- no relation to the psychologist, I believe, but still a pretty amazing guy.

There was always kind of radio pop music going in the salon. It was always girl singers in the pre-Beatle time. I know Helen Shapiro toured with the Beatles. She was like kind of on the cusp of that. "Walking Back to Happiness" is just symptomatic of an entire genre of Norrie Paramor-produced British pop music: orchestrated and trying to be American but sounding slightly wrong.

Desmond Dekker: "Israelites"

I think that's the song I really remember because I was in school and I got picked to do a cartoon class, to draw cartoons for the school magazine. So we could be in a room all day with the radio on, and that Desmond Dekker song was number one. I didn't know what reggae was or anything. I just thought that was fantastic. Everyone was singing it, making up their own words.

I didn't know what anything was. It was a while before I kind of paid attention to music. I was about 13 when I started listening to T. Rex.



Roxy Music: "Virginia Plain"

I remember vividly hearing that on a transistor radio, lying on the beach. I didn't know what it was, but I thought it was the weirdest music in the world. Glam started about the time. When I was 15 was the time I stopped playing sports and decided that wasn't the best way of getting me where I wanted to be. This was when I became obsessed with playing in bands. Most punk rockers were weaned on glam. You can't escape Bowie/Roxy. Clubs used to have Bowie/Roxy nights right through the 80s. It was like where the punk rockers would go and hang out.

I had the balloon pants and various other accoutrements. Tank tops, you know. But we also liked disco music as well. The mainstream of British pop music at that time, what was on Radio 1 and "Top of the Pops", was actually a fantastic mixture. "Top of the Pops" was on once a week, and it'd be a mixture of frilly sounds, soul music, a bit of reggae, some proggy stuff like Procol Harum, and then all the glam stuff. You still had bands like the Move and the Stones, so it was a real mixture. There was just so much different stuff, and it forced you to take on board so many different things. "Top of the Pops" would be some middle-aged crooner, followed by some really serious rock band who was slumming it trying to have a hit single, followed by Chelsea Football club, then some reggae song. It was always exciting to watch it. There was lots of black music, and it wasn't that race thing that you get in the States. Here, we have radio segregation. I didn't know about being a music snob until I went to college, so at the time I just liked everything.



Pere Ubu: "The Modern Dance"

That'll be after the initial wave and excitement of punk rock. I really liked Pere Ubu at that time. I was listening to the John Peel show a lot when Mekons were on there. The Mekons were actually on the John Peel show all the time, so I used to tape it. They'd say, "Oh they're playing the song tonight on John Peel," so I'd put a cassette machine in front of my radio and press the button and go down to the pub and listen to it at two in the morning when I came home.

Bob Marley was putting out really cool stuff in 1978. The Mekons' first single came out in '78. By '79, I was really bored of what we were doing. It was around that time that Public Image was going off. Gang of Four were kind of moving in a different direction as well. There were the Raincoats and the Slits. There were also the punks that were into Anti-Nowhere League and being like heavy metal, just speeded up heavy metal with their mohicans and the leather jackets. That went one way. I thought that stuff was a load of crap. It wasn't interesting to me at all. The Mekons recorded our second LP in '79, when we were signed to Virgin. We were just sitting in a studio playing distorted pianos and nose flutes and god knows what. We wanted to be anything but three-chord British punk rock at that point.



Ernest Tubb: "Thanks a Lot"

A DJ in Chicago, Tommy Nelson, gave me a cassette tape in 1983. He said, "The Mekons are a country and western band." We thought that was stupid. He said, "All your songs are three chords. Anyone could play them. They're all about being in bars and failed sexual relationships." And he basically said the Mekons are a modern version of Ernest Tubb. We always smiled when we were onstage. He said Ernest Tubb was always very cheerful onstage even though he was singing about misery and death and alcoholism.

I was confused by it because I thought I hated country music. Then I realized that I really liked the stuff on the cassette. The cassette he made me was called Honky Tonk Classics. It was a collection of Merle Haggard, Ernest Tubb, and George Jones, with some Jerry Lee Lewis and Hank Thompson and I think some Kitty Wells and Loretta Lynn.

It was all just real hardcore. It wasn't country music; it was urban music. It was all about honky tonks and bars and drinking. It kind of spoke to me. When you're 25 years old, you've loved and lost. You've lived it a little. You feel world-weary at 25. I hadn't felt world-weary before.

That tape was really important to me. That's when most of England was getting into that dance stuff, and the Mekons were wearing cowboy hats and wandering around in cowboy shirts, getting into accordions and violins and stuff. People weren't into us listening to country music. People hated what we were listening to.



S.E. Rogie: "Palm Wine Drinker"

The big thing in Leeds at that time was promoting African music gigs, so I think the lot of us started the whole world music thing. We had already been listening to a lot of stuff like that. S.E. Rogie is from Sierra Leone. Me and Rico [Bell] from the Mekons actually opened for him at one of these African gigs that was put on in Leeds. We did all Buck Owens covers because we were obsessed with Buck Owens at the time. Rico could actually do good harmonies, so we did all these Buck Owens songs. I was Buck, and he was Don Rich. S.E. Rogie was the only person in the room who knew who Buck Owens was. The guy is from West Africa, and he's going [in African accent], "That was great, I love your Buck Owens covers," and a whole bunch of Leeds people just thought we were fucking ridiculous.

The best thing we did all night was to persuade the promoter not to let him sleep upstairs in the pub we were playing in and get him a hotel room. That was my big favor to S.E. Rogie.

"Palm Wine Drinker" was the title track of an album of his that I had. You know, what do people like about world music? It's that kind of exoticism since I have no idea what they're doing. I have no idea what he's doing with his fingers. He's singing in a funny language. I don't know what he's saying. The power of it is that it takes you somewhere and you don't know what it is. It was very mysterious to me. I listen to Tony Sarabia's show on [Chicago Public Radio station] WBEZ on Saturday nights sometimes. He plays really good stuff. A lot of world music, the stuff that comes around the circuit, is pretty soft-rock, jazzy, not interesting. Some of S.E. Rogie's stuff is genuinely weird-sounding.



The Handsome Family: "Moving Furniture Around"

I'd moved to the States then. I'm really bleary on what dates are what in the 90s. I know Mekons did a tour of the States when we didn't have a cassette player in the van. We listened to American radio. That was the equivalent of listening to nothing.

How about early Handsome Family? I don't know when their first album came out, but I was definitely hanging out with the Handsome Family at that time. I knew them from Chicago. That was definitely a time where most of the music I listened to was by the people I knew.

"Moving Furniture Around" was a fantastic song. I liked its strange timelessness. It sounded like an old song. It was taking the American music I liked, the old stuff, and making it into something new. I liked a line from the song: "Guy next door is playing Hootie all day / I bang the wall but he won't turn it down." That always made me laugh. It seemed to be a song that was observing the culture wars that I thought I was involved in.



Bruce Springsteen: "Nebraska"

I was bored with alternative country music, which I still am. When I discovered that record, I just remember being really surprised. I just thought Bruce Springsteen was crap, basically. Actually, I thought he was all right. I didn't think he was crap. I was on the fence, never really listened to him. I actually liked him because he gave money to the miners and the miners' wives during his tour of Britain during the miner strike in '84/'85, so I kind of thought he must be a cool guy. But his music was just stuff I wouldn't get into. Like "Born to Run", I couldn't deal with that at all.

But Nebraska just seemed really great to me. I liked the fact that he'd gone off on his own and recorded in his shed or something. It sounded like it. It was interesting to me that it would be his best work. I've had my interest piqued by that record, and I've went and listened to everything else. Somebody once said to me he's like the Bono of America. I have to heartily disagree with that. I thought that's really slurring Bruce. Actually, Born in the U.S.A. is an album I hadn't really noticed at the time. But "I'm on Fire" is pretty cool. That's a pretty cool song.



Althea & Donna: "Uptown Top Ranking"

A few years back, I got into those Soul Jazz compilations. That one really surprised me. Going back to the John Peel days, he pushed that record. It actually became number one on the British charts. Everyone knows that song. I never owned it. My cousin in Leeds burned me two volumes of the Soul Jazz Dynamite series. It was off one of those, and I thought, "What a brilliant record!" They basically came off the street saying, "We made up a rhyme; give us a backing track." That's nothing to do with me being 45, though. I accidentally found it at that time.



Led Zeppelin: "Kashmir"

My son discovered this. I never listened to Led Zeppelin or was interested in Led Zeppelin when I was a kid. By the time I was old enough to be into Led Zeppelin, they just weren't hip, and we were into weird stuff. They were too corporate. We were into Gong and obscure bands we could go and see, not rock bands that played stadiums. We couldn't afford to go to stadiums.

But for some reason, some kid at my son's school's parents had a Led Zeppelin cassette, and they sat and listened to it one day. He said, "Dad, Led Zeppelin is the greatest band that ever existed!" He was ten years old at the time. He works in lists. He's always like, "Dad, what's your favorite top five favorite bands? Who's your top five favorite singers?" He goes on like that. And then, "What's your favorite five Led Zeppelin songs?" We listen to it a lot, and he kept getting all these compilations and different versions of Led Zeppelin songs.

I have to say, "Kashmir" is absolutely fantastic. I actually saw my mate Lu [Edmonds] from the Mekons play that song live when he was in Public Image Ltd. Everyone in the room went nuts. I was like, "What was that weird song you did in the middle? I don't really know that song." He's like, "It was fucking 'Kashmir' by Led Zeppelin!" It was Johnny Rotten singing "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin, and the cross-cultural resonance of it was completely lost on me because I never fucking listen to them. I didn't really like Robert Plant, but then I met Robert Plant, and he's lovely.

My 10-year-old hates Alison Krauss now. She's keeping Robert from being where he should be. Whereas I fully respect his decision. I think he's probably having a much more dignified time than if he went out chucking groupies into bathtubs full of baked beans. Try that with Alison Krauss, I tell you.

Posted by Tom Breihan on June 11, 2009 at 9 a.m.

Tags: 5-10-15-20, Jon Langford, Mekons, Waco Brothers

Thursday, June 11

5:45-6:45 Janelle Monae (The Other Tent)
6:45-7:45 White Rabbits (This Tent)
7:15-8:15 MURS (The Other Tent)
8:45-9:45 The Knux (The Other Tent)
9:45-10:45 Chairlift (This Tent)
11:15-12:15 Passion Pit (This Tent)

Friday, June 12

1:30-2:30 Dirty Projectors (That Tent)
2:45-4:00 Animal Collective (Which Stage)
3:00-4:15 St. Vincent (That Tent)
4:45-6:00 Santigold (That Tent)
4:45-6:00 Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Which Stage)
5:00-6:15 Grizzly Bear (This Tent)
6:00-7:30 Al Green (What Stage)
6:45-8:00 TV on the Radio (Which Stage)
7:00-8:30 Amadou & Mariam (The Other Tent)
8:30-10:00 Beastie Boys (What Stage)
8:45-10:45 David Byrne (Which Stage)
11:30-12:15 Phoenix (That Tent)
12:30-1:45 Public Enemy (This Tent)
2:15-3:45 Girl Talk (That Tent)

Saturday, June 13

1:30-2:30 Heartless Bastards (Which Stage)
3:00-4:15 Booker T. & the DBTs (Which Stage)
3:30-4:45 Bon Iver (This Tent)
5:00-6:15 Jenny Lewis (That Tent)
5:15-6:30 of Montreal (This Tent)
6:00-8:00 Wilco (What Stage)
6:45-8:15 Elvis Costello (That Tent)
7:00-8:30 The Decemberists (This Tent)
9:00-12:30 Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (What Stage)
1:00-3:00 Nine Inch Nails (Which Stage)
1:00-1:45 Yeasayer (That Tent)

Sunday, June 14

1:30 Ted Leo and the Pharmacists (The Other Tent)
1:45-2:45 The Dillinger Escape Plan (That Tent)
2:30-3:30 Jessica Lea Mayfield (Cafe Where)
3:15-4:15 High on Fire (That Tent)
3:30-5:00 Erykah Badu (What Stage)
4:15-5:45 Andrew Bird (Which Stage)
4:30 Okkervil River (The Other Tent)
5:00-6:15 Merle Haggard (This Tent)
6:30-8:00 Band of Horses (Which Stage)
6:45-8:15 Neko Case (This Tent)
7:00-9:30 NBA Finals Game 5 (Cinema Tent)

Posted by Tom Breihan and Amy Phillips on June 11, 2009 at 7 a.m.

Tags: Bonnaroo, Festival

Tracklist:

01 The End Is Near (album version)
02 Lost at Sea (radio edit)
03 Charmaine Champagne (single version)
04 Teddy's on Kent

Notes: First single from the forthcoming Fiery Furnaces album I'm Going Away, available on 12" vinyl and digital download only.

Media: "The End Is Near" (MP3/Stream)

Posted by Tom Breihan on June 10, 2009 at 4:20 p.m.

Tags: Single, The Fiery Furnaces

In an interview with the national Norwegian radio station NRK, Swilley, who also performed at Primavera, offered his own take on the Wavves breakdown. Some choice quotes:

• "A friend of mine gave him MDMA (ecstasy), and he just couldn't take it."
• "It wasn't so much of a breakdown as it was him being a baby. And that's why I don't like him. I've heard stories from others that he's like a real dick. And just like a baby, thought he was really cool. But then when it came down to it, when the pressure came on he just couldn't take the heat. Some people can't do this.
• "That's cowardly to me. If you're gonna do this, you put your all into it. Otherwise, just stay at home. He's like a little puppy."
• "There's so many people that would wanna be doing that: being able to get flown over to Europe, and have people like your records and buying them. And then just blow it on your first show in Europe-- someone like that needs to not do this. He needs to go back to school or move back in with his parents and sit down and think about things. He shouldn't play music. He shouldn't tour."

It should be noted that Swilley is not exactly the first artist to talk shit about Nathan Williams. In an interview with the Washington Post back in March, Psychedelic Horseshit's Matt Whitehurst had this to say about Wavves: "We should have named ourselves Wavves. We'd be rich now if we would've. We're better than Wavves, he does the same kind of [expletive]." (There's a whole lot more in that interview, and pretty much all of it is hilarious.)

Both Wavves and Black Lips will play on Saturday, July 18 at our own Pitchfork Music Festival, which goes down in Chicago's Union Park. Feel the drama!

Posted by Tom Breihan on June 10, 2009 at 3:50 p.m.

Tags: Beef, Black Lips, Gossip, Wavves