Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, who is currently on tour in Europe on the Wave Goodbye Tour (which *may* be NIN’s last tour ever), posted a message on the NIN official website alerting fans to the fact that a NEW SET of US tourdates will be announced soon. The dates will take place in August, in the cities NYC, Chicago and LA … and in smaller, club venues! Here is the full text of TR’s announcement:

Getting right to the point, we’re going to play a handful of shows in NYC, Chicago and LA starting August 22nd. They will be informal affairs in medium to small venues with longer set-lists, possible special guests, cool openers and other surprises. Upon reflection, the NIN/JA tour felt like we had to rush through sets due to a limited allotted set length and many shows were in daylight – it just didn’t feel right to end NIN that way. An offer to headline V-Fest in Toronto (being announced soon) set the idea in motion to play some FUN shows to end this up with. If we can get it together we’ll film these shows, too.

Thanks,
Trent

Hot Damn!! This is just … incredible! NIN haven’t played club dates in the US since the early 90’s … these shows are absolutely MUST SEE for any Nine Inch Nails fan. Altho I was extremely fortunate to be able to see NIN play a tiny club in Barcelona, Spain a couple of years ago I have never been able to see them play smaller venues here in the US. At the very least, I plan on attending the NYC and the LA shows. If these shows turn out to be the last NIN shows ever … I absolutely plan to be there to bear witness. Woot!! Actual tourdates and onsale ticket information has yet to be announced … I’ll be sure to pass along that info when it becomes available. Again, I say, WOOT!!

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Pink reader Anu gave me the head’s up that Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails sat down with Chicago Public Radio’s Sound Opinions during their recent stop in Chicago, IL on the NIN/JA 2009 Tour to give a little one-on-one interview about various music-related topics. The interview is absolutely a must-listen for TR fans but is also a must-listen for those of you interested in music in general:

Click HERE to stream to the entire Sound Opinions podcast online or click HERE to download an MP3 of the whole show. I listened the the entire show this morning and was most impressed with the tone of the entire conversation. The questions weren’t being asked by fanboys, they were being asked by true music fans which allowed Reznor to talk at legnth about his feelings on the music industry in general and his experiences in particular. He did clarify, again, that the current NIN tour may be the last … forever. While he did say that he will most likely record new music in the future, he suggested that he may do so under another name (saying, it “may or may not be under the name Nine Inch Nails“). TR insists that he does not want to turn into an elderly rocker saying, “I don’t want to become Gene Simmons putting on his demon boots“. Reznor also talked a bit about former Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell’s new collaboration with Timbaland and even revealed that his old record company (and Cornell’s current record company) Interscope commissioned a Timbaland remix of the NIN song The Hand That Feeds … which TR describes as “laughably terrible” (ah, but would that we might be allowed to hear this monstrous atrocity some day … box set, perhaps?). While this interview with Trent Reznor may not have the charm that my interview with Trent Reznor has (kidding, kidding), I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it and think that some of you may enjoy it as well … tho, Chris Cornell fans might want to take a pass.

[Source, thanks Anu]

The 13th Annual Webby Awards were handed out at Cipriani Wall Street in NYC last night and a who’s who of celebs and tech geeks came out for nerdly event. Each year, the Webby Awards are handed out by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and honor excellence on the Internet — including websites, interactive advertising, online film & video and mobile web sites. The man of the hour this year was Trent Reznor of the very Internet-friendly band Nine Inch Nails who was honored at this year’s Webby Awards as the Artist of the Year. Here is Trent with his beautiful fiancée Mariqueen Maandig all dolled up in suit and tie on the red carpet along with other celebs who came out for the event:

It is the awards show where techies are greeted like rock stars. Described by some as the Oscars of the Web, the Webby Awards pay homage to the best of the Internet. From videos that went viral to the stars who graced them, the 13th annual Webby Awards on Monday night gave online pioneers their due respect in the form of a trophy one recipient described as a “bedspring.” Known for its unorthodox format, the irreverent awards ceremony featured its traditional five-word speeches and videos showcasing the “raw talent” found only online. Seth Meyers of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” hosted the show, and this year’s recipients reflected the diverse Internet audience. Honorees included Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor for artist of the year and The Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington, who won for best political blog. Huffington’s speech was a tad defensive: “I didn’t kill newspapers, OK?” This year’s show unveiled a new category, Webby for Internet famous, to honor those who had created an online following. There were also those whose fame segued from television to the Web, such as Lisa Kudrow, who won for her role as an online therapist in “Web Therapy” and Sarah Silverman for “The Great Schlep” and “I’m F**king Matt Damon.” Tweeting his way to the top of the pack was Biz Stone, who garnered the Webby for breakout of the year as co-creator of the Internet phenom, the micro-blogging site Twitter. There were no upsets among the categories as they had been announced before Monday’s star-studded gala at Wall Street’s Cipriani. But there were some surprises, such as when recipient Richard Buschman uttered his five-word speech: “Erna, will you marry me?” No one was more surprised than Buschman’s fiancée, Erna Bomers, who had been told to come to film the speech so her boyfriend could share it with his co-workers. Actress Cameron Diaz presented a Webby to late-night talk-show host Jimmy Fallon for person of the year. His speech? “Thank God, Conan got promoted.” Of course, Fallon was referring to Conan O’Brien, who moved over to “The Tonight Show,” allowing Fallon to air. And the man whom the Webbys credit for creating the Worldwide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by journalist Charlie Rose. Berners-Lee received the only standing ovation of the evening and wrapped up the hope for the Internet’s future with this statement: “Free. Open. Keep one Web.”

Woot! Congrats to all the winners of this year’s Webby Awards. Nerds Rule!! As you may have gathered, it is customary for acceptace speeches at the Webbys to consist of just 5 words. As I mentioned above, Trent Reznor was honored as the Artist of the Year — after the jump, watch video of his 5-word acceptance speech and check out a few Twitpics posted from the event by my new friends Rob Sheridan and Tamar Levine …

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To get right to the point and completely without any bit of hyperbole, I have to declare that yesterday was among the best days of my life. The things my friends and I got to experience at the NIN/JA 2009 Tour stop here in the metro Detroit, MI area yesterday are pretty much the things that I will remember and cherish for the rest of my life. I’ll try to be concise and not ramble but, seriously, the day was too epic to adequately describe. Sarah, Mark, David and I arrived at DTE Energy Center Pine Knob early in the afternoon so that we could participate in the meet and greet festivities that came with donating money to help fund Eric De La Cruz’s heart transplant. We met a bunch of great Detroiters, including Pink readers Monique and Brandon, and all got to share the experience together. I’m gonna put the many, many photos I want to share behind the cut so that only those of you interested can check them out. I will post this awesome photo of the “Bodypaint Girls” who came to the show wearing no tops, only airbrushed bodypaint to cover their bodies:

Believe me, they looked more amazing in person. You can see what they looked like from the front HERE.

After the jump, check out photos and video from the NIN soundcheck, pics of some of us with Nine Inch Nails and some of the photos of the show that I got to snap while I was ON STAGE with the band during their performance …

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Here is some great news to impart on this lovely Saturday … Trent Reznor has announced on his official Twitter profile that his effort to inspire fans of Nine Inch Nails to donate much needed funds so that Eric De La Cruz can afford a heart transplant to save his life has been met with MUCH success. In only a few days, NIN fans donated over $542,000 dollars for Eric’s surgery. The overall cost of his operation is close to $800,000 … so there is still a lot of money that needs to be raised. Here is the full text of TR’s tweet update on how much money has been raised thus far and a re-posting of TR’s letter about the campaign to raise funds for Eric De La Cruz’s heart transplant:

From TR’s Twitter: We have now raised $542,212 for Eric. I love you people. Thank you.

A Letter from Trent:

Miscellaneous:
These offers apply to the Chicago show (obviously minus the Jane’s Addiction part.
These offers apply to the HEADLINING (read: NON-FESTIVAL) shows in the rest of the world. The exact specifics will obviously vary but the overall vibe will be similar.
We are offering a LIMITED amount of $1,000. ONLY donations for Bonnaroo – you must already have tickets (or buy them separate). The specifics will be different, as we have no soundchecks, etc but we will include a VIP pass and access to hang out in whatever situation we find ourselves in there. Specific details about this particular show coming soon.

Any fan of Nine Inch Nails knows how fiercely private the band tends to be … for Trent Reznor to offer up this kind of access to those of you who can afford to generously donate to help save Eric’s life is truly very commendable. I, myself, was moved by Trent’s plea and donated and I sincerely hope those of you who can afford to donate will do so as well. It is so humbling to see the power of people’s compassion and desire to help others in need. There is much more that can be done … so I urge you, again, if you can help out in any way — please do! Click HERE to make a donation on the NIN website or click HERE to make a donation on the De La Cruz family’s website. Every donation helps … please keep ‘em coming.

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Trent Reznor posted a message on the official Nine Inch Nails website last night asking fans for their help. Eric De La Cruz is in dire need of a $150,000 heart transplant and is, apparently, getting no help from the Nevada Medicaid system. TR decided to offer up intimate one-on-one backstage access to NIN at various tour stops along the NIN/JA 2009 Tour for those of you who are generously able to donate significant sums to help Eric fund his heart transplant. Here is the full text of Trent Reznor’s message to fans as posted on the official NIN site:

A Letter from Trent:

To find out more about Eric’s situation:
http://weloveeric.com/
http://www.veronicadelacruzonline.com/

Believe me, I know that it is really hard for some folks to part with significant sums of money in this economic environment. That said, I’m sure that any donation that you might be able to afford will go a long way in helping Veronica De La Cruz fund her brother’s much needed heart transplant. This is an issue of life or death. It is really damn commendable for TR to offer up his help in this way. I was so moved by his plea last night that I made my donation on the spot last night as I read this letter on my phone. Right there at the NewNowNext Awards I made my donation. I hope that you, too, can help out in any way you can for this great cause. I don’t know what I would do if I was faced with having to find a way to pay for a loved one’s heart transplant … it’s the least I could do to try and help ease that burden for the De La Cruz family. I hope you feel the same. If you cannot donate, please pass these links along to all of your friends on your blog, My Space/Facebook pages, Twitter profiles, etc. Click HERE for more information on Eric De La Cruz’s situation and click HERE if you want to donate the sums required to be able to hang out with Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails backstage. I’m looking forward to posting that the required sum has been reached and that Eric will be able to have his heart transplant. Make those donations, y’all!!!

UPDATE: TR just posted on his Twitter profile that they have since raised over $260,000:

I am truly blown away by the response to this: http://store.nin.com/helperic – we are over 260K in less than a day! THANK YOU #ERIC

Great, great news! Keep the donations coming!!!

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Last month Nine Inch Nails frontman/creator Trent Reznor participated in an interview for DIGG.com where he answered the 10 most popular questions as voted on by DIGG visitors. Apparently, fans who frequent the forums at NIN.com and Echoing the Sound were not really happy with the questions that were asked and they began voicing their displeasure with the interview on those messageboards. Reznor decided to reach out to those fans and asked them to come up with their own questions for him to answer and agreed to participate in a new interview. The interview was conducted via webcam (a first for Reznor) last night and has been posted online for download (it hasn’t yet been encoded for streaming online). I’ve been able to watch the interview and will pass along some of what I think are the most interesting highlights … including TR’s first public acknowledgment of his recent engagement:

Trent was asked about the possibility of releasing any unreleased music and he revealed that there isn’t an archive of unreleased NIN tracks for him to release. He mentioned that if an artist does have a library of unreleased tracks like that then they should release them … he then suggested that Prince release some of his unreleased music because, according to TR, his last few albums “have sucked”. Reznor then laughed off his comment and said, “I may be happy and engaged but I can still be a prick.” This is the first public acknowledgment that Trent has made about his engagement to West Indian Girl singer Mariqueen Maandig. As a very private person, I know it’s a big deal for TR to talk about his private life like this … my guess is that he mentioned it before the question could be asked of him. I was lucky enough to meet the beautiful Mariqeen at the Star Trek premiere here in Hollywood, CA last week when Trent introduced her to me:

Believe me, nothing would’ve pleased me more than to share their good news with the world but it was not my place to make any announcement. It was only after Mariqueen herself made the announcement online that I offered my public congratulations :)

Trent clarified that “Nine Inch Nails is not done” and that the hiatus to come after this year’s NIN/JA 2009 Tour is just so that he can be “stationary” for a while. He wants to ensure that NIN is a “precious thing” and putting it aside for a while will keep it from getting beat down to death with endless touring. He revealed that he doesn’t want to become a “parody” of himself and that he needs “to take a breath and reconnect” with himself. He then talks a bit about the style of the NIN/JA Tour setlist-wise and promises that there will be a few surprises (including cover songs). The entire interview is long and really interesting to watch, mainly because of TR’s very thoughtful answers. It can be downloaded HERE and I will post a streaming embed of it when it becomes available. The NIN/JA 2009 Tour starts this Friday night in Florida … who’s going?

UPDATE: After the jump, watch the video interview in full …

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