Twitter users who follow Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor might have noticed a nice bonus to being part of the Tweet generation Wednesday. The Industrial rock icon is passing out tickets and backstage passes to NIN fans who follow his Twitter feed.

Reznor announced the giveaway Wednesday morning over Twitter, then tweeted a link just before noon. Users who clicked through were taken to the band’s NIN|JA tour page, where a short form was open for a brief window of time. The first five fans who completed the form took away the NIN|JA ticket haul.

Twitter users tremor76, freezya, shockwavesmedia, ungeheier and chadrullman each received two free tickets and backstage passes to any show featuring NIN and their touring acts, Jane’s Addiction and Street Sweeper Social Club, during their upcoming tour. The tour kicks off May 8 in West Palm Beach, FL and ends June 12 in Charlotte, NC.

A repeat of the contest was announced for Thursday, so any NIN fans who are Twitter-savvy had best get on board and keep an eye out if they want to take advantage. The only requirement is for entrants to provide an ID number, presumably to identify them once they receive their ticket (though this is a guess based on how they handle presale tickets…).

Visit Reznor’s Twitter page here, and the NIN|JA tour page here.

Local LA band Army Navy just released their second single, titled “Saints.” The song is a sweet, guitar-crunching, melody-swinging power-pop number the band has had for a while, recently re-released on their self-titled debut album.

The “Saints” video will smack you upside the head if you’re not paying attention. And if you are paying attention, it will smack you upside the head anyway.

Oh, and a 10-year-old gets drunk.

I’m embedding from YouTube, because the link they’re promoting doesn’t seem to like WordPress. But here’s the link anyway: http://www.vimeo.com/4281275. There’s also an awesome interview/live performance on YouTube everyone should check out at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuHqSfbPiZA

Reprinted from my Cinema Blend article.

I don’t get goose bumps very often. Occasionally I’ll be sitting alone some cool, quiet night with headphones on, and I will feel a chill, mixed with the tingle of awe that occasionally comes with a really good song. If I had more time to sit still, it might happen more often.

But sometimes it doesn’t have to wait for the right time.

It happened to me the other day, in fact – on a hot day, maneuvering through traffic on the way home from work. And it makes sense, considering the song. It was The Smiths’ “Suffer Little Children,” possibly the creepiest pop song ever written.

This song doesn’t endeavor to be morose like Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt,” or Halloweeny like Type O Negative’s “Black no. 1” (or any other Type O Negative song…). This one is unassuming, quiet, beautiful and innocent – and entirely haunting. Part of the reason has to do with what it is about.

The last track on The Smiths’ first album is about a series of murders. Specifically the Moors Murders, a string of extremely violent child killings that took place around Manchester in the ‘60s.

Between 1963 and 1965, Scottish stock clerk Ian Brady and his girlfriend, Myra Hindley, persuaded five children between the ages of 10 and 17 to follow them to various places, where Brady mercilessly tortured and then killed them. Hindley watched while Brady raped, hacked and strangled his victims with string or cord, nearly decapitating one of them. The couple then buried the corpses on a dreary field north of the A635 road, west of Oldham, called Saddleworth Moor. Four of the bodies were found over the next twenty years, one never was.
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Some random revelations that came from listening to Internet radio stations at work (a work-in-progress, watch for sudden changes):

1. Thom Yorke definitely seems to have gone through a “whiney, screamy acoustic version” period. Meh.
2. After a long time, yes, it is possible to be sick of hearing the Beatles.
3. Pandora can play long sets without repetition, but not that long. I’d say the euphoria dies around the 4-hour mark.
4. John Mayer sounds like a rock and roll version of Dave Matthews.
5. David Byrne struggles a bit to hit that high note in “Psycho Killer” when he sings it live, but he’s a badass for not lowering the key.
6. In any group of people, young and old, there is always the “metal guy,” and he’s not who you think. Don’t let him control the station.
7. Some ’70s group covered the Rolling Stones’ “19th Nervous Breakdown” and slopped it up, and I don’t know who they are. Must look into this further.
8. New Order’s “Blue Monday” is catchy, but also long and redundant. I don’t know why so many bands have covered it. Note to self: If I start a band, don’t cover “Blue Monday.”
9. God, the Strokes are undeniably awesome, and I’ll wall-slam anyone who disagrees. Try me.
10. Also on the Strokes: Ignorant people sometimes bag on Fab’s drumming, but I believe simple and steady outperforms fancy and flamboyant any day.
11. The Killers line “I got soul, but I’m not a soldier” is like a grotesque mustard stain on an otherwise halfway decent song. Must write band and complain.
12. Someone somewhere started a “sad, high-pitched girl singer/pianist” trend, and then everybody started copying it. Boo, hiss.

The UK new-wave / goth outfit (“Depressed Mode,” one of my favorite band nicknames) is preparing to launch its world tour, the ambitiously titled Tour of the Universe. The avalanche of awesome begins Wednesday, May 6 with a warm-up show in Luxembourg, and ends (for now) December 18 in Manchester. The group had reportedly planned to end it in Florida in September, but recently added six extra Europe and UK dates.

The schedule is below. I will be eagerly descending upon the first Hollywood Bowl show. Cheers.

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I hate the power of suggestion, and I hate being marketed to. Thus, I’ve made a point never to buy albums based on the latest hyped song. This also entails never purchasing anything solely because it was handed to me in a movie soundtrack.

But however stubborn my mission is, there’s one problem. Dammit, it can always be overridden by a good song. A good song has the ability to plunge straight to the center of my brain, put a gun to my brain’s head, and force my brain to drop all of its principles with regard to “resisting the will of the man.” That’s why when Uma Thurman, aka Beatrix Kiddo, got into her VW Carmengia and ruefully cruised the backroads of Ciudad Acuña, Mexico while the background swelled with Malcom McLaren’s “About Her” — a plushy collage of the Zombies’ “She’s Not There” and Bessie Smith’s “St. Louis Blues,” — I had no choice.

The sorrowful piano melody! The hypnotic textures! Did I mention the piano melody? Even the light R&B beat, something I almost never approve of, seemed to coax me in with its mournful innocence. Bessie Smith’s wretched croon echoed hauntingly, conjuring the image of a wasted soul trudging through existence in a self-pitying stupor. And when the chorus opened to reveal my old friend, Colin Blunstone’s tender voice from “She’s Not There,” wrapped in gentle orchestration and slowed to a melancholy drift, it was the slap across my brain’s face that forced me to take action.

So I went out and bought a Zombies compilation. Of course, I still listen to McLaren’s creation whenever I want, free on YouTube. Damn the Man.

The Americans may not have the rich Irish heritage the Emerald Isle has, but we definitely support our homemade version of it: All hail Flogging Molly and their hearty, snarling, Irish punk-rock. I need say no more:

On occasion, I will be in some department store or other where I am exposed to the business side of pop culture. This basically means music that serves as background fill, creating a comfortable, mindless soundtrack that makes people more inclined to shop. And usually, what I hear irritates me beyond words (though I tried to express it once, here).

However, a recent event managed to re-open my judgment on commercial pop covers, and I’ve realized something rather interesting: The commercialization of music doesn’t always have to involve the dumbing down of obscure, artistically challenging songs. It can go both ways.

This occurred to me in the sale section of a slightly upscale clothing store, where my discerning eardrums were introduced to a vaguely funky, jazz-style version of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.” Sounds awful, I know. But hold on.

It was performed by a female vocalist, with some combination of keyboards and horns fleshing out the main chord progression, and a broken-down beat that almost entirely avoided the main beat of the song. The whole thing barely resembled the original at all. In fact, it took a few bars for me to positively identify it. And I would even say … I wasn’t pissed off about it. (Side note: I tried to find it on YouTube to no avail, but here’s a goofy, lamer jazz version of it by Tom Gaebel and Jazzkantine, to give you some idea.)

I’d like to contrast this experience with an earlier one, the example I hinted at earlier. This was the Killers’ hipster-pop version of Joy Division’s “Shadowplay.” Hearing that cover brought my blood to a boil instantly, and here’s why: The original version of “Shadowplay” isn’t supposed to be perfect. It’s not meant to be readily absorbed by people who don’t “get” music, or serve as the backdrop to a mindless club atmosphere. It’s meant for the quarter-toting music fiends at The Bar and Jones — and it’s certainly not intended to be the soundtrack to a Forever 21. (I realize this might sound elitist and snobby. It is.)

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The first time I saw Daniel Earwicker he was tearing through a cover of the Smiths’ “How Soon is Now?” on an old Rickenbacker. He was doing it without vocals, so the screaming lead guitar poured in like a crashing wave. I thought he was impressive for a guy with no head.

The people who watch Earwicker play, in fact, usually only see him from about the shoulders to the knees. That’s because his primary audience is on YouTube, where Earwicker, 36, has established his presence as a self-contained Internet band, complete with a growing base of rabidly loyal fans. (Me: guilty.)

His band is the Primrose League, and the lineup is as follows: Guitar, Daniel Earwicker; bass, Daniel Earwicker; drums, Daniel Earwicker; vocals, Daniel Earwicker. Production … you get the picture. He records on his home computer in the south of England, videotaping himself on each instrument. He then cuts it all together into a homemade music video, featuring himself as all players. As of yet, he has about 14 original songs in his catalogue, which he’s made available in album form to anyone who wants them. And yeah, they’re good.

“I’ve never sent a CD off to a record company or anything like that,” Earwicker said over an email interview last week. “YouTube is the first time I put music out to somewhere that the general public could find it.”

At first, he said, he had only posted a few covers to his channel – a pretty common phenomenon among “headless” YouTube musicians. He only began posting his own material at the request of listeners, never imagining people would start following him.

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It’s almost second nature for musicians to write about drugs. Especially when you’re dealing with rock, where the idea is to do what everybody tells you not to do, and make it look like it’s cool. This is probably where spandex came from.

The catch is that musicians aren’t supposed to openly write about drugs (except in the case of rap, where it’s encouraged). They find metaphors, and usually those metaphors are about as complex as John Wayne dialogue. Everyone knows about the La’s “There She Goes,” i.e. the heroin-as-girl metaphor; or the Beatles’ “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” whose “shoot, shoot” euphemisms all but sell the stuff. The chemical factor in David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” was even spelled out clearly in “Ashes to Ashes” with the line “We all know Major Tom’s a Junkie,” in case any of the kids missed the classic “floating above the earth” metaphor.

With songs like “Hotel California,” “Under the Bridge,” “Golden Brown” and “Comfortably Numb” all containing their crystal-clear to slightly hazy euphemisms, the list of artists who have poetically flouted their bad habits before the mainstream media is eons long.

But what about the more cleverly disguised songs? You won’t convince me that the only heroin songs out there are the obvious ones. It’s almost guaranteed that somewhere, some good-guy songwriter is kicking back, having pulled off such a well-disguised smack anthem that no one even noticed it. My mission is to uncover some of these sneaky writers. At the very least they deserve to be recognized for their ingenuity, and praised for fooling everyone.

The Osmonds, “Goin’ Home” – This song is a prize winner. Show me a “track star” who’s got a long road ahead of him, who has to fight to make it “home” if it takes him the rest of his life, and I’ll show you a desperately hooked junkie. “I’m a space man from a different world,” the song says, reeling dangerously close to Bowie’s more evocative metaphor. “I’ve been gone so long that I’m feeling like a useless man.” The song’s energetic charge is enough to create a deceptive shroud of positivity, but if you really think about it, this is as strung out as Trainspotting.

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