NEW NIN TING
The other day this was sent to the IDM-l, apropos of nothing:
My name is Erik Higa. I am a member of the N2O/Digital Bombing Crew which includes R.A.W. and General Malice. I’m known as DJ Shelter and have been uploading and posting my tracks on the internet since 1999. I have been working on a hardcore techno album which at this time is very near completion.
Trent Reznor was the head of a satanic cult and also a serial killer. He has been connected to the death of Anton LeVay who was the author of the satanic bible. I met Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson on the internet when I was 14 in 1993. I knew them since then and I started sending messages to the Nine Inch Nails Year Zero sites when I saw what Trent was doing.
When I started sending messages to the Year Zero sites he abruptly ended the marketing campaign and canceled his plans for a Year Zero movie. Then he made his remix site. He died in custody shortly after the end of the Nine Inch Nails Wave Goodbye tour. The last music that he made was the Ghosts sessions.
The film score he won an Academy Award for was not created by him and was started after he died. Perry Farrell was also involved and currently there is an imposter posing as him on stage and on television. There are many more layers to this story than I will tell you. The news agencies know and the gossip blogs know. Expect no reply from me.
A couple people tossed off flippant responses, but this thing genuinely piqued my interest. Honestly it must have been yeaaars since the Reznoid’s name was uttered on the IDM list. I personally didn’t really follow the whole YEAR ZERO alternate-reality online marketing campaigns that TR did for that album but I read the little descriptions on Wikipedia and it sounded interesting, and the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about this little schizo non-sequitor email made me think: if this isn’t a ploy to get guys like me who kinda checked out on NIN years ago to check back in, it seriously ought to be.
Now a “Trent is dead!!” conspiracy story obviously isn’t going to appeal to adults— it’s too fantasist, too messiah-complex. SO what I think is happening here is an initial seeding of the idea of this “Erik Higa” character— the wacko, obsessed fan who believes Trent has jumped the shark and who will, across a spectrum of social media platforms, eventually stalk TR and shoot someone very close to him. (If there isn’t some youtube videos directly riffing on Ricardo Lopez somebody on this campaign is asleep at the wheel…)
The “killing” of a loved one will not only thrust TR into the spotlight in a sympathetic (& un famewhorey-seeming) way, but also cause older folks who maybe stopped checking for Reznor the past few years to morbidly speculate that this tragedy might bring back the hate and anguish necessary for a another truly vital NIN record, creating a huge anticipation for the record and elevating TR above all of his contemporaries as a man facing real adversity and not just a pop star struggling to remain relevant.
It’s next level, imo— the perfect place to go after winning an Oscar and possibly becoming tarnished with too much legitimacy to be the ugly, uncontrollable (but ultimately sympathetic + cathartic!) fountain of rage that has always been NIN’s strongest aspect. Can’t wait to see how it really plays out.
