NIN: Ghosts

It was 1990, our last week of school and we decided to have a picnic as a send-off. It was Olga, Rachel, Shanee, Mike P., Ralph, Sean, Andy, Biscuit and myself. Olga, Rachel and myself being Hispanic, the picnic was named "The Spic Picnic" which I remember really offended me. I still have the flier in my yearbook.

  I think someone else came too. It wasn't Stephanie because by then she'd blown everybody off and left without a goodbye or a forwarding address. We were driving home after much sun, fun, food and one bottle of beer. Rachel was driving the big beige Lincoln her dad gave her. The one she was embarrassed to be seen in. But it made for a great taxi. Mike and Olga were still dating at the time and sat in the back seat with Ralph. I was in the front passenger side with Shanee and Rachel. They'd set it up that way because they knew how much I liked Shanee. Eighteen years later, here we are about to celebrate 16 years together.

  Mike had brought several tapes with him including Peter Murphy, David Bowie and this new band called Nine Inch Nails. This last one was so noisy and industrial (little did I know, not having yet heard Einsturzen Neubauten nor Faust) that I didn't pay much attention to it. Of course, NIN's core member Trent Reznor went on to bring underground credibility and mainstream success to the band. They gave us members of Filter, Trent made Marilyn Manson a star and has had too many imitators to possibly list. NIN went on to record The Downward Spiral and The Fragile (still my favorite album of NIN). And now, 18 years later here I am trying to access the NIN website with little luck, trying to give them my money to download the new album of all instrumentals called Ghosts I-IV. I venture that the website may crash soon from too many hits.

  Reasons why this is an interesting investment to me:

  a) in an alternate reality, this is what a new King Crimson album would sound like.

  b) Adrian Belew of King Crimson, plays on several of the songs.

  c) in an alternate reality, this is was David Bowie's Low would sound like if recorded in 2008.

  d) pretty great instrumentals; better than anything else that's out there at the moment in this genre of music.

  You can even try the first nine tracks for free.