When Filter mainman Richard Patrick went into rehab in 2002, it marked the end of the industrial-rock band’s rad second line-up. That means it’s been about a decade since the Filter that made Title Of Record (super classic!) and The Amalgamut (epic!), and since then jeez I haven’t caught sight of Patrick’s old team like at all. Which is surprising, cuz drummer Steve Gillis is a stud (here) and guitarist Geno Lenardo co-wrote this phase of Filter’s biggest (here) and biggest-selling jamz (here).

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A tweet from former Nine Inch Nails touring member Danny Lohner has alerted us to the fact that Pretty Hate Machine, Trent Reznor’s awesome debut, was released twenty years ago today.

Wow. Hard to believe that that’s true – and it’s funny that so many people forget that Reznor actually started doing his thing in the 80s.

Anyways, to celebrate, here’s the video for “Head Like a Hole.” Like most people, I imagine, this video made me aware of NIN for the first time. And it’s still an awesome song.

-AR

By and large I think that re-mix albums are a total waste of time; only once in a blue moon does anyone manage to come up with anything interesting (or, at least, more interesting than the original track), so they often seem like cash-ins in the vein of “expanded edition” re-releases.

So I am in no way optimistic that Maynard James Keenan has announced an April 29 release of V is for Viagra: The Vagina Remixes, a remix collection (duh) of the songs from V is for Vagina, last year’s Puscifer album. A lot of the participants on the release will be the usual suspect for this sort of Nine Inch Nails-ish affair – former NIN member Danny Lohner, Dave Ogilvie, Telefon Tel Aviv’s Josh Eustis, etc. – but, oddly enough, Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison will also have a track, as will Aaron Turner from Isis and the infamous ambient force known as Lustmord. Which is actually very encouraging.

In any case, I guess we’ll get to find out if this particular release can rise above the usual remix shenanigans next month.

-AR