We’ve got a couple of clips to share with you.

Here’s Been Caught Stealing:

…And Stop!

Jane’s Addiction: Live Voodoo is set for an August 31 release on DVD and Blu-Ray, and is available for Amazon pre-order now. Here are the dirty details:

Track Listing:
1. Up The Beach
2. Mountain Song
3. Ain’t No Right
4. Three Days
5. Whores
6. Then She Did…
7. Been Caught Stealing
8. Ocean Size
9. Ted, Just Admit It
10. Summertime Rolls
11. Stop!
12. Jane Says
13. Chip Away

Bonus Features:
1. 1% (Live in Los Angeles, 2008)
2. Ocean Size (Live at La Cita, Los Angeles, 10/23/08)
NME Featurette
Photo Gallery

While we had heard that the band had taped the set, we hadn’t seen any clips worth posting… Until now. A few minutes ago, janesaddiction.org posted the above video clip of Ain’t No Right, which apparently came straight from the band. Pretty cool.

This inspired us to make another sweep of YouTube for a watchable clip of the brand-new song the band performed at Bardot, entitled Another Soulmate. And lo and behold, thanks to DJPaulV:

Thanks Fernando.

The Meatbats achieve sonic alchemy by fusing together an array of influences, including old school funk, punk and 70’s R&B. Their debut album, Meet The Meatbats, consists of 10 songs written in the span of a few days at Chad’s pool house in Malibu (known as “The Tiki Room”), and exudes the feel of a spontaneous party-funk celebration of soul. That’s a good thing, too, because that’s exactly what it is.

I caught up with Chad just before the album’s release to discuss all things Meatbats, as well as to get a little insight on the future of the Red Hot Chili Peppers – which, if you’ve been paying attention to guitarist John Frusciante’s comments of late, is still riddled with uncertainty. Smith, however, feels differently.

Chad Smith: So what’s Antiquiet all about? I love the name.

Antiquiet: Thanks – we call it like we see it, popular opinion be damned. Personal taste is at the forefront, and our readers trust us not to suckle the scene teat or feed them a line of bullshit for quick hits. We don’t want to be mistaken for the bloggy payola stuff going on out there…

Chad Smith: “Bloggy payola?” (laughs) That’s fuckin’ great, man.

Antiquiet: Yeah, I’m not sure that’s an official term. I guess we’re just audacious enough to think we have better taste than most of what’s out there, and it’s working so far. We’ve got a good base who knows they can trust what we throw at ‘em. We have some spirited discussions with our readers that helps drive our approach to it. But wait a minute, I’m supposed to be interviewing you, aren’t I?

Chad Smith: Yeah, yeah, I had it backwards for a minute there (laughs). Sounds cool though.

Antiquiet: Thank you sir! So let’s talk about the fantastic Bombastic Meatbats situation.

Chad Smith: Fantastic Bombastic… Yeah! We’re pretty excited man, the record’s all set, and everything’s coming together. We’re really excited about it.

Antiquiet: Was the entire thing freeform? I read somewhere that you wrote everything in-studio, on the spot.

Chad Smith: No, we came up with some stuff… We wrote some songs at my house actually. Ed Roth, Jeff Kollman and I used to play with this guy Glenn Hughes, who used to play with Deep Purple. now he’s a solo artist, but that’s how we met. We played in his band and played a few records with him and played live sometimes. We’d just jam when he wasn’t around, and we always dug this kind of funk thing that we got into, and one day… I don’t know who it was, it might’ve been me – said “hey, we should record this shit, write some songs and get it down on tape,” and that’s what we did.

Antiquiet: How long did it take to bring it all together once you were recording?

Chad Smith: We did it all really quickly, probably in the span of a few days. We went into the studio and just recorded ‘em really quick, and boom, there’s a record.

Antiquiet: There’s little to no overdubs or overthinking done on the record, right?

Chad Smith: Yeah very minimal – we cut it all live, and I think… I think the piano had to be done separately because it was in a room that the drums would’ve leaked into. But other than that it was all old school, raw and live.

Antiquiet: The Meatbats sounds, to some extent, like Billy Preston on shrooms.

Chad Smith: (laughs) Right! There was this one guy I talked to in Alabama who said “this sounds like music Frank Sinatra would listen to if he was sniffing coke off a whore’s ass.” Sounds like a good category to be in. I haven’t seen that section in the record store, but we’ll fit it right between reggae and house music. (laughs) Okay, maybe not. But it does have that Billy Preston, Jeff Beck kind of vibe to it. All over the place.

Antiquiet: I know that the Chili Peppers really haven’t gone back to the material from One Hot Minute (the band’s one-off album with Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro) too much… John’s never played that stuff, has he?

Chad Smith: John…I don’t think he really feels comfortable playing Dave’s stuff. It’s like you’re fucking your girlfriend and she asks you to move like her old boyfriend did or something. It’s just not right to him. I think that’s what it is. There’s just so much other stuff that we can play, and so much other stuff that people complain about that we don’t play, that it’s easier to focus on all that. I’m personally proud of all the stuff we’ve done. I have no problem playing any of it. Dave is a wonderful musician… that was just a different band.

Antiquiet: How are you gearing up mentally for the Chili Peppers to kick back into gear?

Chad Smith: It’s all good! I’m ready, it’s gonna be fun. We haven’t played in two years, so that’s the longest we’ve ever not played together.

Antiquiet: There’s been a lot of concern over that, since you’ve been gone for so long. And John (Frusciante, RHCP guitarist) made a couple comments a while back on how he’s got no intention of diving back in..

Chad Smith: Yeah, he wasn’t too anxious to get back & get going. But one way or another, we’ll get going.

Antiquiet: How do you reconcile all those personalities at this advanced stage in your careers?

Chad Smith: I just try to do what’s right for the music in whatever situation I’m in. I just feel like it’s always fun to play different stuff and keep shit fresh. I just have to play, man. I just can’t not do it. I’m fortunate that I’m able to find people as passionate as I am about playing music and keeping it fun. It’s important to be artistically fulfilling, but at the same time you gotta enjoy yourself, man. It has to be a fun thing.

Antiquiet: Your name is going to draw attention to the project, but the change of pace and general atmosphere of it lends itself to more of a try-before-you-buy element. I’m not sure everybody would dive in head first to buy this new album, for a simple lack of stylistic touchstone beyond your involvement. Applying that, how do you react to P2P downloads?

Chad Smith: You know, especially for something like this, I’m all for illegal downloading (laughs). We just want to get it out there in any way we can. And I think that it promotes word of mouth, and its so important to just get it out there in any way you can these days. Whatever the means, I’m all for it

Antiquiet: So you’d take Tampax up on an ad offer?

Chad Smith: (laughs) We’ll that’s something I’d have to think about. I mean, when I was a kid, ’round twelve or thirteen, and I was interested in the music, I’d steal records too. But I’d be stealing actual vinyl records, which is much more difficult given how big they are, trying to fit ‘em under your jacket. I remember getting Masters of Reality, a Led Zeppelin album and Humble Pie’s Rockin’ The Fillmore… and shit, that was a double album. If I was a kid and I really wanted to hear the music, I’d get it any way I could. I’d steal that shit in a heartbeat. Totally. Is it right? No, of course not. But I didn’t care, it was all about me and how I could get it.

Antiquiet: So you’re not looking to cash in here, is what you’re saying.

Chad Smith: We’re not trying to compete with fuckin’ Coldplay or Lady Gaga and shit, you know? We’re a band for a little cult. A niche group that’s just having a great time playing kooky instrumental music. Any way people can get their hands on a new band, I think that serves the band well.

Antiquiet: Especially when it’s Frank Sinatra cokewhore music.

Chad Smith: Exactly.

You’ve read the words, now open your ears and check out Chad Smith’s Bombastic Meatbats.

We’re not going to get sucked into the message board bickering undoubtedly raging amongst the superfans comparing all of these last shows’ setlists, in attempt to crown the “best” show evar, or at least among the four final crazy Los Angeles area shows. But we will say that while the Palladium got The Downward Spiral in its entirety, the Echoplex had the most intimate setting, and the Fonda got the crazy rarities and special guests, the Wiltern show was, in every imaginable way, a perfect goodbye, and a little bit of everything. Reznor and company played thirty-eight songs, in four sets spanning over 3 hours, the longest show the band has ever played.

The setlist played out like a best-of compilation, though done Nine Inch Nails style- for the real fans, rather than the casual listeners nodding their heads to the radio singles. Closer was absent, but the band barreled through generous cross sections of all of their eight studio albums, spanning twenty years. And along with at least a couple true rarities, there were some guests t’boot; in addition to The Fragile collaborator Mike Garson on piano, goth icon Gary Numan, The Dillinger Escape plan as well as engineer extraordinaire and 12 Rounds mastermind Atticus Ross, Dave Navarro joined the band to shred up the stage with Robin Finck for three songs, easily the coolest versions of The Warning and Piggy I’ve heard to date, and a Gave Up at least on par with the video version, which remains one of my favorite live performances of all time, despite being filmed in Trent’s studio in the old Sharon Tate house.

Opening with the slow-burning With Teeth B-side Home, and following it up with the fan-coveted Fragile opener Somewhat Damaged, Nine Inch Nails made it clear that they were in it for the long haul, that it was going to be a marathon rather than a sprint. But the band did not shy away from the mortar shells, blasting through The Collector, Discipline, and March Of The Pigs in the evening’s first assault.

After going back to 1989 for the brooding Pretty Hate Machine track Something I Can Never Have, Nails played The Frail and The Wretched back to back as they are on 1999’s The Fragile. Ruiner followed, then Head Down- bringing me a new appreciation personally for the Slip track, as some live performances can do- and then came a crushing performance of the all-killer Downward Spiral-era rarity Burn.

Mike Garson then joined the band for Just Like You Imagined and La Mer from The Fragile, followed by Eraser, and then The Becoming, a consistent set highlight. To close the first set, Gary Numan took the mic for performances of his songs Down In The Park, Metal, and I Die: You Die.

The feeling at the first break was that while the performance was an immaculate one, the band wasn’t going to be doing anything that would be amazing on paper, such as bringing on an unimaginable deity of a special guest, or playing a bunch of insane, legendary rarities. There were fans hoping for full-circle type appearances by Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, or Richard Patrick, and I even found myself musing that it’d be pretty fucking cool if they whipped out Supernaut. But when the band returned to the stage for the second set, they made it clear that it just wasn’t that kind of party.

The pit exploded for 1,000,000- the reaction was even more violent than the one for definitive ass-kicker March Of The Pigs. The entire second set was a dense block of unrelenting rage, peaking in the middle with Suck, which young drummer Ilan Rubin seemed born to play. His performance outshined those of his bandmates’ and firmly anchored one of the show’s highlights.

After tilting a spotlight towards a fan sporting an obscure Ministry t-shirt Trent claimed he used to own, the band “took it back to the beginning” and played Down In It, before closing the second set with The Hand That Feeds and Head Like A Hole.

The third set wound up being the one that everyone who wasn’t there were talking about this morning- the one that actually was pretty amazing on paper. Two figures approached a pair of keyboards, both shrouded in smoke lit with green lights, and as we strained our eyes to recognize Trent and Atticus Ross, the duo played the super-rare Me, I’m Not. Then Dave Navarro walked onto the stage for the aforementioned trio of key performances.

Before the fourth set, Trent introduced the band members, stating that it has been an “honor” to play with them, and that he was going to miss them despite much time spent together cramped in a bus “smelling each others’ farts, and all that kinda shit.” He then said “to be clear,” that while this show marked the end of touring as Nine Inch Nails, that he and all of the other members will definitely be continuing to make music. To which the crowd went wild.

Trent said he’s got “lots of stuff” he wants to work on, but he just doesn’t want to be touring, saying he’s “gonna die” if he keeps it up. Finally, he thanked all of the fans for the support over the years, promising “not to let you down.” To which the crowd reacted even more enthusiastically.

The final pummeling the band dealt was not only the craziest of the night, but one of the craziest I’ve ever witnessed by any band. First, the stage filled with smoke. Figures were vaguely visible, some familiar, and some not. They were pushing each other around as they scrambled for their instruments, starting a riot even before sounding the opening notes of Mr. Self Destruct, which featured members of the Dillinger Escape Plan wreaking total mayhem with Nine Inch Nails across an open battlefield of a stage. During Wish, Dillinger frontman Greg Puciato dove into the crowd. By the end of the performance, instruments had been smashed, and a giant kick drum had been flung nearly off the stage.

The crew scrambled to reassemble the stage in time for the band to continue with two Joy Division covers; Atmosphere and Dead Souls, followed by The Good Soldier from Year Zero. The band then closed with a trio of goodbye songs- standard outro Hurt, bookended by The Day The World Went Away, and an emotional performance of In This Twilight to end the night.

As a live band, Nine Inch Nails has been peerless, at least since 1994 or so. Between growing up with their music and touring with them while following A Perfect Circle on the 2000 Fragility tour, we’ve seen this band dozens of times, and not one of them was a disappointment in any way. Again, it’s hard not to cynically joke about inevitable reunion tours, but in all seriousness, this band will be sorely missed. As always, we’re looking forward to hearing what Trent is going to work on next, but we can’t help but be afraid that there might not be a band out there worthy of picking up this mantle.

Here’s hoping that live shows like this can somehow find a way to live on, through the efforts of the most outstanding of the many, many musicians Nine Inch Nails has surely inspired and influenced over the past twenty years.

Nine Inch Nails
September 10th, 2009
Los Angeles, CA

Setlist:

1. Home
2. Somewhat Damaged
3. The Collector
4. Discipline
5. March Of The Pigs
6. Something I Can Never Have
7. The Frail
8. The Wretched
9. Ruiner
10. Head Down
11. Burn
12. Just Like You Imagined (w/ Mike Garson)
13. La Mer (w/ Mike Garson)
14. Eraser (w/ Mike Garson)
15. The Becoming (w/ Mike Garson)
16. Mike Garson Piano Solo
17. Down In The Park (w/ Gary Numan & Mike Garson)
18. Metal (w/ Gary Numan)
19. I Die: You Die (w/ Gary Numan)

20. 1,000,000
21. Letting You
22. Survivalism
23. Suck
24. Down In It
25. The Hand That Feeds
26. Head Like A Hole

27. Me, I’m Not (Trent & Atticus Ross)
28. The Warning (w/ Atticus Ross & Dave Navarro)
29. Piggy (w/ Dave Navarro)
30. Gave Up (w/ Dave Navarro)

31. Mr. Self Destruct (w/ The Dillinger Escape Plan)
32. Wish (w/ The Dillinger Escape Plan)
33. Atmosphere (Joy Division Cover)
34. Dead Souls (Joy Division Cover)
35. The Good Soldier
36. The Day The World Went Away
37. Hurt
38. In This Twilight

To be fair, it’s not a permanent gig; it seems to be a spontaneous temporary lineup of friends doing a small ramshackle tour around Southern California. So it would probably be jumping the gun just a bit to shout “supergroup.” But it does set an interesting stage for the much somewhat anticipated Smashing Pumpkins reunion.

Spirits In The Sky debuted at the Echoplex in Los Angeles on July 24th, at a tribute show in honor of Sky Saxon, the dearly departed frontman of obscure psychedelic garage rock band The Seeds. The lineup for that performance, which was originally to be a one-off, featured Electric Prunes bassist Mark Tulin, Strawberry Alarm Clock keyboardist Mark Weitz, as well as Catherine drummer (and ex-husband of original Pumpkin D’Arcy Wretzky) Kerry Brown.

Yeah, it’s OK, we haven’t heard of any of those bands either. You can sit with us at the nerds table if you’d like.

That performance also featured guitarist Kevin Dippold, and Mike Byrne, the Smashing Pumpkins’ official new nineteen year old drummer.

If we’re following the wonderfully thorough reporting of Hipsters United correctly, on August 6th Corgan announced a six-show tour of tiny venues (we’re talking coffee shops), billed as “Billy Corgan with special guests Spirits In The Sky.” And on August 19th, Corgan announced that Dave Navarro would be a part of the Spirits lineup for all but one show in San Diego.

The tour started just a few hours ago in Visalia. The final show is set for August 31st at the Hotel Café in Los Angeles, and Corgan has promised a special, costumed “Halloween Show,” with “as many as nine” performers onstage. I’d like to see nine motherfuckers on the Hotel Café stage. Ten bucks says they’ll have to draw straws.

In case you’re counting, the other two Spirits are Corgan’s Future Embrace touring bandmate Linda Strawberry, and violinist Ysanne Spevack.

From what we gather, Spirits In The Sky should not be seen as a deviation from the new-school Pumpkins plan so much as a warm-up exercise. Corgan will be debuting new material at these shows, and while he may be raising hell for lazy rock journalists, it’s a better process than Axl’s or Courtney’s.

Unfortunately, the one new Corgan-penned song unveiled at the Sky Saxon tribute (video here) was dismal, and crippled by technical difficulties. And I haven’t been impressed by a Smashing Pumpkins album since the last one with the original lineup, 1995’s Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness.

The new-school Pumpkins lineup is a four-piece, consisting of Corgan and Byrne of course, as well as Jeff Schroeder and Ginger Reyes, both of whom toured with the Pumpkins in support of 2007’s Zeitgeist.

As always, we’ll reserve judgment until we get our hands on some music. We’ll hope for something good in the meantime, and we’ll keep tabs on these Spirits In The Sky gigs. Our coverage of Corgan hasn’t exactly been overly optimistic, but we’d love to be surprised.

Photo by J. Giroux for Smashing Pumpkins via Dave Navarro.

As excited as we were, a well-received pitch doesn’t mean a whole lot in this town, and the exchange rate for the proverbial birds in hands versus those in bushes is astronomical these days.

In April, Trent Reznor posted a cryptic Twitter update that simply said “YZ is alive.” This was after a tease about a certain thing he couldn’t talk about just yet. He more recently fielded a question during a Digg Dialog session, where he danced around what seems to be some sort of HBO-enforced gag order.

Since then, we’ve been digging around, and while we have been able to confirm that the series was green-lighted, our sources at HBO continue to claim to know nothing at all about it.

Today, Twitter-holic Dave Navarro got our hopes up when he claimed to find a DVD labeled “Year Zero Pilot Episode / HBO” in his hotel mailbox. However, when we called HBO’s VP of Publicity for more details, she told us that no Year Zero pilot exists. And she “would definitely know” if one did. We’re pretty sure Dave was just fucking around.

Only time will tell if Year Zero will be a reality, or the new Tapeworm Project, the butt of jokes, and cheap pranks like Dave’s. But we still consider it a real possibility, and that’s pretty exciting in and of itself.

MORE NON-NEWS: Twitter buddy Fernando has pointed out this tweet by Rob Sheridan of the NIN camp, that surely inspired Navarro’s shenanigans. All of this is of course going down on the NIN / Jane’s Addiction tour.

The 21 year old sexual circus accurately calls herself the “new breed” of porn star- a warrior antithesis of the stereotypical starry-eyed daddy-issue-laden victim, prettily-packaged fresh meat to the slaughter of an industry designed to grind. A performance artist with passion, Sasha’s in the business because she wants to be, she has a clear vision and her enthusiasm for her craft has quickly established a widespread association between her name and the raunchiest, hottest action on film.

Among her more, uh, reputable gifts is a knack for blazing into territories on-camera that make even her male co-stars do double-takes. The perfect example lies in her very first sex scene, a moment that immediately put her on the radar of the freak brigade. While getting hammered by phallic legend Rocco Siffredi, the pale, barely legal petite asked her co-star to punch her in the stomach. ‘Cause that’s just how she rolls. Needless to say, you can rest assured that if Sasha Grey’s name is on the box, a wild ride awaits the watcher.

In addition to a documentary about her life as a porn star and an “experimental music/art project” called ATelecine, Sasha’s also set to star in Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, a mainstream crossover about a high-priced Manhattan call-girl that’s bound to generate a hellstorm of controversy.

Naturally, we felt an inclination to have a few words with the wild child.

Antiquiet: Hi Sasha! Thanks for taking the time to kick down a bit of wisdom. What’s the scene around you this very moment?

Sasha Grey: My sweaty head and armpits, gleaming outside of my beautiful canyon home listening to the birds as I lazily wake up.

Antiquiet: I think I saw you at the Jane’s Addiction show at the Echoplex a couple weeks ago. How fucking incredible was it to see the whole original lineup together again? Let alone at a tiny-ass club like that.

Sasha Grey: It was great- obviously I had never been to a Jane’s show so this was a big deal for me, unlike most of the lazy crowd! What is it about LA crowds, it’s like they are waiting for George Clinton to step out of his mothership and scare everyone away! Damn!

Antiquiet: We’re fans of pretty much all the bands you listed on your MySpace profile- what would be your ideal multiple headliner show?

Sasha Grey: Parliament, Black Sabbath, Ice Cube, TG, Coil (R.I.P. John Balance), Miles Davis, Talking Heads, Current 93, Pumpkins, Black Flag, and Hendrix… I can’t stop damnit!

Antiquiet: How would you describe ATelecine? Where can people hear it?

Sasha Grey: Experimental psychedelic death dub …for now: myspace.com/atelecine. We just sold out of our first EP and there is a full length album in the works.

Antiquiet: Speaking of, what the hell’s going on with your website?

Sasha Grey: I am learning to be my own webmaster so it’s taking much longer than expected. It should be up by the end of March. Trust me you will want it that way in the end (double entendre).

Antiquiet: Naturally, there’s a different mood for different kinds of sex, but what’s the best fuck music? Specifics please!

Sasha Grey: Any non kitsch metal or This Mortal Coil. Sorry, I can’t be too specific.

Antiquiet: Your Wikipedia page says you cite Bowie and Jean-Luc Godard as the bigest influences on your life and career. How do they inspire you?

Sasha Grey: Don’t you love how people put part one of something you said, but leave out the details?  They are two people who always evolved, and challenged the rules and not enough people in this day and age know how to live like that.

Antiquiet: A lot of panties are bunched and feathers ruffled over you getting into mainstream films. Care to comment on that, and break down your involvement in The Girlfriend Experience?

Sasha Grey: No, I don’t really care what people think. I could sit here all day listening and reading bullshit. I’d rather succeed while my haters live a miserable meaningless life. For me, acting in GFE is another great opportunity it is a way for me to diversify and challenge the status quo. I don’t see a division of having a porn and mainstream career like 97% of people probably do, I see this as living my life to it’s fullest potential.

Antiquiet: Where do you want to go from here in the mainstream industry? Any other projects in the works?

Sasha Grey: I would like the opportunity to play an ugly character- someone who people think I can’t become. My website SashaGrey.com, a graphic novel, a documentary called 9 to 5 days in porn which is touring festivals right now, another doc just about my adventure and experience from 18 to 21… plenty of fabulous print editorial work, and working on the smutful mind that is SG, and a bounty of other projects I can’t talk about just yet…

Antiquiet: Fair enough. Belladona’s an amazing performer- the queen of extreme. You’ve said the following about her: “She is an inspiration to me and an electric energy that this universe is lucky to have.” What makes her so, and how has she influenced you in your work?

Sasha Grey: She loves what she does, and that can be hard to come across in the adult business; she really is a porn star not a porn chick. She was a great counselor for me in the beginning of my career and I will always thank her for that, she has a lot to offer to new girls in the business.

Antiquiet: In addition to your clear confidence and physical beauty, you’re packing two secret weapons that set you apart from most others- your ability to deep-throat and your enthusiasm for anal (for which we enthusiastically applaud you). How do you prepare your mind and body before a scene? Most people seem to think you just show up at work, do a line and get to it- but that seems like a pretty shitty cliché.

Sasha Grey: I start my preparation the evening before. I get my shit ready, and I even write dialogue at times to fuck with my partner in the scene. On set, after makeup, and before the sex… I do an affirmation and psych myself up to mentally prepare for the scene. I think a lot of people take this for granted, and you give so much energy during a scene, I think it’s vital that you stay grounded and aware.

Antiquiet: When asked to describe your physical self, you’ve pointed other interviewers to the Google search feature. What about films? What are the best three films to introduce new fans to your work?

Sasha Grey: That’s really hard to answer, because everyone likes something different. Some people may enjoy the hardcore scenes I’ve done, and others will enjoy the softer, romantic scenes I’ve done. It’s safe to say, that if you like a certain company, I’d look for scenes I’ve done for them!

Antiquiet: What’s the worst thing a girl getting into the industry could do?

Sasha Grey: That’s a pretty broad question, and I think it would be unfair to answer it in an interview because it could be sorely misinterpreted. But I’ll give you one: Don’t be a crack head and think this is a rock and roll lifestyle.

Antiquiet: Besides real tits and black metal, what turns you on?

Sasha Grey: People who think for themselves.

Antiquiet: What gets you off the most?

Sasha Grey: Walt Disney’s boner… honestly Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain- you see were I’m going with this- and Janeane Garofalo, I think she’s brilliant.

Antiquiet: How does that answer differ with men, women and by yourself?

Sasha Grey: Oh it don’t!!!

Antiquiet: Do you spell it cum or come? I can never decide.

Sasha Grey: Come, cum just looks lame and pathetic.

Antiquiet: Do you support condom-only porn, and if so, how do you reconcile that with the obvious visual buzzkill?

Sasha Grey: I always say, if non porn performers (i.e. civilians) were having the type of sex us filth mongrels are, you would most likely be wearing condoms.

Antiquiet: How has porn affected your sexual reality off-camera?

Sasha Grey: It’s made me appreciate foreplay and oral sex a lot more; when you have a busy week you can’t fuck like a bunny at home (you don’t want to be too sore to perform). Clemens can’t play back yard catch with his kid any ol’ day of the week… if you follow me.

Antiquiet: We certainly do. What advice do you have for guys who want to bring out the inner freak in their girl?

Sasha Grey: Talk to her, but don’t be condescending. If you want to come on her face, don’t say, “Hey let me drop this load on you,” Say something softer like, “Can I do it somewhere else this time?” Try talking to her when you know you won’t be having sex in the next hour, or directly after sex so not to kill the mood!

Antiquiet: What’s up with LA Factory Girls?

Sasha Grey: I’ll give you the short version; it was really a way to establish myself as independent of my old agent… Whether we bring in more girls… I will know more in the next six months. It’s a busy year for SG.

Antiquiet: What’s the coolest shit you’ve discovered in the past week?

Sasha Grey: This new Canon 5D that records some sick ass video as well. And new to me the ARP 2600… modular synth.

Antiquiet: You’ve got 48 hours to live. What do you do?

Sasha Grey: Screen an original print of Shadows… Rip off and drink the rarest single malt scotch in the world and then my lover and I sail off in our 1963 Bermudan Sloop 30ft. yacht.

With very little fanfare, Indie 103.1 closed up shop yesterday, soon to be transformed into one of the ever-increasing number of Spanish programming stations on the dial. Indie began as a free-form masterpiece, a place to find refuge from the swarms of disposable banality and derivative mediocrity that’s been spreading through the FM dial like a raging corporate virus in recent years, extinguishing the pockets of cool that made it all worthwhile.

Not everything on Indie was great, but I wasn’t listening to consistently rock the fuck out or hear all my favorite songs. That’s what iPods are for. I listened for the challenge of what the station offered. I listened for the exposure to sounds I’d never heard, threads in the fabric I’d never seen. The programming was rich and varied, never lowballing the audience, and what caught my ear was new, different and even inspiring.  The DJs weren’t there to be “dangerous” and “edgy,” like every other goddamned station on the dial- they were real people with charismatic value and interesting stories to tell about what they were spinning.  Oh yeah, and they had some fascinating taste in music.

A message on the station’s website this morning said, simply:

BYE BYE

Thanks to everyone who made Indie 103.1 possible. We love you all.

The warning signs were there. In early 2007, founding program director Michael Steele was ousted and replaced by alt-rock programmer Max Tolkoff, a paint-by-numbers descendant of programmer Rick “Rock of the Eighties” Carroll, who played a big part in the shitification of KROQ. Max soon began narrowing down the format, trimming the branches, and it was quickly clear to everyone involved that the glory days had been quietly black-bagged and disposed of at Indie 103.1.

Fringe flavor shows started getting shuffled out of the weeknight slots and into lower-traffic weekend positions, or dropped altogether. They let Dave Navarro stick around because he was doing the job for free. They fired DJ Chris Morris in December, but offered to let him work a midnight shift- without compensation. Naturally, being a career man and not a rock star doing the gig for fun, he declined. 

Back in October I spoke with Scott Kirkland of the Crystal Method, who hosted a radio show on Indie called Community Service. After a four-year run the show was cut from programming, despite a solid showing in listenership. 

Kirkland dropped some hints at the time about downturns at the station. “They’re making some decisions right now to move to a more conventional format,” he said, “so all the specialty shows are pretty much going away.” 

I didn’t want to believe him. But soon enough, the culture rock, underground punk, odds and ends blues and so forth began giving way to a ’90s alt rock bullshit format that we’ve spent 15 years trying to escape from everywhere else. Smells Like Teen Spirit began getting just as much airtime on Indie as on KROQ. And if you’ve had anything to do with KROQ’s frequency any time in the past several years, you’ve undoubtedly heard that same. fucking. song. a thousand times over. Undoubtedly prepping us for the coming years, when we actually start to linger on those infomercials for Now That’s What I Call Music! or Hits Of The ’90s! collections on TV.

Say, that’s a really rockin’ beat, Nancy, what’s it called?

Don’t you remember? It’s the song that changed it all, Chad! It’s Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana!

Thaaat’s right! Hot could I forget? The angst, the flannel shirts… Drop it like it’s hot!

(head back, maniacal laugh) Oh I will Chad, and you can too, with the new Fabulous Hits Of The ’90s collection! From Creed to Seven Mary Three, they’ve got it all!

It’s all part of the plan. 

Radio listenership across the country is dying fast. Is that really any surprise to anyone? The fact that we can all take our iPods with us wherever we want to go, listed to whatever we want, anytime we want, removes the need for dodging 22 minutes of commercials an hour, not to mention God knows how long the DJ rambles on between each song. The quality’s just not there, and it’s not convenient. 

People are saying that “the spirit” of independent radio can live on by adapting to the changing times, i.e. giving up the FM dial altogether and switching to an online streaming format. But that’s bullshit- who the fuck wants to listen to somebody rant about carrying the terrestrial torch when a mixtape, and album download or one of a thousand music source blogs are already out there? 

Indie certainly had an audience, but crossover potential is minimal. Media consolidation speaks much louder than community support- a terrifying concept, but an altogether unsurprising one. With the world of music lovers collectively dismissing the most well-crafted, massive marketing campaigns for those outdated little pieces of plastic, it’s no doubt that the “insiders” are ringing the death bell for the radio industry. But the immediate bottom line still matters most, and co-opting and homogenizing is the quickest way to shove shit down people’s throats. 

That also includes satellite radio, which will not survive the departure of Howard Stern. He singlehandedly put Sirius on the map, and subscription fees and installation are cumbersome inconveniences in these hard times- especially when music is getting easier (and more socially acceptable) to obtain for free.

So that’s the end of DJ-focused shows, where personality played a role- and not the Rick Dees fucking car salesman personality, either. The DJs spun according to their tastes and passions, and it made for a hell of an adventurous ride. It’s the end of Steve Jones and his meandering, bizarre Jonesy’s Jukebox, the end of Henry Rollins’ brilliant, self-deprecating rock n’ roll stories (well, not really, there’s still his IFC show, his written works, his spoken word shows and this), the end of much-needed and well-received exposure for local and international acts, most of which have to otherwise rely on MySpace hype and/or sell their souls to get heard.

This does not bode well for the remaining “indie” stations in the radio market, ones with balls and personality, such as 94.9 in San Diego. 94.9 started out like a fireball of awesome, but slowly became co-opted and streamlined into oblivion. The FM dial has become just as bereft of meaning as junk mail or Britney Spears’ ninth career revival. 

No bottom lines are going to be affected in a way that you or I might hope by this loss. All the discontent in the world would, at best, only make ripples in already high seas. This is the end of Act II in the record industry, and it’s undoubtedly becoming clear that no amount of pay-to-play bullshit is going to change the fact that pushing plastic in a digital age is a failing business plan.

Am I pissed about the end of Indie? Sure. It’s a big loss for music culture in Los Angeles, that’s for sure. But ultimately, they’ve all got to go. The entire industry has to fold in on itself before they realize the beauty, the essential soul of what they’re paving over. 

But, as former 103.1 DJ Chris Morris said, “Tragic? Yes. Anything other than Radio As Usual? Not at all. Soulful? Please.”

The final message on Indie’s website says it all:

This is an important message for the Indie 103.1 Radio Audience-

Indie 103.1 will cease broadcasting over this frequency effective immediately. Because of changes in the radio industry and the way radio audiences are measured, stations in this market are being forced to play too much Britney, Puffy and alternative music that is neither new nor cutting edge. Due to these challenges, Indie 103.1 was recently faced with only one option- to play the corporate radio game.

We have decided not to play that game any longer. Rather than changing the sound, spirit, and soul of what has made Indie 103.1 great Indie 103.1 will bid farewell to the terrestrial airwaves and take an alternative course.

This could only be done on the Internet, a place where rules do not apply and where new music thrives; be it grunge, punk, or alternative- simply put, only the best music.

For those of you with a computer at home or at work, log on to www.indie1031.com and listen to the new Indie 103.1- which is really the old Indie 103.1, not the version of Indie 103.1 we are removing from the broadcast airwaves.

We thank our listeners and advertisers for their support of the greatest radio station ever conceived, and look forward to continuing to deliver the famed Indie 103.1 music and spirit over the Internet to passionate music listeners around the world.

Antiquiet: How are things in TeraVision?
Tera Patrick: TeraVision is doing really good. We just had the XBIZ awards a couple weeks ago, where Evan (Seinfeld, husband and pornstar) won crossover star of the year. I was really excited for him because it’s the first award he’s ever won in the business. For me it was so exciting that he won because I kind of feel that he’s the unsung hero of the industry. He’s contributed so much to the industry and done so much for my career ever since he took it over five years ago and started TeraVision with me. He’s just taken me to a whole new level. We work really well together, and he’s done so much for me so it was really nice to see him up on stage going “…and I would like to thank my beautiful wife.”
We just put out Teradise Island 2 this month, which is the sequel to Teradise Island obviously, which was one of my biggest movies last year, and we have Reign Of Tera 3 coming out this year. So there’s a lot of sequels coming out this year.

Antiquiet: How much does it help to have a husband in the industry that can relate to everything going on in your world?
Tera Patrick: It helps a lot. I would have to say that’s the only reason our marriage works, because we’re both in the entertainment industry and with him coming from music and me coming from modeling and film, we’re able to relate to each other on a different level. He knows how busy I am, I know how busy he is. We both have our own careers, but we’re both able to work together. I really admire him. Without really knowing it, we were both kind of fans of each other. He had pictures of me on his computer before we met but didn’t know my name. I was actually on the cover of his compilation album in Brazil, but I didn’t know who he was.

Antiquiet: Do you get tired of being in the public eye?
Tera Patrick: Yeah, we escape quite a bit. We always take time for ourselves and spend a lot of time at home together. We go on trips together… one of our favorite things to do is travel. We love to go to new places. Last year we went to about six countries together, we spent our anniversary together in September in Milan.

Antiquiet: Do you get recognized outside of the States?
Tera Patrick: I remember we went to Fiji last year, and nobody knew who we were. It was awesome. Nobody was asking to take a picture with us, and we just got naked in the spa together and ran around the hot tub naked. Some people came in and said, “Oh, this is a nudist resort?” and we were like, “Yeah! Join the party!” It was really cool.

Antiquiet: Did they get naked?
Tera Patrick: No, I think we scared ‘em off… (laughs)

Antiquiet: The porn industry has been criticized for the lack of intimacy between the people on film. Bearing that in mind, what does love mean to you?
Tera Patrick: Love is a very powerful emotion; it’s something you feel for someone or something that evokes a sense of security and warm comfort. I feel love for my husband for my husband and my best friend and my dog, and I have love for Thai food. They all make me feel comfortable and secure and really good about myself.

Antiquiet: Especially Thai food.
Tera Patrick: Oh yeah! I looove spicy mint leaf tofu.

Antiquiet: What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done for love?
Tera Patrick: When I first met my husband Evan I bought us tickets to Kuai, and he had never been there before. I took him hiking up a volcano, and we had sex at the top. It was an active volcano, too.

Antiquiet: That’s hot.
Tera Patrick: Yeah, literally!

Antiquiet: What romance advice would you give a guy trying to win a girl over?
Tera Patrick: I’d say flowers, candy… get a hotel room somewhere and decorate it with rose petals and run a bubble bath. I’m very much a traditional romantic. My husband still brings me flowers every day. He’ll buy me an orchid plant, he buys me chocolate… but not recently cause I’ve been training extra hard. Just spending time with someone is what matters. My husband and I have this little thing when we wake up in the morning where he throws his leg over me and we cuddle for an extra five minutes even if we have a photo shoot that day and we’re really busy. Taking the time to wrap your arms- or legs- around that special someone and let them know you care about them, even for a minute.

Antiquiet: I agree completely. Speaking of training, I heard you were making an aerobics video.
Tera Patrick: It’s called Fit For Sex and it’s a pretty hardcore, intense workout. It’s an actual real workout, so no wimps allowed, and it focuses mainly on core strengths, which is of course your abs, your glutes… It incorporates a lot of yoga and pilates, so there’s a lot of stretching. The idea of it is to make your body stronger for sex, so you can have sex in more fulfilling positions, Kama Sutra positions. We do backbends and things that maybe not everybody can do right away, but you can work up to it.

Antiquiet: When does it come out?
Tera Patrick: April. We’re shooting it now, and it’ll be editing and finished and ready by April. I’m real excited about it. It’s been fun to shoot, but let me tell you, I have been so sore every day.