R U Ready to Rock?
By Wes Phillips April 18, 2005 — Hot Licks: Add another title to UmixIt's catalog of DualDisc Enhanced DVD/CDs: Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry's eponymous solo album, his first since 1984.

UmixIt-enabled discs allow musically minded listeners to load selected songs into their PCs and manipulate the individual tracks of the studio session to create a mix that meets their criteria for sonic success—which might or might not be more "accurate" than the official release. Within the listeners' computers, the tracks are uncompressed, but only compressed MP3 files can be exported to CD-R or MP3 players.

Perry seems impressed with the format's possibilities: "The great thing about UmixIt is that fans can use their imagination and creativity. They get to go into the original instrumental and vocal tracks and create their own versions of the songs just like they're in the studio with me. It also gives them a new perspective on the music they listen to because they can strip it down to its most basic elements and then rebuild it the way their own ears hear it."

But wait, there's more! Www.joeperrymusic.com reports that those who order the disc in advance from the website will receive a "free mini bottle of Joe Perry's 'Rock Your World' hot sauce."

Joe Perry will be released on May 3.

Trent does it for free: If you're a Macintosh user, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is offering a taste of the new With Teeth album at the band's website. The album's first single, "The Hand That Feeds," is being offered as a GarageBand 2.0 file, and Reznor invites listeners to: "Change the tempo. Add new loops. Chop up the vocals. Turn me into a woman. Replay the guitar. Anything you'd like."

According to Reznor's "Readme" file, downloaded with the tracks, "What I'm giving you in this file is the actual multi-track audio session for 'The Hand That Feeds'…. This is the entire thing bounced over from the actual Pro Tools session we recorded it into. I imported and converted the tracks into AppleLoop format so the size would be reasonable and the tempo flexible."

There are, Reznor explains, "some copyright issues involved…. Giving this away is an experiment. I'm interested to see what comes of it, what issues are raised, and what the results are."

With Teeth will be released May 3 on LP, CD, and DualDisc.