Editing Nothing Records (section)

=== Mondo Vanilli ===
One act to depart during the early era of the label was [[Mondo Vanilli]]. Mondo Vanilli (sometimes referred to as MV Inc. or The Artists Formerly Known As Mondo Vanilli) was the brainchild of [[R. U. Sirius]], an [[United States|American]] writer, editor, talk show host, musician and [[cyberculture]] personality. Sirius was editor-in-chief of ''[[Mondo 2000]]'', a glossy cyberculture [[magazine]] published in [[California]] during the 1980s and 1990s. It covered [[cyberpunk]] topics such as [[virtual reality]] and [[nootropic|smart drugs]], serving as a more anarchic and subversive predecessor to the later-founded ''[[Wired magazine|Wired]]'' magazine.<ref>[http://www.suck.com/daily/95/11/07/mondo1995.html Mondo 1995: Up and Down With the Next Millennium's First Magazine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120515112105/http://www.suck.com/daily/95/11/07/mondo1995.html|date=2012-05-15}}, by [[Jack Boulware]]. (1995) ''SF Weekly'' / ''Suck'' article.</ref> Sirius described the band as "a virtual reality band that would proudly lip-synch, or maybe not, even pretend to play live music on stage - perhaps we would exist totally in virtuality - or else we would do other, more original types of performance to our music."<ref name="auto">{{cite web| url = http://boingboing.net/2011/05/16/mondo-vanilli-ru-sir.html| title = Mondo Vanilli : RU Sirius's 1993 album for Trent Reznor's label| author = Pescovitz, David| work = Boing Boing| date = May 16, 2011| access-date = August 27, 2016}}</ref> Sirius was backed by members Scrappi DüChamp, with whom he had collaborated on previous musical projects and would compose most of the music - and Simone Third Arm, a performance artist introduced to Sirius early into the project's inception.

Mondo Vanilli's involvement with Nothing Records came about through a chance meeting at Reznor's then-home at [[10050 Cielo Drive (Los Angeles)|10050 Cielo Drive]], the site of the infamous [[Tate murders]] by members of the [[Manson Family]] in 1969. Sirius, a Northern California resident, had left Mondo 2000 three months prior and was visiting Los Angeles with some promotional Mondo Vanilli booklets and demo tapes, to shop them around the L.A. music scene.<ref name="unknown">{{cite web| url = http://unheard78.blogspot.com/2011/05/ru-sirius-on-mondo-vanilli-and-music.html| title = RU Sirius on Mondo Vanilli and music| author = unknown| work = The Unheard Music| date = May 14, 2011| access-date = August 28, 2016| url-status = bot: unknown| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110708071345/http://unheard78.blogspot.com/2011/05/ru-sirius-on-mondo-vanilli-and-music.html| archive-date = July 8, 2011}}</ref> Sirius had been invited as a guest of [[Timothy Leary]] to a housewarming party at the grounds.<ref name="auto"/> It was there he met Reznor and gave him some of the Mondo Vanilli recordings, which included the songs "Love Is The Product", "Thanx!" and "Wraparound World."<ref name="Carbon, Lou">{{cite web| url = http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2011/05/30/resurrecting-reznors-90s-discovery-mondo-vanilli-an-interview/l| title = Resurrecting Reznor's '90s Discovery - Mondo Vanilli (An Interview)| author = Carbon, Lou| work = 10 Zen Monkeys| date = May 30, 2011| access-date = August 28, 2016}}</ref> The day after the party, Reznor expressed interest in the band and discussed a deal singing them to Nothing Records.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2010/07/02/meeting-trent-reznor-on-x-at-the-sharon-tate-horror-house/| title = Meeting Trent Reznor on X at the Sharon Tate Horror House| author = RU Sirius| work = 10 Zen Monkeys| date = July 2, 2010| access-date = August 28, 2016}}</ref> When the contract arrived, however, the band expressed some reservations. Sirius stated:

{{blockquote|Well, the first thing that hit us in dealing with Nothing was the recording contract ... We received this contract to record six albums for Nothing. I think it came on an Interscope Records letterhead. And we send it to Cara (Burns, then acting attorney for the band) and she freaked. She said it was a typically terrible record industry contract of the sort the big record companies usually gave to new artists, maybe it was even a little worse than average ... Anyway, somehow we got word that Trent wanted us to find a producer and a studio and get ready to start recording and we'd all deal with the contract later. We would have $90k to record it. So we scheduled recording time with Jonathan Burnside at Razor's Edge studio. And then [[John Malm Jr.|Malm]] got in touch and he didn't want to commit to the full album. He wanted us to go into the studio with $10k instead and record two songs and "see how it goes." So there was clearly this attitude with Reznor's management that we were sort of "Trent's folly" or maybe all of the Nothing artists were viewed that way, except probably [[Marilyn Manson (band)|Marilyn Manson]], since he already had a pretty big following in Florida. So we recorded "Gimme Helter" and "Thanx!" Anyway, the two songs knocked everybody's socks off. So we were given the go ahead to record the whole album.<ref name="unknown"/>}}

Recording commenced on the album at San Francisco's Razor's Edge Studios. The finished album, titled ''IOU Babe'' was completed in late 1993 and delivered to the label. However, the album was met with resistance from the label. Sirius recalled, "We finished the album right around the end of 1993. In fact, the timing was such that we went to a NIN show in Oakland and handed in the final product in person to his management. This time, we weren't invited into the dressing room and Reznor never came out to speak to us. I think it was maybe a few weeks after that Tony Ciula from Nothing Records told us that [[Interscope Records|Interscope]] was making Nothing drop all their artists except [[Nine Inch Nails|NIN]] and [[Marilyn Manson (band)|Marilyn Manson]] but that we could have the album gratis."<ref name="unknown"/>

The band suddenly found themselves without a label, having been dropped by Nothing. The final recording contract between the two parties had never been signed. However, upon requesting a formal notice of their release from the label, the situation became further complicated and it seemed the band would be unable to shop the album elsewhere.<ref name="unknown"/> Sirius stated, "When our lawyer asked for a formal notification of this (release from the label), the [[Interscope Records|Interscope]] lawyer told us that they weren't going to give us the rights to the music unless some other record company paid off their full bill ... and I think they had some other demands as well. In our position, we would have had to have gone to small indie labels, so it was pretty much impossible."<ref name="unknown"/>

In the wake of the fallout from the label, the band took to publicly criticizing Nothing and Reznor for a time, posting an article called "True Story of Brent Buzzkill and MV Inc," using pseudonyms and parody to recall their side of the story in their experiences with the label. They also recorded a new track for the ''IOU Babe'' album, "The Ballad of Brent Buzzkill", aimed at Reznor and the label. Sirious reflected, "Maybe he (Reznor) didn't really get the album, as a whole. We heard he liked some of it. He also went into a well-publicized ... ahem ... downward spiral around that time. And we did make merciless fun of him for a few years after it all happened ... We were pretty mean!"<ref name="Carbon, Lou"/>

The band ended up posting the album online for free, originally via member Scrappi DüChamp's now-defunct website. It the years to follow, the album would disappear and reappear online, through numerous outlets, such as [[Bandcamp]], [[SoundCloud]], [[Internet Archive]] and [[The Pirate Bay]], with slightly revised track lists. In 2011, the band stated on their Bandcamp website that a CD edition of the album was forthcoming, though to date, it has never materialized.<ref>{{cite web| url =  http://mondovanilli.bandcamp.com/| title = Mondo Vanilli Bandcamp| author = none| date = September 5, 2011| access-date = August 28, 2016}}</ref> Trent Reznor was given an unfeigned special thanks in later editions of the ''IOU Babe'' album credits.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}}