Pictures of the AI Premiere: latonireview.com and wireimage.com (this one requires a login, and pictures of ministry start on the 5th page).
Interesting to note that Al seems to have been interviewing people with an Mtv microphone...
Apparantly, Ministry recorded three songs for AI, none of which appear on the soundtrack. We all know about What About Us?, but there are two more instrumentals tracks.We will have to wait and see....
But this was seen on the Ministry Mailing List:
(6/26/01, 6 p.m. ET) -- Ministry, which is piloted by Paul Barker and Al Jourgensen, has written three songs including "What About Us" for the Steven Spielberg movie A.I., and the duo was in New York City Tuesday (June 26) to attend the film's premiere. As to Ministry's role in the premiere, Jourgensen and Barker told LAUNCH before the event, with tongue firmly in cheek. Jourgensen explained, "Well, we're going to be the anti-Joan Rivers tonight on the runway, the little red carpet thing there...finding out exactly what kind of designer people and stuff are wearing." Barker added, "We get to get all catty and stuff and talk about 'em." Jourgensen continued, "No, we're going to be outfitted in tuxes like James Bond and Dean Martin and go out there and catch people coming out of their limousines and basically heckle them, and get paid to do it." Barker added, "Then we're going to spill drinks on them, put 'kick me' notes on their backs and just general mayhem to just enliven things a little bit." In a moment of seriousness, the duo told LAUNCH that they were honored, and that the premiere was the most surreal thing to happen to them. Barker said, "The whole idea of Spielberg and Ministry being mentioned in the same sentence is surreal." Jourgensen added, "And Joan Rivers and us being mentioned in the same job description is surreal, and Ministry and tuxedos is surreal." Fans can find "What About Us" on Ministry's latest release, the Greatest Fits album. The band recorded two instrumentals for the movie as well, but those don't appear on Greatest Fits.
-- Darren Davis, New York
Lawton sent me an email a few weeks ago and wanted me to check out his demo Ministry site he was doing for Warner Bros. It seems his site is now live and is the new look for the official Ministry site, www.darkspoon.com. Looks great, guys.
I know this has nothing to do with Ministry, but I thought I would share pictures of when I went to see Ohgr, here in Buffalo on June 15th. You can view them here.
Ministry and MTV
Sujata sent me this very interesting email:
how crazy is this?
i had just read about ministry's involvement with A.I.
and was attempting to download the video. i turned on
the tv, and it was playing on mtv.
ministry on mtv before midnight?!? i never thought
i'd see the day. they even classified it as "brand
spanking new". it was an amazing song, and an awesome
video.
....
Though, I know sometimes MTV plays the M2 station (in the US), so maybe it's a regular on M2...
What are Ministry upto now that the AI movie is finished? Ministry have moved back to Texas, to work on new material. Ministry's Greatest Fits album is the last of theirs on Warner Bros., as they have been dropped from the label.
Shawn Rao also emailed me about the video. He tells me that you can view the video for What About Us? from launch.com. You need to run Windows to actually view it, so I'm out of luck...
I just heard the new Ministry track What About Us?. This song is to be featured on the soundtrack for A.I..
The song may have been recorded during the Dark Spoon sessions. I say this because the song itself reminds me a lot of Bad Blood, in the way the instruments are structured. A cool, angry track... There is loads of bass and snare drum in this one.. I will try to work out the lyrics over the next few days (this won't be easy).
I whipped up a quick page for the Greatest Fits album that is coming out from the Ministry camp on June 19th. You can read the page here.
Press Statement
I found this quote by Paul Barker to be interesting. It's from the press release which discusses Ministry's involvment with the A.I. flick. Here's the quote: "I understand there was a list of 40 acts being considered for the role, but by the powers of hypnotism, and us sneaking into certain peoples houses at night whispering our name in their ears, we were lucky enough to be chosen."
A.I. Release
The movie A.I. is being released on June 29th....
(Thanks Chris Vogel)
Sorry for the lack of updates, but things have been quiet on the Ministry front. The Best Of album will still be coming out, and more information can be read on the April 2001 pages (April 20 2001).
Psalm 69 Vote
An anonymous person sent me this... Stuff Magazine voted Ministry's Psalm 69 album the 41st best album of all time. The image of the magazine clipping is here (center left).
