Mondo Vanilli 's involvement with Nothing Records came about through a chance meeting at Reznor 's then-home at 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 . Sirius had been invited as a guest of Timothy Leary to a housewarming party at the grounds . 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 . " The day after the party , Reznor expressed interest in the band and discussed a deal singing them to Nothing Records . When the contract arrived , however , the band expressed some reservations . Sirius stated : 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 were n'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 was making Nothing drop all their artists except NIN and Marilyn Manson but that we could have the album gratis . " 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 . Sirius stated , " When our lawyer asked for a formal notification of this ( release from the label ) , the Interscope lawyer told us that they were n'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 . " 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 psudonyms 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 ) did n'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 ! " 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 . Trent Reznor was given an unfeigned special thanks in later editions of the '' IOU Babe '' album credits
Tate murders
Tate murders
Nothing Records