Best Gig Ever
You guys watching This American Life now that it's a full-blooded television show on Showtime? Last week's premiere was a great start to the series, and one of the segments chronicled the infamous gag pulled by comedic chaos-creators Improv Everywhere back in October of '04. You may know the story, but if not...
The troupe's idea was to "pick a struggling rock band and turn their small gig into the best show of their lives." The IE kids chose Ghosts Of Pasha, (a new band with two gigs to their name) as their target, downloaded and memorized their music, made tee shirts, and minutes before they hit the Mercury Lounge stage for an 11PM set, flooded the venue and proceeded to sing along and dance as enthusiastically and realistically as possible. Improv Everywhere's intention were pure, but when the band discovered it was a rouse (three days later), they were paranoid and confused. Can't blame 'em! But years later, all's been forgiven. And that's storytime for today, kids. You can catch a clip from the TAL segment here.
Interesting side note: Music licensing rights for television are expensive! So expensive that This American Life couldn't even get Ghosts Of Pasha songs for the Ghosts Of Pasha segment.
Even Ghosts of Pasha, a band we really like and whose story we tell in Act Two of the show, wanted a full 20 times the budget we had for individual tracks. We ended up licensing the songs the band plays live in the video clips, but sadly, couldn't afford to use them to score their own story.The production crew for the show write about their transition to television here. They discuss how they've managed to soundtrack the show on a budget -- but come now, Ghosts ... no Friends Of Pasha free publicity discount?
Update: Ghosts of Pasha wrote in to say, "Just so you know, this is not true..."
Posted at 3:20 PM
Tags: Ghosts Of Pasha | This American Life
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Yeah, because GoP have soooo much going for them.
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Sad that GoP wouldn't even license the songs to soundtrack their own story, but great to hear from Walt Mink again (singer/guitarist John Kimbrough ended up composing the segments in lieu of GoP.)
Good reason to cue up "Miss Happiness" (live performance:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKrsWarkZ4U
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Hey that Walt Mink clip is great. Thanks!
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That's my name.
Uhhh...cool?
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Weird, I was diggin This American Life yesterday, then there's a post here about it. Fascinating radio show, and after watching the first episode, quite well played.
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Yeah licencing is screwed up, it seems rediculious that if you're writing a book or creating a televsion show about a music act it's damn near impossible to get the lyrics / music for that show. I had a history prof once who wrote a ramones book but it was held up because didn't have the money to get the lyrics he was citing printed in the book.
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also TAL is the most important program in all of media.
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that is certainly ridiculous that they couldn't come to some agreement for a segment on their own band on a much hyped new show.
but as to high prices, licensing is one of the only ways for midlevel bands that don't clean up on tour to make ANY MONEY AT ALL in the music business these days. bands literally survive on that corporate cash.
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episode 1 was great...really looking forward to seeing the rest of the season.
and for big TAL fans... there's a torrent floating around somewhere that's every show from like 1995 to 2003. its great.
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the best gig ever thing sounds kinda cruel. maybe that's the band's reason for the reluctance to license the songs? tho they could probably use the exposure.
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Seriously stupid move by GoP. Don't they have any clue as to how many aging hipsters were tuned in for that show?
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Weird they wanted a lot of money to be patronized? What the hell is wrong with GoP.
This was the worst thing I've ever seen, it would be funny to prank a band that were total jokers who were full of themselves but these dudes were just happy nerds that were totally clowned by some clever douches.
I don't get why this was remotely entertaining or cool, if someone did this to the BRAVERY it might be amusing , clowing a regular ass band ...negative funny.
This show sucks.
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the point of the segment wasn't the rightness or wrongness of the prank it was the humanization of the players. The show (as this American life always does) gets you in by saying hey this is a funny story but then gets you to empathize with the Ghosts Guitarist and then wraps it all up with his redemption at the end. The Improv everywhere guy ends up looking like the least enlightened one here sticking to his guns of best of intentions.
Every episode of the radio show is similar in this way, they are great because they allow us to empathize with people who on the surface seem totally different from us. It's a powerful and important show in these days when 'values' are thrown about as plastic buzzwords . It's aptly named, the stories ARE American life, their undercurrents are showing us our REAL shared values.
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Are you a cop? Why are you explaining the concept of the show to me, are you going to tell me what Cable is next? How about television.
Regardless of what the intention was it wasn't a good story or entertaining in the least, it was exactly what it was a shitty band and some douche patronizing them.
Wow, it's so intellectualized that rules, it's still just a corny prank nothing different than Jackass but it's TAL so it's ummm better.
Do you work for the show or something? There's nothing powerful or imporant about being clever, it's just the opposite of the NY Post...who cares
I wish White Rapper was still on.
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Showtime is streaming the whole first episode. it's at http://www.sho.com/site/thisamericanlife/video.do
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