More On The Best Gig Ever
Earlier this week we talked about the Showtime premiere of This American Life -- focusing on the tale of Improv Everywhere's attempt to make Ghost Of Pasha's third-ever show the "Best Gig Ever," and wondering why GoP made it cost-prohibitive for TAL to license the band's music for a segment that would grant 'em lots of free publicity. As This American Life's producers wrote:
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.Not long afterwards, pretty much everybody involved wrote us with postscripts and further explanation. First, Ghosts Of Pasha wrote in response to This American Life's claim that GoP wanted "20 times the budget" for their music:
Just so you know, this is not true...
They never asked us to use our music to score the episode ... We were even willing to give them hours of new music to pick from for free... but they already had other plans for the music ... They did pay us for the music they are played live in the show ... Since "the best gig ever" the band had changed so drastically that the remaining members of GHOSTS OF PASHA could not even get the rights to its own music from its ex-drummer whom negotiated the deal with SHOWTIME and then paid GOP a fraction of the money... We love TAL and Don't hate IE, we just hate press that doesn't check facts....Also, head Improv Everywhere man Charlie Todd wrote in with his own happy ending to the tale:thanks
Ghosts of Pasha
Thanks for covering our prank featured on This American Life ... An epilogue to the whole story is that those two dudes played my 5th Anniversary Show at UCB this fall. It was the first time I met them in person. Video of it is here.Still waiting on This American Life to write us and explain their dubious "GoP wanted to break the bank" blog post. So, for now, that's the sordid tale of the Best Gig Ever.
And next up in the world of superlative concerts: The Longest Gig Ever!
Posted at 3:41 PM
Tags: Ghosts Of Pasha | This American Life
this episode aired so long ago. the whole thing was sad. not really funny, just sad. the band was the kind of go nowhere sort of group that are everywhere. their name screams it. and this improv group were essentially mocking them by doing this event. would you want a hundred people to act like they liked you, or one person to genuinely like you.
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i'm not sure this if is interesting or common knowledge or at all relevant but anyway: the music used throughout the segment was all from Aerial M's self-titled album, ie David Pajo being sweet and measured and awesome.
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I have to say I thought the hoax was horrible. And on top of it for TAL to totally be lying about the cash is really unfair. That band might not be that great but they are trying hard and not at the expense of other people, which is more than I can say for that improv group (which I would never pay any more attention to, after that story) and TAL (which I generally like but seems to have missed a sensitivity gene on that story). I'm sure the band made the best of a bad thing, and good for them. Doesn't mean it was such a great thing to do.
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fuck you all
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i just want to nibble on giant black dick cake
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showtime is streaming that whole episode. you can watch it here: http://www.sho.com/site/thisamericanlife/video.do
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