Excerpts from a recent email correspondence involving Pancreas Buster.

She:

I have booked [unimpressive, marginally successful indie band whom I'd never heard of before] and am looking for an opening band. I have a lot of inquiries coming in since this is such a great opportunity for any band. Aside from sharing the bill with a band of their stature,  they will  be included in all the promotional materials and will be exposing themselves to a massive international crowd. The exposure is tremendous.

With that said, if I were to book a local band I will need someone that is willing to provide equipment and backline. Since this performance is at an art fair and not a music venue, we will be building out the stage. The outdoor area fits about 2000ppl, thats not including the 16,000 sq ft space we have inside.

Me:

I can tell you right now that ANY band you get will not be able to provide a sound system big enough for a venue of that size.  You will need to hire a professional sound crew in order to provide adequate sound.  I can recommend a few different local companies.

With respect to booking myself, I have very minimal technical requirements.  Please consult my rider attached to this email as a PDF.  I am not a typical “band,” and as such I am very easy to accommodate.

While flexible, I typically charge around [reasonable amount] for myself as a solo act or [even more reasonable amount] for myself plus horn section.

She:

Being given the opportunity to perform on this bill is ample compensation. Thank you for your interest and the best of luck to you.

Some people on this blog (who will go unnamed) have been complaining about lossy audio compression being used on film score trailers and themes. Duly noted.

But I learned of a much greater menace of film score integrity tonight.  This year’s “Best Picture” (and it is a damn fine film) went one step further than using crummy, low bit-rate codecs on their score.  They actually outsourced the thing!  I understand we’re in a recession, but giving these jobs to composers and performers in central Asia is downright UN-AMERICAN.

Panic Bomber, Junc Ops, DJ Auto van Sheetrock, DJ Debbie D.

Friday Jan 3rd, 10pm.

$5 cover, $5 shot & beer combo.

Hey!  So, question for the general populace about Watchmen.  Pay close attention to the song that plays over the closing credits, right after the movie ends… Is that an mp3?!?!?!  Most obvious with the cymbals, as it goes with mp3 compression.  But really… for a hundred-bazillion dollar mega-budget movie, could they really have used a (badly) lossy-compressed file for *any* of the music in the movie, let alone the song that plays over the closing credits?!?

Somebody back me up here!

Unrelatedly, probably the most actively terrible score of any movie i’ve seen in the last decade.  And the licenced music (aside from the stuff that was referenced in the book, which is fair) was similarly awful…  Yorks!