(maybe if these dudes had a crew, a bus and some proper lighting, they’d be sufficiently wild and crazy)

If you’ll allow a momentary digression from more important national events, the duo Pomplamoose —- whose appearances in a series of 2010 Hyundai commercials have been charitably called “the worst thing that ever happened to television, Christmas or cars” (by me, anyway) have published the financial results from a recent month-long tour. Despite selling some $100K in tickets, the tour lost over $10,000.

For those who might question the wisdom of such an endeavor (replete with a crew, 42-foot bus, commission paid to a large agency), Pomplamoose’s Jack Conte (aka One Of The Two People Who Ruined Christmas 2010) writes, “we could have played a duo show instead of hiring six people to tour with us. That would have saved us over $50,000, but it was important at this stage in Pomplamoose’s career to put on a wild and crazy rock show.”.

I’m having a little difficulty figuring out by what possible measure Pomplamoose’s presentation could be considered wild or crazy (though if either are willing to emulate Alice Cooper and behead themselves via guilotine, I can see how that would be crowd-pleasing on some level). Coming in an era in which Quiet Company call their new album, ‘Transgressor’, I guess we’re seeing all sorts of radical redefinitions. But here’s the funniest part of Conte’s revelations :

$8,750
Sponsorship from Lenovo. Thank goodness for Lenovo! They gave us three laptops (to run our light show) and a nice chunk of cash. We thanked them on stage for saving our asses and supporting indie music. Some people think of brand deals as “selling out.” My guess is that most of those people are hobby musicians, not making a living from their music, or they’re rich and famous musicians who don’t need the income.

I’m not sure who could possibly accuse Pomplamoose of “selling out”; presumably you’d have to stand for something (anything!) ; what’s to co-opt? Musicians or not, most reasonable persons understand that Lenovo would have to do a fuck of a lot more than give Pomplamoose a few thousand bucks to “save indie music”.