Pitchfork

Something strange is afoot on the Greyhound bus, and for once, it's not that guy in the trenchcoat who won't stop staring.

Included in this month's issue of electronic music mag XLR8R is a four postcard pullout advertisement emphasizing just how easy it is to traverse America's rock'n'roll underground via the notoriously slow transit system named after the notoriously fast dog. The insert bears the likenesses of Dan Deacon, Baltimore laptop-noise act Wzt Hearts, Japan's Ruins, and a crowdsurfer at a Team Robespierre gig. They say there's no such thing as bad publicity, but there are probably better ways to handle publicity concerns than the way Greyhound allegedly did with this foursome. Both Deacon and Wzt Hearts' Jason Urick have publicly complained that they were not contacted about the use of the photos, and, naturally, aren't too pleased.

Urick apparently caught wind of this business first, and made a post to crewcial.org's message board alerting friends and well-wishers to the budding controversy (his alias is "airplaneglue"). His first post asks, simply, "Can you sue if a company uses a picture and a blurb of your band without asking... because apparently Greyhound just did that with us. wtf?" The resulting discussion finds Urick and the rest of the board readers trying to determine just what Urick's legal rights might be in this situation.

In the meantime, Urick contacted friend and fellow B'more resident Dan Deacon, whose history with Greyhound is, apparently, a bit rocky. In a MySpace bulletin posted this afternoon entitled "IN NO WAY DO I ENDORSE OR PROMOTE GREYHOUND BUSES", Deacon railed against the corporation, claiming that no one had asked the permission of either him or New York's Silent Barn, where the shot was taken. He then went on:

greyhound bus company is one of the worst run, bullshit companies i have ever had the misfortune to use. they are a total monopoly and take advantage of that with poor service and price hikes and route cancellation. they have bought all the other smaller companies and run them out of their office in dallas. they treat both their employees and customers like shit. they are a cancer.

since i do not drive i used to use them to get to shows (when nothing else was available). on many occasions i had to cancel shows because the bus would be late, my luggage would get lost/stolen, the over sell their buses, and fuck i fucking hate them.

it really upsets me that i am being used to promote them. if i had my way i would see all their buses transport guns to all the people they have fucked over.

like many evil companies they are trying to use subversive advertising and i will not allow myself to be a cog in their wheel of lies and deceit. these rats stink like rotten cum. fuck them with 1000 fires.

in case this message finds its way to someone in the advertising department of greyhound: eat my shorts you dickless pig fuckers.

Oh, Dan, you always know what to say!

Of course, this isn't the first time a corporation has mined Baltimore's underground for tie-ins: recall the case of Oxes, who had their own image plucked by a corporation without contact some time back. It also isn't the first time today we've reported about such matters.

As legal scholars, we Pitchforkers are pretty good music journalists. So we really don't know what's going on here, in terms of the law. However, this clause, from publaw.com's section regarding signed releases for photographic material, does lead us to believe that these folks have a case: "Releases are generally not required from people who are identifiable in a photograph of a street or public place, provided that the photograph is reasonably related to the subject matter and the identifiable people are not the focus of the photograph." Deacon is clearly the focus of that image, and even if you don't recognize that cherubic grin right off, his name's on the back of the postcard. Whether or not a concert qualifies under the law as a public place remains to be seen, though Dan Deacon concerts certainly feel more public than most.

We do, however, think that these artists ought to have been contacted first. (We also largely echo any statement made testifying to the overall crappiness of Greyhound bus service, but that's really neither here nor there.) One has to assume real lawyers will get involved with this thing shortly, and we'll all know a little more. For now, maybe, stick with hitchhiking.