[Ray Maras]

Hiya Lou!

Sorry I missed you on the Wednesday night Metro show (I did actually hang 
around for a while, to look for you), though I did see Andrew going OFF in 
the distance.

This is a very tardy response to our merch 'discussion', way back when (with 
the benefit of a little hindsight).
As far as the merch. goes, I'd say that the lack of it was possibly an 
indicator of what was happening in either the Oils camp, or at ACME (the 
printers, who were also a level-one sponsor of the olympics).  It's also 
possible that ACME don't have the Oils license, anymore. (As I understand 
it, ACME's come pretty close to imploding, from what I hear... which would 
leave only one other major player in the Australian market... and I don't 
think those guys do tours any more, anyway).

The way that it used to be, most of the stuff that's been released 
tour-wise, overseas, has had some kind of origination here. Even the stuff 
(art & film) that was done for the Blue Sky Mining Tour (was generated in 
the States)  ended up being re-done here & sent back, for use in the rest of 
the international tour.

Since the US leg of this tour is so substantial, it's surprising that the 
shirts hadn't been field-tested before they were tried out on the US punters 
(I guess that it's been brought down to the lowest common denominator... 2 x 
black shirts... one 'photo' and one 'art'). An Oils audience used to be a 
HEAVY consumer of tour merchandise but the demand has pretty much sunk, 
across the board (sign of the times... fashion dictates that 
heavily-printed, black T-Shirts are 'uncool'!!). Take it from me... six 
nights would certainly generate enough revenue to make a 'run' worthwhile 
(and possibly bring in more revenue than ticket sales!). From what I hear, a 
run of 100 shirts are pretty standard, for many a tour, at the moment (5 
years ago, a run of less than 500 would have been considered a dud tour).

Of course, the prices of the shirts doesn't help, either... and I thought 
AU$35 was steep!! (about US$15). It makes it really hard for US workers to 
buy stuff they've been waiting four years for.

Does anyone know if Brockum, in the States, is still licensed to do their 
merch?? - it should be 'tagged' on the design @ the front, with the 
copyright (and probably on the label, too).

Anyway, most of this is irrelevant, but since I accidentally found it on a 
backup from 2 weeks ago (computer seized before I had a chance to post), I 
thought I'd lob it up anyway.

Keep those set-list coming, folks, and enjoy the tour!

a.t.b.
Ray

p.s. - Lou - the Parra shows were great... you shooda gone!  : )

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