HOT: Record Hoax
Recently, an album sold through record resale outlet Discogs briefly became the most expensive music release ever sold through the site. But the sale was quickly canceled, leaving a bizarre backstory in its wake. The release — a test pressing of an album by extremely obscure Florida musician Billy Yeager — sold two days after being posted for $18,000 — $3,000 more than the real record-holder, a copy of Prince’s ultra-rare “Black Album.” The sale was called off after Discogs determined it to be “fraudulent.” While Yeager’s elusiveness has made it difficult to confirm, research from various media outlets suggests Yeager — who has a history of initiating hoaxes in an attempt to find the fame that had eluded him — was both the seller and the buyer. Here's a great investigative piece by Spin's Andy Cush.
WARM: Loud Speaker
When the vote for an Obamacare replacement was canceled, a screenshot from a New York Times story went viral thanks to a paragraph about how House Speaker Paul Ryan (who was charged with getting the bill passed) sullenly left the White House without taking questions from reporters and drove away with “the muffled sound of Papa Roach’s ‘Last Resort’ ” blaring from his vehicle. The tweet was posted by writer Justin Halpern, who, because so many people found it entirely plausible that Ryan would drown his sorrows in Papa Roach, later had to clarify that the screenshot was doctored as a joke. Papa Roach got some good publicity, though, and were good-humored about the whole gag.
When we feel defeated we listen to Paul Ryan. 🙃
— Papa Roach (@paparoach) March 25, 2017
COLD: Punk for Trump?
Punk Rock icon Johnny Rotten still trolls the old-fashioned way — by saying crazy shit in interviews. On a British TV show, Rotten recently said the “left-wing media” unfairly tries to “smear” Donald Trump as a racist, which led to “Rotten Defends Trump” headlines all over the internet. While the former Sex Pistol did express admiration for Trump’s anti-status-quo approach (causing and reveling in chaos was the cornerstone of The Sex Pistols career after all), he was mostly being cheeky and actually said, “There’s many, many problems with him as a human being, but he’s not (a racist).”
