BY MIKEY MIGO
"April Fool's Day" is a celebrated across the world. Unless you're living under Iraq, you've probably had experience with the festivities of said day. Basically, we fuck with people. Mostly, we as a collective society deem it okay to lie to someone, screw with their personal property, or flat out embarrass all in good fun. I think the main appeal is that it allows us to be assholes while having the support and understanding of other assholes.
Sometimes you can be cruel with it. I remember one year a friend and I told someone that Mariah Carrey died. He's a huge fan and at the time for someone in their mid-20's to be irked by it… it was hilarious. A year or so later the same friend and I set up an automated voice to call a friend about a parking ticket he recently received. He was so infuriated by the call that he was going to go the campus police to complain. That's just the tip of the iceberg on the douchey April Fool's jokes I've taken part in. I've had my own fair share at my expense to be fair. One year I was caught off guard and was told that Homer Simpson died on an episode I missed. Being a huge Simpsons fan, it actually did kind of bum me out. The point is, no matter how much of an asshole we are to our loved ones everyone has their moment of "playing the Fool".
Outside of some of the crap we're tricked into paying for, the music world is no different with their tomfoolery. There have been plenty of "April Fool's Day" jokes and hoaxes pulled off by bands, radio stations, and music fans alike. Today we're going to take a look at a few.
JESUS'S TOOL
In 05, Maynard James Keenan, the guy who sung about Jesus blowing his "f*cking whistle" for years as the lead singer for Tool announced that he was abandoning the band, the new Tool album, and recordings at the time and possibly forever. You see, Maynard proclaimed he "found Jesus" and if you know Tool that just doesn't mix very well. This caught people off guard. While in retrospect it's laughable, but Maynard is a weird guy. Anything is possible with him. MTV bought it. Kurt Loder contacted him through email to get a statement. Keenan's statement: "heh heh".
SPACE SUCK
Chris Martin, the dude who sings for the U2/Radiohead cover band "Coldplay" took his suckage to levels out of this world last year. He announced on Coldplay's blog that the band was going to record an album in zero gravity. The plan was to record, with Brian Eno mind you, in a modified Boeing 727 that provided about a half minute at a time of zero gravity. This idea was kind of lame and not well executed. I think the only thing that could have saved this was if they included a picture of some sorts. There's an easy joke about a black hole here. I just can't put my finger on it.
BJORK ZEPPELIN
After all the "turmoil" lead singer Robert Plant decided to continue his work with Allison Krauss and the rest of Zeppelin still wanted to tour. So with these rumors and gossip flying around it would be Bjork of all people to fool us. Last year, Bjork made the announcement on her site that she was taking the lead singer spot for Led Zeppelin. To make this crazy story even crazier, it was deemed that she demanded they only play songs from Led Zeppelin I and IV. Sure some of the bands biggest hits were on these albums, but to be sung by Bjork? Yikes.
LESSON LEARNED: METAL > COUNTRY
Even when you're joking, metal always is better than country music. This was proven in 2009 when WIXE, a Country and gospel station in North Carolina, "pranked" their listeners when afternoon host Bob Rogers made the announcement that the station was changing formats to heavy metal. This lead to numerous phone calls from concerned and angry listeners, but just as many called in excited with requests for songs. It's pretty sad when about half the response of this hoax were in favor of it.
THE BEST ALBUM THAT NEVER WAS
Trent Reznor isn't widely known for his sense of humor, but is known to randomly and spontaneously surprise his fans with new downloadable albums. When Reznor announced the new album "Stobe Light" was being released a lot of people got excited. Then when you click into the website set up for it, the ruse becomes clear. The first thing you see is that the album is produced by Timbaland and the first thing you hear is a very generic dance beat in the background. It's the little things that make this hoax so funny. The picture of Trent with the Kanye 80's glasses, the fact that the songs came as Windows Media Files, an just the overall presentation are hilarious. The part that puts this over the top is the track listing. "everybody's doing it (featuring chris martin, jay-z, AND bono)", "even closer (featuring justin timberlake and maynard james keenan)", "still hurts (featuring alicia keys)", and my favorite "pussygrinder (featuring sheryl crow)". The page is still up. Check it out HERE, but if you're at work or school make sure you're speakers are muted.
U2: YOU TOO?
RedFM, a Cork radio station in the UK pulled one of their listeners as well. They slowly hinted at it and finally leaked that U2 was playing a surprise rooftop show at a local shopping center. By the afternoon, about a half thousand people were all gathered around to see the band perform. The station pulled a switch-a-roo by having it be "U2opia" a cover band. While normally this would be funny, I'm unimpressed as it's already been done. A few years back the group "Improv Everywhere" did the exact same thing, but better.
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