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Fake Salem Track Fools Internet for "Social Experiment"

News breadcrumbsplit Apr 08 2011

Fake Salem Track Fools Internet for "Social Experiment"
By Gregory AdamsYesterday (April 7), a new song supposedly from hazy witch house experimentalists Salem swept across the internet and people lost their minds at its drugged-out haziness. Only problem was, the song was a fake. While "Nite Daze," which featured the same kind of slow-drip witch house treatment as the outfit's other material, was being touted by a representative claiming to be from PR house Biz 3, it was soon revealed to be a prank by an NYU student on the concept of "culture jamming."

Shortly after the song made the rounds, Salem member Jack Donoghue released the following statement: "There is a song going around called 'Nite Daze' that someone is trying to pass off as ours... WE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT SONG," further confusing the legions of listeners jamming hard on the fake number.

It turns out the song was actually a modified version of NYC new wave outfit Dream Affair's (pictured above) "Endless Days," which was tweaked, slowed-down, pitch-shifted and modified to resemble Salem's sound. The phony number has since been taken down from most sites, though you can still hear the cold, creepy cut here.

Dream Affair member Abby later sent out a letter explaining her project:

Hey everyone,

Sorry for punking all of you. This was a culture jamming assignment for my NYU class, Digital Art with Brad Troemel. We were asked to intervene into society using the internet. I was mimicking the work of Eva and Franco Mattes, who turned a lolcat into a fake sculpture by Maurizio Cattelan (http://rhizome.org/discuss/view/47989/), where it was positively received. But here I was questioning "what is music" rather than "what is art" -- would something made in 20 minutes be received positively if given a name to back it? It also was meant to be a demonstration of internet hype and the speed of the blogosphere, especially with buzz bands.

Stepping back to the idea... during the mastering of my LP with my band (that is not witch house at all), we opened the title track and Pro Tools misread the sampling rate, so it played at half the tempo and pitched down. I thought that if I added snares, and generated lyrics off of the Witch House Name Generator (chillwitchnamemagic.com), add some flanger/reverb plugins, I could get away with fooling a couple of small blogs. The song took 20 minutes to doctor. Afterwards I bought the domain "biz3pr.info" to sound like "biz3.net" and made a fake email, did some HTML work to look like a real release.

I apologize for ruffling feathers, I didn't expect this to get as big as it did.. It was an interesting social experiment.

The original track is attached if you'd like to hear it, to round everything up. "Endless Days" by Dream Affair. Our debut LP is out digitally in May and on vinyl in July... brings new meaning to the term 'publicity stunt' huh.

SORRY.

Abby ______

So while concerns of copyright and identity theft are definitely going to be bandied about for the next little bit (seriously, think about how many fake Twitter and MySpace pages are floating around these days), a young group have got themselves a little attention. Well played, Dream Affair, well played.

Thanks to the Village Voice for the tip.



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Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-08 15:39:34I go to the art institute of Chicago and know that guy Brad. if i'm correct, didnt Jack beat the shit out of now "Professor Brad"? I'm gonna have to say this is far from a "social experiment" and is more likely a FAILED case of nerd revenge ROFL! So embarrassing! #MyProfessorIsATroll (also seems unethical as a teacher)

http://www.youtube.com/wa...

PS. and if this is a "social experiment" why is this girl trying to plug her shit music? #Fail
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-11 05:13:42You're "fail" you 11 year old inbred. It got plugged. There's nothing you can do about it.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-11 12:48:14To the dick who goes to art institute of chicago,
Hi I'm a student from NYU. I'm not in Brad's class but I overheard the critiques of this project this morning. Your condescending portrayal of Professor Trommel only underscores your own misery and jealousy. This project was the most successful one in a class of 20 students.
Other kids presented lame facebook projects and 4chan stunts, but this student incorporated her own music and interests to successfully conduct an online social experiment.

Not only that, she is a young, talented, beautiful musician in her own right. I highly doubt that this project was designed to settle any of the professor's old beefs - he seemed surprised and excited by the scope and breadth of her work.

PS the song you posted, Lil B, revenge of the nerds, is actually about how awesome it is to be smart and get bitches. Direct quote, "omg i'm a fucking nerd bro, i got bitches in the back row".

so ROFL at your critical FAIL. now YOU'RE the nerd at the art institute of chicago, and "Professor Brad" is actually a really successful professor at one of the best universities in the nation. People like you are such assholes. Get a life and good luck in the art world being such a shithead.
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