As always, this year's April Fool's Day caused some stress at Exclaim! News, as we had to pour our energy into extra fact-checking to make sure we weren't getting tricked into some elaborate gags. It was embarrassing enough when we fell into Fucked Up's energy drink trap last year. Thankfully, it was still a lot of fun to surf the web and enjoy some of our peers' tricky shenanigans.
Here are some of our favourite April Fool's gags from the day:
Arcade Fire's Grammy win disallowed
Blurt's April Fool's efforts were pretty obvious this year, as they even reused a Nirvana prank that circulated last year. Still, their announcement that Arcade Fire's Grammy win was disallowed was pretty funny, as they quoted Recording Academy president Neil Portnow as saying, "We listened to The Suburbs track by track. It literally brought us to our knees, and some of us even had tears in our eyes. We therefore concluded that an upstart group of faceless indie musicians -- and from Canada, no les [sic] -- could not possibly have made music so breathtakingly, life-affirmingly beautiful. So we voted unanimously to strip the band of their award."
David Bowie teams with Nine Inch Nails for farewell tour
The wise-asses at One Thirty BPM surely had some David Bowie fans losing their shit when they announced that the icon would be saying farewell to fans with a 12-date world tour. It was almost plausible, until they went over the edge by announcing that Trent Reznor would bring his Nine Inch Nails project out of retirement to support all dates.
The Dopamines' disastrous day
The Dopamines, the new pop punk band fronted by former Ergs dude Mikey Erg, had a Punknews takeover. Throughout the day, updates to the site revealed that the band were taking suggestions for a name change, that their drummer had been arrested for drunk driving and that Mikey Erg was admittedly only in it for the money. The best of the lies, however, was the announcement that the Dopamines had joined Ben Weasel as the new Screeching Weasel backing band. "Even with all the negative hype surrounding Screeching Weasel, we felt this was an opportunity we couldn't pass up. Ben's been cool to us so far, and we're just gonna take it one day at a time and do everything we can to support him and this new album," they wrote.
Fabric reveals energy drink
London electronic club and record label Fabric took a page out of the Fucked Up playbook and announced its own energy drink to be sold in clubs and stores across the UK. Speaking with Resident Advisor, co-founder Cameron Leslie hammed it up with lines like, "We've been kicking around the idea for a while, but with the recession and whatnot, it just wasn't a financial possibility until this year."
Continue Reading on Page 2. Fugazi and the Unicorns added as Coachella surprises
Vice got in the pranking spirit with a tweet that read "Holy shit -- Fugazi and The Unicorns added to Coachella?!" The link to this animated GIF made the excitement turn instantly sour.
Hyperdub announces a new Burial album
After the massive hype from dubstep recluse Burial when he released a twelve-inch with Four Tet and Thom Yorke, there was surely a major upset when FACT falsely reported that Burial would return with a new album called Home Counties. The record was half believable, but FACT writers were kind enough to reveal it as a joke before Burial's label Hyperdub had their email crashed with inquiries.
N.W.A. reunite with Tyler, the Creator filling in for Eazy-E
LA Weekly announced a one-off N.W.A. reunion to take place on the Santa Monica Pier. The one-off show was said to feature Odd Future blog darling Tyler, the Creator filling in for the deceased Eazy-E "in character." They gave themselves away when they wrote, "Warning: Make sure you triple-check your calendars to make sure you understand which day this is happening -- you really don't wanna be fooled driving all the way to Santa Monica on the wrong date."
Ricardo Villalobos's super minimal podcast
Minimal techno master Ricardo Villalobos premiered an exclusive mix for XLR8R today, but strangely, the mix didn't include a list of songs. As XLR8R explained, "We're so thrilled that we've broken one of our own rules and agreed to publish the mix without a tracklist." There's a reason for that: on the mix, the Villalobos impostor went extra minimal, dropping a 49-minute set of one kick-drum sound on repeat. Hear the mix below.
XLR8R Podcast - Ricardo Villalobos by xlr8rmag
Here are some of our favourite April Fool's gags from the day:
Arcade Fire's Grammy win disallowed
Blurt's April Fool's efforts were pretty obvious this year, as they even reused a Nirvana prank that circulated last year. Still, their announcement that Arcade Fire's Grammy win was disallowed was pretty funny, as they quoted Recording Academy president Neil Portnow as saying, "We listened to The Suburbs track by track. It literally brought us to our knees, and some of us even had tears in our eyes. We therefore concluded that an upstart group of faceless indie musicians -- and from Canada, no les [sic] -- could not possibly have made music so breathtakingly, life-affirmingly beautiful. So we voted unanimously to strip the band of their award."
David Bowie teams with Nine Inch Nails for farewell tour
The wise-asses at One Thirty BPM surely had some David Bowie fans losing their shit when they announced that the icon would be saying farewell to fans with a 12-date world tour. It was almost plausible, until they went over the edge by announcing that Trent Reznor would bring his Nine Inch Nails project out of retirement to support all dates.
The Dopamines' disastrous day
The Dopamines, the new pop punk band fronted by former Ergs dude Mikey Erg, had a Punknews takeover. Throughout the day, updates to the site revealed that the band were taking suggestions for a name change, that their drummer had been arrested for drunk driving and that Mikey Erg was admittedly only in it for the money. The best of the lies, however, was the announcement that the Dopamines had joined Ben Weasel as the new Screeching Weasel backing band. "Even with all the negative hype surrounding Screeching Weasel, we felt this was an opportunity we couldn't pass up. Ben's been cool to us so far, and we're just gonna take it one day at a time and do everything we can to support him and this new album," they wrote.
Fabric reveals energy drink
London electronic club and record label Fabric took a page out of the Fucked Up playbook and announced its own energy drink to be sold in clubs and stores across the UK. Speaking with Resident Advisor, co-founder Cameron Leslie hammed it up with lines like, "We've been kicking around the idea for a while, but with the recession and whatnot, it just wasn't a financial possibility until this year."
Continue Reading on Page 2. Fugazi and the Unicorns added as Coachella surprises
Vice got in the pranking spirit with a tweet that read "Holy shit -- Fugazi and The Unicorns added to Coachella?!" The link to this animated GIF made the excitement turn instantly sour.
Hyperdub announces a new Burial album
After the massive hype from dubstep recluse Burial when he released a twelve-inch with Four Tet and Thom Yorke, there was surely a major upset when FACT falsely reported that Burial would return with a new album called Home Counties. The record was half believable, but FACT writers were kind enough to reveal it as a joke before Burial's label Hyperdub had their email crashed with inquiries.
N.W.A. reunite with Tyler, the Creator filling in for Eazy-E
LA Weekly announced a one-off N.W.A. reunion to take place on the Santa Monica Pier. The one-off show was said to feature Odd Future blog darling Tyler, the Creator filling in for the deceased Eazy-E "in character." They gave themselves away when they wrote, "Warning: Make sure you triple-check your calendars to make sure you understand which day this is happening -- you really don't wanna be fooled driving all the way to Santa Monica on the wrong date."
Ricardo Villalobos's super minimal podcast
Minimal techno master Ricardo Villalobos premiered an exclusive mix for XLR8R today, but strangely, the mix didn't include a list of songs. As XLR8R explained, "We're so thrilled that we've broken one of our own rules and agreed to publish the mix without a tracklist." There's a reason for that: on the mix, the Villalobos impostor went extra minimal, dropping a 49-minute set of one kick-drum sound on repeat. Hear the mix below.
XLR8R Podcast - Ricardo Villalobos by xlr8rmag
