April Collective Collaborative Blog: Far Out Musical Conspiracies

Did David Bowie try to warn us about Kanye West? Is Andrew W.K. a party-rocking cyborg? Who really was behind the Village People?! Take off your thinking caps and put on your tinfoil hats, 'cause for the April (fools!) edition of the collaborative blog, members of the collective discuss some of the most FAR OUT musical conspiracies.

DAVID BOWIE TRIED TO WARN US ABOUT KANYE WEST. WHY DIDN’T WE LISTEN??

- Alex Lopez

David Bowie’s album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is iconic. That goes without saying. But is there something more to this album than meets the eye? Something that’s hiding in plain sight? The album, of course, begins with one of Bowie’s most timeless songs, “FIVE YEARS.” In the context of the album’s plot as a whole, the lyrics set the backdrop of the album: Earth only has five years before it gets destroyed in an impending disaster. The album artwork is just as iconic as the album itself. It pictures Bowie, as Ziggy Stardust, in a dark alley in London’s West End, standing underneath an illuminated street light and a sign that reads “K. WEST.” If Wikipedia (Erm… I mean... THE GLOBAL ELITES) is to be believed, the sign indicated that the photo was taken in the storefront of the West End location of London fur merchant Henry Konn (so the “K” stands for Konn, and “WEST” indicates it was in the West End). 
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The album was first released on June 16, 1972.

FIVE YEARS nearly to the day later, on June 8, 1977, Kanye WEST was born in Atlanta, GA. K. WEST grew up to be an incredibly successful rap superstar whose career trajectory as an artist has often been compared to that of Bowie and who thinks his life can be compared to that of the messianic Ziggy Stardust. He’s also a very troubled individual who has vocally supported an aspirational dictator and who has surrounded himself with so many yes men and clout/money-chasing enablers, that he ran for President of the United States in 2020 and has hinted that he may do so again in 2024. 

There was something different about Bowie. Maybe he really could predict the future and he really was trying to tell us something.

THE LEAD SINGER OF MR. MISTER WAS ORIGINALLY IN VILLAGE PEOPLE… HONEST! ​

- Kurt B. Reighley

My college boyfriend’s knowledge of history astonished our friends. His drunken party trick? Naming all the Vice Presidents of the United States backwards, from Dan Quayle to John Adams. But he wasn’t above testing his audience’s credulity, especially if we’d all had a few drinks, and routinely tossed out fabricated facts to see if anyone would contest him. 

“Did you know the lead singer of Mr. Mister was one of the original Village People?” Eyebrows shot up all around the keg. He shook his head, reassuring us with that smile, the one that makes you trust older men with patches on their elbows. “It’s true.” 

It certainly sounded plausible. The chart-topping rockers had seemed to come out of nowhere that year with “Broken Wings” and “Kyrie.” And nobody in Bloomington, IN had heard from the Village People since Can’t Stop The Music bombed at the box office in 1980. Puzzled looks gave way to shrugs of acceptance. 

I smiled quietly into my beer. I’d seen and heard the Village People’s latest single, “Sex Over the Phone,” in a gay disco the summer before. And my hairdresser’s boyfriend had put a cut from Mr. Mister’s 1984 debut I Wear The Face on a mixtape two years earlier. They hadn’t come out of nowhere; they were from Phoenix. That’s a long way from Greenwich Village.
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Regardless, I repeated this lie for decades. When pushed to elaborate, I’d insist he’d been the Construction Worker. Because I was a media professional, people assumed I knew what I was talking about. To argue otherwise suggested homophobia or worse yet, music industry naivete. 

I assumed this post would be a “coming out” moment, a final admission of the truth: there is no connection between the Village People and Mr. Mister. 

My mistake. 

Search engines trigger curiosity. Google “Village People” + “Mr. Mister,” and within a couple clicks you’ll find this passage from a 1985 Los Angeles Times article about singer Richard Page and his band’s #1 hit “Broken Wings”:  

Back in the late ‘70s, when the Village People were the biggest group in disco, he was one of its voices in the studio. So was Bill Champlain, now Chicago’s lead singer.

“People actually thought those guys were singing on their records,” Page said smugly. “Well, they weren’t. Those sessions weren’t any fun. Working with that guy (producer Jacques Morali) was tough.”

While Mr. Mister disbanded circa 1990, Richard Page has had a long career. He’s written songs recorded by Madonna, Celine Dion, and Josh Groban, and toured as a member of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band. Alas, his current media representation told me Page isn’t talking to the press at this time. 

Singer/dancer/actor David “Scar” Hodo portrayed the Construction Worker in Village People throughout the group’s most commercially successful era, exiting in 1982 after the disastrous Renaissance LP. He returned to the group in 1987, and remained a member until retiring in 2013. 
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SHOCKING!!
​LEE HAZELWOOD THREATENED TO GET “SMOKED LIKE GABAGOOL” BY MAFIA, MOVES TO SWEDEN

- Parisa E

How really does a Hollywood cowboy end up living in Sweden? Several years after the release of Nancy & Lee, the groundbreaking collaborative album between country singer/producer Lee Hazelwood and pop icon Nancy Sinatra, Hazelwood decided to up and move to Sweden. While the move was said to be motivated by “tax problems, concern that his son might be drafted for the Vietnam War and the fact that his record label [LHI] was dying anyway,” many close friends of Hazelwood also noted that he had burned some bridges and had rocky relationships he wanted to leave behind in Los Angeles.
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What kind of relationships was he suddenly trying to escape? Well, it’s no secret that the Sinatra family had close ties to the Italian mafia, so fans can’t help but postulate that perhaps there was some disapproval of the close connection between Nancy and Lee that resulted in a mafia hit. Were all the previously stated reasons he gave enough to understand why he might move his whole family to Sweden? Sure. Is all of the mafia conspiracy complete speculation largely based on the fact that he did an album with Nancy Sinatra? Yeah, pretty much… but it makes a damn good headline and background story to Cowboy in Sweden!
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FOLK MUSICIAN JIM SULLIVAN ABDUCTED BY U.F.O. - NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN!!!​

- Parisa E.

Singer-songwriter Jim Sullivan created some of the most beautiful folk music of the early ‘70s, but unlike his contemporaries, wasn’t singing about peace, love and understanding. Sullivan sang songs about obscure ghost towns (like “Jerome”, based on the deserted mining town Jerome, Arizona) and even more interestingly, extraterrestrial activity.  The title track of Sullivan’s 1970 now cult-classic album, U.F.O., ponders the second-coming of Christ via an alien spaceship. It’s thought that the track could have been inspired by “The Miracle of Sun”, an event in 1917 where hundreds of eye witnesses in Portugal reported seeing the sun dancing through the sky as a miracle by the grace of The Virgin Mary. While it’s not certain what the inspiration was behind this very mysterious track, there’s no doubt that Sullivan had a unique fascination with the paranormal.

Several years following the release of this album, Sullivan took a solo road trip that landed him at La Mesa Motel in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. It’s reported that he left the hotel key inside his room and drove to a ranch about 26 miles away, where he was seen walking around for the very last time. His abandoned car contained his money, unsold records, and his guitar - something Sullivan was known to never travel without. To this day, Sullivan’s disappearance has never been solved. There was never a body found, and aside from his car, no trace had ever been tracked down after the last sighting on the ranch.

Was Sullivan alluding to an extraterrestrial connection in his music? Perhaps his lyrics opened up the skies and made him a candidate for an alien abduction. Who knows why aliens would want to beam up Sullivan, perhaps they love groovy folk music as much as their intergalactic human neighbors. 

On the T&E “Music for Aliens” podcast, we talked more in-length about Jim Sullivan’s mysterious disappearance, as well as other extraterrestrial phenomena circulating artists like ? and The Mysterians, Sun Ra, and more. Listen here or search The Melody Feed podcast wherever you stream your podcasts.

IS ANDREW W.K. A PARTY MONSTER…OR JUST AN ACTUAL MONSTER?!?! RUMORS OF BEING A REPLACEMENT ACTOR, CYBORG, AND MORE 

- Parisa E.

​Hard rocker and motivational party man Andrew W.K. took the world by storm with his debut 2001 LP, I Get Wet. Who was the man in all white before he rose from obscurity? Well “mainstream” media will tell you that he was born Andrew Fetterly Wilkes-Krier in May of 1979 and blah blah blah something credible whatever. But what if I told you that the REAL Andrew W.K’s is a man that goes by Steev Mike and has been replaced by an actor?! 

The conspiracy all began with the mysterious crediting of “Steev Mike” as an executive producer on the debut album. When asked about Steev Mike, Andrew W.K. has given several answers - it’s a collective of creative directors who helped his branding, a pseudonym for himself, and even once answered this question in an interview by simply saying “I was not prepared to answer a question like that.” Fans were obviously confused by this odd behavior, but the identity of Steev Mike truly came into question when W.K.’s website was hacked in 2003 with these messages:

“I’ve been giving [your fans] bits and pieces, hoping that you’d come to your senses and stop trying to squeeze me out… Well, you haven’t responded to my initial request and you’ve forced me to make threats…I  never wanted it to come to this, but I can no longer wait in the background and ignore your complete disrespect. Our choice to let you enjoy the spotlight while I create the magic leaves me almost helpless. You will not force me to expose myself until I expose you first.”

“I have no choice but to let the world know you are a backstabbing fraud.”

Some fans have theorized that perhaps this Steev Mike pseudonym is really Dave Ghrol, a close friend and collaborator of W.K., who perhaps created the W.K. persona to release more campy material. However, an article in The Atlantic stated that a legal battle in 2004 prevented W.K. from releasing music for almost six years:

“In 2004, he fell out with a former associate, and a dispute ensued over who owned the rights to his name and image, and who should get credit for inventing it. As a result, W.K. couldn't release his own music in the U.S. - until now.”

This legal commotion led other fans to speculate, then, that the original Andrew W.K. was fired by label executives following the release of his second album in 2003, and replaced by an actor who could work with his image until the courts settled who owned the rights to the Andrew W.K. persona.

This whole era is backed by numerous claims - slight but obvious appearance changes, and an infamous 2004 show in New Jersey where audience members watched a man who looked like an Andrew W.K. impersonator came on stage and left half-way during the show with zero explanation.  Some theories go even deeper than claiming W.K. is an actor - some go as far as saying he's a cyborg or some Illuminati conspiracy. On a personal note, I did see him perform live once. He played 2 hours late and the only thing he said to the audience was “I hope that you are having fun at the event” in the most robotic, dead-pan tone you could imagine. (It really gave me some strong Estonian dwarf Lisa Simpsons vibes.)

When confronted directly about these theories, Andrew W.K. has always given extremely elusive answers:

He told Larry King the claims of him being a replacement W.K. are "based on some truth" before also comparing himself to Santa Claus. When asked about Illuminati or Freemason ties, he gives the closest thing to a straight answer:

 "I'm not a member of any of those organizations, formally."

So, is the man we see on stage actually an actor portraying the original Andrew W.K. due to legal issues? Have the lizard people taken over and created a cyborg to spread message of positivity and partying hard? Or is Andrew W.K. completely trolling everyone by giving these wishy-washy interviews? (Hint: it’s the latter)  Whatever it is, all I can say is that I’ll be looking out for a zipper on the back of his neck next time I see him live.

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