I came to realize this month that creating this website would be a whole lot easier if I just made shit up. I came to this conclusion after noticing three separate music publications run articles this month that just weren't true. I'm not talking about Rolling Stone naming Hendrix the best guitar player of all time, which I may disagree with, but is just someone's opinion.

These people are reporting factual information which isn't true.
First I read in a well known national publication that during the Big House Benefit, The Allman Brothers Band performed Little Martha, Blue Sky and Jessica, all for the first time in a long time. Well I was at that show, and the Set list was as follows:

You may notice that they did play Jessica, but Little Martha and Blue Sky were not part of the show. If you feel like checking the Allman Brothers website just to make sure I'm right, go for it. You'll find as I did when I was doing something called FACT CHECKING that the magazine didn't make their story up, they just got it wrong. The band apparently did play Blue Sky and Little Martha the night before the Big House show, but that's not the same thing is it? What the magazine wrote was just not true.

Then I read another Allman Brothers-related story on a popular website that said Dan Toler had quit Dickey Betts' band this month. So far that's the truth. The article went on to say that Dan had been in the Allman Brothers Band briefly in the late 70's before joining the Dickey Betts Band when they broke up. WRONG!

Dan Toler was in the Dickey Betts band in the mid-seventies while the Allman Brothers were on hiatus due to Gregg's drug/Cher problems. He then joined the Allmans in 1977 and stayed on until they broke up in 1982. You may call that a brief period - I call it almost twice as long as the legendary Duane Allman was actually in the band (1969-1972). Then, when they broke up, Dan joined The Gregg Allman Band, not the Dickey Betts Band! The move made him the only guy ever to be in The Dickey Betts Band, The Allman Brothers Band, and The Gregg Allman Band!

Anyway, I happen to know the editor of the site that got this particular story wrong, and I dropped him an e-mail telling him of his mistake, and did they change it? Nope. They just stuck to their made-up news guns. That seems to be the norm - make something up and stick with it. So….

Warren Haynes – The latest member of Kiss

It was announced this month in a surprise move, that Warren Haynes who is already in at least five touring bands, will become the latest guitarist to play the part of Ace Frehley in the band Kiss. Since firing Ace a few years back, the band has recruited a number of musicians to don the costume and trademark "Space Ace" make-up. The band's singer/bassist Gene Simmons was quoted as saying, "Warren is just a great guitar player. He may be a little heavy to play the Ace role, but then, I might be a little old to be running around in leather chaps spitting fake blood. It's Kiss, and our fans will buy whatever crap we're selling!"

Also this month, police discovered a plot to assassinate Sir Paul McCartney. The investigation was launched after Ringo Starr was spotted at a London nightclub waving a revolver around and screaming, "Where the fuck is the Walrus!" It is believed that Ringo is upset not because he has been reduced to playing 1,000 seat clubs while his ex bandmate is selling out multiple arena dates in every city he plays, but rather because Paul rejected Ringo's plan for a world tour dubbed "Beatles Who?" The tour would have featured both of the surviving members of The Beatles teaming up with the two surviving members of The Who, in order to have an entire band of people that fans actually wanted to watch, instead of one or two stars and a band full of nobodies. The deal was said to be brokered by Ringo's son, who happens to be among the current nobodies playing in The Who.

Finally this month, it was announced that guitar god Jimi Hendrix, will be retiring at the end of the year. Hendrix has released a staggering amount of music over the past thirty years despite rumors of his death, which have been circulating since he went into self-imposed seclusion in 1972. Through his spokesman, Jimi announced that this year would be his last as a recording artist since "I believe in giving my fans what they want, and it seems clear to me now that for some reason, the fans clearly want to believe I'm dead."

1967 - The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released. 1968 - The Jeff Beck Group, featuring Rod Stewart on lead vocals, made their first U.S. appearance. 1969 - John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band recorded Give Peace a Chance in a room at Hotel La Reine Elizabeth, in Montreal, Canada. 1975 - Elton John took his new album, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, to number 1 in its first week of release. No one had ever done this before.

You know, I started writing this with a smirk on my face and malicious intent running through my mind, but after pretending I was writing at a real magazine - i.e. making up a bunch of crap and presenting it as truth - I realized just how much fun it could be! I think from this issue on, I'll write whatever the hell I want, facts be damned. It feels good to be liberated!

Anyway, in this final issue of 100% FACTUAL Are You On Something? we've got a bunch of interesting things for you to read - which all happen to be true.

For starters, there are NINE new artists in the Best of the Best section. They are The Allman Brothers Band, Bad Company, Flo and Eddie, Al Kooper, Meatloaf, The Rollins Band, Phil Spector, Triumph and Wishbone Ash. We've also got a feature article on Phil Spector and his propensity to point firearms at people – but for the record we think he's innocent anyway. Then there's the latest installment of Mike's Mix Tape, where I tackle the legend of Stagger Lee, a project that turned out to be grander and much more fun than I expected when I got started, and also an overview of the Fifth Annual Jammy Awards. Finally, we've got four new album reviews (Springsteen, Corrosion of Conformity, Parallel Mind and FreeRange) as well as a review of the film Dig!.

So that's it . . . keep on rockin' and remember, the truth shall set you free!

Mike D'Ariano
6/2005