Tagged: Facebook
Fake ex-rock star gets on Facebook
Today’s topic is “fake identities and accounts in social media”. And a great example of one that I came across last night.
I went to check out this guy’s Facebook page, and it sounded like a gold mine – he claimed to have had the same manager as Cream, BeGees and Beatles (as far as I know, the Beatles manager was Brian Epstein, but I might have missed out on some insider information, right?).
He had written hit songs for all the classic bands of the 60’s, been a session drummer with an alias (very convenient if you can’t think of a good lie when people start asking questions) he had played with Santana, Jeff Beck, Albert Hammond… I mean – we’re talking serious celebrity, RIGHT? ;)
But sometimes you gut instincts tell you that something is wrong. Something doesn’t make sense.
The guy had been on Facebook for 3 years and there were no family or friends photos on there anywhere.
He claimed to have worked for Sony Music for 35 years, but also to have founded a multi million dollar business which name I will leave out of this.
He said he was the co founder of that company and that he started working there in 1967. But when I found the company online, I found out that they had only existed since 1971 and this dude was not mentioned ANYWHERE in their company story. He said he was on the board of directors. Well – there were 4 people on there and he wasn’t one of them.
So I started reading his comments. Those who were asking concrete questions got vague answers or none at all. The photos were for the most part obviously not taken by him (you can tell by the various sizes and qualities. Usually you can tell that someone has taken pics with the same mobile or camera).
I ended up photo searching to see if I was wrong or if this person was a fraud. Of course I already knew the answer…
Let’s start with a few of these examples.
This photo for example. It’s supposed to look like he took it before a show. A very subtle way to make it look like the one doing the “rocking” is himself, while at the same time leaving the back door open if anyone should call his bluff – cause then he will just be able to say: “Well I never said that it was ME”… Right.
Now, scroll down a little to see where this pic actually came from.
…..
…..
…..
Here we go. The original photo is from a BON JOVI concert in Ottawa two years ago, in 2013. The “rock star” on Facebook posted it this year as his own.
That was the first “in your face” clue that something wasn’t right, but I kept digging.
This for instance. He says that it’s his daughter. I found this lady’s blog, I also found her name and her Facebook page. She does not have her “dad” on her FB-list. And he doesn’t have any colleagues from Sony Music on his friends list either for that matter. Or pals from Jeff Beck‘s band or any other band he says he’s friends with.
This is the actual person – taken from her blog profile. Wouldn’t a father have a more personal photo than that?
Oh and this one is my favorite! The guy is on TOUR – yee-haa, hey-ho, let’s go! He posts a picture of his tour bus, he’s on his way and everything. People are envious. Only…. That photo wasn’t his. And it wasn’t from that year either. It was from 2 years before and were taken by Nightranger’s tour manager (who’s working with Marilyn Manson nowadays). It’s the exact same photo, what a coincidence!
And here’s where the bus photo actually came from – probably his good buddy! And two years earlier. :)
The whole page was full of these pics – I found a few more but you get the idea. What’s even more amazing is that this guy has got over 4000 friends – and not ONE of them has questioned his stories! Not one has gone out of his/her way to check what he’s all about. His story lacks a lot to say the least.
All of the famous bands he says he played with, he was of course the mysterious “alias” guy, and of COURSE he changed his alias every time. Because a session musician doesn’t want to get credit for his work if he can avoid it. Or wait…?
Why don’t we take a look at some of the songs he’s written in his “undercover career”….
I suppose he failed to check who ACTUALLY wrote that song – Jesse Colin Young (who he’s probably refering to) didn’t write it. It was written and recorded before the Youngbloods did. Here’s the info:
How about the famous Albert Hammond song that this shy star wrote but didn’t want credit for (he’s not shy bragging about his accomplishments in the music world on Facebook though…)
First of all – even if an unknown writer would have sold a song to someone else, he would at least be mentioned as one of the session musicians, especially if he played not one but TWO instruments on it! Of course, the mysterious guy isn’t mentioned anywhere. Oh, that’s RIGHT – he used an alias (which changed for every recording of course. I’m sure he was actually the one who wrote Let It Be and Stairway to Heaven as well, he’s just too modest to admit it. Yeah, right). Here’s the real deal on that song:
The ONLY thing that seems legit – if this guy’s NAME even is what he says it is – is some obscure recording back in 1967 that his band won while they were still in high school in Saratoga Springs…! That’s IT! Far from the Doors, Santana, Cream, Beatles, Yardbirds or Jeff Beck! And what’s worse is that he’s taking credit for the work of dead musicians who can’t stand up for themselves.
So… in conclusion – don’t just buy everything you hear – it if seems too good to be true it probably is. And it’s amazing that nobody – out of 4000 people, didn’t think it strange that the photos were so generic and impersonal – or the fact that he never gave a straight answer to anything! Or that it’s strange that he wasn’t sure what year he played Woodstock…
I was entertained today. But probably not the way the guy intended. :D
The Facebook and Twitter community world
The community world as we know it is a strange place sometimes. One thing that people do on Twitter for instance, is that they “follow” you – ONLY to see if you will follow back. No other reason.
I’m sorry, but that just pisses me off. If that’s the reason why you’re following my Twitter-thing, then don’t even bother.
It took me a while to realize that it was a common thing. I had no idea at first. I was under the impression that you followed people or bands or whatever – because you’re acually interested in their updates and news?!?!
Twitter is this neverending, constantly updated stream of information, it just drowns you with info like the Niagara Falls of tweets… New ones every fucking second. The only reason for me to follow anyone or anything, is because I actually want to know what they have to say.
I’m following bands/artists I like to learn about their tours, new YouTube-uploads, interviews… All that. I follow bands or sometimes people I don’t even know so well, because they have funny or interesting tweets.
But it would drive me crazy to have hundreds of accounts on there, because I would miss the few things I REALLY give a shit about.
In short: If you’re just trying to promote your band by adding hundreds of random accounts as “re-followers”, just walk on by. Not interested.
I can even tell right away when somebody suddenly starts following me, that they will be gone the minute I post something – without having re-followed them first. It always leads to a “minus one” follower. How predictable and how utterly ridiculous.
Secondly – the goddamn Facebook thing. Those who know me also know that I’ve been anything but a fan of that place since it took over after MySpace. It just makes me nervous. Your whole personal life is out there for the world to see in a way that I’m not comfortable with at all.
Back in the day, you could use any nickname you wanted (I was just “Lita77” on MySpace) and it wasn’t as obvious or as easy to find you if you didn’t want to be found. You could even use a fake e-mail addy to avoid being searched. The Facebook-thing says that it’s private, but really – every time I post something for my friends, and they like or comment on it, it’s there for THEIR friends to see and so on. It’s beyond control, and it’s way too complicated to understand how to prevent the spreading of info. I’m sure it’s possible, but that should be by default, not something I have to search for.
Anyway, I have a locked and private account under a different name because I don’t want people on there, basically. The few that I do have on there, are on it for various reasons, but mostly because it’s the only (simple) way to get in touch with people who are either “road people” (crews, band members and similar) or people with common interests that are somewhere abroad. Or people that I didn’t call to say hello to before either, but kept in touch with via MySpace (or whatever was used six-seven years ago).
I don’t have some of my best friends on Facebook, because it tricks people to believe that they know what their friends are up to – through FB. They think that they are “staying in touch”. But it’s mainly just an ego-trip, and I’m guilty of it myself. Because you think that you’re following your friends’ lives, you don’t pick up the phone as much anymore. Right?
You saw your friends on Facebook this morning and they seem to be doing great. Why bother picking up the phone when you “see” them every day?
That’s all just fake and bullshit. Most of us don’t advertise if or when we’re feeling bad. Everything on Facebook is about posting funny shit, little anecdotes, videos, pics, news… But apart from the occasional drama-queens who don’t have ANY sense of privacy whatsoever (I don’t even have any people like that among my friends thank god) nobody will write what they’re really thinking in public.
One of my best friends asked me last year if we shouldn’t be friends on Facebook. No, I don’t want that. It just edulcorates the friendship, you get the wrong picture of their lives and thoughts.
I’d rather just talk with her on the phone, even if it’s just once a month or less, or I’d like to hang with her in person when we get a chance. But no – I don’t want the Facebook thing.
People don’t call eachother as much anymore, because they don’t have to. Or they THINK that they don’t.
And this morning, I got a friend request from a person who really disappointed me a few months ago. I thought it was a friend, but he acted to fucking fake towards me at one of the festivals earlier this summer. “Oh hey…!” and then he just took off like he had a firecracker up his ass.
I was sitting alone backstage when he walked in, and he just nodded when he passed me – to go and sit at another table. WTF?!?! I’m pretty sure that I showered that morning. Yes, I’m being sarcastic…
After that I just thought, well – people always show their true self sooner or later. It wasn’t a close friend per se, so I didn’t care particularly. Imagine my surprise when that same person sent me a friend request on Facebook this morning.
Either he doesn’t know who I am, as I’m there under a fake name, or he does know, but thinks that I didn’t understand that he dissed me. Make no mistake, just because I didn’t bitch about it, doesn’t mean that I didn’t GET it. It just wasn’t worth losing any sleep over. Piss off.
I don’t want to collect friends on Facebook. I have less than 50 people on it, and I want to keep it that way. And the 50 people include artists that I followed before they had “professional” pages. Many of the “smaller” artists only had personal pages before, so they aren’t even “real” friends, only people whose careers I wanted to follow.
It’s the same thing there – with the constant flow of information and updates, it would make my head spin having hundreds of people to keep track of. I’d rather follow the few chosen people who I added myself, than have hundreds of strangers clogging up my newsfeed 24-7.
But it is scary sometimes how we have changed from calling our friends reguarly, or dropping an e-mail to say hi how are ya – to updating our OWN statuses, hoping that others will see them.
It’s no longer a question about contacting somebody else, it’s about indirectly “contacting” people through a newsfeed saying “hey – here I am! If you can see me…”.
That’s not the way things should be.
Facebook blocked my page
Well… You won’t be getting updates through my Facebook-account for In A Rearview Mirror for a while I guess.
When I went to login earlier today I got a “security message” (security – from who, what, why??) that said I had to provide my cellphone number to “prove I’m a real person“. Uh, are there UNREAL people with accounts? WTF? Ghosts? Trolls? Wizards? Aliens??
And “secure”… from what?? If ANYTHING makes me feel very uncomfortable, it’s handing out my phonenumber left and right, especially to a website that don’t even give you the OPTION to choose NOT to give them that kind of info. Is it just me that finds that very disturbing?
When I registrered my Facebook-page I used a phone number that is not my regular number. They don’t specify that it needs to be a number that’s actually in USE. They just want “a number”. Fine. It was MINE alright, but I never used it. Maybe they figured it out – they couldn’t get more info out of me by adding THAT number so… now I have to “prove” it’s me. And that old number that I used back then, is not in use at all anymore.
So…. For NO reason whatsoever, I can’t login to my Facebook account and god knows when or IF I ever will – it all depends on whether or not I hear from their “support team”….
This is why I hate Facebook. The whole idea of ONE organization having so much personal information about millions of people spooks me out.
They know more about you and your habits than you do yourself. They know your friends, they know where you’ve been and with whom, they know where you work, who your family is, your aquaintances, your numbers, e-mails, hobbies, political standpoints, taste in music, what you buy, what you like, dislike… Hell, they even know when you went to the toilet if you chose to use that info on your last status update! And people are okay with that? I don’t get it.
The place sucks horseballs. I always hated it. I never wanted to join that “Gestapo”-site but felt that I had to because the whole world seemed perfectly okay with giving out everything about themselves to Facebook. If I wanted to reach anyone at all out there, I had to create a page. But it’s like selling your soul to the devil. At this point I just don’t know what it is we get in return?
Right now I’m just hoping that the place dies as fast as MySpace vanished over night. I miss MySpace. It was so much more music-oriented, I could spend hours browsing for music on there. There were music players and videos, bios and everything in one place. Perfect for a music fan. Facebook? Just a bunch of clutter – and try finding actual music by the bands on there, good luck with that…
Anyhoooooo…. Motley Crue, Def Lep this weekend. If you’re subscribing you will get the news, videos, pics. The rest, that are on Facebook won’t know anything about it because Facebook decided that they want to get more INFO about me before they “allow” me to enter their precious site. I think I need to find my old t-shirt:
So right now I’m anything but pleased about the situation. We’ll see how it goes. Sucks if I’ll end up having to start all over again just because my old cellphone number doesn’t work anymore. What’s with Facebook’s obsession with PHONE NUMBERS anyway???
If you’re not on Facebook – you don’t exist
It’s interesting how Facebook has become so much a part of our everyday cyber-lives that we probably can’t even remember what life was like before it existed.
I sent an e-mail to the guy who’s arranging the Swedish Metal Exhibition here in Malmo in October, to ask about Sebastian Bach’s schedule. Figured it would be way easier than trying to get in touch with Baz himself. Sebastian uses Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and his website for posting stuff more than reading his emails. It’s pointless trying to get in touch with him personally and I didn’t want to bug his manager (yet).
Anyway, I got a reply almost right away, where the guy greeted me with my full name (which I hadn’t used and it’s not even included in my sender-info). He said he had been trying to find me on Facebook but couldn’t find me there. He had wanted to ask me if I had any ideas, feedback or interesting contacts to share.
It dawned on me that this Facebook-thing is worse than I thought. If you’re not on there, you don’t exist. It’s pretty spooky actually.
I heard something similar about a year ago when I bumped into a guy who had just kicked off a rock club in town. He said he had been looking for me on Facebook to send me an invitation to the premiere, but since I wasn’t there, he “didn’t know how to find me”.
If I hadn’t known him for years, I would have thought that it was only a lame excuse for having forgotten to send me an invitation, but he was dead serious.
Come on, people?! I’m STILL in the freaking phonebook – and THAT is available online and public in Sweden. I STILL have my e-mail addy and if everything else fails, go through Sweden Rock – I’m still a member of their writing staff. It’s not like I fell off the map.
I just don’t like Facebook.
I DO have two accounts on the fucking thing. One public page (that complements this blog – In The Rearview Mirror, which can be found here: IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR ON FACEBOOK and another “private” one that I quite honestly don’t even have my very best and closest friends on.
There is a reason for that.
I don’t think it’s good with too much openness. People share EVERYTHING on Facebook, it’s so implemented in everybody’s everyday life, that they don’t even think about it anymore. It could be personal joys and disappointments, trivial thoughts and episodes, pictures, links, political and religious views… Everything. And it’s the perfect arena for drama and even blackmail. I’ve seen it happen and heard it from others. I don’t want to be a part of it.
My friends are my friends – in real life. I know how to get in touch with them by phone or e-mail or other ways. I don’t need Facebook for that.
I have less than 20 people on my private Facebook-page. Most of them actually in one way or another associated with Jon Oliva, because they are in a way, “family”. They are my friends but for the most part of the year, we don’t have anything in particular to share, everybody’s doing their own thing. But by staying in touch through Facebook, at least I know if anyone is coming to this part of the world as a part of some other band’s crew. That way we can meet again.
Or, like recently, when they put together the Matt LaPorte Memorial Concert. I couldn’t be there and I so wish that I could. But by being connected to them all, I found lots of great photos from there, videos and comments, messages from people who attended or participated, and in a way it was the closest thing to actually being there.Other than the Jon Oliva’s Pain-family, I’ve got my sister and two-three other friends on there that I obviously could get in touch with easily by phone that are on the page because I or they wanted to share something that was only available on FB.
But frankly, I don’t want to know too much about people’s personal lives. It’s gotten out of hand. I want to hear what’s new directly from them, and I prefer to hear the “long version” in a friend-to-friend conversation on the phone or face to face over a glass of wine or a cup of tea. It just feels more right that way.
It’s way too easy to misunderstand the cryptic short comments on FB. Sometimes people can write something like: “Some people are just total assholes, fuck you!”. And you end up wondering: “Did I do something?? Or was it somebody else?”
Or you might be in a bad mood yourself, interpret it to fit your current mindset and end up going “Well fuck you too if you got pissed just because I forgot to call you last night!”. You know what I mean? There’s too much room for misunderstandings on that site and I don’t want to get too mixed up with the Facebook-lifestyle.
I share stupid things on there if I’m bored. Mostly videos or links. Or if I’m out travelling somewhere, maybe a short comment of joy or frustration, but that’s about it.
When there was only MySpace, it wasn’t as easy to find people, because you didn’t really use your own name. Not necessarily. And eventhough you could search by e-mail, it still wasn’t as easy as with Facebook. It was a challenge and maybe at the same time a test – how eager are you REALLY – honestly – to get in touch with this person? Because if you truly ARE, you’re gonna Google like crazy to get info about that person and how to get in touch with him or her. It’s not impossible.
The Facebook-generation has made it too accessible, too easy, you add people like it’s a contest. But it was the same on MySpace – people sent requests left and right just to show off who had the longest “friends”-list.
And once you have someone on your Facebook-thing, you are somehow fooled to believe that you are now “in touch” with them and that you know what’s happening in their life, so you don’t call them as much anymore.
So I have to wonder- is it really a network for socializing, or is it in fact more for one-way communications?
Neil Murray (bassplayer extraordinaire with everybody, if you’re not familiar with this legendary musician. He’s played with Whitesnake, Black Sabbath, Brian May and many more, to name just a few) had a good point this morning when he left the following message for his friends on FB:
Neil Murray
I apologise (-ize) to everyone who wants to be my Facebook ‘friend’ that I can’t say yes to, as I’m near my limit. I have a ‘fan page’, Neil Murray Bass Guitarist, but that’s not really the same thing. Sorry also to the people that I quietly ‘unfriend’, but I think a lot of them won’t notice as there’s no particular connection between them and me.
He got comments along the lines of: “Yey! I’m still here!” and “Please don’t delete me, we used to talk in the 80’s!” Well, that’s nice, that you used to talk in the 80’s? But do you have anything to share NOW?
I used to talk to Neil when he was with Black Sabbath (the Tony Martin-era) and he was always a very kind man, a perfect gentleman. Quiet and classy. When he comes through Sweden every once in a while, I text him and he takes time to come and say hello and talk a little before he continues on to his business and I to mine.In a sense he is a friend, but one that I don’t exactly call every day to ask abut how his day was. If he removed me from his friends-list, I guess it wouldn’t kill me. If I wanted to see him when he’s here, I can just call or text him. But I never use his number for any other reason.
Maybe I’m just old-school. I realize that you have to be on that stupid site nowadays, because “everybody else” is. It’s mandatory. But I don’t like their “American style” rules. Their opinion about nudity for instance. Nirvana’s cover for the album “Nevermore” was REMOVED from the site because it had a naked baby on it! After massive protests, FB put it back up.
I remember uploading a pic from an Egyptian exhibition and it was removed because it was a wooden statue of a naked man or woman, don’t remember. Is Facebook going to censor out history too or what the hell…?!And all the info they want about you – phone numbers, addresses, they know EVERYTHING about you. In the wrong hands, that could be potentially dangerous. So again, I’m not totally OK with FB, eventhough I know that it you want to market yourself, that’s the only place to be – at least for now.
Things will probably look different 5 years from now. EVERYBODY used to be on MySpace too, then everybody disappeared from the site just as quickly – NOW it’s totally dead. Same thing could happen to Facebook. Things change a lot faster than we might realize in cyberworld.So – guess there are good or bad sides to everything. I’ve got a thing or two to say about MySpace and Youtube as well, guess that should be saved for another blog. :-)
HALFORD – Cyber World
Youre trapped inside my Cyber World
Consumed up as my web unfurls
No secrets left for our mankind
My virus lurks throughout your veins
Im spreading there inside your brain
A Trojan Horse that eats your mind
Cyber World
Cyber World
Ive got your power
Cyber World
Cyber World
I will devour, yeah
At speed of lies I will connect
I search and surf as I infect
Computerized catastrophe
Your informations what I steal
I scan you till you are unreal
Transmit your power into me
Cyber World
Cyber World
I’ll steal your mind
Cyber World
Cyber World
For all mankind, yeah
you’re dying in my Cyber World
you’re lying in my Cyber World
The long and the short of it [About me]
When I launched this blog I pretty much thought that most of my readers would be the loyal people who have been following me for years.
Some of you have been with me since the “pre-internet”-days, when I wrote for various newspapers and magazines and had my radio-show and everything else.
Or maybe you’ve been reading Sweden Rock Magazine the past 10 years, then you’ve probably read my articles and reviews there.
Some of you joined back in 1996 when I got my first website online, and some of you discovered and rediscovered my writings through my very active MySpace-blog 2006->.
If you’ve been with me that long, you have a pretty good idea who I am and what I do.
But when I see the blog-statistics for this blog, my jaw drops! Hundreds of new people end up here every day and the number of regular readers is increasing day by day. It’s such a great feeling to see that people like it,
However… maybe an introduction of the person behind the blog might be appropriate.:-)
So….here’s the “About me”-section, the long and the short version.
THE SHORT VERSION:
I’ve lived for music for as long as I can remember. I’m still a dedicated fan of bands and the whole rock’n’roll lifestyle.
You will find me anywhere in the world where there’s a good band playing – or somewhere at a local joint checking out an up-and-coming new act. I believe in doing things passionately and I love music and writing as much now as I did when I was 18. The blog is a way to share some of my memories with everybody who live and breathe music– whether they’re fans, musicians or managers, from across the globe.MY RESUME:
1988 – Started out as a hard rock reporter for Swedish newspaper Kvällsposten.
I was 18.
1990-1995 – Editor of FICK-Journalen, music pages of weekly Hemmets Journal (while still working for Kvällsposten and freelancing for other magazines).
1989 – Hosted my own hard rock radio show at Radio MCB.
1992 – TV-hostess for RockShow.
1991-2000 Free lancer for Metal Zone, Heavy Mental, Zero, Kool Kat News, Arbetet, OKEJ and many other music magazines and newspapers.
1998-2000 – Launched and managed hard rock club Hard Break. Bandbooking. PR, DJ, hostess and more.
2001->(current) Sweden Rock Magazine
Managed female rockers Modesty Blaise and Seventeen (whose frontman Chris Laney has become a succesful producer at Polar Studios in Stocholm as well as a great songwriter, guitarist and singer for various hard rock acts). Featured in Neil Daniel’s book about hard rock journalists “All Pens Blazing” vol.1. Also credited in the unofficial Judas Priest-biography “Defenders of the Faith” for contributing w. info. Currently writing for Sweden Rock Magazine and hosting my own blog In The Rearview Mirror – found at www.lita77777.posterous.com
THE LONG VERSION…..
I was 18 and bursting of ideas, dreams, expectations, energy – life was ahead of me and I knew where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do. I had a dream and I was aiming for it.
I used to write to one of Sweden’s major evening papers, Kvällsposten, on a regular basis, just to get noticed. I had been writing letters to the editor since I was 10 years old and back in those days, it wasn’t easy to get published. So many people had something to say but space was limited. (Yes, how did we ever survive the pre-internet era??)
But I got used to having my letters published almost every time. It made me confident at an early age, that if there was anything I was good at, it was writing.
That’s what I wanted to do. Write about music – my greatest love of all. :-)
In 1988 I sent a letter to Kvällsposten, again, asking them to bring me along if they had any plans to interview Yngwie Malmsteen, who was playing at Olympen in Lund that year. I wanted to see a music reporter in action, learn from him/her, then go to the University and get a degree in journalism, and then start my career as a music journalist. I had it all figured out.
It was like walking into a temple when I walked through the doors to Kvällsposten’s impressive building that day. I saw the editorial staff all busy writing, there were records and press-releases everywhere, stuff from record companies, info.. All the stuff that would end up in the paper eventually. Holy shit. It was a big deal to an 18-year old who was nursing a dream to do exactly what these reporters were doing.
When they saw me walking in with my Yngwie Malmsteen t-shirt, I heard one of the reporters, Pär Hägred, go: Hello Daniela! You’re the one who’s been writing to us, right?! Apparently, they loved reading my letters. Everybody up there had read them, I was somewhat of a “celebrity” and I didn’t even know.
Will be updated.
Check my Twitter, MySpace and Facebook pages for updates!
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 