Happy April Fools' Day

By Waldo Jaquith

It has become the stuff of legend, well outside of DMB and, indeed, music fan circles, that, last year, we pulled a spectacular April Fools' Day joke. We swapped out the entirety of nancies.org for a huge John Mayer website, with the gracious assistance a pair of John Mayer fan sites. This year, we knew that people would be on the lookout, expecting a joke. So we gave them one, only most people never saw it coming.

Last year's joke was blunt, but so overwhelming as to be entirely effective. This year, we decided to try something more subtle: two plausible, low-key stories that, when combined, could hypothetically spell dire consequences.

The first half of the story was obvious: we should play on Boyd's efforts to create a solo career for himself and his low-key Everyday-era criticisms of the band's creative process, and intimate that he would be leaving the band. (Stefan was a consideration, too, because of his much-discussed recent criticisms of Dave's solo work, but Boyd was easier to pick on.) But there had to be something more. Merely naming Boyd was too simple, and too obvious.

Thus, Bela Fleck. Bela has long topped the wish lists of those who are looking to see new faces in the band, which would mean that many people would really *want* a story about his joining DMB to be true. We figured that we could introduce him as a separate story, later in the day, and let people connect the dots.

We enlisted the able assistance of folks from two other DMB fan sites -- Matthew Yette, of antsmarching.org, and Noel Baron, of amidreaming.org -- to post some stories that we wouldn't post, such that the really die-hard fans would feel as if they were putting together the puzzle on their own as they checked in with the various fan sites. To make things more convincing, much of the nancies.org staff helped to point out supporting "evidence" to cite, and Justin Hankins created some truly top-notch fake promotional artwork for the purported Tinsley tour (below, at left). Best of all, the moderators of the various discussion boards were in on it, to various degrees, such that they were able to help to steer discussions and influence people's opinions.

The stories went up on the respective sites over the course of the day, scheduled to appear every few hours from 7am until 4pm, revealing a bit more each time. (See nancies.org's stories -- "Tinsley Summer Solo Tour," "Fleck to Appear on New Album, Tour," and Boyd/Bela Correlation." ) The initial reactions were tepid -- disbelief or belief, but nobody was much concerned. As the day wore on, and more information became available, the rate of the e-mails increased, and the distance between the believers and the non-believers grew. By early this evening, many people were convinced, thanks to a combination of the overwhelming evidence and the impact of the slow reveal, allowing people to come to believe the stories much as a frog will permit itself to be boiled if the temperature of the water is increased gradually.

If discussion board postings and the e-mails that we received are any indication, the joke was effective. Common themes included threats ("This whole Boyd/Bela thing better not be an April Fools joke. You're playing with our emotions out here!!"), cautious questioning ("Could this possibly be an April Fools joke? Similar to what you guys did last year. The only problem is, the CPAI Article dated March 7.... Something to think about."), and genuine concern ("If the whole Boyd/Bela thing is an April fools joke... then that's just mean, not funny. And yes, that would mean you got me."). The most interesting dichotomy is that between those who celebrated the departure of Boyd, and those who felt that even making a joke about Boyd leaving the band bordered on evil. The general attitude about Boyd was downright chivalrous -- one of "say what you like about his solo album, but don't talk trash about the man."

In short, it was a success. It was considerably less spectacular than last year's joke, to be certain, but that was the style of joke necessary, given that everybody was watching us closely to see what we'd do. For additional details, be sure to see AmIDreaming.org's article, as well as antsmarching.org's. Our apologies to Dave Matthews Band and Flecktones management for the trouble, and to anybody that we offended along the way. Tune in next year. Who knows what we'll do then? Because we sure don't.