#coolpunk

Here's my thesis: FRE3ZER sabotaged Coolfest '99.

Okay let me back up. Obviously FRE3ZER couldn't mess up all of Coolfest. The unfortunate tragedy of the Chowdercopter was not his fault, nor was the colossal mismanagement of the entire event from Gray's Peak, but the lip syncing was intentional. FRE3ZER wanted to drive the final nail into Coolpunk's coffin.

Why do I say this? Let's lay out the facts as they're initially presented.

During Coolfest, FRE3ZER- also known as Jan Wolf- was seen lip syncing to the song 'Icy Girl' on stage. After the convention, Jan clarified that this was a mistake; he had been singing along with the song, but he accidentally queued up a work-print of the song that had extra lyrics. This excuse is recognized as being weak at best, and shortly after he announces a hiatus from songwriting and performing. From this point, Coolpunk as a movement completely implodes, and by Y2K MerchantSoft intends to transform the Coolpunk Paradise into an all-purpose music Zone called The Venue.

However, missing from this summary is the real identity of FRE3ZER. This fact will likely missed on first-time playthroughs; it's found in chapter one through the incomplete and mostly inaccessible Fungus Scene about page. The pioneer of Fungus Scene, FatherFungus, known for making music under the pseudonym Basidia, is the true FRE3ZER- Ray Dolan. Ray reportedly has terrible stage fright and so signed on with Esotonic Records as a songwriter and producer. Jan Wolf hired as a 'face' to play Ray's music onstage. This fact is removed before the Cavern becomes publicly available, citing a contractual prohibition against divulging the info.

How can we tell this is the truth? FatherFungus has unlisted page in Coolpunk Paradise dated November 20th of 1998, the generally agreed date that the defining song 'Colder Than The Rest' was released, with the song playing and downloadable for free. Said page is nearly completely taken down by Esotonic by the second chapter, the title song being replaced with the Basidia track 'Ghost of the Grotto'.

Additionally, although the singers voice in 'Colder Than The Rest' is significantly distorted, there's no denying that it sounds very similar to the voice in Basidia's song 'Ghost of the Grotto'. Even more, 'Ghost of the Grotto' is a song about a creative struggling with the idea of being unseen and unheard while someone else plays their music.

The connection isn't exactly subtle.

Okay, so now the situation is thus: Ray Dolan, aka FRE3ZER, signed a deal with Esotonic Records and hired front man Jan Wolf to perform his music live. Jan's first performance was at Coolfest '99, where the lip sync incident tanked FRE3ZER's reputation and crashed Coolpunk square into the ground.

But we can go deeper.

There's another character at play here- COOLPUNK_IS_DEAD. This user made a page as an ode to Coolpunk and its demise sometime after Coolfest and it's deleted in December. It notes that Coolpunk has fallen, killed by corporations that were exploiting it. To quote, 'They've identified what makes us US and are selling it back to us'. This user is distributing the lip syncing video and the immediate aftermath, and advises that people turn away from this co-opted movement to find their own freedom.

COOLPUNK_IS_DEAD is FatherFungus, Ray Dolan. Aside from the fact that this page directly links to Fungus Scene, these two users share the same headband ID: 04886A. COOLPUNK_IS_DEAD is therefore a sock puppet, made by Ray Dolan to widely distribute the video of Jan Wolf failing his performance.

Now we circle back to Coolfest, and the excuse provided by Jan: he mistakenly queued up a different version of the song with more lyrics. This excuse was already flimsy; the version of 'Icy Girl' that was distributed across Hypnospace was the same one that played during Coolfest, so the idea that FRE3ZER had intended to play a different version is about as strong as wet tissues. And now that we know that Jan isn't FRE3ZER, this series of events is called into question even further. This isn't his music. Did he even organize the set list to begin with? Does he actually know the FRE3ZER discography? Did he know what he was playing at all?

This line of questioning lead me to two answers. Option one: Jan Wolf is in on this. He's a friend of Ray's and the two of them collaborated to cause the failure of FRE3ZER live. Option two: Ray intentionally sent Jan the incorrect copies of the song to practice, and the live set list was designed to throw him off guard and under the bus.

Personally, I believe option two. Why? The answer lies with the final piece of this puzzle: FR33ZIECHIKA. This account belongs to one Amanda Price, and she's an astroturf account. The tells are obvious; she links to Gray's Peak with sponsored soda images all over her page, her style of writing is bizarrely corporate and sterile, and her review of Coolfest is out of touch with reality. It mentions none of the horror and drama of the real event, refusing to comment on the tragedy of the Chowdercopter and making reference to an extended set list from FRE3ZER when he only performed one song before being booed off the stage. But if that wasn't enough, the proof is once again in the headband IDs. Hers is 04902A, and she shares it with the official FRE3ZER account.

Her account is quietly deleted sometime in December.

This all leads to my final conclusion. FRE3ZER sabotaged Coolfest '99 to kill Coolpunk dead. After seeing what Gray's Peak were doing with the movement he signed a deal with Esotonic and let them hire Jan Wolf as his public face, only to send him a live set that exposed him as a fraud. He took the evidence and distributed it across Hypnospace, letting his former artist brand and hired face take the fall. From the ashes of his act he developed Fungus Scene, a musical movement that truly embodied his ideals- no brand sponsorships, no big names, just the unbridled creativity that the darkness of the caverns provide.