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The Spogga saga
A twisted tale of identity theft
BY BOB GULLA

I thought I’d seen just about everything in journalism, until last week. You might recall that was when I ran an interview with Spogga — or so I thought. It turns out I got caught in a bizarre web of deceit and it wasn’t Spogga at all I spoke with, and for that I throw up my hands with resignation and apologies. How did it happen? Well, it was the perfect confluence of negligence, naivete, and trickery. Let me explain.

About a month ago, a man contacted me saying he was Spogga. He sounded intense; he had some big things happening in his career, he said, and he was anxious for me to help him spread the good word. I was busy, so I brushed it off for the moment. He called again, then again. Five or six times total. Then he sent an e-mail telling me how frustrated he was not being able to connect. He certainly was persistent. So I set up a phone interview with him. At least, I thought, I would reward him for his stick-to-it attitude.

Unfortunately, the interview date passed and we didn’t hook up. He called again and said, "Why don’t we do an e-mail interview?" For me, overworked as I often am, I jumped at the chance. I wrote down a few questions and sent them off. A few days later, the answers were returned.

I read through them as an editor would. First, I was surprised by his candor. I’ve talked with Spogga a few times and, while I recall his boldness and unique perspective, I didn’t remember him being obnoxious which, if you read the interview, you know the subject was. Sections of his missive were confrontational. I excised a few passages, but let a few hurtful things remain because, well, "Spogga" must have wanted me to print them. I sent the interview to my editor, who immediately had reservations. "Was this an e-mail interview?" he asked. "There are a lot of inconsistencies here," he said. "He’s all over the place."

As it turns out, there were lots of red flags we should have detected. But here I sit, all blissed out on music journalism for much of the day every day and, frankly, I’m not a suspicious person by nature. Then on the evening of the story’s publication, I got an e-mail that woke me up pretty good. It was from Spogga. The real Spogga.

"I never was interviewed by you and I have been trying to stay under the local music radar until my new CD gets released. I really don’t like getting printed when my ideas are not rightly conveyed." The e-mail went on to say that someone had been impersonating him for a year now and that it was beginning to become a nuisance.

I was stunned. Apparently, I interviewed an impostor. Someone with way too much time on his hands had succeeded in assuming a false identity so convincingly that he got a prominent weekly to run his "story." And it was all lies.

Since last week, my editor, the real Spogga, and a few of his friends have been attempting to get to the bottom of the situation. The interview we ran in this space last week was not only illegitimate, but injurious and insulting to many people, including some of Spogga’s housemates over at AS220. It included untruths and misstatements, all of which we at the Phoenix deeply regret.

In an attempt to right these wrongs, we’ve allowed Spogga to speak for himself, air his frustrations at not being able to expose this charlatan, and set the record straight on some of the interview’s trash talk.

People who knew me read the article and called me afterwards," he says. "They said that there’s this terrible article in the paper — it can’t be you. And, of course, it wasn’t."

Over the past year, someone has been doing some research on Spogga, so much so that he’s been able to assume his identity. He’s even been in Spogga’s place at AS220, or so Spogga thinks. "Someone has been coming to my shows, really going out of their way to get to know people who know me, then doing strange things. Like one time he told another musician that I wanted this guy to play at one of my shows, that he should show up in full costume. So the poor guy came with his guitar to this venue waiting to play, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know who you are. I never met you before.’ Somebody was screwing with both of us."

On the message board over at the WBRU site (www.wbru.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000943.html), where lots of local bands hang out, the confusion worsened. "I think we have an identity crisis on our hands!," wrote someone calling himself "Spogga." "Spee dog," he says, addressing the true Spogga in a post, "if you really want to take this charade any further, you can just give me a call or come down to AS220 [Spogga’s true residence] and speak up. I just want everyone to know, Spogga stands by his convictions, and my vibe is more real than any ‘Pee Dog’ could maintain while totally jamming out with just an acoustic guitar and a pocket full of soul. But I want y’all to know I’m not trying to offend anyone, I’m just speaking my 3rd eye."

It wasn’t a convincing enough act to mislead Spogga’s true friends, but lots of other folks were confused and put off by the impersonator. And while Spogga, a mellow dude by most counts, has remained calm and even a bit bemused, people who know him are more than aggravated.

"This thread is pretty much the clincher," says longtime Spogga friend Matt Obert. "You get to see how skillful the impersonator really is, and then you get to see that no matter how much homework he does about Spogga’s background — and he obviously knows a lot about Spogga — he will still get caught by people who have known Spogga for years. If you look around enough, you will see that the Spogga impersonator is really using this act as a cover for a series of personal attacks on other musicians in town, and denigrating the Providence scene in general. This has been going on for more than a year, but the Phoenix interview is really the last straw. The impersonator has gone too far."

Spogga tells me that several musicians have approached him to ask him about the bad vibes in the interview. Why was he taking them down? In the fraudulent piece, the fake Spogga says he lost a gig at the Green Room to a cover band while, in fact, the gig was given to Jon Tierney, who won the Best Local Male Vocalist in the Phoenix’s latest Best Music Poll. The piece also said that Spogga was partly responsible for the Lightning Bolt sound, which I’m sure peeved that camp. "I know all of these people that are being hurt by this," says Spogga, "and I hope they know I wouldn’t go out of my way to say these things."

The fraudulent Spogga has left a long trail of ill feelings in his wake. Because he has discovered so much about his victim, he can be terrifically convincing over the phone or via e-mail, communications in which he can remain faceless. "I live an open life," says Spogga. "You have to be ready to jump into the spotlight with me, in just what I do every day. This person knows a lot about what I do. He might have even been in my room at [AS220’s] Fool’s Ball when I had a gathering."

As unsettling as that sounds — that there’s a possibility the impostor has infiltrated his circle of acquaintances — Spogga has remained clear-headed throughout this whole ordeal. Many others in the same predicament would have lashed out, thereby lessening sympathy from the outside. But Spogga’s placid persona has allowed him to look coolly at the situation from an adequate distance. We spoke twice in the last few days.

Q: Why do you think you have a perpetrator?

A: Well, I suppose I’m an attention-getting figure that’s been doing a lot in the Providence scene for a while. I just received an e-mail from him and he said it’s for what I did to his girlfriend but . . . I haven’t been able to think of anyone I would have hooked up with or had a relationship with who I wouldn’t have gotten to know first. I made some calls out to some suspected girls, but everyone is dumbfounded by the occurrence.

Q: Is there anything you want to clear up about what the fake Spogga said?

A: This "thirdeyespogga" [the impostor’s e-mail handle] person really fucked with my umbrella. I feel I’m naked in the rain, but I’ve got to keep smiling!

It’s sort of funny. He got one thing right, I’m not digging the straight up "no more war" thing, but I don’t condone Bush either. Any president who represents American ignorance by pronouncing the word "nuclear" like "noo-kyoo-lar" scares me. Listen, we are dealing with life on the muthafuckin’ sub-atomic level! We had a thunderstorm just last week and it sounded like bombs shaking Providence, and I thought of how terrible it must be in Baghdad right now. Those Americans with their blinders on scream "9/11" and the President uses it as his ace. Then he uses the word "God" as a sword. If he really knew what God was he might resign. I look at the budget cut for schools as a tell-tale sign that our government wants to promote ignorance and cut off our supply to knowledge.

Q: So you aren’t touring with String Cheese Incident like your impostor said?

A: No, but depending how the summer rolls I am planning to do a full tour either at the end of August or beginning of September. I’ve had lots of love from tour manager Tim Lanterman, who works with the Slip, and the partnership keeps growing. He’s looking to help us get some good venues and a steady lineup.

Q: So, as we unravel this case of stolen identity, why don’t you tell us what’s really going on for you this summer?

A: I am planning for a busy summer at Ballard’s on Block Island with DJ Hoska of Groovefire Records every Sunday. I’m also in a great club in Newport every Thursday called Studio 3 [above One Pelham East] with DJ Chaser. I’ll be adding a live element to the DJs’ stuff, creating live remixes of original and cover music. I make it up on the spot a lot of times. Hopefully, my MC alter ego, The Dread, will come out and stir it up more and more as the summer progresses. Between those shows, WaterFire dates, and the random other bookings, I should be finishing up my CD and starting some showcases in New York.

Q: How’s your music coming now?

A: I feel I’m still at the end of this incubation cycle, but also trying to record my new ideas and get more into a new breed of hip-hop. One of my new pieces — "It ain’t hip-hop with out the bee-bop, it ain’t bee-bop with out the jazz, it ain’t jazz without no PUNK ROCK!! KICKIN’ YOU IN THA AZZZZZ!" — exemplifies things I am not ready to talk about, but I want people to hear. Hopefully, it will be one of those CDs you put in and it’s as if you’re listening to your favorite MP3 downloaded mix blended by a DJ. After three songs you should forget it’s the same artist[s]. It’s been a huge project and it isn’t easy when a lot of times I play all the roles: producer, funder, performer, and manager.

Q: What keeps you in Providence?

A: I love the Providence scene. I’ve been to a lot of places and it seems like people are very real here. Maybe because it’s a small town, or maybe it’s the people I surround myself with, but any one of my Boston friends who really hang here for a couple of days love Providence. When it gets stale I do a tour and then find myself missing the overall atmosphere of Providence. It’s got soul. It has a good heartbeat. The strange thing is I have played everywhere! Lupo’s, Strand, Hell, Café Zog . . . I like putting myself in different scenarios in order to experience and understand the different scenes. How could you not love Providence! It leaves room for a crazy artist like me to get popular, have a stalker claim my identity in a local paper, and give me a reason to call the shots of an entire article!

Q: Are you investigating your perpetrator?

A: Yeah, I don’t want to say too much, but this story isn’t over. When he wrote me, he said he wouldn’t do it anymore. I think the article in the Phoenix freaked him out more than me. He felt bad about it. It’s weird, he’s known me for a while, but he doesn’t know me well enough to get all the details straight.

Q: How has this whole thing affected you as an artist?

A: I really wanted to stay under the local music radar until it felt right to burst open again. I have a lot of great ideas that I’m still refining. I was tired of feeling like — as much as I’ve played music — I haven’t yet [reached] my potential and feel as though the New England area has only seen glimpses of who I really am.

Throughout the week, the fallout from the piece was considerable. One of the more positive things to come from it was an apology to Spogga from the fraud himself. And despite the fact that we are giving this lowlife with a misplaced vendetta far too much attention, the perp’s note was correct about one thing: Spogga has been remarkably positive in the face of adversity. One can only hope that this will ultimately turn around to work in his favor, and the man responsible for weaving this entanglement will meet his victim face-to-face in a courtroom.


Issue Date: June 27 - July 3, 2003
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