LOGAN SQUARE — A bar owner who said he was launching a record label is coming clean: it was an April Fool's Day joke.
Coleman Brice, owner of Cole's, 2338 N. Milwaukee Ave., had told DNAinfo last month that he was launching the record label, starting with a re-issue of a mid-1980s album by a group from California, the Semitropics.
While he had pulled April Fool's jokes in previous years, Brice said he regretted this year's prank, which missed the mark trying to lampoon other Logan Square bars that has started record labels. Brice sent out a news release, sat down with a DNAinfo reporter for a lengthy interview and set up a second interview with a "band member" weeks before a "record release show."
The bar hosted an actual concert that night with three bands, one of which was the fake Semitropics.
"Mostly everybody was confused. It was too close to reality that I would try to do something like this," Brice said. "The band was really good and people enjoyed the show. It was just really confusing for most people.”
Since the story was published, people have been coming into the bar asking him about the record label, he said this week.
"I do feel very bad about it," Brice said. "One thing that I try to pride myself on is being an honest person. In the process of doing this I had to lie to a lot of people that I care about. It wasn’t that evil of a lie, it was a white lie, but I feel like I sort of damaged myself and my integrity by doing this.”
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