The Time I Sent an Email to James Murphy (and Actually got a Reply!)
This incredulous story begins almost 4 years ago. I was living in Isla Vista, attending UCSB, and sharing a room with my dear friend and bandmate Aidan Dansey (The Judd Zingle Project). Aidan and I have always had many things in common and share a similar taste in music, but at the very heart of our friendship is a mutual obsession with LCD Soundsystem.
Back in college, we started our own indie-electronic-rock group called Frisson with aspirations of bringing the synth-heavy dance-rock sound we both loved to a music scene mostly filled with jam bands and Hendrix impersonators. We wrote a few originals, but to be honest… we were a glorified LCD cover band. At our shows, songs like “You Wanted A Hit” and “Daft Punk is Playing at My House” were just obscure enough to the average party-goer that some people actually thought we wrote them! A far too generous credit to our songwriting abilities. (To be fair, our audience was almost always extremely intoxicated.)
In any case, the point of telling you all of that was to show you that we had a bit of a thing for Mr. James Murphy. Now, would I go as far as to say he was our Messiah? Absolutely.
Never in my life did I think a middle-aged, grey-bearded, disco-punk fanatic from Jersey would impact my life so much until I discovered “Dance Yrself Clean” back in 2014.
When LCD made their comeback in 2016, I absolutely cried my eyes out during their performance of “All My Friends” at Weekend 2 of Coachella.
So Aidan and I did what any two naive, overly-optimistic fanboys would do… we said to ourselves, we should email James Murphy! I mean, what the hell right? The worst thing that could happen is he doesn’t reply. The best-case scenario in our minds would be the two of us filming and producing a low-budget documentary on his life and slowly becoming his best friends. Don’t you think James Murphy seems just like the type of guy who would pull a super hipster move and hire two random college kids from SoCal to make a documentary about his life rather than paying for some big-budget bullshit? Exactly, I knew you would agree. And lord knows someone needs to make a James Murphy documentary ASAP.
From that point, our plan sadly fell apart. Sorry to disappoint you so soon. I don’t know if it was because we couldn’t find his email address, we realized the futility of our idea, or... we were just too busy with our Spanish homework but we never got around to sending that email. The dream was dead.
Fast forward to about a year ago and our great idea survived only as an inside joke. Aidan and I would occasionally laugh about the time we almost emailed James Murphy. That was until August 5, 2019…
At this point, our band Frisson was but a distant memory, foggy with melancholic nostalgia. However, Aidan and I had both embarked upon solo projects. I had recently released two singles that summer under my own moniker, Magic ~ Fingers. With my debut album set to release soon after, a familiar thought came into my mind. Maybe I should email James Murphy…
I mean, what the hell right? The worst thing that could happen is he doesn’t reply! I said to myself… again. Best case scenario, he sees potential in me and offers to produce my next record, and becomes my musical sensei.
The difference this time around was, I actually sent an email to James Murphy. Well, sort of. I made the laborious effort of going to the official LCD Soundsystem website, clicking the contact button, and finding the only email that actually had James’ name in the address (JAMESMURPHY@MONOTONEINC.COM).
Now do I think this is an email address that actually gets checked by James Murphy? Of course not. It most likely forwards to his manager, who probably also does not check these emails. But I got this far right? So I went ahead and typed up a gushy request (see below), asking him if he would take a listen to my first few tracks and give me some feedback. I think we can all agree I deserved that much.
Nigh on almost a year passed since the day I sent that email in August of 2019 and unsurprisingly, I never got a reply... That is until one fateful day, several weeks ago! July 23, 2020, at 4:23 AM PDT, to be exact! This day will forever be known in history as the day I got a reply from James Murphy! Well, sort of. See for yourself below.
Cryptic, I know. Especially with the massive yellow spam warning slapped at the bottom. A cautious person probably wouldn’t open this email, let alone download a password-protected zip file from it.
But I mean hey, what the hell right? If there’s even a tiny, remote chance that this was an actual, fully intentional email from James Murphy to me, I had to see what was on that file. What’s the worst that could happen? My laptop gets completely overrun and destroyed by a malicious virus? I’ll just buy another computer, Macbook’s aren’t even that expensive right? I can’t be thinking about money in a time like this. Money can never buy another golden opportunity to (possibly) correspond with my hero!
At this point, I gave Aidan a call to explain the situation. Being a rational and intelligent person, he completely agreed with my thought process and implored me to immediately download and open the file. And so, I did.
What comes next can only be described as odd, and also, disappointing. If you thought this story would have a happy ending, I’m sorry to tell you that it will only have a ‘slightly funny but just sort of okay, I guess’ ending.
Inside the password-protected zip file, I found a Word document titled “statistics_07.20.doc”.
Doesn’t look promising huh? All the hope within me dissipated instantly. Why would James send me an old Word document with statistics on it? Doesn’t he realize I was looking for a relationship built on more than just statistics? Despite my disappointment, I opened up the document anyway. Here’s what I saw.
The absurdity continues… What even is this? I had no idea when I saw it the first time and I still have no idea. Naturally, I followed the instructions on the page and clicked “Enable content”. I was then prompted with another warning message urging me not to click the button I just clicked. Apparently, this action would also put my computer at risk for some sort of virus. I’m starting to think my computer lacks a single ounce of courage. I click “Continue”. And then…
Nothing happens.
That’s right, nothing changed at all. Queue the sad violin music. I hit a brick wall, the end of the road.
I came all this way for an old Word document titled ‘statistics_07.20.doc’ that didn’t even have a single statistic on it…
I know what you’re thinking at this point, “Try a different computer! Don’t give up!” Well, that’s excellent advice, I thought the same thing myself. In fact, I tried going through this process twice more on two different computers, both were PCs from different years. But no luck, I hit the same wall every time. It’s a cruel world.
So what do we make of all this? Hard to say… Most people would probably agree that it was some sort of spam email. But have you ever received a spam email as a reply to an email you sent? No, of course not that’s ridiculous. It doesn’t add up, I refuse to believe there wasn’t something more going on here. Sadly, we just don’t have the technology to solve this mystery.
I took the next logical step and sent another reply back asking for clarification and further assistance. All we can do now is sit tight and never give up hope. James if you’re reading this, I await your next reply!
For those of you thinking this was a complete waste of time, you may be right. But on the bright side, at least the worst-case scenario didn’t happen. My laptop did not get completely overrun and destroyed by a malicious computer virus. I know it may have been a stupid decision to download and open that file, but then again, I wouldn’t trade one stupid decision for another five years of life.
Cover meme by u/LB1920
