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Martin Shkreli is set to testify about the amount of copies of Wu-Tang Clan‘s rare ‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin’ album that could be in circulation.
The former hedge fund manager and ‘pharma-bro’, who bought the sole copy of the record back in 2015 for $2million (£1.4m), was sued by PleasrDAO for illegally livestreaming the album last June. He bought the album under a legal agreement stipulating that the album could not be commercially exploited until 2103, though it could be played at listening parties.
Shkreli played clips of the album during a livestream in 2017 despite the restrictions, then tried to sell the album on eBay – and received an offer for $1.2million (£940,000), but the sale was never completed. He was then forced to hand over the album following his conviction for securities fraud, when $7.4million (£5.8m) worth of assets were seized by a federal court.
From there, the US Department of Justice sold it to Pleasr for $4million (£3.1m) in 2021, in a bid to cover Shkreli’s debts. The collective said at the time that it would find a way to make it accessible to fans and the rest of the world.
According to the lawsuit brought by PleasrDAO (filed June 10 in a Brooklyn federal court), Shkreli violated conditions of his legal agreement by making copies of the album and playing it publicly. Shkreli last played the album on X the day before the lawsuit. He was then ordered by the presiding judge to surrender any existing copies he may have in his possession.
In a sworn statement on September 30, Shkreli said that he had since turned over all of the copies in his possession, but it is still “highly likely” that there are more out there due to him distributing it.
Now, Shkreli will return to court on November 5 to testify about the number of copies of the album he allegedly made and distributed. Per Rolling Stone, the order was handed down last Friday (October 11) after PleasrDAO’s lawyers took issue with his September 30 statement – claiming that it “raises doubts” on whether he “made a good faith effort to comply” in a letter to the presiding judge, Judge Pamela K. Chen.
Shkreli was then ordered by Chen to appear in court to “resolve the deficiencies” in his affidavits and have him “testify under oath regarding the copying and distribution of the Album’s tracks.”
Recorded in secret between 2006 and 2013, ‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin’ became the most valuable album ever made, and reportedly features contributions from all surviving members of Wu-Tang Clan, as well as two guest appearances from Cher. The unique copy was housed in a silver, jewel-encrusted box, alongside leather-bound liner notes and a wax seal of the Wu-Tang Clan logo.
No digital downloads or streams were made available, and after pressing the CD, the Clan stored it in a high-security vault at the Royal Mansour Hotel in Marrakech, Morocco prior to its auction.
The 88-year restriction on the LP was chosen as there were eight original members of Wu-Tang Clan, because the numbers of the year 2015 added to eight, and because the number rotated made the symbol for infinity. The album was reportedly played to the public for the first time at an art gallery in Tasmania back in June.
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Van Halen could have had new additions to their line-up over the years in Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell, and Joe Satriani, Alex Van Halen reveals.
The former drummer and co-founder of the hard rock band is set to release Brothers, a memoir of his life with brother Eddie – who passed away in October 2020 due to complications from throat cancer – from childhood to 1984, when the band’s first line-up with David Lee Roth ended.
In an interview with Rolling Stone published today (October 15) promoting the book, Alex reveals more moments from the band’s storied career over the decades – for one, how Osbourne was originally tipped to front the band in 2001.
Alex and Eddie had met Ozzy with wife and manager Sharon Osbourne to lay out plans for him to record an album with the band. “When you get a dog, you don’t expect it to be a cat,” Alex tells Rolling Stone, noting that the brothers were open to the implications of the former Black Sabbath frontman joining their band. “When you get an Ozzy, you get Ozzy. Play the music, he’ll sing, and it’s gonna be great.”
However, Ozzy became entangled with MTV to launch The Osbournes, the reality show about the family that became a smash hit upon its debut in 2002, and couldn’t follow through with joining Van Halen.
“Yes, we were discussing it,” Osbourne tells Rolling Stone via email. “It is something that if it had come to fruition, would have been phenomenal. Eddie and Alex were great friends of mine for a very long time and it’s a regret of mine that we never got it together. The Osbournes got in the way of creating new music at that time, unfortunately.”
Alex also reveals in the interview that the brothers once jammed with Cornell and found they had something to work with. “Chris was in a very fragile part of his life, so to speak,” Alex notes.
“I got behind the drums, and he started playing bass. We played for 45 minutes. This motherfucker got so into it he started bleeding. I said, ‘This is the man you want.’ And then he died.”
Decades later, after the death of Eddie, Alex had reconvened with Roth to explore continuing the band in 2022, with early rehearsals taking place alongside musicians from Roth’s solo band.
The idea, Alex shares, was to rope in Satriani to take Eddie’s place on guitars, along with former bassist Michael Anthony, who hadn’t played with the band since 2004 since being replaced by Eddie’s then-teenage son Wolfgang Van Halen. The tour did not materialise, with Alex noting that physical problems he began facing around the time made him wonder if it was an “omen from above” to not follow through with the reunion plans.
He notes that after phone calls with Queen‘s Brian May, Alex brought to Roth the idea to pay tribute to Eddie during each gig. “I said, ‘Dave, at some point, we have to have a very overt — not a bowing — but an acknowledgment of Ed in the gig. If you look at how Queen does it, they show old footage.’” he recalls.
“And the moment I said we gotta acknowledge Ed, Dave fuckin’ popped a fuse.… The vitriol that came out was unbelievable.” This moment was “the thing that broke the camel’s back”, Alex adds. “‘You talk to me like that, motherfucker, I’m gonna beat your fucking brains out. You got it?'” he recalls how he felt towards Roth. “And I mean that. And that’s how it ended.”
“It’s just, my God. It’s like I didn’t know him anymore. I have nothing but the utmost respect for his work ethic and all that. But, Dave, you gotta work as a community, motherfucker. It’s not you alone anymore.”
Last month, Alex shared a snippet of ‘Unfinished’, the last song he recorded with his late brother. The track will be included in the audiobook of Brothers, which is set for release on October 24.
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