Kind of a long time lurker here, but had to register to post about one of Mr Levine's particularly zany antics- the saga of "The Four Vandals" - basically, around 1999 Ian produced a record by a young Steve Brookstein (who would later go on to win The X-Factor) called "The Wrong Side Of Town", pressed it up on vinyl under the name of The Four Vandals and promoted it on the Northern Soul scene by pretending it was a 1960s recording from the US, even going to the extent of artificially aging copies by soaking them in water and rubbing talcum powder into the grooves, and sending some to US record dealers to sell onto exclusive-hungry British DJs at inflated prices (we're talking hundreds of pounds here).
Understandably, suspicion was raised when people actually listened closely to the record and realised it sounded unnaturally modern for a '60s recording despite being muddied, leading to hysterical denials from IL until the shit finally hit the fan with Brookstein's X-Factor win when he casually mentioned it to a reporter, I understand one DJ who paid over the odds for a copy tried to punch IL over it when they met!
The tune in question:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNCbAkZRccM