Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

Leveraging low-hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box since 1999.

Calling All Family Tree Huggers


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Perhaps it’s my family health issues – who am I kidding… that’s exactly what it is – but I’ve felt a very strong desire recently to research and document a family tree of sorts. I’d like to use an online tool that allows multiple members of a family to have their own logins but be able to collaborate on the same tree.

I just saw an ad on TV for Ancestry.com, and it looks very impressive. I have had several others mentioned to me recently, and am a little unsure as to where I should invest my time and that of a few Aunts and Uncles on my Father’s side of the tree, and my own Mother on hers. On a related note, her second round of chemo was completed a little over a week ago, her prognosis is excellent and it looks like she’ll be around long enough to help me with this project – and very far beyond. Way to go, Bonnie.

Does anyone have eny experience with Ancestry.com, Rootsweb.com, Geneaology.com or any of the apparently wide range of family history/tree sites available? I’d appreciate the input.

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Wednesday Wadio: Everlast’s “Folsom Prison Blues”


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The first thing I thought when I first saw this last night was “Oh, the balls on this guy!” The introduction is a sample of Johnny himself referring to someone (in this instance meant to be Everlast) as “…one of the greatest entertainers I’ve ever seen”. As the song continues and the mix of acoustic and electric guitars, organ, sampled drums and an old Cypress Hill hook started to make sense that changed quickly to “This actually isn’t half bad.” Has Erik Schrody successfully pulled off a Johnny Cash cover using a high-pitched squeal and DJ Muggs from Cypress Hill itself? You be the judge.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW4eAHsaq-0[/youtube]

“I never saw anything like it…” – Johnny Cash

The video doesn’t get any less cheeky as it superimposes archival footage of Cash performing with Schrody, the two even exchanging winks and glances. Think the video for Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” minus the Fonz. All the members of Everlast‘s band smile, wink and dance along and the mood is meant to imply mutual respect between Johnny and Erik. Does he consider himself Cash’s heir-apparent. I doubt it, and you have to take the spectacle with the good nature it was intended – but still. The balls on this guy!

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYZ40p8H2Kk[/youtube]

Schrody’s the man with the master plan.

Covering Cash is a risky business. It’s akin to belching in church to many music fans. Schrody has never been timid or self conscious though and I’m not entirely shocked that he went for this. His re-inventions – from West Coast GQ rapper rolling with Ice-T’s syndicate posse to Hell’s Kitchen Irish Hoodlum to country-rock troubador – have amazed me every time. Not because they’ve been so drastic, but because they’ve been so incredibly successful.

“Jump Around” made Everlast, DJ Lethal and Danny Boy very rich men when it dropped in 1992 and their follow up House of Pain album sold quite a few copies as well. The third one, not so much. When he re-appeared 3 years later in 1999 with Whitey Ford Sings the Blues no one had any idea that “What It’s Like” would become a mega-hit going platinum and winning him several Grammys that year. Not to mention his contribution to Santana’s Supernatural album, “Put Your Lights On” which helped Carlos sell about a bazillion copies that same year.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffCz1uCn2-Y[/youtube]

If you’ve never seen this before – you’ll be speechless.

So is “Folsom Prison Blues” a clever cover or a disrespectful piece of crap? I’d love to hear everyone’s opinions as I know there are likely to be many when this video gets more and more airplay and the album “Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford” is released later this month. Me? I like it and am looking forward to blaring it in my car later this afternoon. That will be the true test. I think he can take it, so let Everlast have it in the comments below.

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Senator, You’re No Martin Luthur King


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45 years ago tonight, Dr, King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech in Washington D.C. – and tonight Barack Obama makes his long anticipated acceptance speech at the DNC in Denver.

What a stomach-churning uncanny coincidence. The late Lloyd Bentsen would have definitely stifled his notorious retort if facing a fellow Democrat – not to mention he’s dead – so the duty fell to little old me today.

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Wednesday Wadio: The Verve’s ‘Love is Noise’


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First things first – How the hell did I not know until last night that the Verve’s first album in 11 years was released on Tuesday? I have failed myself, and I have failed all of you. Or something. Sufferin’ Ashcrofts this album is actually really, really good. I want to gush like a schoolgirl but I’m only on my second listen and I want to remain reasonably objective and not just a spoon-fed fan boy. Who am I kidding? I’ll be weeping giddily in a corner by listen number 6.

The last time we saw Richard Ashcroft, he was obliviously battering pedestrians in the video for the 99% universally loved and frickin’ incredible Bittersweet Symphony. The other 1% consisted only of members of the Rolling Stones who sued the pants off of them for allegedly lifting the famous (thanks to The Verve) violin hook off an old track of theirs. I don’t remember how that all turned out, and I really don’t care, because the band made that riff their own and created one of the most memorable songs and albums of the 1990’s.

I was living in England when Urban Hymns was released and we listened to it every single night during clean-ups and lock-ins at the pub where I was working. The record is like a time machine for me, and I can’t believe they have been silent ever since. Haven’t been this excited about a new record release in a very long time and it’s good to have the original lineup reunited and recording. I hope the whole experience isn’t, well, bittersweet for their fans.

The album is their 4th full length in an almost 20-year career technically and is entitled “Forth“. A nice little play on words, don’t you think? The video I am embedding is for the first single, Love is Noise, and is awash with odd sound effects and background noises that may put some off at first. The tune tends to really grow on you and has been well-received by reviewers and festival goers in the U.K. all summer. When you come back and headline Glastonbury after an 11-year absence as The Verve did just last month, you are loved. And there’s a reason.

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