Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

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

Wednesday Wadio: Urban Dance Squad Appreciation


in Musical, Wednesday Wadio

“Mellow… That’s my styyyyyle“.

A friend and I were taking a long drive on Monday with my iPod a’ crankin’. I have an 80 gig model, and putting it on shuffle is like staring into the abyss. You might get Pixies, but then again you might get Jerky Boys. Luckily, we got “Routine” by Urban Dance Squad and a full fledged retro appreciation phase quickly emerged. I knew I had to give Rudeboy Remington and UDS some love on the Wadio this week and I’ve been spinning them a lot in the 3 days since.

Deeper Shade of Soul broke onto the soon to be named alt-rock scene in 1990 and the Dutch band quickly became a hit on half pipes everywhere. The record label’s marketing department immediately jumped all over this demographic as this video will attest – but it’s still a good clip for a great song. UDS was pioneering the mid-90’s rap/rock tragedy from far across the sea when Fred Durst was still getting beaten up in a high school parking lot somewhere.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw5Gl28Xe5o[/youtube]

“Fast Lane” and “No Kid” were the follow up singles from Mental Floss for the Globe, and soon after they released Life ‘n’ Perspectives Of A Genuine Crossover which is my favorite. Solid full length albums are a rare thing, and this record is packed with gems like “Routine”, “For the Plasters”, “Careless” and others. This record didn’t do nearly as well, due in large to their choice of a first single “Bureaucrat Of Flaccostreet”. It’s a very cool tune with some (at the time) revolutionary inclusion of East Indian instruments a’ la George Harrison, but many of the others would have been much easier for the general public to digest. It was also released only a few months after Mental Floss, which was originally recorded in 1989, so that probably caused some confusion and flooding. If you like UDS, and have never heard this record, drop everything and get your hands on a copy.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw5WoMWU_QQ[/youtube]

The band performed at the 2006 editions of the Dutch Lowlands festival and Pukkelpop in Belgium, as well as at the Antwerp music club Petrol. According to what I’ve found it is unlikely that this will lead to a permanent reunion or a new studio album, as these performances were only to support their compilation album Urban Dance Squad: The Singles Collection in 2006. I’m encouraging you to dig in the crates a little bit today, kids. UDS was a great moment in time and a very rare example of, um, Holland having a huge influence on American popular culture. I am quite sure, at one point or another, you too did it all for the nookie.

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The Indy 4 Teaser Trailer Debuts Thursday Morning


in Animalistic, Movies

According to AICN, the long awaited, highly anticipated, masturbated over, exhaustively discussed “teaser trailer” for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will debut Thursday on ABC’s Good Morning America and make its way to Yahoo movies, the official site, and theaters shortly thereafter. The teaser is also rumored to be playing in front of this weekend’s big release, The Spiderwick Chronicles.

Teaser trailers are usually only made for big-budget and popularly themed movies. Their purpose is less to tell the audience about a movie’s content than simply to let them know that the movie is coming up in the near future, and to add to the hype of the upcoming release. Teaser trailers are often made while the film is still in production or being edited and as a result they may feature scenes or alternate versions of scenes that are not in the finished film. Teaser trailers today are increasingly focused on internet downloading and the convention circuit. For example, here is my teaser for an upcoming puppy movie currently in post-production entitled “Octopus Attack”.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2UFUzDNTvM[/youtube]

I need to do a couple of re-shoots, particularly the scene where Shep lays cable when he’s supposed to be running in fear from the beast, but look for it to debut on Veekend Video. Also look for me to be locked up soon by Animal Cops Detroit.

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Veekend Video: We Want the Lunch


in Animalistic, Veekend Video

Operation Puppy has gone off so far without a hitch. Shep and Rhuby seem very much at home very fast. Poops and peeps are happening almost exclusively outside or on their mats and they have slept all the way through the night three times without messing their crate or trying to wake me up. This may be because every night before bed we play “Chuckwagon” where I run around the house and they chase me like little bats out of hell.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqpt5qEWeFA[/youtube]

Feeding time happens 3 times a day and they each get 1/3 of a cup of kibble for a grand total of one cup daily. Obviously, this is always a very important event for a pup so we decided to film lunch time on Sunday. I inexplicably started singing a related song to the tune of P-Funk, and hence another VV was born.

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