Jesus Is A Friend Of Mine (The story of the greatest viral video of all time)
A good viral video combines unexpected elements. In 2008, when the “Jesus Is A Friend Of Mine” video blew up on YouTube, it seemed almost too good to be true. An early 80s Christian ska video on public access television. Was this even real? The video is so funny, the lyrics are religious but also kind of silly, and the song—a ska song—was actually good!
The video is very much real. The band was called Sonseed, a catholic band from New York that formed in the ’70s and broke up in the early ’80s. Shortly before breaking up, they appeared on a small TV show in New York called The First Estate. Twenty-five years after the song was recorded, it went viral. It continues to go viral—still to this day.
To tell the story of this video and explain it’s context to ska and to internet culture, we talk to four people: Sal Polichetti (The bassist of Sonseed, writer of the song), Paul Williams (leader of the British ska band The Skapones), Jamie Loftus (Internet culture expert, host of 16 Minutes) and Doug Prinzivalli (owner of Dougsploitation, the site that launched the video to the internet in 2008).
Sit back and listen to the story of the greatest viral video to ever graze the internet.
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If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music.
Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024.
Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023.
The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.
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