I've had an amazing homemade VHS tape of a Christian Ska band named "Sonseed" performing "Jesus is My Friend" for about 25 years now. I've shown to to hundreds of my friends, I've entered it into Dennis Hensley's HOME VIDEO GONG SHOW (Where it was unfairly "gonged" by Go-Go Jane Wiedlin), and I've spent countless hours analyzing it and the odd, yet endearing assortment of performers known as "Sonseed". For years I've searched the internet far & wide for information about "Sonseed" and the song-to no avail. Finally, I lent the tape to my good friend Peleg Top who converted it to digital. Alleluia! So, at last, presenting the internet premiere of "Jesus is My Friend"! Spread the word! Warning: This video is highly addictive! PS...If you have any info on "Sonseed", let me know!
LOL! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteFor some reason this song reminds me of the time the gang on WKRP In Cincinnati sang the funeral home jingle.
"Hey, you're young & swingin', there's no time to think about tomorrow..."
Sweet Jebus! I have a new obsession......
ReplyDeletepraise the lawd!
ReplyDelete♫ Once I tried to run, once I tried to hide, but Jesus found me and touched me deep down inside. ♫
ReplyDeleteIs anyone else seriously troubled by that line?
Zap!
ReplyDeleteI find myself making up elaborate backstories for the other participants. Dude in the glasses got kicked out of several bands for trying to "save" his fellow musicians and scaring off the groupies, and now he's thrilled to combine his two loves. The two male back-up singers were hoping that God could cure them of their urges, but then they hooked up one night, sharing a motel room in Sioux Falls, where the group had been booked for a state Fellowship of Christian Athletes convention.
ReplyDeleteTry it -- it's fun!
This is the funniest thing ever. I guess they probably don't do bar' mitzvahs, too bad cause they rock!
ReplyDeleteOh reeeeeeely Doug, what's with the shirtless photo of you?!?!?!
You've gone to the skank side!!! I hope Jesus is still YOUR friend.
ok i love that video.
ReplyDeleteOh my God, where did you ever find this?!
ReplyDeletei really think my favorite part is at first i didn't read your post, so i thought it was a parody video that you worked on and it was finally up. i was going to say "wow you did a great job. it really looks retro and the song is hilarious" but then i realized that it's actually really real and now i'm dyyyying.
ReplyDeleteDude,
ReplyDeleteThat's hilarious.
is it wrong for me to lust after the lead singer?
ReplyDeleteThis, for sure, is a disturbing universe.
ReplyDeleteGood God!
ReplyDeleteI've got to say I'm with Jane on this one! I had to turn it off. Fundy-Ska just isn't my cup of hemlock!
♫ He is like a mounty.
ReplyDelete♫ He always gets his man.
♫ And he'll zap you any way he can!
Is this subtext? It's crazy.
I did sit through the whole thing. But I don't blame Ms. Wiedlin for her reaction...
I think Sonseed should write an ode to Rainbow Boy...
So there. :P
TOTALLY addicting!!!!!! I luv it! Thanx for sharing, christian bruder! ;-)
ReplyDeleteSteve S
Whoa. This totally freaks me out. It's unbelievably surreal.
ReplyDeleteWhat's a Go-Go know anyway?
Where ARE those people today?
HOLY SHIT! OH MY GOD! OH LORD!
ReplyDeleteDude that was something else. I really have nothing else to say about it.
That was ... Well, I'm not quite sure what that was. It was pretty, I'll tell you that. I like big collars. The lead singer's voice left something to be desired. He was going for Donny Osmond but the song was confused, and the bridge never built to a satisfying chorus. Plus, he had them 'crazy eyes.' I wish I could play bass like the bass player. Jesus is like a mountie, apparently.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the day brightener!
ReplyDeleteI remember it fondly from the gong show!
ReplyDeleteSilly ol Jane.
thanks - arrrrgggghhhh. NOW I WILL HAVE THIS SONG IN MY HEAD WHILE I RECORD MY CARTOON FOR THREE HOURS. I've done a little research in my time (and my dad was a spy ...) so I think I'm going to try and find this group....
ReplyDeletemaile
oops - read the rest of your post - can't wait to hear the other cuts from the album...
ReplyDeleteThanks for that. Bad day for me today and this was a ray of shining light! “Jesus touched me deep inside”—how can I not smile after these lyrics?
ReplyDeleteWell I can tell you when i was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, i use to go see Sonseed all the time at St Thomas Church off of Flatbush Ave and the little venue was called "His Place"
ReplyDeleteI remember Brother John the sleepy one lol from high school (Bishop Ford) in Park Slope Brooklyn.
Johnny
ahahahahaha, I cant take it! He'll zap you when he can...ZAP!!!
ReplyDeleteHe's just like a Mountie, he always gets his man!!!
Are these clowns Canadian? That's got to be the only explanation. I'm dying here!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletecan't stop watching it. arrrgghhh!!!!!!
ReplyDelete"Great post, man." does no justice to the service to mankind you have done here today. This is incredible, which I mean in all senses of the word.
ReplyDeletehttp://musicruinedmylife.blogspot.com/
VIDEO WAS DELETED??!!! I'M STARVING!
ReplyDeleteIt it now on You Tube:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iUU6jTqB6k
mate that is fantastic.but as other posters have said i cant get it out of my head.i need more dammit!!
ReplyDeletecheers
I like to listen to this song at least once a day.
ReplyDeletethe lyrics are here:
http://www.sonseeded.com/jesusismyfriend.html
he's like a Mountie..
ReplyDeletemust be Canadians.
;)
FAKE!
ReplyDeletehttp://endie.net/cs/blogs/endie/archive/2008/09/07/Sonseed_Im_calling_it_as_fake.aspx
Totally fake and the accompanying description is an outright fabrication. This was shot this year.
ReplyDeletehey "anonymous" if it's so fake why have so many former members of Sonseed contacted me to THANK me for reintroducing the world to "Jesus..."?
ReplyDeleteCheck out the rest of my blog - you can even link to some of their own blogs from comments they made.
Endie's "expose" is hysterical. I've linked to it myself. I've also tried posting a reply on his blog, but the filter rejects it. Hmmm...wonder why?
Hilarious!
ReplyDeleteI heard about this on a gay humour podcast...'nuff said...
Doug I'm voting for you here (though a few moments of doubt did arise on first view) because this so matches the Christian culture of the time.
ReplyDeleteIf I may self-link, listen to the often ska-inflected and always Jesus-praising songs on these two albums from 1981. (The Lifesavors were from California and Moral Support hailed from Ireland but had pretty good distribution in North America).
http://musicruinedmylife.blogspot.com/search?q=lifesavors
http://musicruinedmylife.blogspot.com/search?q=moral+support
Thanks for the words of support and the links, Jeffen!
ReplyDeleteCool blog, by the way!
http://musicruinedmylife.blogspot.com/
(I heard about this on a gay humour podcast...)
ReplyDeletewhat gay humor podcast???
you can't just leave a guy hanging like that...
hi,
ReplyDeletei've just watched this on french tv this morning (FRANCE2 - TELEMATIN)...iand i love it!! so, excuse my poor english, i was looking for more info on it and i found your site...thank u!
Thierry
rebeccashow@wanadoo.fr
www.rebeccashow.com
im addicted to this song. Its even my new ringtone. Thank you so so much.
ReplyDeleteDonny Osmond on crack. No other explanation.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to put all these "fake" rumors to rest, then post more of the VHS tape you have. Maybe some moments before or after what we've seen already?
ReplyDeleteHey Bret,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advice, but the video has been proven to be real. I don't need to waste any more of my time on this.
http://gawker.com/5056395/christian-ska-band-was-totally-real-ye-doubters
FYI - the rest the the video tape is a collection of news bloopers from the 1970s.
thanks, Doug
Dude in the glasses got kicked out of several bands for trying to "save" his fellow musicians and scaring off the groupies, and now he's thrilled to combine his two loves. The two male back-up singers were hoping that God could cure them of their urges, but then they hooked up one night, sharing a motel room in Sioux Falls, where the group had been booked for a state Fellowship of Christian Athletes convention.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Brian, and I am a Sonseedaholic. I downloaded the album and listen to "Jesus Is A Friend Of Mine" at least 20 times a day.
ReplyDeleteMy pet conspiracy theory is that Sonseed are actually the true identity of “The Residents” (if you don’t know who The Residents are, checkemout wherever)
ReplyDeleteActually, I’m not so concerned if the group is real or not (someone should look for other examples from that show—interviews, cable access, or the identity of the host. I’ll just anticipate the disappointment [or cushion the impact, as if Sonseed were a modern day Santa Claus fairy tale for adults] by saying that the headless bass was a bit of a tip-off). What will be neat is how long it will take to verify Sonseed’s existence. Let’s see, 25 years later one fringe human subculture is discovered by another minority in their living room. By the way, I love that the discoverer’s blog site has that ad for the hardcore gayporn video. How long until the reality of the two temporal separated culture clash. It’s like a sociological particle accelerator. Reality Check (sorry—I stole this from Riana). Will the now 40-something leader of “Jesus is a friend of mine” come into the light of our fold? Is he angry, or lost. Perhaps he could do the festival circuit, taking advantage of the recent surgance of the Othermusic genre, to be sure, he will be welcome with open arms. I believe we have on our hands evidence of the contemporary anthropolgy of connectivity in transition. That’s to say, the time it takes to discover the truth of Sonseed will give insight to global conciousness, that someone can extrapolate into the rate of which we discover each other later on. Don’t pass up on noticing the importance of the phenomenon of Sonseed’s disovery as a yardstick of the beginning, or a point of inflection, of what Dawkins calls the human zeitgeist. Dammit, I have faith in Sonseed—maybe that’s the point—although I don’t share the message. Oh no! I’ve stuck myself in a Gödelian hole of unprovability.
Sorry I’m a poser pedant. I like that other blogger gain happiness from this. Does anyone out there know what I am talking about?
Now I have my own blog, sonseedaholic.blogspot.com. Come check it out!
ReplyDeleteHe's 55, and there's an interview with him on dougs page...he's not lost at all, he's in Syracuse ny and quite happy
ReplyDelete[....I love that the discoverer’s blog site has that ad for the hardcore gayporn video...]
ReplyDeleteunfortunately, SOCKET is not hardcore gay porn - it's science fiction. Get your mind out of the gutter...and rent it ! :)
way cool. thanks.
ReplyDeleteYou are a complete bastard, I now have to listen to the damnd thing at least twice a day and I have infected others with the meme. Keep up the good works.
ReplyDeleteJesus is like a Mountie... I knew Jesus was Canadian...
ReplyDeleteHere's more proof:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081020.wlmicro20/BNStory/lifeMain/
LOL...thanks for this LOL....now what will I ever do for fun again?
ReplyDeleteHey stop by my sight and say hi anytime...Living For God Online
Jesus is a friend of mine! Is he your friend? I watched this video and I am saved now. Thank you Jesus you are my friend. Hey Jesus let’s go to the Dodger game when they get back into town and I’ll buy you a beer. Go Dodgers. Hey Jesus, Can you make sure the Dodgers get through the first round of the palyoffs this year? That would be great, thanks.
ReplyDeleteWhen we heard them sing it on Glee last night, we *knew* we had heard it somewhere before--at your house! Love it! xox Bill and John
ReplyDeleteOne of the backup singers is a gym teacher at my school.
ReplyDeleteThe Singer mentions a "mountie" - this is slang for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP. Maybe they're Canadian...
ReplyDeleteYou'll all be excited to know that the legendary "Mother of Punk", Nina Hagen, covered "Jesus Is A Friend Of Mine" on her 2011 album Volksbeat, where its title is in her native language, German: "Jesus Ist Ein Freund Von Mir"
ReplyDeleteOn Youtube there are a few clips of her performing it and it sounds, well, pretty brilliant actually.
http://youtu.be/09gB7_NqcXY
Carry on!
You'll all be excited to know that the legendary "Mother of Punk", Nina Hagen, covered "Jesus Is A Friend Of Mine" on her 2011 album Volksbeat, where its title is in her native language, German: "Jesus Ist Ein Freund Von Mir"
ReplyDeleteOn Youtube there are a few clips of her performing it and it sounds, well, pretty brilliant actually.
http://youtu.be/09gB7_NqcXY
Carry on!
And here is the full album!!!
ReplyDeletehttps://archive.org/details/Sonseed_First_Fruits