Wreck and Salvage is the brainchild of Erik Nelson of Bottom Union, Adam Quirk of Bullemhead, and Aaron Valdez of Valdezatron. Together they wish to share their “love of rust and rotting wood, postcard landscapes and decaying industry, accordians [sic] and banjos, knucklehead engines and 4 bangers, lager beer and chilaquiles.” Eclectic stuff, expressed in quirky videos decimated each Monday and Thursday, with a backcountry cabin homepage replete with nudie and auto silhouettes.
Wreck and Salvage’s videos are divided into four series: Valdez’s America, Your America! mocks the commercialism of tourist advertisements by satirically filming the American experience at the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore; Quirk’s Ornamental Concrete follows the adventures of two stop-animated nude action figures that attend class reunions and misuse weightlifting equipment; Quirk and Nelson’s Suppendapo provides video to accompany bizarre recording of people calling to purchase supplies for the pending apocalypse (squid ink as the future currency, rescinded requests for trigger locks, which will obviously be rendered irrelevant); and all three Wreck and Salvage founders’ Video Moroso, a grab bag montage of clips compiled from sources crappy and canonical, as with a highlight reel of car safety tests and music video of Russian beauties joined to a death metal version of “House of the Rising Sun.”
A front office allows viewers to post their own videos, photos and words, making it possible for them to add to Nelson, Quirk, and Valdez’s fierce experiment in culture jamming and innovative mischief. Want to spawn even more Wreck and Salvage creativity? Bid on their weekly eBay auctions to win some exclusive on-site and on-video real estate.
The aforementioned Shining-inspired re-editing of Starman and The Big Lebowski to form a trailer for Stardude is the best example of Wreck and Salvage’s creativity, while the first episode and origin story of Ornamental Concrete takes the cake for sheer comic absurdity. Hosts Billy and Pollard barely contain their homoerotic tendencies while lounging in Jacuzzis and…working as railroad inspectors?
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