David Rosen, better known as comedic rapper Jewish Dave, suddenly has a little more hip-hop cred to float around town. The 26-year-old Rosen—an occasional UNLV student and the son of Wax Trax Records owner Richard Rosen—was a runner-up in a national theme song contest for the New York- and LA-based improv comedy troupe The Upright Citizens Brigade.
The group recently invited artists across the nation to submit potential theme songs for its touring show, Asssscat, in conjunction with the September 18 release of a DVD collection of second-season episodes. Rosen, a huge fan of the television show during its initial run on Comedy Central from 1998 through 2000, broke away from his local comedy-rap outfit, The Polar Bear MCs, to write and produce a song for the contest.
The two-minute “Super Cool”—a series of cheesy techno grooves layered with Rosen’s lyrics about the fictional pixie stick-like drug featured on the show—was selected as one of 15 finalists. “The song took me two or three hours to put together,” Rosen says. “I wanted to do something rap-sounding, but still kind of like electronic music to fit with the techno theme song of the show.”
Rosen’s track, which received the most votes from fans on the UCB’s MySpace page, ultimately came in third behind Orrington, Maine, horror-rap group, KillF--k and Hamden, Connecticut, indie soloist and contest winner Max Heath.
Show founder Matt Besser described “Super Cool” as “the most commercial [sounding] of all the submissions.” Rosen, a local hip-hop producer who also writes instrumental scores and commercial jingles, says he’s proud of that comment and plans to add it—and the song—to his résumé.