PopCult

Rudy Panucci On Pop Culture

Monday Morning Art: Ink Street

It’s been over a year since I posted a pure ink creation here, so this week’s art is “Ink Street,” an ink on weird textured paper darwing that takes its inspiration from five or six photos I took out of the window of The Amtrak Cardinal on the way back from New York in January.

The inks are a combination of Winsor Newtons, india ink and cheap markers. Aside from markers and traditional brushes, I used dental brush-picks for some of the finer details.

This piece is decidedly NOT Hopperesque. I decided to break away from the conventions of his style for this one, just to prove I still could. It’s not exactly Impressionistic or Expressionistic. It’s more a sort of semi-abstract minimalist realism.

Be advised that sometimes I come up with descriptions for the style I’m employing just to make the heads of art teachers explode.

I was tempted to crop out the sloppy attempt at power lines. By the time I got to those, my fingers were rebelling. But I left ’em in just so I didn’t turn the piece into a widescreen affair.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you encores of a recent episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM a recent edition of Herman Linte’s weekly showcase of the Progressive Rock of the past half-century, Prognosis.  You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player elsewhere on this page.

Psychedelic Shack can be heard every Monday at 2 PM, with replays Tuesday at 9 AM, Wednesday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday at 9 AM. You can hear Prognosis on The AIR Monday at 3 PM, with replays Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM, Thursday at Noon, and Saturday at 10 AM. You can hear two classic episodes of the show Sunday at 2 PM. All times listed are Eastern, so if you’re in another timezone, adjust accordingly.

At 8 PM you can hear an hour of funny songs by Shel Silverstein, which we mistakenly listed here last week, on a recent episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM the Monday Marathon the laughs continue as we bring you ten more hours of The Comedy Vault.

Sunday Evening Video: St. Patrick’s Day

It’s Saint Patrick’s Day, and even though your humble blogger is half Irish, I’m not really too emotionally invested in the holiday.  It’s become primarily a drinking holiday…and I don’t drink. I also don’t have fond memories of having to worry about wearing green on that day while I was in elementary school.

So…this is about all I can muster. Above you see a collection of Lucky Charms commercials, not in chronological order, and with the the earliest example being well after the traumatic addition of blue diamonds to what had been a terrific cereal before that.

Below you get a Famous Studios cartoon about Leprechauns.

Sorry about the half-arsed nature of today’s post. Please drink responsibly.

Okay, here are two very early Lucky Charms commercials, for us older people.

I still resent the blue diamonds.

The RFC Flashback: Episode Seventy-Two

Radio Free Charleston’s seventy-second episode, “Sulu Nation Shirt,” was posted in June, 2009, and it contains a lot of “firsts.” This episode featured music from The Scrap Iron Pickers and Whitechapel District. We also had a guest appearance by The Chemical Valley Rollergirls, who were just getting started back then. Host segments were recorded at a CVRG practice at Skateland in Campbell’s Creek. We also have Frank Panucci’s “Porklips” in this edition of RFC and a 90 Second Art Show.

This was a fun show to produce, with a cool host location and lots of action. It was really cool having Scrap Iron Pickers on. This instrumental progressive metal powerhouse was real bright spot on the local scene, and ithey left a legacy of great music.

Whitechapel District is rarely performing these days, but you never know when they’ll make a return. The original production notes can be found here.

Dance To Disco, Then Keep Dancing To New Wave On The AIR

The PopCulteer
March 8, 2024

You PopCulteer is still a bit buried under outside work, so once again, all we have for you this week is the playlist for today’s new episode of MIRRORBALL on The AIR, so let’s just jump into a radio-heavy end-of-the-week post, shall we?

The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear our shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch devotes her hour of Disco to a decidedly random assortment of classic dance tracks from the golden age of Disco. She opens the show with a rare Disco turn from the band, Chicago, then runs through everything from Narada Michael Walden and Dee Dee Bridgewater to Lalo Schifrin and Herbie Mann.

IIt’s a wild assemblege of crafty dancefloor mutations. Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 094

Chicago “Street Player”
Stuff “Honey Coral Rock”
Eloise Laws “1,000 Laughs”
Narada Michael Walden “Tonight I’m Alright”
Dee Dee Bridgewater “Bad For Me”
Lalo Schifrin “Dimelo”
Gene Page “Wild Cherry”
Montana “I Love Music”
Herbie Mann “Jisco Dazz”
Phreek “Weekend”
Terry Caller “Disco In The Sky”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays throughout the following week Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM and a mini-marathon Saturday nights at 9 PM

At 3 PM we bring you  an encore of one of the 12″ dance mix episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. This was the sixth Big Electric Cat mixtape of New Wave 12″ extended remixes.  This time Sydney introduced the show and then presented almost two full hours of dance-remixed New Wave classics.

Back in the day, all the top New Wave artists released special extended mixes of their hits so that they could get extra club play and confound the collectors of today, who can’t keep track of all the wild versions of these tunes.  This show has lots of great New Wave hits, some of which are barely recognizable.

Peruse this here playlist for a preview…

BEC 089

A-Ha “Take On Me”
Thompson Twins “In The Name Of Love”
Duran Duran “Wild Boys”
Visage “The Damned Don’t Cry”
Human League “(Keep Feeling) Fascination”
Adam Ant “Apollo 9”
Eurythmics “Sexcrime (1984)”
Red Box “For America”
Malcolm McLaren “Double Dutch”
Tears For Fears “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”
Bronski Beat w/Marc Almond “I Feel Love”
New Order “True Faith”
Eighth Wonder “I’m Not Scared”
Haircut 100 “Love Plus One”
Bananarama “Cruel Summer”
Frankie Goes To Hollywood “Rage Hard”
Alison Moyet “Love Resurrection”
Kim Wilde “Never Trust A Stranger”

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat is produced at Haversham Recording Institute in London, and can be heard every Friday at 3 PM, with replays Saturday afternoon,  Monday at 7 AM, Tuesday at 8 PM, Wednesday at Noon and Thursday at 10 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Classic episodes can be heard Sunday morning at 10 AM.

That’s what’s new on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for our regular features every day.

Fourteen Years Ago Today In PopCult

Your humble blogger is in deadline hell again this week, so rather than rush out a hastily-composed post that might not be up to my normal standards, I’m going to revive a post from exactly fourteen years ago.  This was a Sunday Evening Video entry, and the many times this blog has been ported around have caused the original embed codes to be hopelessly mangled, so I’m re-presenting it here, with everything fixed.

Below, you see the exact images Syd Barrett saw in his mind when he wrote this song…

It explains so much, doesn’t it.

 

 

Saint STUFF TO DO’s Weekend

You should know the drill by now.  There’s plenty of STUFF TO DO in Charleston and all over the Mountain State as folks indulge in the stereotypical drinking of the green this weekend, so let’s just soak in this partial list of suggestions.

As I have been copying and pasting of late, this a good time to remind you that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything comprehensive, and if you feel strongly about me leaving anything out, feel free to mention it in the comments.

Live Music is back at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM.  Unfortunately, I’m writing this early and they’re posting who’s playing late, so you’ll just have to go find out for yourself who they got this week.

The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week  to tell you about. Nolan Collins will be playing every Wednesday in March at 9 PM. Thursday at 5:30 PM the Helping Hour with Swingstein & Robin makes the world a better place with music. Thursday at 10 PM Eric Robbins hosts an open mic night. Friday, Tim Courts plays during happy hour.  Saturday at 10 PM The Charleston Rouges get all Celtic all o’er the stage. Sunday at 10 PM it’s the always-hapnin’ Post Mountain Stage Jam, hosted by The Carpenter Ants.  You can check below for the graphics for other cool weekend shows at The Empty Glass.

Please remember that the pandemic is still not entirely over yet. It’s a going concern with the ‘rona surging again. And now there are seasonal allergies, the flu, dervishes-both whirling and stationary, evil Leprachauns who won’t share their delicious cereal, people who still post anti-Obama memes and other damned good reasons to be careful. Many people who have very good reasons are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding  while you’re out.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

If you’re up for going out, here are a few suggestions for the weekend, roughly in order…

Continue reading

Great New Music and More Budgetary Discretion On an All-New RFC

It’s another big day on The AIR.  We have a new episode of  Radio Free Charleston, which includes the second part of our salute to Budget Tapes & Records.  To listen to The AIR, you simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay here, and  listen to the cool embedded player found elsewhere on this page.  

You can hear Radio Free Charleston Tuesdays at 10 AM and 10 PM, with tons of replays throughout the week.

Like last week, our first hour is our usual collection of cool local, independent and brand-new music. We open with brand new music from Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates.

The remainder of our first hour has new music from Unmanned, Kim Gordon, Catherine Campbell, Radio Free Honduras, Duck City Music and more cool tunes that come from all over the map,musically.

Our second and third hours are also new, but like last week they are even more of our extended tribute to Budget Tapes & Records, which just closed a week ago Sunday. These two hours consist entirely of music that I purchased at Budget over the years. It’s more of my personal playlist of music I bought at Budget.

In hour two of this week’s show, I talk (too much) about the records, who sold them to me, and which location of Budget I patronized to purchase them (a long time ago they had three stores). The final hour of today’s show is just a mixtape, without me rambling about which store I went to to buy the music. I had to do something to fit it in, or there’d have to be a part three of this.

I also want to again recommend my post from a couple of weeks ago, and a great entry by Douglas Imbrogno at WestVirginiaVille that collects Doug’s memories of Budget, along with those of Stephen Schmidt, of Astrodot fame. For the unintiated, this is a good way to catch up on the history of Budget. Also, hiding behind a paywall, is a great article by Jason “Roadblock” Robinson at Coal Valley News. This is a good way t catch up on why Budget was so special.

The links in the first hour of the playlist will take you to the pages where you can learn more about each artist and buy their music or find out where to see them (where available)…

RFC V5 167

hour one
Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates “Bucket and the Boot”
Radio Free Honduras “Bellos Momentos”
Duck City Music “Can It All Be So Simple”
Andy Prieboy “Did We Come All This Way For Nothing”
Unmanned “Aliens”
Kim Gordon “Dream Dollar”
Lords of Atlantis “Sands of Mauritania”
The Broken Relics “Night In The Desert”
The Paranoid Style “Style Makes Fights”
Dion “Soul Force”
Pallas “Ghostdancers (Violin Mix)”
Sarah Jane Morris “Sisterhood”
Catherine Campbell “Orion”
Fischer Z “Amoral Vacuum”
63 Eyes “Strange Way”

hour two
Mike Batt “Love Makes You Crazy”
Roger Daltry “Bitter and Twisted”
Nektar “Recycle”
Heart “Strange Night”
David Bowie “Young Americans”
ELO “The Diary of Horace Wimp”
Peter Gabriel “I Don’t Remember”
Oingo Boingo “Reptiles and Samurai”
The Boomtown Rats “Skin On Skin”
The Buggles “Clean Clean”
Shriekback “Nemesis”
Hazel O’Connor “Will You”
New Musik “Dead Fish Don’t Swim Home”

hour three
The Budget Tapes & Records Mixtape

The English Beat “Twist and Crawl”
Madness “My Girl”
The Selecter “Too Much Pressure”
The Specials “Ghost Town”
Vanilla Fudge “Ticket To Ride”
Donovan “There Is A Mountain”
Small Face “Here Come The Nice”
Jefferson Airplane “White Rabbit”
Badfinger “Come and Get It”
The Rutles “Let’s Be Natural”
The Knack “My Sharona”
Klaatu “Hope”
Utopia “That’s Not Right”
Nina Hagen “TV Glotzer”
Mi Sex “Computer Games”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Wednesday at 9 AM,  Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight,  and  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different classic episode of RFC every weekday at 5 PM, and we bring you a marathon all night long Saturday night/Sunday morning.

I’m also going to  embed a low-fi, mono version of this show right in this post, right here so you can listen on demand.

 

After RFC, stick around for encores of last week’s episodes of  MIRRORBALL at 1 PM and Curtain Call at 2 PM.

At 3 PM we  have to interrupt our four-part series of Boogie Woogie because on Monday, too much life happened and something had to give. So our crash course in Boogie Woogie will have to return next week with new episodes. In its place today, we’ll give you a chance to play catch up by running the first two installments.

 You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 AM, Friday at 10 AM and 8 PM and Saturday afternoon, only on The AIR . You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursday and Sunday evenings.

Monday Morning Art: Spring 2024

This week’s art is an acrylic/marker abstract, painted on this weird treated Tyvek that I found in the basement, and based on a digital design I created on the computer.  My fingers weren’t cooperating with my attempts to do more detailed work, so I resorted to this, and I’m pretty happy with the results.

I was also too lazy to mix paint, so these colors are straight out of the tubes. The “Spring” in the title comes from the cheery, spring-like colors. The “2024” comes from me having a nagging feeling that I’ve used the title before, so I wanted to distinguish it from any prior works.

The original design (seen right in a tiny version) was a simple digital gorp, the likes of which occupied this space for many years while I was impaired with MG.  This time I created that design, printed it out, then popped it on the lightboard and painted on the Tyvek (which was nearly opacque) to come up with what you see above. As you can probably tell, I took many liberties with the original design.

It’s nice to know I can still go the digital abstract route when my fingers won’t let me emulate Hopper.  It’s nicer to know that I can still create real-world art at the same time, even though this one is pretty small, coming in at eight inches, square.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you encores of a recent episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM a recent edition of Herman Linte’s weekly showcase of the Progressive Rock of the past half-century, Prognosis.  You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player elsewhere on this page.

Psychedelic Shack can be heard every Monday at 2 PM, with replays Tuesday at 9 AM, Wednesday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday at 9 AM. You can hear Prognosis on The AIR Monday at 3 PM, with replays Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM, Thursday at Noon, and Saturday at 10 AM. You can hear two classic episodes of the show Sunday at 2 PM. All times listed are Eastern, so if you’re in another timezone, adjust accordingly.

At 8 PM you can hear an hour of funny songs by Shel Silverstein, on a recent episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM the Monday Marathon and Herman Linte present ten hours of progressive rock masterpieces on Prognosis.

Sunday Evening Video: Barbie Turns 65

Sixty-five years ago today, Barbie, the famed fashion doll from Mattel, was introduced at the New York International Toy Fair.  Generations of girls have grown up with the definitive fashion doll, and with the huge success of last year’s Barbie movie, she’s a bigger pop culture icon than ever.

So to observe the anniversary of her beginnings, we bring you two video of her history.  Above you will see The HILARIOUS History of Barbie, by FunkyFrogBait. This is a more comprehensive history than some of the longer, dryer videos about the history of Barbie.

Below we have another concise history, courtesy of the respected scholar, Trixie Mattel.

We salute Barbie, without whom we never would have had GI Joe, Bratz Dolls, Monster High, Malibu Stacy, The Spice Girls, “outfits sold separately,” and many other pop culture mainstays.

The RFC Flashback: Episode Seventy-One

Radio Free Charleston number 71, “Golden age Batman Shirt” was originally posted in May, 2009. This episode of Charleston’s local music, film, animation and weirdness program included new music from WATT4, vintage music from Hitchock Circus, a Plant Ro Duction Mini Movie, and a special appearance from IWA East Coast‘s Mad Man Pondo and a friend.

We concluded “Mark Beckner Month” with two songs from his Nashville band, Hitchcock Circus. This was a homecoming for Mark, who was a regular on the original RFC radio show as a member of Go Van Gogh and The Tunesmiths.  Mark is still making excellent music with his band, Nixon Black.

WATT4 was recorded at The Blue Parrot.  We were very lucky to score an appearance in this episode by the late Dave Brockie, also known as “Oderus Urungus” of the band, GWAR. Dave was nice enough to have recorded a couple of spots for Radio Free Charleston, and you can see them, presented in character as Oderus, in this episode of RFC. We were lucky enough to meet Dave, and he was a nice, funny and humble man who just wanted to entertain people. Big thanks to Bo Vance and Mad Man Pondo for helping make these videos happen.

You can find the original production notes HERE.

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