Month: February 2015 (Page 2 of 4)

Radio Free Charleston 47, “Ted Petty Shirt” is back online. This July 2008 edition of the show brings you music from The Diablo Blues Band and Mark Bates and The Vacancies. We also have a taste of episode 48’s tribute to Quick And Dirty’s late lead singer, Randy Lee Walden and animation from Frank Panucci.

You can find the original production notes HERE. Check PopCult all weekend long for special updates from our coverage of Toy Fair 2015.

The PopCulteer
February 20, 2015

Your PopCulteer is back from The Big Apple, having returned a day later than planned because of the Amtrak lines being all blowed up. I am still overwhelmed. Toy Fair was amazing, and even though we didn’t get into the Mattel or Hasbro showrooms, we made hundreds of contacts and will be telling you all about the cool new toys coming your way over the next several weeks.

Next Monday, don’t expect a new edition of Radio Free Charleston or The RFC MINI SHOW. Instead we’ll bring you some kind of video from our trip. We don’t know what kind or how long yet. We haven’t had time to review the footage.

Meanwhile, why don’t you thumb through these 80 or so photos? Each one will likely sprout a detailed article all its own in the coming weeks. Come dig in the PopCult Toybox…

Thomas celebrated 75 years of chugging along.

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You PopCulteer is back from New York City…a day later than expected. We took the Amtrak Cardinal line to The Big Apple, and while we were gone you folks thought it would be cool to blow up the railroad tracks real good. While we were at Toy Fair we found out that our trip home had been cancelled.

Quick-thinking got us onto the Amtrak line from NYC to Pittsburgh, where a Gypsy cab ride to the airport Avis brought the Jetta from hell into our lives. We crashed at Sister PopCulteer’s place and hung out with the Ginoids, then drove into Charleston today, just in time to dig out Mrs. PopCulteer’s car, which was buried under ten inches of snow, and return the Jetta to Avis, where it was promptly returned to the lower level of Hell from which it had been retrieved.

All this is basically our way of saying…detailed coverage of The 2015 International Toy Fair in New York begins tomorrow…after we get a good night’s sleep. Look for The PopCulteer in the early evening Friday, with special reports all weekend long.

This week’s PopCult Toybox will be at least a day late because your PopCulteer is riding the rails back from New York City where he (hopefully) was able to attend The International Toy Fair. In the meantime we have for you a special midweek STUFF TO DO…

Tonight The Lula Washington Dance Company performs at The Clay Center, starting at 7:30 PM. Lula Washington explores fundamental human issues, including aspects of African-American history and culture and creates exciting, beautiful dance performances for all ages.

FOR WVSU STUDENT/EMPLOYEE TICKETS call (304) 766-3288. For more information about the dance company visit: http://www.lulawashington.org/.

Playlist RFCv3 #15

This week’s Radio Free Charleston on New Appalachian Radio features a ton of great local music in our first hour, and then flashes back to 1990 for even more cool local stuff from the RFC Archives as we bring you the entire First Step local music sampler released orginally by Rock 105.

You can listen to Radio Free Charleston’s  fun and exciting streaming radio incarnation at 10 AM and 10 PM on Tuesdays (and again at midnight Thursday) at New Appalachian Radio, part of Voices of Appalachia. If you miss it, check our the archives for previously-aired shows. You can also listen to Radio Free Charleston Saturday at Midnight. Saturday, RFC airs for six hours, starting at The Witching Hour!

You can hear this episode now in the Voices of Appalachia Archives HERE.

Before we get to the fine vintage music, we have a tasty crop of (mostly) more recent local and regional music, kicking off with Qiet.

Qiet “Little Window”
Io and the Ions “There’s A Light”
Wolfgang Parker “The Mice, The Demons and The Piggies”

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Three Bodies at The Empty Glass in 1990

It’s hard to believe it, but The RFC MINI SHOW, our humble little spin-off designed to fill the weeks between full-length episodes of Radio Free Charleston, has reached its fiftieth episode!

Originally the plan was to end The MINI SHOW with episode fifty, but as time progressed, it became apparent that there was simply too much great music in Charleston to simply let this show go away. I don’t think I ever officially mentioned this, but on The RFC MINI SHOW we don’t repeat any of the musical artists. We might have musicians on solo and later as part of a group, but each episode of the show features an act that hasn’t been on yet. We’ve got a long list of folks that haven’t turned up on The RFC MINI SHOW yet, so expect us to stick around for the long term.

To observe our little milestone we decided to mine the rich RFC Archives and bring you footage shot at The Empty Glass twenty-five years ago. Thre Bodies was one of the top bands of the first RFC era, and we captured them doing a soundcheck at The Glass in the fall of 1990. They perform the songs “Gardens of Hope” and “Shingles and Tar,” which they later recorded at SoundTracs studio in South Charleston with the production team of Spencer Elliott and Rudy Panucci. Here you get to hear the songs in their raw form.

Back in the day, The Empty Glass was laid out in quite a different manner than it is now. The stage was in the front of the bar where the soundboard is now. The kitchen was behind a wall where the stage is now. It’s pretty weird watching this footage if you’re familiar with The Empty Glass as it is now.

Anyway, we hope you enjoy this look back at the Charleston Music Scene, as Radio Free Charleston continues to look forward, too.

Today’s Monday Morning Art is an impression of the view looking up at the sky from below The Interstate Bridge that goes over Magic Island. It’s much better than my impression of Rich Little doing Johnny Carson. Click to see it bigger.

Exactly as it says in the headline, this is a 1993 documentary about the legendary New Zealand band, Split Enz, from whom sprang the band, Crowded House. Below is a bonus video, the band performing their song, “I See Red,” which is one of the reasons they’ve been among my favorite bands for more than thirty years.

The PopCult Toybox

It’s a very exciting time around here as your PopCulteer and his lovely wife head North to The Big Apple for our first visit to The International Toy Fair in New York City. Toy Fair actually opened today, but we won’t hit the show until Monday. All of the blockbuster announcements about toys based on big movies and special events have been spilled in advance, but the PopCult crew will be there to peer behind the veil and bring you news, details and other cool inside information that other reporters might overlook.

I will start posting Toy Fair coverage next Thursday, but we’ll be mining this trip for weeks, and maybe even months. Our goal is to make contact with as many toy companies as possible to bring you all the news about cool pop culture toys that we can ferret out.

Today’s Toybox is just to warn you–there’s a storm of cool stuff coming. In the meantime, keep checking PopCult for all of our regular features, which have been carefully prepared in advance for your reading pleasure. You don’t even have to take them out of the fridge and pop them into the microwave. They’ll magically appear right here in this blog, every day while we’re gone.

Monday you’ll get the fiftieth episode of The RFC MINI SHOW with a special look back at The Empty Glass circa 1990. On Tuesday the streaming Radio Free Charleston audiocast at New Appalachian Radio presents the “First Step” local music compilation from that same year, with music from Big Money, Brian Diller and The Ride and more local legends. Our Sunday Evening Videos and Monday Morning Art will also be in place. So stick with PopCult. It’ll make you glorp.

This installment of Radio Free Charleston from July 2008 features full songs from Casi Null (singing about the infamous Blue Haze) and Dog Soldier (singing about the infamous Christmas).

We also have parts of songs from then-future RFC guests The Buttonflies (in the 120 Second Art Show) and The Diablo Blues Band (over the end credits).

Our animation was a segment of “Duffy’s Mascot,” and your host is lethargic after eating a wonderful meal at Bluegrass Kitchen. You can read the original production notes HERE.