It’s been a rough summer. The news has been depressing, if not disgusting. The upcoming presidential campaign looks to be one of the ugliest in history. Stakes are high and nerves are frayed. The weather has been brutal and society seems to be on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
Add to that my personal issues, dealing with my recent diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis while re-launching an internet radio station and working on several personal projects, and I fear that I have neglected this blog. I do manage to post at least one item every day, but there is so much going on in the world of pop culture that I feel I’ve fallen behind on my coverage. Particularly, I have not kept up my duties delivering regular entries of The PopCult Toybox or The PopCult Bookshelf.
So today I’m going to try to play catch-up and bring you a whole bunch of pure pop-culture news items, all in one long post.
San Diego Comic Con International
It’s that time of the year when all the cool (and some not-so-cool) genre media producers flock to San Diego for a gigantic orgy of hype and promotion, and to be honest…it’s sort of useless for me to try and cover it from here in Charleston. There are dozens of websites actually on-site with teams of reporters who can cover all the details about what movie, comics, TV show, toys, games, consumer products and books will be heading your way in the future.
Even if I were out there, it’d take me weeks to sort through what I’d seen. I’m still sitting on tons of photos and video from Toy Fair in February and JoeLanta in March that I haven’t been able to edit yet. This is one event that I’m perfectly content to witness from the sidelines. One of my main sources is Comic Book Resources. Rather than attempt to re-report what I’m reading there, I’ll just suggest that you check them out.
The Beatles Live at the Hollywood Bowl
The one Beatles album that never quite officially made it onto CD will finally be released in September to promote Ron Howard’s documentary on the Beatles’ live performances. A newly remixed and remastered version of The Beatles Live at the Hollywood Bowl will arrive on September 9 and will include four songs that were omitted from the original vinyl release in 1977.
Remixed and remastered by Giles Martin (son of George Martin, and the man behind the remixed songs on The Beatles Love album), this project will use the original first-generation recordings (done on three tracks!) and combine the superior source recordings with the latest sound-isolation technology and Martin’s remixing expertise to give us what will likely be a bit of a sonic revelation in terms of audio fidelity.
More details, including a full breakdown of tracks and when they were recorded, can be found at Uncut.
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