Rudy Panucci On Pop Culture

Month: August 2016 (Page 1 of 4)

Life Speaks Debuts, On The Road To College Football and Colorful Music Today On The AIR

13880161_1070720283012754_6344661322952426129_nToday The AIR welcomes a new show to our line-up. At 1:30 PM (following a brand-new episode of On The Road with Mel) Author, Michele Zirkle Marcum brings Life Speaks to our internet radio station. In this show Michele tells stories of how simply listening to what happens in your life can reveal the most unexpected things.

Michele’s debut novel, Rain No Evil is in stores now. This harrowing account of supernatural possession is garnering a lot of attention. Michele Savaunah Zirkle Marcum is a graduate of Concord College and Marshall Graduate School.

After teaching high school for twenty years, she resigned to write full-time. Her weekly column can be found every Tuesday in the Opinion section of Ohio Valley Publishing newspapers.

book83_oLife Speaks is based on her column of the same name, which can be found HERE.

We are proud to welcome Michele to The AIR, and look forward to her take on perception, power and the paranormal and how they come into play in our everyday lives. You can listen to Life Speaks every Wednesday at 1:30 PM, with replays throughout the following week.

Immediately following the debut of Life Speaks on The AIR, Wednesday, at 2 PM, you can join Michele for a LIVE Twitter Chat. Use the hashtag #RainNoEvil to ask Michele questions about her book or her paranormal experience.

NEW AIR LOGO 0082That’s not all we have to offer you on The AIR today. Wednesday is loaded with great talk, comedy and music. Listen at the website or on this sweet little radio widget…

Ar 1 PM we have a special edition of On The Road with Mel, as Mel brings you a guide to traveling to WVU and Marshall football games this fall. She runs down directions to the stadiums, parking details, ticket information, codes of conduct and places to stay and eat while you’re taking in the wonders of Game Day.

At 3 PM and 4 PM we have new episodes of Curtain Call and The Swing Shift, that share a theme. Both of our specialty music programs this afternoon are devoted to songs with colors in the titles. Curtain Call brings you the best showtunes on the planet, while The Swing Shift presents the best Swing music from the past 100 years.

Just look at today’s line-up of cool programs:

11 AM  The Lynn Browder Show About Autism
Noon Curtain Call with Mel Larch Episode 005
1 PM On The Road With Mel “WV Football” NEW!
1:30 PM Life Speaks with Michele Zirkle Marcum (DEBUT!)
2 PM The Real with Mark Wolfe with Currency of Corruption
3 PM Curtain Call with Mel Larch Episode 007 NEW!
4 PM The Swing Shift Episode 006 NEW!
6 PM The Goon Show
6;30 PM The Goon Show BONUS!
7 PM The Best of Word Association with Lee and Rudy
8 PM Booster Pack
9 PM The Real with Mark Wolfe  with Charly Hamilton
10 PM The Gibby Hunters NEW!
11 PM The Comedy Vault

Tuesday Radio Notes

It’s time yet again for the Tuesday line-up on The AIR, with fresh installments of Radio Free Charleston, Radio Coolsville, and  Six Degrees of Separation featuring The Horse Traders, plus an encore of Radio Free Charleston International.

New RFC Logo 0401As is always the case, you can tune in at The AIR website or on this special little embedded radio player widget…

It all kicks off at 10 AM with a brand new Radio Free Charleston, opening with a new tune by Mark Beckner (The Mark Beckner Group makes their live debut September 24 at The Empty Glass) and bringing you loads of music by other great local bands. Don’t believe us? Check out the playlist right here:

The Mark Beckner Group  “Habitual Preoccupation With Self”
False Pterodactyl  “All For Not”
Axis Everything  “Undersound”
Time And Distance  “Hell To Pay”
Minature Giant  “Too Soon”
Stonebeard  “Time”
Meet Me In The Matinee  “Man E”
Jason Barnhouse The Wounded  “Fighting The Ground”
Tape Age  “Baby I’m Lost”
The Tom McGees  “Walking On Sunshine”
Tiki Joe  “Sing Along”
Scrap Iron Pickers  “Hard Drive”
John Ighram’s Slugfest  “Second Time”
The Irreplaceables “The Villa”

You can hear Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday on The AIR.

At 3 PM, DJ Betty Rock regales us with another two hour blast of the coolest music on the planet, as Radio Coolsville comes to The AIR via WMUL in Huntington.

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Sunday Evening Video: The Forgotten Comedy Team

The-gorilla-1939-posterIt seems that nobody talks about The Ritz Brothers anymore. At one time they were considered rivals to the Marx Brothers in terms of being a comedy team specializing in chaotic anarchy. One reason they aren’t as well-known today is that they simply were not as funny. The three actual brothers, Harry, Al and Jimmy, did not have distinctive personalities, and their writing was not nearly as clever as that of The Brothers Marx.

Tonight we bring you The Gorilla, from 1939. This was one of the last movies the Ritz Brothers made for 20th Century Fox before relocating to Universal in 1940. They had publicly complained about the poor quality of the script and lawsuits between the Brothers and the studio were exchanged. Aside from the offscreen drama, this is not exactly the Ritz Brothers at their best, but it does have the added curiosity of Bela Lugosi, playing a creepy butler.

Despite the less-than-stellar body of work, The Ritz Brothers were very well-respected by their fellow comedians, being cited as an influence by Jerry Lewis, Sid Ceasar and Mel Brooks, among others. Brooks even cast Harry Ritz in a cameo in Silent Movie, the last film role by any Ritz Brother.

Ten Years of RFC Flashback: Episode 11

Happy Birthday to MelEpisode Eleven of Radio Free Charleston dates back to December 2006. It was our first Christmas Show and it features music from CLOWNHOLE and MELANIE LARCH, plus Pentagram Flowerbox and more animation from Rudy Panucci and Brian Young. Host segments were shot at the original location of The Purple Moon and this is the first episode where our host, Rudy Panucci, had facial hair.

This memorable show included Mel singing “Ave Maria” live on the fifth-floor fire escape at the old Livemix Studio. That clip recieved notice from around the world and remains our most-watched music video on YouTube.

The rest of the show is pretty impressive as well, with Pentagram Flowerbox, holiday cartoons by Rudy Panucci and Brian Young and a punk rendition of “Deck The Halls” by Clownhole. We also have an onscreen appearance by The Charleston Playhouse Quartet, performing the RFC theme song, buried in the end credits. It’s always fun to run a Christmas show in the dog days of summer, so watch this and feel somewhat cooler.

Actually, that happens every time somebody watches RFC.

Anniversaries

anniversaryThe PopCulteer
August 26
, 2016

Earlier this year I wrote about how 2016 is a year of notable Pop Culture anniversaries, and that is true for PopCult as well.

This coming Sunday marks eleven years of PopCult. It seems like only yesterday that Douglas Imbrogno gave me the keys to the blog and turned me loose, but it was actually more than four-thousand yesterdays ago. It has become my most visible work and I enjoy every minute of it.

Last month marked the tenth anniversary of the video version of Radio Free Charleston. I still plan to produce a special episode commemorating that as soon as my medical issues allow me to resume video editing again. That might happen sooner than anyone expects. Still, ten years is ten years, and I’m very proud of what I’ve produced in that time, even while I am on a bit of a hiatus.

But the biggest and best anniversary of all is today. Two years ago on this date, I did the best thing ever in my life. I married Melanie Larch, in Chicago, on stage at the Steppenwolf Theater. Only a very small circle of our closest friends knew in advance, and it was fun and extremely cool to return from the ceremony to our hotel and post about it on Facebook, and watch as nearly a thousand people reacted in shock. That photo above is us the day after our wedding, in the hotel, um…reading room. We have made a wonderful life for ourselves and plan to continue doing so. It’s also nice to know that our reason for getting married in Chicago has become a moot point, far sooner than anyone expected. Everyone should have a chance to be as happy as we are.

And since today is the anniversary of my wedding I have more important things to do than write this blog. The post was written on Wednesday. I’m taking the day off to be with my wife. Enjoy your weekend.

STUFF TO DO: One Last Time

STD LOGO 8 11It’s Thursday and that means that it’s time for STUFF TO DO. You can read this post or listen to the audio version right here in this link/embed thingy HERE.  This week we tell you about all kinds of cool events, and bring you an exclusive song from The Irreplaceables, who perform Friday night at The Blue Parrot. Enjoy it, because this week is the last time we will be doing this show for the foreseeable future.

I love bringing news of cool things happening in Charleston to my readers here in PopCult, and my listeners on The AIR, but STUFF TO DO is simply too labor-intensive, and has garnered so little feedback, that it’s simply not worth the time it takes to produce.

Each episode requires a full eighteen-hour day of gathering information, collating and curating it, writing a script, recording and editing the show…and in the eight weeks that we’ve been doing the show we have not received one bit of feedback–no criticism or words of encouragement. It seems that nobody wants to listen.

I will be exploring more efficient means of letting people know what kind of STUFF TO DO there is, whether it’s short announcements on The AIR, or posts here in PopCult that just focus on one event at a time. It’s clear that presenting a comprehensive list of cool events in one place is just something that doesn’t appeal to many people.

The time I spend producing STUFF TO DO will be better spent reviving The PopCult Toybox and The PopCult Bookshelf, both of which will return next week. But, for one last time, here are some graphics for events happening this weekend.

Thursday

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ShockaCon Preview On The Road With Mel

13445746_978159448965771_5386780099147685096_nIt’s time for yet another Wednesday filled with great programming on The AIR. Listen at the website or on this swell little radio widget…

Ar 1 PM we have a very special episode of On The Road with Mel that acts as a preview for ShockaCon, as Mel Larch interviews ShockaCon Special Agent, Penny Maple, about all the details surrounding the annual horror/sci-fi convention, which opens September 30 and has become a popular regional travel destination. You can also hear brand-new episodes of STUFF TO DO, Curtain Call and The Swing Shift, plus all of our other regular Wednesday programming. STUFF TO DO includes an exclusive song by The Irreplaceables, who play at The Blue Parrot Friday night.

Mel sat down for an interview with Penny Maple about ShockaCon at Taylor Books and got the lowdown on this year’s guests, panels, special events, vendors and also hotel packages and accomodations for convention attendees coming from out-of-town. This year the show will feature Zach Galligan from Gremlins, Camille Keaton from I Spit On Your Grave and Steve Johnson, the designer of Slimer from The Ghostbusters, along with an army of other iconic horror movie monsters.

ShockaCon 5 takes place at the Beni Kedem Shrine Center September 30 to October 2 this year, and you can find out all about it at their Facebook Page, their website and on this show. Many thanks to Taylor Books for letting us use their art gallery for our interview location. UPDATE: If you missed the initial airing of On The Road with Mel, you can listen to the ShockaCon episode on this little embedded player HERE

The rest of our schedule on The AIR is as follows:

11 AM  The Lynn Browder Show About Autism
Noon Curtain Call with Mel Larch Episode 004
1 PM On The Road With Mel “ShockaCon” NEW!
1:30 PM STUFF TO DO NEW!
2 PM The Real with Mark Wolfe and Create WV
3 PM Curtain Call with Mel Larch Episode 006 NEW!
4 PM The Swing Shift Episode 005 NEW!
6 PM The Goon Show NEW!
6;30 PM STUFF TO DO NEW!
7 PM The Best of Word Association with Lee and Rudy
8 PM Booster Pack
9 PM The Real with Mark Wolfe and Corruption of Conformity
10 PM The Gibby Hunters NEW!
11 PM The Comedy Vault

13442228_980615585386824_5464706442606487292_n 13908896_1016173105164405_2245528889416407354_o

Radios Free Charleston and Coolsville on The AIR

tUESDAY LOG 7 26It’s time yet again for one more all new Tuesday on The AIR, with fresh installments of Radio Free Charleston, Radio Coolsville, Six Degrees of Separation featuring Aaron Fisher, and Radio Free Charleston International. Tonight RFC International opens with a rare local cut, as we bring you “Bad Moon Rising” by The Irreplaceables.

You can tune in at The AIR website or on this special little embedded radio player widget…

It all kicks off at 10 AM with a brand new Radio Free Charleston, opening with Hybrid Soul Project and bringing you loads of music by other great local bands. Don’t believe us? Check out the playlist right here:

Hybrid Soul Project  “Bad Habits”
Under Surveillance  “That Love Song”
Jordan Andrew Jefferson  “First There Is A Mountain”
600 lbs of Sin  “Mr. Moon”
Qiet  “Pet Driftwood”
HARRAH  “Nothing Me”
TriElement  “Loose Fuse”
Let The Guilty Hang  “The Unspeakable”
Rozwell Kid  “Unmacho”
Jeff Ellis and 40 Days  “Poor Penny”
Asa The Awesome Esquire  “How Do I Tell You”
A Side 45  “Come On Baby”
Some Like It Hot  “A Pat On The Back and A Girl In The Sack”
Pepper Fandango “Wishbone Blues”

You can hear Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday on The AIR.

At 3 PM, DJ Betty Rock regales us with another two hour blast of the coolest music on the planet, as Radio Coolsville comes to The AIR via WMUL in Huntington.

Jumping to 8 PM, it’s Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Tim Dorsey and Jason “Roadblock” Robinson from the Empty Glass.This week tune in for two full hours of an in-depth interview with Aaron Fisher of Ghost Fleet.

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