Month: March 2020 (Page 2 of 4)

Every year that I’ve attended JoeLanta, and later ToyLanta, I’ve produced a wrap-up video to try to capture the energy and excitement of the experience. My first show was in 2013, which was at the tail end of my 20-year period as a family caregiver, when I couldn’t really travel for anything that wasn’t health-related.

That first year was a revelation. In the space of about three hours I met over fifty people who had been online-only friends for the better part of two decades. The JoeLanta crowd welcomed me and Melanie (now Mrs. PopCulteer) into the JoeLanta family, and the annual trip to Atlanta has been a big part of our lives ever since.  I’ve made a wrap-up video every year since our first, although in 2016 I didn’t get it finished until November (that was a bit of rough year for your PopCulteer).

When the show transitioned to ToyLanta a couple of years back we enthusiastically embraced the expansion, since it all goes to benefit the Cody Lane Memorial Toy and Diorama Museum, a dream that we are all still working hard to realize.

As part of VirtualToyLanta, which is neccessitated by the Coronavirus situation, we are bringing you videos of our coverage of past editions of ToyLanta/JoeLanta.  Below you will find all of the big wrap-up videos I’ve produced, in order, so you can get an idea of how the show has grown and evolved, and how it will indeed come back next year, bigger than ever.

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This post is part of VirtualToyLanta, the online substitute for this year’s canceled toy show. Go join the Facebook Group to see way more cool stuff from the best toy show in the world.

One of the highlights of ToyLanta/JoeLanta is always the dioramas and custom figure contest. This is where the toy collectors show off their creativity and make incredible custom action figues, accessories, vehicles and scenarios.

In this post we’re bringing you some videos that focus on the dioramas from past years at JoeLanta and ToyLanta. Plus we’ll have links to photo essays. Later today we’ll have a post with the wrap-up videos we’ve done since 2013.

Above is the video of last year’s ToyLanta dioramas. You can find photo essays covering last year’s dioramas and custom figures HERE, HERE and HERE.

Here we have the raw footage from the 2016 JoeLanta Diorama room…

That year we had photo essays for Mike Gardner’s epic diner and garage diorama as well as the custom figures.

Photos from 2017 can be found HERE.  I can’t seem to find a diorama photo essay from 2018 (I was a bit sick when I got back from the trip). For some reason (probably related to Myasthenia Gravis) I didn’t put together raw-footage videos of the dioramas for those years. That doesn’t mean I won’t go back and assemble a massive video of JoeLanta/ToyLanta videos for next week.

I did do a Diorama video in 2015, and you can see it below and check out the accompanying photo essay HERE.

2014 was the year of MIke Gardner’s massive “Zombie Horde at Yellow Jacket Creek” Walking Dead diorama, and it got its own two-part photo essay HERE and HERE.

There are a few photos of the 2013 dioramas scattered in posts HERE and HERE. It was my first time, and I was a little overwhelmed by the experience.

Check PopCult later today for more video-heavy posts that look back at ToyLanta/JoeLanta.

We depart from our chonological presentation of Radio Free Charleston today so we can bring you all of the footage of Radio Cult and friends that we shot over the years at ToyLanta, and before that, JoeLanta. ToyLanta is the big toy convention that was to celebrate its 20th year this weekend before the Coronavirus outbreak caused life to hit “pause.”

Radio Cult is Bambi Lynn and Ricky Zhero, with Jay Jay Slotin on drums, and they tear through the hits of the 1980s and beyond, plus they have some pretty impressive originals, too. In the clip above, you’ll hear them do “Highway to Hell” and “I Love Rock N Roll.” Every year Radio Cult puts on a special Saturday night concert for the core JoeLanta/ToyLanta attendees.

However, despite not happening in the real world this year, ToyLanta is moving online to VirtualToyLanta a group page at Facebook. Join up and you can get great videos, photo essays and all kinds of other cool stuff that would normally happen at ToyLanta, only you can see it from the comfort of your own home.

Where you need to be staying for the time being.

In addition to links to this post, which is chock-full-o-music from Radio Cult, The Possum KIngdom Ramblers and some great guests, you can find videos of the Pirate Diorama by Mike Gardner, and a vacu-form tutorial by Clay Sayre.  Cool new stuff will be happening all weekend, and tomorrow we’ll post panels and dioramas and other non-music video from past years.

Above you see an RFC MINI SHOW starring Radio Cult. Below you’ll see a later RFC MINI SHOW with Radio Cult and guests, David Lane, Mike Gardner and Alex Massey. Below that, we have The Possum Kingdom Ramblers, which is a bluegrass supergroup with Bambi and Ricky, teaming up with Timothy Price and Jas Ingram, under the direction of Buddy Finethy.The Ramblers are seen performing on the dealer’s floor of JoeLanta.

Further on you’ll find some of the full Radio Free Charleston shows that have one or two songs from the band, some with surprise guests.

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The PopCulteer
March 20, 2020

This was to have been a lengthy essay that would chronicle the timeline of how ToyLanta was postponed, and how the whole world has come crashing to a pause due to the Coronavirus outbreak.

However, I have always intended for PopCult to be a bit of an escape from the real world. I also don’t want to make this a political blog, although I think any intelligent person knows whose inaction and ineptitude got us to the point where we are now. At least we get to see more of that “Infectious Disease” sign that cracks me up for some reason.

A week ago I struggled to write a post meant to promote ToyLanta, but I was pretty well convinced then that it wouldn’t happen.

To be honest, I think I knew it in my heart a week earlier, because I hadn’t actually done anything to prepare for the trip. Normally I have toys picked out for the Lobby Swap, and have PopCult written a week in advance and The AIR scheduled all through the trip.  This time that was not the case.

Once ToyLanta was canceled, I told people that Mel and I were going to Georgia anyway, but I think that was just a bit of self-denial that allowed me to land softly on the side of common sense by last Sunday morning. It would have been foolish and reckless to make the trip considering the state of things.

My clients considered me a bit of an expert on the matter because I told them all about the Coronavirus back in January when I decided not to attend The International Toy Fair in New York.  To explain, my paying gig is consulting and freelance writing, at the moment, for a variety of businesses around the world. Since everything blew up a week ago last Wednesday, I have been putting in 15 hours a day, minimun, writing press statements, consulting with clients, talking a few people off the ledge, and basically just bending over backwards to help everybody figure out how best to cope with things.

And I’m coped out. I need a to walk away from the computer for a few hours. I’ve got to practice a little self-care. As someone who is immuno-suppressed, this is a pretty big deal, but I’m prepared to deal with it.

I’m pretty sure that nobody is reading this blog for guidance on how best to deal with the extreme situation we find ourselves in this day. Our worst fears of how this administration would turn out have been exceeded. Those of us who’ve read dystopian science fiction for our whole lives have a pretty good idea where this is headed. But you folks come here to get away from all that.

Over the next few days I’ll be telling you about more special things happening on the web, or books you can order to read and movies and TV shows that you can watch to help you get through this time of social distancing.

Right now I’m going to plug VirtualToyLanta, the Facebook-based online substitute for the real-world ToyLanta, which was to have begun today. Go to the page. Join the group and watch as everyone puts on a brave face and tries to give you some form of the cool toy show that isn’t going to happen this year.

Tomorrow I’ll be posting all sorts of footage of past ToyLanta and JoeLanta conventions, and I’ll have links to everything in that group.

At this moment things have quieted down. New routines are being established, and I’m caught up enough on different projects that I can walk away from the PC for a while.

I’ll be posting fun stuff here all weekend long. But first, i need some rest.

Friday at 3 PM on The AIR we present the first new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat in over three months. Sydney Fileen has been chomping at the bit to get back to music (and away from Brexit, Royal Family Shenanigans, various Elections and crises and all the other messes in the UK). The Haversham Recording Institute folks have been swamped for a prolonged period with paying work, and from what they tell me, they welcome the breather that comes with being quarantined.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

On Friday’s new Big Electric Cat, Sydney Fileen wanted to burst back onto The AIR with a show that had no theme or heavy message, and just spent two hours basking in the glory of New Wave Music.

Or so I was told. Ms. Fileen is known to have a bit of a wicked sense of humor, and while she barely acknowledges the Coronavirus outbreak during the show, if you study the playlist below, you might detect some kind of underlying message…

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The Specials “Ghost Town”
Echo and the Bunnymen “The Disease”
Depeche Mode “Shake The Disease”
Platinum Blonde “Video Disease”
Siouxsie and the Banshees “Sick Child”
The Ramones “You Sound Like You’re Sick”
The Users “Sick of You”
UK Subs “Virus”
Killing Joke “I Am The Virus”
The Thompson Twins “Doctor, Doctor”
DEVO “Swelling Itching Brain”
Robert Williams and Hugh Cornwell “Rhythmic Itch”
The The “Infected”
The Misfits “Cough Cool”
Oingo Boingo “Private Life”
The Clash “Inoculated City”
Little Nell “Fever”
Models “Cold Fever”
Split Enz “Log Cabin Fever”
Moon Martin “Five Days of Fever”
Motorhead “White Line Fever”
Spizz Energi “Jungle Fever”
Parade Ground “When The Fever Stops”
Ultravox “I Remember (Death In The Afternoon)”
The Stranglers “Death and Night and Blood”
Strange Boutique “A Happy Death”
Joy Division “Transmission”
Kate Bush “Breathing”
The Fall “Mr. Pharmacist”
Klark Kent “Strange Things Happen”

Maybe I’m just imagining it, but it seems to me that Sydney might have had a little dark fun compiling the music for this week’s program. Just to be on the safe side, I’m pre-empting the scheduled classic episode of Big Electric Cat that follows her show at 5 PM, and replacing it with her two-hour salute to The Cure.

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, Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM and Thursday at Noon, exclusively on The AIR.  You can also hear select episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat as part of the overnight Haversham Recording Institute marathon that starts every Monday at 11 PM.

Look for a new PopCulteer later this afternoon.

Friday at 2 PM Michele Zirkle returns to The AIR with a one-hour Life Speaks special about UFO sightings. You can hear it at The AIR Website, or listen to this embedded player…

Life Speaks To Michele Zirkle returns with a sixty-minute special that explores UFO sightings in our local area. Her guests are Pennsylvania paranormal expert, podcaster and author, Tony Lavornge, and Michele’s own father, Mike Zirkle.

Mike was driving East on I 64 one evening last December when he saw a strange, bright white rectangle floating in the sky. He descibes the sighting and the entire incident, and compares notes with Tony and Michele.

Tony is no stranger to the unexplained. He’s the author of a book about strange happenings in Western Pennsylvania and is in regular touch with MUFON, the UFO tracking organization. His Legends and Lore podcast looks into many aspects of the unknown.

This is a fascinating hour of serious talk about the unknown, and Michele and Tony share their own experiences with mysterious lights in the sky.

With our world in such an unprecedented and frightening situation, it can’t hurt to open your mind, look to the sky, and ponder the wonders of the unknown. Now, more than ever, we need some healthy escapism and something to dream about that isn’t doom and gloom.

You can hear this special edition of Life Speaks Friday at 2 PM and 10 PM, Saturday at 7 PM, Sunday at 9 AM and next Tuesday at 1 PM, exclusively on The AIR.

You can also go to The AIR website, click on the link that says “Podcast” and listen to it on demand.

We are in a new world now. The rapid spread of the Covid-19 virus and the actions we must take to try and stop it have forced many businesses to shut down, including just about every performance venue in West Virginia and the surrounding states (most of the country, in fact).

As such, PopCult’s STUFF TO DO is going in the mothballs for the time being.

We’ll be replacing it with some new features, and you’ll get the first entry of those below…

STUFF TO WATCH

You can’t go out to support local music, but there are other ways to support the local scene. Yesterday I got an email from local singer/songwriter, Karen Allen…

We are all dealing with drastic changes to society since the outbreak of the virus. All of my shows and contract work I do to make ends meet have been canceled. So there’s no income for the foreseeable future and I’m trying to adapt and survive alone here at my home in Charleston, WV USA. In effort to keep sane and connected with my friends and fellow music lovers everywhere, I’m hosting a weekly music show live streaming 7:30-8:00pm EDT Fridays.

Stageit is the platform and it is a nice quality live stream where artists decide when to play, what to play and how much they want to charge. Fans then buy virtual tickets to the show using our virtual currency called “Notes” (1 Note = 10¢ USD). Fans can chat with artists and other like-minded fans and performers throughout the show.

Here’s a link to this Friday’s show–it’s pay what you can. Just come and hang out. I’ll play some songs for you, do some Q&A, give a sneak peek of new music, who knows! Let’s just be together while we’re apart.

That happens Friday. Other local artists are doing live Facebook concerts, and there are some new shows that are carrying on the tradition of Radio Free Charleston that I’ll tell you about in the coming days and weeks. Karen’s photo at the head of this post is swiped from her email, and credit goes to awesomesauce.

STUFF TO READ

Batman: Tales Of The Demon
story by Dennis O’Neil art by Neal Adams, Irv Novick and others
DC Comics
ISBN-13: 978-1401299439
$49.99 (Hardcover, less at Amazon)

This new collection (also available in softcover) brings together all the key 1970s stories of Batman and his major foe, Ra’s Al Ghul. Aside from the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers run on Detective Comics, these are my favorite Batman stories of all time.

Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams managed to rehabilitate Batman from the campy perceptions of the 1960s TV show and return him to his dark, pulp roots as an avenger of the night. Ra’s Al Ghul was a newly-created villain who, for the first time, was Batman’s match in terms of intelligence and personal integrity.

As the PR blurb explains…

Batman scales the side of the Statue of Freedom for a secret meeting with an informant inside the torch. During the meeting the informant is assassinated, leaving Batman with his final words instructing him to find a person called Darkk on the Soom Express. Finding and confronting Darkk Batman is assaulted, leaving him unconscious, and finds himself in a dungeon unmasked. There he meets the Daughter of the Demon, Talia who jump-starts his journey in finding the League of Assassins and it’s founder, Ra’s al Ghul.

This volume collects the earliest Ra’s al Ghul stories written by Dennis O’Neil and illustrated by artists Neal Adams, Michael Golden, Irv Novick, Bob Brown and Dick Giordano.

Collects Detective Comics #411, #485, #489-490, Batman #232, #235, #240, #242-244 and DC Special Series #15.

These stories are near the peak of comic book craftsmanship, with brisk, well-thought-out storytelling and excellent art. In addition to Adams, Dick Giordano, Bob Brown and Irv Novick we get to see early work by Don Newton, and Michael Golden.

This is the Batman I grew up reading, and it will be a revelation to anyone who’s only read the post-Frank MIller psychobabble Batman where it takes seventy-five issues to tell a story that O’Neil tells better in 22 pages. There’s a reason all the best Batman movies are based on stories that DC published in the 1970s.

While you’re cooped up waiting for the virus to pass, there are worse ways to spend your time than getting lost in the adventures of Batman as he chases down the League of Assassins.

STUFF TO STREAM

If you have Netflix, and you have not yet watched Matt Berry’s series, Toast of London, you can binge-watch that and laugh your butt off all weekend. You may know Berry from his work on The IT Crowd, What We Do In The Shadows or Year of the Rabbit. Even if you don’t have Netflix, you can sign up now and get thirty days free, watch all the good stuff, and then cancel before you get billed. It’ll help pass the time. It’s an adult show, with language, violence and brief nudity that you might not want to expose to the kids.

For three seasons (so far) Berry played Steven Toast, a fifty-something London actor who isn’t nearly as good at his craft as he thinks he is. A Brash, narcisstic and pompous character, Berry still manages to make Toast a sympathetic character, even though viewers know that he’ll probably screw things up in the end. The series was co-created Berry and Arthur Matthews (Father Ted, Big Train).

The comedy is post-Python surreal sitcom, with a heavy British edge to it. Over the course of the three seasons we see Toast cast in a play so reprehensible that its name is never spoken; get blinded by a man-crush on John Hamm; become petrified during a performance of MacBeth; deal with snarky millenial recording engineers who employ him to do voiceover work; cope with his manager who has fallen off the wagon after her addiction to LSD; slice off the nose of Josh Hmme; and get cast in an otherwise all-canine production of Twelfth Night…at The Globe.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, and Toast is headed right at it in this series. IFC recently ran this, but they inserted commercials and doled out the series one episode per week. You can stream the whole shebang, uncut and uninterrupted on Netflix.

Look for more suggestions for things to help you pass the time in PopCult.

Wednesday afternoon The AIR brings you a new episode of Curtain Call featuring highlights of four recent Broadway musicals that had their runs cut short. You can tune in at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

There is a saying in the theatre–“the show must go on.” But sometimes, extraordinary circumstances keep that from happening. At this moment, theaters all over the world are dark due to the Coronavirus pandemic. It’s definitely a scary time for all of us, but the show DOES go on with Mel Larch’s Curtain Call on The AIR.

On this brand-new episode, debuting today at 3 PM EDT, Mel presents highlights from four shows that have had their runs cut short, been postponed or canceled outright. You will hear three tunes from the acclaimed off-Broadway hit, Emojiland, which takes place inside a smart phone; Three songs from the stage adaptation of Back To The Future, which just premiered in Manchester, England on February 20; Four songs from the off-Broadway show Hello Girls, about female soldiers in the Signal Corps during World War One; And the show wraps up with four songs from R.R.RED: A Secret Musical, which saw its brief run close late in 2018.

Mel wraps up the show with words on how the Coronavirus pandemic is affecting theatre companies all over the world, and how you may be able to help, just a little.

Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM and 9 PM, Friday at 10 AM and Saturday at 6 PM. An all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight, and an additional marathon can be heard Sunday evenings from 6 PM to midnight..

Tuesday on The AIR we have a brand-new episode of The Swing Shift at 3 PM.  Normally we would have told you all about this show in our earlier post about Radio Free Charleston and The Swing Shift, but I didn’t have a chance to record this show until this morning, so I didn’t know what was going to be in it. Now it’s done and scheduled, and you can read about it here. You can listen in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to this copecetic little embedded radio player…

This week we have some great new Swing, mixed in with revival bands from the 1990s, classic bands from the heyday of the Big Band Era and even some more great guitar-based Swing from Tyler Pederson. Check out the playlist…

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The Monkey Swingers “Minnie The Moocher”
Savoy Satellites “Swing, Brother, Swing”
Marcus Shelby Orchestra “In My Solitude”
Oh Sister “I Fell In Love With New Orleans”
Some Band “There Will Never Be Another You”
Woody Herman “Northwest Passage”
Tyler Pederson “53 a GoGo”
Sassy Swingers “Days Are Gone”
Louis Jordan and his Timpani 5 “Salt Pork, West Virginia”
Lavay Smith and her Red Hot Skillet Lickers “Voo-it”
Brian Setzer Orchestra “The Dirty Boogie”
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies “I Love American Music”
Lily Wilde and her Orchestra “Jumpin’ Jack

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesdays at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 7 AM and 6 PM, Thursday at 2 PM and Saturday at 5 PM, only on The AIR. You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursday and Sunday evenings.

Tuesday on The AIR we deliver brand-new episodes of Radio Free Charleston, and NOISE BRIGADE plus a new episode of The Swing Shift that we’ll tell you about in a separate post this afternoon. While you practice safe behavior and stay home, you can still support the local scene here on The AIR.  You simply have to move your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to this excitable little embedded radio player…

We have yet another three-hour Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.  This week it’s another show jam-packed with great music from Charleston and the whole world.  This week we open with music from The BrotherSisters and bring you a brand-new tune from Jay Parade that will also turn up on NOISE BRIGADE. We’re all-new in the first hour, then we bring you two hours of a classic Radio Free Charleston International that hasn’t been heard since 2016. We even left in the out-of-date station tags so you can have some fun with that.

Check out the playlist to see all the goodies we bring you this week…

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hour one
The BrotherSisters “Love Is The Water”
Jay Parade “Timeout”
Linnfinity “Red Nation Waltz”
Bon Air “Gazer”
Rel-X “Answers In Time”
The Big Bad “The Signal”
4OHM MONO “Swandiver”
Red Audio “Moneytree”
DEVO “Turn Around”
The Vapors “Trains”
The Stranglers “Duchess”
The Tubes “TV Is King”
Ultravox “Sleepwalk”
Josh Buskirk “It Always Rains On Sunday”
Whistlepunk 2.0 “Satellite”
Feast of Stephen “No Vaccination”

hour two
Cheap Trick “Roll Me”
Neil Young “Sample and Hold”
Dubioza Kolectiv “Alarm Song”
Marc Ribot y Los cubanos postizos “Los Teenagers Bailan Changui”
Weezer “Thank God for Girls”
Red Vox “There She Goes”
The High Violets “Bells”
The Enid “Someone Shall Rise”
The Foreign Films “Sweet Sorrow”
The Hillbilly Moon Explosion “Heartbreak Boogie”
Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band “Run Paint Run”
Mike & The Melvins “Dead Canaries”
The Residents “Japanese Watercolor”
St. Vincent “Krokodil”
The Dandy Warhols “Pope Reverend Jim”

hour three
Killing Joke “The Big Buzz”
Brian Eno “The Hour Is Thin”
Escapism “Ship To Shore”
The Range “Superimpose”
Filter “Pride Flag”
Dread Crew of Oddwood “Siren’s Song”
Atomic Rooster “Friday The 13th”
Black Stone Cherry “War”
Emerson Lake and Palmer “Toccata”
Hooverphonic “I Like The Way I Dance”
Danielle DeCosmo “Don’t Know What It Means”
The Buzzcocks “ESP”
Operators “Bring Me The Head”
Iron Maiden “The Trooper”

Radio Free Charleston can be heard Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM, with replays Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 9 AM and 7 PM, Saturday at 11 AM and Midnight, Sunday at 1 PM and the next Monday at 8 PM, exclusively on The AIR.

At 2 PM Steven Allen Adams graces us with a new edition of NOISE BRIGADE that’s chock full o’ punk/ska crunchy goodness. Local music fans pay attention as Steven has new music from 69 Fingers and Jay Parade. Check out the playlist to see what Steve’s got up his sleeves…

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69 Fingers “Gutshot”
69 Fingers “Launch Codes”
Jay Parade: Timeout”
Half Past Two “See You Again
The Bombpops “Zero Remorse”
The Holophonics “Numb”
The Venomous Pinks “Hold On”
Los Tres Puntos “El Dorado”
Trashed “Isn’t That Cute”
Hightime “Quit Ya Job”
Stiff Little Fingers “Barbed Wire Love”
Lagwagon “Angry Days”
Social Distortion “Bad Luck”
Stacked Like Pancakes “Planetary”
Zolof the Rock and Roll Destroyer w/ Reel Big Fish “Don’t You Want Me”
Masked Intruder “Crime Spree”
The Los Angelinos “Hollywood Facade”
Save Ferris “Come On Eileen”

NOISE BRIGADE alternates weeks with Psychedelic Shack Tuesdays at 2 PM, with replays Wednesday at 11 AM and 10 PM, Thursday at 8 AM, Friday at Noon, Saturday at 10 AM, Sunday at 4 PM and Monday at 7 PM.

We’ll tell you about The Swing Shift later Tuesday.