Rudy Panucci On Pop Culture

Month: April 2020 (Page 1 of 3)

The Doom Patrol Rides Again

The PopCult Comix Bookshelf

Doom Patrol: The Silver Age Vol. 2
Written by Arnold Drake, Art by Bruno Premiani and Bob Brown
DC Comics
ISBN-13: 978-1779500984
$39.99

Doom Patrol, the original Doom Patrol comic from the 1960s, was decades ahead of its time. This team of misfit superheroes brought the concept of a dysfunctional psuedo family of heroes in a world where people react to them naturally to comics long before the great wave of surrealist British comics writers tranformed superhero comics forever.

These are the adventures of Robotman, Negative Man and Elasti-Girl, all working under the direction of the wheelchair-bound Chief, Niles Caulder, and alongside their allies, Mento, the world’s fifth-wealthiest man (equipped with a helmet that gives him psychic powers) and Beast Boy, a teen with green skin, who can turn into different animals.

Before Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, there was Arnold Drake. Drake was a mainstay of DC comics, but he proved with Doom Patrol that, given free reign, he could out-Marvel Marvel. Drake, working with a full script, created wild and bizarre adventures that rival (and possibly inspired some of) the work of Stan Lee at Marvel.

Unlike Lee, who took credit for plot work done by the artists under the “Marvel Method,” Drake crafted his tales on his own, pacing the stories and writing all the dialogue before sending the script off to his main Doom Patrol collaborator, Bruno Premiani.

Premiani brought those scripts to life with a fine, illustrative style that, while lacking the dynamic quality of Jack Kirby, perfectly suited Drake’s stories of a team that fought among themselves as much as they fought their enemies.

The Team was made of up three people who, due to different twists of fate, were turned into freaks with amazing powers. Brought together by The Chief, who was intrinsically tied to their mishaps, they did battle with a rogues gallery unlike any other. With an evil immortal, an alien warlord, a disembodied brain, a super-evolved speaking (with a French accent) ape, and a man with the powers of all the elements, all of them hell-bent on world domination, and all them willing to work together to kill the Doom Patrol, the stories in this volume take you on a wild ride, indeed.

This is the second paperback collection of Silver Age Doom Patrol stories, and if DC holds true to formula, in about two years we should see the final volume in this series. They are also collecting the later versions of the team, all of which are used in the streaming TV series.

In Doom Patrol: The Silver Age Vol. 2 we see the introduction and origin of Beast Boy. We also get a three-part crossover with DC’s Challengers of the Unknown, and a team-up with The Flash. That’s in addition to the wedding of Elasti-Girl and Mento, and short stories that tell us about Robotman and Negative Man before they joined the Doom Patrol.

There are adventures under the sea, on the edge of space, and all sorts of weird locations, and their enemies employ mind control, zombies, dinosaurs and even embezzlement to wreak havoc on the planet.

These stories, from 1965 and 66, put the lie to the myth that DC was just publishing staid, traditional superhero comics during the heyday of Marvel. Doom Patrol, which had an obvious influence on Marvel’s X-Men, holds up a lot better than many of Marvel’s lesser titles, and at times rivals the work of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko in terms of pure imagination.

This collection presents issues 96 to 107 of Doom Patrol, as well as a crossover issue with Challengers of the Unknown and an issue of Brave and the Bold. All the scripts are by Drake, with Premiani drawing the bulk of the stories. The underrated Bob Brown fills in on a few stories and covers, and draws the crossover issue of Challengers, for which he was the regular artist. The team up with The Flash is drawn by Dick Giordano and Sal Trapani. It’s over 350 pages of great, unorthodox comics.

The Doom Patrol (Spoiler Alert here) were killed off in the final issue of their comic a couple of years after the stories collected here. It was nearly a decade before DC resurrected the team, with only Robotman surviving from the original team. The revived team, originally written by Paul Kupperberg, went through a few changes and reboots until the early 1990s when Grant Morrison took over writing the adventures of the team, and managed to out-weird the original run.

The TV series, which debuted on DC Universe and will soon begin a second season on HBO MAX, is based on parts of all three eras of the Doom Patrol, but the core of the personality clashes between Robotman, Negative man and Elasti-Girl, are found in the original series.

A lot of the roots of modern superhero comics can be traced back to the Doom Patrol. This collection is a great sampler. An earlier volume collects the first third of these stories, and I hope that DC comes through with a third volume ahead of schedule. My only complaint is that the final issue collected in this volume is the first half of a two-part story, and ends with a big cliffhanger. I don’t want to wait two years to see how it all turns out (and I don’t want to have to buy the original comics).

These comics were among the first I remember ever reading as a young child, and they’ve stuck with me for more than five decades. I can’t recommend them enough. You can order Doom Patrol: The Silver Age Vol. 2 from any bookseller using the ISBN code, or get it from Amazon at a considerable discount.

The Sondheim Celebration Begins Wednesday On The AIR

Wednesday afternoon The AIR brings you a new episode of Curtain Call that kicks off a series of shows that pay tribute to the legendary composer/lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, in his 90th year. You can tune in at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

At 3 PM Mel Larch devotes the entire hour of Curtain Call to music from last weekend’s streaming tribute to Stephen Sondheim, Take Me To The World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration.

In this hour you will hear performancs of classic Sondheim songs by such artists as Meryl Streep, Audra McDonald, Neil Patrick Harris, Laura Benanti, Randy Rainbow, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Linda Lavin, and many more.

The event was a benefit for Artists Striving to End Poverty, or ASTEP, a program founded by Broadway musical director Mary-Mitchell Campbell which connects visual and performing artists with youth from underserved communities in the US and all over the world to provide them with access to the arts–and help break the cycle of poverty. You can find out more by visiting their website at ASTEP.org

This is the first of at least three episodes of Curtain Call devoted to the works of Mr. Sondheim. Next week Mel continues with her tribute to one of her theatrical heroes with a show filled with more all-star renditions of the most memorable songs composed by Stephen Sondheim.

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.

Fans of Mel get an extra treat this week, as Friday at 2 PM sees an AIR Music Special, MIRRORBALL, also hosted by Mel Larch, which will present a solid hour of the top hits of the Disco era. This is a bit of a pilot for a potential series, so if enough people like it, Mrs. PopCulteer may be adding a second show to her internet-radio arsenal.

 

A special RFC Encore and new Swing Shift Tuesday

We only offer up one new episode of our speciality music shows Tuesday on The AIR with a fresh edition of The Swing Shift at 3 PM (all times EDT). Radio Free Charleston brings you the show that debuted last Thursday, and we’ll have details on that below. Meanwhile, you can naviagate your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to this embedded radio player…

At 10 AM and 10 PM you can hear the special episode of RFC that I told you about in this space last week. It’s the show featuring Battleship Battleship! and you can read all about here HERE. This show wasn’t ready last Tuesday, so we’re going to run it all this week in our regular replay spots to give everyone a chance to catch it. You can also listen to it on demand at the Podcast tab at The AIR website. Just click on the tab and look for”Radio Free Charleston V5 015.”

Radio Free Charleston can be heard Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM, with replays Thursday at 3 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 1 PM today, we’ll replay last week’s edition of Rudy & Mel’s Shut-in Show. 2 PM sees an encore of a great episode of Steven Allen Adams’ NOISE BRIGADE. Steven is still being held hostage by the governor’s daily Coronavirus briefings, but we’re hoping he’ll return with new shows soon.

Speaking of new shows, we do have a new episode of The Swing Shift at 3 PM Tuesday, as yours truly indulges in his love of the music that means a thing, indeed. This week we take our slogan, “Bringing You The Best Swing Music of the last 100 years,” seriously, as our newest song is six days old (our show-opening number from Mike Batt) and our oldest, “The Fives” by Hersal Thomas is 99 years old. What they have in common is that they, and every song recorded between them on this show, really swing!

Our opening track is a charity single that Batt composed and debuted last week incorporating words suggested to him via Twitter. It’s being sold at iTunes, and there’s an animated video at YouTube. You can find out more about the NHS Charities at this link. It opens up a pretty swingin’ show, as you can tell by this playlist…

The Swing Shift 090

Mike Batt “Welcome To Wormtown”
Eyal Vilner Big Band “I’m On My Way To Canaan Land” (Brianna Thomas)
The Puppini Sisters “Groove Is In The Heart”
Bobby Darin “The Right Time”
Gustav Brom “Contraband”
Benny Goodman “After You’ve Gone”
Gary Moore with B.B. King “The Story Of The Blues”
Tyler Pedersen “Solar Molar”
Hersal Thomas “The Fives”
Stehane Grappelli “Chicago”
Diana Krall “I’m Confessin’ That I Love You”
Erskine Hawkins “Hawk’s Boogie”
Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald “Who Walks In”
Atomic Fireballs “Calypso KIng”
Colin James & His Little Big Band “Something’s Going On In My Room”

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 7 AM and 6 PM, Thursday at 7 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.

 

Monday Morning Art: Capitol Street

 

For today’s artistic start to the week, we’re going tiny. What you see above is a quick pencil drawing (using my trusty Blackwing Palamino) that measures three or maybe three-and-a-half inches across. After last week, I wanted to see what kind of revelatory detail might be exposed if I worked tiny and then magnified the results when I scanned it.

Turns out that this view of Capitol Street, looking South at the intersection with Quarrier, mainly reveals how sloppy I got drawing the trees in the middle. Funny how things work out when you’re drawing from memory (I was using a ruler, though).

You can click the image if you want to see an even bigger, some would say version.

Meanwhile, over in radio-land, Monday on The AIR, our Monday Marathon runs from 7 AM to 3 PM , and brings you eight hours of Live and Local music from Tim Lancaster, Matt McGuire, C2J2, Travis Stephens Go Van Gogh and more. Then 3 PM should see an encore of a recent episode of Prognosis with Herman Linte.

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

Sunday Evening Video: The Animated Dinosaur Size Chart

Above you see a short animated film that shows the comparitive size of dinosaurs to man. This is very handy for research purposes, or for choosing the right sized toy dinosaur for your action figures to battle. This is Marching Dinosaurs.

If we are to believe the YouTube description, in order you will see: Shuvuuia, Sinosauropteryx, Compsognathus, Microraptor, Caudipteryx, Microceratus, Hypsilophodon, Ornitholestes, Masiakasaurus, Psittacosaurus, Velociraptor, Laeallynasaura, Stegoceras, Troodon, Oviraptor, Protoceratops, Dromaeosaurus, Stygimoloch, Coelophysis, Dracorex, Dryosaurus, Deinonychus, Scelidosaurus, Herrerasaurus, Ornithomimus, Kentrosaurus, Gigantspinosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Gastonia, Concavenator, Utahraptor, Euoplocephalus, Sauropelta, Miragaia, Chasmosaurus, Magyarosaurus, Einiosaurus, Camptosaurus, Diabloceratops, Styracosaurus, Cryolophosaurus, Tuojiangosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Edmontonia, Plateosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Baryonyx, Wuerhosaurus, Gallimimus, Neovenator, Pachyrhinosaurus, Carnotaurus, Ichthyovenator, Maiasaura, Iguanodon, Dacentrurus, Gigantoraptor, Gorgosaurus, Melanorosaurus, Majungasaurus, Ouranosaurus, Stegosaurus, Olorotitan, Triceratops, Deinocheirus, Corythosaurus, Amargasaurus, Allosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Therizinosaurus, Albertosaurus, Suchomimus, Edmontosaurus, Saurophaganax, Acrocanthosaurus, Lambeosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Shantungosaurus, Spinosaurus, Cetiosaurus, Diplodocus, Camarasaurus, Apatosaurus, Giraffatitan, Alamosaurus, Dreadnoughtus, Brachiosaurus, Sauroposeidon, Mamenchisaurus, Puertasaurus, Argentinosaurus.

This is the work of Dane Pavitt, who has done other illustrations and animated films comparing the size of dinosaurs from different eras, as well as their size in relation to Kaiju and Voltron-like giant robots.

 

The RFC Flashback: MINI SHOW number 28

This week we jump back to another bittersweet memory of FestivALL, our RFC MINI SHOW devoted to the 2014 FestivALL Charleston Art Parade. Whether or not we get to see this happen again this year is still up in the air, so we might as well look to the past for some inspiration of what we can become again, when this pandemic is behind us.

With many of Charleston’s most creative persons marching in front of the city’s coolest bookstore/coffeehouse/art gallery, Taylor Books, the Art Parade usually signals the beginning of FestivALL.

You will hear Bill Kimmons introduce Peter Marshall, The Charleston Light Opera Guild, Camp Curtain Call, Jude Binder, Dr. Sketchy’s Anti Art School, The Chemical Valley Roller Girls, Kanawha Players, QiET and more. This was the fifth year for the FestivALL Charleston Art Parade, and it was cool to see it return to its original route in time for FestivALL’s tenth year.

Looking At The Summer Of Question Mark

The PopCulteer
April 24, 2020

The phrase “uncertain times” has been over-used of late, but it is apt because we don’t really know what the hell is going to happen in the next few months.

Friday afternoon The AIR brings you a fourth installment of Rudy & Mel’s Shut-in Show at 2 PM, and you can listen at The AIR website, or just hit the “play” button on this nifty virtual player…

At 2 PM you can hear the latest episode of The Rudy & Mel Shut-In Show. This is one hour of your PopCulteer and his wife talking–often in a not safe for work manner–about whatever pops into our heads. It’s unrehearsed, unplanned, spontaneous talk, presented with minimal editing. Today in the PopCulteer, I’m going to address a topic that we touch on for a bit in this show.

This week the rambling conversation starts out with the two of us talking about the movie, The Trolls World Tour, but then we veer into a discussion of farts in popular culture, the summer toy conventions, propaganda and anti-intellectualism and a preview of what’s coming up on The AIR.

And like the first two installments, it’s not really safe for work.

But one point from our show that I want to bring up here is the affect that the Coronavirus is having on pop culture and toy conventions.

SDCC, the former San Diego Comic Con, has been canceled for 2020. This was no surprise, since an event of that magnitude, with tens of thousands of guests from all around the world was definitely not going to be feasible. The folks who run SDCC had already called off WonderCon in Anaheim, which was to have happened already, and that is a much smaller show. SDCC was supposed to happen in mid-July, and even if parts of the country are trying to reopen by then, large international gatherings may be out of the question through the end of the year.

I would not expect the New York Comic Con to happen this October. Likewise the October 25 toy show in Chicago is in doubt, after they had already canceled their April show.

WonderFest USA in Louisville, the model-making convention that usually happens the weekend after Memorial Day, has been postponed to October. It’s not a huge show, and Louisville is not as densely-populated as New York or Chicago, but that show still may not happen at all this year.

Free Comic Book Day, which was scheduled for May 6, is tentatively rescheduled for later in the summer, while Record Store Day, which was to have happened last weekend, is now scheduled for June 19, and even that date is in question.

At this point, pretty much everything scheduled for May has been canceled. In a few weeks we should learn which events in June are going to be delayed or postponed.

Closer to home, and affecting yours truly, the Marx Toy Convention is scheduled for the third weekend in June in Wheeling, which is the same weekend that MEGO Meet is supposed to happen in Columbus.  Neither show has been postponed or canceled as I write this, and they really have a good month before they have to make that decision, but I’d be surprised if either one went on as planned.

The Marx Toy Convention happens at The Kruger Street Toy & Train Museum, and they also organize the show, so delaying it to later in the year is a very viable option for them. MEGO Meet, on the other hand, is at the mercy of their host hotel, and may have to cancel this year’s show outright. I’ve talked to friends who usually attend both shows, and the consensus is that if either show runs as scheduled, attendance will be next to nothing.

While I had planned to try to make it to both shows again this year, due to my situation as an immuno-compromised person, I’d say that it would take an unexpected breakthrough in developing a cure or vaccine to get me to go to either show. As I wrote in this space a few weeks ago, it’s okay to be sad because things you were looking forward to get canceled, or you just can’t go.  I’m really hoping to be able to go to the Kentuckiana GI Joe Show in July.

Even if the country reopens earlier than the experts recommend, it seems unlikely that people are going to rush to attend mass gatherings and join with huge crowds. Recent polls showing that more than 80% of the people in this country support the stay-at-home orders should indicate that, even if some of the toy shows and pop culture conventions are able to happen on schedule, they probably won’t draw enough people to make it worthwhile.

Then we also have the issue of guests of honor at the various shows. It would be insane to fly Marty Abrams, who is a fit, healthy 70-plus years young, to Columbus, where he would risk being exposed to Covid-19 from hundreds of admiring fans who want to shake his hand. Larry Hama was one of the first guests to pull out of ToyLanta, and while he’s scheduled for the Hershey Action Figure Show in August, I believe he’s already said he was skipping this summer’s convention season. Many of the scheduled guests for the upcoming horror and comic book conventions are well past the age where they should be in any kind of mass-gathering situation. “Con-crud,” a common ailment afflicting attendees of shows who get exposed to a cocktail of all sorts of hardy bugs is bad enough without having a lethal component added to it.

And don’t even get me started on music festivals. Don’t expect any of those to happen this year.

Just as it’s too soon to pull the plug on the June Toys shows (even if it seems inevitable), Charleston has not officially canceled FestivALL as I write this, but several major events that are held in conjunction with FestivALL have been called off already. I mentioned those last Saturday. I know we aren’t going to get a full season of Live on the Levee, and they may not even try to do any of the free weekly Friday concerts this summer. 2020 may well turn into the year that A City Becomes A Blank Canvas.

Hell, we don’t even know what this August’s Democratic and Republican conventions are going to look like. They might turn out to be some kind of giant Zoom meeting.

It’s all one big question mark.

And that is The PopCulteer for this week. On The AIR, after the new edition of The Shut In Show, we bring you an encore of the Live Aid episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. Sydney begged off this week so that she could put more work into a special episode of her program devoted to Scottish New Wave bands. You can hear a replay of this week’s Radio Free Charleston, featuring new music from Battleship Battleship!, this evening at 7 PM. Plus you can check PopCult for all our regular features and fresh content every day.

A New RFC On Thursday With Great New Music

We offer up  brand new episode of Radio Free Charleston Thursday on The AIR. You can leap over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and listen to this swell little embedded radio player…

Tune into this week’s Radio Free Charleston at 3 PM Thursday for a show that opens with brand new music from a long-distance musical collaboration between Joe Vallina in Maryland, Bobby Miller in Boone County, and Jonathan Mason in Nashville.

You’ve recently heard Bobby in the reunited Swivel Rockers, who will be featured in a special video episode of Radio Free Charleston once this lockdown is over and we can all get together in one room to record some interviews.  Joe is a long-time friend of RFC, and Joe and Bobby were bandmates in Feast of Stephen, who reunited in Charleston twelve years ago. Jonathan played bass in Joe’s band, Wiley Sonic, and Joe guested on his solo album, and we’ve played music from all three guys in different configurations on Radio Free Charleston.

Together, they are recording as Battleship Battleship!

We debut two songs by the band this week, and you can purchase them as an EP called “Cutting Corners” at the band’s Bandcamp Page.

Via email, Joe told me the origins of Battleship Battleship!, “The project stemmed from the whole ‘not being able to play live with folks’ idea during the pandemic. I knew I wanted to do some long distance collaboration on some new songs, and I haven’t had Bob’s voice overtop one of my guitar parts on record for 27 years! Too long! I have to say it feels great to hear him singing on these new tracks.”

Joe connected with Bobby via Facebook, and he described the process of working on “Entropy,” “For me, the expressiveness of Bob’s delivery is what matters. His work on the choruses of Entropy are way different (and better) than the feel I had done in the scratch vocal for those parts. He really brings that something extra to melody lines. I wrote the song “Entropy” about my feelings around losing one of my best friends, and the things I wish I and everyone around him could have done differently. I guess the whole pandemic got me in that head space, but the song was important to me and I’m really pleased how it turned out, with the duet approach of me singing the verses and Bob on the choruses.”

Joe went on to explain the rest of the collaboration, “Of course, I always love to get Jonathan to work on stuff as well, so calling him was a no-brainer. He’s one of the most expressive bassists around and he’s a total pro in terms of songwriting and arranging. His bass part brings a pop sensibility to “Entropy” that I would have never have injected on my own. We put the songs together in about two weeks, with me recording basic tracks to send to Bob and Jonathan, who recorded their parts and sent back to me to mix into the songs. It went really fast once we got going.

“For the b side, “Ad Hominem,” I wanted to go to a ’90s throwback kind of place that let Bob loose like he was on those Feast of Stephen records. His voice is so deep and powerful that it really brings out the authority in the song. I tried to get to the heart of dealing with the absolute insanity we now find ourselves living in, without being quite on the nose, lyrically. And if it’s the end of the world, you definitely need a full-on guitar solo outro, amirite?”

He’s right, you know. We eagerly await word on if we’ll hear more music from Battleship Battleship! in the future.

We open this week’s show with “Ad Hominem” and then open the second hour with “Entropy.” “Entropy” is about Jerry Fugate (seen left), a beloved fixture on the Charleston music scene who passed away almost two years ago. It’s important to keep Jerry’s memory alive.

In addition to the Battleship Battleship! songs, this week’s RFC also includes new tunes from Soul Asylum, Mark Beckner Group, Andy Partridge, The Empty Hearts, Rel-X, Inferior This, Fiona Apple, What’s Missing, Joe Satriani, and believe it or not, Mungo Jerry. Check out this playlist if you don’t believe me…

RFCV5 015

hour one
Battleship Battleship! “Ad Hominem”
Mark Beckner Group “Play It Again, Sam”
Andy Partridge “Cavegirl”
The Dollyrots “Puppy Dog Eyes”
The Aquabats “Pajamazon”
The Empty Hearts “Coat Tailer”
Bon Air “On My Mind”
ALBVS “Lost Cause”
Rel-X “Whatever It Is”
Virus Likha “Letter To Jacques”
Howard Jones “Step Into These Shoes”
Freddy Mercury “Time”
Lady D “I Am Woman”
Soul Asylum “I Got It Pretty Good”
Payback’s A Bitch “Mercenary Mary”
Farnsworth “Hold On”

hour two
Battleship Battleship! “Entropy”
Inferior This “Haze It Up”
P-Dox “Drone”
Greetar “To Live In A Dying World”
M & Chuck Biel “Fools Line Up”
Paul McCartney “Secret Friend”
Split Enz “The Choral Sea”
Mungo Jerry “Touch The Sky”
Mind Garage “Asphalt Mother”
Captain Catfeesh “Crying Saucer”
Unknown Hinson “Manic Depression (Live At The Empty Glass)”

hour three
Cannon Sodaro Band “India”
What’s Missing “Waste Me”
Handguns “Green Lanterns”
Joe Satriani “Nineteen Eighty”
Fiona Apple “Ladies”
Robert Plant “In The Mood”
Kevin Scarbrough “Another One On The Egress”
Missing Persons “Incense and Peppermint”
Circa “Spin The Globe”
A Flock Of Seagulls “Magic”
Stacey Q “Below The Surface”
Bill Withers “We Could Be Sweet Lovers”
Rasta Rafiki “Vicki”

Radio Free Charleston can usually be heard Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM, with replays Thursday at 3 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. However, this week your humble host was swamped, so we’re premiering the show Thursday at 3 PM, and replaying it in all the regular timeslots this week and next.

 

Get Your Musical Theater Fix On The AIR Wednesday

Wednesday afternoon The AIR brings you a new episode of Curtain Call that presents music from four newly-released cast albums. You can tune in at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

At 3 PM Mel Larch devotes the entire hour of Curtain Call to music from four musicals: Sing Street, Anything Can Happen in the Theater: The Musical World of Maury Yeston, Soft Power and the 2020 stream cast of Pride and Prejudice: A New Musical.

Sing Street is based on a 2016 film called Just Can’t Get Enough, and boasts a New Wave-inflected score with new songs by John Carney and Gary Clark  The show opens with its sole cover, the 1981 Depeche Mode song from which the movie drew its name.  The movie has been adapted into a stage musical by Enda Walsh,that features direction by Tony winner Rebecca Taichman and explores the power of first love and music against the backdrop of 1980s Dublin.

Anything Can Happen in the Theater: The Musical World of Maury Yeston is an off-Broadway revue that just opened last December, and will reopen as soon as possible. This musical celebration features a collection of songs from the two-time Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist Maury Yeston.

Soft Power, an exploration of America’s current place in the world, told through an East-West musical from China’s point of view, just closed in December of last year off-Broadway, and features book and lyrics by Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang and music and additional lyrics by Tony Award winner Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home).

Pride and Prejudice: A New Musical is a streaming production of the 2018 musical, with book and lyrics by Paul Gordon. This new cast recording is from that streaming performance, which premiered a few weeks ago, and can still be viewed at streamingmusicals.com.

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..

New Psychedelic Shack Tuesday

We only offer up one new episode of our speciality music shows Tuesday on The AIR with a fresh edition of Psychedelic Shack. RFC will be delayed until Thursday, and we’ll have details on that below. Meanwhile, you may point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to this happy little embedded radio player…

I am working on a special episode of Radio Free Charleston that will premiere Thursday at 3 PM. I want to get it just right, and Monday was devoted to other projects, so we’re not going to have a new Radio Free Charleston or The Swing Shift for you Tuesday. Instead, at 10 AM and 10 PM, we will bring you an encore of the show that represented the First Step local music sampler from 1990. You can read about that show HERE.

At 1 PM we’ll bring you an encore of Rudy & Mel’s Shut In Show, from last Friday.

However, we do have a new edition of Psychedelic Shack from Nigel Pye today at 2 PM. Nigel returns with a new show that opens with the one, single, solitary psychedelic song by New Wave group, Tears for Fears, but then lurches back to the 1960s with a solid line-up of mind-altering classics.

Check out the playlist…

Psychedelic Shack 030

Tears For Fears “Sowing The Seeds Of Love”
Blue Cheer “Saturday Freedom”
Kim Fowley “Strangers From The Sky”
Sound Sandwich “Zig Zag News”
Lemon Pipers “Green Tanbourine”
Jefferso Airplane “The House At Poonell Corn”
Simon Dupree and the Big Sounds “Kites”
Donovan “Catch The Wind”
The Kinks “Sunny Afternoon”
The Strangeloves “Night Time”
Blue Mangos “Tobacco Road”
The Chocolate Watchband “Sweet Young Thing”
The Groupies “Primative”
Turquoise “53 Summer Street”
Mickie Most “Honey”

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

At 3 PM, The Swing Shift brings you three encore episodes. Our Swing showcase will return with new episodes next week. You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 7 AM and 6 PM, Thursday at 7 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.

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