PopCult

This week we are bringing you a music video by an artist you will be hearing on Radio Free Charleston in the coming weeks, Rocco Deluca & His Brothers.
Let me quote the PR:

Recorded live (in one evening) by Marc Urselli, multi-Grammy Award-winning music producer, audio engineer and mixer, in one of LA’s hidden studio gems, “Studio A Session” strips DeLuca’s music down to its elemental core. The record is a meditative journey that highlights the dulcet voices of the artist and his Sho-Bud 12-string pedal steel, allowing DeLuca’s spiritual songwriting and the pairs’ unmistakable tones to take center stage. Surrounded by his Brothers, Seth Ford-Young, Lucas Guerin, Dylan Day and Ben Lecourt, the team painted a tender musical landscape that will make you feel you are enveloped by a warm desert breeze.

Known for his soulful compositions, Rocco DeLuca, has worked alongside legendary figures such as Robbie Robertson on his soundtrack for “Killers of the Flower Moon.” He has also written with an impressive array of artists including D’Angelo, Daniel Lanois, Leonard Cohen, The Hallelujah Train, and Slash. His eclectic portfolio also includes compositions for the critically acclaimed video game “Red Dead Redemption 2” and contributions to the soundtrack for Fox Studio’s “21 Days Under the Sky.”

What sets DeLuca apart is his ability to channel raw emotions, pairing haunting steel guitar riffs with captivating vocals and melodies.

Coming soon to RFC.  Just an extra treat as we post from our road trip.

Today we begin up our eight days of marathons of The AIR‘s music specialty programming. Beginning at 7 AM today you will be able to immerse yourself in a solid day, that’s twenty-four hours, of one particular program. To listen to The AIR, you simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay here, and  listen to the cool embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

Today we bring you one of our programs produced by Haversham Recording Institute in London, with Nigel Pye’s Psychedelic Shack.  Nigel is the lead engineer at Haversham and had never presented a radio show before he jumped in to share his love of mind-expanding music with The AIR’s listeners. Not confined to one era, Nigel mines the weirdest and most psychedelic music he can get his hands on.

You can hear Psychedelic Shack every Monday at 2 PM, with replays throughout the week, and a couple of classic episodes Sundays in the early evening.

This week we go back to October, 2014, for a Radio Free Charleston video show featuring music from WATT4 and Super Heavy Duty, plus animation from Third Mind Incarnation and a short film by Frank Panucci. It’s a killer episode, and you can find the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
August 21, 2026

Author’s note:  The two parts of this blog post were not written on the same day. I had prepared the second part of today’s PopCulteer a few days ago, then I felt that I had to acknowledge the sudden loss of a friend, no matter how hastily-written it was. This note is here to explain the discrepency in tone.

Remembering Eliska

Like all her friends, I was stunned by the news of the sudden passing of Eliska Hahn Diller last weekend. When her husband, Brian, shared the news on social media, it was a punch to the gut…one with which I have become all too familiar over the past year.

Eliska was known to many as an actress or a radio personality or an ice-skating coach, but if you met her, you knew her as a friend. She was a vibrant, special person who could restore your faith in mankind and shine a light that melted away your cynicism.  Eliska and Brian Diller connected late in life, but it seemed to be a match that was almost destined to happen.  These are two of the nicest people I’ve ever encountered, and my heart is broken for Brian.  He is living my worst nightmare right now.

Two years ago my wife, Melanie, had a health crisis that, to be frank, was considerably more serious than we’d hinted about at the time. If I’d lost her, I don’t know how I could have gone on, but I know she would want me to. I hope Brian knows that he has the love and support of all of his friends, and all he has to do is reach out.

I am normally more verbose than this when lamenting the loss of a friend, but this has left me a little speechless. My universe of special people keeps getting smaller. Eliska was having a hard time dealing with the death of Danny Boyd earlier this year, and his death, on the heels of the loss of Lee Harrah, Brian Young and Ken Davis left me feeling more than a bit rudderless. To see Eliska’s light extinguished too soon is another sign that the worst part of life is the fragility of it all.

It doesn’t seem fair that Eliska and Brian didn’t have more time together, but it should give us all hope that they did find each other and cherish the moments they did get to share.

You can find a full obituary for Eliska HERE.

I’m hoping Rafael Barker doesn’t mind that I used a photo he took. It was one of her favorites.

A late addition to this, as posted to Facebook by Brian: 

Celebration of Life for Eliska Hahn Diller.
Please join us as we gather to celebrate the life of Eliska Hahn Diller. Together, we’ll share memories, stories, laughter and the love she brought to so many lives. Saturday, September 26. 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fireside Grill 439 State Route 34. Hurricane, West Virginia, 25526. “Celebrating a life well lived, and the memories that will always remain in our hearts.” We hope you can join us.

A Marathon of Marathons On The AIR

Your humble blogger is on the road.

Tomorrow we will arrive in Hershey, Pennsylvania for the Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show (read about it HERE), and that begins what is scheduled to be over a week-long trip that will include such cool things as a visit to a mall in Akron, The Fiestaware Factory Tour, Shopping at Ikea and Vinegar Syndrome in Pittsburgh, a trip to The Warhol Museum with my sister and our big 12th anniversary day. Not exactly in that order.

I am leaving open the possiblity of updating PopCult from the road…but I’m not promising anything. I got hit with a less-than-happy gut predicament this week, and decided to leave myself an out in case I’m not up to both traveling all over and writing tons of stuff for the blog.

That’s where it comes in handy to have a radio station as part of PopCult.

Starting Sunday, and for the following eight days, we are going to treat you to marathons of The AIR‘s music specialty programming. Beginning at 7 AM each day, you will be able to immerse yourself in a solid day, that’s twenty-four hours, of one particular program.

You’ll be able to come to PopCult every day to see which show gets the honors that day. We will have full days devoted to Prognosis, Radio Free Charleston, Curtain Call, The Swing Shift, Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, MIRRORBALL, Beatles Blast and Psychedelic Shack.

Keep in mind that this is a great way to introduce new listeners to all of our programming while also engaging in some Olympic-level slacking.

However, that’s not to dismiss our programs as mere filler or fluff. These are TOP-NOTCH internet radio programs and thousands of folks tune in each week to hear them.

It’s not like I’m leaving you with dry cat food set to be dispensed on a timer.

But that is our PopCulteer this week, because I still need to pack and maybe paint the beard. Check PopCult for freshish content every day, and most of our regular features.

So I’ve been promising tons more photos from last month’s Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo for weeks now, and I’m hitting the road in the morning to go to another fun action figure show in Hershey, Pennsylvania and I still haven’t posted all my photos from the last show yet.

What gives?

Well, let me try to be blunt without being crude.  Salmonella poisoning is what gives. In fact, it’s the gift that keeps giving for days. It takes a lot out of you…literally.  I mean, when you have your first normal trip to the bathroom in six days, and in your head you hear Maureen McGovern singing “There’s Got To Be A Morning After,” you know you had it bad.

I was a wee bit surprised at how many people didn’t get the visual pun in yesterday’s STUFF TO DO header image.

I am definitely feeling much better now, but I still have to pack, pick up a rental car, schedule The AIR for the next ten days, and drop in a few more PopCult posts.  So, I’m gonna need to punt.

Today we have a half-dozen photos of cool toys I saw at Kentuckiana, and I will have to save the really cool pics of custom figures and dioramas for after my return from the anniversary trip.  That anniversary trip is going to include The Hershey Toy and Action Figure Show, The FiestaWare Factory Tour, a trip to The Warhol Museum and more, so as soon as I’m back, PopCult will be overflowing with beaucoup primo content.

For today, though, here’s a few more photos of the cool toys we saw about a month ago in Louisville, Kentucky…

One of AT Mechanic’s incredible modified Adventure Team vehicles.

Fans of the RAH, 3 3/4″ Joe weren’t hurting for cool vehicles, either.

I’m not sure if I ran this photo earlier, but geez….just look at it. If I did, it’s definitely worth a second look.

Just a couple of Marx Vikings, hanging out. Nice to see Odin in one piece.

Big Earl has, probably, the most complete selection of Six Million Dollar Man (and Bionic Woman) toys on the planet. We’ve been fans since we met him at ToyLanta years ago.

We leave you with the bittersweet photo. I caught myself reaching for this, thinking, “Well, Lee has to have this.” and then remembered that Mr. Harrah is in a place where he has all the action figures he could ever want now. So I left it for another collector.

STUFF TO DO is PopCult‘s weekly guide to just a few of the great events happening in Charleston, Huntington and a few other points here in West Virginia, and sometimes a little beyond our borders, in the coming days. This week we are  trying to recover from an intestinal unpleasantry, so it’s short.

This week’s featured event, is in Pennsylvania, and it’s where I’ll be Saturday. With any luck, I’ll be able to enjoy The Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show without having to run to the bathroom every twenty minutes…

Each week I try to tell you about a few cool events all around the state that you might not know about.  If you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future you can still contact me via Social Media at Facebook, BlueSky, Spoutible, Instagram or Twitter.  I dont charge for this, so you might as well send me something if you have an event to promote.

I do ask that you send a graphic that includes the date, time and location, of the event, as well as the cost to attend.  I can’t promise that I’ll run it here,  but chances are I will unless it’s something completely offensive or an event happening in South Carolina. If it looks original and charmingly weird, you have a better chance of seeing it here.

Keep in mind that I’ll need this several days in advance, so please don’t send me a graphic on the day of the event and expect it to show up in this feature.

For much more comprehensive guides to things you can get into in our region, check out these two wonderful resources:

Cristen Michael has created an interactive calendar that is way more comprehensive than this list of STUFF TO DO, and you can find it HERE. Just click on the day and the event and you’ll be whisked away to a page with more details about loads of area events.

Mya Ross at Status Quo does a much better job of compiling a list of local events than I do, and you can find the WTSQ guide to events HERE. Toss ’em a donation while you’re over there.

You can find live music in and around town every night of the week. You just have to know where to look.  Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Among the notable music venues in town are The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe, Live at The Shop in Dunbar, Louie’s, at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort, In Huntington, there’s local institution, The Loud (formerly The V Club),  The Wandering Wind Meadery is on Charleston’s West Side, Plus there’s music in Charleston at The Blue Parrot, Sam’s Uptown Cafe and Fife Street Brewing. Plus there are free concerts almost every weekend at Taylor Books.

You might also find cool musical events at Folklore Music Exchange in Charleston.

To hear music in an alcohol-free enviroment, see what’s happening at Pumzi’s, on Charleston’s West Side.

For cutting-edge independent art films, downstairs from Taylor Books you’ll find the Floralee Hark Cohen Cinema by WVIFF. Each week they program several amazing movies in their intimate viewing room that you aren’t likely to see anywhere else.

Please remember that viral illnesses are still a going concern and many people who have very good reasons are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding  while you’re out. And if you’re at an outdoor event, please remember that it’s awfully inconsiderate to smoke or vape around people who become ill when exposed to that stuff. If somebody asks you to refrain, please respect their weishes and don’t be a jerk about it.

Here’s a few select suggestions for STUFF TO DO in and around Charleston and Huntington this weekend…

Since chances are we are not going to have time to put together STUFF TO DO next week, here is what would be our featured pick, for the weekend after next…

Almost every Tuesday is NEW RFC DAY on The AIR  and today is where we bring you a partly-new three-hour episode of Radio Free Charleston because I’m a bit under the weather. To listen to The AIR, you simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay here, and  listen to the cool embedded player found elsewhere on this page.  

You can hear Radio Free Charleston Tuesdays at 10 AM and 10 PM, with boatloads of replays throughout the week.

 This week we open with a full hour of brand-new local, independent and cult-following music, and that is followed by a rare episode of Radio Free Charleston Volume 3 that hasn’t been heard since the middle of 2015. Without going into unpleasant details, your humble blogger and radio host encountered some food that left him with lots of extra reading time.

Our first hour opens with new music from legendary New Wave/Alt-rock pioneer, Gary Myrick, and then hops all over the map, after bringing you a couple of songs dedicated to friends who left us too soon in the last week. It’s a mini tribute to Eliska (Hahn) Diller and Lucas Flow, which should probably be elaborated on in the future, once your PopCulteer is up to the task.

Our first hour also includes brand-new music from The Anchoress, The Feeders, Long Earth, Paige Kizer, Todd Burge & Larry Groce, William Matheny, Hardy Mums and more.

Our second and third hours bring you an episode of RFC Volume Three that hasn’t been available in any form since Summer, 2015.  This show is loaded with a mix of then-new tunes and mystical gems from our archives. The third hour is a collection of tracks featuring Stephen and Mark Beckner, and their bands, Go Van Gogh, Tunesmiths and Hitchcock Circus, with a some rare recordings from the legendary Charleston Playhouse tossed in, for the sake of HISTORY!

I will note here that next week will be one of our rare weeks off. Your PopCulteer will be on a week-long anniversary trip with his lovely wife, and every day next week we will run a marathon of a different AIR program. Next Tuesday expect 24 hours of Radio Free Charleston.

Check out this playlist, with links to the artist’s page, in the first hour…

RFC V5 282

hour one
Gary Myrick “Evil Men”
Brian Diller “Fill My Eyes”
The BrotherSisters “The Mountains of Instead”
The Anchoress “As We Once Were”
The Feeders “Fruit Flies”
Long Earth “Wanderlust”
Paige Kizer “Your Voice”
Todd Burge & Larry Groce “Letter to Sally Parker (Demo)”
William Matheny “Babylon Man”
best dressed ghost “Dread and Breakfast”
Hardy Mums “Dilettante”
Reserver “Server”
Stitch Jones and his Bionic Marines “Legend of Sgt. Towns”

hour two
Big Money “Face The Flood”
Sasha Colette “You Had Me”
Groove Heavy “Don’t Stop Believin’”
Total Meltdown “Pictures of You”
The Brothersisters “Can’t Be Lost”
Doktor Steamly “The Needle Goes In”
DEVO “Clockout”
J Marinelli “Lockdown Town”
Sheldon Vance “Turn It Back Around”
The Company Stores “No Middle Name”
Mike Morningstar and Rick Roberts “Queen of Hearts”
Martyranny’s Collective Pulse “Banshee”
Whistlepunk “Satellite”
Wolfgang Parker “To Say You Love Me”

hour three
Go Van Gogh and The Tunesmiths
Go Van Gogh “Shut Up, I Love You”
The Tune Smiths
“Say I’m A Fool”
“Incredible Shrinking Man”
“Ballet Dancer”
“Waited For Love”
“For Your Love”
Hitchock Circus “Show Pony”
Go Van Gogh Live At the Charleston Playhouse 1989

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Wednesday at 9 AM,  Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, Sunday at 8 PM and  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different classic episode of RFC every weekday at 5 PM, and we bring you a marathon all night long Saturday night/Sunday morning.

I’m also going to  embed a low-fi, mono version of this show right in this post, right here so you can listen on demand.

After RFC, stick around for encores of last week’s episodes of  MIRRORBALL at 1 PM and Curtain Call at 2 PM.

At 3 PM get ready for two classic episodes of The Swing Shift, featuring the best Swing Music from the last century!

 You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 AM, Thursday at 9 AM,  Friday at 10 AM and 8 PM and Saturday afternoon, only on The AIR . You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursdays and Sundays.

This week, and for at least the two following, we are still using photos I took on our way back from Chicago recently. It’s based on our slow meander through the South Side of Chicago, during what is normally a brief part of the trip where Amtrak’s Cardinal rides on an elevated track.

Most of the time, this passes in mere minutes, but due to mechanical issues, it took us about an hour to travel the relatively short distance. It’s turned out to be a goldmine of inspiration for me, artistically.

This week, I switched to using pastel crayons because they were a little easier for me to use with my MG-impaired hands, and it also made the clean-up a lot easier. Our subject is a cool, but lonely-looking building that sports a single smokestack. I thought it look cool in the pre-dusk light.

If you want to see this image larger click HERE.

Meanwhile, over in radioland, Monday beginning at 2 PM on The AIR,  we bring you a classic episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM we do the same with an encore of a more recent episode of Herman Linte’s weekly showcase of the Progressive Rock of the past half-century, Prognosis.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player elsewhere on this page. Psychedelic Shack can be heard every Monday at 2 PM, with replays Tuesday at 9 AM, Wednesday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday at 9 AM. You can hear Prognosis on The AIR Monday at 3 PM, with replays Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM, Thursday at Noon, and Saturday at 10 AM.

Tonight at 8 PM, tune in for a classic edition of The Comedy Vault. That’s followed by two-hour blocks of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast at 9 PM and 11 PM, and then an overnight assortment of our Haversham Recording Institute programs at 1 AM.

The PopCult crew went to the first Hershey Action Figure & Toy Show way back on August 24, 2019, and tonight we are revisiting our wrap-up video of that show, with sights and sounds and a few interviews. It’s exactly eleven minutes of great toy fun.  After a few years’ hiatus, the show returns next weekend, and your humble blogger and his wife are making it part of our weeklong anniversary trip across The Keystone State.

It’s really cool that my friend, Greg Brown, and Cotswold Collectibles are bringing back the Hershey Action Figure & Toy Show for 2026 after a brief hiatus. The show will once again take place at the Hershey Lodge & Convention Center, which is an impressive facility with plenty of room.

The list of vintage (and new) toys for sale will include G.I. Joe, Transformers, TMNT, Major Matt Mason, Captain Action, Star Wars, Super Joe, Big Jim, Micronauts, Action Jackson, Marvel Toys, DC Toys and more. Faces will be smiling and wallets will be straining.

They’re also promising a couple of Special Guests to appear and sign autographs!

Doors will open at 9 am for Early Bird Admission and 10 am for Regular Admission on August 21st and will stay open till 4 pm.
Early Bird Admission (9:00 am) – $10/person
Regular Admission (10:00 am) – $5/person

Tickets can be bought day of the show at the Admissions Table.

There will also be early bird admissions on Friday night, but those were a late addition and we couldn’t re-work our travel plans to make it then.

So they’d better leave me some stuff.

Check out the Facebook event page for more details.

This week we go back to September 2014 for our most recent video milestone show. Episode 200 was a huge undertaking that went through a lot of changes before it finally made it out into the world. You can read about those in our original production notes HERE. I’m gonna swipe a bit of that so you can get an idea of what to expect:

Radio Free Charleston has finally reached its 200th episode, and it does so in a grand manner with four never before seen performances by the area’s top bands, plus animation, short films and more. Your host, Rudy Panucci, presents songs from Farnsworth, The Laser Beams, HarraH and The Velvet Brothers. There is a short film from Frank Panucci, a movie trailer from Jake Fertig and the first new animation featured on RFC from Third Mind Incarnation since 2007.

This was actually our first video show since your humble blogger married Mel Larch and began our happy life together. We celebrate our 12th anniversary in less than two weeks, and it’s cool to look back that fun time. You might want to follow that link to read the full production notes. They’re pretty interesting.