PopCult

The PopCulteer
September 22, 2023

We crash into Friday with a new PopCulteer loaded with coolness, so let’s just dive right the heck in.

What We Do In A Magazine

What you see at the top right of this post is the newest issue of Non Sport Update Magazine. Longtime readers of this blog may remember that I’ve been writing for NSU longer than I’ve been writing PopCult.

This latest issue will be hitting newsstands all across the country over the next week or so, and not only is it a Halloween-themed issue, but yours truly wrote the cover feature that you’ll find inside.

Even cooler is that it’s about a new trading card set from Cryptozoic Entertainment based on one of my favorite TV Shows, What We Do In The Shadows. So not only did I score the cover, but it’s about a really, really funny show that I happen to love.

So seek it out and read up on the trading card debut of Lazlo, Nadja, Nandor, Colin Robinson and Guillermo and you’ll be ready to testify before The Vampiric Council. It was a blast to write about WWDITS, even though the SAG strike not only kept me from interviewing any of the cast, it made it a little weird to get info about the set. It’s still a fun article and writing it made me want to buy the cards, so imagine what reading it will do to you!

Lending Some Art

Also of note on the Rudy front, I am proud to have provided the artwork for David Synn’s new single, “Running Backwards.” It’s a killer tune, just released this week, and it features backing vocals from De’Ana May-Parsons and guitars, production and more by Jamie Skeen.

It’s a killer tune that sure sounds like prog to me, and you can buy it now at Bandcamp. I’m also going to play in next week’s jam-packed new episode of Radio Free Charleston, on The AIR. The art is modified from an installment of Monday Morning Art from a few months ago.

Even More Cool New Music

We’re going to preview a couple of other new tunes that you can hear next week on RFC. First up we have a really cool animated video by Hello June for “Sometimes,” the third single from their upcoming new album, Artifacts.

The video premiered at Under The Radar magazine just a couple of days ago and we’re happy to share it here…

Just released yesterday, and currently slated to open next Tuesday’s episode of RFC, is a new song by Kenny Booth (HARRAH, TriElement, Membrane Cell, Disarm The Fallen). “Big Brain” is a terrific piece of music with Kenny playing all instruments and singing, and it’s unlike anything he’s ever done before.  Probably not safe for work, so be discreet if you’re blasting it.  This song is so cool that I’m sharing it here, even though the video is just his (very cool) single cover…

Doing That Disco All Over

Finally this week we are going to re-present last week’s new episode of MIRRORBALL on The AIR .

Last week we had the culmination of some major technical issues at The AIR that disrupted the stream and didn’t get worked out until we were about three-fourths of the way through this show. Now that the internet gremlins have been located and exterminated with extreme prejudice, you’ll get a second chance to hear this gem of a show.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch devotes a full hour to extended mixes of classics of the Disco era.  The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear these shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

One of the most creative things to come out of the Disco-era club scene was the extended 12″ Disco Mix of songs, so that the folks enjoying the joyful noise could stay on the dance floor just a little longer, and the DJ’s could have more time between spinning the records.

This week we are going to bring you Disco Mixes of Disco Classics. It’s Disco squared on a full hour that goes twelve inches to heaven on this epic and eminently danceble music specialty program. Mel will likely revisit this topic soon.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 082

D-Train “You’re The One For Me”
The Crusaders featuring Randy Crawford “Street Life”
Gloria Gaynor “I Will Survive”
Real Thing “Can You Feel The Force”
Shalamar “Uptown Festival Medley”
Anita Ward “Ring My Bell”
Chic “Everybody Dance”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays throughout the following week Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM and a mini-marathon Saturday nights at 9 PM.

Next week the plan is to have new episodes of all of our music specialty programs all week long, and we’ll have details here on every one of them. That is our PopCulteer this week. Check back every day for fresh content and the occasional air fryer tip.

Last Sunday I was privileged to be at the World Premiere of HOUSE IN THE CLOUDS: The Artistic Life of Robert Singleton at the Clay Center in Charleston. This AmpMediaProject documentary told the life story of noted artist, Robert Singleton, and it packs quite a punch.

Filmakers Douglas Imbrogno (an old friend who is responsible for me writing this blog) and Bobby Lee Messer have crafted a truly compelling work with this film.

While I knew the name, I was not familiar with Singleton’s work or story, and I was not expecting such an emotional roller-coaster to be packed into a brisk, 60-minute film. Based on interviews with Singleton, and using several effective techniques, HOUSE IN THE CLOUDS tells a life story that includes a violent and traumatic childhood, a closeted existence as a gay man in the intolerant 1950s, his stunning success as an artist, coming to grips with his own sexuality just as AIDS was devastating his social circle, and a spiritual awakening that saw him giving end-of-life care to many people who had been shunned by their families. Throw in a 20-year dry spell where he couldn’t paint and the fact that, at 85 he’s still with us and producing incredible art once again, and you have a record of an amazing human being.

It’s a powerful film about overcoming great adversity and living an epic life.

Imbrogno and Messer tell this story through narration, Singleton’s own words, archival photographs and the ethical and judicious use of computer animation to recreate moments from his youth. HOUSE IN THE CLOUDS is brilliantly done, and my only criticism is that I think they had enough material to make a longer film…and maybe that’s a goal for the future.

There are a few other showings scheduled with more in the planning stages. There will be screenings at Gradient Projects in Thomas. W.Va. SATURDAY, OCT 14, 7 PM and SUNDAY, Oct. 15, PM. These are limited-seating shows and tickets ($15) will go on sale online and also be available in Thomas shortly.

To keep up with more screenings as they are scheduled, you can subscribe to the free newsletter and Substack site HERE.

It took me a few days to digest this powerful and beautiful film before I could write about it, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

You can see the trailer here…

It’s beginning to seem a lot like Autumn, and there are loads and loads of cool things happening all over the area this weekend, icluding a whole lot of beer stuff about which your humble blogger is blissfully ignorant, so this is probably a good time to remind you that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything comprehensive, and if you feel strongly about me leaving anything out, feel free to mention it in the comments.

A last-minute addition here is Charleston’s ArtWalk, which I nearly forgot to mention. It happens Thursday from 5 PM to 8 PM at all the Downtown Charleston galleries and art spaces that you’ve come to know and love.

Live Music is back at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM.  Friday RFC faves, Verdeant, take the stage. Saturday That High Copuntry Revival brings theirold time music to the beloved bookstore/cafe/art gallery.

The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week  to tell you about.  Wednesday Talent On Tap with Damienne Dibble happens from 6 PM until  9 PM and the details are in the graphics below.  At 9 PM Joe’s Cousin One Man Band puts on a Rockabilly/Honky Tonk show. Thursday at 5:30 PM, Swingstein and Robin return with Swing for a good cause. Later Thursday, it’s Justin’s Birthday Bash (graphic below).  Friday Tim Courts plays during happy hour.  Later on Friday at 9 PM, Razorblade and guests take over (graphic below). Saturday check out the graphic below for The East End Ghouls. Sunday, at 8 PM it’s time for The Bo Show, then at 10 PM it’s Empty Glass Got Talent. Next Monday it’s Open Mic Night at 9 PM.

Please remember that the pandemic is not over yet. It’s still a going concern with the ‘rona surging again. And now there are seasonal allergies, the flu, missing fighter jets, horny congresswomen, distraught victims of Gordon Gee and other damned good reasons to be careful. 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.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

If you’re up for going out, here are a few suggestions for the weekend, roughly in order…

Tuesday afternoon happens again this week, and on The AIR that means it’s time for a new  Radio Free Charleston. 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 tons of replays throughout the week.  This week we have one all-new hour, and two hours of a 2019 episode of RFC International that hasn’t been heard since the week it originally aired.

Kicking off this cool edition of our show is a new song from Astrodot, which is the musical brainchild of an old friend, Stephen Schmidt. I ran into Stephen Sunday night at the premiere of Douglas Imbrogno’s A House In The Clouds documentary about the artist, Robert Singleton (and you’ll read more about that later this week), and he told me that he’d been releasing music through Bandcamp, so I rushed to get it to bring to you. It does indeed, kick the ass.

Also leaving asses kicked is Sgt. Van and the Highway Dogs, a musical project from Chuck Van Voorhis, a buddy from the GI Joe collecting community.  He was going for an 80s vibe with this track, and I think he pretty much nailed it.

The remainder of our first hour is filled with killer stuff like new music from The Pretenders, Buni Muni, William Matheny and Jerks, plus a mini set of strange cover tunes and other goodies.  In the set of cover tunes, I mistakenly say that the group, Pink Turtle, are Italian. They are actually French. I’m sorry. I have a cold.

Our second and third hours go back to early 2017 for an episode Radio Free Charleston International that runs the free-format gamut from Chuck Berry to DEVO, with stops at Prog, Blues, Swing and even The Beatles along the way. It is cool to have such a vast library of old shows that have been offline for years to dip back into, since it’s not always easy to find the time to do a three-hour show every week.

Check out the playlist below to see all the goodies we have in store. Where possible in the first hour, live links will take you to the artist’s pages so you can find out more about them, buy their music and find out where to see them perform live…

RFC V5 146

hour one
Astrodot “The Victor”
Sgt. Van and the Highway Dogs “Nothing Can Hold Me Down”
The Pretenders “Domestic Silence”
Spurgy Hankins Band “Nature’s Rhythm”
Brian Diller “To Win Her”
Buni Muni “Wild Boys”
William Matheny “Grand Old Feeling”
The Cleverlys “Blue (Da Ba Dee)”
Pink Turtle “Don’t Stop”
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes “Natural Woman”
Big Daddy “Addicted To Love”
Jerks “Nowhere”
Rasta Rafiki “Mistaken Man”

hour two
Chuck Berry “Big Boys”
Bob Dylan “Stardust”
Jamiroquai “Dr. Buzz”
Mastadon “Roots Remain”
Body Count “This Is Why We Ride”
Blink 182 “Misery”
Goldfrapp “Everything Is Never Enough”
The Blues Swingers “By Friday”
Aimee Mann “Good For Me”
Postmodern Jukebox “Roxanne”
The Jesus and Mary Chain “Los Feliz (Blue and Green)
Depeche Mode “Going Backwards”

hour three
UK “Carry The Cross”
The Beatles “I’m Only Sleeping (Mono)”
The Beach Boys “God Only Knows”
Ruby Dee and The Snakehandlers “Who Do You Think I Am”
Delta 88 “Boppin’ Little Witch”
Mike Oldfield “Return To Ommadawn part one”
Todd Rundgren “Bang On The Drum All Day”
The B-52s “Party Out of Bounds”
DEVO “Mechanical Man”

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,  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 we offer up two recent episodes of The Swing Shift.  You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 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 Thursday and Sunday evenings.

This week’s art is a detail from an attempted sketch of a buiding in Chicago that I abandoned part-way through. Most of what was cropped out was blank.  I did this with wax pencil on paper for pens, and wasn’t happy with it so I just stopped. A few weeks later I scanned it anyway and cropped it to the point where I was happy enough with it to share here.

I don’t think I’ll revisit it or do anything in color like it. Sometimes you have false starts, and it’s a good economy of time to recognize them and move on.

I sort of like it this way, but it’s not one of my favorites.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we were hoping to have new Haversham shows this week, but our friends overseas are buried under paying work, so instead we are going to offer up the most recent episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM we do the same with 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. You can hear two classic episodes of the show Sunday at 2 PM.

We are anticipating new episodes of Prognosis, Psychedelic Shack and Sydney’s Big Electric Cat next week.

At 8 PM you can hear an hour of classic Stand Up Comedy by Richard Pryor on The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM the Monday Marathon presents ten hours of Disco-era dance classic with Mel Larch’s MIRRORBALL.

Above you see an exceedingly fun new short film created under the direction of our local Maestro, Chuck Biel. It’s called, “Armadillo In The Neighborhood” and it’s actually fairly self explanatory.

Well, except that the Armadillo plays bass, and by most objective measures, is particularly funky. Chuck describes it as “A silly video about a Bass Playing Armadillo and how he found love in the burbs!”

It was written and directed by Chuck and features new music by the man, himself.  His co-producer and director of photography was Sam Myers, and there are a host of local actors involved. Stick around for the cute ending after the credits.

We will get back to catching up with leftover video projects from our summer toy convention travels next week.

This week, from June, 2008, comes Radio Free Charleston episode 44, “Social Distortion Shirt,” the second of two episodes that I hosted without wearing a hat.

This episode features music from Lady D and Quick and Dirty, plus footage from the Pandora’s Toy Box custom toy exhibit. Of special interest in this episode is our exclusive apology to the people of West Virginia from the then-Vice President of these United States, dick Cheney.

Host segments were shot at Good News Mountaineer Gallery, which later moved to the West Side. The bittersweet part of this show is that it marks the debut of Quick and Dirty and the band’s bassist and lead singer, Randy Lee Walden, who would die of a drug overdose less than three weeks after this show debuted. It was a terrible waste of a talented life. You can get just a hint of what we’re missing by watching this show.

Original production notes are here.

The PopCulteer
September 15, 2023

Your PopCulteer is busy finishing up a magazine assignement, so this week’s PopCulteer column runs the risk of seeming a bit light. Luckily, instead of writing a long essay that would take me away from those duties, My lovely wife has come to my rescue. Mel Larch returns Friday with a new episode of MIRRORBALL devoted to “Disco Mixes” of Disco tunes.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch devotes a full hour to extended mixes of classics of the Disco era.  The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear these shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

One of the most creative things to come out of the Disco-era club scene was the extended 12″ Disco Mix of songs, so that the folks enjoying the joyful noise could stay on the dance floor just a little longer, and the DJ’s could have more time between spinning the records.

This week we are going to bring you Disco Mixes of Disco Classics. It’s Disco squared on a full hour that goes twelve inches to heaven on this epic and eminently danceble music specialty program. Mel will likely revisit this topic soon.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 082

D-Train “You’re The One For Me”
The Crusaders featuring Randy Crawford “Street Life”
Gloria Gaynor “I Will Survive”
Real Thing “Can You Feel The Force”
Shalamar “Uptown Festival Medley”
Anita Ward “Ring My Bell”
Chic “Everybody Dance”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays throughout the following week Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM and a mini-marathon Saturday nights at 9 PM

At 3 PM we bring you an encore of the seventh episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat from August, 2016.  This is an early episode of the show that presents Sydney Fileen’s backward glance at the brave new tomorrow that never really came.

This was when Sydney was just beginning to mine the rich vein of New Wave Music that she’s still bringing you today.

Rather than just post a link, here’s the playlist for this one…

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat 007

Ultravox  “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes”
Souixsie and the Banshees  “Hong Kong Garden”
Gleaming Spires  “Art Together”
Comateens  “Overseas”
Video Sex  “Mojo Mama”
The GoGos  “You Can’t Walk In Your Sleep (If You Can’t Sleep)”
Stan Ridgeway  “The Big Heat”
The Living Daylights  “Sugar Days”
T-4-2  “Outside Your Window”
Talk Talk  “Talk Talk”
The Flirts  “Danger”
Robert Marlow  “Calling All Destroyers”
A Flock Of Seagulls  “Messages”
Split Enz  “Six Months In A Leaky Boat”
UK Viva  “Radio Saviour”
Lene Lovich  “New Toy”
The Fallout Club  “Wonderlust”
Re-Flex  “Keep In Touch”
OMD  “Secret”
DEVO  “Planet Earth”
Naked Eyes  “Emotion in Motion”
Small Affairs  “Back To China”
Sherrie Actor  “Forbidden Fruit”
Ian Dury and The Blockheads  “Reasons To Be Cheerful Pt. 3”
The Stranglers  “No More Heroes”
The Damned  “Neat, Neat, Neat”
Tenpole Tudor  “Swords of a Thousand Men”
Jona Lewie “You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties”
The Slits  “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”
Background and close music is Giorgio Morodor’s  “Chase”

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, Monday at 7 AM, Tuesday at 8 PM, Wednesday at Noon and Thursday at 10 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Two classic episodes can also be heard every Sunday, starting at 10 AM.

And that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back every day for fresh content. Things may be back to normal next week.

Longtime readers of PopCult are probably familiar with Robert Jiménez by now.  I’ve been talking about his Fearsome Weirdos trading cards and books for years now. Now Robert has a new project up on Kickstarter, and it’s already fully-funded almost four times over after just a day and there’s still just under three weeks go go.

Polynesian Pulp: The Tiki Art Of Robert Jiménez is a book and a trading card set, and instead of showcasing his monster or wacky parody art, the book and card set collect some of his awesome Tiki Art from the past decade.

You probably know the drill by now…this is where I quote liberally from the Kickstarter campaign page:

Polynesian Pulp is a collection of the Tiki Art of Robert Jiménez. It will be printed as a 50 card set as well as a signed 90 page 8.5 x 11 inch perfect bound hardcover book and will showcase traditional and digital art from the past decade. Included are Tikis, an assortment of Sophisticated Apes, Mermaids, Sea Creatures and more!

The 50 card set will come in a tuck box, along with a promo card and a sticker.

Also, there will be sketch cards by Robert Jiménez available to add on to your set, along with a VERY limited selection of sketch cards by Claudette Barjoud, BigToe, El Gato Gomez, Ken Ruzic and Sheryl Schroeder!

Other add-ons available will include original art, coloring books and past Zerostreet card sets.

This set is really exciting for me because I’m a huge fan of Robert’s Tiki art. I even wore one of his shirts on the latest video edition of Radio Free Charleston. I am also on record as being a fan of Tiki culture, even if I’m just a Tiki Poser at the end of the day.

The Polynesian Pulp Art book is a hardbound book measuring 8.5 x 11 inches. It collects the entire card set along with an extra 40 images and comes signed. Completists, like yours truly, will opt for the combination book and card set. I love non-sport trading cards (hell, I’ve been writing about them professionally for more than 25 years), but seeing Robert’s art printed in a larger size is a special treat for my aging eyes. There are several different rewards with this Kickstarter campaign, and among the many add-ons are sketch cards, original art and all of Robert’s previous trading card sets at discounted prices.

The project is way beyond funded and Robert fulfills his campaigns quicker than anybody else on Kickstarter, so you can be confident that you’ll get the reward you choose. And ths art is just absolutely gorgeous.

Robert’s work has appeared on album covers for Gold Dust Lounge and Stolen Idols and in magazines such as Exotica Moderne, Tiki Magazine, PKD Otaku, Gnarly and Pinstriping & Kustom Graphics. His work is also featured in the books, THE THING:ARTBOOK, VISIONS FROM THE UPSIDE DOWN: STRANGER THINGS ARTBOOK, GHOSTBUSTERS: ARTBOOK and has shown in galleries including Disneyland’s Wonderground, Harold Golen, M Modern, Creature Features, and Bear & Bird among others.

You can also see Robert’s work in trading card sets for licenses such as Garbage Pail Kids, Wacky Packages, Mars Attacks, Star Wars, DC Comics, Firefly, Ghostbusters, Adventure Time and more. Most notably Robert has recently illustrated cards for the Star Wars Trading Card App.

Check out the trailer for Polynesian Pulp, and kick in today…

As usual, there are loads and loads of cool things happening all over the area this weekend, and yours truly is pre-occupied with a magazine deadline, so this is probably a good time to remind you that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything complete.

Sunday from 6 PM to 9 PM we have the world premiere of a very cool documentary at The Clay Center.  HOUSE IN THE CLOUDS: The Artistic Life of Robert Singleton, will be shown on the Clay Center main stage in Charleston W.Va., on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023. The West Virginia International Film Festival presents the AmpMediaProject documentary by Douglas John Imbrogno and Bobby Lee Messer, tracing the life and times, not all of them easy ones, of notable American artist Robert Singleton, now 85, who has lived and worked on a remote West Virginia hilltop since 1978 in a house he built.

The premiere is at 7 PM, with filmgoers seated on the Clay Center main stage, in homage to the role classical music and creativity played in Robert’s tumultuous, often traumatic upbringing. The screening is preceded by a 6 PM reception in the Clay Center’s Juliet Art Museum, to view the current exhibit “The Possible Dream,” featuring one of his paintings. A Q-and-A on-stage with Robert follows the premiere. Order tickets HERE or call the box office during business hours at: 304-561-3570.

The soundtrack features a host of West Virginia-based musicians, including Spencer Elliott; dulcimer explorer Jim Probst; classical pianist Barbara Nissman (recently inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame; National Flatpick Champion Robin Kessinger and others.

For more on Singleton’s engrossing life and work—and to support the cost of completing and distributing House in the Clouds via an upcoming SEEDandSPARK crowdfunding campaign feel free to subscribe to the documentary website.

Live Music is back at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM.  Friday Sandy Sowell and Gerry Collyard take the stage. Saturday Minor Swing brings their Djangoesque melodies to the beloved bookstore/cafe/art gallery.

Wednesday from 7 PM to 9 PM The VB4 (AKA part of The Velvet Brothers) will play at Fife Street Brewing in Downtown Charleston.

The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week  to tell you about.  Wednesday night Gabby’s Lo Fi Lounge happens at 9 PM. Thursday at 5:30 PM, Swingstein and Robin return with Swing for a good cause. Later Thursday, at 10 PM One Love Rising brings Reggae to The Glass (graphic below).  Friday Tim Courts plays during happy hour.  Later on Friday RFC faves Blue Twisted Steel play at 10 PM. Saturday we have a graphic, which you can see below. Sunday, at 7 PM Dan Spencer, Charbelle, and RFC faves Heavy Set Paw Paws play an early show, then at 10 PM it’s Empty Glass Got Talent. Next Monday it’s Open Mic Night at 9 PM.

In Dunbar, aside from the Fall Festival, at Live at The Shop, Wednesday night the musical duo Southerland takes off at 8 PM.  Thursday, at 8 PM The Dirty Grass Players with Chandler Beaverts stir things up.

Saturday The Mothman Festival happens in Point Pleasant, and all over the area, public libraries are observing Cryptid Day with special events. It’s also Batman Day, which will be celebrated at many area comic book and game shops. You can celebrate either of those days, or if you’re Kirk Langstrom, maybe both.

Please remember that the pandemic is not over yet. It’s still a going concern with the ‘rona surging again. And now there are seasonal allergies, the flu, unindicted co-conspirators, boys named Sue, miniature K-Pop musicians getting into everything and other damned good reasons to be careful. 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.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

If you’re up for going out, here are a few suggestions for the weekend, roughly in order…