Month: November 2013 (Page 1 of 4)

I never know what to call the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Luckily, it doesn’t matter what you call it, there’s still plenty of stuff to do tonight. We told you about “MARY A Rock Opera” earlier in the week when we brought you the latest RFC MINI SHOW, but there’s more going on in town.

From 10 AM to 9 PM Dunbar Lanes, the hippest bowling alley in the state, celebrates their first anniversary with dollar hotdogs and dollar games (per person). Bring in a canned food donation for a free shoe rental.

At 2 PM, Larry Wilson will be performing gospel music at the Captiol Rotunda with Adam Crabb and Chris Deskins. There is no charge, so go check it out so they don’t feel silly singing to themselves in the Capitol building.

At 4 PM, The Nitro Antique Mall will hold their annual open house. There will be hourly giveaways, discounts as high as 70% and free comics, plus comic and card appraisals upstairs at Third Floor Comics. This runs until 9 PM.

Free music tonight includes Spencer Elliott, James Archer and Sean Richardson at Bluegrass Kitchen at 7 PM. Spencer will probably play this tune…

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For the ninth year, PopCult will present our Gift Guide. Today we’re going to concentrate on all the local opportunities you have to support Charleston area artists, musicians, crafters and merchants. Next week, we will bring you part two of our Gift Guide, which will focus mainly on cool pop culture mail order items. But today, it’s all about “shop local.”

In your quest to buy locally, you have three events that will aid you greatly. The Black Friday edition of ArtWalk starts tonight at 5 PM. There will be three special indoor editions of the East End Bazzar, held at the Clay Center. Next weekend brings us the 11th Annual River Arts Festival at UUC.

First up we have the “Black Friday Edition” of the Downtown Charleston ArtWalk. Tonight from 5 PM to 8PM you can explore the art scene and buy up some great gifts in Charleston at the following galleries: Art Emporium Gallery, Charleston Ballet, Chet Lowther Studio, Delfine’s Jewelry, Gallery Eleven, The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation, Good News Mountaineer Garage Gallery, Hope Village Fair Trade Cooperative, Ivor’s Trunk, Mission Savvy, Modern by Design, Savvy Chic, Stray Dog Antiques, Taylor Books – Annex Gallery, Tony the Tailor, The Purple Moon, Visions Day Spa, White Oak Photography & GiGi’s and Uncork & Create.

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The PopCulteer
November 29, 2013

It’s not all about crass commercialism and maxing out your credit cards today. There’s plenty of Art and Music for you to soothe your soul after you venture forth into the world of naked capitalism. Let us show you…

Beyond The Margin

One of the coolest parts of today’s Black Friday ArtWalk will be Beyond The Margin, a show spanning two galleries, Apartment Earth and Good News Mountaineer Garage Gallery, and running from 5 PM to 8 PM this evening. Good News Mountaineer Garage Gallery is right in the middle of Hale Street, next to Stray Dog Antiques, while Apartment Earth is in the alley behind the GNMG.

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Please accept our fondest holiday wishes whether you observe Thanksgiving, Hanukkah or “Adventure Time gets a balloon in the Macy’s Parade” day.,or all three. It’s all good, and we have a lot to be happy about today.

Stanksgiving at The Empty Glass with Dinosaur Burps

We are heading into the Thanksgiving Holiday, and there’s all kinds of grea things going on that you can cram down your entertainment gullet. We’ll kick off with an actual dinner for Veterans, then run down the cool stuff to do in town this Wednesday and Thursday.

KP Duty For Vets

Kanawha Players is thanking our Veterans with a traditional Turkey dinner at their theater on Beauregard street this evening, from 5 PM to 9 PM. Details from their Facebook event page follow…

“Kanawha Players Theater would like to say thank you to our Veterans this Thanksgiving by providing a FREE meal the day before Thanksgiving. Wednesday November 27th from 5 PM to 9 PM (or until we run out of food ) at our building-309 Beauregard St. Charleston, WV 25301.

We have the ability to feed 50 people and would like to invite those that have nowhere to go this Thanksgiving to enjoy the holiday with us. There will be Turkey and all the fixins and dessert. We will also have Christmas cards on hand for those that would like to fill out a few to send the troops who are far away from home this holiday season.

This event is made possible by the hard work and dedication of volunteers at Kanawha Players Theater, generous donations from Longhorn Steakhouse and the wonderful culinary skills of Bad Fairy Productions.”

For more information, or if you want to see if they still have space on the day of? Call (304)343-7529.

Pre-Thanksgiving Parties

You can get out and enjoy some fine music before tomorrow’s food fest all over town. Nobody decided to list voers for these shows, so bring a few bucks just in case.

At The Empty Glass Wednesday, and Third Eye Cabaret Thanksgiving Night

At 9:30 PM, the Boulevard Tavern presents Rick Perdue and The Coal River Yacht Club:Mike Pushkin, John inghram, Chris Stockwell and Gregg Lowley.

Also at 9:30, Beggar’s Clan will be at Sam’s Uptown Cafe, along with No Pretty Pictures and Pistol Dreams.

At 10 PM, The Company Stores invades The Empty Glass for some pre-holiday specials on folk fusion.

Thanksgiving Day

Post-meal tryptophan withdrawal begins at 8 PM as Louis Argento (seen on RFC 193) guest hosts and performs at Third Eye Cabaret, with more music from local singer/songwriter Jody Herndon, Mark Bates, and The Company Stores.

At 10 PM, five bucks gets you in to witness Stanksgiving at The Empty Glass with Yetti Burps, The McGees, and Joey Smooth.

On this day we all give thanks to ROM

Also at 10 PM the music starts at Sam’s Uptown Cafe, with performances by Rick Perdue, Steve Clever, and Uncle Woody. The doors open at 6 PM and there’s no cover charge until 11:01 PM. If you get there early, it’s free.

PopCult will return with a brief treat on Thanksgiving Day, and our 2013 Popcult Gift Guide on Friday, along with more weekend Stuff To Do.

Life is like a box of cheese

It’s been just over a year since I last ventured into the choppy waters of the Cheesy Knockoff Toy Industry, and I have a fresh (mostly) batch of wonderfully cheesy imitations of hit toys, or candy, in one case.

Ghastly Girlfriends and Goth Girls

We started our last look at knockoffs with Midnight Magic, an imitation of Monster High fashion dolls that has actually thrived and expanded to the point where we’ll be covering them in depth in a week or two. Since we wanted something a bit cheesier, we found two new Monster High knockoffs that are not only cheap and cheesy…they’re practically the same doll.

Ghasty Girlfriends and Gothic Girl dolls are both found at Dollar General, both sell for three bucks each and both appear to be repurposed Bratz knockoffs, molded with pale skin. The main difference seems to be the packaging and the fact that the Ghastly Girlfriends seem to have way more hair, as you can see in the photo at the head of this post.

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Rowan Maher as “MARY”

This week we are devoting the RFC MINI SHOW to “MARY A Rock Opera,” Dan Kehde and Mark Scarpelli’s musical which has become a Charleston holiday institution. We bring you three songs from the show (our sixth year of covering “MARY”) just in time to whet your appetite for opening night, Friday, November 29.

Contemporary Youth Arts Company presents the 17th annual production of Charleston’s holiday classic. MARY tells the story of the nine months leading to the birth of Jesus, as seen through the eyes of the young girl who will become his mother. This show has become a beloved part of the holiday season by a generation of theater-goers.

The RFC crew recorded these three songs, “Spin and Grow,” “Hear Us O Lord,” and “Child, My Child” last week, before the set was finished or the full orchestra was available. It’s still a stunning work and we are happy to share it with you. Show dates and times can be found after the jump…

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This week’s Monday Morning Art is a digital painting I call “Searching.”  The model for the triple-stacked silhouette you see is non other than my imaginary daughter, Kitty Killton, in a pose I snapped at an edition of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-art School last spring. I wanted to draw a contrast between Kitty’s pose and one of my geometrical abstract backgrounds. Click to see the image larger.

I’ve never made a secret of the fact that my favorite superhero of all time is the original Captain Marvel, now sadly known as “Shazam” in the debacle that is DC Comics’ new universe.  But we still have the original comics, and there’s more.  Many folks fondly recall the campy, low-budget, but fun 1970s live-action Saturday Morning SHAZAM TV show, but not so many folks are aware that just a few years later, an animated cartoon was aired that was much more true to the comics, including the entire Marvel Family and characters like Dr. Sivana, Tawky Tawny the talking tiger and, in the segment seen above, Black Adam.

These cartoons were buried in an hour-long show with other non-related segments, and hardly anybody watched these hidden gems, some of which were the early work of Paul Dini, who went on to revolutionize comic book-based TV cartoons with Batman: The Animated Series, Superman and Justice League Unlimited.  The animation is not the best in the world, but it’s still cool to see the real Marvels in action.