Month: February 2015 (Page 3 of 4)

The PopCulteer
February 13, 2015

It was bound to happen. Your PopCulteer is gearing up for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to cover The International Toy Fair in New York City, and right before it’s time to leave, he gets hit with a nasty cold/sinus infection. This is not the same ailment that waylaid me last week. That was stomach-related and only lasted a bit more than a day. This is throbbing, pounding head and sneezes that break glass, and it’s on day three as I write this, about forty-eight hours before we board the Amtrak to NYC.

I’m going anyway, but this has slowed me down a bit. I’m trying to get ahead on things so that my loyal readers don’t have to go without their daily PopCult fix. I’m trying to get ahead on all my regular features before it’s time to hit the road.

Unfortunately, that means that the really cool, long interview that I was planning to run today–a perfect topic for Friday the 13th–will be delayed a week or two so that I can give it the proper attention. However, all our regular features should be in place while I’m away. It’s just that today’s PopCulteer might seem a bit skimpy. But, as they say, on with the show!

The RFC MINI SHOW

We had a killer episode of The RFC MINI SHOW posted earlier this week. Starring in it was The Company Stores, one of the hottest new bands in town. So far not a lot of people have watched this. It’s been nearly two months since Radio Free Charleston has been mentioned in the print version of The Gazz, and I’ve had people ask me if I’m still doing the show since they don’t see it in the paper anymore.

I’m still cranking out Radio Free Charleston and The RFC MINI SHOW, taking off only one week for Christmas. Hopefully The Gazette will find it in their hearts to acknowledge us in print again someday.

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The PopCult Bookshelf

This week, since your PopCulteer is knee-deep in planning his coverage of The International Toy Fair in New York next week, there has been scant time for reading. So instead of reviewing books, we’re going to preview five pop culture books and graphic novels that aren’t out yet. Some of them are available for pre-order at Amazon, or you can put in a request at your local bookstore and keep the money local.

Trees Volume 1
Warren Ellis and Jason Howard
Image Comics
ISBN-13: 978-1632152701
$14.99
Due out February 24

Ten years after they landed. All over the world. And they did nothing, standing on the surface of the Earth like trees, exerting their silent pressure on the world, as if there were no-one here and nothing under foot.

Ten years since we learned that there is intelligent life in the universe, but that they did not recognize us as intelligent or alive.

Trees, a new science fiction graphic novel by Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, Red) and Jason Howard (Super Dinoasaur, Astounding Wolf-Man) looks at a near-future world where life goes on in the shadows of the Trees: in China, where a young painter arrives in the “special cultural zone” of a city under a Tree; in Italy, where a young woman under the menacing protection of a fascist gang meets an old man who wants to teach her terrible skills; and in Svalbard, where a research team is discovering, by accident, that the Trees may not be dormant after all, and the awful threat they truly represent.

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The PopCult Toybox

Next week your PopCulteer is going to The International Toy Fair in New York City to report on all the cool toys that you can expect in the future. This week we are looking back forty-five years, to five (mostly) colorful toy ads that ran in DC Comics. We will return with a realp column about Toy Fair on Saturday.

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Farnsworth comes to the rescue!

RFCv3 #14

It is week fourteen of Radio Free Charleston at New Appalachian Radio. We open this week’s show with an apology. Last week I told you that the theme of our second-hour would be songs from the 1990 “First Step” sampler that was compiled by Rock 105. Unfortunately, my copy is on cassette, and I discovered that my cassette deck, which dates back to the days of the original Radio Free Charleston show, no longer wants to work. A replacement is on the way, but in the meantime I needed a theme.

A terrific theme fell into my lap. Episode 207 of Radio Free Charleston, our video companion program that debuted online last week, featured two songs by the band Farnsworth. While I only had two songs on video, recorded last April at the Empty Glass, I had the audio for their entire set that night–nine songs in all. So our second hour theme this week is Farnsworth live, with a couple of bonus cuts.

You can hear this episode now in the Voices of Appalachia Archives HERE.

You can listen to Radio Free Charleston’s  fun and exciting streaming radio incarnation at 10 AM and 10 PM on Tuesdays (and again at midnight Thursday) at New Appalachian Radio, part of Voices of Appalachia. If you miss it, check our the archives for previously-aired shows. You can also listen to Radio Free Charleston Saturday at Midnight. Saturday, RFC airs for six hours, starting at The Witching Hour!

We kick off the show with “Longer,” a song from Todd Burge’s forthcoming album, “Imitation Life.” I’m making special mention of it here because I totally blanked on the album title while recording the show. We also feature a song from The Company Stores, who star in this week’s RFC MINI SHOW, and we bring you music from Astromoth, Bud Carroll and Scarlet Hill. There’s lots of other great music in this week’s show, so be sure to tune in and listen.

Todd Burge “Longer”
The Nanker Phelge “I’m Coming Home”
Kevin Scarbrough “Divorce”
John Radcliff “It Might Work Out”

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This week The RFC MINI SHOW brings you The Company Stores, recorded last June in Davis Park during FestivALL. The Company Stores are Casey Litz, Matthew Marks, John Query, Joe Cevallos and Grant Jacobs and they deliver an amazing and unique sound that blends so many influences, from Soul to Rock to Progressive, Alternative and more that it’s hard to describe them.

They describe themselves thusly, “The Company Stores is a Hill Hop band from Charleston, WV, that smoothly blends elements of many genres of southern music. They pull inspiration from styles such as Delta blues, Appalachian folk, gospel, jazz, and other Americana music, then layer in their own modern styles and rhythms. Vocalist Casey Litz’s sultry and soulful voice captivates the audience, while the band lays down danceable grooves between dynamic builds.”

You can listen for yourself in this week’s RFC MINI SHOW, which presents the band performing an original song and a cover tune that they make all their own.

It’s been about seven years since I did a digital painting based on the railroad tracks near my house, so here’s a new one. As always, click to enlarge the image.

Check PopCult later Monday for The RFC MINI SHOW starring The Company Stores. Tuesday you can read all about this week’s streaming radio edition of Radio Free Charleston, with the second hour devoted to Farnsworth, recorded live at The Empty Glass and Budget Tapes and Records.

Crash - Live at Trackside from brainwrap on Vimeo.

Live At Trackside, the video music show made at Bud Carroll‘s Trackside Studio has returned with a new installment featuring “The mysterious, bearded, and angelically voiced Crash.” Check out the show, visit their Tumblr and like their Facebook page! Welcome back, guys!

The PopCult Toybox

Your PopCulteer is just back from the Classic Plastics Toy & Comic Expo in Parkersburg (we wrote about it HERE so you shoulda already known about it), and we thought it’d be cool to bring you a photo essay. It was great show at the Parkersburg Arts Center (on the bright and spacey third floor) and they had a great assortment of vendors, cosplayers, special guests and surprises.

There were comic book and toy dealers from all over the region and more than a few artists and creators. Plus the filmmakers behind The Axeman of Henderson County were on hand to sign autographs and answer questions following a screening of their movie.

We had a blast, even though we didn’t spend too much money (JoeLanta is coming up, and we need to practice restraint now if we want to splurge then). It was geat seeing old friends like Jeremy Ambler, Ghostbusters-West Virginia Division and the folks from Hillbilly Toy Chest. Kudos to Classic Plastic for putting on a great show. We hope to attend many more in the future. Check out the photos.

Manga and Comics tables

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The fifty-eighth edition of Radio Free Charleston is back online now!

This episode featured music from Lonely Town and Marcie Bullock, icy animation from Frank Panucci and a quick look at the CYAC production of “Lincoln” an original opera, that opened the week after this show debuted in January, 2009.

Our live music was recorded at The Blue Parrot and at Sam’s Uptown Cafe, both Capitol Street institutions. Lonely Town was a band that counted Mark Cline Bates, Jonathan Glen Wood, Aaron Fisher, Frank Miller and Bill Dean among their ranks. It was a veritable supergroup.

You can read the original production notes HERE.

Almost nine years ago I wrote about how Radio Shack had devolved from being a mecca for techies into a rather pathetic cell-phone store. I lamented how I missed the old Radio Shack and didn’t see how they could stay in business. Yesterday Radio Shack made it official. They declared bankruptcy and sold many  of their stores to Sprint, who will operate them as…cell phone stores.

The remaining stores, around 1,600 of them, will close. Going out of business sales began a couple of weeks ago at the locations in The Charleston Town Center and in Nitro Marketplace, but the reasons weren’t made clear until yesterday. CNN and Forbes both report that the Radio Shack name will continue, but Radio Shack themselves won’t own any of the stores. Sprint will take on 1,750 stores and convert a third of the space in each store into Sprint “stores within a store.”  It’s likely that without this deal, Radio Shack would cease to exist. A few hundred stores will exist outside of the Sprint umbrella, but it’s not clear how those stores will operate.

While this new reorganization will keep the company’s name around, it does not solve the problem that sank Radio Shack (and Circuit City and many other chain stores that have fallen by the wayside). That problem is a misguided corporate philosophy that cuts costs by eliminating experienced and knowledgeable salespeople and slashing inventory. People go to stores to buy things, and sometimes they need help choosing what to buy. Selling fewer things and getting rid of sales staff who might actually sell something is not cutting costs–it’s cutting your revenue stream.