Rudy Panucci On Pop Culture

Month: May 2015 (Page 2 of 4)

RFC Flashback: Episode 25

This week we take you back to the summer of 2007 with episode 25, which brings you music from The Amazing Delores and Joe Slack, plus we have scenes from Frank Panucci’s “Repurkussionz,” “Brokeback Coalmine,” a re-working/butchering of a short film by Danny Boyd and Steve Gilliland and part of Melanie Larch’s coverage of FestivALL 2007. From August of that year. Production notes are HERE.

A Rebuttal, and More…

Audience-Exodus-002The PopCulteer
May 22, 2015

Sometimes you have to be the person to point out that the emperor has no clothes.

It’s been almost two weeks since the infamous Courtney Forbes “Don’t Settle, Charleston” editorial. I’ve been trying to decide the best way, or if I even wanted, to craft a response to Courtney’s piece. On my Facebook newsfeed, reaction to Courtney’s piece ranged from about a quarter of the people who felt that it was dead-on, while the remainder thought it was outrageous hogwash. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure initially that her piece needed a rebuttal. The need to answer Courtney built up in me over a few days.

My gut reaction was to respond with a goofy Lewis Black-style rant. Then I thought a cool, calm, reasoned approach might be best. After having considered the issue and listened to Courtney’s appearance on The Front Porch podcast from WV Public Broadcasting, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best response will be to alternate between the two approaches. After all, her original editorial seemed like two unrelated essays spliced together, so a similar approach might work for me.

The reason I feel the need to respond is that Courtney has managed to parlay her editorial into some measure of local minor celebrity with appearances on local podcasts and her name on the lips of people who talk about such things. People are heaping praise on her for her editorial. I don’t want to burst her bubble here, but I think most of that praise is undeserved. Her “conversation starter” didn’t really start the conversation that she thinks it did.

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A Tepid “Celebration” of Captain Marvel

The PopCult Bookshelf

51dwIIXW19LShazam!: A Celebration of 75 Years
Various writers and artists
DC Comics
ISBN-13: 978-1401255381
$39.99

The original Captain Marvel is my favorite superhero. He has been since I stumbled into an obscure newsstand on Chestnut Street in South Charleston in 1973 and found a giant comic book that reprinted some of his best stories. I became an avid fan. I eagerly watched the Saturday morning show when it debuted on CBS the next year, and I bought up every comic book and reprint collection and even books that just had essays about The Big Red Cheese (as his enemies called him). It’s a little sad to realize that this book only exists because DC Comics felt that it was the least they could do to observe the character’s 75th anniversary. It seems that they were intent on doing so as “least” as possible.

The story behind Captain Marvel’s publishing history is unique. Created by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck for Fawcett in the superhero boom that followed the creation of Supermanm Captain Marvel went on to become the best-selling superhero of all time, at one point selling several million copies every three weeks. The fact that his book was outselling Superman’s led to a lawsuit from Superman’s publisher, National Periodical Publications.

As the case slogged through the courts for years and the litigation proved to be more costly than Fawcett wanted, they settled the case and ceased publishing Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family books in late 1953. In just under fourteen years, Fawcett had published hundreds of the greatest superhero comics of all time. Now they agreed never to publish the good Captain again without the permission of National Periodical Pubications.

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Come Back, Johnny (West)

The PopCult Toybox

Johnny shoots up the State Capitol. Photo by Mark Wolfe

Johnny shoots up the State Capitol. Photo by Mark Wolfe

It’s time to mark a Golden Anniversary.

In 1965 The Louis Marx Toy Company introduced Johnny West to the world. Johnny was a 12-inch tall posable action figure who was a Cowboy. He was the first fully-articulated large-scale action figure that Marx made, predated a few months by Stony Smith, a soldier, and Daniel Boone. Neither of those first two figures were articulated below the shoulders, though.

Johnny was an instant star and inspired Marx to create a full line of Western-themed action figures as well as other large figures of spies, knights and vikings. Johnny West lasted ten years in the toy marketplace and may have lasted longer had the Marx Toy Company not changed hands and suffered a series of inept management regimes.

Johnny West gets a 50th Anniversary figure

Johnny West gets a 50th Anniversary figure

The creation of Johnny West was a response to the smash success that Hasbro achieved in 1964 with GI Joe. Rather than copy GI Joe outright, Marx decided to test the waters with what were essentially larger, more detailed versions of their classic green Army men style playset figures. After the first two releases, more-articulation was added and Marx hit upon a successful format.

Borrowing the name from an earlier small-scale playset, Johnny West was introduced as a Cowboy Everyman. He shared his headsculpt with Stony Smith, the soldier (though this is still debated in some quarters) and he had a Native American pal, Chief Cherokee. The figures sold so well that within a couple of years Johnny had a wife, Jane, and four kids, Jay, Jamie, Josie and Janice. There were also tons of horses, a couple of dogs, The Fort Apache Fighters, General Custer and a couple of not-so-friendly natives added by the end of 1968.

It’s worth noting that after a short time, Marx pulled out of the military action figure game. Stony Smith was given better articulation so he could ride in a Jeep, but even after evolving into the more GI Joe-like “Buddy Charlie,” sales didn’t justify production. Hasbro and GI Joe handled the military end of things, Johnny West and friends covered the wild West. Nobody knows if it just worked out that way, or if there was some kind of secret golf course handshake deal between Louis Marx and Merrill Hassenfeld.

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Pere Ubu And Local Greats on RFC’s Streaming Show at New Appalachian Radio

Pere UbuRFCv3 #27

This week’s streaming Radio Free Charleston on New Appalachian Radio is a celebration of the mind-hurting weirdness that is the trademark of our video program. As we get a little weirder, the show will also become just a little more like the original RFC radio show. Time opened up in our schedule and we were finally able to create new stuff for the show.

Each Week you can listen to Radio Free Charleston’s 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 midnight.

NAR log 015Starting this week the liners and stingers for the show will be just a little more bizarre, and to mark this, the theme of our second hour is an hour of music from one of the Akron area’s finest musical oddities.

It’s not DEVO. We’re saving them for later. This week Radio Free Charleston brings you an hour of Pere Ubu, featuring David Thomas, who is not to be confused with any of the other Dave Thomases floating around out there.

Before we get there, though. We have a killer hour of great local and regional music for you, starting with two songs from J Marinelli’s killer new album, Stop Paying Attention.

J Marinelli “Stop Paying Attention”
J Marinelli “Saturn of Clarksburg”
Dina Hornbaker “At Bay”
Brian Young “Swingin’ Man”

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Whistlepunk on The RFC MINI SHOW

Image2Nine years ago this week four guys gathered together in a very cool fifth-floor makeshift television studio to make obscure local music history. I was one of them. The other three were Brian Young, Dan Jordan and Spencer Elliott, the band known as Whistlepunk.

It all started with a phone call. Out of the blue, Brian called me in February, 2006. We hadn’t talked in years. There was no falling out. We simply had life happen and lost touch. Brian had a daughter. I’d spent over eight years taking care of my bedridden mother. A few months earlier I’d begun writing the PopCult blog, which put my name back in circulation.

Brian had taken a rehearsal space in the Quarrier Building and turned it into a recording studio that was prime for the addition of video cameras. I was able to get away and meet with Brian and check out the space, and we cooked up the idea of reviving my old radio show, Radio Free Charleston,  as a video show that would be part of The Gazz. Doug Imbrogno was happy at the prospect of having some regular video content for GazzTV, so we started making plans.

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Monday Morning Art: Lavender Menace

GNO 022a

This coming Sunday sees a special Roller Derby session of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, the cutting-edge life-drawing class. The location is DigiSo (AKA WVSU EDC) and the model is Lavender Menace. That is Ms. Menace above, in a newly-painted detail from “Ghouls Night Out,” a painting I did based on a Halloween edition of Dr. Sketchy’s a few years ago.

This event starts at 6 PM and runs about three hours. It’s bring your own art supplies and beverages. Admission is ten dollars. It’s always a blast and sometimes things get a little crazy, as in the previous Roller Derby session four years ago.

Click to enlarge, and check PopCult later Monday for a very special RFC MINI SHOW starring Whistlepunk.

 

Sunday Evening Videos: Spencer Elliott

Last year I raved about Spencer Elliott‘s fingerstyle guitar album, “Some Forgotten Color.” Since that time, Spencer has re-recorded the CD with internationally-respected guitarist Antoine DuFuor in the producer’s chair, and it’s been released with a bonus track on CandyRat Records, who are bringing Spencer’s music to a world-wide audience.

One of the ways that they’re doing this is with music videos. Back in 2013 Spencer called me in to shoot a video in my trademark guerilla-filmmaking style, and I’d like to think that “First Flight” played a tiny part in launching Spencer on this new musical journey.  You can see “First Flight in RFC 195. However, now Spencer is releasing videos shot on professional equipment with a budget and actual lighting and wardrobe, and they look and sound fantastic.

Tonight we bring you three of Spencer’s videos for CandyRat Records. Up top you’ll find “Ellipsos.” In the middle it’s “Insignificant.” Wrapping it all up below we have “The Battle of Wonderland.”

One extra reason that we’re posting these videos now is that we have a special RFC MINI SHOW coming up Monday. You see, nine years ago this week we held the very first recording session for Radio Free Charleston at LiveMix Studio.

The band was Whistlepunk, which consisted of Spencer Elliott, Dan Jordan and Brian Young. We are going to re-present the two songs recorded in that session. This is a completely different musical side of Spencer, and you’ll get to read more about it tomorrow. But for now, listen to this incredible guitar playing.

RFC Flashback: Episode 27

rfc27montageFrom September, 2007, comes RFC 27 “Trust Me I’m A Doctor Shirt.” Highlighted by music from Comparsa, Doctor Senator and Stephanie Deskins, this show also features animation by Stephen Beckner and a creepy toy commercial.

This was one of our earliest shows where we expanded from two bands to three, and tried to mix things up a bit.  Comparsa was recorded at The LaBelle Theater in South Charleston. We captured Doctor Senator at the late, lamented Sound Factory, and Stephanie performed for us at LiveMix Studio.

Our host segments were shot on the Southside Bridge, which was extremely loud, in case you were wondering why we never went back there. You can read the original production notes HERE.

Dave’s Not Here Much Longer

David_LettermanThe PopCulteer
May 15, 2015

Next week is the final week for David Letterman’s talk show. A lot has been written and will be written, and it is the end of an era. But a lot of folks miss the point when they criticize his show.

Letterman is credited with breathing new life into a moribund format, the late-night talk show. Johnny Carson was the king of late-night, and he was so good that he could just phone it in. And he often did. Carson’s show had become so predictable that Michael O’Donoghue wrote a vicious parody of his monlogues for The National Lampoon in 1973, and Carson kept doing the same stale shtick for nearly twenty more years.

Letterman in his early days

Letterman in his early days

When Letterman first popped up with his daytime talk show in 1980 it was a breath of fresh air, but the host’s inexperience was showing. When that show ended after a brief run and then later Letterman turned up in the post-Carson slot, he had polished his act considerably and brought a new vitality to the format. Harkening back to the earlier days of late-night television, Letterman did more comedy bits with recurring characters and conceptual humor.

By the mid-1980s Letterman was hitting on all cylindars and was hosting his dream show (except for the timeslot, but that’s another story).

And this is where I find fault with most of the tributes to Letterman. They all talk of how innovative he was, and how he stopped innovating after a while.

Of course he did. How many times can we expect one guy to reinvent the wheel? Jay Leno patterned his Tonight Show on Letterman’s program, not the show Johnny Carson hosted. Conan O’Brien essentially does his take on Letterman’s show, as do Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Myers. They’ve added their own takes to it, but they’re basically just doing updated versions of the show David Letterman’s been doing since the 1980s. Continue reading

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