Month: July 2017 (Page 4 of 5)

It’s Monday and, as usual, we have fine programming on our internet radio station, The AIR. You can listen at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

As I write this I am still waiting to find out if we’ll have a new episode of Prognosis from Herman Linte this week. Haversham Recording Institute in London, our production partner for several programs on The AIR,  has been swamped over the past few months providing stringer reporting services for news organizations around the world, and after the unfortunate events that they’ve had to report on, many of the staff announcers have gone on well-deserved holidays, so if we don’t have a new Prognosis tomorrow, there’s a good reason for it.

Check out the rest of Monday’s schedule on The AIR on this handy graphic…

Every Monday in July, the artistic start to PopCult’s week will be a new version of one of the 600 or so pieces of digital art that I’ve created for this blog over the last dozen years. What happened was that I found a stash of old images, and decided to revisit them, adding minor or major twists along the way.

Today we’re going back nearly a dozen years to one of the earliest pieces of my art that was posted here in PopCult. This was even before I picked Monday as my regular artistic dumping ground. Above you see “Virginia Street.” Originally a digitally-assaulted photograph, it has been redone as a fully-painted abstract impressionist glance Eastward on Virginia Street from the intersection with Capitol Street, circa 2005. I kept the odd color palette of the original, but painted over it all digitally, to get rid of the jagged artifacts and other unpleasing aspects. As always, click the dang thang to see it bigger.

Wanna feel old?

Beloved Canadian comedy troupe, The Kids In The Hall, made their debut with a one-hour special 29 years ago on HBO in the US and on The GBG in Canada. Twenty-two and a half years ago, the final episode of their long-running series aired on CBS.

Dave Foley, Scott Thompson, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinny and Kevin McDonald have since made the movie, Brain Candy, toured a few times, guest-starred in each other’s projects and even reunited for an eight-part mini-series, “Death Comes To Town” in 2010.

The KITH comedy still stands up, and you can see for yourself on the streaming service, SeeSo, which has every episode of the show, as well as other comedy classics like Bottom, Black Adder, Monty Python and even the podcast, My Brother, My Brother and Me.

Or you can just be cheap and watch these clips. Many of these are updated with interviews that were done for The Nerdist. You’ll also see the banned “Dr. Suess Bible” sketch.

More after the jump.

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The RFC Flashback continues our chronological presentation of classic episodes of the long-running local music show. Hopefully this will hold you over while your PopCulteer works toward producing new episodes for you.

This classic from January 2009 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.

Our live music was recorded at The Blue Parrot and at Sam’s Uptown Cafe, both Capitol Street institutions that are still open today. Lonely Town was a band that counted Mark 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.

It’s another weekend in Charleston and the surrounding areas with an abundance of cool things in which you may indulge. As always, your lazy PopCulteer is only posting those events for which there were handy graphics. investigage further and you’ll find that there’s even more going on than this.

Friday

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The PopCulteer
July 7 , 2017

We are just past the mid-point of 2017, and it’s time to take a look at the state of pop culture.

In times of political crisis, the need for escape grows, and escapism fuels a large part of the engine that drives pop culture in the mainstream. Our country is currently in the midst of the worst political crisis since Watergate, and as a result, there is a lot of impressive pop culture stirring up to take our minds off of it.

Nostalgia has been a strong component of pop culture for decades, and we are now entering a cycle where more iconic pop culture properties are moving into the realm of nostalgic button-pushing. Along with evergreens from the past, like Star Trek, The Beatles, Batman, Star Wars and Back To The Future, we are now seeing second-generation fans of Harry Potter, Pokemon and the revival of Doctor Who.

PopCult can certainly plead guilty to wallowing in nostalgia on a pretty regular basis. What would this blog be without posts about Jack Kirby, The (real) Batmobile, The Beatles, Star Trek and other icons of my youth?

Nostalgia is such a strong component because properties like these have a timeless quality that propels them to much longer lifespans than mere fads. In the 1960s it was inconceivable that people would still be talking about Star Trek, Sgt. Pepper or Adam West fifty years later. Now, for those of us old enough to have the benefit of such hindsight, it’s easy to imagine the year 2067 being dominated by memories of Pokemon, Harry Potter, The Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Walking Dead and Wonder Woman.

There’s also no reason to suspect that streaming television series like House of Cards, The Tick or GLOW won’t become beloved and iconic parts of TV history.

I do fear that Hollywood has become so conservative when it comes to trying new ideas that the malaise of their current offerings may see the current era consigned to history as a time when major motion pictures were mainly a vehicle to trot out already-proven ideas. A look at the top twenty movies of 2017 so far shows only four that aren’t sequels, remakes or reboots of existing properties. Get Out, at number seven, is the highest-grossing original concept.

My observations of the music scene are probably colored by my generational bias. I probably purchase more music than the average person half my age, but except for local music, I hardly listen to any music made by anyone younger than I am. I try listening to current hit songs and they sound like formulaic, over-produced, vapid noise to me. I understand that, when I was young and into all the then-new bands, people who were my age then said the same thing about what I listened to.

Of the current “superstar” recording artists, the only one I can see producing music on the level of the “superstars” of my youth is Lady Gaga. I can see her going on to have a long Bowie-esque career in terms of sales and influence. I can’t see anyone else among today’s hitmakers having any kind of lasting power. I also fully realize that I could be completely wrong about that, but chances are I won’t live long enough to have to admit it.

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Thursday, as I have told you before, is the day of the week where we drop a new Radio Free Charleston International on an unsuspecting public at 3 PM on The AIR. This week is no different in that regard. Tune in at the website, or on this swell embedded radio player…

This week we celebrated our country’s independence, and on RFC International we celebrate your PopCulteer’s independence, as he plays any music that he damn well pleases.

After a morning and afternoon filled with great new music plus special replays of Curtain Call, Ska Madness and Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, we drop a megaton bomb of  music on Radio Free Charleston International at 3 PM with yet another show that harkens back to the glory days of free-format radio.

Listeners will get to hear fantastic music, much of it brand-new, from Arcade Fire, Fallout Boy, Regina Spektor, Cheap Trick, The Tubes, Styx, plus a ton of new artists like Trever Sensor, Toads of the Short Forest and Zalza . It’s another of our trademark chop-logic episodes that shouldn’t work, but on RFC International, we somehow find a way to make it all flow into a cohesive musical experience. Look for the playlist after the jump.

You can hear Radio Free Charleston International on The AIR Thursday at 3 PM, with replays Friday at 9 AM and 10 PM, Saturday at 11 AM and Sunday at 1 AM and 10 PM.

Preceding RFC International on Thursday,you can listen to local music on  Radio Free Charleston at 2 PM, with another recent episode of our local music showcase at 5 PM. Then it’s The New Music Show at 6 PM , and The Crazy Show at 6:30 PM. In prime-time, it’s this week’s episodes of The Swing Shift and Curtain Call, followed at 10 PM by Live From The Empty Glass (this week featuring Travis Stephens and Matt McGuire). All night long after that, it’s a marathon of The Swing Shift.

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It’s a Hump Day after a Tuesday holiday and that always creates a weird feeling, so since you already feel weird you might as well listen to The AIR. Thousands of people worldwide are tuning in and you can here why at the website, or on this nifty embedded radio machine doohickey…

To be honest, your PopCulteer and his wife sort of slacked off for the Independence Day holiday, so there are no new epsodes of Curtain Call or Beatles Blast today, but we do have great encore presentations of those programs for you.

We will have a new episode of Life Speaks To Michele Zirkle Marcum at 1:30 PM and 7 PM, but we can’t tell you what it’s about. As I write this, we are awaiting delivery of that episode from a monastery in South Carolina. The show will be online in time for you to hear it this afternoon.

We also have part two of Journey To The Center of the Earth at 5 PM on The AIR Audio Playhouse, and you can listen to part one this morning at 11 AM. Our evening schedule sees replays of Monday’s new episodes of Prognosis and Marking Out.

Tune in and see what may soon become a money-making endeavor, The AIR!

Wednesday, July 5 On The AIR

9:00 AM            The AIR Music Mix
11:00  AM          Journey To The Center Of The Earth part one
12:00 Noon       Curtain Call
1:00 PM            On The Road With Mel
1:30 PM            Life Speaks (NEW)
2:00 PM            Beatles Blast
3:00 PM            Curtain Call
5:00 PM            Journey To The Center Of The Earth part two (NEW)
6:00 PM            New Music Show (NEW)
6:30 PM            The Crazy Show
7:00 PM            Life Speaks (NEW)
7:30 PM            Word Association with Lee and Rudy (Lemmy)
8:00 PM            Prognosis (NEW)
10:00 PM          Marking Out (NEW)
11:00 PM           The Comedy Vault
12:00 Mid.        Radio Coolsville All Night Long

Since today is the Fourth of July, and this year in particular, it’s really, really, really hard to muster any untainted patriotic feelings, we’re going to look to Captain America and Wonder Woman, two star-spangled superheroes, for inspiration.

Unfortunately, since Captain America is owned by Marvel/Disney and Wonder Woman is owned by DC/Warners, there aren’t many real comic books featuring both of them together. So instead, we’re swiping an image from the very clever Super Team Family blog, which features “The Greatest Team-Ups That Never Happened…But Should Have!” Every day this blog posts a cool mash-up cover featuring two or more comic book characters from different companies, teamed together. It’s loads of fun and any comic book geek worth his salt should be a regular visitor.  This image, with a bonus appearance from Lady Liberty is from May, 2016.

Happy Fourth, folks.

The obscure, but excellent band, Refugee is the star of this week’s brand-new episode of Herman Linte’s Prognosis, and Tuesday sees an RFC Marathon to celebrate Independence Day. On both days we have fine programming on our internet radio station, The AIR. You can listen at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

Monday at 3 PM Prognosis takes in a Refugee as presenter, Herman Linte, brings you the entire recorded output of this band that combined Lee Jackson and Brian Davison, who had been left behind in The Nice after Keith Emerson left to form ELP, with former Mainhorse keyboardist, Patrick Moraz, who would go on to more fame with YES and The Moody Blues. You’ll hear the band’s sole studio album, plus a live concert from 1975.

Following that, at 5 PM, you can join Matt BelVillain and Betty Rock on Marking Out as they discuss the previous week in professional wrestling. You can catch up on all the grappling shenanigans just in time to fully understand everything that will happen tonight on RAW.

The rest of Monday Evening is our usual mix of The New Music Show, The (BS) Crazy Show and our Monday slate of talk shows.  At midnight you can Swing All Night because a scheduling error meant that our Sunday night Swing marathon was replaced by New Wave Music. Sorry about that.

Tuesday, beginning at 9 AM, it’s a 24-hour marathon that mixes Radio Free Charleston with Radio Free Charleston International. Celebrate the true meaning of freedom as your PopCulteer slacks off for the day. New episodes of Radio Free Charleston start next week.