Sometimes, an artist is influenced by various substances that he has ingested.
This week’s art is heavily influenced by the mind-expanding powers of Benadryl. With your PopCulteer feeling quite a bit under the weather, I had to resort to pharmaceuticals to try to feel better. The end result is that…I just felt like drawing a triceratops on an alien landscape.
If you wish, you can click this image to see it bigger.
Meanwhile, over in radio-land, Monday on The AIR, our Monday Marathon presents eight hours of Special Halloween radio dramas beginning at 7 AM. This is our preview of our big Halloween marathon programming blitz, which will begin in earnest next week. You might get a couple of hints about it this week, though. At 3 PM, we will pre-empt Prognosis for two hours of progressing rock songs based on the stories of Edgar Allen Poe.
You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…
We are less than two weeks away from the big day for candy, ghosts and goblins. The drunken weekend parties coming up next week, but there’s a chill in the air, and the mood is getting spooky.
Over the years this holiday has mutated from being a fun thing for children into a way to sell alcohol to arrested adolescents, but on those rare occasions when the local governments allow Trick or Treat to happen on the actual holiday, it somehow becomes pure again, at least for one day. It looks like that’s going to happen again this year.
Once again kids will get to Trick or Treat on the actual night of Halloween, and adults won’t go on a bender because they have to work the next day.
To get you in the spirit of the holiday, tonight and next week PopCult’s Sunday Evening Videos will look at a few of our own videos that celebrate the true meaning of Halloween.
First up, it’s a look at Ben Cooper Halloween costumes.
Next it’s a cool Halloween-themed game that we saw at Toy Fair.
Of course we have a short, stupid, Halloween cartoon for you.
And finally it’s a “best of” compilation of our early Halloween episodes of Radio Free Charleston.
We’re going back to an episode of The RFC MINI SHOW that debuted in January, 2014, but we used footage that we’d shot the previous May at The Empty Glass. It’s fun to remember back when I shot so much video each week that I had huge backlogs to dig into for use on The RFC MINI SHOW. Since my diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis in 2016, it seems like I only shoot as much live music video in a year as I used to in a week.
Crystal Bright and The Silver Hands had previously been featured on episode 185 of Radio Free Charleston. We actually had so much great material left over from that night, that we used two songs on this edition of the RFC MINI SHOW, and we had an additional tune left over for use on a later, full-length episode of Radio Free Charleston.
Crystal is a stunning multi-instrumentalist and musical anthroplogist who has traveled the globe teaching and learning music. Aided by The Silver Hands, she creates indescribable New Cabaret music that melds a world’s worth of influences into an exciting and cohesive new musical landscape. We were proud to bring her music to you on RFC. Be sure to check out her website and follow her on Facebook. Or at least check to see of those links still work after all this time.
Crystal and The Silver Hands were recorded for RFC in May, 2013, with an assist from Steven Allen Adams.
IWA East Coast returns Saturday Night with the second Woody Numbers Memorial Show.
Taking place at Kings Way Outreach Center in Nitro (the former Nitro High School), this show features All Elite Wrestling star, Shawn Spears (formerly WWE’s “Tye Dillinger”) against former NWA Junior Heavyweight champion, Jason Kincaid.
This is also the IWA East Coast 15th Anniversary show.Bell time is 7:30 PM, and you can buy tickets in advance HERE.
Other wrestlers and matches on the card include: IWA East Coast Heavyweight champion “The Reaper” Matt Conard defending against “Never Say Die” Josh Crane, straight off his tour of Big Japan Wrestling and his victory in the Strong Style tournament; IWA East Coast Tag Team champions The Rydas (“Omega” Aaron Draven and Juggulator) vs. Smokey X and Shane Kryzac; Kobain vs. Aaron Williams; International star Gregory Iron vs. Beastman; The Unholy Memorial Battle Royal for an IWA East Coast contract opportunity; Mad Man Pondo will be in action; General Manager Phil Stamper will be on hand, and more action is in the works.
Fans will also hear from Chance Prophet about his recovery from surgery.
Not only will this be a great way to celebrate fifteen years of IWA East Coast and pay tribute to the late Woody Numbers, but fans will also get to meet Shawn Spears in advance of the big AEW Dynamite broadcast, which happens at the Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center just eleven days later.
While we’re going on to talk about other wrestling news that doesn’t have anything to do with IWA EC, we’re still going to use illustrations from the IWA EC show, because they’re so damned cool.
More on Professional Wrestling
As I wrote a few weeks ago, this is an amazing time to be a fan of professional wrestling. WWE has attained a higher profile than ever with the move of Smackdown to the Fox broadcast network. For the first time in nearly two decades, WWE has some well-financed competition in the form of AEW on TNT. NXT, WWE’s developmental organization, has moved to the USA Network, and there are plenty of other cool things happening now too.
Impact Wrestling (formerly TNA) is moving to AXS TV on Tuesday nights, occupying the old timeslot where USA used to run Smackdown.
NWA, the National Wrestling Alliance, which has been around as a sanctioning body since 1948, is now owned by Billy Corgan (of Smashing Pumpkins fame) and has a weekly studio-based show that just started on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, with announcer Jim Cornette. It’s a lot of fun and harkens back to the fun of the pre-Hogan era of wrestling. You can see the latest episode right here…
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the debut of AEW Dynamite, and how it’s going head-to-head against NXT, and there has been a significant ratings shake-out since then.
Since its debut, Dynamite has tumbled a bit, losing over 400,000 viewers from week one to week three. NXT has lost about the same number of viewers from its competition-free debut, two weeks before AEW’s bow, but has only dropped about 180,000 viewers since its first week facing AEW directly.
It has been amusing watching the coverage of the ratings on the “Dirt Sheet” websites that follow wrestling closely. These are guys like Dave Meltzer, Wade Keller, Jason Powell and others who wake up every morning, and in five minutes forget more than I will ever know about professional wrestling. They are experts on the squared circle, and I would not pretend to know as much about the topic as they do.
However, they aren’t nearly as well-versed in the ways of analyzing TV ratings as I am. At the moment, they seem concerned with what looks like a pretty massive drop-off of almost a third of the viewers of AEW since its premiere.
They’re sort of missing the point. Several points, in fact. That first week, a sizable number of viewers were switching back and forth between AEW and NXT, and when that happens, those viewers can be counted as watching both shows. If you switch back and forth enough, and you have a Nielson box, you may be counted as watching both shows, plus one of them twice.
So those first-week numbers were a bit inflated, possibly by as much as ten percent. It would appear that, after flipping between the two shows the first week that they went head-to-head, viewers chose to watch one or the other all the way through because both shows are easily available to watch as replays or on demand (in the case of NXT just a day later). Plus both shows are good enough to watch from beginning to end.
The other problem is that the dirt sheets are looking at this as if the competition between AEW and NXT is happening in a vacuum. It is not. Both shows are competing against a strong night for network television, with The Masked Singer on Fox and the Chicago shows on NBC, plus they’re dealing with pre-season NBA, and new seasons of other cable programs that are building their ratings in the money demographics, like VH1’s Basketball Wives, FX’s American Horror Story and Comedy Central’s South Park.
The other X-factor at play is that, whenever something crazy happens in politics—which is pretty much a daily occurrence now—viewers flock to the news channels, so that FOX News, CNN and MSNBC eat up a larger proportion of the available viewing audience.
For fans who aren’t so die-hard that they need to see the programs live, they have learned that they can wait for the many replays of AEW Dynamite on TNT and Tru TV, while fans of NXT can see it the next day on the WWE Network on demand, which is how that brand’s long-time fans were used to watching it already.
While there seems to be some panic setting in among the “smart” fans, it’s really not that big a deal. If NXT manages to hold steady at about a third of what Smackdown used to draw on USA, the network will be happy because they’re paying considerably less for the rights fee for NXT, and it’s still delivering a better number in the key demographic than what USA was running in that timeslot previously. Likewise, TNT will be thrilled if AEW Dynamite settles in and delivers half the viewers that Monday Night RAW does for USA. So far it’s close to doing that. I have a feeling that both shows will start building their viewership once the non-wrestling competition subsides in a few weeks.
Another amusing observation is how, despite the best efforts of the folks in charge of the dirt sheets, AEW is still benefitting from a prolonged honeymoon period. The AEW Dynamite shows have been so fresh, new and exciting that the reporters covering them are willing to overlook or downplay things like screwy finishes, lapses in logic and botched spots for which they would crucify WWE. They’re also being very generous when it comes to AEW’s women’s division, which so far has not come within a mile of the quality of not only the women’s divisions in WWE and NXT, but also Impact and Ring of Honor. It’s a pretty glaring weakness and its the one place where AEW has plenty of room to improve.
There are other double-standards in the reporting as well. WWE was attacked soundly for moving NXT from the WWE Network and expanding it to two hours to go up against AEW Dynamite, even though NXT had been on Wednesday nights at 8 PM for several years. However, when the NWA announced that they’d be uploading their program to YouTube on Tuesdays, nobody batted an eye when AEW decided that Tuesdays would be a good time to upload AEW Dark, their YouTube-only show, which they conveniently started the same week as NWA Powerrr.
I think attacking either company for making a sound business move is silly, but the reactions do betray a double standard (and NWA doesn’t seem to mind because a lot of their YouTube traffic came from AEW’s show).
Then there’s the matter of how they cover the ratings. Yesterday, one of the up-and-coming dirt websites (Fightful Wrestling, who, to be fair, usually do much better than this) ran this headline, “AEW Dynamite Viewership Stays Above One Million; NXT Loses Almost 100,000 Viewers.” They opened their article with this, “With no direct competition from the MLB Playoffs, AEW Dynamite‘s viewership remained steady while NXT suffered the bigger loss in viewership.”
The problem with that is that, using that website’s own running tally of the numbers, we can see that NXT dropped from 790,000 viewers to 712,000 viewers, which is a decline of 78,000 viewers. It’s a bit of a stretch to say that’s “almost 100,000.” Using this site’s own numbers which took pains the week before to include the viewers of a simulcast on Tru TV, AEW Dynamite declined from 1.140 million viewers to 1.014 million. I hate to break this to their reporter, but that’s a decline of 126,000 viewers. You shouldn’t slant your coverage when there’s simple math involved.
I can understand why AEW is enjoying a honeymoon period. Wrestling fans and dirt sheet reporters have been starving for real competition in the industry for nearly two decades. People can’t be blamed for rooting for AEW to succeed, and from all indications, they will. However, they have a long way to go to challenge WWE directly, and I’m pretty sure the folks in charge know that.
AEW Dynamite will be a real treat for wrestling fans in Charleston on October 30, and it’ll make the city look great to a national audience. And fans can get a little preview Saturday at the IWA East Coast show.
And that is this week’s PopCulteer. Chec,k back for all our regular features and fresh content every day.
We dip our toe into the Halloween pool this week on The AIR ahead of going full-bore into the holiday celebration next week. We kicked things off yesterday with Beetlejuice The Musical, The Musical, The Musical on Curtain Call, and today we continue to drop in some spooky spice among our regular schedule. All you have to do to listen is tune in at the website, or listen right here on this very scary embedded radio player…
Thursday we’re coming at you with a Halloween episode of Radio Free Charleston Horror Theater International at 3PM. This was the audio debut of Count Rudolf, and the first time anyone has met his assistant, Igor. It’s two wild hours that are not to be missed. You can expect some scary radio drama mixed in with Halloween episodes of some of your favorite shows. We’ll be steeped in the Halloween spirit for the next two weeks.
Next week we’ll bring you new Halloween episodes of some of our regular programs, while also mixing in classic Halloween specials and all sorts of scary Halloween programming blocks.
Halloween has always been a big deal for Radio Free Charleston and The AIR, and we plan to treat you to some of our many tricks in the fortnight leading up to All Hallow’s Eve. Stay tuned in to PopCult and The AIR for more frights, fun and foibles.
To get your ready for the Halloween season Wednesday at 3 PM, Curtain Call presents highlights of the hit Broadway show, Beetlejuice The Musical, The Musical, The Musical on The AIR. You can listen at the website, or on this embedded radio player…
It’s showtime, on Curtain Call. Your host with the most, Mel Larch, observing that the Halloween season is upon us, celebrates by bringing you highlights of the Original Broadway Cast recording of Beetlejuice: The Musical, The Musical, The Musical. The show is based on Tim Burton’s classic 1988 film of the same name and features music & lyrics by Eddie Perfect, and book by Scott Brown and Anthony King.
The show premiered at the National Theater in Washington, DC in October, 2018 before opening on Broadway in April of 2019, where it has become wildly popular with audiences. It received a total of 8 Tony Award nominations, including Best Original Score, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Musical.
Wednesday at 3 PM you can re-live the classic “funny scary” movie in musical form with Adam Dannheisser, Leslie Kritzer, Rob McClure, Kerry Butler, Sophia Ann Caruso, Tony nominee Alex Brightman and the company of Beetlejuice: The Musical, The Musical, The Musical. This will be followed by a replay of the 2017 Halloween edition of Curtain Call at 4 PM as The AIR gears up for two weeks of special Halloween programming that kicks into high gear this weekend.
Curtain Call can be heard Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM and 8 PM, Friday at 10 AM and Saturday at 6 PM. An all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight, and an additional marathon can be heard Sunday evenings from 6 PM to midnight..
I mean, people get all riled up over his holiday anyway, so we’re going to give you a reason to get mad at the intrepid explorer. Your PopCulteer and his wife took advantage of her day off to abscond to exotic Morehead, Kentucky, to partake in some Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken and do some shopping, and since the weekend was spent working on a magazine article, there was no time to make any new radio for Tuesday.
Because of this, we have decided to, once again, dip into our treasure trove of spectacular reruns to bring you the best “classic” programs that we can Tuesday. You can still tune in at The AIR website, or on this embedded radio player…
Lucky for you, we have the best reruns in the world, and that includes four episodes of of Radio Free Charleston, from eariler this year. We also have classic editions of Psychedelic Shack and The Swing Shift later this afternoon. The idea is to get some new shows made for you in time for tomorrow.
This week our art is a possibly-too-cleverly-titled mixed media piece based on a stray photo from eight years ago.
The model is Penny Maple, and the photo dates back to a long ago Halloween edition of Dr. Sketchy’s (eight years ago this week, in fact), which was held at the former location of the Kanawha Player’s theater. Last week I hooked up a long-dormant hard drive and discovered a huge stash of images from that night. Having found these, “saved” as it were on an old drive inspired me to go back and see what I might find that could inspire new artworks. I’d already done one of my favorite pieces of art from this session, but this time I was going to try to just do a straight portrait, without the Halloweenish overtones.
I did a quick ballpoint-pen sketch while looking at the photo on the PC, then scanned it back into the computer and painted over it digitally, while changing Penny’s ghoul make-up to more, ah, non-ghoulish hues. I decided to play down the macabre theme. I hope Penny forgives me. The end result is a painting of a lovely lady, reclining with no zombie or ghoul overtones.
If you wish, you can click this image to see it bigger.
Meanwhile, over in radio-land, Monday on The AIR, our Monday Marathon presents eight hours of Special Halloween programming beginning at 7 AM. This is our preview of our big Halloween marathon programming blitz, which will begin in earnest next week. You might get a couple of hints about it this week, though. At 3 PM, we will re-present a Halloween episode of Prognosis, featuring two hours of music from the band, Goblin.
You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…
1978’s All You Need Is Cash, the NBC special that introduced America to The Rutles (sort of…they’d been on Saturday Night Live a year earlier), changed my life. Before seeing it, I was a comedy nerd who would automatically devour anything even remotely related to Monty Python.
The Rutles resonated so deeply with me that, the next weekend, I got a ride to Budget Tapes and Reocrds and found the soundtrack album (in the cut-out bin, for $2.99) and started listening to it incessantly. This parody of The Beatles was so brilliantly done that it made me want to learn everything I could about the source material.
And that’s how I became a fan of The Beatles. I’d grown up hearing The Beatles and watching the cartoons, and the design of Yellow Submarine had a huge influence on me as an artist, but it wasn’t until The Rutles awakened my passion for music that I got turned on to The Beatles, and then branched out to Progressive Rock, New Wave and more. It changed me from being a comedy nerd into being a music nerd (except that I’m still a comedy nerd, too).
The original documentary was sheer comic brilliance that succeeded largely due to the incredible work of Neil Innes, who created the music of the Rutles as such an amazing pastiche of The Beatles that it took the work of his collaborator, Eric Idle, to new heights.
Years later, in the wake of The Beatles Anthology, Innes got the idea to create a new album of Rutles music, using some leftover material from the original sessions (and “Beatle-izing some of his previously-published compositions to fend off any pesky copyright claims) and everything was going hunky-dory until Idle started making legal trouble and claiming full ownership of The Rutles. 1996 saw the release of The Rutles Archeology. With the threat of legal issues looming, Virgin records pulled their promotional support, dooming the album and killing any chance it had of succeeding.
As if that weren’t bad enough, Idle then proceeded to create what he called a “remake supplement” of the original documentary, without the participation of Innes or any of the other suviving band members, and using tons of outtakes from the original documentary.
At the time I was excited by the news of a new Rutles mockumentary because I was not privvy to the ugliness going on behind the scenes. I waited for more news of the new Rutles film, but never heard of it again until 2002, when to my shock, I discovered The Rutles 2: Can’t Buy Me Lunch on DVD at Kroger in a bin of remaindered titles for four bucks.
It was…a major disappointment. It’s not that it was bad, but it was just a re-tread of the original, in watered-down form. I remember at the time thinking that, rather than a stand-alone release, this would have been perfectly adequate as a DVD bonus for the original Rutles film. Surprisingly, it includes music from The Rutles Acheology, reportedly used without permission.
Since that time, Innes has toured a couple of times with various forms of surviving Rutles, and I think there’s even a new song or two floating around out there that I haven’t gotten my hands on yet. I don’t know if things between Idle and Innes are civil again or not. It’s a shame that Idle’s greed and ego torpedoes a friendship that had begun in the 1960s.
The irony is that The Rutles’ end turned out to be even messier and more acrimonious than The Beatles’.
Our video this week is the second Rutles movie. Treat it like bonus material on a DVD, and it’s not so bad.
This we we go back to the middle of January, 2014 for a black-and-white episode of The RFC MINI SHOW that presents the funky progressive jazz stylings of the Bob Thompson Unit. We recorded these Charleston Stalwarts in December, 2013 at The Boulevard Tavern for our Christmas show, and we had some video left over to build a MINI SHOW around.
You will hear Bob Thompson, Ryan Kennedy, Doug Payne, John Inghram and Tim Courts breathe life into “The Magic of Your Heart.” The performance (and the introduction) are in black and white, for no particular reason other than we thought it looked cool and jazzy.
Comments