Month: August 2020 (Page 4 of 4)

Tuesday on The AIR it’s ALL NEW as we deliver brand-new episodes of Radio Free Charleston, NOISE BRIGADE and The Swing Shift.  In order to hear these bright, shiny new gems, you simply have to move your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to this excitable little embedded radio player…

We have yet a new Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.  And when we say “NEW,” we mean it. Every song in this three-hour epic was released in 202, even the mystery bonus track at the end. We mix in some new local music, but we also have newly-released tracks from The Aquabats, The Rolling Stones, Blancmange, Pretenders, John Foxx, Miles Davis, Psychedelic Furs and many more.

Check out the playlist to see all the brand-new goodies we bring you this week…

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The Aquabats “Aliens and Monsters”
The Rolling Stones w/Jimmy Page “Scarlet”
Jay Parade “Hearts and Minds”
The Light In The Ocean “Hamilton Big Boys”
Battleship Battleship “Ad Hominem”
Pretenders “Hate For Sale”
Psychedelic Furs “Ash Wednesday”
John Foxx and the Maths “Howl”
Release Early, Release Often “A Sarasota Maybe”
David Synn “Poseidon”
Bush “Blood River”
Jerks! “Our Ex”
My Morning Jacket “Wasted”

hour two
Mark Beckner Group “With The Scientific Curiosity of Ghouls”
PJ Harvey “Happy and Bleeding (demo)”
Rel X “Whatever It Is”
The Dead Daisies “Fortunate Son”
The Dollyrots “Make Me Hot”
Magic Bus “Easy Om”
Scarlet Moon “Fifth Dimension”
Miles Davis “Funky Tonk”
Telergy “Georgia”

hour three
The Aquabats “Bed Head”
You Suck Flying Circus “Clean Head”
Rick Wakeman “The North Plain”
Dennis DeYoung “A Kingdom Ablaze”
Residents “She Called Me Doggy”
PRVIS “Dead Weight”
Seth Allen Holmes “Jupiter Girl”
Kansas “Throwing Mountains”
Yello “Wabu Duba”
The Molly Ringwalds “Head Over Heels”
Blancmange “Diagram”
Lady Gaga “Free Woman”
The Fratellis “Lay Your Body Down”

Radio Free Charleston can be heard Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM, with replays Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 9 AM and 7 PM, Saturday at 11 AM and Midnight, Sunday at 1 PM and the next Monday at 8 PM, exclusively on The AIR.

At 1 PM we bring you an encore of last week’s “Stars Go Clubbing” episode of MIRRORBALL that you can read about HERE.

At 2 PM Steven Allen Adams graces us with a new edition of NOISE BRIGADE that’s opens with a mini-tribute to the golden girls of punk, The Go-Gos. Check out the playlist to see what Steve’s got up his sleeves…

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The Go-Go’s “Fashion Seekers”
The Go-Go’s “Living at the Canterbury/Party Pose
The Specials “Do the Dog”
Bite Me Bambi “Song 2 (Blur Cover)”
The Aquabats “Karate Body!”
Mad Caddies “New Song (Sublime Cover)”
NOFX “Substitute”
The Holophonics “Spinning Wheel (Cover)”
Masked Intruder “Marry Me”
MxPx “My Life Story (LIQ Edition)
Jay Parade “August”
MxPx “Fever Dream”
The Raging Nathans “Where Ya Been?”
Masked Intruder “If You Would Hold My Hand”
The Slackers “Sleep Outside”
The Mazlows “Leaving Town”
Slick Shoes “Whispers”
Jay Parade “Mental Trillness”
Bite Me Bambi “Gangsters (Cover)”

NOISE BRIGADE alternates weeks with Psychedelic Shack Tuesdays at 2 PM, with replays Wednesday at 11 AM and 10 PM, Thursday at 8 AM, Friday at Noon, Saturday at 10 AM, Sunday at 4 PM and Monday at 7 PM.

At 3 PM your PopCulteer returns to host a new hour of The Swing Shift as do double-shots of great Swing artists from all over the last century. I was inspired to do this by Ty Pedersen, who sent me a couple of songs last week. I couldn’t decide which one to use on this show, so I just doubled up on everybody. You won’t be seeing double when you check out the playlist…

The Swing Shift 097–double shots

Ty Pedersen ” Mysterioso” “T-Boneasaurus”
Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive “Stompin’ At The Savoy (live)” “TP Special (live)”
Mariksa Veres Shocking Jazz Quintet “You Really Got Me” “A Lot Of Livin’ To Do”
Benny Goodman “Goodnight, My Love” “I’ve Found A New Baby”
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy “I Like It” “Mr. Pinstripe Suit”
Lady J and her Bada Bing Band “Sweet Talking Devil” “Let Me Pay You Back”
J Street Jumpers “Beware” “Jump Jive and Wail”
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies “Master and Slave” “Mister White Keys”

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 7 AM and 6 PM, Thursday at 2 PM and Saturday at 5 PM, only on The AIR. You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursday and Sunday evenings.

I’m sure it’s happened to you. You just suddenly get the urge to do a digital painting of a metallic sphere floating over a lake on an alien planet. So what else are you gonna do but paint the dang thing?

Yes, I was listening to music by YES when I painted this. Why do you ask?

Above you see a quick digital painting where I pay tribute to Roger Dean, famed for painting many iconic album covers for YES and ASIA and others. That I managed to create a nearly-recognizeable tribute to Mr. Dean without an ounce of his technique is a testament to how lucky I got with this attempt. Usually when I swipe from him nobody can tell.

If you want to see it bigger, just click on the image.

Meanwhile, Monday on The AIR, we bring you four episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat from 7 AM to 3 PM. With luck, this eight hour bonus of crunchy New Wave goodness will mean that this Friday we’ll get a new episode of Sydney Fileen’s ongoing love letter to the exciting music of the New Wave era.

At 3 PM on Prognosis, Herman Linte brings us a show devoted to newly-released progressive rock. That’s followed by a classic Prognosis and an evening of Psychedelic Shack and Radio Free Charleston.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

August puts us right smack in the middle of Leo the Lion time, and so this week we are going to look back at Leo’s cousin, Linus.

Back in the 1960s, in the glory days before Action for Children’s Television convinced Congress to water-down Saturday morning cartoons, it was possible for a character designed as a mascot for a cereal to become so popular that a network would give him a full-blown series.

This sort of happened with The GEICO Caveman a few years ago, in prime time.

But in 1964 for the Post Cereal mascots all appeared on a cartoon program starring Linus the Lion, who was, at the time, the mascot for Crispy Critters, an attempt at making cereal in the shape of animal crackers. Linus the Lionhearted was sort of an all-star jam of Post Cereal mascots, presented as entertainment. It ran for two seasons on CBS, and was then re-run on ABC until the FCC made them take it off the air in 1969.

The cereal didn’t last long beyond that, but some of the cereal mascots that appeared as supporting characters are still around today and a few more of the cereals they represented still exist, with new mascots. Linus had actually been recycled from a previous failed cereal that was just a knock-off of Cheerios. During its heyday, this show was popular enough to spawn a lot of merchandising and even a full-length LP.

Linus the Lionhearted stood out because it was the most brazen example of taking mascots for kid’s cereals and basing a full-length show on them. Since Post Foods sponsored the show, it had the effect of being a half-hour commercial. This summary from IMDB gives you an idea of what the show was like, “Linus the Lion is the kind-hearted King of a jungle populated by such bizarre characters as the crabby Sascha Grouse and the vivacious Dinny Kangaroo. Each episode of this series features four animated shorts, the first with Linus and his friends, followed by an adventure with the cool and hip Sugar Bear (from the Post Sugar Crisp commercials) and his two foes, a fiesty granny and a scheming wolf. The third cartoon in each episode involves a kindly postman named Lovable Truly and his canine friend, who is constantly chased by a weasely dog catcher. And the fourth and final short cartoon features So Hi, a Chinese boy.”

The animation was typical low-budget fare of the day, a cut above Rocky and Bullwinkle, a few cuts below The Flintstones, but the voice cast was phenomenal. Sheldon Leonard voiced Linus. Carl Reiner voiced several supporting characters. Other regulars were voiced by Paul Frees, Ruth Buzzi, Jesse White and Bob McFadden. Guest voices included Jonathan Winters, the comedy team of Stiller and Meara and Tom Poston. Also of note is that the gag at the end of the show, an old vaudeville bit where someone “sweeps up” the spotlight, was later swiped by Carol Burnett.

This was one of the show that Chuck Jones dismissed as “animated radio,” but it has a certain charm among it’s blatant commercialism. This copy of the show is complete, but in black and white. You can find color clips of it on YouTube, but this one is a full episode, with commercials, which is more appropriate.

RFC 112 "Toxic Soup Shirt" from Rudy Panucci on Vimeo.

Let’s go back to October, 2010 for Radio Free Charelston 112, “Toxic Soup Shirt.” We had three bands making their RFC debut–Crossroads, Doctor Curmudgeon and Happy Minor.  We also have a movie trailer for the documentary, “Toxic Soup,” and one for “Jazz From Hell,” which remains unfinished, ten years later.

“Toxic Soup” also provided the shirt I wore in this episode.  Host segments were shot in the Davis Fine Arts building at West Virginia State University, and it was a cool setting, and my old stomping grounds. Big thanks to Stefani Andrews for making her debut as an RFC crew member.

Original production notes can be found HERE.