Month: December 2020 (Page 4 of 4)

Above you see The Aquabats Super Show Christmas Special, which is on my mind this week for a few reasons.

First of all, we are now officially in the Holiday Season.

Second, I just spent all day yesterday watching a marathon of The Aquabats Super Show on Shout Factory TV (I would’ve told you folks about it, but I only found out five minutes after it started).

Lastly, The Aquabats have a brand-new streaming Christmas event this coming weekend. Starting December 11 you can watch The Aquabats Kooky Kristmas Party! It’s a streaming event, along the lines of their fun and successful Halloween show.

Check the hype…

It’s time for some holiday cheer with your favorite band of superheroes, The Aquabats! We’ll gather around the fireplace and have a LIVE cozy Christmas hangout and a loud, rowdy concert… all in one!

The show will consist of a live party and recorded music sets produced *exclusively* for this event! There will be audience interaction, unexpected surprises and all The Aquabats holiday cheer you can handle! It’s gonna be a blast!

Want the full experience? Purchase a “VIP All Access” ticket to enjoy the show AND our half-hour VIP pre-party where you’ll get a live behind-the-scenes look at our show prep! We’ll hang, answer questions and have a great time! Get the VIP treatment!

This stream will be available for unlimited re-watch through Dec. 13 at 11:59 PM!

Buy now and access the party on-demand through the entire weekend! Limited edition concert and holiday merch is available HERE.

So if you’re a fan of The Aquabats (and I’ve been writing about them in this blog almost since day one), check out the goings-on with their streaming special and watch the classic Christmas Special above, with Robert Smigel as the voice of Krampus, and Matt Walsh as Santa Claus.

This week we go back to October, 2014, for an RFC MINI SHOW starring The Jasons, and we have a brand-new bonus video below. This performance was recorded at ShockCon, the previous month. The Jasons had just marked their first year of performing and this horror-punk outfit from Crystal Lake, New Jersey (by way of the Mountain State) are still making new music today. With a sound not unlike their fierce rivals, The Renfields, The Jasons slash their way through three chords and a quick beat, leaving few survivors.

The rivalry with The Renfields is so intense that The Jasons’ frontman, Jason V refuses to be seen in the same room as Vincent Renfield.

The RFC MINI SHOW captures The Jasons performing one original tune and one cover of song by a legendary punk band. We also get to witness some of the witty stage banter between the members of the band. You never really get to see the humorous side of Jason Vorhees in the Friday the 13th movies, but on stage, his comedy just kills.

The Jasons have just released a split-single with Black Russians, you can buy it HERE. You can find other cool Jasons merch HERE. Check out the video for their new hit record, “Kill a Commie for your Mommy,” below, an stick around for the outtakes after the song.

It’s time to drop a new episode of MIRRORBALL, hosted by my lovely wife, Mel Larch, and this week we bring you a solid hour of the Queen of Disco, Donna Summer.  This is our fifteenth edition of MIRRORBALL and it debuts Friday afternoon at 2 PM on The AIR. and that’s followed by two great encore epsodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat.  You can hear all this good stuff on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded radio player to the right of this post

Let Mel take you back to the glory days of Disco with a solid hour of Donna Summer’s Disco Hits. Nobody defined the Disco era more than Ms. Summer, and since New Year’s Eve would have been her 72nd birthday, Mel felt that we had to acknowledge her tremendous influence on dance music, soul and several generations of soul divas. Check out these legendary hits performed by Donna Summer this week…

MIRRORBALL 015

Donna Summer
“MacArthur Park Suite”
“Enough Is Enough (No More Tears)”
“I Remember Yesterday”
“I Feel Love”
“Heaven Knows”
“If You Got It, Flaunt It”
“Dim All The Lights”
“On The Radio”
“Hot Stuff”

You can tune in at 2 PM (Eastern time) and hear the latest edition of MIRRORBALL. We have been deburing a new episode roughly every other Friday afternoon for several months now, and Mel loves doing the show and people seem to enjoy listening, so maybe we’ll find a way to make this weekly in the new year.  MIRRORBALL will also be replayed Friday night at 10 PM, Saturday at 7 PM (part of a mini-marathon), Sunday at 11 PM and Tuesday at 1 PM. We’ll probably sneak in a few more airings during the week.

The PopCulteer
December 4, 2020

A week ago today, my friend Emily died of COVID-19.

I absolutely hate writing that. I’ve put off writing about losing Emily because I don’t want it to be real.

Emily was my Myasthenia Gravis “coach,” and I have mentioned her many times here in PopCult when talking about my own mild case of this serious disease that made Emily’s life very tough since 2005, when she was diagnosed. I first met Emily at a 2008 benefit concert to help raise money for her after she had to retire due to MG. For several weeks I donated proceeds from my old Monday Morning Art Cafepress Store to Emily, which unfortunately didn’t amount to much.

My heart goes out to her husband, Jeff, whom I have known since he was born. His father was our mailman, and my earliest memory is of his father asking to come in our house to watch coverage of President Kennedy’s assassination. This was several years before Jeff was born.

Myasthenia Gravis is a particularly insidious chronic disease because it’s an auto-immune disorder that attacks the membranes that transmit nerve signals to your muscles. The most effective treatment is to suppress your immune system, which leaves you vulnerable to virus and infection. Emily never resented the fact that my case was so mild while hers was so serious. It’s a nasty thing to have, no matter how badly it hits you.

During a pandemic like the one we’re in, it can be deadly.

There is a Go Fund Me page set up to help Jeff through this nightmarish time. If you knew Emily and her enthusiastic love of live music and of Jeff, please consider making a donation in her memory.

I really hate writing obituaries, and this one has hit me particularly hard, so I’m going to swipe liberally from her obit at Keller’s Funeral Home for the rest of this post…

Emily Hope Gunter Haynes entered into her Heavenly home Friday, November 27, 2020.

She was born September 8, 1973, to Judy and Doug Gunter.

Emily was a 1991 graduate of Hurricane High School, and attended Marshall University and West Virginia University, graduating with a degree in Textiles Design and Merchandising. This degree allowed her to pursue her passion for snowboarding while living in Portland, Oregon, where she worked for Columbian Sportswear, as well as a handful of snowboard companies, all while enjoying her favorite extreme spot on Oregon’s Mt. Hood some two-hundred plus days a year.

She returned home to West Virginia in 2003, where she worked for the Real Estate Guide before landing an internet advertising sales position at Charleston Newspapers, where she was involved in the launching of The Gazz, the paper’s all new art’s and entertainment section.

Emily fell ill with the autoimmune neuromuscular disease, Myasthenia Gravis, in the fall of 2005. The condition severely limited her physical activity, but never dampened her overwhelming sense of spirit. She reunited with Jeff, an old junior high school sweetheart, in December 2005. They married on the Oregon coast in August 2006.

Emily’s light had a shine that affected everyone she met. Her larger than life personality, coupled with her fierce determination to battle myasthenia gravis was inspirational to her many friends in the local West Virginia music scene and beyond. She is remembered for her craftiness and creativity, and was known to knit and sew all types of things from blankets to scrubbies.

Emily was a lover of live music, especially jam band, reggae, hip hop, and bluegrass. She was truly one of the last mountain dancers and when feeling good enough she could flat foot a hole through the floor. Emily was also an a cappella singer of old mountain ballads, performing in recent years at local open mics and folk festivals, sometimes accompanied by her husband on banjo as they preformed as the Westmoreland Ramblers.

Emily is survived by her loving husband and caregiver, Jeff Haynes; beloved step-son, Elijah Haynes of Charleston; mother and step-father, Judy Gunter and George Grayiel of Teays Valley; father and step-mother, Doug and Nancee Gunter of Cross Lanes; sister, Hillary Gunter of Teays Valley; two very special nieces, Leila and Isabella Davis of Teays Valley; and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Emily will be remembered as a kind soul with a warrior spirit. She fought hard until the end and passed only after Jeff arrived to tell her she could go home to Heaven.

A memorial service and a celebration of Emily’s life will be held at a later date.

I am trying to get through this without resorting to anger over the mishandling of this pandemic by our current national and local leaders. We’ve lost so many good people due to the messed-up priorities of those in charge, but this is not the place to lay blame. This is about remembering Emily and the many lives she touched. She will leave a void in many people’s lives.

That is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back every day for fresh content and our regular features, and come back later Friday for the playlist for a new episode of Mel Larch’s MIRRORBALL.

(clockwise from upper left) Mandy Petry as Agatha Christie, Beach Vickers (director), Tory Casey as Marlene Dietrich, Rob James as Christie’s second husband Max Mallowan and Stuart Frazier as Hercule Poirot rehearsing via Zoom.

You have two chances this weekend to see Murder By The Book. This is the East Coast premiere, streaming online of a one-hour biographical play about famed British murder mystery writer, Agatha Christie.

This original work is written and directed by Montgomery, WV, native and resident Beach Vickers and is a production of The Shakespeare Studio of Montgomery, WV.

Featuring a cast made up of Kanawha Valley talents: Tori Casey as Marlene Dietrich & others; Stuart Frazier as Hercule Poirot and others; Rob James as Christie’s second husband Sir Max Mallowan and others; and starring Mandy Petry as Dame Christie.

This streaming production is free of charge and you can watch it live on YouTube Saturday, December 5, at 7:55 PM at THIS LINK, or Sunday, December 6 at 4:55 PM on YouTube at THIS LINK.

You can also watch it via Zoom, which I must confess is something about which I have not a clue as to how such a thing works. If you do, try THIS LINK Saturday, with the following info: Meeting ID: 876 5260 6911 –Passcode: 863504. And Sunday at THIS LINK with this info: Meeting ID: 837 3860 6490 –Passcode: 611799.

One of the mysteries not addressed in this play is how your PopCulteer has managed to make it this far into the pandemic without having had to participate in any kind of webchat or Zoom meeting.

While this production is aimed at mature theater lovers, nothing in it is inappropriate for children. It is very cool to see our local theatre troupes keeping theatre alive through streaming during this pandemic.

Wednesday afternoon The AIR brings you special brand-new episodes of Beatles Blast and Curtain Call!  You can tune in at the website, or or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to the convenient embedded radio player lurking over in the right-hand column of this blog.

At 2 PM, your truly returns to host a  Beatles Blast mixtape salute to Ringo Starr, who turned 80 years ago this past July. We bring you the highlights of his solo musical career ranging from his early singles through album tracks from every decade since the 1970s.

Beatles Blast can be heard every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursday at 10 PM, Satruday at 2 PM, and the following Tuesday at 9 AM.

At 3 PM on Curtain Call, Mel Larch  brings you three tracks from three recent solo albums by musical theatre stalwarts, Lauran Benenti, Tim Minchin and the late Nick Cordero. Then, in a minor departure, Mel brings you the entire soundtrack album from a classic movie musical that never made it to the stage, Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz,a thinly-veiled autobiography in the form of a movie musical. After the main title theme, you’ll hearclassic songs that he felt defined his life, like “On Broadway,” “There’ll Be Some Changes Made,” “After You’ve Gone” and “Bye Bye Love,” along with original songs, incidental music composed by Ralph Burns and more, all presented mixtape-style for the final 49 minutes of the show.

Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM and 9 PM, and Saturday at 8 PM. A six-hour marathon of classic episodes can be heard Sunday evening starting at 6 PM, and an all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight.

The AIR was supposed to be back with all-new episodes this week, but technical issues have redirected that idea to the “best laid plans” pile. Instead, Tuesday we wll bring you a recycled Radio Free Charleston V5, reviving some programs that haven’t been heard on The AIR for a couple of years. Then we do have an all-new episode of Psychedelic Shack from Nigel Pye, and we’re just going to do old-school reruns for The Swing Shift.  If that still sounds appealing to you, then you simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to the convenient embedded radio player lurking over in the right-hand column of this blog.

At 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday we will bring you a new/old episode of Radio Free Charleston. This show combines an episode of the one-hour RFC from April, 2018, with a two-hour RFC International, from the same month, and the results are mighty fine. The first hour is entirely made up of local performances recorded at The Blue Parrot on Capitol Street, while the second and third hours are free-format radio at it’s most energetic.

Just check out the playlist…

RFCv5 037

hour one
The Buttonflies “Butch Bottom”
Quick and Dirty “Wrong Again”
Dog Soldier “Come Clean”
Chad and Sean “Down Where I’m Going”
WATT 4 “I Don’t Deserve You”
HARRAH “CODA (I Gotta Get Out)”
The Synergy Collective “Awry”
Hellblinki “Bella Ciao”
Spurgie Hankins Band “Bullets and Fire”
Underdog Blues Revue “What You Say”
Whitechapel District “How Heavy Is Thy Crown”
Diablo Blues Band “One For Magoo”
The Underdog Blues Revue “Tom Crouse Arena Rock Fanfare.”

hour two
DEVO “Don’t Shoot (I’m A Man) Polysics Remix”
New Model Army “Did You Make It Safe”
No Doubt “Total Hate 95”
Wings “Spin It On”
ELP “Are You Ready Eddie”
Emmy Lou and The Rhythm boys “Bip Bop Boom”
ELO “Easy Money”
Kent Ford and the Hep Jump Stompers “Rockabilly Queen”
Madness “Drip Fed Fred”
Led Zepplin “Rock and Roll”
Kate Bush “Violin”
Roger Daltry “Free Me”
Split Enz “What’s The Matter With You”
Oingo Boingo “Who Do You Want To Be Today”
The Plasmatics “Living Dead”
Adam Ant “Charge of the Heavy Brigade”
Mike Peters “This Is War”
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes “The Harder They Come”

hour three
Pete Townsend “Squeezebox”
Regina Spektor “Oh Marcello”
Agent Orange “Say It Isn’t True”
PM “You’ve Got Me Rockin’”
The Dickies “If Stuart Could Talk (live)”
Franz Ferdinand and Sparks “Piss Off”
Hazel O’Connor “Not For You”
Goldfinger ‘I’m Down”
Marcella Detroit “Cool People”
The Warner Brothers “Hey Mama”
Hasil Adkins “She Said”
Joe Jackson “Someone Up There”
Neil Young “Wonderin’”
Mel C “Yeh, Yeh, Yeh”
Motorhead “Ace of Spades (alternate take)”

Radio Free Charleston can be heard Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM, with replays Wednesday at 9 AM, Thursday at 3 PM, Friday at 7 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.

Tuesday at 1 PM we revisit the fourth anniversary episode of Mel Larch’s Curtain Call. Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM and 9 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.

2 PM Tuesday it’s time for Psychedelic Shack, hosted by Nigel Pye. This episode presents one full hour of the best of The Strawberry Alarm Clock, drawn from their four original studio albums. Psychedelic Shack alternates weeks with NOISE BRIGADE Tuesdays at 2 PM, with replays Wednesday at 11 AM and 10 PM, Thursday at 9 AM, Friday at 1 PM, Saturday at 8 AM, Sunday at 4 PM and Monday at 7 PM.

At 3 PM we’re going to bring you some great recent episodes of The Swing Shift, with artists like Cherry Poppin’ Daddies and Phil Collins’ Big Band, plus we’ll have a bonus hour of Electro Swing. You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 7 AM and 6 PM, Thursday at 2 PM, Saturday at 5 PM and Sunday at 10 AM, only on The AIR. You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each of our finest episodes, starting at Midnight Thursday and Sunday evenings.