Rudy Panucci On Pop Culture

Month: March 2021 (Page 1 of 4)

A Normal Episode of Beatles Blast Wednesday On The AIR!

Wednesday afternoon The AIR brings you a brand-new “normal” episode of Beatles Blast! You can listen at The AIR Website, or on the nifty little player over in the right-hand column of this here blog.

At 2 PM, your humble blogger returns with what appears to be the first “normal,” non-themed episode of Beatles Blast, possibly in two years. I mean, we’ve just come off of four episodes that were mixtape specials devoted to each Beatle’s solo career. We had a few more themed episodes before that, and then before those we had twenty episodes of The Lost Beatles Project, so welcome back to what passes for normal around here.

We do have a fun show for you. We open and close with tracks from Ringo’s new EP, Zoom In, Zoom Out, and then we also have a track from McCartney III, one from the remixed and remastered Plastic Ono Band and a gem from George’s posthumous album, Brainwashed.

After our solo Beatles fix, we bring you cover tunes, with prog-band, Transatlantic, taking on the Abbey Road Side Two Medley and “Strawberry Fields Forever,” from their recent live album. We have a couple of covers of solo John tunes, and Mr. Phil Collins takes on “Tomorrow Never Knows,” from his first solo album, which is forty-plus years old now.

Check out the full playlist…

Beatles Blast 068

Ringo Starr “Waiting For The Tide To Turn”
Paul McCartney “Deep Deep Feeling”
John Lennon “Well Well Well”
George Harrison “Any Road”
Transatlantic “Side Two Medley (live)
“Strawberry Fields”
Average White Band “Imagine”
Phil Collins “Tomrrow Never Knows”
Ringo Starr “Here’s To The Night”

Beatles Blast can be heard every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM, Saturday afternoon, and the following Tuesday at 9 AM.

At 3 PM on an encore episode from last December, Curtain Call and Mel Larch  bring 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.

New Music From Tautologic and The Swivel Rockers Lights Up RFC!

Tuesday on The AIR we have a hybrid episode of Radio Free Charleston plus an afternoon filled with carefully-chosen gems from The AIR archives. Yep, that means reruns.  If you want to hear the audio joyfullness yourself, 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 the cool embedded player over at the top of the right column.

This week we have one overstuffed hour of brand-new stuff on Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.  The Second and third hours of the show feature an encore of a five-year-old episode of Radio Free Charleston International that hasn’t been broadcast since 2017.

Our new hour opens and closes with new music from Chicago’s Tautologic. You may remember them from our most recent video episode of Radio Free Charleston. Tautologic  has a new album coming out Friday, and on Thursday, you can read my interview with the band’s leader, Ethan Sellers right here in PopCult. We open with the title track of “Wheels Fall Off” and close our hour of new stuff with a song that we brought you performed live on the video show.

Last week’s show openers, The Swivel Rockers, are back with another new track, and now you can purchase their EP from Bandcamp, which you really ought to go do, ’cause it’s great! And you may remember, The Swivel Rockers were also on our most recent video episode. It’s almost like we planned this or something.

Our new hour also features fresh-out-of-the-oven music from old old pal, John Radcliff, plus new tracks from The Settlement, Unmanned, Boldly Go, and Lady D

It was easy to fill out a new hour of great music, but this week’s excuse for bringing back an old RFC International to fill out our three-hour running time is that…mowing season has begun, and my office/studio is not soundproof. So I’m recording this episode of the show after midnight, early on the morning that it will air. Of course, as soon as I got started recording my announcing segments, the late-night stoner skateboard guy went right by the office window.

Luckily, our archived show is pretty damned eclectic and impressive.

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

RFCv5 047
hour one

Tautologic “Wheels Fall Off”
The Swivel Rockers “Fall”
Lady D “Karma Is A Bitch”
Andy Prieboy “Wine Red and TV Blue”
John Radcliff “It Goes Down”
mediogres “Burt Reynolds Owes Us One”
Unmanned “January”
Boldly Go “First Contact”
David Synn “Kiss of Judas”
3.2 “never”
Liquid Canvas “Spirit Molecule”
Lene Lovich “Shadow Walk”
The Settlement “Disappear”
Tautologic “High School Reunion”

hours two and three

Cheap Trick “Roll Me”
Neil Young “Sample and Hold”
Dubioza Kolectiv “Alarm Song”
Marc Ribot y Los cubanos postizos “Los Teenagers Bailan Changui”
Weezer “Thank God for Girls”
Red Vox “There She Goes”
The High Violets “Bells”
The Enid “Someone Shall Rise”
The Foreign Films “Sweet Sorrow”
The Hillbilly Moon Explosion “Heartbreak Boogie”
Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band “Run Paint Run”
Mike & The Melvins “Dead Canaries”
The Residents “Japanese Watercolor”
St. Vincent “Krokodil”
The Dandy Warhols “Pope Reverend Jim”
Killing Joke “The Big Buzz”
Brian Eno “The Hour Is Thin”
Escapism “Ship To Shore”
The Range “Superimpose”
Filter “Pride Flag”
Dread Crew of Oddwood “Siren’s Song”
Atomic Rooster “Friday The 13th”
Black Stone Cherry “War”
Emerson Lake and Palmer “Toccata”
Hooverphonic “I Like The Way I Dance”
Danielle DeCosmo “Don’t Know What It Means”
The Buzzcocks “ESP”
Operators “Bring Me The Head”
Iron Maiden “The Trooper”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Thursday at 3 PM, Friday at 9 AM and 7 PM, Saturday at 11 AM and Midnight, Sunday at 11 AM and the next Monday at 8 PM, exclusively on The AIR.

I’m also going to  embed a low-fi, mono version of this show right in this post, right here so you can listen on demand.

 

The AIR spends the rest of the day living in the past. 1 PM sees an encore of last week’s new episode of Mel Larch’s MIRRORBALL.

At 2 PM we offer up a classic episode of Steven Allen Adams’ NOISE BRIGADE, loaded with the punkiest ska and the ska-most punk you can imagine. NOISE BRIGADE alternates weeks with Psychedelic Shack  Tuesdays at 2 PM, with replays Wednesday at 10 PM, Thursday at 9 AM, Friday at 1 PM, Saturday at 8 AM, Sunday at 9 AM and Monday at 7 PM.

Because of the aforementioned deluge of folks releasing their pent-up sexual mowing energy all day The Swing Shift  brings you episodes that originally aired a couple of months ago at 3 PM.

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesdays 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, starting at Midnight Thursday and Sunday evenings.

Those are Tuesday’s music shows on The AIR. Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Monday Morning Art: Figure Sketch #1

This week I’m sharing a pencil sketch that is a bit of a concept sketch for an animated work that you’ll probably hear about in a few weeks, if I can pull it off. It’s a life drawing done with my trusty Blackwing Palamino pencil on smooth paper for pens, with smudges cleaned up digitally.

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

Meanwhile, Monday at 9 AM on The AIR, we bring you six episodes of Psychedelic Shack, Nigel Pye’s bi-weekly showcase of the best trippy music from the hippie era and beyond. There is a chance that, when our Haversham Recording Institute programs return with new episodes in April, Psychedelic Shack may be moving to Mondays. We’ll keep you posted.  You can tune into a recent episode of  Prognosis at 3 PM.

Due to the lockdown in the UK, the Haversham Recording Institute programs will be in rerun mode until next Monday.  We are told to expect our Haversham shows every week for a while after that.

You can hear Prognosis on The AIR Monday at 3 PM, with replays Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM, Thursday at Noon, Saturday at 10 AM and Sunday at 2 PM.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player at the top of the right-hand column of this blog.

The RFC Flashback: MINI SHOW number 49

This week in our look back at Radio Free Charleston‘s video incarnations, we stop in February, 2015, for an edition of The RFC MINI SHOW starring The Company Stores, which was actually recorded the previous summer.

Since this performance, during FestivAll 2014, the band has released two albums and they’ve undergone some personnel changes. On this show, the band was Casey Litz, Matthew Marks, John Query, Joe Cevallos and Grant Jacobs. They are currently recording a third album with some new members and a new vocalist, but this archive recording shows the original line-up.

I told you about their fundraising efforts to finish that new album late last year.  In the coming weeks I hope to be telling you about new projects from their former members as well.

 

Wrestling With Disco

The PopCulteer
March 26, 2021

We have a new episode of our Disco Music showcase on The AIR, and an early impression of WWE Network on Peacock to tell you about today, so let’s dive in.

Friday afternoon we offer up a new episode of MIRRORBALL and encore a recent Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. The AIR is PopCult’s sister radio shation. You can hear these shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player at the top right column of this blog.

At 2 PM, Mel Larch uncorks a new MIRRORBALL! The AIR’s showcase of classic Disco music presents a salute to Larry Levan, the legendary DJ who held court at the famed Paradise Garage in New York City for ten years, and who defined the era of the extended dance remix, while pioneering what evolved into House Music.

We get an example of Levan’s remix wizardry on this week’s show…

MIRRORBALL 021

Jimmy Castor Bunch “It’s Just Begun”
LOGG “I Know You Will”
The Inner Life featuring Jocelyn Brown “Make It Last Forever”
Bunny Sigler “By The Way You Dance”
First Choice “Double Cross”
Instant Funk “Bodyshine”
Solsoul Orchestra “How High”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays Saturday at  8 PM, Sunday at 11 PM, Tuesday at 1 PM and Wednesday at 7 PM, exclusively on The AIR.  This week’s new MIRRORBALL will kick off a Disco Marathon Saturday night until Midnight.

At 3 PM, Sydney Fileen graces us with an encore of an episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat celbrating the New Wave Music of Australia, which you can read about HERE . This is all-live New Wave extravaganza.

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat is produced at Haversham Recording Institute in London, and can be heard every Friday at 3 PM, with replays Saturday afternoon, Monday at 7 AM, Tuesday at 8 PM, Wednesday at Noon and Thursday at 10 AM, exclusively on The AIR.

You can also hear select episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat as part of the overnight Haversham Recording Institute marathon that starts every Monday at 11 PM.

Powerslamming The Peacock

A couple of months ago, I wrote about a big change on the streaming television landscape. WWE Network will cease to exist in the United States on April 4.

The Network is moving its library and all new programming to NBC/Universal’s Peacock streaming service, and while the realization of this Billion-dollar deal hasn’t been a completely smooth transition so far, it’s not as bad as some folks say it is. In fact, for some of us, the move brings a vast improvement in the service.

Only a fraction of the tens of thousands of hours of WWE programming from their vast library has made the move so far. It will take months for them to make every bit of that wrestling programming from the last thirty-plus years available on Peacock, if they go that far with it.  This is going to really upset people who loved diving into that library and reliving old classic matches and PPVs.

To make up for this, Peacock is offering a sign-up bonus. New subscribers can get four months for half-price, and that’s half of $4.99.  The WWE Network was $9.99 a month, so the move to Peacock is already saving fans five bucks a month. This introductory deal cuts that price in half for a third of a year.

However, in addition to the missing library programming, there are a lot of missing features that have ticked off some very vocal critics. Peacock does not yet offer viewers the ability to pause or rewind live broadcasts. If you see something spectacular and want to re-watch it immediately…you can’t. You have to wait until the live broadcast is over and then watch it again.

This has really angered the wrestling press, who rely on that function to make sure they get details right when they’re covering the live shows. It’s an understandable gripe for those folks, who actually use those features. Chapter breaks that make it easy to find specific matches in the old PPVs are also missing, and that has some fans and historians really angry at the new way of getting WWE Network.

However, the vast majority of WWE Network subscribers likely do not ever use those features. I know I don’t, and I’ve been a WWE Network subscriber almost since day one. I’ve seen reports that 90% of the WWE Network’s traffic is from people watching new programming, not the classic on-demand library.

Most WWE Network viewers get the network so they can watch the live Pay Per Views specials, plus the fresh documentary shows like 2020’s Undertaker: The Last Ride series. They don’t really use pause or rewind or chapter breaks. For the mainstream fan, ten bucks a month to watch all the PPVs was a bargain, and everything else was gravy…and now it costs half that, and they’re just as happy as before.

In my case, I’m much, much happier. The WWE Network stream was unstable and barely watchable for me much of the time. I have over a hundred channels on my Roku, and the only one that ever gave me any major buffering problems was WWE Network.

They switched up the service provider for their stream a few years ago, and since that happened, my signal would rarely go more than ten minutes without needing rebooted. Sometimes during a PPV special, the stream would break every minute or so. It got so bad I came very close to cancelling my subscription at the beginning of 2020. After much complaining, they did refund a month’s subscription fee to me, and I stuck with them because the service slightly improved, but it was still pretty damned annoying to watch a live PPV.

Last week I signed up for Peacock so I could see how they did with the stream for the Fastlane PPV.

It was flawless. I had a beautiful, full-HD signal for the entire event, and didn’t have to exit the app and go back in once. And the signal was consistently HD. On the WWE Network, oftentimes the picture would degrade and drop down to sub-standard-definition quality for several minutes at a time. At times the screen would look like Minecraft, it was so blocky.

So for me, WWE Network moving to Peacock means a vastly improved viewing experience. I’ll be paying half as much each month. I won’t have any more stress from constantly having to fiddle with the remote.

The picture quality is impeccable, and on top of that, I get the rest of Peacock included in the deal, so I have a huge library of programming, from current NBC shows to classics like Columbo and even weird cartoons like the 1990s Felix The Cat reboot.  I enjoy wrestling, but I’m way more likely to watch a classic Tim Kazurinsky sketch from a 1983 Saturday Night Live than ever watch an episode of WCW Nitro.

Peacock is doing one thing that gives me reason to be concerned. They are editing controversial bits of classic WWE programming. Some of this, like Roddy Piper in blackface, will not be missed, but if they start editing out the raunchier bits of the WWE Attitude Era, or the bloodier bits of ECW, then they will anger many longtime fans.

We will worry about that if or when it happens. For now, I’m just thrilled that, in two weeks, when Peacock is the exclusive home to much of the Wrestlemania week programming, I won’t have to deal with the constant headache of wondering when the stream would collapse.

And that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for all our regular features and fresh content every day.

PopCult Notes: Blogger Navel Gazing

As you hear in the song posted above, it’s clean up time here in PopCult. I don’t have an elaborate post planned for today because I’m taking some time to restore old images and missing files to the early entries in the blog.

This isn’t hard work, but it is tedious and time-consuming, and because of that, it may take months or even years for me to get everything put back the way it should be. I’ve been writing PopCult for well over fifteen years, and every time it got jerked around the servers at the Charleston Gazette-Mail, more nuts and bolts fell off. It’s going to take time to sweep those all up and figure out where they go.

I do have a few quick thing to mention about more current PopCult happenings, though.

The Governor of West Virginia took time away from his busy pursuit of trying to enact a massive income tax cut that will mostly benefit himself to lift the moratorium on live performances in the state.

I think it’s ill-advised and way too soon, but I’m happy for my friends who are fully-vaccinated and eager to perform in front of fully-vaccinated audiences, who are still wearing masks and practicing safe social distancing.

While many fine folks are chomping at the bit to get back to normal, I am not fully confident that it’s a smart thing to do yet, so I will not be plugging live and local shows in PopCult at this time. I can’t personally take responsibility or be complicit in something that still has the potential to sicken or kill people.

Maybe in a month or two I’ll change my mind, but for now I still don’t feel right telling people to go out and do something which I don’t feel is safe. I hope my readers can respect that. When I start plugging live shows again, I don’t plan to make a big deal about it. I’ll just start doing it.

I still plan to support the local scene on Radio Free Charleston and The AIR, and any responsible way that I can. I’m hopeful that we don’t face a fourth wave of the virus, and things can start to go back to normal. I’d just rather err on the side of caution than possibly send people to their deaths.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about a new episode of MIRRORBALL and talk about The WWE Network’s transition to the Peacock streaming service.

In the meantime, I’ll be re-sizing, restoring and posting old images, like the totally random ones I’ve posted along with this piece…just in case you were wondering what the hell those were.

And I’ll try to figure out why I slapped on a toupee and look like a high school gym teacher in this picture from a dozen or so years ago. You find the damnedest things buried on random old hard drives.

Christmas In March

The PopCult Bookshelf

Holly Jolly: Celebrating Christmas Past in Pop Culture
by Mark Voger
TwoMorrows Publishing
ISBN-13 : 978-1605490977
$43.95 (discounted at Amazon)

Before we dive into this review, a little explanation is in order. I had planned to include this book in last year’s PopCult Gift Guide. Unfortunately, the pandemic played hell with everybody’s printing and shipping schedules, and because of this there was a good chance that the book would not make its publication date and be out in time for my readers to order until after Christmas.

With last year’s situation making the PopCult Gift Guide largely a collection of things you could order and have delivered to your home, I had to make the decision to bump this book from the list.

Sure enough, it was February before I got my copy, which had to filter down to me through Diamond Distributors and Westfield Comics. I didn’t get a chance to crack this book open until last week, and when I did I was a little bit surprised.

I think I enjoyed this collection of essays on Christmas and its context in pop culture more now that I would have back when the Christmas season was in full swing. Holly Jolly puts you right in the Christmas spirit no matter what time of the year you read it, and in fact, reading it outside of the traditional holiday season can give you a keener appreciation of how special that time of the year is.

Mark Voger has written a series of wonderful books of pop culture nostalgia for TwoMorrows and Holly Jolly is no different. It’s basically a collection of short, entertaining essays, lavishly illustrated, that celebrate Christmas as a pop culture phenomenon. Sections of the book are dedicated to the history of the holiday, the toys of Christmas, the books, movies, decorations, television and music of Christmas and even holiday memories from celebrities.

Holly Jolly is a brisk, enjoyable survey of fond recollections that doesn’t have to be devoured in one sitting. This is going to punch the nostalgia buttons of readers of a certain age (like yours truly) more than others, but the experiences are universal enough that anyone who grew up enjoying Christmas can identify.

Reading it out from under the pressure of the Christmas rush takes away the distraction of the season and lets you just enjoy the sheer joy of this book. It is indeed a celebration of Christmas as seen through the kaleidoscope of pop culture.

Voger touches on everything from Captain Action to Gumby to “I Love Lucy,” to classic animated Christmas specials to hit holiday songs to beloved movies.

Holly Jolly: Celebrating Christmas Past in Pop Culture is a nice blast of Christmas spirit, and it’s really too much fun to hold off and read only during the holiday season. You should be able to order it from any bookseller using the ISBN code, or get it directly from the publisher, or at a discount, from Amazon.

The Swivel Rockers Kick Off A Brand-New RFC Tuesday

Tuesday on The AIR we have new three-hour episode of Radio Free Charleston and an all-new episode of The Swing Shift.  If you want to hear the audio joyfullness yourself, 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 the cool embedded player over at the top of the right column.

This week we have three hours of largely brand-new stuff on Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.  The show kicks off with brand-new original music from our old pals, The Swivel Rockers. I was working on an RFC documentary on the band last year when the pandemic hit, and once everyone involved is all vaccinated up, we’ll be shooting more material and interviews with the band. Their new five-song EP is available now at Budget Tapes & Records in Kanawha City, and as soon as it’s available online, I’ll let you know.

The rest of this week’s show  features fresh-out-of-the-oven local music from Jim Lange, John Radcliff,  The Settlement, Unmanned, Boldly Go, mediogres and Lady D . We also have new tracks from 3.2 and Tautologic. Stay tuned to PopCult for an interview with Ethan from Chicago’s Tautologic sometime in the next two weeks.  Also in this episode, we have the rather unorthodox set of Jesus music, and a few things to intrigue and/or annoy you.

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

RFC V5 046

The Swivel Rockers “Protection”
The Settlement “Departure”
Tautologic “Summer, 1995”
3.2 “Top of the World”
David Synn “Van Gogh’s Awakening”
John Radcliff “Cry”
Lady D “Times Like This (2020)”
Robert Plant “Charlie Patton Highway”
Unmanned “Rose Colored Glasses”
mediogres “Via Video”

hour two
Close The Hatch “Enjoy The Silence”
Boldly Go “Nightmare (Twist of Khan)”
Jay Parade “Machine”
The Jasons “Kill A Commie For Mommy”
The Dollyrots “Come And Get It”
Wolfgang Parker “Bim Bam Baby”
Jerks “You’re So Cool, Brewster”
Sam Cooke “Jesus Gave Me Water”
Todd Burge “Jesus Night Light”
Nina Hagen “Personal Jesus”
Frank Zappa “Jesus Thinks You’re A Jerk”
Aaron Fisher, Tres Caldwell & Jeremy Short “Jesus Is From Texas”
Goldfinger “Handjobs For Jesus”
Motorhead “Go To Hell”

hour three
Marc Almond “She Took My Soul In Istanbul”
Jim Lange “Elegy (Extended Mix)”
David Bowie “Tryin’ To Get To Heaven”
Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello “So Like Candy”

Of course, as always the show ends with mystery bonus tracks. I could tell you what they are, but that’d defeat the purpose of having mystery bonus tracks in the first place wouldn’t it?

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Thursday at 3 PM, Friday at 9 AM and 7 PM, Saturday at 11 AM and Midnight, Sunday at 11 AM and the next Monday at 8 PM, exclusively on The AIR.

I’m also going to  embed a low-fi, mono version of this show right in this post, right here so you can listen on demand.

 

1 PM sees an encore of a Sondheim-centric episode of Mel Larch’s Curtain Call.

At 2 PM we offer up a classic episode of Nigel Pye’s Psychedelic Shack, loaded with the trippiest music you can imagine.  Psychedelic Shack alternates weeks with NOISE BRIGADE Tuesdays at 2 PM, with replays Wednesday at 10 PM, Thursday at 9 AM, Friday at 1 PM, Saturday at 8 AM, Sunday at 9 AM and Monday at 7 PM.

At 3 PM we bring to you a new hour of The Swing Shift, which is a mixtape program shining the spotlight on Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. 25 years ago BBVD had a star turn in Jon Favreau’s movie, Swingers, and that helped spark the mid-90s Swing Revival. So we decided to pay tribute to this great Swing band, who are no strangers to Charleston. It’s a mixtape show, so you don’t get a playlist. Just tune in and listen for yourself.

Spoiler alert: It SWINGS!

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesdays 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, starting at Midnight Thursday and Sunday evenings.

Those are Tuesday’s music shows on The AIR. Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Monday Morning Art: Wanderlust

Our art this week is a quickie pastel crayon drawing on water color paper, with some actual water color wash over parts of it and a little post-scanning color correction and cropping.  My fingers are working a little better this week, and this is my first piece of physical art for PopCult after a brief switch to digital art due to Myasthenia Gravis.

This is me, still a bit gobsmacked by the fact that I haven’t been able to travel anywhere for more than a year. I decided to do an abstract impression of the view as I remember it coming into Chicago via Amtrak.

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

Meanwhile, Monday at 9 AM on The AIR, we bring you six  episodes of NOISE BRIGADE, The AIR’s weekly collection of the best Ska/Punk ever, curated and hosted by Steven Allen Adams, who just bought a new bass guitar.  Then you can tune into special episode of  Prognosis at 3 PM that’s devoted to the YES Union tour, which is getting an ultra-deluxe30-disc boxed CD/DVD treatmant soon.

Due to the lockdown in the UK, the Haversham Recording Institute programs will be in rerun mode for the next few weeks.  Luckily we have a pretty extensive library of high-quality repeats to share with you.

You can hear Prognosis on The AIR Monday at 3 PM, with replays Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM, Thursday at Noon, Saturday at 10 AM and Sunday at 2 PM.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player at the top of the right-hand column of this blog.

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