Rudy Panucci On Pop Culture

Month: August 2021 (Page 1 of 4)

180 Hours of Radio Free Charleston

The headline is correct. For the next seven and a half days, The AIR will play every episode of Radio Free Charleston Volume 5 so far, culminating in a brand-new episode, next Tuesday night.  To hear all of this coolness you simply have to click on the link and  tune in at the website, or, if you’re reading PopCult on a desktop or laptop, you could just stay on this page, and  listen to the cool embedded player over at the top of the right column.

In order to explain why we’re having such a massive marathon, I have to tell you a story (largely copied from earlier posts in this blog).

Over Labor Day weekend, in 1989, the first episode of the first version of Radio Free Charleston aired on WVNS FM, 96.1.

The show was a sort of my reward for working 100 days straight, often two or three shifts, with no day off while the station was beset with serious staffing problems.  One week I made more in overtime than the new Station Managergot paid.  My loyalty was rewarded not with a higher hourly rate, but instead a psuedo promotion.

I was given a promotion (in lieu of a raise) to assistant program director. With the title came the responsibility for scheduling the part-time talent to work on the weekends. I couldn’t get anybody reliable to handle the midnight to 6 AM shift Saturday night/Sunday morning, so I went to my boss with the idea of plugging a part-timer into my Friday night, 7 PM to Midnight shift, which was all syndicated crap programming anyway, and I would take the desolate shift that nobody wanted…IF I could have the freedom to play what I wanted.

My boss agreed to it and thus, Radio Free Charleston was born. I was allowed to go on the air at 2 AM on Sunday morning, and play anything I wanted (within reason) for four hours each week.

That first show didn’t include any local music. To be honest, it was mainly me digging out the best stuff from our existing playlist and augmenting it with a few choice progressive rock and New Wave tracks from my collection. I also remember being really happy that I could play the extended mix of “Heading To The Light” by The Traveling Wilburys on the first show.  I think it was the third week of the show when I slipped in “Big Red Satellite” by Hasil Adkins, and some single recorded by the teenaged daughter of a local car dealer who was considering advertising on the station.

Two weeks after that, the floodgates had opened, I fell in with the local music scene, and for the remainder of the original broadcast radio run, Radio Free Charleston became a bit of a phenomenon, peaking at over ten-thousand listeners and being featured in The Charleston Gazette. This was with a mix of local music, alternative rock, prog-rock, New Wave, underground tracks and even comedy records.

After the show was strangled in its crib over station politics in the spring of 1990, I couldn’t get hired in local radio. I was told repeatedly that program directors were afraid that if they’d hire me, I’d have their job in six months. I consulted with stations in other towns. I couldn’t relocate because I was taking care of my ailing parents, but they still appreciated my expertise. I also sort of backed into writing and market research after working on local political ads. Along the way I began co-writing Animated Discussions with my now-wife, Mel Larch for the Charleston Gazette, and made a bit of a name for myself writing about toys and pop culture for several national magazines.

The whole time I was trying to find a way to revive Radio Free Charleston. I must have recorded a dozen pilot episodes for different stations, but it wasn’t until after I began writing PopCult that Brian Young came to me with the idea of reviving RFC as a video show, and Douglas Imbrogno let me incorporate it into The Gazz and PopCult.

With The AIR operating as the internet radio arm of this blog, and with my video work diminished quite a bit due to Myasthenia Gravis, I’ve kept Radio Free Charleston going as a radio program again since 2014.  For the first few years I was producing RFC as an all-local show, and RFC International as an “anything I feel like playing show.”

Back in January, 2020, I made a move that I had been contemplating for a while. I revamped RFC to make the show more like the original concept of RFC back in 1989, when it was on broadcast radio.  Since that time, instead of producing Radio Free Charleston as a one-hour weekly showcase of local music from Charleston and the surrounding areas, and RFC International, as a two-hour show where I played anything I want, I combined both shows into Radio Free Charleston Volume Five, a weekly three-hour show that mixes local music with the best indpendent, avant-garde and classic music from multiple genres.

The reason for this was to shake things up a bit and keep the shows interesting for me. When I started doing RFC on WVNS radio back in 1989, one of the most rewarding bits of feedback I got was when I would play a track by a local band, and follow it with a song by one of that band’s musical heroes. I felt then, and I feel now, that our local music scene produces high-quality artists whose work can stand side-by-side with any musicians from around the world.  While it was cool to produce a one-hour local showcase for so many years, it’s more fun this way.

Our local music is too good to segregate away from the rest of the world’s music. This is a bolder way to bring local music to the masses. This is the show that you will hear on The AIR for the next week-plus. It’s almost like I’m doing the same show I was back in 1989/90, only not in the middle of the night, and with a worldwide audience.

That very first RFC happened during Labor Day Weekend in 1989. Nobody knew then that the show would take on a life of its own as a beacon of obscurity. All the big shots in Charleston pretend not to know what RFC is, even if they’ve been on the show. I’m proud of the underground legacy I’ve built over the last three-plus decades, and I hope you enjoy soaking in it, because that’s all that you’ll hear on The AIR for several days.

Some of these shows will contain huge chunks of earlier versions of Radio Free Charleston. Select episodes bring you airchecks from the 1989-1990 run, while others bring you audio from our video run of almost 300 shows. We even have a few shows that revisit earlier internet radio incarnations from Voices of Appalachia and OnTheAIRadio. Plus you’ll get a few bonus editions with RFC International tossed into the mix.

The cohesive glue over the next seven-and-a-half days is yours truly, hosting every episode. I hope you tune in and hear me playing great music.

When this marathon is over, I’m going to shake up the schedule on The AIR a bit, so that you can hear RFC every day at 6 PM (not new episodes every day—what are you, HIGH?), and hopefully we’ll see some new shows joining our line up, along with all of our great music specialty shows.

Join us. It’s mind-boggling to think I’ve been doing this for 32 years.

Monday Morning Art: My Queen

This week I didn’t have much time to make art, since I spent a few days in Staunton, Virginia to observe the seventh anniversary of my wedding to Melanie Larch, and to take in the artistry of the folks at The American Shakespeare Center and their production of MacBeth.  After the excellent performance at The Blackfriars Theater (where everybody was masked up and safely distanced) Mel tried on the company crown, and I took a quick photo, which was a big hit on Facebook.

Sunday evening I did a quick digital painting over the photo so I could share with you a portrait of my queen.

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

Meanwhile, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a new episode of  Psychedelic Shack, followed at 3 PM by a new edition of Herman Linte’s weekly showcase of the Progressive Rock of the past half-century, Prognosis.  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.

Nigel Pye has informed us that Psychedelic Shack will open with the title track from Elton John’s long-lost debut album from the late 1960s. The rest of the show looks pretty trippy too, as you can see…

Psychedliec Shack 048
Elton John “Regimental Sgt. Zippo”
The First Edition “Just Dropped In”
Ride “Leave Them All Behind”
Bardo Pond “Tantric Porno”
The Doors “Light My Fire”
The Moody Blues “Question”
Animal Collective “Did You See The Words”
Wooden Ships “These Shadows”
The Flaming Lips “She Don’t Use Jelly”
Love “Alone Again Or”
Grateful Dead “The Golden Road”
The Rolling Stones “Paint It Black”

Psychedelic Shack can be heard every Monday at 2 PM, with replays Tuesday at 9 AM, Wednesday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday at 9 AM. Classic episodes can be heard Sunday at 9 AM as part of our Sunday Haversham Recording Institute collection.

At 3 PM, Herman Linte offers up a new Prognosis, which features his usual mix of new and classic prog-rock.

Check out this impressive playlist…

Prognosis 076
Steve Howe “Half Way”
Big Big Train “Atlantic Cable”
Dream Theater “Comfortably Numb (live)”
Shirley Collins “The Rose and the Briar”
King Crimson “Starless (live 2019)”
Brian May “Resurrection”
Tangerine Dream “Stratosfear”
Jon Anderson, Jonathan Elias “Sunlight”
Emerson Lake and Palmer “From The Beginning”
Porcupine Tree “Arriving Somewhere but Not Here”
Kate Bush “Sat In Your Lap”
Focus “Eruption (live)”
Harmonia “Deluxe (Immer Weiter)”

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

At 7 PM, stick around for a 12-hour mixed marathon that alternates between Steven Allen Adams’ NOISE BRIGADE and Dexter Checkers’ Ska Madness. Dexter ended his show four years ago due to illness, but has recovered sufficiently that he is now threatening to produce new episodes of Ska Madness soon.

But it won’t be in the next week, because tomorrow The AIR begins a special RFC event that we will tell you about right before it begins.

Sunday Evening Video: Random and Very Short

Above you see a short, random video that yours truly shot yesterday on Interstate 64 in Virginia, not far from the West Virginia border.

Your PopCulteer and his lovely wife were returning from a very nice anniversary visit to Staunton, Virginia, where we indulged in a little Shakespeare, and sampled some of the delights of the city’s Historic District. We found toys, model kits, chocolate, old comic books, and even saw a working Edison Wax Cylindar Player.

And I didn’t take any photos or video of it. This was a trip for us, and was not intended to be fodder for this blog. Sorry about that.

If it’s any consolation, we did have so much fun that we fully intend to return in the fall, COVID permitting, and when we do, I’ll post video and photo essays and all kinds of other stuff. We didn’t even make it to the camera museum or the antique car collection or tons of other cool things they had hidden away in their very hilly streets.

But on the way home we saw you see above, and I whipped out my phone and shot some video, and set it to music I wrote a while back (because I didn’t want the copyright police to come after me over the cool New Wave tunes we were listening to at the time).  Since I didn’t prepare this post before our trip, and it took maybe five minutes to make the video, this is what you get today.

After you’ve watched the video, if you’re curious, we did see what’s in the video well over a month after it was finished with its promotional purposes, so we don’t know if they just decided to drive it around the country for the hell of it, or if it’s being driven somewhere to be dismantled. You can find out more about it HERE.

The PopCult Flashback

The RFC Flashback is begging off a little this week because today is the 16th anniversary of PopCult. It’s our first time marking this day since we slid out from under the umbrella of The Charleston Gazette-Mail, but we are still plugging away.

To be honest, since I went all-out for our tenth anniversary, and made a decently big deal about last year’s 15th anniversary, this year I’m just doing this one post. Part of that is because the anniversary of this blog falls two days after my wedding anniversary and we’re not quite back from our celebration at an undisclosed location.

I mean, I could repost some of my favorite posts from the last 16 years, but you can find the archives in two different places on this page. It’s still a trip to think that I’ve been doing this sixteen years, posting daily for the last eight years.

Instead of making a huge deal about it, and since I’m bumping The RFC Flashback for this….I’m going to post a video treat, just for the hell of it.

Here is the second video episode of Radio Free Charleston. This is the episode that they won’t let me post on YouTube because, hilariously enough, I included a gag that contained footage from a 100% bootleg, unlicensed musical based on Batman. It’s hilarious because the folks who produced this blatant knockoff movie that included Wonder Woman, Tarzan, The Joker, and in the big production number, a little person dressed as Spider-man…filed a copyright claim against me with YouTube. The music in their film was also ripped off of old-time rock -n- roll, but they were offended by me using two minutes of their footage.

Luckily, Vimeo doesn’t give a crap about that sort of thing, so enjoy this, our second video episode of RFC, with music from Stephen Beckner and The Sleeping Dons (Sean Richardson, Jay Lukens and Deren Sodaro). Stick around for the gag at the end. I thought it was funny.  More importantly, it’s pop-culturally weird enough to perfectly embody the spirit of this blog.

The New Waviest Of New Wave Music!

The PopCulteer
August 27, 2021

Friday brings a brand-new 75th episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat to The AIR. The AIR is PopCult’s sister radio station. 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 3 PM, Sydney Fileen graces us with a very special mixtape episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat that marks 75 episodes with what Sydney calls “The New Waviest of New Wave Music.”

Just check out the playlist to see for yourself…

BEC 075

Dollar “Mirror Mirror (Mon Amour)”
U2 “New Year’s Day”
Berlin “Sex (I’m A…)”
The Jam “In The City”
Blondie “Hanging On The Telephone”
Skids “The Saints Are Coming”
Dead Kennedys “California Uber Allies”
The Specials “Ghost Town”
Violent Femmes “Blister In The Sun”
The Damned “New Rose”
The Selecter “Three Minute Hero”
Squeeze “Slap and Tickle”
Sex Pistols “Holidays In The Sun”
Kim Wilde “Water On Glass”
R.E.M. “Superman”
The Romantics “Let’s Get Started”
Adam and The Ants “Kings Of The Wild Frontier”
Spandau Ballet “Chant No.1”
Oingo Boingo “Wake Up (It’s 1984”
OMD “Genetic Engineering”
Thompson Twins “Doctor Doctor”
Simple Minds “Glittering Prize”
The Cure “The Walk”
Joe Jackson “Steppin’ Out”
The Fixx “One Thing Leads To Another”
Haysi Fantayzee “Shiny Shiny”
Visage “Visage”
Hazel O’Connor “Eighth Day”
Elvic Costello “Accidents Will Happen”
Kate Bush “Violin”
Depeche Mode “Any Second Now”
Gary Numan “Cars”

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

That’s what’s on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer. I’m still off somewhere celebrating my anniversary. Check back for fresh content every single freakin’ day anyway. I’m cool like that.

Anniversary Day

My Melanie

Seven years ago today, I married Melanie Larch.

We didn’t tell many people in advance. My brother and sisters knew. A handful of close friends were clued in. I blurted it out to the band, Farnsworth, when I was working on a music video for them, but quickly swore them to secrecy. It was pretty much a stealth wedding.

On the day we got married, I had slotted in a post that collected several videos of Ideal’s Motoriffic toy,  just so folks wouldn’t know what we were up to.

We took the train to Chicago, got our license the day before, and on the 26th of August, we hopped in a cab to to Steppenwolf Theater, where at 11 AM we were married on the set of the play, “The Qualms,” by our new friend Lauren Sivak, and Mel and I began living happily ever after.

We got back to the hotel, announced our wedding on Facebook, and watched our little corner of the internet explode. Then that night we went back to Steppenwolf to see “The Qualms,” and met Tim Kazurinsky while waiting in line for our tickets.

I wrote about the whole thing in advance, but had the post scheduled to drop a day later. You can see it HERE.

And today, we are off, once again, this time for a stealth anniversary in an undisclosed location.  I might tell you about it when I get back. I might not. In the meantime, you have fresh content here in PopCult (you’re soaking in it), and there are new programs on The AIR.

So…that’s pretty much it. I was going to post a book review in this space, but I didn’t have time to read the book yet, so you get this post.

Beatles Blast and Curtain Call return Wednesday!

Wednesday afternoon The AIR brings you 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 special George Harrison-focused Beatles Blast mixtape. We dive into the deluxe boxed set of the 50th anniversary edition of his classic album, All Things Must Pass, and bring you an hour of some of the unreleased treats and alternate takes included in that set.

Beatles Blast 073

George Harrison
All Things Must Pass Mixtape Special

“Going Down To Golder’s Green”
“Dehra Dun”
“Cosmic Empire”
“Wah Wah (Take 1)”
“Hear Me Lord (Take 5)”
“Almost 12 Bar Honky Tonk (Take 1)”
“All Things Must Pass (Day One Demo)”
“My Sweet Lord (Day One Demo)”
“Om Hare Om (Gopala Krishna)”
“Sour Milk Sea (Day One Demo)”
“Isn’t It A Pity (Take 14)”
“Woman Don’t You Cry For Me (Take 5)”

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

At 3 PM on Curtain Call, Mel Larch also brings you a mixtape. With Curtain Call it’s a collection of songs by Broadway stars from their non-cast-album recordings. Mel opens with a new song from Ben Platt, the original star of Dear Evan Hansen. Check out this star-studded line-up…

Curtain Call 103

Ben Platt “Carefully”
Barbara Streisand with Barry Gibb “If Only You Were Mine”
Mark Seibert “Who Wants To Live Forever”
Kyle Taylor Parker “You Could Drive A Person Crazy”
Leslie Odom “Without You”
Rita Moreno “Take It Easy”
Rebecca Luker and Sally Wilfert “Lovely Lies”
Nick Cordero “Break It Down Again (live)”
Tim Minchin “If This Plane Goes Down”
Laura Benanti “The Boy From”
Lea Salonga “Nothing”
Jessica Vosk “The Music Makes Me Dance”
Betty Buckley “Every Little Thing”

Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM and 9 PM, Saturday at 8 PM and Monday at 9 AM. 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.

RFC Has You Covered, The Swing Shift Has You Dancing, Tuesday On The AIR

Tuesday on The AIR  we deliver new episodes of Radio Free Charleston and The Swing Shift. That’ two new (ish) programs totally four (mostly) new hours!  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 cool embedded player over at the top of the right column.

We have a newish Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.  This week we open with one all-new, all-local hour of RFC, and we include one special theme episode of Radio Free Charleston International from over four years ago.   We open the show with a new track by Sierra Ferrell, and we continue with a special collection of new and vintage music with some connection to Charleston.

After the first hour of RFC, stick around because the second hour revives an old Radio Free Charleston International from 2017. This early episode of RFC International dates back to when The AIR was known as “Appalachian Independent Radio” and consists of two solid hours of cover songs by prominent musical artists from around the world.

Check out the playlist to see all the goodies we have in store (live links will take you to the artist’s pages)…

RFCV5 059

hour one
Sierra Ferrell “Far Away Across The Sea”
Madison 2 “Mosco”
James Townsend “Rich Man’s Game”
Heavy Set Paw-Paws “Swamp Mint”
Hello June “Stranger”
Jim Lange “A Child’s Verse For Crow”
Crazy Jane “Echo of a Season”
Bon Air “If Ever You Doubt”
Feast of Stephen “Ward 7”
Emmalea Deal “Bite”
Cassius At Best “Broadway”
Three Bodies “Shingles and Tar”
Static Fur “Have Nots”
69 Fingers “Pick It Up”

hours two and three
Ben Folds “Video Killed The Radio Star”
Kate Bush “Sexual Healing”
Flaming Lips “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Dave Stewart and Colin Blunstone “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted”
Men Without Hats “S.O.S.”
DEVO “Are You Experienced”
Reel Big Fish “Brown Eyed Girl”
Save Ferris “Come On Eileen”
Buck-O-Nine “Pass The Dutchie”
Goldfinger “99 Red Balloons”
Klaus Nomi “Lightning Strikes”
Keith Emerson “I’m A Man”
Joe Lynn Turner, Tony Kaye & Steve Cropper “Riders On The Storm”
Todd Rundgren “Good Vibrations”
Dave Gregory “Frankenstein”
Tin Machine “Working Class Hero”
Tim Curry “I Will”
Adrian Belew “Free As A Bird”
Dave Edmonds, “Lady Madonna”
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes “On The Radio”
The Clash “Police On My Back”
Rabbit “Locomotive Breath”
GWAR “School’s Out”
Rammstein “Pet Semetary”
The Rock Lobsters “Stairway To Heaven”
Pseudo Echo “Funkytown”
Robert Palmer “Bad Case of Lovin’ You”
Keith Moon “The Kids Are All Right”

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 Noon and Midnight,  and  Monday at 11 AM, 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.

 

After RFC, stick around for encores of MIRRORBALL at 1 PM, and Ska Madness at 2 PM.

At 3 PM we have a brand-new episode of The Swing Shift. This week it’s a collection of mostly mellow, swinging standards in a special mixtape format. Check out the playlist that lets you swing and sway…but mostly swing…

The Swing Shift 116

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga “I Get A Kick Out Of You”
Marvin Gaye “Straighten Up and Fly Right”
Dr. John “Makin’ Whoopee”
Tuba Skinny “Thriller Rag”
Louis Prima “Up A Lazy River”
Lucky Thompson “No Good Man Blues”
Duke Ellington “Jive Jam”
Ella Fitzgerald “Darn That Dream”
Louis Armstong “I’m Beginning To See…”
Swingaria “Hypnotized”
Frank Sinatra “Without A Song”
Pink Turtle “Sir Duke”
The Andrews Sister “Strip Polka”
Dean Martin and Line Renaud “Relax-Ay-Voo”
Cab Calloway “Papa’s With His Britches On”
Bryan Ferry “The Way You Look Tonight”

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

Prognosis and Psychedelic Shack Return To The AIR Monday

Monday on The AIR, we proudly announce the return of our colleagues at Haversham Recording Institute in London, whose programs have been on hiatus for two months while they were toiling away in the Olympic translating mines.

Tune in at 2 PM as we bring you a new episode of  Psychedelic Shack, followed at 3 PM by a new edition of Herman Linte’s weekly showcase of the Progressive Rock of the past half-century, Prognosis.  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.

At 2 PM, Nigel Pye’s new Psychedelic Shack includes the following songs:

Psychedelic Shack 047

Tyler Pedersen “Area 53”
13th Floor Elevators “You’re Gonna Miss Me”
Silver Apples “Ocsillations”
Panda Bear “Bros”
Funkadelic “Maggot Brain”
MC5 “Starship”
The Chambers Brothers “Time Has Come Today”
Cornershop “6 AM Jullander Shere”

Psychedelic Shack can be heard every Monday at 2 PM, with replays Tuesday at 9 AM, Wednesday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday at 9 AM. Classic episodes can be heard Sunday at 9 AM as part of our Sunday Haversham Recording Institute collection.

At 3 PM, Herman Linte offers up a new Prognosis, which is a two-hour mixtape dedicated to his all-time favorite progressive rock tracks, to mark the 75th edition of Prognosis.  Here’s this week’s playlist…

Prognosis 075

Peter Gabriel “Solsbury Hill”
Kansas “Song For America”
Allan Holdsworth “Metal Fatigue”
The Nice “Ars Longa, Vita Brevis”
Marillion “Garden Party”
Van Der Graaf Generator “Refugees”
Egg “While Growing My Hair”
Liquid Tension Experiment “Kindred Spirits”
Pink Floyd “Echoes”
Renaissance “Kings and Queens”
Rabbit “Never Gonna Ruin My Life/T.C. Rabin In D Minor”
YES “Yours Is No Disgrace:
Focus “Hocus Pocus (live)”

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

At 7 PM, stick around for a 12-hour marathon of Prognosis, with an emphasis on special theme episodes that focus on single artists or classic albums.

Monday Morning Art: Deco Pop Revisited

This week I decided to go back and revisit a piece that I did for Charleston’s Main Street East End project where artsy street signs were put up all over Washington Street on the East End. This was a really cool project, which unfortunately is mostly gone now. Ignoring my advice, the signs were not printed with UV protection, and over the years, most of them faded. A couple of years ago they started taking them down, and I have no idea if they ever plan to reprint the signs and put them back up.

East End Main Street has not been good about communicating with their artists about this sort of thing.

I was very happy with this piece, and it was really cool to drive near the Capitol building and see it on the lamp post outside the McDonalds. I wish they’d let us know if they’ll ever be re-erected or displayed anywhere else.

Back when I did the original piece, more than nine years ago, I posted a step-by-step look at the process I undertook to make it. You can find it HERE.

For this revamp, I tweaked the colors a bit, with a few years worth of hindsight, and that’s it up there.

Click to see it bigger.

I’ll have today’s notes for The AIR posted later today.

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