Okay, it’s time once again for your guide to things you can do in and around Charleston during this post-Easter Week in our latest edition of STUFF TO DO.
A special note: ArtWalk happens again in Charleston Thursday from 5 PM to 8 PM. This free event is open to the public as art lovers can walk to all the usual suspects and take in the majesty of the art. Some galleries will have music and/or munchies as well. It’s a really cheap way to support the local scene and get out and mingle a bit…if you are so inclined.
Please remember that the pandemic is not over yet, and now only the stupidest of people are going without vaccinations. Despite some recent dubious legal rulings, many people are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding while you’re out.
Another special note: Record store Day is Saturday. We have details on a few of the participating retailers below.
Also, it appears that The Empty Glass is still undergoing repairs and will not be open. Let’s hope they get everything worked out by next week, when You Bred Raptors is due to perform.
If you wanna hear something funny, tune in to The AIR Wednesday night at 11 PM where we will offer up a new episode of The Comedy Vault, this time featuring an hour of stand-up by Billy Connelly.
In the meantime, if you’re up for going out, here are some suggestions from folks who were kind enough to provide graphics and make my job easier…
Mad For Kicks A Tokey Wedge Swinger
by Jack Lynn
published by Grizzly Pulp
$9.95
Tokey Wedge, that dynamic little (5 ft 6 and 3/4in) private eye goes undercover as “Al White, hitman from Detroit” to insinuate himself into a gang of rapists and murderers. Once again, he’s a few steps ahead of police lieutenant Ordway, but outnumbered several gangsters to one. Law-abiding Tokey has to prove himself to the thugs by making a couple of killings. After all, that’s what hitmen do, right?” How can he possibly do what’s expected of him without becoming a murderer himself?
This is Grizzly Pulp #2, the long-awaited follow-up to Nympho Lodge, which I reviewed last year. It’s another classic pulp adventure starring Tokey Wedge.
Tokey Wedge was the star of about 20 cheap pulp novels that were originally published back in the late 1950s/early 1960s. Cranked out by proflic “Men’s Adventure” writer Max van derVeer under his “Jack Lynn” psuedonym, these were originally put out by Novel Books of Chicago and they are now being resurrected by the folks at Grizzly Pulp, featuring terrific new covers by Jim Silke, just in time to warp the minds of a new generation of readers. As with their first release, the book comes with a tasteful dust cover to protect the book from prying eyes.
As I said last year, essentially, these books were “grindhouse” for folks with no access to a grindhouse theater.
The Tokey Wedge adventures are genuine pulp material of the period, following the adventures of a diminutive “citizen cop,” tooling around the city in his Triumph, who has an enormous anatomical advantage over the other dicks on the beat. These books are loaded with sexual innuendo, fast-paced action and amourous and lusty diversions. Seriously for a little guy, Mr. Wedge makes James Bond seem like a eunuch by comparison.
In Mad For Kicks, it’s like the book’s original editor said, “We loved the first book, but for the second one, can you make it way more rapey?”
As with Nympho Lodge I have to provide a trigger warning: The Tokey Wedge adventures are more than a little rapey, and they’re jokey about it. They do not treat women as much more than sex objects. There is also plenty of racism and homophobia on display. If you are bothered by violence toward women, you probably don’t want to read these books. In Mad For Kicks, Tokey Wedge finds himself helping the police hunt down a gang of brutal Beatnik rapists.
Seriously, the pull quote for the book is this:
“Simple rape would have been child’s play compared to what these kick-crazy Beatniks planned!”
The publisher’s blurb goes into more detail…
It starts off simply enough for Tokey Wedge, “citizen cop.” He’s hired by rich Walter Fisher to find and kill the men who raped his daughter. The horror later leads to a criminal operation too big for one guy to take on—unless the guy is Tokey Wedge!
This almost insurmountable challenge is further complicated by all the ample-chested dames who yearn for Tokey’s prodigious affection …..will our hero be able to take out the gangland boss first, or will he end up in the morgue under John Doe?
The prologue is a detailed description of the abduction of a woman and beginning of a rape that sets the tone for the book. While this book can be hilarious and entertaining to people who enjoy the sheer absurdity of mid-century, pre-hardcore days of mysogynistic pseudo-porn, it could also be very traumatic if your personal experiences outweigh your interest in this type of fiction.
Warnings aside, Mad For Kicks is a quick read, intentionally and unintentionally funny, and it’s a wild artifact of its time. We’ve seen this genre watered down and done as homage for so long, it’s fascinating to experience the genuine article.
Aside from the controversial subject matter, the books are well-crafted “crime noir.” Aside from the prologue, the book is written in the first person, as Tokey. The dialogue is crisp and clever, and the characterization of Tokey is very solid. Since we meet everyone else through his perceptions, it makes for a very consistent narrative.
Just as last time, Grizzly Pulp has done an amazing job here, recreating the look and feel of a cheap pulp novel, with thin cover stock and grayish pulp paper. The book is in the traditional cheap “pocket book” size around 4″ by 7″. Jim Silke provides another exquisite cover, which is hidden behind a plain black dust cover, so you aren’t seen reading such scandalous material in public. You can order Mad For Kicks starting today at their website. You can also pick up the first volume in this series, Nympho Lodge.
Mad For Kicks is $9.95 plus shipping, and when the books will likely come loaded with extras like stickers, coasters and stuff that plug other pulp novel reprints. It’s a guilty pleasure, to be sure, but it’s good sleazy fun, the kind men like.
Tuesday on The AIR your blogger and radio show host combines a mostly-local first hour with two hours of RFC International that haven’t been heard in five years, to bring you a three-hour mix of splendid free-format radio.
We have a ton of new music in our first hour, and all but one song is local. Our second and third hours were mostly new music in 2017, so you can pretend it’s new too! To hear all this cool local music 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.
At 10 AM and 10 PM (Eastern Time) you can hear this new-old episode of RFC, and just enjoy the bejesus out of it.
Our opening hour has exciting music from folks who have just put out new albums, including Spencer Elliott, The John Inghram Band and Three’s Company Blues, while our final two hours are loaded with music ranging from Cheap Trick to Reginia Spektor to Midnight Oil.
If you don’t believe me, just check out the playlist:
hour two
Trevor Sensor “Andy Warhol’s Dream”
Midnight Oil “Don’t Wanna Be Forgotten”
Toads of the Short Forest “The Emeralds Gleam”
Superfruit “Vacation”
Arcade Fire “Everything Now”
The Beach Boys “I Was Made To Love You”
Advection Stride “Reverse Universe”
Jaymes Young “Two People”
Styx “Red Storm”
Fallout Boy “Champion”
The Tubes “Talk To You Later (Live)”
Modern Talking “Atlantis Is Calling”
ELP “Paper Blood”
Regina Spektor “On The Radio (Live)”
hour three
Cheap Trick “Gonna Raise Hell (Live)
Zalza “Lights In The Sky”
Prince “Sex Me, Sex Me Not”
Duane Eddy and Ravi Shankar “The Trembler”
Alice Cooper “Paranoic Personality”
Raygon Cowboys “Painful Reminder”
The Samurai of Prog “Elements of Life”
Stockhausen Syndrome “Rowdy Roddy Piper At The Gates of Dawn”
Sandy Alex G “Bobby”
You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Wednesday at 9 AM, Thursday at 3 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, and Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different episode of RFC every weekday at 5 PM, and we bring you a marathon all night long Saturday night/Sunday morning.
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 two classic episodes of The Swing Shift. I do apologize for the lack of new episodes of The Swing Shift lately. I plan to take a day and record several new episodes soon. It’s just been rough working it into my schedule.
This week we have a quick and sloppy pastel-on-watercolor paper study for a potential high-detail large-scale canvas painting later. For now, I wanted to get the basic composition down. If I decide to blow this rough up into a bigger and more detailed work, it will look dramatically different from this rough color sketch.
I can see this being another homage to Chicago, once more details are added. It’s been twenty-six months since Mel and I have ventured to the site of our matrimony, and we really miss the place. Maybe soon we can hop on the Amtrak and go back to the promised land.
But basically, I just wanted to play with the Batman TV show camera angle here.
If you want to see this one a tiny bit bigger, just click on it.
Meanwhile, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a new episode of Psychedelic Shack, followed at 3 PM by a 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 assembled a particular swell edition of Psychedelic Shack, which I cannot describe to you because I’m writing this before I receive it through the internets. Sometimes Easter with your love must come first. He promises me it’s going to be a good one.
PsychedelicShack 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.
Following that hour of mysterious Psychedelic joy, at 3 PM Herman Linte’s Prognosis will bring us two-hours of Tangerine Dream, performing live with special guest, Brian May (of Queen fame) at Magma Arte & Congresos Concert Hall on the island of Tenerife on the occasion of the Starmus Festival 2011. This is two full hours of epic sound textures and Herman secured permission to run it, only if he did so without interruption, so aside from his intro and the station ID at the top of the second hour, this one is pure music.
However, he has also been asked not to share the playlist, which to be honest, just means less work for me anyway.
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 8 PM, we bring you an episode of The Comedy Vault filled with an hour of raunchy comedy from Redd Foxx. Wednesday evening at 10 PM, we’ll have another new episodeof our comedy showcase, but I haven’t produced it yet, so I can’t tell you what’s in it.
Then, at 9 PM we bring you an overnight marathon of ska with NOISE BRIGADE and Ska Madness. We will probably be bidding farewell to NOISE BRIGADE soon, but you’ll still be able to hear Steven Allen Adams do his show for WTSQ on Saturday afternoons. Dexter Checkers is threatening to return with new editions of Ska Madness on a regular basis soon, so we’ll just have to see what happens.
Okay, since hardly anybody is going to read the blog today due to it being Easter, I’m just going to drop a fifty-plus-year-old Rankin-Bass stop-motion animated special here for you. This is actually the second year in a row that I’m doing this. See, really, traditionally Easter Sunday is the least-viewed day of this blog, and has been for a long time. It’s like people think they have more important things to do or something. So if you did come here today, thanks.
From February 2010 comes Radio Free Charleston 94, “Star Wars Shirt.” This very special episode featured music from Byzantine, The Pistol Whippers and Adrian DeQuiros. There were also promotional announcements for The East End Pet Food Pantry and The Chemical Valley Rollergirls. Lastly we had animation by your humble PopCulteer.
Coincidentally, each of the musical performances on this show were shot with a single camera. I only mention this because it’s possible that you might not have noticed otherwise.
Normally we’ve done multiple-camera shoots on RFC, but this time we just happened to have three great one-camera clips. We also skipped a week by mistake, so next week will see episode 93 as our Flashback. If you think that’s bad, you ought to see the screw up on my taxes. I knew something was fishy when it said I’d be getting $130,000 back from the state.
You know what? Wednesday I missed a cool event to plug in STUFF TO DO.
When I put STUFF TO DO together, I try to find all the cool shows with cool graphics so I can just post them here without stringing together clumps of words or something. Once in a great while, if I think a show looks really cool, but there’s no graphics, I’ll slap one together myself, sometimes using the image of David Hasselfoff with his giant doppelganger.
Now, this show has nothing to do with the Hasselhoff photo, but Three’s Company Blues is having a CD Release party with Hurl Brickbat at The Shop in Dunbar Saturday night, and there’s a really cool graphic for it that you can see right here…
At some point soon, your PopCulteer is going to have to start making it out to local shows. Finding the balance between experiencing live music and not dying of COVID can be tricky. But, then, I’m immuno-compromised. If you’re properly vaccinated, you really ought to check out the local scene. And buy some merch and music.
AND while we’re at it, there’s another cool FREE event at The West Virginia Music Hall of Fame Saturday…
Go get yourself into the Easter spirit!
Meanwhile, the rest of today’s post is all about a new episode of MIRRORBALL on The AIR.
Luckily for you, it’s a great hour of Disco classics courtesy of my lovely wife, Mel Larch, So please enjoy this bright, shiny new episode of MIRRORBALL which will be followed by a very cool recent edition of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. 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 2 PM, Mel Larch uncorks a new MIRRORBALL with no set theme, but there is more than the usual hint of jazz grooving around these dancefloor beats.
It’s a big sparkly time capsule, shaped like a MIRRORBALL, for your boogery enjoyment (“boogery” is a word, right?).
Check out the playlist…
MIRRORBALL 049
Alicia Bridges “I Love The Nightlife”
Gonzales “I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet”
The Village People “In The Navy”
Atlantic Starr “Circles”
Blondie “Heart of Glass”
Rhythm Heritage “Gonna Fly Now”
Donna Summer “Hot Stuff”
Qunicy Jones “Ai No Corrida”
Brick “Dazz”
Boney M “Daddy Cool”
The Trammps “Love Epidemic”
George Duke “I Love You More”
Esther Phillips “What A Difference A Day Makes
You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays this Saturday at 9 PM (kicking off a mini-marathon), Sunday at 11 PM, Monday at 9 AM, and Tuesday at 1 PM exclusively on The AIR.
At 3 PM, Sydney Fileen graces us with an encore episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat that brings you music of DEVO. You can find the full playlist HERE.
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.
That’s what’s on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back because we have a fresh post every day and next week I’m hoping to have some cool reviews and videos and stuff.
Above you see a quick video I made Wednesday afternoon wherein I unbox the Saturday Morning Madmania cereal box filled with all prizes that I told you about HERE.
This was a case of me grabbing the camera, the portable studio and the Madmania box and shooting a video in the five minutes of the afternoon where my neighborhood was not under an aural assault from airplanes, lawn mowers, dog walkers or the guy who blows the whistle on the Kanawha River Railroad, who must really love his job.
In my haste, I managed to completely forget the names of all the supporting characters on the cool stuff in the box. I also forgot to mention that this incredibly fun Kickstarter project was created by Christopher Irving of The Drawn Word. He’ll be launching a new Madman Lunchbox campaign next month, and I’ll tell you about it when it’s live.
And also, I do mention Mike Allred, the artist and writer and creator of Madman, but I’m doing it again here because I’ve been a fan for more than thirty years.
For the record, the five Duncan Yo Yos seen in the video feature drawings of Madman Noir, Dr. Boiffard, Joe Lombard, Dr. Flem (who to correct the video, is not The Puke) and a photo of Allred’s wife and colorist, Laura Allred. The whoopee cushion has a drawing of The Puke on it. There are also three lobby cards and four pogs. Plus I opted for the newest Madmania fanzine.
Basically, I just knocked out this quick video so you could enjoy my excitment about this cool Kickstarter campaign.
Below we have a few photos with close-ups to make up for my shaky camera work in the video….
The group photo. All this came in that one box.
Zooming in and showing off the flip designs of the pogs and a Yo Yo.
A closer look at the box front and some Yo Yos.
The latest Madmania, plus a whoopee cushion with a little Puke on it in the background.
Finally we have the back of the box. Pretty…as they say…ginchy, no?
Your PopCulteer is happy to announce that the internet gremlins that were assaulting this blog seem to have been vanquished. To celebrate, and take another day before I jump back into the swing of things, it’s time for an Easter Week edition of STUFF TO DO.
Please remember that the pandemic is not over yet, and now only the stupidest of people are going without vaccinations. Many people are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding while you’re out.
If you are inclined to tune in to The AIR Wednesday night at 11 PM we will offer up a new episode of The Comedy Vault, this time featuring an hour of the best of Cheech and Chong.
In the meantime, if you’re up for going out, here are some suggestions from folks who were kind enough to provide graphics (except for the Static Fur/Red Audio show. I made that one)…
Tuesday on The AIR we deliver encore episodes of Radio Free Charleston and The Swing Shift. It’s all due to the annoying technical issues that have descended upon this blog over the last few days. It’s still great radio, though. 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 in the right column of the website.
Basically, your humble blogger/deejay was still on the phone with the finest IT people in Mumbai on Monday, trying to recover full control of how the graphics look in this blog. So I was not able to record new episodes of my shows this week. Today’s RFC is a wonderful episode from February, 2020. This show features our usual mix of fantastic local music and fantastic not-local music. Back when this episode first aired, I didn’t say much about it, opting instead to let the playlist do the talking, so here’s that playlist again…
RFCV5 007
hour one
Bon Air “Slide”
Farnsworth “Green Valley”
Linnfinity “Gingerbread Girl”
Kevin Scarbrough “O is for Operative”
Hellblinki “Rust”
Bad Keys Of The Mountain “Don’t Think Twice”
The Stranglers “Relentless”
Jay Parade “Three Cheers For A Goner”
Crazy Jane “Lemonade Song”
Ona “Lemon Sea”
Dubioza Kolectiv “Space Song”
Lou Reed “Dirty Boulevard”
Pepper Fandango “Scotch Whiskey”
hour two
4OHM MONO “Entertain Me”
Emmalea Deal “Everything I’m Not”
Mark Beckner “Fragile (C’est La Vie)”
Ann Manguson “What Is Pretty?”
Mika “Ice Cream”
Human Pyramids “The MIghty Atom”
The New Division “Modus”
Mother’s Nature “Stand Back”
Spurgy Hankins Band “Seagull”
Creek Don’t Rise “White Coat Man”
Van Morrison “In Search of Grace”
Nektar “The Light Beyond”
Rose Garden “Next Plane To London”
hour three
Red Audio “Moneytree”
Science of the MInd “Toxic Waste”
Mother Nang “Fade”
Mind Garage “Paint It Black”
M-Opus “Holy War”
Jeff Lynne’s ELO “From Out of Nowhere”
Barclay James Harvest “Sperratus”
Hurl Brickbat “World of Fire”
Out of Nowhere “You Know I’ve Tried”
Pale Nova “Never Get Enough”
The Who “Hero Ground Zero”
Church of the Cosmic Skull “Everybody’s Going To Die”
Godmode Broadway “Surfboards and Broadswords”
For those of you keeping track, this show includes 19 West Virginia artists, 4 ex-pat WV artists 3 artists who at least played in Charleston and 13 artists who are NOT local (including one guy who has since lost his freaking mind over the pandemic).
You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Wednesday at 9 AM, Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, and Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different episode of RFC every weekday at 5 PM, and we bring you a marathon all night long Saturday night/Sunday morning.
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. If we can’t get things completely restored, this feature might have to go away. Cross your fingers that nothing that drastic happens.
After RFC, stick around for encores of MIRRORBALL at 1 PM, and NOISE BRIGADE at 2 PM. At three we have two classic episodes of The Swing Shift.
Okay, it’s time once again for your guide to things you can do in and around Charleston during this post-Easter Week in our latest edition of STUFF TO DO.
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