Month: September 2023 (Page 1 of 4)

This installment of Radio Free Charleston from July 2008 features full songs from Casi Null (singing about the infamous Blue Haze) and Dog Soldier (singing about the infamous Christmas).

We also have parts of songs from then-future RFC guests The Buttonflies (in the 120 Second Art Show) and The Diablo Blues Band (over the end credits). The Diablo Blues Band is reuniting for a tribute show to their late drummer, Tommy Fontaine, Saturday, September 30 at The Empty Glass. you will see a full performance by the band in the following episode of RFC, which will be posted here next Saturday.

Our animation was a segment of “Duffy’s Mascot,” and your host is lethargic after eating a wonderful meal at Bluegrass Kitchen. You can read the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
September 29, 2023

It’s new radio day here at PopCult, as we (finally manage to) finish up a week with bright, shiny new editions of all of our music and comedy specialty programs on The AIR. This afternoon we survey the land of Disco and New Wave music, with new episodes of MIRRORBALL and 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 found elsewhere on this page.

MIRRORBALL

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch devotes a yet another full hour to extended mixes of classics of the Disco era.  Her most recent episode was devoted to this topic, but it was so well-received (and we also scored a huge haul of Disco singles) that we decided to revisit the concept of extended mixes of Disco classics for the second show in a row.

One of the most creative things to come out of the Disco-era club scene was the extended 12″ Disco Mix of songs, so that the folks enjoying the joyful noise could stay on the dance floor just a little longer, and the DJ’s could have more time between spinning the records.

This week we are going to bring you another seet batch of Disco Mixes of Disco Classics. It’s Disco squared times two on a full hour that brings you twelve inches closer to extasy as you dance the mid-afternoon away.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 083

Yarbrough & Peoples “Don’t Stop The Music”
Shalamar “A Night To Remember”
Sharon Redd “Can You Handle It”
George McCrae “Rock Your Baby”
Dan Hartman “Relight My Fire”
Oliver Cheatham “Get Down Saturday Night”
Sylvester “You Make Me Feel”
KC & The Sunshine Band “That’s The Way (I Like It)”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays throughout the following week Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM and a mini-marathon Saturday nights at 9 PM

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat Returns To 193

Also on The AIR  at 3 PM (EDT), Sydney Fileen graces us with special mixtape-style new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. This week Sydney presents a salute to the year 1983.

Forty years ago we witnessed a very significant year in the New Wave Era. As Sydney says in her intro, “This week, instead of spanning the entire New Wave era, we are going to zero in on one year that many people consider to be the peak of New Wave Music. In this week’s show, we will hear songs that debuted as either singles or album cuts in the year of our Lord, 1983.”

This was when MTV was taking over the nation, but hadn’t yet been corrupted by Hair Metal and crappy reality shows. Music lovers were mainlining innovativeand exciting new musical forms and a generation had their musical expectations turned on its head.

With this episode filling in the blank, Sydney’s Big Electric Cat has devoted entire shows to each year from 1978 to 1984. That means the next time Sydney decides to grace us with a “yearbook” show, she’ll be covering the fringes of the early, either in the very early days, or the very end.  I’m looking forward to seeing what she does.

Check out the playlist…

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat 108

Frankie Goes To Hollywood “Relax”
The Cure “Love Cats”
Orange Juice “Rip It Up”
Eddie Grant “Electric Avenue”
Siouxsie and the Banshees “Dear Prudence”
Madness “Our House”
Bananarama “Cruel Summer”
Tears For Fears “Pale Shelter”
Fun Boy Three “Our Lips Are Sealed”
Style Council “Speak Like A Child”
Kajagoogoo “Too Shy”
Public Image Limited “This Is Not A Love Song”
Yazoo “Nobody’s Diary”
Heaven 17 “Temptation”
New Order “Blue Monday”
Joe Jackson “Steppin’ Out”
Freeze “I O U”
Human League “(Keep Feeling) Fascination”
Nik Kershaw “I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”
U2 “New Year’s Day”
Duran Duran “Is There Something I Should Know”
The Pretenders “Middle of the Road”
Minor Detail “Columbia”
Re-Flex “The Politics of Dancing”
Art of Noise “Beat Box”
The Stranglers “Midnight Summer Dream”
Ultravox “Hymn”

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. Classic episodes can be heard Sunday morning at 10 AM.

That’s it for this week’s PopCulteer, check back for all our regular feature, with fresh content, every day.

Here we are, less than a week into Fall, and there are loads and loads of cool things happening all over the area this weekend, in and around the Mountain State. and this is probably a good time to remind you that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything comprehensive, and if you feel strongly about me leaving anything out, feel free to mention it in the comments.

First up this week is the final weekend for the Mountain Roots Theater production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  This is sort of the bonus weekend, after it was delayed for a week due to illness.  Mel and I went to see this show last Sunday, and we had a blast.

It was our first time at Mountain Roots, and we were impressed by the space. It reminded us a bit of the storefront theaters in Chicago. This production, brilliantly directed by Mandy Petry, mines all the laughs of one of Shakespeare’s most celebrated comedies, and a large cast headed by Kevin Pauley, Brian Hatcher and Kayla Lynn Marcum absolutely slays the audience with their comedic prowess.

As they say on their FB page, “set in the Roaring Twenties, where gangsters, flappers and suffragettes have replaced fairies. This magical tale has been adapted by Mandy Petry to a reasonable 90-minute length, without losing any of the original magical elements.” It’s loads of fun and you can see it Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Mountain Roots Theater in Quincy.

Live Music is back at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM.  Friday the legndary Carpenter Ants, take the stage. Saturday Sean Richardson & David McGuire with SeaScout featuring Arthur Deras work their magical music at the beloved bookstore/cafe/art gallery.

Saturday, Alien Super J3SUS hosts an open mic night at the Nitro Antique Mall starting at 7 PM. I think this may be the first time they’ve had music there.

The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week  to tell you about.  Thursday at 5:30 PM, Swingstein and Robin return with Swing for a good cause. Later Thursday, it’s Shred Night with RFC‘s show-opener for this week, Kenny Booth, at 10 PM.  Friday Tim Courts plays during happy hour.  We have graphics below for the rest of the weekend shows at The Glass.

Please remember that the pandemic is not over yet. It’s still a going concern with the ‘rona surging again. And now there are seasonal allergies, the flu, summary judgements, released WWE talent, stray loons who don’t like Martin Short and other damned good reasons to be careful. Many people who have very good reasons 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.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

If you’re up for going out, here are a few suggestions for the weekend, roughly in order…

Continue reading

In our week of all-new shows we have hit Wednesday afternoon, and The AIR brings you new episodes of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast.  You can tune in at the website, or just stay right here and  listen to the convenient embedded radio player lurking elsewhere on this page.

At 2 PM (EDT) Beatles Blast brings you an hour of covers of Beatles classics by a wide variety of artists working in a wide variety of styles. Since it’s a mixtape show, here’s a playlist so you can follow along…

Beatles Blast 099

Stephen Marley “Don’t Let Me Down”
Emmaline “With A Little Help From My Friends”
Beck “Wah Wah”
Matthew Sweet and Sussanna Hoffs “Gimme Some Truth”
Tina Turner “Come Together”
Billy Preston “Get Back”
Bodies of Water “Dear Boy”
Peter and Gordon “A World Without Love”
Silkie “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”
Alison Moorer “Here Comes The Sun”
Fairground Attraction “Do You Want To Know A Secret”
The Thompson Twins with Nile Rodgers, Madonna and Steve Stevens “Revolution”
Brad Mehldau “Baby’s In Black”
Joel Paterson “Drive My Car”
Fiona Apple “Across The Universe”
Hollywood Vampires “Cold Turkey”

Beatles Blast can be heard every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursday at 11 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday afternoon.

At 3 PM (EDT) on Curtain Call, Mel Larch comes to the defense of Martin Short, in response to the recent hatchet job profile in a website that is not deserving of a link or any attention.

Everybody loves Martin Short, from his time on SCTV to his current role with Steve Martin in Only Murders In This Building, he is universally loved…except by one person.

A low-level writer for {CENSORED} Magazine (which is really only a website) penned a hate letter to Mr. Short recently, complaining that he had no talent. The backlash was instantaneous and massive, and with this edition of Curtain Call, Mel would like to add to the dogpile and extend a virtual middle finger to that writer, who shall remain deservedly nameless, and devote most of her show to the cast album of Martin Short’s mock-autobiographical musical, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, from 2006.

And that’s after opening with a duet between Short and Bernadette Peters from his Tony-nominated turn in the musical version of Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl. He later won a Tony for another show, and that goes along with several Emmy awards and other accolades. Fans of Short (and there are billions) will get a kick out of Fame Becomes Me, and the cameos by Short as some of his most beloved characters.

Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM, Friday at 10 AM, 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.

Also on The AIR, Wednesday at 11 PM,  The Comedy Vault brings you an hour of stand up from Ali Wong.

It’s an all-new week on The AIR and that means it’s time for a new  Radio Free Charleston and a new edition of The Swing Shift on Tuesday! You simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay here, and  listen to the cool embedded player found elsewhere on this page.  

You can hear Radio Free Charleston Tuesdays at 10 AM and 10 PM, with tons of replays throughout the week.  This week we have three full hours of glorious free-format radio with lots of local acts mixed in with independent artists from around the world and a few classic tracks from major artists, just to keep you on your toes.

We open with a new song written and performed entirely by Kenny Booth , the guitar maestro for such bands as Disarm The Fallen, HARRAH, Membrane Cell and others. This is a killer tune and I hope Kenny has more up his sleeve. This was one of the three cool local tunes we told you about last Friday.

Following that we have a newly-remixed classic from The Tunesmiths, Mark Beckner’s old band that we used to feature back in the broadcast radio days of RFC. Mark’s been tidying up his archives for eventual release on Bandcamp, and we’ll let you know as soon as that project goes live.

Another remixed archive project is in pre-order mode now from Todd Burge. He’s retooled a 1980s album by his legendary first band, 63 Eyes. You can order it now, and get two tracks early. One of them is in this show.

We also feature new releases from Hello June, David Synn, Lydia Loveless, The 3 Clubmen, Sgt. Van and the Highway Dogs, Duck City Music, Sideshow Villians, Buni Muni, Emily Kinney and more. Sideshow Villains come to us courtesy of our friends in Chicago and they have a big show coming up there next month. We’ll tell you more about that as we get closer.

We also veer into a few themed sets with more oddball cover tunes and a big batch of dark cabaret music. And we end the show with a set of new surf music.

It’s three hours of quality music, crammed into three hours!

Check out the playlist below to see all the goodies we have in store. Live links will take you to the local and indie artist’s pages (where possible)  so you can find out more about them, buy their music and find out where to see them perform live…

RFC V5 147

hour one
Kenny Booth “Big Brain”
The Tunesmiths “Wish”
Hello June “Sometimes”
Mapped By A Forest “Scars”
63 Eyes “The Cellular Cellar”
Tom Robinson “Let My People Be”
Lydia Loveless “Sex and Money”
Astrodot “Sunday Too Far Away”
The 3 Clubmen “Look At Those Stars”
Sgt. Van and the Highway Dogs “Animal Farm”
David Synn “Running Backwards”
Dhani Harrison “Damn That Frequency”

hour two
Duck City Music x CHJ x NdaKut x DiagNosis “Skippin’ Remix Freestyle”
Emmaline “Seven Nation Army”
The Folksmen “Start Me Up”
Big Daddy “Burning Ring Come On Light My Fire”
The Monkey Swingers “I Wanna Be Like You”
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes “You’ve Got A Friend”
Big Daddy “Once In A Lifetime”
Sideshow Villains “Be The Wicked One”
Qiet “Pet Driftwood”
Hellblinki “Kerosene”
Linnfinity “Babel”
Galen and Paul “Lonely Town”
Frenchy And The Punk “Forever and Ever MC Escher”
Andy Prieboy “Psycho Ex (live)”

hour three
Logical Fleadh “Over The Moor to Maggie-Rakish Paddy-Flogging”
Brian Diller “Freedom Rings”
Crazy Jane “Silver”
Buni Muni“Looney Toons”
James Blake “Loading”
Emily Kinney “Walkin’ Round Your Dreams”
The Shapiros “Cry For A Shadow”
Stephen Marley “Cast The First Stone”
Rasta Rafiki “Pushin'”
Test Subject 17 “Seismic Disruptions of a Disproportionate Scale ‘
Guitarmy of One “Espionage a Trois on the Open Sea”
The Madeira “Ancient Winds”
The Tentakills “Drawn and Quartered”

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 classic 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 last week’s episodes of  MIRRORBALL at 1 PM and Curtain Call at 2 PM.

At 3 PM we offer up a brand-new episode of The Swing Shift. This time we correct a massive oversight. In nearly 150 episodes, we have yet to devote an entire episode to the Wildest, Louis Prima. To make up for it we present a mixtape packed with fifty-nine minutes of one of the most influential artists in Swing.

Sadly, I can’t post a playlist here because…I haven’t recorded the show yet, as I write this. I will tell you that it kicks off wit Louis’ version of his own composition, “Sing, Sing, Sing,” and the show will contain a mix of his biggest hits and my favorite deep album cuts. This is a show you’ll want to PLAY LOUD.

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 AM, Friday at 10 AM and 8 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.

We are still inspired by the sights we saw in Chicago back in July this week, but for a change of pace I did not try to emulate the work of Edward Hopper for this mixed media study.

Based on a very blurry photo I took from an L platform in the Loop, this was created using pastel crayons on black illustration board, then after a week or so, I went back and painted over much of it with thick acrylics.  I deliberately avoided using Hopper’s painting techniques, going for a slightly more expressionistic style that’s closer to my natural way of painting (at the moment).

The idea was to capture the colors of the flag, which stood out to me because of the way the sunlight was selectively piercing the clouds on an overcast day, creating a bit of a juxtaposition of color and gray. I was happy enough with the result to share it here.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a brand-new episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM a brand-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 elsewhere on this page.

Happily, I have playlists for these shows.  At 2 PM Nigel Pye brings you an hour of Psychedelic Shack, and this week he has some more contemporary mind-expanding aura chex mix for you, along with some vintage goodies. Check out the playlist…

Psychedelic Shack 081

Nektar “The Nine Lifeless Daughters of the Sun”
Eloy “Dillus Roady”
Fanny Adams “Ain’t No Loving Left”
Farmyard “All In Your Mind”
Freedom “Dusty Track”
Fuzzy Duck “In Our Time”
Gong “Fohat Digs Holes In Space”
Kraayeveld “Hound is on the Run”
Juicy Lucy “Slow Down”
Light of Darkness “Freedom Fight”

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.

At 3 PM Herman Linte takes over with a two-hour mixtape edition of Prognosis.  This episode puts the lie to the idea that Progressive Rock died off in the 1980s. It’s two solid hours of prog-rock from the Me Decade.  You’ll hear bands that formed in the 80s, supergroups that sprung from the ashes of prog’s greatest bands and prog-rock warriors who revitalized their sound and kept marching forward.  Check out the playlist…

Prognosis 108

Marillion “Incubus
Pallas “Crown of Thorns”
Jon and Vangelis “The Friends of Mr. Cairo”
Pink Floyd “Not Now John”
PFM “Josephine Baker”
Jethro Tull “Budapest”
Genesis “Mama”
YES “Owner of a Lonely Heart”
Dream Theater “A Vision”
Emerson Lake and Powell “Learning To Fly”
Kate Bush “Leave It Open”
King Crimson “Three of a Perfect Pair”
Mike Batt “Whispering Fools”
ASIA “Wildest Dreams”
GTR “Sketches In The Sun”
Frank Zappa “Baby Snakes”
Eddie Jobson’s ZINC “Through The Glass”
3 “Chains”
ABWH “Brother Of Mine”

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 you can hear an encore of last Wednesday’s episode of The Comedy Vault, which featured Stand Up Comedy from Steve Harvey.

Monday at 9 PM the Monday Marathon presents ten more hours of funny damn stuff from The Comedy Vault .

We are still working out some bugs with our stream at The AIR, so please let me know in the comments if the station is not playing smoothly for you.

For the die-hard fan, here’s more of the raw video we shot for our PopCult Road Trip clip. The audio has been replaced with stock music from the YouTube library for the most part because we don’t want to accidently broadcast anybody’s private conversations that might have been picked up by our microphones. This week we’re sharing the raw video from PowerCon, the huge toy convention in Columbus, Ohio, devoted to cool toys of all kinds, with lots of the wildest manufacturers on hand to show off their stuff.

What you have here is random shots of cool toys, featuring a big chunk of the main floor of PowerCon, plus the folks walking around looking at and buying toys. It’s just under 24 minutes of toy show immerssion. Of extra note is that the main attraction for me was that MEGO Meet was a part of PowerCon and you’ll see lots of cool MEGO stuff in this video, in addition to all the other stuff that was mostly caught on video by Mel.

We had a blast at the show, but it was part of an exhausting weekend as we attended two major toy collector conventions on the same weekend, some five-hundred miles apart. I’ve been writing about that trip since we got back, several weeks ago, and I’m still not fully recovered from all the intense fun.

We covered JoeLanta with our Raw Footage a couple of weeks ago, HERE.

Believe it on not, more than six weeks removed from our trip, we still have a couple of short videos from PowerCon yet to edit, and we still have one more video in the pipeline from Kentuckiana. The video editing takes up a lot of time, and your PopCulteer can no longer get by on four hours of sleep a night, so we’ll get those to you when our schedule allows.  In the meantime, enjoy the video above.

From June, 2008 we have Radio Free Charleston’s forty-fifth episode, “Hot Wheels Shirt.” This show promoted the then-upcoming Derick Kirk Memorial Stage Show at Davis Park in Charleston.  We featured Doctor Senator, performing at said park, and we had a touching song by T.J. King, about his friend, the late Derick Kirk.  We even shot the host segments around the park.

In addition to that, we had a movie trailer for an indie film out of Huntington, “The Comic Book Lady,” which starred Kathleen Jackson and featured cameos from Harvey Pekar, Genuine Nerd Toby Radloff, and Kitten Natividad.  Plus we offered up animation from Frank Panucci.  It’s all wrapped up in a tight little 16-minute package, for your viewing enjoyment.

Original production notes can be found HERE.

The PopCulteer
September 22, 2023

We crash into Friday with a new PopCulteer loaded with coolness, so let’s just dive right the heck in.

What We Do In A Magazine

What you see at the top right of this post is the newest issue of Non Sport Update Magazine. Longtime readers of this blog may remember that I’ve been writing for NSU longer than I’ve been writing PopCult.

This latest issue will be hitting newsstands all across the country over the next week or so, and not only is it a Halloween-themed issue, but yours truly wrote the cover feature that you’ll find inside.

Even cooler is that it’s about a new trading card set from Cryptozoic Entertainment based on one of my favorite TV Shows, What We Do In The Shadows. So not only did I score the cover, but it’s about a really, really funny show that I happen to love.

So seek it out and read up on the trading card debut of Lazlo, Nadja, Nandor, Colin Robinson and Guillermo and you’ll be ready to testify before The Vampiric Council. It was a blast to write about WWDITS, even though the SAG strike not only kept me from interviewing any of the cast, it made it a little weird to get info about the set. It’s still a fun article and writing it made me want to buy the cards, so imagine what reading it will do to you!

Lending Some Art

Also of note on the Rudy front, I am proud to have provided the artwork for David Synn’s new single, “Running Backwards.” It’s a killer tune, just released this week, and it features backing vocals from De’Ana May-Parsons and guitars, production and more by Jamie Skeen.

It’s a great song that sure sounds like prog to me, and you can buy it now at Bandcamp. I’m also going to play in next week’s jam-packed new episode of Radio Free Charleston, on The AIR. The art is modified from an installment of Monday Morning Art from a few months ago.

Even More Cool New Music

We’re going to preview a couple of other new tunes that you can hear next week on RFC. First up we have a really cool animated video by Hello June for “Sometimes,” the third single from their upcoming new album, Artifacts.

The video premiered at Under The Radar magazine just a couple of days ago and we’re happy to share it here…

Just released yesterday, and currently slated to open next Tuesday’s episode of RFC, is a new song by Kenny Booth (HARRAH, TriElement, Membrane Cell, Disarm The Fallen). “Big Brain” is a terrific piece of music with Kenny playing all instruments and singing, and it’s unlike anything he’s ever done before.  Probably not safe for work, so be discreet if you’re blasting it.  This song is so cool that I’m sharing it here, even though the video is just his (very cool) single cover…

Doing That Disco All Over

Finally this week we are going to re-present last week’s new episode of MIRRORBALL on The AIR .

Last week we had the culmination of some major technical issues at The AIR that disrupted the stream and didn’t get worked out until we were about three-fourths of the way through this show. Now that the internet gremlins have been located and exterminated with extreme prejudice, you’ll get a second chance to hear this gem of a show.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch devotes a full hour to extended mixes of classics of the Disco era.  The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear these shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

One of the most creative things to come out of the Disco-era club scene was the extended 12″ Disco Mix of songs, so that the folks enjoying the joyful noise could stay on the dance floor just a little longer, and the DJ’s could have more time between spinning the records.

This week we are going to bring you Disco Mixes of Disco Classics. It’s Disco squared on a full hour that goes twelve inches to heaven on this epic and eminently danceble music specialty program. Mel will likely revisit this topic soon.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 082

D-Train “You’re The One For Me”
The Crusaders featuring Randy Crawford “Street Life”
Gloria Gaynor “I Will Survive”
Real Thing “Can You Feel The Force”
Shalamar “Uptown Festival Medley”
Anita Ward “Ring My Bell”
Chic “Everybody Dance”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays throughout the following week Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM and a mini-marathon Saturday nights at 9 PM.

Next week the plan is to have new episodes of all of our music specialty programs all week long, and we’ll have details here on every one of them. That is our PopCulteer this week. Check back every day for fresh content and the occasional air fryer tip.

Last Sunday I was privileged to be at the World Premiere of HOUSE IN THE CLOUDS: The Artistic Life of Robert Singleton at the Clay Center in Charleston. This AmpMediaProject documentary told the life story of noted artist, Robert Singleton, and it packs quite a punch.

Filmakers Douglas Imbrogno (an old friend who is responsible for me writing this blog) and Bobby Lee Messer have crafted a truly compelling work with this film.

While I knew the name, I was not familiar with Singleton’s work or story, and I was not expecting such an emotional roller-coaster to be packed into a brisk, 60-minute film. Based on interviews with Singleton, and using several effective techniques, HOUSE IN THE CLOUDS tells a life story that includes a violent and traumatic childhood, a closeted existence as a gay man in the intolerant 1950s, his stunning success as an artist, coming to grips with his own sexuality just as AIDS was devastating his social circle, and a spiritual awakening that saw him giving end-of-life care to many people who had been shunned by their families. Throw in a 20-year dry spell where he couldn’t paint and the fact that, at 85 he’s still with us and producing incredible art once again, and you have a record of an amazing human being.

It’s a powerful film about overcoming great adversity and living an epic life.

Imbrogno and Messer tell this story through narration, Singleton’s own words, archival photographs and the ethical and judicious use of computer animation to recreate moments from his youth. HOUSE IN THE CLOUDS is brilliantly done, and my only criticism is that I think they had enough material to make a longer film…and maybe that’s a goal for the future.

There are a few other showings scheduled with more in the planning stages. There will be screenings at Gradient Projects in Thomas. W.Va. SATURDAY, OCT 14, 7 PM and SUNDAY, Oct. 15, PM. These are limited-seating shows and tickets ($15) will go on sale online and also be available in Thomas shortly.

To keep up with more screenings as they are scheduled, you can subscribe to the free newsletter and Substack site HERE.

It took me a few days to digest this powerful and beautiful film before I could write about it, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

You can see the trailer here…