Month: November 2023 (Page 3 of 6)

Having decided to extend The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide, we no longer find ourselves in the homestretch, so we can settle into this year’s format, and recommend three online retailers from which you can choose a bounty of cool gifts for the loved ones on your shopping list.

Monday we’ll be focusing on three local Brick and Mortar Bookstores.

This is almost a flashback day, as we have recommended all of these fine folks before, but they still offer cool and distinctive stuff, so why not share their links again?

While these are all online retailers, rest assured that none of them are Amazon, so you won’t be putting money into the pockets of any wanton billionaires (unlike 90% of my other gift suggestions). However, I will vouch for their prompt shipping so you can be sure to get your gifts in before the holiday.

Cotswold Collectibles

Costwold Collectibles is a dedicated website where you can get just about everything you need to to recruit and outfight your Army of fighting forces in 1/6 Scale.

Full disclosure: I’m friends with the folks who work here. Who wouldn’t be? I buy tons of their GI Joe-compatible figures, toys and equipment every year. Cotswold Collectibles carries a great assortment of vintage GI Joe and Action Man items, ranging from the 1960s to the revival toys in the 1990s and beyond, and they also make their own Elite Brigade items that bring back the glory days of The Adventure Team and also veer into the military side of things. I mean, I’ve known the owner for over thirty years.

This is pretty much the coolest action figure shopping site on the planet. It’s a clearing house for all things 1/6 scale, but they’ve also branched out into 1/12 scale and MEGO-sized figures and accesories, and they carry a wide variety of stuff to suit any budget.

Cotswold Collectibles also carries the World Peacekeepers line of 12″ military figures that used to turn up every holiday season at Big Lots. These fully-articulated, high-detail figures are now available from Cotswold, who are also carrying some of the extensive vehicle and diorama sets, which haven’t been sold in the US for over fifteen years. On top of that, they have incredible small-batch custom offerings from Huxter Industries, Artlab Designs and more.

If you want to find high-quality photos of their most recent offerings, check out their website and their Facebook Page.

In recent years Cotswold Collectibles has also reached out to import terrific new 1/6 scale items from Spain, Brazil and France and they also offer a great selection of products from Dragon Models, Sideshow Toys, Hot Toys, Threezero and many other top 1/6 high-end companies. If you have a collector of the original 12-inch GI Joe action figure on your holiday shopping list, you need to shop at Cotswold Collectibles.

Archie McPhee

Archie McPhee is another online retailer that produces a hilarious catalog. This is their fortieth anniversary, and they are as weird as ever. That’s  a good thing.

Originally a surplus novelty house, back in the 1980s, Archie McPhee quicky exhausted their supply of weird stuff, so they had to start making their own. You find products created for Archie McPhee under their “Accoutrements” label all over the place now, but if you want to go to the source, visit their website for a wide selection of things like rubber horse heads, super librarian action figures, Goth Cats, chicken-flavored candy canes and stuff like that. It’s fun, and perfect for the person on your holiday shopping list with a healthy sense of the absurd.

Among the silly stuff you can get there is a line of pull-back racers…but they aren’t cars. You can get racing babies, grim reapers, tardigrades, possom and rubber chickens.

In fact, Rubber Chickens are their spirit animal, and Archie McPhee offers a huge variety in all sizes, shapes and forms, along with ANCILLIARY RUBBER CHICKEN MERCHANDISE!

Other great new items include the Itty Bitty Line of minature bizarre things, meditating animal figures, the world’s largest selection of finger puppets and this year’s feature item, The Bigfoot Basecamp playset. I should probably point out that the Itty Bitty Bigfoot and Itty Bitty Aliens would be right at home on a HO Scale train layout, and many other Itty Bitty items would work as props for action figures.

This is seriously one of the most fun websites, filled with tons of goofy, silly and wacky things that you can spring on your loved ones this Christmas. We have never needed a laugh more than we have with an election year and all it’s depressing atmosphere looming, and Archie McPhee is there to give you a big one.

A laugh, that is. Although you can also find a Giant Rubber Chicken there.

American Science & Surplus

American Science & Surplus has been around for decades and publishes one of the most entertaining catalogs on the face of the Earth. I’ve mentioned them here in PopCult before, and Mrs. PopCulteer and I have even made the pilgrimmage to their store in Chicago.  They sell surplus items that include electronic components, gadgets, tools, toys, military pouches, cooking supplies, art supplies, pop culture oddities, educational materials and anything else they can get their hands on, cheap.

This is a great place to find gifts for the science enthusiast on your shopping list.

They sell all kinds of motors and lights that can be used for home robotics. They also have military suplus gear that can be repurposed into all sorts of things. And where else can you find a three-foot-long test tube, listed in their catalog as “Test Tooooooooooobe?”

Your PopCulteer and his lovely wife made a pilgrammage to their store in Chicago a few years ago, and it was a life-changing experience. Not everybody can run up to the Windy City, but their website is the next-best thing, in terms of finding offbeat, unusual, extremely useful stuff that you didn’t know you needed.

The American Science & Surplus website is the first stop for gag gifts, or “different” ideas for the “different” people on your holiday shopping list. Seriously, they have tons of cool stuff. Just go look at their site.

Mark Scarpelli and Dan Kehde’s rock opera, MARY,a Charleston tradition, opens this coming Friday. This year they’re going to be doing an unplugged version of the show, semi-staged, to better take advantage of the intimate performance space at the Elk City Playhouse.

To get you in the mood for this production by Charleston Youth Arts Company, you can sample a Radio Free Charleston playlist of clips from previous  productions in the video at the top of this post. This year MARY happens at the Elk City Playhouse at 218 W Washington St, Charleston, on the city’s historic West Side.

I’m going to quote from CYAC’s press releases for the rest of this post, but if you haven’t seen MARY: A Rock Opera, you really should…

Mark Scarpelli and Dan Kehde’s seasonal opus, MARY, has been performed every Christmas season for the past 27 years!  The story of Mary, the future mother of Jesus, over the nine months prior to the birth, MARY provides a timeless score and poignant lyrics to the most famous story of all time.

Coming out of the pandemic, we’ve been reevaluating how CYAC fits into the world around us. This extends to reimagining how we stage MARY. We want the songs to take center stage and let the energy of the music guide the storytelling process. This means minimal costuming and staging, allowing the cast to have more fun with the songs and characters. We’re calling this new concept “Mary: Unplugged!”

Picture this: 30 people gathered around your living room, singing the music of MARY. That’s the kind of intimate, engaging experience we’re aiming for this year.

It’s worth mentioning that this is the second production of MARY since the passing of composer Mark Scarpelli in 2022. There’s a legacy here, and we are determined to honor his memory in the best way possible, by continuing to share his music with the world.

Seating is limited, so we suggest you purchase tickets ahead of time HERE.

Yu might want to keep in mind that MARY is a wonderful experience that can make for a very nice early Christmas present for the theatre-lover on your shopping list.

Today in The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide, since it’s one of our “flashback” days, and since I promised that T Shirts would be involved, I’m going to toss you a bit of a curve and remind you of three artist friends of the blog who sell their designs on T Shirts, but also on prints, mugs and a variety of other cool items. There are even books involved.

Two of our artists are local to the Charleston area, and the third is an old friend from my comic book days whom I actually haven’t seen in person since 1987.

All of them do really cool art that not only looks great on your wall, but also on your chest!

Without any further ado, let’s remind you of some of the artists whose work we’ve told you about…and would still make great gifts.

Seriously, the works of these artists all make fine gifts for the sophisticated lover of great works on your shopping list.

HepCatz Design
by Brenda Pinnell

Brenda Pinnell is an accomplished graphic designer who has branched off and become an entrepreneur with her creations, HepCatz, including the main Hepcat, Mr. Fluffy Butt. Hepcatz promises “Cool Cats, Swell Design,” and I can verify that this is a case of truth in advertising. Her cat cartoons are cute, funny, clever and…well…swell.

Like your humble blogger, Brenda is a fellow refugee from Charleston Newspapers.

Hepcatz brings us clever and hilarious cartoons featuring Brenda’s cast of feline interlopers having their way with the world at large. And you can find them on all kinds of HepCatz swag.

You can find HepCatz stuff at Tamarack and at the HepCatz Store, where you can find all of Brenda’s HeptCatz merchandise, including notecards, T-shirts, mugs, holiday cards, artwork and more. You can also buy HepCatz gear this weekend at her booth at the Capital City Art & Craft Show at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.

Follow Brenda on Instagram to see more of her art and where you can buy it.

Glen Brogan

This is not Glen’s first time in The PopCult Gift Guide, but he’s still such a damn good artist that you’ll want to see what he has to share. At his page you can find links to prints and T Shirts featuring his art. His prints are top-notch and sold through Hero’s Complex Gallery.  T-Shirts and other apparel can be found at his TeePublic Shop.

Glen Brogan is the type of artist that makes his fellow artists want to give up and pack it in. His art is so good that it’s hard to imagine anybody topping it. With a sleek style and a strong appreciation of the coolest elements of pop culture, Glen has made a name for himself with exhibits in New York and Los Angeles and work commissioned by Disney, King Features Syndicate, Marvel Comics and more. His first ook will be published in conjuction with his next exhibit at HGCArt in Los Angeles.

In addition to his prints and shirts, you might want to track down The Haunted Mansion Little Golden Book, which Glen illustrated in 2021. He’s recently done book signings at Taylor Books and the Mountain State Pop Expo, It’s now available in a larger size, too.  You might want to follow Glen on Instagram to see what he’s up to next.

MItch O’Connell

Mitch is an old friend that I haven’t seen in person for a long time, but we keep up via social media, and he’s got tons of great art items available.

It’s hard to pigeon-hole Mitch O’Connell’s work. He’s run the gamut from low-brow to high-brow, and has been right at home no matter what he does. He is a man who straddles many brows. You’ve seen his work on covers for Newsweek, and illustrations for Rolling Stone, Playboy, The Village Voice and dozens of other magazines. He’s done clip art that’s been used around the world. O’Connell has drawn CD covers for Supersuckers, Less Than Jake, the Malamondos and tons of other groups. Plus he’s done flyers for Burlesque Shows, movie festivals, bands, theatrical productions and roller derby.

Mitch’s Threadless Shop has dozens of cool designs, including his recreations of the monster shirts from a classic episode of Leave it To Beaver. You can even get them in grayscale now, just like they were on TV back in the day.

Mitch also has an Etsy shop where you can buy limited edition prints, stickers, his books and other goodies.

And while you’re at it, follow him on Instagram too, so you can see his new projects and the stuff he finds at flea markets.

From October, 2008, this episode of Radio Free Charleston features alternative rock from Ten Carp Lie, a jam-band tune from Corporate Orange, yet another promo clip for the then-new Scarpelli/Kehde musical “Jack The Ripper,” plus the short film, “Charleston Speed Run #1,″ and a sneak peek at the documentary “Weird, Wonderful: The Braxton County Monster,” which made it’s debut at the RFC Halloween Party October 25, 2008, at the La Belle Theater.

We were hitting a pretty solid stride back then, leading into the 2008 Halloween specials. You can read the original production notes HERE.

Today is one of those days where we don’t really have a unifying theme in The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide.

The one thread that ties our three recommendations together is that they’re really, really cool.

Our selections today include the first album in seven years from a beloved Ska/Pop band, a new collectible figure based on a classic vintage toys and a selection of some of the coolest T Shirts you’ll ever find (in advance of tomorrow’s all-shirt-related Flashback picks).

After beating my magazine deadline this week, I have decided to extend The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide until November 30, rather than end it next Wednesday and then do bonus selections next month. This makes life less complicated for everybody.

And now, on with the coolness…

Theatre of the Absurd presents C’est La Vie
by Madness
Available on CD, Vinyl and Download from Amazon.
Also for sale anywhere cool music is sold

The thirteenth album by beloved UK Ska pioneers, Madness, finds the band in top form after seven years out of the studio. With 14 full-length songs (and several brief, surreal interludes), the band has delivered a quasi-concept album that address the absurdity of live in a post-pandemic world.

Decades ago Madness mutated from their Ska roots into something more along the lines of a New Wave reincarnation of The Kinks at their best, and that continues on Theatre of the Absurd presents C’est La Vie as the once-Nutty Boys, now Nutty Old Men, rail against lockdowns, masking, child-trafficking and more, all in a satirical tone, tongue in cheek and entertaining as hell.

The band describes the recording as “the perfect antidote to the chaos of the past few years.” With six of the seven original members, the band has somehow managed to remain in form and sound as good as they ever did.

Theatre of the Absurd presents C’est La Vie  is released today, and should be available where ever records are sold.

It’s a perfect gift for fans of Madness, New Wave Music or very British pop concept albums.

The Great Garloo Action Figure
by The Nacelle Company
$19.99 plus tax and shipping

The Great Garloo was one of the giant wired-remote control animatronic monster toys made by Marx in the1960s.

So striking was his design that six decades after he graced toystore shelves, people still recognize him.

Now Nacelle has updated his design a bit, and after a successful run as a ReAction figure, they’ve unleashed a 3″ tall Garloo on the world, complete with packaging that replicates the original Marx toy.

As they say, “A 60’s Monster toy icon THE GREAT GARLOO is back and ready to reign over your toy collection, as a vibrant, original sculpted collectible.”

Not-so-big anymore, green, and with a face only a mother or a Monster Kid could love, Garloo can’t wait to infiltrate your home and use it as his base to take over the world.

Collectors should be warned that Garloo does bear an uncanny resemblance to Pete Davidson. This is a nice item for Marx Toy Collectors, vintage toy and monster fans, or just anybody with an affinity for the Garlooesque.

Available directly from The Nacelle Company.

The Zerostreet Threadless Shop
featuring wearable art by Robert Jimenez
Visit The Store HERE

Okay, this is almost a Flashback pick, but Robert’s added so many cool designs lately, and tomorrow’s T-Shirt Flashback entry is pretty crowded, so I wanted to include it here with other random coolness.

Robert’s Threadless Shop is loaded with over 150 cool designs, all created by Robert. You’ll see everything from Tiki-influenced designs to some of his Fearsome Weirdos monsters to a few Wacky Packages-style parodies and lots of pop-culture references. Where else are you going to find a T-shirt featuring the edible seaweed that Milton Berle was trying to sell in It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?

Oh, and there’s lots of monkeys and/or apes in the mix.

Jimenez is a very talented artist who works in a cool lowbrow art/pop culture area, and when he’s not designing trading cards or painting pop culture parodies or fez-wearing monkeys, he’s an in-demand Tiki illustrator.

His designs are available on a very wide range of shirt colors, and in sizes ranging from small to 3XL. Threadess is good about this. Their shirts are very high-quality and comfortable. You can browse the designs and order them HERE.

There’s a very good chance that you’ll find a cool design or five for the T-shirt wearing person on your shopping list. We will have another item by Robert in the Gift Guide later in November.

The PopCulteer
November 17, 2023

STUFF TO DO

We have a short list of suggestions this week as many people are gearing up for Thanksgiving week.  Your PopCulteer has made the decision to extend The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide to November 30. I had a pressing magazine deadline, but I’m happy to report that I met it head-on, and after a Kaiju-like battle I have vanquished it, and following that I realized that I’d rather finish off the Gift Guide this month, instead of doing a “bonus week” in December.    Next week, instead of ending on Wednesday, we’ll keep the gift ideas coming going for eight more days. For now, let’s look at that STUFF TO DO.

As I have been doing of late, this 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.

Live Music is back at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM.  Friday Matt Thomas, takes the stage. Saturday Minor Swing performs at the beloved bookstore/cafe/art gallery.

The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week  to tell you about.  Friday Tim Courts plays during happy hour.  Sunday at 9:30 PM, Christopher Carter from Hurl Brickbat puts on a solo show.  We have graphics below for the rest of the weekend shows at The Glass.

Next Tuesday there is a really cool event at The Alban Arts Center, and admission is just a toy donation. It’s a screening of NitroWolfy105’s stop-motion animated films, and you can read more about it in our final graphic this week.

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, little clones of George Santos lying all over the place, suspended college football coaches, big-eyed beans from Venus 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. Sometimes I think they just do it to mess with me.

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

Continue reading

Wordliness is next to oddliness or something like that today in The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide. We’re recommending a few books from folks who have had books recommended by us in previous years.

The catch is, these are NEW books!

We’ve got a work of Young Adult humourous fiction, a loving look at classic lunchboxes and a trilogy of novels that are sci-fi sequels to books we first told you about years ago.

So pull up a comfy chair and get a strong light, we’re going readin’, folks.

Jack & Jill: Fury Hill
by Frank Conniff
Podhouse Press
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8218286804
$12.99 from Amazon
$25 autographed, from The Author

If you have a fan of MST3K on your holiday shopping list, this hilarious, brisk read is the perfect gift. It’s a modern spin on a classic nursery rhyme, courtesy of TV’s Frank, Frank Conniff.

Blending Jack and Jill with Mad Max: Fury Road, Coniff treats us to a post-apocolyptic fairy tale where getting a drink of water is the least of their worries.

As the brief publisher’s description says, “As the world fell down a hill, each of our crowns in their own way were broken. Jack and Jill: Fury Hill.”

It’s an all-ages book, and yet still manages to be delightfully twisted.

A perfect gift for anyone with a sense of humor.

Available from Amazon or directly from Frank Conniff himself, who will gladly autograph it for you personally, and then he’ll take it to the post office and personally mail it to you from New York City!

Lunch Box Memories
by Jason Young
Self Published
$25 (Canadian) from Jason Young/Oldtimes Digest

Nostalgia merchant, Jason Young strikes again, this time with a book that looks back at classic lunchboxes from days gone by.

For the last couple of years, Jason Young has been self-publishing some terrific books about the fringes of pop culture where your humble blogger likes to shine his spotlight.

This time around he tackles one of the most heavily-collected items that, a few decades ago, was a ubiquitous part of the childhood experience..the (usually) metal lunchbox, which was often accompanied by a matching Thermos.

Lunch Box Memories is a full-color, 170-page look back that includes a foreword written by an Aladdin lunch box artist, a chapter on the history of lunch boxes themselves, and more than 100 featured old metal lunch boxes that are sure to include your favorites. It’s profusely-illustrated and will be a great gift for any lunchbox collector, aspiring collector, or just any fan of pop culture of that certain era of coolness from the 1960s to the 1980s.

The Starchildren Saga
Tales from the HoloDrome
ISBN 9798866884025
$22.99

The StarHaven Tales
ISBN 9798866890941
$22.99

Beyond the HoloDrome
ISBN 9798866899494
$22.99

by Thomas Wheeler
Self-published
Available from Amazon by clicking on the ISBN number

The StarChildren return in a trilogy of new sci-fi adventure novels from author Thomas Wheeler. We told about the earlier books in this series in previous Gift Guides, and now it’s a bounty of adventure with three new books filled to the brim with outer-space action.

In these new volumes the StarChildren encounter amazing new worlds of adventures, new friends and allies, even as their island home is detected by outside forces that may well have plans of their own.

The third, fourth, and fifth books in the series that has been compared to “Star Trek meets Jonny Quest” are available in paperback and Kindle e-book form, exclusively on Amazon.

These books would be the perfect gift for fans of old-school science fiction and adventure. The series is a throwback to the golden age of science fiction, with echoes of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Isaac Asimov and Jules Verne, but with an modern setting.

Day Fifteen of The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide sees us recommending gifts that can be fun for the whole family.

Unless some of your family is ultra-competitive and ruins things when you try to play games. In which case, nevermind.

Today it’s board games. Rather newish games, at that, and each of them can be found for under thirty bucks at major game retailers and department stores.

Our choices today include a game based on a movie, a game based on an amusement park ride, and a game borne from the unholy union of two of the greatest board games of all time.

Without any futher ado, shall we play a game…or three?

Monopoly Scrabble
by Winning Moves Games, under licence from Hasbro

Winning Moves Games, the folks who produce a lot of the retro-games for Hasbro, came up with the idea to merge Scrabble with Monopoly. On the surface, it seems like the kind of idea that folks who really, really like to drink too much beer would think of, however the end result is actually pretty fun.

Let’s look at the PR, complete with fancy registration symbols…

Experience the totally unique gameplay of Monopoly® Scrabble®— the innovative game that combines the best elements of the Monopoly® game with the crossword-building play of Scrabble®.

In place of rolling dice to move around the board, players build words and move ahead by their score. Build a word on a premium space and claim a Monopoly® property.

Clever gameplay twists, along with custom Community Chest and Chance cards, keep things moving at a fast pace.

The winner is the player with the highest total of cash and property value when the last letter tile is played.

Contains: 1 Quad-Fold Gameboard, 5 Wooden Scrabble Tile Racks, 1 Bag of 100 Wooden Scrabble Letter Tiles, Tile Storage Bag, 9 Silver-Toned Monopoly Tokens, Deck of 24 Community Chest Cards, Deck of 24 Chance Cards, 10 Title Deed Cards, Monopoly Money Pad (Sixty $100 bills and Sixty $500 bills), and Illustrated Rules. Ages: 8+; Players: 2 to 4

It’s a stripped-down, simplified version of Monopoly, but instead of rolling dice, you move what you get on your Scrabble score. One added bonus is that the tokens included with this game are the classic Monopoly tokens, so if you wanna be the Scottie Dog or the Thimble, knock yourself out.

You ought to be able to find it anywhere games are sold, or you can be lazy and get it from Amazon.

Disney Space Mountain, All Systems Go
by Ravensburger Games

Based, thankfully, on the famous ride at Disneyland, and not on Ric Flair, this game lets you experience the thrilling action of Space Mountain from the comfort of your home.

In this exhilarating racing game, you’ll zoom across space, using wormholes to reach distant Starports. On your turn you’ll roll the dice and move your rocket according to what you roll. The planets, asteroids, and comets you pass can be used to complete missions.

The first pilot to complete their missions wins and reach all five Starports wins!

It’s an exciting racing game based on the classic Disney Attraction for Ages 8 and Up

Contents include: 3 Navigation Dice, 1 Space Mountain Dice Tower, 20 Starport Tokens, 20 Mission Cards, 25 Mission Marker Tokens, 5 Starport Standees, 16 Encounter Tokens, Galaxy Board, Fuel Gauge, Fuel Marker, 4 Rocket Movers, Rules.

You ought to be able to find it anywhere games are sold, or you can be lazy and get it for half the list price from Amazon.

Adventure X: Jurassic World
by Playmonster

Okay, this one is a hybrid of a board game and an escape room, and it’s pretty much a single play game. But it’s a very novel concept, and it is based on a hit movie.

As part of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, you and your team members work to track down dinosaurs around the globe and transport them to Biosyn Sanctuary where they can live freely. You pilot a cargo plane that can carry dinosaurs as large as a T.rex. Your Mission today is to deliver three rare dinosaur eggs to Biosyn Valley in the Dolomite Mountains. You look at the portable incubator in the seat next to you. These eggs must be pretty special…

When you begin your adventure  you’ll find that AdventureX is a collaborative dinosaur-themed board game that has an unfolding 3D game board as part of the box.

You will follow clues and solve puzzles to unfold the layers of the game as you journey to get your dinosaur eggs to safety.  Share information and work together. You can refer to the hint card and use the red filter on the Satellite Radio to reveal more hints.

This one-time mystery board game can be played only once with 1 to 4 players and for kids ages 8 and up. It’s really more of an elaborate puzzle than a game, but it can be loads of fun for a family, especially if the kids in the family love Jurassic World.

The game comes with everything you need to complete your mission including an unfolding 3D Game Board with Hidden Puzzles, Satellite Radio Decoder, Plane Instrument Panel, and 39 Cards.

At thirty bucks, it might seem a little pricey for a game you only play one time, but that’s less than taking four people to most movies, so if you think of it that way, it’s not so bad.

You ought to be able to find it anywhere games are sold, or you can be lazy and get it (at full price) from Amazon.

Today The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide gets a little pricey again. All of our gift suggestions today cost more than a hundred dollars, and this time they’re way past a hundred bucks.

So these gift ideas for for people you really, really like. One of these is, I think, the most expensive thing I’ve ever included in a Gift Guide. It’s not really a practical idea for a gift unless you’re wealthy and deeply in love with the giftee, but it is really cool.

With the caveat of sticker shock in place, since we’re going by cost and not any theme, today’s three entries are a bit of a different Gift Guide trifecta: Music, A Book About Music and A Lionel Train.

I’m still undecided about whether or not to do this again next week, you’ll just have to check back and see.

Pink Floyd
The Dark Side Of The Moon 50th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set
Around $300 at most record shops and online retailers. Discounted at Amazon.

One of the most iconic and influential albums ever, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon celebrates its 50th Anniversary.

The album was partly developed during live performances, and the band premiered an early version of the suite at London’s Rainbow Theatre several months before recording began. The Dark Side Of The Moon is the eighth studio album by Pink Floyd, originally released in March 1973.

The new material was recorded in 1972 and 1973 at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London. The iconic sleeve, which depicts a prism spectrum, was designed by Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis and drawn by George Hardie. The Dark Side Of The Moon has sold over 50 million copies worldwide.

The new deluxe box set includes CD and gatefold vinyl of the newly remastered studio album and Blu-Ray + DVD audio featuring the original 5.1 mix and remastered stereo versions. The set also includes additional new Blu-ray disc of Atmos mix plus CD and LP of The Dark Side Of The Moon – Live At Wembley Empire Pool, London, 1974’

This is for the die-hard Pink Floyd fan on your shopping list. The full list of goodies in this box are as follows:

CD1 – The Dark Side Of The Moon (50th Anniversary 2023 Master). Remastered by James Guthrie in gatefold sleeve with 12-page booklet.

CD2 – The Dark Side Of The Moon Live At Wembley Empire Pool, 1974–Mixed by Andy Jackson in gatefold sleeve with 12-page booklet. Cover design by Aubrey Powell/Hipgnosis and Peter Curzon/StormStudios, featuring original 1973 line drawn cover artwork by George Hardie.

LP1 – The Dark Side Of The Moon (50th Anniversary 2023 Master). Remastered original studio album 180g LP in gatefold sleeve, with original posters and stickers.

LP2 – The Dark Side Of The Moon Live At Wembley Empire Pool, 1974–180g vinyl in gatefold, with 2 posters featuring design by Ian Emes and Gerald Scarfe. Cover design by Aubrey Powell/Hipgnosis and Peter Curzon/StormStudios, featuring original 1973 line drawn cover artwork by George Hardie.

Blu-Ray 1 (Audio)–Original album 5.1 and high-resolution remastered stereo mixes; 1. 5.1 Surround Mix – 24bit/96kHz Uncompressed; 2. Stereo Mix – 24bit/192kHz Uncompressed; 3. 5.1 Surround Mix – dts-HD MA; 4. Stereo Mix – dts-HD MA

Blu-Ray 2  (Audio)–Original newly remastered album Atmos and high-resolution stereo mixes; 1. Dolby Atmos Mix; 2. Stereo Mix – 24-bit/192kHz Uncompressed; 3. Stereo Mix – dts-HD MA

DVD (Audio)–Original album 5.1 and remastered stereo mixes;1. 5.1 Surround Mix – Dolby Digital @448 kbps; 2. 5.1 Surround Mix – Dolby Digital @640 kbps; 3. Stereo Mix (LPCM) – 24-bit/48 kHz Uncompressed

160-page Thames & Hudson hardcover book with rare black and white photographs from the 1973-1974 tours of the UK and the USA taken by Jill Furmanovsky, Peter Christopherson, Aubrey Powell, Storm Thorgerson. 76-page complete songbook of original album. 2 Replica &: Singles with “Money” / “Any Colour You Like” and “Us And Them” / “Time.” There is also a replica of a pamphlet and invitation to the preview of The Dark Side of The Moon at the London Planetarium on 27th February 1973.

KEITH EMERSON (SIGNATURE EDITION)
Limited Edition Book by Chris Welch
Rocket 88
Signed by Chris Welch and Aaron Emerson.
$350 from Rocket 88

Created with the Emerson family, this celebration and examination of the life and work of Keith Emerson is illustrated throughout with over 200 previously unpublished family photos, classic performance images and private correspondence. New interviews conducted for the book by author Chris Welch include contributions from the Emerson family, close friends, and fellow performers, among them Carl Palmer, Rick Wakeman, Geoff Downes, Alan White, Steve Howe, Lee Jackson, Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter, Marc Bonilla and many more.

This limited edition is signed by Chris Welch and Aaron Emerson, comes in a clamshell box and includes an archival quality art print portrait of Keith, a CD of an unheard interview, and specially created sheet music of Keith’s first ever original composition Quatermass Boogie Woogie, a hand-written score by the then 12-year-old, in 1956.

Rocket 88 always produces top-notch books that qualify as works of art, and the Emerson book is no exception. With the hefy price, it’s a great gift for a much-loved Keith Emerson fan on your shopping list. There is a less-elaborate, unsigned edition of the book available for $55 plus shipping.

UNION PACIFIC ROCKET BOOSTER TRAIN
by Lionel
Available from Hobby Shops or directly from Lionel
$1,699.99

You can pick your jaw up off the floor now. That really is the list price for this incredible-looking O Scale train set.

Which, by the way, does not include any track.

This is an extremely impressive train set, based on a real train used to transport Rocket Boosters for NASA. The prototype Rocket Booster Train is designed to carry the NASA’s SLS rocket over a 2,800-mile journey from the manufacturing facility in Utah to Florida’s Space Coast.

Each rocket booster consists of five individual segments weighing 180 tons each. A planning team from each railroad the train travels over assists with transportation. They have to determine the best route and account for any obstructions. As such, the set includes: a LEGACY ES44AC Locomotive; 6 Standard box cars, including one with special clearance bars; 5 Heavy Duty flatcars with loads ad protective covers; and a 21″ Sleeper Car to accomodate the crew.

The load that needs protecting is a scale model of a NASA SLS Rocket, which can be removed and assembled, whereupon it stands over 30 inches tall.

The train is loaded with all of Lionel’s latest sound, light and wireless Command Control technology, and it’s pretty astounding, and not just for the price.

I’m just here to make you aware of it as a gift idea for somebody with a love of NASA, an existing O-Scale layout, and no qualms about you spending so much.

Here’s a cool, but longish, video unboxing from Ben’s Trains…

While still embedded in a very busy this week, thanks to magazine deadlines and The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide, your humble blogger still managed to eye out a partly-new Radio Free Charleston on The AIR.  In fact, our all-new first hour of  Radio Free Charleston opens with a new song by The Beatles. 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 one all-new hour, and two hours of a 2017 episode of a long-lost episode of RFC International that hasn’t been heard for over six years.

Our first hour opens with “Now and Then,” the latest, and presumably last, single by The Beatles. I’m sure you’ve heard about it already, so I won’t go into details about it, but it’s here because I won’t have time to do a new Beatles Blast for a couple of weeks, and I wanted to open at least one RFC with them anyway.

We also have new music from Corduroy Brown, Hello June, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Brian Diller and more.  We also feature a new solo  tune from Pierce Crask, one of the founders of the band, Falling Martins. He has a new ablum out and you can find it HERE.   Pierce comes to use via our Chicago pipeline.

We also bring you a track from Teddy Kumpel/ Nome Sane?  who will be performing at The Empty Glass in Charleston on November 16. Check out the music on our show, then go hear them play live. Kumpel is a former guitarist for Joe Jackson and Rikki Lee Jones, and he’s coming to town thanks to Dave Roberts!

Because your humble blogger and radio host is still buried under work this week, our second and third hours are a classic episode of Radio Free Charleston International. This episode dates back more than six years, and was split between then-brand-new music and classic tracks from some of my favorite artists.

Check out the playlist below to see all the goodies we have in store. Live links in the first hour 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 153

hour one
The Beatles “Now And Then”
Brian Diller “The Last Train”
Pierce Crask “Sparkle and Shine”
The Moon My Twin “Tie Score”
Frenchy & The Punk “Monsters”
The Tom McGees “Overrated”
Strawfyssh “Ghost”
Teddy Kumpel/ Nome Sane? with Bob Stander and Matt Miller “Try The Whole Thing”
Hello June “Faded Blue”
OMD “Kleptocracy”
Duran Duran “Psycho Killer”
The Tom McGees “Half That Bad”
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies “Kingsized”
Corduroy Brown “Looking Over My Shoulder (live)”
Miniature Giant “Jerk In A Nissan”

hour two
Bob Dylan “That Old Black Magic”
Corinne Bailey Rae “Ice Cream Colours”
Radiohead “Burn The Witch”
Billy Sherwood “Breaking The Cycle”
John Frusciante “Foreglow”
Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals “When Sex Was Dirty”
Rome “Broken”
Oscar “Breaking My Phone”
Cross and Quinn “For Someone”
Future Idiots “Miss Summer”
Razor Red Noise “Reboot”
Nadia Nair “Beautiful Poetry”
Red Hot Chili Peppers “Dark Necessities”

hour three
King Crimson “Elephant Talk”
Emerson Lake and Palmer “Pictures at an Exhibition”
The Zombies “Care of Cell 44”
Blue Oyster Cult “Veteran of the Psychic Wars”
Frank Zappa “Stairway To Heaven”
Astor Piazolla “Violentango”
Joe Jackson “Soul Kiss”
Prince “America”

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 two recent episodes of The Swing Shift.  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.