Month: February 2025 (Page 2 of 3)

The long weekend has ended, and  Tuesday is once again “New Show Day” on The AIR.  As such, we have a sort of new episode of  Radio Free Charleston for you. To listen to The AIR, 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 boatloads of replays throughout the week.

The week we bring you an hour of patented mixture of local, independent and any other kind of music, and then for our second and third hours we resurrect an episode of Radio Free Charleston International that hasn’t been heard in over six years. I don’t really have a playlist for our presentation of Radio Cult and friends, so I’ll tell you about that part of the show below.

Our first hour opens with a new live track from The Settlement, who are gearing up for a summer filled with live shows, and then we bring you new music from Nashville’s Saycouth, who will make their first live stop at the Virgin Hotel in Nashville this Friday. The rest of hour one is filled with exquisite musical gems, guaranteed to satiate the most sophisticated tastes.

The links in the playlist will take you to the pages for the artists in this week’s show.

RFC V5 214

hour one
The Settlement “Blindman”
Saycouth “Magic”
The Heavy Hitters Band“Come Dance With Me”
Madeline Peyroux “Dance Me To The End Of Love”
Massing with Shelem “Shabby”
Gyasi  “23”
Dinosaur Burpss “Eat My Hat”
Novo Combo“Sorry For The Delay”
Andy Summers & Robert Fripp “I Advance Masked”
Chuck Biel “Genvieve Is Bob”
Galen and Paul “The Lighthouse Waltz”
Brian Diller “Some Miles Back”

hour two and three

Radio Cult, recorded in Atlanta!

The rest of the show brings you a special episode of Radio Free Charleston International. This is a bootleg recording of Radio Cult at ToyLanta, recorded March 10, 2018. Radio Cult was the house band for ToyLanta and they put on a heck of a show in one of the conference rooms at the Marriott Century Center in Atlanta.

The cool part is that they had convention-goers join them onstage. In this show you will hear Mike Gardner and Alex Massey guest on guitar, JD Luck on bass, a couple of guys whose name I didn’t catch on drums and Jas Ingram on Theremin. You’ll also get to hear guest vocals by Dan Cioffi, David Lane, Jas Ingram and Mel Larch, among others.

It was a real kick to see Mrs. PopCulteer join the band late in the show on “Country Roads” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit, ” since she wasn’t really feeling up to singing at the beginning of the show.

This recording is bootleg-quality, so don’t expect a lossless 5.1 audio mix or anything. I asked steven Wilson if he’d do a special remix and he threw stuff at me. I do think it conveys the pure fun of Radio Cult’s performance. You’ll hear a few Radio Cult originals and covers of everything from AC/DC to KISS, to Skynyrd to Nena and Madonna. There’s even a snippet of Queen in there.

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, Sunday at 8 PM 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 give you an encore of two classic 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.

So the Myasthenia Gravis caught up with me last week. I was not able to hold an implement of art in my fingers, so had to resort to creating a digital image.

This week’s piece is a sort of Celtic-looking concentric-circle thingy, but it also looks a wee bit like a suncatcher, so I stuck the title on it you see above.

It was created by taking a photographic image and mangling it with filters and effects so that it became an abstract. If you squint long enough, you might be able to see the large-breasted young lady whose photo I used as a base.

Or it might have been a puppy…or a ’57 Chevy.  I forget which.

Anyway, with Charleston’s Celtic Calling looming in a couple of weeks and this piece winding up with a lot of green in it, I decided to give it an appropriate name.

I hope I can go back to physical art next week.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday beginning at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a classic episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM an also classic 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.

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. 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.

At 8 PM you can hear Part One of Rawlinson’s End by Viv Stanshall on last week’s new episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we dip into the archives a few months and bring you some recent episodes of Radio Free Charleston.

Last month I wrote about the new Corgi Model Club USA, which releases highly accurate reproductions of the extremely cool die-cast cars from the UK that were beloved by kids in the 1960s, and by adult collectors ever since.

The reaction I had was tremendous, both from fans of the original toys, and from folks who never heard about them and wanted to know more.

So, for the folks who wanted to know more, here are a few videos about Corgi Toys, their history and the new club reissues.

At the head of this post, you see Radio Free Charleston 122, “Fistful Of Mercy Shirt.” This episode of the show dates back to March, 2011, and featured music from Roger Simms, Drop Ded Phred, and a return visit from Sasha Colette. We also had a preview clip of the Contemporary Youth Arts Company production, “A Service For Jeremy Wong” (courtesy of Austin Sussman), and animation from Frank Panucci.

Host segments were shot in the friendly confines of Taylor Books Annex Gallery, prominently featuring the art of our late friend, Charles Jupiter Hamilton in the background. The namesake shirt for this episode is a t-shirt featuring the band logo for the group, Fistful Of Mercy, which included Ben Harper, Joe Henry, and longtime RFC fan, Dhani Harrison.

Our first musical guest was Roger Simms. I met Roger & spoke to him about being on the show, when he said OK, grabbed his twelve string, and walked me out of the Blue Parrot to a pickup truck on Capitol Street where he let down the tailgate, hopped in, and treated me to a couple of songs. We included one of them in this show.

You can find the original production notes for this show HERE.

The PopCulteer
February 14, 2025

Love is on The AIR on Valentine’s Day as Mel Larch serves up some well-seasoned Peaches on MIRRORBALL and Sydney Fileen returns with a new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat devoted the New Romantics club scene, Friday on The AIR.  The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear our shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

We wrap up a whole week of new music specialty programs on The AIR, and for the first time in ages, every episode managed to adhere somewhat to a cohesive theme. This week it was love.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, we have a special Valentinish episode of MIRRORBALL where Mel Larch devotes her hour of Disco to the music of Peaches and Herb.

It’s an hour of the lovey-doviest Disco songs we can find from the loving couple themselves, Peaches and Herb.

As Mel says, “Never mind that Herb actually had seven different Peaches over the years. We are assured that he was deeply in love with every one of them.”

Don’t believe us? Check out the playlist. It’s got love out the wazoo…

MIRRORBALL 111

Peaches and Herb
“Love Is Love Is Love”
“Love It Up Tonight”
“Love Lift”
“Lovey Dovey (Girl and Guy)”
“Howzabout some Love”
“That’s The Way I Love You”
“Our Love Will Never Change”
“When I Fall In Love”
“Love Is Here Beside Us”
“All Your Love (Give It Here)”
“We’ve Got Love”
“We’re Still Together”
“One On One Situation”
“Red Hot Lover”
“Reunited”
“Shake Your Groove Thing”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays Sunday night at 11 PM and throughout the following week Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM plus there’s a mini-marathon that includes the latest episode Saturday nights at 9 PM

At 3 PM, it’s Big Electric Cat time as Sydney Fileen delivers a special NEW mixtape edition of her show that pays tribute to the innovative and still-resonating New Romantic movement.

This was the underground club scene that emerged in London and Birmingham in the late 1970s, as club kids at The Blitz and Billy’s embraced the fashions of glam rock and the synthesizers of experimental music and combined them with the mentality of the early 19th Century Romantic movement, creating a dance/fashion/music cultural force that left a lasting mark on New Wave music and set the tone for much of the 1980s.

If you ever saw a New Wave band with big hair, tailored suits, androgynous make up and attitude, synthesizers, electric drums, or giant hats, your life has been touched by the New Romantic movement. This show brings you the hits played in the underground clubs that formed the sensibilities that the MTV crowd took into the mainstream.

Check out this killer playlist…

BEC 125

Visage “Fade To Grey”
Telex “Moskow Diskow”
Tubeway Army “Down In The Park”
Magazine “Permafrost”
The Human League “Being Boiled”
Fad Gadget “Back To Nature”
Sparks “The Number One Song In Heaven”
Kraftwerk “Radioactivity”
Eno, Moebius, Roedelius “Broken Head”
Grace Jones “La Vie En Rose”
Landscape “Japan”
Taxi-Girl “Mannequin”
Gina X Performance “No G.D.M.”
The Normal “Warm Leatherette”
Throbbing Gristle “Hot On The Heels Of Love”
John Foxx “Burning Car”
Dalek I “Destiny (Dalek I Love You)”
Shock “R.E.R.B.”
Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark “Electricity”
Barry De Vorzon “Theme from the Warriors”
Suicide “Dream Baby”
Hot Chocolate “Put Your Love In Me”
Lori And The Chameleon’s “Touch”
Metro “Criminal World”
Roxy Music “Angel Eyes”

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

It’s the weekend of Valentine’s Day, and there are a ton of wondefully romantic events happening that I’m not mentioning here for reasons of space. If you’re into that, go look it up.

As always, you should remember 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. Also, if you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future, contact me via Social Media at Facebook, BlueSky or Twitter. I dont charge for this, so you might as well send me something if you have an event to promote. Some links look like they shouldn’t work because they have lines through them, but that’s just a WordPress glitch, so click on them anyway. They should still work.

You can find live music in and around town every night of the week. You just have to know where to look.

Most Fridays and Saturdays you can find live music at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM. Friday you can hear Thomas Hinds. Saturday the master storyteller himself, Pete Kosky will perform.

You can find live music every night at The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe. Mondays feature open mic night. The first Tuesday of every month sees the legendary Spurgie Hankins Band perform. There’s both Happy Hour music and local or touring bands on Thursday and Friday, and live bands Saturday nights. On Sundays when there’s a new Mountain Stage, musicians from the legendary WV Public Radio show migrate to The Glass for the Post-Mountain Stage jam.

Live at The Shop in Dunbar hosts local and touring bands on most weekends, and is a nice break away from the downtown bar scene.

Louie’s, at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort, regularly brings in local bands on weekends.

In Huntington, local institution, The Loud (formerly The V Club), brings in great touring and local acts three or four nights a week.

The Wandering Wind Meadery holds several events each week, from live piano karaoke to bands to burlesque.

The multitude of breweries and distilleries that have popped up in Charleston of late tend to bring in live musical acts as well.

Roger Rablais hosts Songwriter’s stage at different venues around the area, often at 813 Penn, next door to Fret ‘n’ Fiddle in Saint Albans. You might also find cool musical events at Route 60 Music in Barboursville and Folklore Music Exchange in Charleston.

To hear music in an alcohol-free enviroment, see what’s happening at Pumzi’s, on Charleston’s West Side.   This Saturday, starting at 7 PM, you can hear the music of Alabaster Boxer, Justin Shaw Steele and Ryan Errickson.  The $15 cover all goes to the musicians.

You can also visit Coal River Coffee in Saint Albans for live music in an alcohol-free environment. I am looking to expand this list, so please contact me through the social media sites above if you know about more alcohol-free performance venues.

For cutting-edge indepent art films, downstairs from Taylor Books you’ll find the Floralee Hark Cohen Cinema by WVIFF. Each week they program several amazing movies in their intimate viewing room that you aren’t likely to see anywhere else.

Please remember that viral illlnesses are still a going concern and 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. And if you’re at an outdoor event, please remember that it’s awfully inconsiderate to smoke or vape around people who become ill when exposed to that stuff.

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

Here we go, roughly in order, it’s graphics for local events that I was able to scrounge up online…

Continue reading

On Wednesday, just two days before Valentine’s Day, The AIR brings you great new episodes of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast that are awash in the pompatus of love.  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 songs that the Fab Four (mostly solo here) sang about LOVE, primarily about the women in their lives. It’s part of this week’s Valentine-themed music specialty programs.

Check out the playlist…

Beatles Blast 118

George Harrison “True Love”
Ringo Starr “Choose Love”
John Lennon “Every Man Has A Woman Who Loves Him”
Paul McCartney “Maybe I’m Amazed/The Lovely Linda”
John Lennon “Oh Yoko”
George Harrison “Beautiful Girl”
Ringo Starr “I’m Yours”
Paul McCartney “We Got Married”
John Lennon “Woman”
George Harrison “Dark Sweet Lady”
Ringo Starr “What Love Wants To Be”
John Lennon “Dear Yoko”
George Harrison “Love Comes To Everyone”
Paul McCartney “Promise To You Girl”
John Lennon “Beautiful Boy”
The Beatles “All You Need Is Love”

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 presents the second-longest-running off-Broadway show in history, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.

With book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro, and music by Jimmy Roberts, this musical comedy presents a series of vignettes that portray a slightly cynical, very funny look at relationships.

This week Mel brings  you a 2021 London Coliseum streaming production starring Brenda Edwards, Alice Fearn, Simon Lipkin and Oliver Tompsett. At the very end of our show Mel brings you one more musical theatre classic, that celebrates love.

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, Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM. A marathon of classic episodes can be heard Sunday morning and afternoon starting at 9 AM, 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 a brand-new episode featuring the first of multiple installments of Viv Stanshall’s “Rawlinson’s End.”

In case you missed the news yesterday, this week all of The AIR Musical Specialty programs will have some sort of Valentine’s Day-ish theme.  Love is on The AIR this week, and today is no exception.

Tuesday is once again “New Show Day” on The AIR.  As such, we have new episodes of  Radio Free Charleston and The Swing Shift for you. To listen to The AIR, 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 boatloads of replays throughout the week.

This week RFC kicks off with two hours of our usual mix of local, independent and free-format music, and then we indulge in the love bug with a third hour “Mystery Bonus Track” mixtape devoted to weird love. As such, there is no playlist with links for you to click. This is to preserve the integrity of the Mystery Bonus Track, and is in no way simply a way to cut down my workload.

To be honest, the original plan was to tie in every AIR program this week with the love theme except for RFC. However, at the last minute I thought of a gimmick that worked with theme and was a labor-saving device, so it was a no-brainer.

The links in the playlist will take you to the pages for the artists in this week’s show where possible, except in the third hour because I’m lazy…

RFC V5 213

hour one
Massing “Over Now”
David Synn “Odyssey”
Dream Theater “Midnight Messiah”
The Settlement“Recognize-Enter Mission”
Dark Entities “March of the Skulls”
SPACE FREQ “Tonight”
Tony Levin “Give The Cello Some”
Dinosaur Burpss “Resonator Test (Instrumental)”
Los Grainders “Storm Surf”

hour two
Corduroy Brown with Kindred Valley “Cross Your Mind”
Gyasi “Baby Blue”
The Subjunctives “Believe (Rehashed)”
The Teardrop Explodes “Ha Ha I’m Drowning”
Kate Fagan “Go Faster”
Golden “Impossible”
Rachel Tucker “All Right Now”
The Paranoid Style“I Love The Sound of Structured Class”
Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess “Does She Have You”
69 Fingers “Pocket Full of Change”
The Sweet “Hell Raiser”
LameAssDads “Your Love”
Government Cheese “Oh Yeah”
Franz Ferdinand “The Doctor”
Lene Lovich “Be Stiff”
The Blasters “Long White Cadillac”

hour three

The Mystery Bonus Weird Love Mixtape

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, Sunday at 8 PM 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 new episode of The Swing Shift that fits into our romantic theme by including songs that all have the word, “kiss” in the title. We kick it off with a rare B-side by Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive that I’ve been wanting to bring you since I started doing this show nine years ago.

This week’s show is a big old sloppy Swing Kiss.

Check out the playlist…

The Swing Shift 168

Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive “Knock Me A Kiss”
Brian Setzer Orchestra “Kiss Me Deadly”
Woody Herman “A Kiss Goodnight”
Lester Young “This Year’s Kiss”
Ella Fitzgerald “This Year’s Kisses”
Kathy & The Kilowatts “Each Kiss”
Dean Martin “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now”
Earl “You Kissed Me”
Louis Armstrong “A Kiss To Build A Dream On”
Krystal Jyl & The Jacks “Machine Gun Kisses”
Stan Kenton with Julie Christy “We Kiss In A Shadow”
Benny Goodman & His Orchestra “A Little Kiss At Twilight”
Teddy Hill “The Lady Who Couldn’t Be Kissed”
Duke Ellington “The Kissing Bug”
Louis Prima “I Kiss Your Hand Madame”
Amos Milburn “Kiss Me Again”
Django Reinhardt & The Hot Club of France “A Little Love, A Little Kiss”
Chick Webb “Love And Kisses”
Louis Jordan “Knock Me A Kiss”

 You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 AM, Thursday at 9 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 Thursdays and Sundays.

This week’s art is a large pen-and-ink piece on paper for pens that’s been a work in progress for the better part of nine months.  This was a originally a pencil layout that I blew up digitally, printed out, then worked over on a new piece of paper using a lightboard. Using a variety of markers, brushes and even X-acto knives, I created this intricate drawing on those days when I had a respite from the symptoms of Myasthenia Gravis, and actually had working fingers for a few hours.

I used the markers, plus india ink, Winsor Newton indigo and blue ink and lots of White Out.  I also employed a variety of straight-edges and flexible curves.

This piece is NOT symentrical. It’s damned close, but the halves of the drawing do not match up.

This was my attempt at combining the influence of M.C. Escher with that of H. R. Geiger.

I’m happy with the way it came out, but just looking at it gives me hand cramps.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland,  This week is all about the love, as we bring you new programming leading up to Valentine’s Day on Friday.  Everything except for Radio Free Charleston will have some kind of romantic overtone.

Monday beginning at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring new episodes of Nigel Pye’s Psychedelic Shack, and 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.

As you can see in the playlists below, Herman and Nigel have attempted to be lovey-dovey (not with each other, mind you) despite working in genres that are not exactly known for their affectionate leanings.

Check out the playlists…

Psychedelic Shack 098 (2 PM EST)

Roger Glover “Love Is All”
Gyasi “Sweet Thing”
The Mads “Feels Like Love”
Smooth Motion “Love You for a Night”
Jefferson Airplane “Somebody To Love”
Brother T & Family “Oh Love”
Smith “I Just Wanna Make Love To You”
The Yardbirds “For Your Love”
Moby Grape “Love Song”
The In Crowd “That’s How Strong My Love Is”
Janis Joplin “To Love Somebody”
The Jimi Hendrix Experience “May This Be Love”
Tears For Fears “Sowing The Seeds of Love”
Donovan “Wear Your Love Like Heaven”
The Turtles “So Goes Love”
Mika “Tiny Love”

Prognosis 125 (3 PM EST)

Marillion “Kayleigh”
Emerson, Lake & Palmer “Still You Turn Me On”
Steve Hackett “Memory Lane (live)”
Graham Bond “Our Love Will Come Shining Through”
Jon Anderson “If It Wasn’t For Love (Oneness Family)”
Kraftwerk “Computer Love”
Queen “Love of My Life”
Tangerine Dream with Jon Anderson “Loved By the Sun”
Todd Rundgren “The Verb to Love”
Nightwish “Ghost Love Score”
Genesis “Afterglow”
Jethro Tull “A Love Story”
Barclay James Harvest “Good Love Child”
Be Bop Deluxe “Love’s Swift Arrows”
Bryan Ferry “The Price of Love”
Nektar “Love To Share”
Triumverat “Old Loves Die Hard”
Peter Gabriel “Modern Love”
David Bowie “Shining Star (Makin’ My Love)”
Quantum Jump “Love Crossed”
Renaissance “She Is Love”
Kate Bush “All The Love”
ELP “Taste of My Love”
Trevor Rabin “Love Life”
YES “City of Love”

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. 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.

At 8 PM you can hear some funny stuff on a random classic episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we bring you ten hours of romance-oriented episodes of our music specialty shows from previous years.

Above you see nearly half an hour of raw video shot by yours truly and his lovely wife just over two weeks ago at the Winterfest Toy Show, put on by the fine folks who bring us The Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo, in Louisville, Kentucky.

This is something I started doing a few years ago after some requests from folks who went to toy shows. They tend to be completists, and wanted to see every second of video I shot. Being a completist myself, this struck me as a reasonable request.

When I do these “RAW” videos, I tend to wipe out the audio and replace it with music. I don’t want to pick up any stray bits of conversation that weren’t intended to be shared with the public.  This time, I forgot to ask anybody for music to use, so I just grabbed a bunch of stuff I composed over the last two decades and dropped it in, nearly randomly.  Apologies for that. Some of it is pretty atonal. A couple of the pieces are collaborations with Mel Larch and Frank Panucci, but most of it is just me.

It’s okay if you want to mute it.

You can find our other coverage of Winterfest 2025 in photo essay form HERE, last week’s music video HERE and catching up with toy designer, Greg Autore HERE.