Month: March 2025 (Page 1 of 4)

This week’s art is a small acrylic painting that’s more of a rescued doodle than it is a study or anything.

I was just doodle painting a sky, a red sky at morning time to be exact (hence the title), and I was so happy with the end result that I decided to throw in some detail around it: a few buildings, a road, some mountains, all painted in a semi-Hopperesque dawn sheen.

I wasn’t consciously thinking of any place in particular, but Mel says it reminds her of a summer visit to Snowshoe we took over a decade ago.  She may be right. I tend to retain images, but suck with names and timeframes.

Anyway, I figured it was good enough to share here. It doesn’t really symbolize anything. It’s okay sometimes if art just looks purty.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland,  the plan is to have new shows all week long to make up for my computer issues causing us to not have so many in March.

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 delivered two excellent shows.  Nigel brings us his usual expertly-curated capsule of pure psychedelic glee, while Herman presents a mixtape collection of the post-YES music of their original guitarist, Peter Banks.

Check out the playlists…

Psychedelic Shack 099 (2 PM EDT)

Circus Maximus “Neverland & Revisited”
Spped, Glue & Shinki “Stoned Out Of My Mind”
Pentangle “Bruton Town”
Love Sculpture “Why (How-Now)”
Tomorrow “Revolution”
Incredible String Band “Painting Box”
Kaleidoscope “Dive Into Yesterday”
Our Plasic Dream “A Little Bit Of Shangri-La”
Lisa and Francesca “Silver Man”
David Bowie “Silly Boy Blue”
Dudley Moore “Bedazzled”
Big Jim Sullivan “Ltts”
Gentle Influence “Easy To Know”

Prognosis 126 (3 PM EDT)

Peter Banks Solo

“Knights a. The Falcon b. The Bear”
“Battles”
“Knights (Reprise)”
“Stop That”
“All Points South”
“Shortcomings”
“Dominating Factor”
“Massive Trouser Clearance”
“Away Days”
“Self Contained”
“Less Talk”

with David Cross

“Rock To A Hard Place”
“Laughing Strange”

with Harmony In Diversity

“The Number Of The Beat”
“Dregs Addiction”
“Each To Their Own Devices”
“Swayed By Nothing”
“Some Things Are Best Left Upside Down”
“Floating World”
“Do It Now”
“Boing”

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 an hour of brilliant stand-up from George Carlin on a classic episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we bring you ten hours of Beatles Blast, presenting the music of The Fab Four, performed by the band, the solo members and boatloads of other people.

This week we bring you a lyric music video for a new song by two first-time collaborators. “Your Nirvana” features vocals and lyrics by Sirius Blueray of Stratification Music  and music and instruments by Radio Free Charleston mainstay (and a personal friend and occasional collaborator), David Synn.

This is a cool, moody neo-prog trip-hoppish piece, landing in the musical Venn diagram somewhere in between Enya, Ultravox, Renaissance and Steve Hackett. In other words, it’s right in my wheelhouse.

This is hot off the presses, in a word, and I wanted to share it here. You’re also pretty likely to hear this in Tuesday’s RFC radio show.

From April 2011, this week we bring you Episode 128 of Radio Free Charleston, “Valhalla State Park Shirt.”  This show features music from Prank Monkey, Jay Oakes and Paul Callicoat and Short of Cash. We also have more classic animation from Frank Panucci.

Our first musical guest is Prank Monkey, who were then the house band for the Wednesday night jam at The Blue Parrot. At that point Prank Monkey was Johnny “Hurricane” Compton, Jamie Skeens and Mike Vandergriff, and you can see them rip through “VooDoo Child.”

Our animation was “Turkey Wang,” yet another bit of classic, mind-altering Frank Panucci animation, re-mastered into Hi-Definition by a crack team of Korean re-tracing artistes.

Our next musical guest came to us courtesy of Doug Imbrogno and WestVirginiaVille.com. Doug shot and edited a music video for Jay Oakes and Paul Callicoat’s musical tribute to The Mystery Hole.

Wrapping up the show is an early incarnation of Short of Cash. This band, lead by Roger Simms, formed at one of the Charleston United meetings, and they were loads of fun to watch before they scattered to the four winds.  You can read the original production notes for this show HERE.

The PopCulteer
March 28, 2025

Your humble blogger is currently residing in “best laid plans” land, as the great computer move has hit a bit of a snag.

Yours truly was under the impression that he had all the cables handy that he needed to network a new computer with the old one and hook them up to a KVM. I had forgotten that I’d repurposed or given away some of those cables, and others would not work with the new KVM unit.

I was further mistaken in that I thought I could just run out and find them locally. This proved to be a bit futile since the small, locally-owned businesses apparently aren’t open on weekends, and Best Buy has removed everything useful in their store and now only sells refrigerators and cell phones.

So I had to order them online and some of the cables are still in transit.

Meanwhile, I have a PopCulteer column to bring my readers, and luckily something really cool has popped up.

House In The Clouds Online

On the occasion of the final week of an exhibition of Robert Singleton’s large-format paintings at The Gradient Project Space in Thomas, WV, and in advance of a talk there by the artist, Robert Singleton himself, tomorrow at 4 PM, Douglas Imbrogno has uploaded the excellent documentary, HOUSE IN THE CLOUDS: The Artistic Life of Robert Singleton to YouTube so you can watch it free.

I’m not going to imbed it here because I don’t know if he’s leaving it up for free viewing permanently, but for now, at least, you can watch it HERE.

This wonderful film was created by Doug and Bobby Lee Messer, and when I got to see it back in September, 2023, I wrote the following:

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.

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.

Now you can watch the film for yourself, and if you are so inclined, make the drive to Thomas, WV Saturday to meet the artist and hear him tell his story in person.

That is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for our regular features as we manage to provide fresh content every day while staring out the window, ,waiting for the mailman.

It’s hard to believe, but we are almost one-quarter of the way through 2025, while we feel like time is passing us by, how about we peruse a quick list of STUFF TO DO in and around Charleston, WV, this coming weekend and beyond?

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. Note that 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.

We are also very happy to announce that Cristen Michael has created an interactive calendar that is way more comprehensive than this list of STUFF TO DO, and you can find it HERE. Just click on the day and the event and you’ll be whisked away to a page with more details about loads of area events.

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. This weekend’s artists are a closely-held military secret, and I was not invited to the Signal chat, so I can’t tell you who they are.

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 comedy to burlesque.

The multitude of breweries and distilleries that have popped up in Charleston of late bring in live musical acts as well. I tend to miss a lot of these because, being a non-drinker, they fly under my radar.

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 and also at The Empty Glass. 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. 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. The Huntington Music Collective has recently started hosting all ages shows at Event Horizon.

For cutting-edge independent 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…

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ToyLanta happens this weekend at The Gas South Convention Center in Duluth, Georgia, right outside Atlanta, and due to a perfect storm of real-world pressures, long-gestating doctor’s appointments and other looming factors, we will not be attending. It’s a shame because this year ToyLanta has grown to include PowerCon, and the combined might of these two shows should be a spectacle to behold.  I think that today is the last day to pre-order tickets, so you probably want to head to that link now, if you want to go.

ToyLanta, which started as “JoeLanta,” a GI Joe-centric toy show, became so huge that they spun-off JoeLanta again as a separate show, happening later in the year, and now they’ve teamed up with PowerCon, which last happened in 2023 in Columbus.  That was when I decided to do both JoeLanta and PowerCon in the same weekend, which was coincidentally my birthday. You can see the grueling video results HERE.

ToyLanta is one of the biggest toy shows in the Southeast and it’s loads of fun, so if you’re anywhere near it and into cool toys, you should make last-minute plans to attend. The addition of PowerCon makes it one of the biggest toy shows in the country.

As a bit of a preview, today I’m going to re-present an annotated and updated index to the coverage that we’ve provided for JoeLanta/ToyLanta in this blog since 2013. Photos are all taken from previous year’s coverage.

As I mentioned, ToyLanta began life as JoeLanta, which was originally inspired somewhat by The Official GI Joe Club Convention. Over the years the Official GI Joe Club (which shut down in 2019) shifted their focus from the original 12″ GI Joe from the 1960s and 1970s, to the “Real American Hero” Joe of the 1980s.

This left a lot of collectors of the original GI Joe feeling disenfranchised, so in 2000 they decided to put on their own show, based in Atlanta, that would provide a more intimate and more affordable gathering of collectors of the larger GI Joe, with a focus on custom figures and outfits, and elaborate dioramas.

JoeLanta quickly gained a reputation as the most fun toy convention in the country. JoeLanta eventually became a fundraiser for the non-profit Cody Lane Foundation (named after a young fan who had passed away) and is now focused toward raising money to build a toy diorama museum. In 2017 JoeLanta became ToyLanta.

Longtime PopCult readers may recall that, for the first several years of this blog, I was not able to travel. I’d been a full-time caregiver for my mother until her death in 2006, and rather than get a reprieve from caregiving, I was almost immediately pressed into service managing my uncle’s healthcare, and eventually becoming his chief caregiver.

Because of this, I could not travel to toy shows, despite being fairly well-known for writing about collectible toys since 1996.

By 2009, I had some help taking care of my uncle, and was able to get away for day trips to The Marx Toy Convention and MEGO Meet when both shows were in Wheeling. In 2013, Buddy Finethy, from JoeLanta, got in touch with me and persuaded me to make the trip to Atlanta for my first big toy collectors convention.

I’m always going to be grateful to Buddy for that.

Later in 2013 my caregiver responsibilities ended, and for the first time in over twenty years, I was really free to travel. JoeLanta became an annual trip and Mel and I always have a blast going down there for what became week-long visits that included shooting locations for The Walking Dead and lots of fun shopping in addition to the best toy show in the country. JoeLanta became ToyLanta a few years back, to reflect the expanded interests of the convention-goers.

At this point, I’m going to turn the story over to the links below, which will give you a chronological portrait of PopCult going to ToyLanta.

This is not a complete list of every post I’ve made on the subject. Many of them were redundant, just re-posting previous years worth of material to plug an upcoming show, so this index will just focus on the meaty, original content.

You know I’m bringing one of these home with me.

Let’s start in 2013…

I did announce my first trip to JoeLanta in advance. This was risky, since my uncle’s relatives had a nasty habit of trying to create emergencies to disrupt any trip I took out of town, but I did indeed mention my trip to JoeLanta in advance, and it’s in this post, which includes a dead video I need to edit at some point.

We made a short visit that year driving down Friday and back Sunday, but hadn’t quite unpacked on Monday, so I ran this as Monday Morning Art.  The following Friday I had a brief photo essay ready to go. Later that day I posted video of the State of the Hobby Roundtable, which I also participated in. A few days later I finally had my first JoeLanta wrap-up video ready, which included interviews with Buddy Finethy and David Lane, and my old online friend (who I’d met in person for the first time), Dave Matteson.

In 2014, freed from my caregiver obligations, we made a longer trip to JoeLanta, which included our first visit to Senoia. I previewed that year’s show HERE.  I had also prepapred a PopCulteer column to run on the first day of the show in case I didn’t have time to report from the road, but it turned out that I did have time to get some photo essays online. This turned out to be the day with four PopCulteer columns. We covered the Walking Dead tour of Senoia, which took place on the Thursday before the show, and that bus trip also included trips to see the collections of Tim Merrit and Bryan Tatum.  The Sunday of ToyLanta we brought you a Studio Joe video from Tim and Lisa Weedn, who have become good friends and are hilarious filmmakers.

Still in March, 2014, I posted a photo essay of my haul from Joelanta. Someday I’ll get around to unpacking and displaying all this stuff.  Our next post included three videos, two of which are still online. This had a new Studio Joe film and the 2014 Walking dead panel from JoeLanta. We then posted our take of The Walking Dead tour, The “Joe at 50” panel, The 2014 State o the Hobby, The Marx Action Figures Panel with Scott Stewart and Tom Heaton, video of Tim Merrit’s collection, video of Bryan Tatum’s collection, Monday Morning Art based on Mike Gardner’s “Zombie Horde at Yellow Creek” diorama, and our big 2014 JoeLanta wrap-up video.

Mike Gardner’s epic diorama was so huge that it took two more photo essays, posted almost a month later, to cover them. Here is part one and part two.

We kicked off our 2015 JoeLanta coverage with a preview post that included Tim and Lisa Weedn’s preview video for the show.  We managed to get a photo essay online for day one of the show that year. We also got a photo essay of dioramas and custom figures posted while we were still on the road, too. After we got back home, I had a photo essay of the dealer’s room for everyone to see. Later on, we revisted the diormas with another photo essay.

2015 was the year we really went overboard on the videos, preserving many panels from the convention. Larry Hama gave a detailed breakdown of his famous GI Joe comic book story, “Silent Interlude.” There was The 2015 State of the Hobby.  The Phantom Trouble maker from The Needless Things podcast and Ricky Zhero from Radio Cult hosted a panel on character toys.  There was a panel devoted to Monster High.  Speaking of Radio Cult, we featured the band, performing at JoeLanta, on The RFC MINI SHOW. Don Teems joined Mel Larch and Mike Gardner on The Walking Dead panel.  Almost two weeks after the show, I was able to finish the big 2015 JoeLanta wrap-up video.  A post that compiled other 2015 JoeLanta videos also included a musical tour of the dealers rooms, set to the music of Chuck Biel. A few days later I posted raw video of the dioramas, set to more music by Chuck Biel, along with an extra photo essay. Then, from our extended trip, we had Mel’s video of Senoia, and The Walking Dead Shoppe. Filmed on the floor of the convention, our next RFC MINI SHOW showcased The Possum Kingdom Ramblers.

Joe Hodge’s “Gristmill”

2016 was a bit of a strange year for your PopCulteer. For the second year in a row, Mel and I had gone to New York for the International Toy Fair just a few weeks before JoeLanta. I had tons of photos and video from Toy Fair to edit and post, and didn’t get it all done before it was time to leave for JoeLanta. At the same time, my hands were getting increasingly weaker, and I was having trouble keeping my eyes focused. We took Lee Harrah with us to JoeLanta, and he was a huge help, because by this point, I couldn’t even open a water bottle by myself. I managed to keep my weakness fairly well-hidden, but I knew something serious was going on with me. A month after we got back from JoeLanta, I was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, which was a life-changing revelation, but was also a huge relief, just having a diagnosis.

Still, we managed a lot of coverage that year. Our preview post kicked things off. After we got back, I managed this first recap post, before diving head-first into coverage. We offered up The 2016 State of the Hobby panel a few days later. In 2016 we had two panels from Larry Hama, one just of the artist/writer doing a Q&A session, and one talking about his experience storyboarding Boardwalk Empire.   Mike Gardner’s diner diorama was featured in a photo essay. We also had video and more photos of the 2016 dioramas HERE. Lee Harrah was a guest on the Needless Things podcast’s Toy Stories panel. We crossed over with the other “RFC” and presented the Radio Free Cybertron Transformers panel.  We also caught up with the Earth Station One podcast for a Star Wars panel. We also had a panel devoted to Big Jim, and a revival of the classic action figure that, sadly, did not happen. In happier news, we decided to do a video devoted to The JoeLanta parachute drop.

2016 was also the year that, due to my diagnosis and the lovely hurricane of meds that followed, I didn’t get the wrap-up video finished until November. I was appropriately mortified by this.

To make up for that, in 2017 I went a bit overboard and ran previews for two weeks ahead of the event. I’m not going to post links to all of those, because most of the previews just re-posted stuff that you can see in the links above. However, the first one is filled with pertinent new info. Our first post during the convention that year covered the name change from JoeLanta to Toylanta. and sprinkled in a few early photos.  I also managed to post photos of Mike Gardner building his epic Avengers diorama.  As soon as we got back, I posted photos of my haul from the show.  Photo essays from the show were posted HERE,  HERE, HERE and HERE.

A word essay with photos was posted HERE.  Having learned my lesson the previous year, I made it a point to do the wrap-up video first in 2017. Then we had panels with Felipe, from Louco  Por Bonecos and James Wozniak from Classic Recasts.  We also posted panels devoted to Monster Toys, The Walking Dead, MEGO and The Needless Things Podcast’s Playing With Toys.  In addition, we had a panel devoted to Super Joe, and this was the year that  Larry Hama, having exhausted much of his GI Joe material, spoke at length about his experience creating a role in a Sondheim musical.  I have a feeling he got the idea for this topic from a conversation he had with Mel when we first met him a few years earlier.

After we got back, an installment of Monday Morning Art was inspired by the custom figure and Bryan Tatum’s cool cave diorama piece.

In 2018 I did another week of preview posts for the show that used material from previous years, but among those posts I also had a new GI Joe-centric Monday Morning Art, with a digital painting that I had printed on canvas and donated to the ToyLanta auction. I had a placeholder post set to publish on the first day of the show, but I also managed to sneak in a quick set of photos of the pre-show trip and activities. I also edited a quick trailer for the show on the road, just to see if the laptop was capable of rendering video.

The reason I wanted to see how well the laptop handled video was because I got the crazy idea to do a video each day while I was there, so that I wouldn’t have so much video editing to do once we got home. This didn’t work out too well because people watched the first day, then didn’t bother watching anything else.  Also, I didn’t get a chance to start on the video until after midnight, and wrapped it up and posted it about six hours later, which meant that I was operating with about 90 minutes of sleep on the second, very long and busy, day of the convention. I was too wiped out to do any more videos while we were on the road. In fact, I spent much of Saturday hallucinating that I was being followed by cows.

2018 was also the year that…SURPRISE…the hotel was being renovated AND a water-main break meant that nobody could drink tap water or take a shower.  I whined a bit about it in this post. However we did manage to have a good time despite all that, and I brought you a taste of the ToyLanta Film Festival from Tim and Lisa Weedn.  I also showed off my toy haul from 2018, but you have to scroll down past a depressing essay about Toys R Us first. I re-edited much of the “Day One” video and combined with everything else I’d shot to put together a longer wrap-up video.

My allergies took a real beating on this trip, and we returned home to Arctic weather, and that combined with audio issues due to the renovations and breaking news about Toys R Us, meant that a lot of stuff from ToyLanta 2018 didn’t get posted for quite some time. To be honest, I still have a ton of stuff from 2018 sitting unused on one of my external drives. However, I did manage to get two panel videos done…just in time to promote ToyLanta 2019!

First I put together two short promos for ToyLanta, 2019, using footage from previous years. You can see those HERE. Then I posted toy designer, Greg Autore, and his panel on GI Joe toys he designed that never made it to retailers. After that, I posted the 2018 Space Toys panel, with Carlos Morrison, Clay Sayre, Terry Stair Jr. and George Felix. Tim and Lisa Weedn also made a cool trailer for the 2019 show, even though they couldn’t make it that year.  Another preview for 2019 was one more GI Joe-inspired Monday Morning Art piece that I had printed and donated to the annual ToyLanta auction for the Cody Lane Foundation.

2019 was a bit of an unusual ToyLanta for your PopCulteer because we made plans to do something on the trip for Mrs. PopCulteer, Mel Larch, who is a huge fan of The Walking Dead.  For a very brief and limited time, the studio where they shot TWD was giving tours of all the places that were normally forbidden for the general public. I told Mel to book us on a tour during the trip, and the only day they had open was Sunday, the last day of ToyLanta. My plan was to shoot tons of video and photos on Friday and Saturday, pull an all-nighter on Satuday night (after the Radio Cult show, which ran really late that year) and get up Sunday and check out and head to Senoia.  In previous years, the only thing happening on Sunday was great last-minute deals from dealers who didn’t want to have to carry stuff back home.

However, after we booked the tour, we discovered that every single one of the GI Joe panels had been moved to Sunday. So I didn’t shoot any video of the panels that year. But since they never offered that studio tour again, and it had Mel beaming with joy, it was worth it.

I did have the wrap-up video posted before the convention was over. After we got back, I posted a photo diary of our trip  down and then the show itself.

Amid another MG flare-up, I posted the raw video of the dioramas from 2019, and photos of my toy haul from that year.  Much later, I was able to post photos of the diorama and custom figures HERE, HERE and HERE. I also snuck in an abstract painting of Bambie and Ricky from Radio Cult jamming at Buddy Finethy’s restaurant, Hawg ‘n’ Ale.

In 2020 there was no ToyLanta. I covered its cancellation in real time HERE.  I was able to bring you that year’s planned Film Festival, compiled by Tim and Lisa, HERE. In 2021 it was still too soon for my immuno-compromised butt to go to a toy convention, so we sadly had to miss the show for the first time since we started going.

We did return in 2022, and I devoted several posts to ToyLanta. A few days after returning, I teased several photo essays from our trip, and the following Sunday I shared a cool walk-through video by Ricky Zhero, one of the organizers of the show.

In the week after that, I brought you photo essays devoted to The Toys, The Big Diorama, the stuff I got at the show, custom figures and vehicles, the Star Wars diorama, video of the dealer’s rooms, and a Monday Morning Art with video of a sunset, filmed at the hotel.

I’m sure it’ll be a great show this year, and if I had all the time and money in the world, I’d be there, but that hasn’t happened yet, so I’ll have to enjoy it from afar.

A planned week off due to computer moves did not happen yet, so we’ve got another huge episode of Radio Free Charleston for you today on The AIR.  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 another three full hours of our free-format blend of local, independent, alternative, weird and whatever else I feel like playing music, and then a bit more than our third hour recreates yet another Alternative Rock sampler from 1989 that was heavily played on the original broadcst version of RFC.   This week you can “Just Say Mao” with hits from the Warner Brothers/Sire family of labels.

We open the show with a new single from Ghoulbox, and then continue for the next 95 minutes or so with new music from The Heavy Editors, Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess, Jethro Tull, David Synn, Novelty Island, The Settlement, John Bunkley and more. We also mix in some mighty fine independent music and some weird gems from my collection of offbeat music.

Our third hour starts about twenty minutes early so I can bring you every song from Just Say Mao, which was volume 3 of the “Just Say Yes” series of Warner music samplers. In previous shows I told you a little bit about how I had to do RFC back when we were on broadcast radio over 35 years ago, and why CD samplers were like manna from Heaven. Every few weeks I’ll bring you one of these little time capsules of a time when new music was overflowing with creativity…sort of like how the local and indie scene still is today.

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 Vv 219

hour one
Ghoulbox “Necrokiss”
The Heavy Editors “Paper Cuts”
Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess “Sour”
Massing“Do The Right Thing”
Dread Zepplin “Born On The Bayou”
Jethro Tull “Puppet and Puppet Master”
David Synn “The Chase”
Novelty Island “Calendar”
The Settlement “Lizard On the Run”
Superfetch “Electrolacian Mind Gospel”

hour two
John Bunkley “The Hustle, The Bustle”
Frenchy And The Punk “Midnight Garden”
Lazerpunk “Crusader”
Eighty Mile Beach “Arboleda de Manzanitas”
Red Audio “Holograms”
Renaissance with Stephanie Adlington “Northern Lights”
Novo Combo “Long Road”
Anoushka Shankar “Dancing On Scorched Earth”
Billy Idol  “Running From The Ghost”
Rockwell’s Ghost“The Whimper”

hour three (starting early) Just Say Mao

Depeche Mode “Everything Counts (Bomb Beyond the Yalu Mix)”
Martin L. Gore “In a Manner of Speaking”
Figures on a Beach “Accidentally 4th Street (Gloria) (Remix)”
Thrash “Underworld”
Erasure “Pistol”
Nasa “Insha-Allah”
Throwing Muses “Dizzy (Remix)”
Danielle Dax “Whistling for His Love (Remix)”
Morrissey “Lucky Lisp”
The Ocean Blue “Between Something and Nothing”
Ofra Haza “Da’ale Da’ale (Remix)”
Tom Tom Club “Don’t Say No (Remix)
Ice-T “Hunted Child”
Royal Crescent Mob “Nanana”
The Replacements & Tom Waits “Date To Church”
k.d. lang “Nowhere To Stand”
Lou Reed “Strawman (live)”

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.

This week’s art is a small watercolor study of a country barn. It was basically an exercise in limbering up the fingers.

I’m undecided about pursuing this one any further. I redid the sky half a dozen times before I gave up. It was starting to warp the illustration board. In retrospect, I probably should have gone with a more tame red for the barn.

To see this week’s art 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 a couple of classic installments of The Goon Show on a classic episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we bring you ten more hours of top-notch British comedy on The Comedy Vault.

Today’s as good a day as any other to laugh at our mistakes, so our video this week is a short reel of movie bloopers, presented for your abusement…er…amusement.

As a bonus, here are some Star Trek bloopers I posted here twelve years ago, that for some reason disappeared from the blog since then. I guess that was a blog blooper. I had to go with a newer version of the compilation, but it’s got all the same bloopers.

This week we head back to April, 2011 for an episode of Radio Free Charleston that is jam-packed with great music and fun video hi-jinks.  Music this time came from Mother Nang, The Nanker Phelge and Jonathan Tucker. We also had a promo spot for The 21st Annual East End Yard Sale, and remastered animation from Frank Panucci.

After you hear me jabber and then see a fun promo spot for the East End Yard Sale, we get to our first musical guest, which was my old buddies, Mother Nang.  Spencer, Jay, Deron and RFC Big Shot Brian Young have been friends of mine for a long time, and I wanted to get them on the show performing live because they’d been kind enough to let me make a loopy non-animated video for one of their songs for our April Fool’s Day show. Here you get to see them performing “Bully” at The Blue Parrot.

Our animation was a remastered version of Frank Panucci’s “Porky Bang,” which was part of his existential series of enlightening animated shorts that we originally ran in 2007 and 2008.

Next up musically we had more dear, old friends,  The Nanker Phelge, in a special one-camera shoot that would have more camera angles if not for a last-minute computer failure. Luckily the song, “Walk Away” is so strong that nobody would have even noticed that it’s only one static shot if we hadn’t mentioned it.

We wrap up the show with a guerilla performance by Jonathan Tucker, recorded at the Charleston Town Center Mall. Jonathan sings “Speak Softly Love,” the alternate Italian national anthem that is better known as the love them from The Godfather.

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