Month: July 2025 (Page 1 of 4)

This week the big example of STUFF TO DO is the Charleston Light Opera Guild production of The Wedding Singer.  It opens Friday and runs for the next two weekends. Many thanks to Brian Marrs for the photos, and let me tell you a little about the show…

The Charleston Light Opera Guild will present The Wedding Singer on August 1-3 and 8-10, 2025 at the Charleston Coliseum Theater.

The Wedding Singer has a book by Chad Beguelin and Tim Herlihy and music by Matthew Sklar and lyrics by Chad Beguelin.

Remember the 1980s?  With this show you will return to a time when hair was big, greed was good, collars were up, and a wedding singer might just be the coolest guy in the room.

The exact year is 1985. The place is New Jersey. A wannabe rock star, Robbie Hart, is New Jersey’s favorite wedding singer. He’s the life of the party until his own fiancée leaves him at the altar. Shot through the heart, he makes every wedding as disastrous as his own.

Enter Julia, a winsome waitress who wins his affection. Julia is also about to be married to a Wall Street shark, and Robbie must pull off the performance of his life not to lose the girl of his dreams.

The musical has high energy with great roles and includes tribute characters who impersonate Billy Idol, Cyndi Lauper, Mr. T, Ronald Reagan, Tina Turner, Imelda Marcus, Nancy Reagan and music video songs like “Thriller,” “Material Girl” and “Flashdance.” Based on the 1998 movie, the Broadway production opened in 2006 and received numerous Tony-award nominations. The Guild previously presented the show in 2014.

for the full details, check out the CLOG website HERE.

Aside from that cool show, we have a ridiculous amount of other STUFF TO DO to tell you about all around this here bemountained state.

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 , Spoutible, Instagram or possibly Elon’s beast, if it should ever choose to forgive me.  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 remind you 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.

City Center Live at Slack Plaza in Charleston has announced their schedule for the summer. You can find it HERE.

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 they have The Band To Be Named Later on Friday, and Pete Kosky on Saturday.

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. This Saturday, The East End Ghouls hold their monthly Drag/Burlesque showcase at 10 PM. 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 many Tuesday evenings. 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. Pumzi’s looks to be beefing up their offerings in the coming weeks and months, so be sure to check that link in case we miss something.

You can also visit Coal River Coffee in Saint Albans for live music in an alcohol-free environment. This Friday at 7 PM  Coal River Coffee features Minor SwingI 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. If somebody asks you to refrain, don’t be a jerk about it.

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

For yet another Wednesday afternoon, The AIR brings you new episodes of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast.  You can tune in at the website, or just stay right here and  listen to the convenient embedded radio player lurking elsewhere on this page.

At 2 PM (EDT) Beatles Blast brings you the Beatles album that isn’t really a Beatles album.

The Beatles Story is a two-record “documentary” album that Capitol Records rushed out in November, 1964 for two reasons:  First of all VeeJay Records had rushed out a collection of radio interviews with the Fab Four as “Songs, Pictures and Stories of The Beatles” and Capitol wanted to knock it off the charts with a more “official” release; Secondly, it gave Capitol a fresh two-record set to have in stores for the Christmas gift-giving season,  best yet, this album cost hardly anything to put together.

This record was out of print for decades (in part because it only has 49 seconds of previously-unreleased music on it), but it was finally re-released as part of a deluxe box set last year. You can hear the whole thing, plus an edited episode of The BBC’s “Pop Goes The Beatles” today on Beatles Blast.  That is the “story” part of our headline.

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 salutes this year’s Tony Winner for Best Musical, Maybe Happy Ending.

Maybe Happy Ending is a South Korean Musical that’s basically about robots in love. With lyrics written by Hue Park, music composed by Will Aronson, and the book written by both, this brisk musical follows two life-like helper bots who find each other and, against all odds and common sense, apparently fall in some kind of love.

You’ll hear highlights of this delightfully unusual show on this week’s Curtain Call. 

Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM, Friday at 10 AM, Saturday at 8 PM and Monday at 9 AM. A six-hour marathon of classic episodes can be heard Sunday evening starting at 6 PM, and an all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight.

Also on The AIR, Wednesday at 11 PM,  The Comedy Vault brings you an hour of classic satirical songs from Tom Lehrer, who passed away last weekend at the age of 97. You can expect a more fitting tribute to the man in the coming weeks.

For the first time since May, today both of The AIR Music Specialty programs will be brand-new. That means that…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 our all-new three-hour Radio Free Charleston is a gimmick-laden affair, with one hour consisting entirely of live performances, and another presenting mostly instrumental music.

And our first hour is our usual eclectic collection of great local, independent and cult music.  We open with a track from the new, highly-anticipated, album from The Settlement, Days Go By, which will be offically released on Thursday. And while their album comes out Thursday, if you can stand the extra wait, this coming Friday is Bandcamp Friday.  That’s the day when my favored streaming service, Bandcamp, foregoes their usual cut of the money and lets the artists keep all the money spent on their music and merch.

And yes, that album cover is by PopCult‘s old buddy, Ian Bode.

The artists get a much bigger cut of the proceeds. You know what to do to support the local scene and independent artists. I mean, I preach about it on almost every episode.

Our first hour also includes new music from Tyler Childers, Sierra Ferrell, Vinto Van Go, Byzantine, Cold Slither, Tim Minchin and more.

Our second hour opens with a new tune from Alice Cooper before settling in for three chunks of great live music by The Defectors (the soundtrack to Sunday’s video), Pink Floyd (their legendary Live8 performance) and The Settlement (just to remind  you about their new album).

Our third hour presents a wide variety of styles of instrumental music, but our mystery bonus tracks have words…very clever ones. also, I end the show with guitarmy of One, and you should go check out and kick in on the Kickstarter Campaign for their next album while you can.

Check out this impressive playlist…

Radio Free Charleston V5 234

hour one
The Settlement “Lift”
Byzantine “The Unobtainable Sleep”
Vinto Van Go “Hope In Aulis”
Ghoulbox “Necrokiss”
Dark Entities “March of the Skulls”
Cold Slither “Under The Dreadnok’s Spell”
Tim Minchin “The Song of the Masochist”
Tyler Childers “Eatin’ Big Time”
Sierra Ferrell w/Nikki Lane “A Lesson In Leavin'”
Chuck Berry w/Martha Berry “Come On”
Badfinger “Blind Owl”
Joy Viver “Anybody Else”
June Swoon “Love Is Strange”

hour two
Alice Cooper “Up All Night”
The Defectors at The Criel Mound “Better Hurry Up,” “Bag It,” and “I Found That Essence Rare”
Pink Floyd at Live8 “Speak To Me/Breathe Reprise” “Money” “Wish You Were Here” “Comfortably Numb”
The Settlement “Lizard On The Run (live)”

hour three
Brian Diller “Twilight”
Byzantine “Irene (Instrumental)”
Messer Chups “Margarita For Me and My Horse”
John Bunkley“Gravity Groove”
YES “Onward”
Wendy Carlos “Suicide Scherzo (Beethoven’s Ninth, Second Movment, abridged)”
David Synn “The Chase”
SPACE FREQ“Submerge”
Shining Glass “Three Died”
Novo Combo “Sirocco (Drum Solo)”
Dinosaur Burps“Resonator Test”
The Surfrajettes “Hot Doggin'”
Harvey Mandel “Snake Walk”
King Crimson “The Sheltering Sky”
Guitarmy of One “Soylent Seafoam Green”

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 returns to our original format and offers up a heaping helping of Swing Music ranging from the golden era of the Big Bands to today.

And it Swings, big time. Check out the playlist…

The Swing Shift 172

The Lady & The Dappers “No More”
Stan Kenton “Everybody Swing”
Tape Five “Crazy Little Thing Called Swing”
The Dutch Swing College Band “Don’t Fence me In”
Rod Stewart & Jools Holland “Lullaby of Broadway”
Dean Martin “Ain’t That A Kick In Head”
Larry Coryell “Relaxin’ At The Camarillo”
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies “Pink Elephant”
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy “Oh Yeah”
Brian Setzer Orchestra “This Cat’s On A Hot Tin Roof”
Dem Brooklyn Bums “Speak Softly Love”
Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers “Big Fine Daddy”
Royal Crown Revue “Brazil”
Postmodern Jukebox with Chloe Foreanzo “Enjoy the Silence”
Richard Cheese “Need You tonight”

 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.

Your humble blogging artiste has finally recovered enough to do a painting without whining about anything this week.

What you see above is a smallish painting, done in thick acrylics on illustration board, and based on a weird photo I snapped while waiting on the train to Chicago back at the beginning of June.

We had to kill time on the platform, and I decided to try to grab a shot of the state capitol building by zooming my new phone in as far as it would go. The results were sort of abstract-looking, like I’d run the image through a zillion filters or something.

This week I decided to try a quick painting based on the image, but I squooshed it in a bit and made the colors a bit more vibrant, and you see what came out at the head of this post.

The actual photo is seen at right in particularly tiny form.

Weird, isn’t it?

Anyway, that’s me getting back into the groove of making more real-world art.

If you want to see this image larger, click HERE.

Meanwhile, 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 classic episode of The Comedy Vault devoted to the comedy of Bob Newhart. Wednesday we’ll bring you an hour of the satiricaly brilliance of Tom Lehrer, who just passed away yesterday at the age of 97.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we bring you ten hours of episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, and these are shows devoted to the women of New Wave music, so prepare to get in touch with your feminine side as you relive the 80s.

Last December I promised you guys a documentary about the life and music of Lynne Sandy, and I am running behind schedule producing that documentary. To hold you over, and to observe the upcoming anniversary of Lynne’s passing, this week and next I will be bringing you more of the the foundation of that documentary, which is a video of a performance by The Defectors, at the Criel Mound in South Charleston, on June 16, 1983. The video was shot by Dana Grooms.

This clip contains three complete songs, “Better Hurry Up,” “Bag It,” and “I Found That Essence” which have been restored and remastered for inclusion in the documentary. The goal is to completely restore the performance and record the interviews with Lynne’s bandmates and friends and have the finished film ready to go as soon as is logistically possible.

In the meantime, enjoy this sneak peek at the work in progress, and execpt at least three more songs next week in this space. also, remember to check out last Decemeber’s video episode of Radio Free Charleston, which includes more of this performance.

From late September, 2011, we bring you this special episode of Radio Free Charleston which was a major departure from our normal format. This show is a documentary following the 2011 revival of the Dan Kehde/Mark Scarpelli musical, Jack The Ripper. Produced by The Contemporary Youth Arts Company, this daring and complex piece of musical theater was pulled together in less than six weeks. Included in the show are interviews with Dan and Mark, intercut with “fly-on-the-wall” footage from the rehearsals leading up to opening night. It’s a little bittersweet seeing Mark in his prime, co-creating an amazing piece of work.

We also dug into our archives and included footage of the original production from 2008, starring Ryan Hardiman. This is rare video that had never been seen by the general public before.

In this episode of RFC you will see the 2011 incarnation of the show come together from on-book readings at local churches to the building of the set to the final blocking and staging during tech week. I spent several weeks attending rehearsals with my camera, shooting loads of Cinéma vérité footage of the cast and crew preparing for their big night.   It’s a look inside the creation of a unique original work in the Charleston, WV theater scene. Some of this show was recorded as late as one day before it was originally posted online. We managed to get this show finished and online in time to promote the opening of the show later in the week.

You can find the original production notes HERE.

It’s been a bit wild these last few months, running the chronological presentation of the video version of RFC, and having them tie in with something currently happening. Coincidentally to this show coming up in our rotation on Saturday July 26, this is the same day that The Elk City Playhouse will celebrate 30 years of CYAC (and 30 years of CYAC “kids”). There will be an open-house type celebration in and around their “Elk City Playhouse”, at 218 Washington St W, Charleston, from 2 PM to 9 PM, with a buffet meal from 5:30 to 6. Expect to share lots of memories and  LOTS of photos. This will be a fun reunion for the CYAC kids and folks who contributed to the success of one of Charleston’s most durable and original theatrical concerns. You can find more details HERE.

The PopCulteer
July 25, 2025

We have great new themed episodes of our Friday Music Specialty programs on The AIR Friday Afternoon, but after that we have some of those obituaries we can’t avoid mentioning, like we told you about a few weeks ago.

The AIR FRIDAY!

Friday afternoon both of our Friday music specialty shows devote themselves to special themes. Mel Larch’s MIRRORBALL and Sydney Fileen’s Sydney’s Big Electric Cat return with new episodes.  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.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, we have a new episode of MIRRORBALL where Mel Larch uncovers a batch of Disco classics that are cover tunes…originally performed by other artists. Some of them weren’t even originally Disco…even danceable…songs. Making it even sweeter, the show oepns and closes with Gloria Gaynor working her Disco magic on two Motown classics from the 1960s.

Don’t believe us? Check out the playlist. It’s covered with Disco…

MIRRORBALL 118

Gloria Gaynor “Walk On By”
Michael Zager Band “Shake Your Groove Thing”
Thelma Houston “Don’t Leave Me This Way”
Amii Stewart “Knock On Wood”
Edwin Starr “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now”
Walter Murphy “A Fifth of Beethoven”
The Spinners “Working My Way Back To You”
Tavares “More Than A Woman”
Donna Summer “MacArthur Park Suite”
Gloria Gaynor “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)”

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, Sydney Fileen graces us with a terrific new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat that finally delivers a topic that she’s been talking about doing since the first year of this program. This week, instead of delivering two hours of New Wave’s greatest hits, Sydney serves up two hours of New Wave’s GREATEST MISSES!  You will hear songs that aren’t familiar by musical artists that you’ve never heard of before.

Sydney dug deep into her slush pile of song submissions from aspiring hitmakers from the classic New Wave era, and what she comes up with is a fascinating alternate history of New Wave classics that never were.

it’s sort of like finding a “Best of New Wave” CD from an alternate dimension.

It turns out that Earth Two had some pretty cool sounds. Just for good measure, Sydney opens the show with FEX, the group who did “the most mysterious song on the internet,” which was finally discovered earlier this year after a long search by thousands of internet sleuths.

Check out the playlist of people you never heard of before…

BEC 130

FEX “Subways of Your Mind”
Tattoo Host “Civilised Make Up”
The Elektrics “Pretty Plastic”
Bunnydrums “TV Eye”
DeFilm “Bitter Surprise”
Elements “All My Best Friends”
European Toys “So Look At Me Now”
Idle Eyes “I’ll Wait”
Jon St. James “The Girl Who Seduced The World”
Trek W Quintronic “Zolan Space”
Glaxo Babies “Stay Awake”
Tirez Tirez “Vowels”
Paparazzi “Stop”
Big Dish “Swimmer”
Minimal Compact “Shouts and Kisses”
MC2 “Goin’ Crazy”
T.X.T. “What About You”
Red 7 “Big boys (Talk Tuff)”
Little Heroes “Seventh Heaven”
The Elevators “On The Wire”
The Victims “Tokyo Waits”
Threshold “2000 Light Years”
Alternative Radio “Strangers In Love”
RPM “Man Overboard”
Velvet Monkey “Future”

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat is produced at Haversham Recording Institute in London, and can be heard every Friday at 3 PM, with replays Saturday afternoon,  Monday at 7 AM, Tuesday at 8 PM, Wednesday at Noon and Thursday at 10 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Classic episodes can be heard Sunday morning at 10 AM.

Could You People Quit Dying For A Minute So I Can Finish This? 

Looks like The Grim Reaper decided to party like it’s 2016, as we had a raft of notable pop culture deaths this week. I was whining about this just a few weeks ago, so apologies if I somehow invoked the spirit of death to suddenly get busy.

First and foremost, we have Ozzy Osbourne. I’ve not mentioned this before, but the second rock album I ever owned had Black Sabbath on it.

It was a Warner Brothers Records sampler called “Heavy Metal” (back before that term meant what it does now) and it was a birthday gift from my brother, just a few week’s shy of fifty years ago I suspect there was no small element of Homer’s bowling ball at play here, since many of his favorite bands were on it, and I only had one rock album that I’d bought because it was funny (that would be Frank Zappa’s “Apostrophe”).  Still, this is a pretty wild collection, and Sabbath’s “Iron Man” caught my attention because I was a comic book nerd.

Among the other artists on this “Heavy Metal” compilation were YES, Led Zepplin, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, and for reasons beyond my understanding, Dr. John, Van Morrison, The Eagles and Faces.

That record put Ozzy on my radar, and while I was not a rabid fan, and was pretty repulsed by the reality show (I am pretty repulsed by EVERY reality show), I did respect his importance in music history, his influence and his charitable contributions. He also wrote or co-wrote a ton of great songs. “War Pigs” would probably be in my top twenty if he didn’t rhyme “masses” with “masses” in the first verse.

Fifteen years ago I made a short film starring my buddy, Lee Harrah, and his band, HARRAH, doing a rather fun and credible impression of Ozzy. I think this was an attempt to get Lee on a TV show or movie or something. Anyway, it’s purely a loving tribute, and here it is again…

Malcolm Jamal Warner died in a swimming accident this week, and like almost everybody else who was alive at the time, I enjoyed his work on The Cosby Show…at least before that show’s star made it hard to watch again. MJW was the rare child star who avoided the pitfalls of fame and went on to have a successful adult career in front of and behind the camera and was a creative force in poetry and music. It’s a true tragedy because he clearly had much more to offer the world.

We also lost Chuck Mangione.  Mangione was a virtuoso musician who learned at the feet of Dizzy Gillespie, and managed to find mainstream success at a time when instrumental soft Jazz was not even a musical catagory. His success with Easy Listening music obscures his substantial jazz cred, with stints playing with Woody Herman, Maynard Ferguson, Art Blakey and Keith Jarrett. His music made millions of people feel good, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Hulk Hogan was, of course, an iconic professional wrestler. I offer my condolences to his family, friends and fans. Not being a fan of him as a wrestler or a human being, I will refrain from further comment.

That is this week’s PopCulteer.  As your humble blogger looks forward to his first weekend without travel or illness in a couple of months. Still, we has the fresh content every dang day. Check back for our regular features every day too.

At the head of this post you see our lightning-quick PopCult music video for last weekend’s Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo in Louisville.  This is about six minutes of scenes from the toy show set to music by Sausage (AKA the original line-up of Primus).

This is not the only video we’ll be doing. The plan is to work on at least two more videos and a few more photo essays in the next week or two, but I wanted to get this out so you could get a taste of the terrific toy action.

I’m going to share just a few photos below. There will be more next week. Your humble blogger has to juggle prior committments with doctor appointments and other surprises, so in this case, your patience will be rewarded.

At least it will be rewarded more than impatience will be.

Over the next week or two we’ll have short videos devoted to a few special events and items tied to the show, pluse we’ll do the big “raw footage” video for you completists who want to see everything we shot. You can expect photo essays devoted to some awesome dioramas and the Defenders of Bulletman 25th anniversary display. I’ll also bring you photos of the people of the KYGIJoe show, and of course…the toys.

Here’s a quick sample….

The quiet before the storm at the ticket area.

Brian Becker representing the Defenders of Bulletman.

You will learn more about the D.O.B. next week.

Cindy Scott’s spectacular Bob Hope USO stage. Next week will also bring a photo essay of Cindy’s incredible work.

Cindy with her diorama. She built the stage herself and assembled a historically accurate scene.

Greg Brown of Cotswold Collectibles, intently organizing and reorganizing little, wonderfully-crafted, pieces of plastic.

The show exclusives for Adventure Command and 12″ GI Joes.

A gigantic and impressive Cobra Viper vehicle of some sort. This cardboard creation was HUGE!

A quick look at The Marauders.

We wrap up this brief photo essay with a shot of some really cool 3D printed RAH GI Joe pieces. A couple of these came home with me.

We will continue our coverage of The 2025 Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo over the next two weeks here in PopCult.

Charleston is going Retro this weekend so let’s look forward and back at the same time and tell you about STUFF TO DO all over the State of Mountainaity.

The fourth annual RetroFest happens Saturday in Slack Plaza. Vendors, food trucks and Deejays will celebrate nostalgia, and the headlining live music act is the beloved Hair Supply. You can read more about the event HERE.

Also on Saturday, a related sort of event a few blocks away at the Beni Kedem Temple on Quarrier Street, is VintageFest, which will have dozens of vendors selling tons of cool old stuff. See the details right here…

And in another nostalgic happening on Saturday July 26, The Elk City Playhouse will celebrate 30 years of CYAC (and 30 years of CYAC “kids”). There will be an open-house type celebration in and around their “Elk City Playhouse”, at 218 Washington St W, Charleston, from 2 PM to 9 PM, with a buffet meal from 5:30 to 6. Expect to share lots of memories and  LOTS of photos. This will be a fun reunion for the CYAC kids and folks who contributed to the success of one of Charleston’s most durable and original theatrical concerns. You can find more details HERE.

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 , Spoutible, Instagram or possibly Elon’s beast, if it should ever choose to forgive me.  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 remind you 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.

City Center Live at Slack Plaza in Charleston has announced their schedule for the summer. You can find it HERE.

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 they have James Romano on Friday, and 2 Roommates on Saturday.

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. This Saturday, The East End Ghouls hold their monthly Drag/Burlesque showcase at 10 PM. 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 many Tuesday evenings. 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. Pumzi’s looks to be beefing up their offerings in the coming weeks and months, so be sure to check that link in case we miss something.

You can also visit Coal River Coffee in Saint Albans for live music in an alcohol-free environment. This Friday at 7 PM  Coal River Coffee features Minor SwingI 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. If somebody asks you to refrain, don’t be a jerk about it.

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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There are three new hours of Radio Free Charleston that you can hear 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.

It’s a free-format extravaganza with a gimmick we haven’t used for a while this week.  We’re doing double-shots, playing two songs in a row from every artist this week. We have our usual mix of local, independent and cult-favorite artists, only this time the fun is doubled.

We open the show with a brand-new tune from Sasha Colette & The Magnolias, then follow that with a song from deep in the RFC Archives.

In the course of our show you’ll hear new music from Byzantine, The Settlement, Styx, M (Robin Scott) and more.  Plus we dig into the archives for great stuff from Peter Gabriel, Hello June, Saycouth June Swoon and more.

It’s a great show, and it’ll have you hearing double.

Links will take you to pages for the artists…

RFC V5 233

hour one
Sahsa Colette & The Magnolias “Kiss and Make Up” “You Had Me”
Corduroy Brown “Looking Over My Shoulder” “Who Am I For Now”
Brian Diller “Home” “The Last Train”
Byzantine “A Place We Cannot Go” “Irene”
David Synn “Trifecta “Sea of Tranquility”
Avkrvst “Preceding” “Families Are Forever”

hour two
The Settlement “Midnight Train” “Recognize (live)”
Peter Gabriel “Family Snapshop (live)” “Shock The Monkey (live)”
Styx “Build and Destroy” “The Things That You Said”
The M.F.B. “Big Booty Judy” “Funkle Sam Needs You”
The Heavy Hitters Band “Voicemail (Tiny Desk Version)” “Operations”

hour three
M Robin Scott “AI” “Enough is Enough”
Novelty Island “Foam Animals” “Weird Friends”
Saycouth “Phantom Love” “Pharoah”
June Swoon “This Town Could Be Big Enough for Both of Us” “Cactus Tree”
Matt Mullins & The Bringdowns “Big Sky” “Elastic”
Hello June “Honey I Promise” “23”

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 the most recent 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. I know I’ve been neglecting my Swing Music showcase lately, but I play to rectify that situation with a stretch of new episodes coming every week beginning in August.

 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.