Month: August 2026 (Page 4 of 4)

STUFF TO DO is PopCult‘s weekly guide to just a few of the great events happening in Charleston, Huntington and a few other points here in West Virginia, and sometimes a little beyond our borders, in the coming days.

This week’s featured event is a show Thursday night at Folklore Music Exchange that I hope to attend…

Each week I try to tell you about a few cool events all around the state that you might not know about.  If you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future you can still contact me via Social Media at Facebook, BlueSky, Spoutible, Instagram or Twitter.  I dont charge for this, so you might as well send me something if you have an event to promote.

I do ask that you send a graphic that includes the date, time and location, of the event, as well as the cost to attend.  I can’t promise that I’ll run it here,  but chances are I will unless it’s something completely offensive or an event happening in South Carolina. If it looks original and charmingly weird, you have a better chance of seeing it here.

Keep in mind that I’ll need this several days in advance, so please don’t send me a graphic on the day of the event and expect it to show up in this feature.

For much more comprehensive guides to things you can get into in our region, check out these two wonderful resources:

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.

Mya Ross at Status Quo does a much better job of compiling a list of local events than I do, and you can find the WTSQ guide to events HERE. Toss ’em a donation while you’re over there.

You can find live music in and around town every night of the week. You just have to know where to look.  Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Among the notable music venues in town are The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe, Live at The Shop in Dunbar, Louie’s, at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort, In Huntington, there’s local institution, The Loud (formerly The V Club),  The Wandering Wind Meadery is on Charleston’s West Side, Plus there’s music in Charleston at The Blue Parrot, Sam’s Uptown Cafe and Fife Street Brewing. Plus there are free concerts almost every weekend at Taylor Books.

You might also find cool musical events at 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.

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 illnesses 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, please respect their weishes and don’t be a jerk about it.

Here’s a few select suggestions for STUFF TO DO in and around Charleston and Huntington this weekend…

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You can hear Radio Free Charleston Tuesdays at 10 AM and 10 PM, with boatloads of replays throughout the week.

 This week we open with a full hour of brand-new local, independent and cult-following music, and that is followed by a rare episode of Radio Free Charleston International that hasn’t been heard since late 2016.  This time there were no major tragedies or inconveniences, your humble blogger and radio host just needed a slow week after a very busy summer.

As promised last week, we open our show with a killer new track from Nashville’s Saycouth, who come to use via the Chicago pipeline. I think Google Maps is involved in that, somehow. This is their new single, and it will be released this Friday, which just happens to be Bandcamp Friday, the day when you can buy music and stuff at Bandcamp, and they allow the musicians to keep the Bandcamp cut of the proceeds.  It’s a great deal for everybody involved, so be sure to spend some time shopping at Bandcamp as the work week ends.

The next song in our show is the latest from our old friend, David Synn.  David is working on a great new Prog album, but life has thrown him a curve ball recently.  His wife, Johnni, has suffered a traumatic brain injury and will need surgery in order to regain a normal life. A GoFundMe Page has been set up to help the family cover expenses and stay together as she undergoes medical treatments in Morgantown. Please check out the page and consider donating.

The rest of our first hour features new music from Noise Structures, Vinto Van Go, Gary Myrick, Hardy Mums, Corduroy Brown, Stitch Jones and His Bionic Marines and Robyn Hitchcock, along with a flurry of great recent tracks from local and indie talent, and a preview of a show at The Empty Glass, happening next week.

Our second and third hours bring you an episode of RFC International that hasn’t been available in any form since late 2016.  This show is loaded with great music that flows smoothly, even though it has no right to.

Check out this playlist, with links to the artist’s page, in the first hour…

RFC V5 280

hour one
Saycouth “Where Do We Go”
David Synn “Bombs And Scarecrows”
Noise Structures “Not Of Oneself”
Vinto Van Go “Recovery”
Gary Myrick “Havana”
Hardy Mums “Something New To Find”
Corduroy Brown “Hit Me Baby (One More Time)”
Spark of Life “Trying To Forget”
Common Ground 304 “We Ain’t In The Prisoner Takin’ Business”
Samuel S.C. “Get Red”
Green Day “Hitchin’ A Ride”
Payback’s A Bitch “Stupid Is As Stupid Does”
J. Marinelli “Cubby & The Argonauts”
Stitch Jones and His Bionic Marines “KaPow Gone”
Robyn Hichcock “My Dead Astronaut”

hour two
Green Day “Revolution Radio”
The Pixies “Um Chagga Lagga”
The Monkees “The Porpoise Song”
Kansas “Summer”
Macy Gray “Redemption Song”
The Sword “High Country (acoustic)”
Vangelis “Mission Accomplished”
Regina Spektor “Older and Taller”
Manfred Mann “I Put A Spell On You”
The Isley Borthers “Shout”
Freddie Mercury “The Great Pretender”
John Lennon “Stand By Me”
The Who “Batman”
Marillion “Living In Fear”
Frank Zappa “Cosmic Debris”

hour three
Elvis Costello “…and in every home”
No Doubt “Open The Gate”
Sting “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You”
The Screaming Jets “Cash In Your Ticket”
Miss Behaviour “Savage Heart”
Neil Young “We R In Control”
Starpilot “Blazor”
Mi Sex “Computer Games”
New Order “Bizarre Love Triangle”
M “Doubletalk”
Kate Bush “Pull Out The Pin”
Peter Gabriel “Intruder”
Adrian Belew “Standing In The Shadows”

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 get ready for two classic episodes of The Swing Shift, featuring the best Swing Music from the last century!

 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.

We are back in Chicago for this week’s smallish watercolor.  Like last week, it’s based on our slow meander through the South Side of Chicago, during what is normally a brief part of the trip where Amtrak’s Cardinal rides on an elevated track.

Most of the time, this passes in mere minutes, but due to mechanical issues, it took us about an hour to travel the relatively short distance from Union Station, South, past the ballpark where the White Sox play.

So I was able to grab lots of photos of things that would normally pass us by too quickly to even notice.

This week it’s a picture of a building with a sign for a car wash that’s actually about a block away, our of our line of sight.  I liked the Hopperesque composition I was able to get the stark near-dusk shadows.  The painting itself is rather straight-forward, with no major omissions or additions. This is pretty much the way it looked. I may redo the sky at some point and paint out the streetlamp.

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 we do the same with an encore of a more recent episode 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.

Tonight at 8 PM, tune in for a classic edition of The Comedy Vault. That’s followed by two-hour blocks of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast at 9 PM and 11 PM, and then an overnight assortment of our Haversham Recording Institute programs at 1 AM.

Your humble blogger is not planning on doing much this weekend besides sitting in front of the TV, watching big sweaty people hit each other.  It’s been very hectic lately, and I need some time to recharge.

To make life easier, this week in our video showcase, we are going to bring you five random videos that i produced for this blog over the years. Above you see my video from 2022, of a pedicab ride through NYC.

Right below, you see a video I made in 2009 that features Sierra Ferrel, with James Vernon Brown and Patrick Stephens on back up,  singing the Portishead song, “Glory Box.” After that, Patrick treats us to his own tune, “I Speak Spanish To God.” This was recorded at an open mic night at Sam’s Uptown Cafe in Charleston.

From there, we jump to a video I shot in 2013, featuring guitar legend, Neil Zaza, with Sean O’Bryan Smith, performing in Dave Robert’s living room in South Charleston…

After that, from the spring of 2022, it’s a video I shot from the window of the Amtrak Cardinal. We were passing the C&O Railway Heritage Center, and I got footage of the back end of the museum, including some of the rare and ancient cars they have in their railyard alongside the Amtrak tracks.

Finally, we have a PopCult instant video look at Shocka-Con 2013, including the infamous Twerking incident with The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, plus music from Harrah, The Big Bad and The Renfields, and quick peeks of RJ Haddy, Daniel Boyd, Eliska Hahn, Danny Hicks, Eugene Clark, Eamon Hardiman, Pig Girl, Ghostbusters WV, Jeremy Ambler and cast members from The Walking Dead, a Dalek, The cast of Kanawha Players “Night of the Living Dead,” and more, all tighly-packed into one five and a half-minute clip. It’s a little bittersweet to see so many friends who are no longer with it, and it’s also hard to watch because of the video quality, but it’s still a fun reminder of how much fun ShockaCon used to be.

Leo Tuxedo as Patrick Morrisey (photo by Mark Wolfe)

Billed as “An Alarmingly Activist Episode” and hailed by many as one of our best, we go back to May, 2014 for “Save Top O Rock Shirt,” a show jam-packed with cool stuff. Sadly, our title shirt turned out to be a lost cause, as one of the city’s most treasured landmarks fell to the wrecking ball, but sad as that is, this is still a great show.

Radio Free Charleston 198, “Save Top O Rock Shirt” was one of our most politically active episodes. We had music from Time & Distance, Little Nomad, The Living Deads and a special music video by The Laser Beams, plus there’s ten epic minutes of animation by Jake Fertig. But first, in this episode I actually talk about the shirt that gives this show its name.

Top O Rock was an architectural marvel in Charleston. It was the home and office of the late architect, Henry Elden. We shot our host segments for Episode 100 there in 2010, a couple of years after he passed away. Despite the best efforts of many people, the structure was demolished, and the land still sits empty.

A scene from “The Flocking”

We jump into our show with the first of three parts of Jake Fertig‘s epic “The Flocking: Coal-Aid Freedomsodes,” which takes a pretty harsh and incisive look at some of the industrial special interests which control and afflict West Virginia.  We split the cartoon into three parts, and you’ll see them throughout this episode of the show.

Our first musical guest this week was Time and Distance. We caught them on their first Charleston show after a nationwide tour, performing at The Empty Glass. Also at The Glass, we recorded The Living Deads, who had previously starred in an RFC MINI SHOW. In this show you’ll get to hear “All I Can Do Is Cry”

The Laser Beams formed out members of The Wayward Girls School of Burlesque, and were still members when we created this music video, where they salute West Virginia’s then Attorney General who is currently the Governor, the sock puppet of big business, Patrick Morrisey. The song is still accurate and relevant, sadly.

We wrapped the show up with a performance by singer-songwriter Little Nomad, with whom we were mightily impressed. It sure would be cool if she started making music again.

You can read the full production notes for this show HERE.