The PopCulteer
October 24, 2025

We have some radio notes for you today as we enter the weekend before Halloween. This will kick off a week of new episodes of our music specialty shows on The AIR, most of which will have at least a slight Halloween aura about them. Next week we’ll be running Halloween programming all week long, as the Daily RFC takes a week off and we dig some moldy old programming out of our crypt. It all begins in earnest on Sunday, but today we give you a bit of a sneak peek, one week out from All Hallow’s Eve.

You can find all these Halloween editions of our music and comedy specialty programs, plus a coffinload of special presentations on The AIR. This afternoon we serve up new episodes of MIRRORBALL and Sydney’s Big Electric Cat! The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear these shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

MIRRORBALL

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch devotes a full hour to classic Disco tracks, but alas, there simply weren’t enough Disco Halloween songs left to do a sequel to her 2020 Halloween episode, so this week MIRRORBALL pays tribute to the denizens of THE NIGHT. by serving up an hour of killer Disco classics with the word “night” in their titles.

It may or may not be scary,  depending on who’s trying to dance.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 121

Patrick Juvet “Lady Night”
Venus Dodson “Night Rider”
Skatt Brothers “Walk The Night”
Billy Ocean “Stay The Night”
Taka Boom “Night Dancin'”
Jeree Palmer “Late Night Surrender”
GQ “Disco Nights (Rock Freak)”
Candi Staton “Nights On Broadway”
Bee Gees “Saturday Night Fever”
Alicia Bridges “I Love The Nightlife”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays most weeks  Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM and a four-hour mini-marathon of classic episodes Friday nights at 8 PM. Be sure to check out the Halloween marathon on The AIR because we’ll run the 2020 Halloween episode of MIRRORBALL multiple times, including in the regular replay slots.

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat explores the Roots of Goth Again

Also on The AIR  at 3 PM (EDT), Sydney Fileen graces us with special mixtape-style new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. This week Sydney revisits the early Darkwave and proto-Goth music, which is perfect for this holiday season.  She tells us that this is to celebrate the season and also expose the roots of one of New Wave music’s more distinctive branches. Two years ago Sydney explored this same topic, but this is an all-new and totally different exploration of the early New Wave roots of Goth.

In this mixtape presentation you’ll hear influential Darkwave artists like Siouxsie & The Banshees, Closed Session, The Bolshoi, Theatre of Hate, Virgin Prunes, The Cult, The Damned, and of course, Joy Division. Sydney also shines the spotlight on some of the bands who were far more influential than they were commercially successful.

This is the music that gave birth to Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Godsmack and the like.  You say they paved the way…a long, dark, spooky alley, to be sure, but these folks paved it nonetheless.

Check out the playlist…

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat 133

Siouxsie & The Banshees “The Sweetest Chill”
The Cult “She Sells Sanctuary”
Sisters of Mercy “This Corrosion”
Fields of the Nephilim “Blue Water”
Danielle Dax “Yummer Yummer Man”
The Mission “Tower of Strength”
Theatre of Hate “Do You Believe in the Westworld”
Play Dead “The Tenant”
Martin Briley “Dumb Love”
The Bolshoi “Auntie Jean”
Closed Session “Firing Beach”
Skeletal Family “Promised Land”
Joy Division “Atrocity Exhibition”
Ritual “Questioning the Shadow”
Actifed “Crucifixion”
Virgin Prunes “Pagan Love Song”
Bone Orchard “Shall I Carry the Budgie Woman”
Salvation “Diamond Child”
Rubella Ballet “Slant and Slide”
In Excelsis “The Sword”
Alien Sex Fiend “I Walk The Line”
The Damned “Curtain Call”

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 as part of the overnight Haversham Recording Institute marathon Tuesday mornings at 1 AM. .

That’s it for this week’s PopCulteer, check back for all our regular features, with fresh content, every day. Also, tune in for our Halloween block programming on The AIR beginning Sunday morning.