The PopCulteer
October 27, 2023

We have some radio notes for you today as we enter the weekend before Halloween. You’ll find info about today’s new afternoon programs below, but I also want to let everybody know that we will take a headfirst leap into the Halloween woodchipper on The AIR starting Sunday morning at 9 AM.  The AIR will be all Halloween specials and shows until Wednesday morning at 9 AM. That’s three full days of Spooky weirdness for you.

You can find all these Halloween editions of our music and comedy specialty programs, plust a boatload 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 is the kid who shows up without a costume.  Still, the bellbottoms, gold lamé, coke spoons, afro wigs and platForm shoes aren’t exactly strangers to Halloween wear.

Instead Mel just serves up another killer mix of particularly grooving tunes, the likes of which can cause a tectonic-like shift among the gluteous maximi.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 085

Quincy Jones “Razzamatazz”
Tavares “It Only Takes A Minute”
Gwen Guthrie “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent”
The Floaters “Float On”
Madleen Kane “Rough Diamond”
The Meters “Disco Is The Thing Today”
The Spinners “Are You Ready For Love”
Kool and the Gang “Get Down On It”
The Trammps “Love Epidemic”
Sylvester “Over and Over”
The O’Jays “Love Train”
Parliment “Give Up The Funk”
KC & The Sunshine Band “Shake Your Boogie”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays most weeks  Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM and a mini-marathon Saturday nights at 9 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

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 surfs into 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.

In this mixtape presentation you’ll hear influential Darkwave artists like Martin Briley, 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 109

Bauhaus “Dark Entries”
X Mal Deutschland “Black Madonna”
28th Day “Dead Sinner”
Closed session “We’ll All Die”
Parade Ground “Cut-Throat Business”
Martin Briley “A Rainy Day In New York City”
Mobiles “Tamarind Mind”
The Bolshoi “Crack In Smile”
Berlin Airlift “I Hate Everything But You”
Jimmy Destri “Under The Ice”
Unlimied Systems “Pale Blue Eyes”
Alexandros “Stress”
Intelligence Dept. “Sleeping City”
Theatre of Hate “Original Sin”
Southern Death Cult “Fat Man”
Virgin Prunes “Baby Turns Blue”
Trisome 21 “Relapse”
Get Smart “Nothing I Can Do”
Trial “Lobotomized Visions”
Virgin Circus “What Simon Says”
The Cult “Spirit Walker”
The Damned “13th Floor Vendetta”
The Creatures “Morning Dawning”
Freur “The Devil and Darkness”
Joy Division “Decades”

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.

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 marathon on The AIR, and get ready for the start of The 2024 PopCult Gift Guide next Wednesday.  I’ll preview it for you on Tuesday.