Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 25 of 124)

On Wednesday, just two days before Valentine’s Day, The AIR brings you great new episodes of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast that are awash in the pompatus of love.  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 an hour of songs that the Fab Four (mostly solo here) sang about LOVE, primarily about the women in their lives. It’s part of this week’s Valentine-themed music specialty programs.

Check out the playlist…

Beatles Blast 118

George Harrison “True Love”
Ringo Starr “Choose Love”
John Lennon “Every Man Has A Woman Who Loves Him”
Paul McCartney “Maybe I’m Amazed/The Lovely Linda”
John Lennon “Oh Yoko”
George Harrison “Beautiful Girl”
Ringo Starr “I’m Yours”
Paul McCartney “We Got Married”
John Lennon “Woman”
George Harrison “Dark Sweet Lady”
Ringo Starr “What Love Wants To Be”
John Lennon “Dear Yoko”
George Harrison “Love Comes To Everyone”
Paul McCartney “Promise To You Girl”
John Lennon “Beautiful Boy”
The Beatles “All You Need Is Love”

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 presents the second-longest-running off-Broadway show in history, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.

With book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro, and music by Jimmy Roberts, this musical comedy presents a series of vignettes that portray a slightly cynical, very funny look at relationships.

This week Mel brings  you a 2021 London Coliseum streaming production starring Brenda Edwards, Alice Fearn, Simon Lipkin and Oliver Tompsett. At the very end of our show Mel brings you one more musical theatre classic, that celebrates love.

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, Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM. A marathon of classic episodes can be heard Sunday morning and afternoon starting at 9 AM, 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 a brand-new episode featuring the first of multiple installments of Viv Stanshall’s “Rawlinson’s End.”

In case you missed the news yesterday, this week all of The AIR Musical Specialty programs will have some sort of Valentine’s Day-ish theme.  Love is on The AIR this week, and today is no exception.

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 RFC kicks off with two hours of our usual mix of local, independent and free-format music, and then we indulge in the love bug with a third hour “Mystery Bonus Track” mixtape devoted to weird love. As such, there is no playlist with links for you to click. This is to preserve the integrity of the Mystery Bonus Track, and is in no way simply a way to cut down my workload.

To be honest, the original plan was to tie in every AIR program this week with the love theme except for RFC. However, at the last minute I thought of a gimmick that worked with theme and was a labor-saving device, so it was a no-brainer.

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 V5 213

hour one
Massing “Over Now”
David Synn “Odyssey”
Dream Theater “Midnight Messiah”
The Settlement“Recognize-Enter Mission”
Dark Entities “March of the Skulls”
SPACE FREQ “Tonight”
Tony Levin “Give The Cello Some”
Dinosaur Burpss “Resonator Test (Instrumental)”
Los Grainders “Storm Surf”

hour two
Corduroy Brown with Kindred Valley “Cross Your Mind”
Gyasi “Baby Blue”
The Subjunctives “Believe (Rehashed)”
The Teardrop Explodes “Ha Ha I’m Drowning”
Kate Fagan “Go Faster”
Golden “Impossible”
Rachel Tucker “All Right Now”
The Paranoid Style“I Love The Sound of Structured Class”
Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess “Does She Have You”
69 Fingers “Pocket Full of Change”
The Sweet “Hell Raiser”
LameAssDads “Your Love”
Government Cheese “Oh Yeah”
Franz Ferdinand “The Doctor”
Lene Lovich “Be Stiff”
The Blasters “Long White Cadillac”

hour three

The Mystery Bonus Weird Love Mixtape

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 fits into our romantic theme by including songs that all have the word, “kiss” in the title. We kick it off with a rare B-side by Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive that I’ve been wanting to bring you since I started doing this show nine years ago.

This week’s show is a big old sloppy Swing Kiss.

Check out the playlist…

The Swing Shift 168

Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive “Knock Me A Kiss”
Brian Setzer Orchestra “Kiss Me Deadly”
Woody Herman “A Kiss Goodnight”
Lester Young “This Year’s Kiss”
Ella Fitzgerald “This Year’s Kisses”
Kathy & The Kilowatts “Each Kiss”
Dean Martin “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now”
Earl “You Kissed Me”
Louis Armstrong “A Kiss To Build A Dream On”
Krystal Jyl & The Jacks “Machine Gun Kisses”
Stan Kenton with Julie Christy “We Kiss In A Shadow”
Benny Goodman & His Orchestra “A Little Kiss At Twilight”
Teddy Hill “The Lady Who Couldn’t Be Kissed”
Duke Ellington “The Kissing Bug”
Louis Prima “I Kiss Your Hand Madame”
Amos Milburn “Kiss Me Again”
Django Reinhardt & The Hot Club of France “A Little Love, A Little Kiss”
Chick Webb “Love And Kisses”
Louis Jordan “Knock Me A Kiss”

 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.

This week’s art is a large pen-and-ink piece on paper for pens that’s been a work in progress for the better part of nine months.  This was a originally a pencil layout that I blew up digitally, printed out, then worked over on a new piece of paper using a lightboard. Using a variety of markers, brushes and even X-acto knives, I created this intricate drawing on those days when I had a respite from the symptoms of Myasthenia Gravis, and actually had working fingers for a few hours.

I used the markers, plus india ink, Winsor Newton indigo and blue ink and lots of White Out.  I also employed a variety of straight-edges and flexible curves.

This piece is NOT symentrical. It’s damned close, but the halves of the drawing do not match up.

This was my attempt at combining the influence of M.C. Escher with that of H. R. Geiger.

I’m happy with the way it came out, but just looking at it gives me hand cramps.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland,  This week is all about the love, as we bring you new programming leading up to Valentine’s Day on Friday.  Everything except for Radio Free Charleston will have some kind of romantic overtone.

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 attempted to be lovey-dovey (not with each other, mind you) despite working in genres that are not exactly known for their affectionate leanings.

Check out the playlists…

Psychedelic Shack 098 (2 PM EST)

Roger Glover “Love Is All”
Gyasi “Sweet Thing”
The Mads “Feels Like Love”
Smooth Motion “Love You for a Night”
Jefferson Airplane “Somebody To Love”
Brother T & Family “Oh Love”
Smith “I Just Wanna Make Love To You”
The Yardbirds “For Your Love”
Moby Grape “Love Song”
The In Crowd “That’s How Strong My Love Is”
Janis Joplin “To Love Somebody”
The Jimi Hendrix Experience “May This Be Love”
Tears For Fears “Sowing The Seeds of Love”
Donovan “Wear Your Love Like Heaven”
The Turtles “So Goes Love”
Mika “Tiny Love”

Prognosis 125 (3 PM EST)

Marillion “Kayleigh”
Emerson, Lake & Palmer “Still You Turn Me On”
Steve Hackett “Memory Lane (live)”
Graham Bond “Our Love Will Come Shining Through”
Jon Anderson “If It Wasn’t For Love (Oneness Family)”
Kraftwerk “Computer Love”
Queen “Love of My Life”
Tangerine Dream with Jon Anderson “Loved By the Sun”
Todd Rundgren “The Verb to Love”
Nightwish “Ghost Love Score”
Genesis “Afterglow”
Jethro Tull “A Love Story”
Barclay James Harvest “Good Love Child”
Be Bop Deluxe “Love’s Swift Arrows”
Bryan Ferry “The Price of Love”
Nektar “Love To Share”
Triumverat “Old Loves Die Hard”
Peter Gabriel “Modern Love”
David Bowie “Shining Star (Makin’ My Love)”
Quantum Jump “Love Crossed”
Renaissance “She Is Love”
Kate Bush “All The Love”
ELP “Taste of My Love”
Trevor Rabin “Love Life”
YES “City of Love”

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 some funny stuff on a random classic episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we bring you ten hours of romance-oriented episodes of our music specialty shows from previous years.

Above you see nearly half an hour of raw video shot by yours truly and his lovely wife just over two weeks ago at the Winterfest Toy Show, put on by the fine folks who bring us The Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo, in Louisville, Kentucky.

This is something I started doing a few years ago after some requests from folks who went to toy shows. They tend to be completists, and wanted to see every second of video I shot. Being a completist myself, this struck me as a reasonable request.

When I do these “RAW” videos, I tend to wipe out the audio and replace it with music. I don’t want to pick up any stray bits of conversation that weren’t intended to be shared with the public.  This time, I forgot to ask anybody for music to use, so I just grabbed a bunch of stuff I composed over the last two decades and dropped it in, nearly randomly.  Apologies for that. Some of it is pretty atonal. A couple of the pieces are collaborations with Mel Larch and Frank Panucci, but most of it is just me.

It’s okay if you want to mute it.

You can find our other coverage of Winterfest 2025 in photo essay form HERE, last week’s music video HERE and catching up with toy designer, Greg Autore HERE.

Episode 121 of Radio Free Charleston, “Thrilling Detective Shirt,” hails from March, 2011. This installment of RFC featured a double-dose of Beaver Knievel, a quick blast of folk/punk stomp from Dennis Hopper’s Army, plus vintage animation from Frank Panucci in addition to a visit from Robot Commando.

Host segments were shot at Haddad Riverfront Park, and the show’s title shirt comes to us courtesy of Retro A Go Go.  Before we jump into the show proper, just know this: Robot Commando wants to help you. He really does.

Opening and closing the show, musically, this time is Beaver Knievel. You heard them last week in episode 120, running through the song “Get Loose” during a soundcheck. This week you get to hear them tear up the whole song. They also kick in with “I’m You’re Man.”

We shot Beaver Knievel at The Blue Parrot, and this was one of the rare nights when we had the late Johnny Rock running camera, with Lee Harrah and yours truly on the other two. The band was a bit of a local supergroup, and has since seen some of its members return to their previous bands.

Our other music guest was Dennis Hopper’s Army, performing their original “Used To Sing.” This is another group that’s not performing together anymore, but members of the band are still active in the local music and arts scence.

Our animation is a film my brother produced as a child prodigy. Watch The Mugger and discover why his teachers trembled in fear.

You can read the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
February 7, 2025

We have a few short items for you this week, and then we get to a pretty big photo essay from January’s GI Joe Winterfest in Louisville. so let’s get started, shall we?

It’s NOT Bandcamp Friday Today

The first Friday of almost every month, is usually 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. However today they make an exception.

If this were a normal month, today you could buy new music from David Synn, The Settlement and Dinosaur Burps, and they’d get all the money. It’s a nice way to show a little extra support for the local and independent artists whose work you enjoy. But sometimes they skip Bandcamp Friday for a good cause, and today is one of those days.

This month, on February 7th, from midnight to midnight PST, 100% of Bandcamp’s proceeds will be donated to MusiCares, an organization providing emergency financial aid, mental health support, and essential health services to artists in need. These efforts will go to help people who were affected by the Los Angeles Wildfires.

Bandcamp is patnering with the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), Harman, Lagunitas, Roland, Shure, Victrola, and Worldwide Independent Network (WIN) to make this fundraiser possible. A2IM is a key advocate for independent music in the U.S., and WIN represents the global independent music community. These partnerships amplify the fundraiser’s reach and impact.

It would be nice if they didn’t just unilaterally decide to give the money that would normally go to the artists to charity, but at least it is a good cause.

They have also teamed up with world-renowned designer and artist Shepard Fairey. This unique design will be available worldwide, only on Bandcamp, with proceeds going to MusiCares

Bandcamp Friday, where the artists get the full amount you spend, will return next month. It figures that the one month I finally remember to mention Bandcamp Friday in this space, they skip it.

Universal Love for Captain Action

Well, sort of. LBO, the folks who are currently bringing Captain Action back to life in limited-edition action figure form, have announced a new licensing deal with Universal. let me just quote liberally from the press release…

LBO COLLECTIVE ANNOUNCES LICENSING PARTNERSHIP WITH UNIVERSAL PRODUCTS & EXPERIENCES FOR HIGH-END, POP-ART COLLECTIBLES​

Iconic Universal Franchises to Inspire Action Figures, Art Prints, Model Kits and More

LOS ANGELES, CA – LBO Collective (aka Let’s Be Onyx) a team of toy industry veterans and tastemakers, is proud to announce a licensing partnership with Universal Products & Experiences. This landmark collaboration brings timeless NBCUniversal properties like Jaws, Back to the Future, Universal Monsters, Battlestar Galactica and more with new and exciting iterations within the collectibles space, with a focus on creating high-quality action figures, model kits, statues, and art prints.​

“NBCUniversal’s iconic properties are foundational to storytelling in cinema and television, and we’re thrilled to honor these legacies through bold, imaginative collectibles,” said Kwame Holland, Co-Founder of LBO Collective. “This partnership blends NBCUniversal’s timeless characters with today’s leading creative voices, setting a new standard for fans.”

Exciting Projects in Development

The collaboration includes:

Action Figures and Uniform Sets: High-end figures with unique form factors featuring iconic NBCUniversal characters.

Art Prints and Statues: Curated with leading artists and designers, including surrealist and pop-art interpretations.

Model Kits: Highly detailed kits for fans to bring to life their favorite NBCUniversal stories featuring characters and sets.

To boil that down to the most exciting parts, I am told that this definitely means NEW Captain Action uniform sets based on Universal Monsters, Battlestar Galactica and other properties owned by Universal. It also means that LBO will be getting into the model kit business, which is always good news, and they’ll be creating all sorts of other collectibles.

Aside from the mentioned Universal properties above, the studio also owns the Gold Key Comics characters, Dreamworks, Illumination and other TV, film and classic animation portfolios, but it’s not clear how many of those are included in this deal.

It’s gonna be pricey, but it’s gonna be fun.

More Winterfest Photos

We have another batch of photos from Winterfest 2025 for you. Sorry for taking so long to get these out, since it’s been two weeks since most of them were shot. We will wrap up our Winterfest coverage Sunday, with all the raw footage we took of the show, set to some barely listenable music (I don’t want to accidentally post any candid audio we weren’t meant to capture). And yes, for those of you who asked, that was Holden Caulfield’s Dana White in the Winterfest Music Video. See him again at right.

In case you missed it, you can find the Winterfest music video HERE, and our interview with Greg Autore HERE.  Most of the photos below are by yours truly, but a few are frame-grabs from video shot by my lovely and healthy wife, Mel Larch.

And…there may be one last photo essay, but it’s not necessarily show-specific. For now, check out the pics….

It’s The Paroquet Springs Conference Centre, where the show happened

Many thanks to the Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo crew for getting me into that cool storage area that allowed me to get an aerial view of the dealer’s room.

Continue reading

It’s the weekend before Valentine’s Day, and there are a ton of Chocolate and “Galentine” events happening that I’m not mentioning here for reasons of space. If you’re into that, go look it up.

Also, there’s a big football game or something going on this weekend. My team quit playing with about five games left in the seaon, and I don’t care enough to hate either team in the finals, so I got nothing to say about that. However, there is, as always, plenty of STUFF TO DO in and around Charleston this weekend. A late note: torrential downpours have hit the area as this is being posted. If you’re planning to go out this weekend, double-check to make sure the event is still happening.

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. 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.

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.

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 burlesque.

The multitude of breweries and distilleries that have popped up in Charleston of late tend to bring in live musical acts as well.

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. 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.

For cutting-edge indepent 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…

Continue reading

The PopCult Toybox

At the GI Joe Winterfest in Louisville the weekend before last, we caught up with toy designer and collector, Greg Autore, who told us about his latest projects and gave us a tiny bit of background on his long career in the toy industry.

PopCult readers first met Greg six years ago when I belatedly posted a video of him talking about unproduced GI Joe sets at ToyLanta in 2018.

Greg’s big project at the moment is an inflatable Sherman Tank, which is based on a real secret mission from WWII.  The Ghost Army used inflatable tanks, sound effects, radio trickery and imagination to fool the Germans on the battlefields of Europe. The unsung heroes of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and the 3133rd Signal Company Special carried out 25 battlefield deceptions in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany and Italy. They saved thousands of lives and helped win the war, but their efforts were kept secret for fifty years. You can read more about the work these heroes did at The Ghost Army Legacy Project, where I got much of that information.

In the video above Greg tells us about his inflatable tank, as well as his projects with the late Terry Lee Stair Jr, a GI Joe enthusiast who, sadly, passed away last year. He also touches on a few of his other projects.

Greg is still building a website where his tank can be ordered, but he tells me that he will also be selling them through Cotswold Collectibles. Plus you can contact him through his website or meet up with him at a toy show if you want a Ghost Tank of your own.

Our Winterfest 2025 coverage will continue with a photo essay on Friday and all our raw video on Sunday.

We’ve just set foot in the second month of 2025 and we have a brand-new new three hour show for you!  Tuesday is once again “New Show Day” on The AIR.  As such, we have a new episode of  Radio Free Charleston 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 RFC brings you three hours of cool stuff, starting with a cool new M. Walker remix of the song “Dance” by Hello June.  We follow that with loads of new tunes by the likes of The Heavy Editors, Scott Collins & The Sovereignty, AJ Rosales, Shining Glass, Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates, Ringo Starr, Franz Ferdinand and more.

Our first two hours bring you our usual mix of local, independent, obscure and anything else kind of music that we feel like playing. Our third hour, though, is a special mixtape.

In our third hour revisit a theme we first brought you last October. We devote the final hour of this week’s show to Surf Music, both new and classic. When I did this before, the reaction surprised me, with several people asking if I could devote an entire show to Surf. I don’t have the time or resources to do that at the moment, but every few weeks we’ll dig into my growing Surf archives and bring you a mixtape of the coolest stuff I can find.

This week’s show includes several acts who are on Tabu Recordings,from House of Tabu. In the future we may shine the spotlight on other cool specialty Surf Music labels.

The links in the playlist will take you to the pages for the artists in this week’s show except for the Surf bands that broke up fifty or sixty years ago…

RFC V5 212

hour one
Hello June “Dance (M.Walker Remix)”
The Heavy Editors “Same Ole Way”
The Subjunctives “We’re Not Friends Anymore”
Camouflage “Laughing”
Annie Lennox “Train In Vain”
Brian Diller “Sooner or Later”
Scott Collins & The Sovereignty “Lament for the Loss”
AJ Rosales “Thunderclouds”
Verdeant “Reckless”
Shining Glass “Bald King of the Old World”
William Matheny “Blood Moon Singer”
Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates “The Queen of Diamonds (live)”
Ringo Starr “Never Let Me Go”
Franz Ferdinand “Night Or Day”
Mediogres“Outta Town”
Novo Combo “Everything It Takes To Be Happy”

hour two
Sierra Ferrell “Fox Hunt”
Deni Bonet “Always Come Home”
Massing “Waffles & Pancakes (rejuiced)”
Hybrid Zero “20 Steps”
The Settlement “Cycles (Live)” Live at the Pour House
Japan “Life In Tokyo”
Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess “Ignorant”
Dinosaur Burps “Driftwood”
Kim Wilde “Midnight Train”
Magne Furoholmen “One 4 All and All 4 One”
Astrodot “Impossible Mission”

hour three Surf Mixtape
Los Grainders “Escondida”
The Surfrajettes “Spice Up Your Life”
Guitarmy of One “Must Be The Season of Treason”
Lords of Atlantis “Long Live The King”
Test Subject 17 “Patient Zero”
The Tentakills “A Horse Named Artax”
Messer Chups “Pink Pantheratu”
The Madeira “Sandstorm”
Kitten & The Tonics “Memphis Red”
The Routes “Neon Lights”
The Surf Stompers “Surfer Stomp”
Los Teenagers “Ametrallando (Wipe Out)”
Surf Curse “Freaks”
The Centurians “Intoxica”
The Shadows “Kon Tiki”
Mystery Group “The Fifth Dimension”
Danny Steel “Chinese Twist”
The Centuries “Outer Limits”
The Varitones “Repeto”
The Majestics “Big Noise From Makaha”

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.

It strikes me that today’s art might be the most commercial thing I’ve done in a while. I’m not bragging.  I mean, I like it, but it looks like it’d be right at home printed on a tin sign you’d see for sale at a flea market or antique mall.

In truth, it’s a small study, in acrylic with a little pastel crayon and colored ink, based on a photo I took last weekend during our trip to GI Joe Winterfest.  This is an old-school-style 24-hour Denny’s in Shepardsville, Kentucky that we’ve seen off the interstate for a few years. We decided to go, and I sort of fell in love with the shiny facade of the building. I took a photo and sent it to a friend in the hospital in Liverpool to cheer her up, and decided to try painting it.

The food was great, too, but they were out of salmon. This was just an exercise in gridding up and painting from a photo. It came out great, but it wasn’t really anything ground-breaking.

Anyway, I may blow this up to a large canvas painting at some point, but it is a bit normal and Americana-y for my normal tastes. Still, I’m happy with it.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday beginning at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a recent episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM an also recent 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 Monty Python live on last week’s new episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we keep the anglophilia going and bring you ten hours more hours of Brit-centric comedy on The Comedy Vault.