Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 29 of 124)

The PopCulteer
January 3, 2025

I had a big PopCulteer column planned for today, and…it ain’t happening. Life intervened.

So now it’s time for my big weekly essay, and I have to improvise.

Back in the early days of this blog I used to do a “rant week” at the end of the year.  Not having the energy or the time to do that now, means that you’re going to get some random, unsorted opinions and observations from your humble blogger, in no particular order, and definitely not of any set length.

Keep in mind that some of my opinions are about food. I have food allergies and some idiosyncratic tastes when it comes to food, and I do not mean for my observations to be perceived as insults directed toward people who like the things I can’t or don’t eat.  I am not food-shaming anyone here. These are just my opinions, and as they say, opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one.

Speaking of assholes, I absolutely can’t stand the taste of Ranch dressing.  I would imagine that it might taste like assholes.

Part of me thinks that I should promote this post as having “400% more assholes,” since I think I’ve only used that word once in PopCult before now.

One of the big non-stories in Charleston this year was the non-opening of the huge aquatic center that was announced with much fanfare back in 2022.  When it was announced, I had a lot of questions.  None of those questions have been answered.  Macy’s has been torn down, and at some point the plans were dramatically scaled back, resulting in the aquatic center part of the aquatic center being excised. Now it’s just a sports complex. Makes you wonder if maybe these plans should have been crafted in the sunlight, instead of behind closed doors.

The fate of the beautiful (on the outside) Charleston Municipal Auditorium is still up in the air. I’m sure Rodney Loftis has a big ol’ demolition boner at the thought of levelling another of our city’s historic landmarks, but I really hope that this time…for once…sanity prevails and they manage to save the Art Deco facade and update the insides of the building for modern times.

My fear is that this is where they plan to stick the aquatic center that they don’t have room for at the mall anymore.

That once-vital stretch of Charleston, West of Downtown, looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland now. While that is pretty cool in and of itself, it’ll be nice to see if anything actually gets built there.

Speaking of the mall, are there any stores left there?

On a completely different topic, I might be alone in thinking this, but I think maybe, thousands of years ago, society took a wrong turn when we normalized alcoholism. As a non-drinker it amazes me that so many people can’t even consider going anywhere or doing anything (or listening to live music) without having a drink handy. I realize I’m in a tiny minority here, but I can’t imagine anybody who ever got sick drunk once ever getting sick drunk a second time. I say this as someone who’s never been drunk, so maybe I’m missing something here.

I am perfectly content missing that, by the way.

Earlier this evening I was joking around with my lovely wife and went off on a tongue-in-cheek demented and nonsensical rant, and at the end, I came up with the perfect ending, “Hey, you might not believe me, but you can look it up…every word I used is in the dictionary!”

I think it would be really cool if the city of Charleston would consider restoring some of the public art that has faded in the sunlight, or has been removed entirely.

Isn’t it about time for Burger King to bring back the Italian Chicken Sandwich. I mean,it’s been a year or so.

A word of advice to all restaurants…as many people absolutely HATE chipotle, jalopeno, wasabi and ghost pepper as love them. Maybe don’t assume everybody likes to feel like they’ve ingested battery acid and offer some less intense options.

I have never seen the appeal of chicken wings as food, even more so when they are drenched in some awful hot sauce.

I like the pepperoni rolls you find at Kroger’s bakery better than the “genuine” ones you find in Fairmont and Clarksburg. Those “genunine” pepperoni rolls are like somebody pushed stick pepperoni into a day-old bagel.

I find that the new local movie reviewer for the Charleston Gazette-Mail is quite useful because he hates every movie I like, and he slobbers all over every movie I don’t. That means he still serves a purpose. Kudos to him.

There’s something surreal about having vivid memories of things that happened sixty years ago.  It’s even more surreal when you remember them when you can’t think of why you went to the kitchen.

One of the great mysteries of the art world, even moreso than the true identity of the Mona Lisa, has to be, “Which one of those dogs playing poker won the game?”

And does that mean he took home the kitty?

Are they gonna change the name from “CyberTruck” to “CyberPinto?”

I still can’t figure out why I like pickles but can’t stand cucumbers.

Bacon and eggs do not belong in salads. You folks are mistaking it for breakfast.

It still seems weird that Drug Emporium no longer has pharmacies. I hope Art Emporium isn’t getting any funny ideas.

Now that Joe Manchin is completely irrelevant, can we please stop talking about him?

Why is it that, when I go into a record store that sells vinyl, my first inclination is to rush to where the albums are that I already have copies of?

I am probably  one of the few people looking forward to what happens when the folks who own Roses Department Stores take over Big Lots. I love me some cheesy knockoff toys.

I don’t really plan to watch Wicked. I know the show has some great songs in it, but the original Wizard of Oz was one of the first books I remember reading, and as a long-time comic book reader, I’m pretty much done with “grim and gritty reboots.” I just dont think I can get past the changes.

And that is this week’s half-assed PopCulteer. Check back every day for fresh content, even when I have to make it up on the spur of the moment.

It’s a new year and a good time to rewrite. beef up and streamline our boilerplate for PopCult‘s weekly guide to things you can get into in and around Charleston, West Virginia. Some weeks we might stick to things in town. Most weeks we’ll go as far as Huntington and Beckley. Once in while we’ll even cross the borders into Ohio, Kentucky or Virginia.

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.

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 scrunge up online…

Continue reading

2024 is in the books, and almost everybody is off work today.

And that means hardly anybody will be reading this blog.

So…while nobody’s looking, I think I’ll indulge in a little self-horn-tootery.

In 2024, PopCult had 397 posts.

There were 52 new episodes of Radio Free Charleston on our sister internet radio station, The AIR.. Plus we had one video episode and a “non-canon” edition of “Radio Free Chicago.”

The AIR also featured over 120 new episodes of our other original internet radio programs.

PopCult posts were viewed millions of times by hundreds of thousands of unique visitors.

Tens of thousands of listeners tuned it for over a quarter-million hours of The AIR.

Since Optimum’s internet has been excrutiatingly inconsistent today, I’m going to stop writing about numbers and just bring you some pictures.

By way of explanation: Over four years ago when I took this blog independent and left the confines of The Charleston Gazette-Mail, I had to choose a new template. That’s the page design and format. The template I chose gives me a “feature image” that runs above the headline of each post, and which…if they are working correctly…shows up as a thumbnail when links to the blog are posted on social media.

Sometimes I put way too much effort into my feature images. So here, are two small collections of my favorite feature images, first up, my five favorite Radio Free Charleston feature images…

NUMBER 5…This one is just me super-imposing my logos over a shot of Times Square in New York, but I liked the way it came out. From January…

Number 4…From February, another RFC logo slapped over top of a photo from NYC, this time covering the side of One Penn Plaza…

Number 3…For this one I just repurposed some vintage advertising art, which I have been known to do from time to time. I really liked this one from August…

Number 2…With this October feature image, I just outright swiped The Great Wave. It worked. We featured an hour of surf music that week…

Number 1…My favorite RFC graphic of the year comes from back in April, when high winds wreaked havoc across West Virginia. A mere two blocks from my house, a massive billboard fell to the winds, nearly taking out a Tudor’s/Gino’s and crushing a car belonging to one employee.  While it was a shockingly violent bit of weather, I coudn’t resist the lure of altering one of the photos taken by a WCHS-TV drone camera…

For reference, here’s a different photo from the WCHS drone…

I don’t think Bobby Warner would mind that I covered up his fallen billboard with my RFC logos.

For a feature image that took all of fifteen minutes to create, I have to say this one amused the heck out of me, and still does, actually.

Our feature image today is actually a recycled feature image from August. It was for a post marking my 19th anniversary of writing this blog. It’s a photo of a baseball jersey I had made cheap by a company that makes cheap baseball jerseys in China. Then you wait a few weeks to get them, and realize that you dropped so much weight since you ordered it that it hangs off of you now.

I’m including it here, one, so I have a feature image for this post, and two, because I had several people compliment me on how realistic the image looked, because they assumed I just digitally inserted a PopCult logo on a photo of a blank shirt.

In truth, it’s a real shirt.

I also use a lot of found, repurposed, or just bizarre images for STUFF TO DO.  If Optimum cooperates, I will also bring you my five favorite feature images from that regular feature in this blog…

Number 5…All I can say is…Buc-ee’s, dude…

Number 4…This feature image from February just repurposed an image posted by a fun account called “Bad Spit” on Twitter (I will not call it by any other names)…

Number 3…In May, I found this image of a theater entrance that was showing the 1940s movie, “Cat People,” and recycled it…

Number 2…Back in March I altered a photograph I took from the Amtrak Cardinal while passing through Washington DC on the way to New York…

Number 1…I dont know why, but this simple image was my favorite STUFF TO DO feature image this year.  It’s a photo I took somewhere in Virginia when Mel and I were making a roundabout return from a comic con in Harrisburg, PA back in August. I just stuck the logo in, then digitally painted in a shadow…

And with that, we wrap up this inconsequential post to start off what I really hope is a boring and uneventful year.

On the last day of 2024, The AIR and PopCult present the 53rd episode of Radio Free Charleston released in this calendar year (that is, if you count the Video Episode we dropped last Sunday).

Tuesday is always “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 a brand-new song from Novo Combo, and in the rest of our three-hour show we’ll treat you to new tracks from Shining Glass, Dinosaur Burps SPACE FREQ and more.   We also bring you a bonus live track from the Defectors that was recorded at the same show at the Criel Mound in South Charleston in 1983 that gave us the tunes for the latest video edition of RFC.

This being a holiday show, where our listenership is likely to be lower, I basically just decided to toss in whatever I felt like…which isn’t really that much different than what I do every week anyway.

Our third hour brings you the songs from RCA Record’s 1981 BLITZ sampler, a collection of great New Wave songs that thrilled and delighted me back in the day. If you had it, it will jog your memory. If you didn’t, it’ll make you wish you did. If you weren’t born yet, it’s not polite to mention that to me.

As I mention in the show, this was a budget-priced collection of new and innovative artists who could not get airplay in the deregulated and overly-consulted corporate radio landscape of the early 1980s.  A few months ago I reconstructed Warner Brothers’ “Survival Sampler,” and in the future I may tackle a few more of these gems of my youth.

The links in the playlist will take you to the pages for the artists in this week’s show where possible…

RFC V5 208

hour one
Novo Combo “Please Don’t Do That”
The Defectors “Living Through Another Cuba (live at the Mound, 1983)”
Shining Glass “Garden of Knives”
Chloe Florence “Don’t Tell Him”
Queen “Keep Yourself Alive”
Arthur Brown & Jordan Rudess “Karn Evil #9, First Impression Part 2”
SPACE FREQ “Trickle”
Dinosaur Burps “Dubious Distinction”
Sublime “What I Got (Skunk Sampler Mix)”
Poppy “Lovefool”
Mega Ran “They Don’t Make Em Like They Used To”
Messer Chups “Experiment In Terror”
Gardenn  “Chance”
Sgt. Van and The Highway Dogs  “Flies On Mars”

hour two
Speedsuit “Elephant Gun”
Mystery Artist “Mystery Song”
Buni Muni “Caitlin Clark”
Dave Strong“Molly’s Lips”
Lesser Creatures “Don’t Come Around Here No More”
The Dickies “Magoomba”
SkyFlake “Firmament”
Orville Rex“She’s Built”
Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess “Ignorant”
The Struts “Ballroom Blitz”
Golden “Defeated”
Jerks “Taillights”
Astrodot “Stormy Blue”
A Certain Ratio “We All Need”
The The “Life After Life”

hour three
The Stranglers “No Mercy”

The Blitz Sampler
Bow Wow Wow “Chihuahua”
Slow Children “Spring In Fialta”
Robert Ellis Orrall “White Noise”
Sparks “Tips For Teens”
Shock “Angel Face”
Polyrock “Love Song”
Bow Wow Wow “Orang-Outang”
Landscape “European Man”
Robert Ellis Orrall “Call The Uh-On Squad”
Polyrock “Changing Hearts”

Midge Ure “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes (Live at The Royal Albert Hall)
Ann Magnuson “Moonage Daydream”

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, even during out holiday programming blitz.

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 uses the occasion of New Year’s Eve to transport you to Las Vegas in 1963 for highlights of a recording of Frank, Dean and Sammy, the Rat Pack, holding court as “The Summit,” singing songs, making jokes and pointing out celebrities in the audience.

It’s a swinging way to ring out the old year and ring in the new. And since it’s on at 3 PM, that means you can party all you want and still be in bed before it gets too late.

 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.

Christmas is behind us, but my memories of our early December trip to Chicago linger.  This week it’s an Impressionistic take on State Street in the River North area, inspired from the view out of our very high hotel room, late at night.

I did a rough drawing of this scene on my since-retired phone, then looking at it for reference, I knocked this out on illustration board using watercolor brush pens, acrylics and a few Winsor Newton inks.  My real-world art is getting increasingly mixed media of late.

I wasn’t really going for high-detail or Hopperesque atmosphere here. I just thought the lights and colors looked cool from that angle, so I went with it.  I’ve done a few pieces of Monday Morning Art based on State Street…everything from high-detail pencil drawings to Cubism, but this time I just wanted to try something a little different. I may take this to canvas in a larger scale later.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland Monday, to close out the year, beginning at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a new episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM a new 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.

At 2PM, Nigel Pye brings you yet another hour of Psychedelic Rock from many eras. Check out the playlist…

Psychedelic Shack 096

The Paupers “South Down Road”
Mind Garage “Angel Asks”
Sunlight “Colors of Love”
Goat Generator “Waving Around”
Cold Sun “Ra-Ma”
D.R. Hooker “Falling Asleep”
Roy Wood “Dear Elaine”
King Buffalo “Regenerator”
Things To Come “Good Day”

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.

At 3 PM Herman Linte brings us two hours of some of the coolest progressive rock released in 2024, just to leave this year on a high note.

Check out the playlist:

Prognosis 123

Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks “Counties and Countries”
Tony Levin Band “Road Dogs”
Flame Dream “Winding Paths”
Beardfish “Beating Hearts”
Meanwhile Project “Catch 22”
Crippled Black Phoenix “Whisserdine”
Karkara “Moonshiner/The Chase”
Rosalie Cunningham “Heavy Pencil”
Rick Wakeman “The King Arthur Piano Suite”
Marillion “Grendel (Live Reading 1983)”
Marc Almond with Ian Anderson “I Talk To The Wind”

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 an hour of classic and intelligent stand-up comedy by Bob Newhart on a recent episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we devote ten hours to milestone episodes of our music specialty programs. These are 100th, 200th, 150th and other big round numbers of our regular afternoon programs, just so you can see how much stuff we played since The AIR began in 2016.

We have a very special video episode of Radio Free Charleston premiering today. That’s it floating above this text.

Last summer, the Charleston music scene lost a true pioneer. Lynne Sandy passed away after being in frail health for many years, but her legacy lives on. From her start as a folksinger to her time in Stubby Dill and her legendary stint as the frontwoman for Charleston’s original punk/new wave band, The Defectors, Lynne left a mark on the music scene that cannot be denied.

In the coming months I’ll be working on a documentary about Lynne. We’ll be talking to her musical cohorts and folks who knew her later in life through her activism and other pursuits. The foundation of that documentary will be 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, and we are in the process of restoring the audio and video for the upcoming documentary.

This episode of Radio Free Charleston brings you a preview. We have three of the songs from that performance, along with a music video created using footage from this show with a studio demo of one of their original songs. Next week I’ll be sharing a more elaborately…”defective”…version of that video.

In this show you will see The Defectors perform the songs “16,” “Homosapien” and “To Hell with Poverty.” The line up here is: Lynne Sandy on vocals and keyboards; John “Sham Voodoo” Estep on Guitar and vocals; The Maestro, Chuck Biel on bass; and David Fields on drums.

When the footage came to light, it was a bit of a no-brainer to include some of it in this year’s video RFC as a tribute to Lynne. I want to thank my friend, Sham Voodoo, AKA, John Estep, for hooking me up with this footage, and Dana Grooms for shooting it way back when. We will be working on further restoration and including interviews in the upcoming documentary.

I will tell you more about that project in the New Year. For the folks keeping track of such things, this show, episode 221 of Radio Free Charleston Volume Two (the video series) is “RFC Jacket (for Lynne)” Host segments were shot at the Criel Mound in South Charleston, mostly around where the stage used to be when this concert was recorded.

It was a bit disorienting because sometime between 1983 and now, Cubert Smith’s sculpture, Burial Attendants, was relocated from the Southwest corner of Staunton Park (which includes the Mound) to the Northeast corner. The stage was expanded and moved and most of the businesses you see in the background are no longer operating. It took some research and memory-jogging to remember where everything was.

Also disorienting was the background noise from MacCorkle Avenue and Seventh Avenue while we were shooting our host segments. If it seems like there are way more jump cuts than usual in this episode, it’s only because there are way more jump cuts than usual in this episode.

After the three songs from the show, we bring you a music video I created for the Defectors’ song “Hesitation.” The performance on the copy of the video I have is bedevilled by digital glitches, drop outs and time skips, but I also have the studio demo of the song, so I leaned into the defects, and made a purposefully glitchy video for the song. I made two versions of the video, and you’ll see the more conservative one in this show. The “super defective” version will debut later this week. It was too distracting to roll the credits over it.

This is all to pay tribute to Lynne Sandy. As a bonus, tune in to this week’s internet radio episode of Radio Free Charleston for an audio-only tune from the Mound show. As another bonus, check out the photos below, taken by Bob Rosier just a few weeks after this show…

RFC 115 "Frank Sinatra Shirt" from Rudy Panucci on Vimeo.

This week we time-travel back to December, 2010, for a pre-winter edition of Radio Free Charleston filled with great music.

This episode features a wide variety of music: a Metal classic by HARRAH, a Progressive-Alternative jolt from Linfinity, an operatic waltz from Hellblinki set to animation, Blues from Crossroads and a great rocked-up ballad from The Nanker Phelge.

Host segments were shot in Davis Park in Charleston on a bitterly cold day. Our namesake shirt featured Frank Sinatra.  You can find the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
December 27, 2024

Despite not being the best of years due to many friends exiting this world, a few beloved institutions ending, and some personal struggles with illness, the PopCult household managed to have a wonderful Christmas.  We heard from friends around the world, visited with family and got each other tons of cool stuff.

And today we’re going to share some of that cool stuff with you.

To be clear, I’m only sharing photos. You can’t actually have our stuff. I mean, we just got it. That would really suck for us, you know.

But since folks do ask, set amongst the backdrop of our Disco Christmas Tree, here’s what Mel and I got each other for Christmas in no particular order.  It’s not everything, but you shouldn’t be so freaking nosey during the holidays, so here’s what you can see…

In case you didn’t know…I collect toys. The HESS Truck has been a tradition for us for over ten years now. And the Super Powers figures, which just turned up locally a week ago, were in my stocking.

One of my big gifts from Mel was the Super Deluxe Reissue Boxed Set of George Harrison’s “Living In The Material World” Can’t wait to dig into this.

Mel also got me some Max Fleischer goodies, some DVDs and a button-up shirt with designs from “Swing You Sinners.”

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a Monster Kid. Direct from their appearances in The 2024 PopCult Gift Guide, here’s the Lincoln Monsters repros, and the Cotswold Collectibles 12″ Wolfman. I love these guys.

A MINI UNBOXING

Because I was too lazy to do a video, here’s a photo essay unboxing of another of my big gifts, The Svengoolie 45th Anniversary Collector’s Box…

Also from The Gift Guide, it’s the cool Svengoolie Collector’s box. Let’s look at it and see what’s inside.

First we go around the full-color collector’s box. Here we see the Sven Squad. The actual box is in focus. This picture, not so much.

This side has The Goolie Bunch.

And here is Svengoolie himself, recreating the cover of “Trout Mask Replica.”

Wonders await us inside…

A limited edition set of figures, plus an enamal pin, a compact and portable rubber chicken and a pen that you can pretend you stole from Svengoole’s Bank (“I have a bank?”)

A cool travel mug with a straw and a Top Hat straw topper!

Socks, a Mark Spears collectible card and an air freshener, so you can smell like Svengoolie. Or you could just wear the socks for a month.

And the kicker (along with a cool cloth patch), a new pressing of “The Svengoolie Stomp” by Freddie “Boom Boom” Cannon.

Mel’s Haul

You know, this is not just a one-way thing. I also get Mel lots of cool stuff for Christmas…

Chicago-centric gifts included the new McFarlane Blues Brothers statuettes and the Chicago Shuffle card game (and booster pack) from Transit Tees.

There’s a lot to take in here: Ultimate action figures of Patrick Star and Squidward; weird Asian SpongeBob trading cards; plush Sinclair Dino and TRU Geoffry; plus a bunch of candy from her stockings.

An autographed copy of Frank Conniff’s new book, along with some strange SpongeBob candy.

I always get Mel a “Big Box” of something each year, and this year it was a big box of The Police (with Police Squad thrown in just as a bit of misdirection). The biggest part of this was the deluxe 4 LP reissue of “Synchronicity” but Mel already moved that (and the colored vinyl reissues of Thompson Twins and Thomas Dolby LPs) to where our vinyl lives, and I was too lazy to go photograph them. Also, a full box of Lights of Broadway trading cards is on top of this stack.

And that’s a look at our Christmas gifts to each other. We do have one more gift for you…actually from a friend in the UK.  It’s time for new radio…

Look Ahead To Looking Back Forty Years

We do have some radio shows to tell you about Friday on The AIR. This afternoon we serve up a classic episode of MIRRORBALL and a brand-new episode of 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 brings you a classic Disco tribute as MIRRORBALL pays tribute to Donna Summer for the second time.

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

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat Visits 1985

Also on The AIR  at 3 PM (EDT), Sydney Fileen graces us with a brand-new special mixtape-style  episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. This time Sydney looks ahead five days to when we can look back forty years at the year, 1985.

1985 is considered a “past its peak” year for New Wave Music. MTV was starting to replace New Wave with Hair Metal and Mainstream Pop, and was also beginning to dabble in the episodic long-form programming that would eventually run the “Music” out of “Music Television.”  Despite this, New Wave was still going strong with iconic hits by Kate Bush, A ha, Thompson Twins and more, as well as innovative new musical groups that would never get the chance to break into the mainstream.

In this episode of Big Electric Cat, Sydney Fileen lets you immerse yourself in the cutting edge music of just about forty years ago.  It’s a pretty wild ride.

Check out the playlist…

BEC 123-1985

Kate Bush “The Big Sky (Meteorological Mix)”
The Smiths “Barbarism Begins At Home”
Men Without Hats “Modern(e) Dancing”
INXS “What You Need”
Big Audio Dynamite “Sudden Impact”
Wall of Voodoo “Big City”
Toyah “I’ll Serve You Well”
Winston Tong “Big Brother”
Models “Preacher From The Black Lagoon”
Go West “S.O.S.”
The Clash “This Is England”
Jane Wiedlin “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
Gleaming Spires “Harm”
Age of Mirrors “Juliet’s Dancing”
Adam Ant “Vive le Rock”
Baltimora “Tarzan Boy”
A Flock of Seagulls “Who’s That Girl (She’s Got It)”
Howard Jones “Things Can Only Get Better”
A Ha “Take On Me”
Thompson Twins “Emperor’s Clothes”
Tears For Fears “Head Over Heels”
The Toy Dolls “Commercial Break”
Eurythmics “Would I Lie To You”
Dead or Alive “You spin me round (Like a record)”
The Coupe De Villes “She Has Friends In LA”
New Order “Love Vigilantes”

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.

A special AIR Note: Some folks have contacted me to let me know that there were technical issues with this week’s new episode of Radio Free Charleston.  Because of that, we’re running a bonus replay Friday at 5 PM, immediately after Sydney’s Big Electric Cat.  You can also hear RFC at its usual replay times, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, Sunday at 8 PM, and Monday at 11 AM.

That’s what’s on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer.

Check PopCult for all our regular features, with fresh content every day, even during the holiday season.

It’s the day after Christmas, and that means I’m actually sitting at the computer early in the evening of Christmas Day, and I’d like to get through this quick so I can go back to Christmassing things up with my lovely wife, Mel. Basically, I ought to be bringing you a list of STUFF TO DO between Christmas and New Year’s Day, next week.

Now, the cynical among you might think, “Well, since he’s writing this on Christmas Day, Rudy will probably just do a half-assed list of events.”

And you’d be correct.  We shall forego our usual boilerplates and running gags and just run a handful of graphics for events in and around Charleston, West by God Virginia, that I found on the Facebook, beginning with a very special one that’s happening Thursday night, and which your humble blogger will make a serious attempt to attend…

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Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and whatever good tidings fill your bill from PopCult and the Larch-Panucci household.

2024 has been a year best left on the trash heap of history.  We began the year writing obituaries for good people, and we ended it writing obituaries for good people. I’d really like to take a year off from doing that.  We’ll try to stay positive while running our traditional holiday greeting…

“I hope that everybody can find some peace and well-being on this special day, and that the new year brings us all new happiness, joy, good health, and justice for the Democracy.”

Lord knows we can all use all of those things.

As is our tradition on Christmas Day, we bring you Melanie Larch singing “Ave Maria” from the very first Christmas episode of Radio Free Charleston.

Let’s follow that up with the 2014 Christmas treat that saw Melanie backed by the late and much-loved and missed, Mark Scarpelli…

And we’ll continue with Mel’s 2009 Christmas song with Diablo Blues Band…

Let’s go back to Chicago, in 2019, for one more…

Wishing you and yours the best-

Rudy Panucci and Melanie Larch