Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 61 of 125)

This week we are going to revisit a Sunday Evening Video entry from almost exactly ten years ago because so many of the videos originally included here are “no longer available.”  So let’s clean this mess up a little.

It may be hard to believe now, but back in the 1960s and 70s the scary and subversive counter-culture had so permeated the mainstream that advertisers hoping to reach the “youth market” jumped at the chance to incorporate drug-influenced graphics, swiped from underground comics and cutting-edge designers like Milton Glazer and Heinz Edelmann.

The end result now seems quaint, but it’s pretty to look at, so here’s an assortment of animated commercials from the era. It’s pretty hilarious when you consider how subversive this imagery was considered at the time. You can probably blame the success of The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” for most of these. Still, there’s nothing wrong with trying to peddle your wares to those damn dirty hippies.

There’s more mind-expanding commercialism after the jump. Tune in, turn on and follow the link…

Continue reading

This week we bring back one of the most powerful musical episodes of Radio Free Charleston. From June, 2009, RFC’s 73rd episode, “Aqua Teen Hunger Force: The Movie Shirt” was shot around downtown Charleston with street art in the background, and it featured music from OVADA and The Limbs. We also have a Plant Ro Duction Mini Movie.

In the background of this show, you will see part of the “Coming And Going” art installation by Mark Wolfe, and “Celebrate,” by Amy Williams with Chris Dutch. Mark’s work featured life-sized black-and-white photos of some of Charleston’s most notable people (and one schlub you could see at Taylor Books). “Celebrate” was an evolution of Amy’s “Press 2 For Spanish” street work from 2008, expanded now to include Italian and Arabic. You’ll see those peeking over my shoulder and around my back in the host segments for this pre-FestivAll show.

The dynamic music is from Ovada, a collection of great musicians from Parkersburg that included our pal John Radcliff and our late friend, Joseph Hale, and from The Limbs, a one-man-band from Denver. This show is considered by many to be a high point from our first 100 episodes. You can read the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
March 22, 2024

We have a bunch of random items this week, so let us dive into the PopCulteer pile, shall we?

Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Pretty Weird For Me

Tomorrow is March 23, and to most people that date doesn’t hold much meaning.  To me, it’s a bit of lore from my past that I prefer not to dwell on, but I will do anything to share a funny story with my readers.

Tomorrow is the fortieth anniversary of the day that I secretly married my first wife while in Florida for spring break.

I don’t talk about the first marriage a lot because, let’s face it, I’ve been with Mel for more than half my life, and that’s like hitting the “best wife in the world” lottery, so why dwell on a mistake of my youth?  I wrote about the ex when she passed away in the summer of 2022, and later that year I shared details of the darker days of our marriage for Mental Health Awareness.

The short story is that I had PTSD when we got married, and her bi-polar disorder and subsequent refusal to accept that diagnosis only exacerbated my issues. It hurt like hell when she dumped me for husband number two (of four) but that was actually the most positive thing that could have happened to me.

Our relationship, as I have written here, was marked by me missing the red flags. There were lots of red flags.

There were more red flags than a Soviet military parade.

In my defense, I was young, dumb and horny, and was severely lacking in real life experience.

But in honor of this cursed anniversary, I shall share, for your amusement, one of those red flags. You may have heard this before on a local podcast, but don’t spoil it for anybody else.

I’ve mentioned how we got engaged over the phone at Christmas, and eventually (via our weekly exchange of audio tapes), we agreed that we would get married in secret when I would visit her in Florida over spring break.

She had to make all the arrangements since she lived there and I didn’t.

I don’t know if this is still the case, but in 1984 in Florida, if you were a Notary Public, you could officiate a wedding.  This came in handy since she was a militant Atheist at the time, and I had no desire then to ever set foot in a church.

She told me that she found the perfect person for the job. Just across the country line (so it wouldn’t make her local paper) she found a realtor who was prepared to do the job. She said she wanted to surprise me with his name.

On the appointed day, we got up and told her folks that we were just going to run around and maybe go to the beach.  We actually drove along a long and desolate stretch of highway to a nice little Realtor’s office.  When she pulled up in front of the place, I saw the name on the door, and busted out laughing. She did too.

I told you, at this point I was missing red flags left and right.

Tomorrow is the fortieth anniversary of the day I was married by Satan.

Eddie Satan, to be exact. At the time I thought it was hilarious. We joked about it often. Of course, it turned out to have been apt and prophetic.

If you’ll allow me to get fictional for a moment, after we pulled out and drove out of sight down the highway, Eddie Satan exited his office and made sure we were gone. Then he sprouted horns and turned red and began laughing maniacally.  He stopped, snapped his fingers, and then he and his office vanished in a puff of smoke.

The Lesson Of That Story

I’m old. I don’t act old. Kind people tell me I don’t look old. Except for the occasional knee pain, I don’t feel old. I don’t do old people stuff like watch Matlock or eat tapioca pudding.

But if I got married for the first time forty years ago, and that particular wife has already shuffled off this mortal coil, and I’ve managed to live happily ever after with a wonderful woman in my life for over thirty-four years since then…I think a reasonable argument can be made that I’m old.

When you’re young, nobody explains to you that as you get older, you don’t change that much, at least not inside…unless you get radicalized by the internet or join a cult…or both.  Essentially, I’m the same person I was after I recovered from that first marriage.

I feel younger now than I did when I was in that first marriage.

So it’s really weird realizing things that prove that, chronologically, I’m old.  I saw Star Wars in a movie theater in the summer of 1977 when it was on its first run. That was 47 years ago.  In 1977 movies that were 47 years old were made in 1930.  When I saw Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz was a newer movie than Star Wars is now.

That’s a little freaky.

I started writing PopCult in 2005.  I’m coming up on nineteen years of writing this blog. I heard from a reader last week who wasn’t born yet when I started this blog. Oddly enough, I’m still writing about many of the same things that I covered in my first few months of writing PopCult. For some reason Jack Kirby, The Beatles, action figures and comic books are still relevant (some more than others).

I don’t feel old, like I said. I do a few things to resist feeling old. I still haven’t joined AARP, even though they started sending me invites when I was 30. I do color the beard, but I’ve done that since before I was 30. For some reason it would come in blond.

But I will take advantage of every senior citizen discount I can get. I mean, age does have its advantages.

ToyLanta Is This Weekend

And we’re not going.  Basically, our dance card for trips is filled up this year, and since they split JoeLanta off, and since it’s happening at a much better time for us in October, we chose that cool toy show over this other cool toy show. I wish we could hit both of them, but alas, we have not yet hit the lottery.

A lot of my friends will be there, and I hope they have a fantastic time.  You can find out more about this weekend’s show HERE, and check out our past coverage of (and the intertwined history of) both shows at my index to past coverage HERE.

If you’re within easy driving distance, you might just want to get yer butts down there.

On The AIR Friday

Let us move on to the playlist for today’s new episode of MIRRORBALL on The AIR. The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear our shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch devotes her hour of Disco to the Divas of Disco. For the second time (so far) Mel has put together a show filled to the brim with the ladies who lurch about the dance floor (admittedly, not my most poetic line, but Mel will like it because it’s a Sondheim reference).  You’ll hear the classic Disco Divas Rose Royce, Chaka Khan, Norma Jean Wright and Gloria Gaynor, but you’ll also get to hear Disco turns by Doris Troy and Tina Turner.

It’s an estrogen-tastic orgy of esoteric and enigmatic inamorata who beckon you to dance, dance, and then dance some more.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 095

Doris Troy “You Got Me Baby”
Rose Royce “Do Your Dance”
Tamiko Jones “Can’t Live Without Your Love”
Bumblbee Unlimited “Lady Bug”
Chaka Khan “I’m Every Woman”
Tasha Thomas “Shoot Me With Your Love”
Margie Joseph “Discover Me (And You Will Discover Love)”
The Staples Singers “Showdown”
Norma Jean Wright “Saturday”
Tina Turner “Love Explosion”
Gloria Gaynor “Anybody Wanna Party”

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

At 3 PM we bring you  an encore of  a special mixtape edition of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat that, rather than flowing smoothly, attempts to be as jarring and disconnected as possible. It’s all designed to jar your senses with the type of random diversity that you’d have experienced at the time.

It’s all in the spirit of fun, so check out this playlist…

BEC 090

Adam & The Ants “Kings of the Wild Frontier”
B 52s “Dance This Mess Around”
Duran Duran “Planet Earth”
Pretenders “I Go To Sleep”
Godley & Creme “Under Your Thumb”
Aneka “Japanese Boy”
Bad Manners “Can Can”
The Look “I Am The Beat”
The Police “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”
Visage “Fade To Grey”
Toyah “It’s A Mystery”
Madness ‘It Must Be Love”
Altered Images “Happy Birthday”
The Human League “Love Action”
ABC “Tears Are Not Enough”
Human Switchboard “Who’s Landing In My Hangar”
Siouxsie And The Banshees “Spellbound”
Fun Boy Three “The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum)”
Department S “Is Vic There”
The Teardrop Explodes “Reward”
Gary Numan “She’s Got Claws”
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark “Souvenir”
Kim Wilde “Kids In America”
Ultravox “Vienna”
Japan “Quiet Life”
Hazel O’Connor “Will You”
Modern Romance “Everybody Salsa”
Spandau Ballet “Chant No. 1”
The Passions “I’m In Love With A German Film Star”
U2 “Fire”
UB40 “One In Ten”
The Jam “That’s Entertainment”

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 what’s new on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for our regular features every day, even the weird ones.

Today I have a couple of great Kickstarter campaigns to recommend. I’ve already kicked in on both of them, and I think a lot of my readers will be interested too.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Kickstarter Alert here in PopCult. There are a few reasons for that. The main reason has been that campaigns have been getting shorter, and with many of them, by the time I have room to fit them into the blog, they’ve ended.

Another reason is the growing use of BackerKit, a service that isn’t affiliated with Kickstarter, to charge shipping after the Kickstarter campaign ends and is ready to be fulfilled. I understand all of the reasons that folks running Kickstarter campaigns use BackerKit. It’s great for them. It apparently has all sorts of advantages in terms of organization and helps them manage their campaigns.  By not charging for shipping until the project is ready to go, the folks running the campaign don’t get surprised by any shipping rate hikes. It makes a lot of sense for folks to use BackerKit to manage their campaigns.

As a patron/customer, I despise BackerKit. I hate having to log into a separate service, and than have to provide my payment information to a third party, and deal with their clunky interface. Most of all, I hate that I have to enter that payment info and pay even more to get a project that I helped fund months (or years) earlier. It’d be a tiny bit less annoying if BackerKit accepted PayPal, like Kickstarter does.

What makes this worse is when projects get delayed. It’s only natural for Kickstarter deadlines to slip a little.  It’s to be expected. Life happens. I’m cool with that as long as there’s regular communication. But…when several projects get delayed, and others are on time and then they’re all ready to ship at the same time…and they all just happen to use BackerKit to charge shipping…then you wind up getting hit with nearly two hundred bucks in shipping charges over the span of a month, and your enthusiasm winds up a little sapped.

I am almost at a point where the use of BackerKit to charge shipping will be a dealbreaker for me. As it is, I have cut back my Kickstarter support to the point where I’m only supporting creators whose work I already really admire. I can’t afford to explore new talents, especially when, with shipping, they’re asking for twenty five bucks for a 32-page comic book. I’m an old guy who hates reading comics in a digital format, so some of this is on me, but I’m afraid that the current Kickstarter boom is going to turn into a bust if these trends continue.

Having said that…my first recommendation today uses BackerKit for shipping.

Craig Yoe’s Woman & Man+ Underground Comix

This is an underground comic that explores the Woman & Man relationship through art work of comic legend Craig Yoe! Actually, it’s hardcover book, and it’s a “loudly wordlesss” work that delves into Craig’s impressions of relationship adventures and misadventures in a deliciously surreal manner.

The creator’s first self-drawn solo comic, back in the 1970’s, was a spiritually infused contribution to the underground comix movement, with the cover colored by Yoe’s pal, legendary underground comix legend, Rick Griffin! Now, over fifty years later, Yoe’s second solo comic is unlike anything else in the graphic novel landscape.

Yoe’s passion for drawing comics was sidetracked for over a half a century by a career as a creative director for Jim Henson and the Muppets, Disney, Nickelodeon, and MTV. Coming back to his roots, he now dives deep into sex, horror, and drama, with a hint of humor and a whiff of hope.  Longtime PopCult readers may remember Craig’s name from the many times I’ve recommended his books devoted to comics history.

As Craig says in the campaign page…

I’m high as a kite from excitement that, thanks to my pals at Clover Press, Woman & Man+ is being offered to you. The humble-underground comix-slash-pretentious-art book is a psychedelic telling of my fleeing the U.S. to hook up with underground comix comrades in Berlin, then booted out of Germany to find solace—then devastating heartbreak—in the Canary Islands. Finally the Philippines have granted me asylum… and hope.

My story is all told through comics surrealism, IT’S A LOUD WORDLESS BOOK!!!

Thank you friends for your backing and support. It means the world to me!

Peace and love,
Craig Yoe!

There are a variety of rewards, starting at the $49 regular hardcover, and including tiers that include stickers, prints, a jigsaw puzzle, signed slipcover editions and original artwork. Be warned (and note that I am typing this with gritted teeth) that when the book is ready to ship (projected to be in August) you will be contacted to provide your address and will be charged an additional shipping fee.

It is a testament to how much I admire Craig’s work that I still kicked in on this campaign with the BackerKit shipping thing. You can find this campaign HERE for the next fourteen days. It’s already fully-funded.  Check out the video…

Nosferatu
An Illustrated Card Set And Book By Robert Jimenez

Also already fully-funded, and with thirteen days left in its campaign, is the latest project by Robert Jiménez.  It’s his take on the legend of Nosferatu.

Nosferatu is a 36 card set, based on the 1922 film by F. W. Murnau, illustrated by Robert Jiménez. This set features 36 illustrated cards in a tuck box. Included with the trading cards set is a lenticular card, a sticker and a promo card.

There is also a 6×9 hardcover book available which collects the entire 36 card set (front and back) along with bonus sketches.

Add-On rewards include original sketches, the Nosferatu’s Christmas In New York coloring book, metal signs, past Zerostreet trading card sets and more. I think I’ve plugged at least seven of the previous eight Zerostreet trading cards in this blog, so it’s not exactly a shock that I’m recommending this project. Check out the video…

Robert’s work has appeared on album covers, in publications such as THE THING: ARTBOOK, Tiki Magazine and Pinstriping & Kustom Graphics Magazine, and has shown in galleries including Disneyland’s Wonderground, Harold Golen, M Modern, Creature Features, and Bear & Bird among others. You can also see Robert’s work in trading card sets for Topps, Cryptozoic, and Upper Deck on licenses such as Garbage Pail Kids, Wacky Packages, Mars Attacks, Star Wars, Ghostbusters and more. You can kick in on this already fully-funded campaign and get the trading cards and/or book (plus other goodies) HERE.

The last of the green beer should be well out of your system by now, and it’s too soon to crack into the peanut butter eggs, but there’s still stuff to get into this weekend. You should know the drill by now.  There’s plenty of STUFF TO DO in Charleston and all over the Mountain State as we celebrate the first weekend of spring by…keeping the heat turned on, so let’s just soak in this partial list of doable thing suggestions.

As I have been copying and pasting of late, this a good time to remind you 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.

There is no ArtWalk in Charleston this month, however, there are a couple of post-ArtWalk happenings. I’m not sure how this feat was accomplished, but I’m leaning toward either sunspots or magnets being the cause.

Live Music is back at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM. As in the last couple of weeks, they ain’t saying who’s playing.

The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week  to tell you about. Nolan Collins will be playing every Wednesday in March at 9 PM. Thursday at 5:30 PM the Helping Hour with Swingstein & Robin makes the world a better place with music.   Friday, Tim Courts plays during happy hour.  You can check below for the graphics for other cool weekend shows at The Empty Glass.

Please remember that the pandemic is still not entirely over yet. It’s a going concern with the ‘rona surging again. And now there are seasonal allergies, the flu, those damned blue diamonds, Danhusen, innocuous-looking old-people catalogs that turn out to be filled with sex toys and other damned good reasons to be careful. 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.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

If you’re up for going out, here are a few suggestions for the weekend, roughly in order…

Tuesday is “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.

Our first hour is our usual collection of cool local, independent and brand-new music. We open with brand new music from Deni Bonet. Our old buddy from the Charleston Playhouse/Stark Raven/Twister Sisters days has a new single out, and you can find it on all the hip streaming outlets.

The rest of our new first hour is loaded with new goodies from Massing, The Dread Crew of Oddwood, Unmanned, Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates, David Synn, Novelty Island, Peter Garrett and more.

We also feature a song from Larry McClurg and the Mind Garage. Larry was one of the original members of the legendary Morgantown band (who should absolutely be in The West Virginia Music Hall of Fame), and he posted this song to the Mind Garage Music and Art Facebook Page, which is a terrific page dedicated to music and art, but is also a good way to keep up with Mind Garage, the band.  Over the last couple of days there have been posts floating the idea of a compilation of music by this unjustly overlooked band.

For our second and third hours, we go back to an episode of Radio Free Charleston Volume Four from 2016.  This one hasn’t been heard for over seven years, so it’ll be new to most of you.  It’s loaded with great local music from year’s past, and even includes a handful of tracks that were exclusively recorded for the RFC video show.

The links in the first hour of the playlist will take you to the pages where you can learn more about each artist and buy their music or find out where to see them (where available)…

RFC V5 168

hour one
Deni Bonet “Always Come Home”
Massing “Waffles & Pancakes (Rejuiced)”
The Dread Crew of Oddwood“Squall of Death”
Unmanned “Leave That Girl Alone”
Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates “Queen of Diamonds”
Andy Prieboy “02 10 AM in Beverly Glen”
Larry McClurg and the Mind Garage “Pirate of Love”
David Synn “Instru-Mental”
Six By Six “The Arms of a Word”
Novelty Island “In 2D”
Lords of Atlantis “Seaglass”
The Paranoid Style “The Formal”
Peter Garrett “Innocence Parts One & Two”

hour two
Michael Cerveris “Phoenix”
Larry Groce “The Boxer”
Garagecow Ensemble “I Never Slept With Allen Ginsberg”
Blue Million “Will You Think Of Me”
Company Stores “No Middle Name”
Jordan Andrew Jefferson “One Thing I Do Know”
Quick And Dirty “Super Ninja”
Ann Magnuson “Man With No Face”
The Big Bad “Maniac Mansion”
The Velvet Brothers “Savannah Moon”
Whistlepunk 2.0 “The Good”
Pepper Fandango “Wayward Girls”
David Synn “Space Gun”
Karma To Burn “Forty”
Dog Soldier “Christmas Song”

hour three
Qiet “Bring My Day”
Hybrid Soul “Chain of Fools”
Time And Distance “Hell To Pay”
The Jasons “Camp Arawak”
The Nanker Phelge “21st Century”
Mother Nang “Bully”
The Smoky Room “Sound The Alarms”
Byzantine “Agonies”
Talented “Put Ya Gloves On”
Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands “Finest of Dreams”
Tape Age “Wish I Could Have You”
Under Surveillance “Breaking Point”
Ona “Sleep Rinse Repeat”

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,  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 part three of our Boogie Woogie primer on The Swing Shift.  This is the third of what has been expanded to become a four-week dive into Boogie Woogie and its essential contribution to the success of Swing Music.  This week, rather than doing a mixtape, I do all the proper back-announcing and talk just a little about the importance of Boogie Woogie, which sprung out of The Blues and became the backbone of Swing, and the launching pad for Rock and Roll.

It’s the kind of music that you won’t be able to keep still when you’re listening.  Check out the playlist…

The Swing Shift 156

Louis Jordan “Pine Top’s Boogie Woogie”
Dick Davis “Screaming Boogie”
Tina Dixon “Parrot Bar Boogie”
Amos Milburn “Chicken Shack Boogie”
Kitty Kaye & The Cats “Fishtruck Boogie”
T-Bone Walker “T-Bone Boogie”
Joe Lutcher “Lucky Lindy Boogie”
Roosevelt Sykes “Blues ‘n’ Boogie”
Jimmy Liggins “Nite Life Boogie”
Wynonie Harris “Dig This Boogie”
Roy Brown “Roy Brown Boogie”
T.J. Fowler “Fowler’s Boogie”
Slim Galliard “Slim Galliard’s Boogie”
Sticks McGhee “Housewarmin’ Boogie”
Sarah “Fatwoman” Dean “I Got Your Boogie”
Cecil Grant “Shotgun Boogie”
Johnny Otis “Lover’s Lane Boogie”
Big Jay McNeely “Roadhouse Boogie”
Jay McShann “Crown Prince Boogie”
Big Bertha Henderson “Rock Bertha Rock”
Chuck Miller “Chuck’s Boogie”

 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’s been over a year since I posted a pure ink creation here, so this week’s art is “Ink Street,” an ink on weird textured paper darwing that takes its inspiration from five or six photos I took out of the window of The Amtrak Cardinal on the way back from New York in January.

The inks are a combination of Winsor Newtons, india ink and cheap markers. Aside from markers and traditional brushes, I used dental brush-picks for some of the finer details.

This piece is decidedly NOT Hopperesque. I decided to break away from the conventions of his style for this one, just to prove I still could. It’s not exactly Impressionistic or Expressionistic. It’s more a sort of semi-abstract minimalist realism.

Be advised that sometimes I come up with descriptions for the style I’m employing just to make the heads of art teachers explode.

I was tempted to crop out the sloppy attempt at power lines. By the time I got to those, my fingers were rebelling. But I left ’em in just so I didn’t turn the piece into a widescreen affair.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you encores of a recent episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM a 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. You can hear two classic episodes of the show Sunday at 2 PM. All times listed are Eastern, so if you’re in another timezone, adjust accordingly.

At 8 PM you can hear an hour of funny songs by Shel Silverstein, which we mistakenly listed here last week, on a recent episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM the Monday Marathon the laughs continue as we bring you ten more hours of The Comedy Vault.

It’s Saint Patrick’s Day, and even though your humble blogger is half Irish, I’m not really too emotionally invested in the holiday.  It’s become primarily a drinking holiday…and I don’t drink. I also don’t have fond memories of having to worry about wearing green on that day while I was in elementary school.

So…this is about all I can muster. Above you see a collection of Lucky Charms commercials, not in chronological order, and with the the earliest example being well after the traumatic addition of blue diamonds to what had been a terrific cereal before that.

Below you get a Famous Studios cartoon about Leprechauns.

Sorry about the half-arsed nature of today’s post. Please drink responsibly.

Okay, here are two very early Lucky Charms commercials, for us older people.

I still resent the blue diamonds.

Radio Free Charleston’s seventy-second episode, “Sulu Nation Shirt,” was posted in June, 2009, and it contains a lot of “firsts.” This episode featured music from The Scrap Iron Pickers and Whitechapel District. We also had a guest appearance by The Chemical Valley Rollergirls, who were just getting started back then. Host segments were recorded at a CVRG practice at Skateland in Campbell’s Creek. We also have Frank Panucci’s “Porklips” in this edition of RFC and a 90 Second Art Show.

This was a fun show to produce, with a cool host location and lots of action. It was really cool having Scrap Iron Pickers on. This instrumental progressive metal powerhouse was real bright spot on the local scene, and ithey left a legacy of great music.

Whitechapel District is rarely performing these days, but you never know when they’ll make a return. The original production notes can be found here.

The PopCulteer
March 15, 2024

You PopCulteer is still a bit buried under outside work, so once again, all we have for you this week is the playlist for today’s new episode of MIRRORBALL on The AIR, so let’s just jump into a radio-heavy end-of-the-week post, shall we?

The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear our shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch devotes her hour of Disco to a decidedly random assortment of classic dance tracks from the golden age of Disco. She opens the show with a rare Disco turn from the band, Chicago, then runs through everything from Narada Michael Walden and Dee Dee Bridgewater to Lalo Schifrin and Herbie Mann.

IIt’s a wild assemblege of crafty dancefloor mutations. Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 094

Chicago “Street Player”
Stuff “Honey Coral Rock”
Eloise Laws “1,000 Laughs”
Narada Michael Walden “Tonight I’m Alright”
Dee Dee Bridgewater “Bad For Me”
Lalo Schifrin “Dimelo”
Gene Page “Wild Cherry”
Montana “I Love Music”
Herbie Mann “Jisco Dazz”
Phreek “Weekend”
Terry Caller “Disco In The Sky”

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

At 3 PM we bring you  an encore of one of the 12″ dance mix episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. This was the sixth Big Electric Cat mixtape of New Wave 12″ extended remixes.  This time Sydney introduced the show and then presented almost two full hours of dance-remixed New Wave classics.

Back in the day, all the top New Wave artists released special extended mixes of their hits so that they could get extra club play and confound the collectors of today, who can’t keep track of all the wild versions of these tunes.  This show has lots of great New Wave hits, some of which are barely recognizable.

Peruse this here playlist for a preview…

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A-Ha “Take On Me”
Thompson Twins “In The Name Of Love”
Duran Duran “Wild Boys”
Visage “The Damned Don’t Cry”
Human League “(Keep Feeling) Fascination”
Adam Ant “Apollo 9”
Eurythmics “Sexcrime (1984)”
Red Box “For America”
Malcolm McLaren “Double Dutch”
Tears For Fears “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”
Bronski Beat w/Marc Almond “I Feel Love”
New Order “True Faith”
Eighth Wonder “I’m Not Scared”
Haircut 100 “Love Plus One”
Bananarama “Cruel Summer”
Frankie Goes To Hollywood “Rage Hard”
Alison Moyet “Love Resurrection”
Kim Wilde “Never Trust A Stranger”

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 what’s new on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for our regular features every day.