Our art this week had more complicated origins that you might initially think.
This is a scene of the Belmont platform on Chicago’s L Train system. I liked the way things looked there, but rather than snap a photo, I whipped out my phone and stylus (yours truly has a very hard time operating a touch screen due to Myasthenia Gravis) and did a very quick and sloppy sketch in Notes, and then made color notations for future reference.
After I got home, I transferred the file to the computer and printed it out in light gray on paper for pens. Then I worked it over with watercolor pens, pastel crayon and acrylic paints until it looks like what you see above. It’s smaller and more abstract that much of my recent work. This style is not exactly new for me, but it’s a tad different. I don’t know if I’m going to try to do more work like this in the future or not. I’m happy with the way this came out, but I don’t know if the world needs any more like it.
Maybe later I’ll redo it, but with ultra-high realistic detail.
Over in radioland, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you encores of a classic episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM a classic 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.
PsychedelicShack 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.
At 8 PM you can hear an hour of the stand-up of Patton Oswalt on a recent episode of TheComedy Vault.
Tonight at 9 PM the Monday Marathon presents the first ten hours of a twenty-episode mixtape series of The Lost Beatles on Beatles Blast. We’ll run the second ten of these next week.
This week PopCult brings you “Aisles of Doom,” an early short film by Alex Winter (with Tom Stern), who went on to co-write and direct and star in the Bill and Ted movies and the film, “Freaked.”
Longtime readers with incredible memories may recall that, just under ten years ago, I posted this same video in this spot. The reason for doing it again is that it’s really good; it’s something I first saw on Night Flight; and your PopCulteer is cranking out a ton of posts in advance because, as you read this, he’s on a train coming back from NYC.
From March, 2009, it’s Radio Free Charleston episode 62. This installment featured music from Tofujitsu (that was Sean Richardson and Karen Allen) and The Bible Beaters. We also brought you a trailer for Butch Maier’s feature film The Bride & The Grooms, which debuted at Park Place Stadium Cinema in April 2009. Our animation is vintage stuff, with a cow rescuing two ducks from a racial stereotype.
Host segments were shot on an unseasonably hot Monday afternoon in March. This show is called “Action Comics Shirt,” and this episode is notable for me completely screwing up the title of Tofujitsu’s song–totally. I misidentified it even while editing and mixing and introducing it. The song in this show is “Pop Up,” and it is a lovely song, but it’s not “Clap On, Clap Off.” That was the song I was supposed to include in this episode.This is worth noting because it set up a very elaborate series of gags in the next episode, which we will bring back next week.
You can find the sort of original production notes (with a tacked-on apology) right here!
With your humble blogger coughing his way through a quick trip to New York City, all we have for you this week is notes on our Friday radio programming on The AIR.
Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch does a 180 from the previous episode of MIRRORBALL and devotes a full hour to intricately curated classics of the very early, some would say “prehistoric” Disco era, in 1975, when “Disco” was just beginning to become recognizable as a musical style. 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.
Just like last time, every song on this week’s show is making its MIRROBALL debut, which is getting really tricky to pull off as Mel prepares to hit her 100th episode sometime in the new year. The focus this week is on the big club hits from very early in the Disco era, before Donna Summer, The Bee Gees or KC and the Sunshine Band had their first chart-toppers, when Disco was just another word for “danceclub” and nobody had time to be threatened by it yet.
It’s a cool collection of dance classics from the beginning of the Golden Age of Disco, when funk and soul mixed with Latin and techno and gelled into what became a dancefloor sensation. This is a big slab of fossilized funk that shows you just a hint of what was yet to come.
Check out the playlist…
MIRRORBALL 088
Archie Bell & The Drells “Dance Your Troubles Away”
Astor & The Potentials “Give Me What I Want”
Black Stash “Mighty Love Man”
Brass Construction “Movin'”
Brooklyn People “Boogie Man (Parts One and Two)”
Citizen Samuel Cain “Burnin’ Cab”
Mahattan Express “Bad Girl”
Loleatta Holloway “Only A Fool”
Pino Presti “Smile”
The Duprees “Delicious”
Eddie drennon & B.B.S. “Let’s Do The Latin Hustle”
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 claasic episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat from 2017, loaded with crunchy New Wave Goodness.
Check out the playlist…
BEC 020
Oingo Boingo “Private Life”
Missing Persons “Hello, I Love You”
INXS “Need You Tonight”
Vivabeat “Man From China”
Go West “We Close Our Eyes”
Fad Gadget “Back To Nature”
Erasure “The Circus”
The Clash “Straight To Hell”
Toyah “Blue Meaning”
Ultravox “Rockwrock”
Fear “Let’s Have A War”
Biizarre Leidenschnatt “Plasticpuppen”
The Nerves “TV Adverts”
Stiff Little Fingers “Nobody’s Heroes (Live)”
Blitz “Youth” Mi Sex “21-20”
Yoko Ono “Move On Fast”
The Cure “10:15 Saturday Night”
The Distributors “T.V. Me”
Kraftwerk “Tour De France”
Simple Minds “Someone Somewhere In Summertime”
Ian Dury and the Blockheads “What A Waste”
The Saints “Know Your Product”
Aerial “Cold War Love”
Siouxsie and the Banshees “Suburban Relapse”
Berlin “Sex (I’m A)” (extended version)
Blue Me “Berlin”
The Jam “Going Underground”
Generation X “King Rocker
Yellow Magic Orchestra “Cosmic Surfin’”
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.
For New Year’s Eve this year, The AIR will play our usual overnight marathon of The Swing Shift, but rather than bring you our episodes in order, for this week we’ll cherry-pick the very best for youso you can dance into the new year in style. That begins Sunday at Midnight, immediately following an encore of today’s new MIRRORBALL!
That’s what’s new on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for our regular features every day, and try not to blow up Charleston while I’m out of town.
Today we have a reminder that, just twelve days ago, we dropped a new episode of Radio Free Charleston (volume two: the video show) right here into this blog.
Rather than send you scrambling to scroll down to find this great show that has music from Brian Diller, The Velvet Brothers, Trielement and Elektro Biscuit, plus animation and a cool movie trailer from Jake Fertig, how about I just drop it right here?
Wasn’t that easy. Now you don’t have an excuse not to watch it, and I have a blog post for today, which is pretty cool considering that I’m in New York City trying to enjoy a couple of shows with my lovely wife even though I’m bedeviled by seasonal crud (not COVID).
BTW, except for a technical glitch or two, and two posts that were deleted under the threat of a frivilous lawsuit, we’ve had a fresh post in PopCult every day since August 18, 2013. I missed the tenth anniversary last August because so many other anniversaries happen in August.
Anyway, some of our efforts are…lesser than others. But that’s no reason not to enjoy the show!
It’s a still a new year, and we have a new batch of STUFF TO DO in and around the Charleston/Huntington WV area this weekend.
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.
Live Music is back at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM. Friday Khegan McLane takes the stage. Saturday Maddie Starcher & Riely Imlay perform at the beloved bookstore/cafe/art gallery.
The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week to tell you about. Wednesday evening Schaefer Ball happens. I’m not sure what or who that is, or what time, but it’ll happen. Thursday at 5:30 PM it’s the Helping Hour with Swingstein & Robin. Thursday at 10 PM Justin Shaw Steele, Sugarbelli and Nolan Collins rip up the stage. Friday Tim Courts plays during happy hour. Later on Friday Laid Back Country Picker, Luna and The Mountain Jets and Amos Steele Company shower the Glass with fine Americana. Saturday it’s a punk showcase, and you can check below for the graphics for this and other weekend shows.
Please remember that the pandemic is not over yet. It’s still a going concern with the ‘rona surging again. And now there are seasonal allergies, the flu, falling ieces of Boeing aircraft, Winter Storms dancing around the area, nasty little Congresswomen throwing punches 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…
We pay tribute to Kai Haynes this week on The AIR as we premiere an all-new episode of Radio Free Charleston. It’s a bittersweet, and a little downbeat episode, but his music was so filled with life that you can’t stay sad when you hear it. To tune in 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 elsewhere on this page, or scroll down for the embedded lo-fi version.
This three-hour show brings you two hours of our usual mix of local, independent and downright nifty music, plus a special third hour that is mostly the music Kai made. You can hear it at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.
You can hear Radio Free Charlestonevery Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM, with tons of replays throughout the week.
Repeating what I wrote last Friday, Kai Haynes, a titan among Charleston musicians, died after suffering a brain-bleed shortly before Christmas.
Kai’s musical accomplishments, from being a key part of the early Mountain Stage band to performing with too many local musical acts to list here, as well as his expertise in audiophile sound systems and his partnership in LiveMix Studio are only part of a life well-lived.
Kai was a great friend, a devoted father, a man who was extraordinarily kind and generous with his knowledge and just an overall quality human being. Kai was one of the three partners in LiveMix Studio, without whom the 2006 revival of Radio Free Charleston never would have happened. Kai appeared on several episodes, and ran camera on several early episodes of the video show.
We open every hour of the show this week with a track from the 1978 album, “First Impressions” by the band, JOI, which included Kai, along with Bob Thompson, Louise Pearson, Jim Pearson and Gordon Cupit. This rare album is blissful progressive and soulful jazz fusion, and the first song you hear this week features Kai singing lead on “WV Blues.”
Our third hour also opens with a track from JOI, but also includes the full performance by Elektro Biscuit at LiveMix Studio in 2009. Elektro Biscuit was Kai’s band with Greg Wegmann and Brian Young. Recently, with the addition of vocalist, Nicole AC, they’ve been performing as The New Old Souls Band. We brought you one song from this EB set on the latest RFCvideo show. We wrap up the hour with a track by The Bob Thompson Trio, which included Kai on bass, and a tune by Hot Chocolate that Kai and I had talked about years ago at LiveMix.
A musical memorial to Kai is planned for March, and PopCult will have full details as soon as they become available.
In addition to Kai’s music, we also have our usual eclectic mix of songs, but you may notice that my voice is fairly well shot this week. I’ve picked up a nasty bug, and it’s lowered my range about three octaves. Making matters worse is the fact that, due to a looming magazine deadline, I had to record next week’s show right after this one, so Mr. Froggy voice will be around for another week.
Despite my voice and the sadness of losing Kai, I think this show is a pretty solid example of the kind of high-quality music we bring you on a regular basis. We have a tune from a brand-new Chicago-based Zydeco band, Le Travaillant, plus newly-released music from The Settlement, Skafish, Wall of Voodoo, Todd Burge, Novelty Island and more.
Check out the playlist below to see all the goodies we have in store (live links will take you to the artist’s pages where possible)…
hour three
Joi “Seven In, Seven Out”
Elektro Biscuit live at LiveMix 2009
“Crawfish Boogie”
“A Latin Thing”
“Wasp In The Room”
“The Elephant and the Butterfly”
“The Original”
“Rio”
“Dysfunctional” Bob Thompson Trio “Forbidden Fruit”
Hot Chocolate “Heaven Is In The Backseat of My Cadillac”
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 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.
Then at 1 PM we have MIRRORBALL, followed at 2 PM by Curtain Call. At 3 PM we bring you two classic episodes of The Swing Shift.
You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 AM, Thursday at 9 AM, Friday at 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.
I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure what today’s art is supposed to be. It’s fine-line Sharpie on paper for pens, with more than one ruler and straight-edge in play, and I think at one point I was going to try to draw a building or five, but it’s really just an elaborate, mindless doodle with pointless shading, iffy perspective and way too much time invested in it.
It’s almost a half-assed third-rate imitation of M.C. Escher but it’s unfinished if that’s what it was supposed to be.
Which it wasn’t, really. I just started with a blank sheet of paper and by the time I decided that I wasn’t terribly inspired, it was filled.
To see it bigger try clicking HERE. Maybe you ca figure out what it was supposed to be.
Meanwhile, Monday on The AIR, All day Monday we are running episodes of Herman Linte’s Prognosis because he hits a milestone birthday today, and we didn’t have time to get him a present and mail it to London. It begins at 7 AM Monday, and runs for 24 hours, bringing you the twelve most recent episodes of our Prog-rock showcase.
This video has been one of my holy grails for over forty years.
Every few years I’d go to YouTube to see if anybody had found it and posted it, but only bits and pieces had turned up.
While I wasn’t looking, back in 2022, someone uploaded this entire concert by Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive, which was broadcast once or twice on USA Network’s Night Flight (a major inspiration of mine) and as far as I know, never released commercially.
When Joe Jackson, waylaid by an illness that broke up his band after three albums, delved into the music that was played by his father, a big band musician in the UK. He recorded the album, Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive, and it triggered a love of Swing Music in my brain that continues to this day. You can hear it often on The AIR, as I host The Swing Shift and even drop the occasional Swing tune into RFC.
I remember watching this on Night Flight, and getting my dad, who loved Swing, to watch with me.
Now I get to see it again, and so do you. It’s Joe Jackson leading a tight band through classics made famous by Louis Jordan, Cab Calloway, Glenn Miller and more.
Here’s the setlist, which includes two songs that the band never recorded:
Intro Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid Jack you’re Dead Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby? We The Cats (Shall Hep Ya) San Francisco Fan Stomping At The Savoy You’re My Meat What’s The Use Of Getting Sober (When you’re Gonna Get Drunk Again) Tuxedo Junction Minnie The Moocher Five Guys Named Moe How Long Must I Wait For You? Jumpin’Jive
For the first RFC Flashback of the new year, we travel once again to February, 2009 for Radio Free Charleston‘s sixty-first episode, “SHINDIG Shirt.” In this episode, we feature three triumphant returns from musical acts who got their start in the Charleston area, then moved away, before the draw of their hometown brought them back for return engagements.
Our musical guests are John Radcliff (on his second show in a row), back in town for a visit after moving to Parkersburg; SHINDIG, direct from Louisville: plus a special treat from the RFC archives: Brian Diller performing at the Empty Glass in the early 1990s, shortly after he moved to Nashville. This is purely a coincidence of perfect timing, since we just featured Brian on the latest episode of RFC six days ago, but rather than being part of an elaborate plan, we just happened to pull up this episode while going in chronological order.
But it does give us the chance to remind you that Brian is at The Bridge Road Bistro tonight. See the graphic for it over there?
We filmed this episode in 3D, by the way. It’s one of my favorite gags in the entire run of the show.
We also have animation from Frank Panucci, and a message from author, Brian J. Hatcher. Read the original production notes here.
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