Wednesday afternoon on The AIR, you can tune in to new episodes of Beatles Blast and Curtain Call. You can listen at the website, or on this embedded radio player…
At 2 PM on Beatles Blast, yours truly hosts the fourth of a ten-part look at rare and unreleased music by The Beatles. For most of the summer, Beatles Blast will follow this format and bring you The Lost Beatles Project. This will be a treat for the die-hard fans as we mine the best of the recently-released archive projects by the band, and mix in rare releases and wild remixes from their band and solo years. We won’t be posting playlists for these shows because the whole point is that each of these programs will be a revelatory surprise.
Beatles Blast can be heard every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursday at 9 PM, Friday at 11 AM, Sunday at 5 PM and Tuesdays at 9 AM, exclusively on The AIR.
At 3 PM Mel Larch presents a new hour of great musical theater on Curtain Call. This week Mel brings you performances by folks like Lin Manuel Miranda, Laura Benanti, Angela Lansbury, and even Huntington’s own Tony-winner, Michael Cervaris. You’ll hear songs from classic shows like My Fair Lady and A Little Night Music, tunes from modern classics like Fun Home and In The Heights and brand-new off-Broadway shows like Renascence. It truly is an hour of the best of musical theatre.
Check out the playlist:
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“When You’re Home” From In The Heights (2007 Studio Cast)
“Sex Is In The Heel” From Kinky Boots (Live West End recording)
“I Think I Got You Beat” from Shrek The Musical OBC
“Please Come To Our House, Jason” From Falsettos Broadway Cast (revival)
“The Ballad of The Harp-Weaver” from Renascence off-Broadway cast
“Stonger” From Hands On A Hardbody OBC
“King of Sin” From Leap of Faith
“I Could Have Danced All Night” by Laura Benanti (from “Songs from My Fair Lady”)
“So In Love” From Kiss Me Kate (Kelli O’Hara)
“Send In The Clowns” Angela Lansbury From A Sondheim Evening Concert Cast Recording
“Telephone Wire” From Fun Home Off-Broadway (Beth Malone, Michael Cervaris)
After the new hour of Curtain Call, stick around for two additional episodes from the Curtain Call archives. Curtain Call can be heard Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM and Saturday at 6 PM. An all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight, and an additional marathon can be heard Sunday evenings from 6 PM to midnight..
Once again, we have an all-new-programming Tuesday on The AIR as we deliver new episodes of Radio Free Charleston, Psychedelic Shack and The Swing Shift to our loyal listeners. Why don’t you become one and tune in at the website, or on this embedded radio player…
It all kicks off at 10 AM (with a replay at 10 PM– all times EDT) with a brand-new edition of Radio Free Charleston. This week’s show is loaded with great new music from John Radcliff, Spencer Elliott, Todd Burge, The Mediogres and more, plus we dig into the archives for some hidden gems, as we are doing with every show this year.
I’m also going to experiment with something new this week. If my experiment works, you will be able to click on the episode number above the playlist that follows, and go to a page where you can download a low-res version of this week’s show. I’m trying this to see if it’s feasible to do every week. We may have to take them down after a while to conserve server space or there may be technical issues since this is new thing. Give it a shot if you don’t have time to tune in to our live stream, why don’cha?
Links in the playlist should take you to the artist’s websites, where possible.
Radio Free Charleston can be heard Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM, with replays Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 8 PM, Saturday at 11 AM and Midnight and Sunday at 1 PM, exclusively on The AIR.
At 2 PM on Psychedelic Shack Nigel Pye checks in from Haversham Recording Institute with a 60-minute mixtape of groovy Psychedelic Rock. Our friend, the Hippie Gnome, Nigel Pye, has cheerfully decided to provide us with a playlist for this new episodem so tune in turn on and check out the playlist…
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Psychedelic Porn Crumpets “Social Candy”
Dr. John “Peace, Brother, Peace”
The Residents “Cry For The Fire”
Ian McDonald “You Are A Part of Me”
Harry Nilsson “One”
Janis Joplin “A Woman Left Lonely”
Bubble Puppy “Todd’s Tune”
Writing On The Wall “Boogeyman”
Chess For Breakfast “Ambulance”
Dizzy Mystics “The Scythe Penduluum Swings”
Adrian Below “Hypocrites and Lobsters”
Jimi Hendrix “Sunshine of Your Love”
Ringo Starr “Blindman”
Psychedelic Shack can be heard Tuesday’s at 2 PM, with replays Wednesday at 11 AM, Thursday at 5 PM and Saturday at 7 AM as well as the following Tuesday at 9 AM.
At 3 PM your PopCulteer returns to host a new hour of The Swing Shift as we continue to bring you the best Swing Music of the last century. This week we take bring you a broad assortment of new Swing, Retro Swing and vintage original Swing, and even a couple of tunes by closet swingers, Joe Jackson and George Harrison. Pop your peepers at this list of hep cats…
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The Hungry Williams “Get Your Hat”
Dr. John “Boxcar Boogie”
The Jive Aces “Sunny Side of the Street”
The Dorsey Brothers “Boogie Woogie”
Big Papi and The TCB “A Day Late And A Dollar Short”
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens”
The Swingin’ Sisters “Tanav, Kus So Elad”
Chris Grant Company “So Hard”
Hetty and the Jazzato Band “Mambo Italiano”
Susan Arioli “I Cover The Waterfront”
Frank Sinatra ‘My Kind of Girl”
Kansas City Jazz Orchestra “Take The A Train”
The Four Vagabonds “Hit That Jive Jack”
The Ray Ellington Orchestra “Taint What You Do”
George Harrison “Zig Zag”
Joe Jackson “(He’s A) Shape In a Drape”
You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 7 AM, Thursday at 7 PM and Saturday at 9 AM, only on The AIR. You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursday and Sunday evenings.
Remember, you can tune in to The AIR at all hours of the day and night for a variety and quality of programming that you will not find anywhere else. Check PopCult regularly for details on our new episodes.
Still in a New York State of mind this week we have a quick pen drawing, using Sharpies (Ultra Fine and Fine) and a ruler. It’s based on a view of the World Trade Center complex that I saw from the TopView bus. That’s WTC One in the background. After laying this down on printer paper, I scanned it and added the teal color for the sky, just to tip the hat to Myasthenia Gravis Awareness month. You can click the image to see it bigger.
Meanwhile, Monday on The AIR, this week we bring you a Monday Marathon of live music, including concerts by The Police, and Alan Parsons Project, plus four hours of local music, featuring Go Van Gogh and C2J2, among others. . That starts at 7 AM. At 3 PM we bring you eight hours of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, filling The AIR with crunchy New Wave goodness. Then at 11 PM we kick it over to Prognosis, with eight hours of great progressive rock.
You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…
Charleston’s FestivALL is in full swing, and due to other commitments, I don’t think I’ll be able to attend any of the cool events this year. To be honest, my diagnosis with Myasthenia Gravis has put a major damper on attending any outdoor events, and those were the things I really enjoyed the most about FestivALL. Anybody who is willing and able and enjoys art, music, dance and theatre should be taking part in the festivities.
For several years, before it was a paying gig, I was one of the few people shooting and posting video of the events. Luckily, there are plenty of people in town now to record and post all the cool stuff I’ll miss, and if they let me, I’ll re-post their videos here.
This week we look at episodes 161 and 162 of Radio Free Charleston, including music by Red Audio, The Bob Thompson Unit, Andy Park, Emily Burdette, Paul Calicoat, The Boatmen, Ritchie Collins and more. all recorded at FestivAll 2012. You’ll also see the Art Parade, RJ Haddy doing a make-up demo, Ian Bode, Jude Binder and all kinds of other cool stuff. Between both shows there’s over one hour and fifty minutes of fine FestivAll entertainment. So enjoy and expect more next week.
This week we go back to September, 2013 for the very first RFC MINI SHOW featuring Jabberwocky, a Huntington-based dance band that we recorded a couple of weeks earlier at The Blue Parrot. We captured the band performing Eddie Floyd’s “Knock On Wood,” and Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight (Everything’s All Right).” I don’t believe the band has performed since 2015. At least they haven’t updated their Facebook page since then.
Jabberwocky’s special blend of styles included blues, soul and rock & roll, along with a little southern rock and country. A hint of classical training makes their sound something you won’t hear anywhere else. Ace musicians with great singers and a horn section more powerful than a locomotive, If anybody has an update on what they’re doing now, please leave a comment.
The RFC MINI SHOW was a spin-off of Radio Free Charleston. It’s little bite-sized bits of musical video goodness to help soothe the pain of the long wait between full-length episodes of Radio Free Charleston. The official story was that it was a way to fill the spaces between full-length episodes of its parent show, but now I can admit that it was actually a way to delay our 200th episode while I came up with something special for our milestone (spoiler alert: I didn’t). The RFC Flashback will present these tiny, single-artist versions of our show in the order in which they appeared, alternating with the full-length shows.
One of the coolest things happening locally is sadly, something your PopCulteer will have to miss due to a family commitment. BatCon, a pop culture convention inspired by, but not exclusively devoted to, Batman, takes place at Kingsway Church (the former Nitro High School).
There will be local artists, vendors selling cool toys and stuff and cosplayers galore. One of the guest artists is Glen Brogan, whose tribute to the 1989 Batman movie is seen at the head of this post.
I’m hoping that this is a huge success, because I’d love to be able to go next year.
You can find more info at the Facebook Page, or just scroll down for the handy graphics…
Less than a week ago your PopCulteer was in Columbus for part of MEGO Meet, the annual gathering of fans of the MEGO Toy Company, who ruled the roost in the toy world back in the mid-1970s. This was my first time attending MEGO Meet since they left Wheeling five years ago, and even though I had to split the weekend between MEGO Meet in Columbus and The Marx Toy Show in Wheeling, it was an incredibly fun time.
I was only there for one day, but it was still pretty overwhelming, and I wish I’d had the energy to hang out and visit more with my fellow collectors, some of whom I hadn’t seen for five years. I did get to meet MEGO’s founder and proud papa, Marty Abrams (right, with yours truly) but I didn’t get to talk at length with him.
Of course, the PopCult cameras were rolling, and we have this fast-paced video to give you a taste of the fun on display. You may notice that while I promise glimpses of the panels, there are only a few seconds of them here. The reasons for that are two-fold: First, I ad-libbed the intros for this clip and for the Marx Toy Show clip in one take, before shooting any other video; second, I only made it to a couple of panels, one of which I will probably post in full in a week or so (the Cast A Way Toys panel) and the other, the Marty Abrams presents MEGO panel, was recorded by other folks, and can already be seen online.
Still, this should give you pretty good idea of how the show went…
Last year, the first year that MEGO Meet was in Columbus, MEGO founder Marty Abrams announced that MEGO was coming back to stores, beginning with a six-month exclusive deal with Target. This year, with the new MEGO toys showing up in more and more retailers every day, MEGO unveiled a load of new product. Photos of the new items were not allowed because the items are not all approved by the licensors, but we do have some intel for you. After this photo of how swamped Marty and his crew were at the Q&A session (which had to be moved into a large hallway because the conference room was too small).
At the convention, after the cameras were all turned off following Marty Abrams’ Q&A session, we learned the following: MEGO will be producing 8″ figures based on Lord of the Rings and Rocky. Fans got to see prototypes of the full Aragon figure, and headsculpts for Legolas, Ivan Drago, Apollo Creed and a “battle damaged” Rocky Balboa (you can see the regular Rocky at right); New Body designs for the 8″ figures are on the way, and are a vast improvement over the original figures, with 20 points of articulation, and no rubber bands holding them together; Those bodies will likely debut with the limited-license 8″ DC Comics figures which are coming as a shared exclusive from three (or four) specialty retailers. Boxed prototypes were shown that included Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the John Stewart Green Lantern; A headsculpt was shown for an 8: Stan Lee figure; We finally got to see Catman and Space Ace from KISS, who are due out later this year; A headsculpt was shown for the Kannamit, from The Twilight Zone, tipping us off to anothe rnew license; Headscultps were also shown for a 14″ Frankenstein as well as Locutus of Borg from Star Trek; A prototype 14″ Gorn from Star Trek was was also shown, as were 8″ headsculpts for Picard and Data, from Star Trek: The Next Generation; A full figure prototype for The Headless Horseman was shown as an addition to the very popular 8″ Horror line.
Thanks, once again, to Brian Heiler of The MEGO Museum, who not only organized the convention, but also verified my notes on the upcoming figures with his coverage. The MEGO Museum is the place to go for the best up-to-date info on all things MEGO.
Brian also reports that, immediately following MEGO Meet, MEGO’s wholesaler, License 2 Play, began taking orders for the next wave of figures, due to be released in mid-August. Collectors can look forward to a new Horror wave that will include: 8″- It Pennywise the Clown; 8″ Freddy Kruger- Nightmare on Elm Street; 8″ Headless Horseman; 8″ Phantom of the Opera; and 8″ Egyptian Mummy.
In the Star Trek Line, we’ll get the following figures from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: 8″ Star Trek 2– Admiral Kirk; 8″ Star Trek 2– Captain Spock; and 8″ Star Trek 2– Khan.
The Movies Assortment debuts with the 8″- Rocky Balboa, and 8″ Aragorn (Lord of the Rings) and 8″ Legolas (Lord of the Rings). The Music series continues with the 8″ Elvis (Black Leather), plus the highly-anticipated 8″ KISS Catman (Love Gun) and 8″ KISS Spaceman (Love Gun).
The 14″ assortment will offer up Shazam, Black Adam, Frankenstein and the Bela Lugosi Dracula.
Now, with that news out of the way, let’s look at a few photos from the show…
The rain detered most entries in the car show, but this Joker Van was not put off by the blustery weather.
New ways to play with Action Jackson.
Some of the customs up for auction including figures based on Green Hornet, Marvel Comics, The Hatbox Ghost and Blazing Saddles.
Unofficial winner of “Most Disturbing Custom” was “Penguin’s Sexy Day Off”
Bettie Page, coming soon from Cast A Way Toys.
If you’re going to cosplay, go all in like this guy.
This table was enough to make you break out into an “I Want” song.
Custom figures for as far as the eye could see…
We wrap up with your PopCulteer’s personal haul from MEGO Meet.
With that, we also wrap up this week’s PopCulteer. Check back later today for an extra update, and all weekend for our regular features.
Above you see PopCult’s video coverage of the 2019 Marx Toy Show, which happened June 14 and 15 at The Kruger Street Toy & Train Museum in Wheeling. The idea was to give you a sample of the experience, compressed to just under eight minutes.
The Marx Show is always loads of fun, and you can get a taste of that in the video. You’ll see the toys, trains and most of all the people. Loads of enthusiastic collectors turned out to see what they could find to complete their collections.
PopCult was only there for the first day of the show, since we split our weekend between Wheeling and Columbus, where MEGO Meet took place. Even so, it was great fun to see our Marx Toy collecting buddies, and pick up some goodies for our own ever-growing toy archives.
Below is a small sampling of photos from the show. We’ll be posting more photos in the future, and we’ll also have photos to go with our side trip to The Marx Toy Museum, once we get the video for that evening edited and posted (probably next week). Tomorrow, if things go according to plan, we’ll bring you a video of our time at MEGO Meet.
We’re going to kick it off with images of some of the cool stuff I got at the show…
Above you see two images of the ultra-cool “Kneeling Johnny,” created by Terry Ryder. Terry took some broken Johnnys and reassembled them into a fixed pose, then painted them to get a bronzed look. There are only ten of these, and I was was privileged to score one for my collection. It will have a place of honor.
This is a large part of my entire Marx haul. I’m trying not to accumulate quite so much until we get our storage and display issues sorted here at Stately Radio Free Charleston Manor. This was a small toy show pick up for me.
Legendary Defectors and Clownhole guitarist, John “Sham Voodoo” Estep, and his son, Grayson, with their cool space playset that they managed to snag. It’s always cool to see an old friend, and even cooler to see them find some great toys.
More toy porn. Control yourselves, people.
One of the many incredible playsets on display at the show.
Dave Roth caught in the act of making a Marx collector very happy.
The amazing Terry Ryder, with the amazing work of Lee and Grayson Bowling, a beautiful oversized wooden recreation of the plastic Johnny West travel case, complete with bas relief sculpting and gold lettering.
Always good to see cool stuff in the train room.
Even though my heart is in The JohnnyCon room.
The friendly staff at Kruger Street Toy & Train Museum checking in another happy collector.
We will have more Marx photos next week, including photos from The Marx Toy Museum, where your PopCulteer actually remembered to get his photo with some of his friends this time. Tomorrow, however, we turn our attention toward MEGO Meet.
Last weekend your PopCulteer attended two cool toy shows in two days, and is in the midst of working on videos and photos of those cool things to bring to his readers here in PopCult.
However, this is taking a bit longer than was expected because a mild-case of dual-city con crud needed tending to, and there were some other deadlinery things to deal with upon my return home.
Today we’re going to have a mini-photo essay of the trip, with five images from The Marx Toy Show in Wheeling, and five images from MEGO Meet in Columbus. If all goes according to plan, tomorrow I’ll have a short video and way more photos from The Marx Toy Show, and then Friday we’ll do the same for MEGO Meet. Both shows were incredible, and it was exhausting making the trip between them. I’m hoping that next year they have them on different weekends so I can take in the full experience of both shows.
The Marx Show will happen June 19-20 next year, so the MEGO folks, who did a great job with everything except scheduling this year, have a full year to pick a different weekend.
I’ll have more details on both shows in the next couple of days. The images below are sort of randomly-picked because I’m posting this right after moving the images into the PC for the first time. We’ll have way more pictures and links and stuff in the coming days.
The Marx Toy Show
Collectors in the train room, as the train layouts were being constructed just out of camera range. The dinosaur display caught my eye.
Not Marx, but it’s always cool to find a display case of Captain Action stuff on Tom Heaton’s Vintage Toy Room table.
The Bowlings, who wowed everyone with their custom creations, talking to Scott Stewart of Stewart’s Toy Attic in the Johnny West Dealers Room
Cheap plastic. Can’t beat that.
Another shot of the Johnny West Dealers Room, looking at Professor Jim Fuller’s table of cool stuff. I bought a couple of those custom figures.
MEGO MEET
Your PopCulteer with none other than Marty Abrams himself, the founder of MEGO Corp, and a very gregarious and nice guy.
These slightly modified customs of Captain Kirk dealing with Tribbles cracked your PopCulteer up, big time.
A portion of the MEGO customs entered into the Custom Auction.
Art Baltazar’s freaking incredible display. Always cool to see Art buzzing about the show.
We wrap up this look at MEGO Meet with a stop at the Small Chaos Studios custom display. Very cool stuff.
Thursday expect a big post on The Marx Toy Show, and Friday we’ll return to MEGO Meet in The PopCulteer.
Well, not so much the flesh, but the voice is shot. After an incredibly fun, but hectic weekend running from The Marx Toy Show in Wheeling to MEGO Meet in Columbus, and talking to dozens of people all weekend long, your PopCulteer found himself without a voice when it came time to record this week’s programs for The AIR. So that means that it’s rerun time again Tuesday on The AIR as we deliver Brand-Old episodes of Radio Free Charleston, Psychedelic Shack and The Swing Shift to our loyal listeners. This is your chance to play catch-up and tune in at the website, or on this embedded radio player…
At 10 AM and 10 PM you can hear a great episode of Radio Free Charleston from March. You can read about it HERE. After the morning run, you can hear three more episodes of the show from March and April, featuring new music from loads of great local bands.
Radio Free Charleston can be heard Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM, with replays Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 8 PM and Saturday at 11 AM and Midnight, exclusively on The AIR.
At 3 PMThe Swing Shift shifts back to January for a birthday tribute to Brian Setzer, with a full hour of his great Swing Music. You can find the playlist HERE (scroll down). That is followed by another January episode which you can read about HERE.
You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 7 AM, Thursday at 7 PM and Saturday at 9 AM, only on The AIR. You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursday and Sunday evenings.
As it looks now, the remainder of this week’s shows will also likely be encores, as your PopCulteer dives headfirst into editing videos and photos from the two toy shows he attended last weekend. We still have a killer internet radio station. You should check it out. Our reruns are better than everybody else’s new shows!
Wednesday afternoon on The AIR, you can tune in to new episodes of Beatles Blast and Curtain Call. You can listen at the website, or on this embedded radio player…
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