Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 31 of 581)

The PopCulteer
November 19, 2021

Friday brings a brand-new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat to The AIR. Sort of. It’s a long story.  The AIR is PopCult’s sister radio station. You can hear these shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player at the top right column of this blog if you’re reading on a desktop.

At 3 PM, Sydney Fileen graces us with a very special mixtape episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat that salutes one of my favorite bands in the world, DEVO. If that seems familiar to you, you might be remembering that there was a special mixtape episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat featuring DEVO that just debuted in January. I was ecstatic to have a two-hour mixtape of one of my all-time favorite bands.

What I didn’t know at the time was that Sydney had produced and recorded and assembled her DEVO mixtape episode when a power surge in London took out her computer, and the show and its playlist were lost. Being the solid pro that she is, Sydney quickly went to a backup computer and assembled a replacment show from memory, and that became episode 66 of BEC.

Just last week, the fine IT people at Haversham Recording Institute managed to resurrect the drive from that once-thought-deceased computer, and they retrieved the “lost” DEVO mixtape episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. Sydney offered it to me, and being a huge fan of DEVO, I jumped at the chance.

And that explains why there are two different DEVO mixtape episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, with quite a bit of overlap, and no references to each other.

Yet…it still sounds great, and besides, we’re all DEVO, Dad.

Just check out the playlist to see how spectacularly DEVO this show is…

BEC 081

“Jocko Homo (Hardcore Version)”
“Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy”
“Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin’)”
“Come Back Jonee”
“Uncontrollable Urge”
“Clockout”
“Timing X”
“Strange Pursuit”
“Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA”
“Blockhead”
“S.I.B.”
“Secret Agent Man”
“Satisfaction”
“Girl U Want”
“Freedom of Choice”
“Gates Of Steel”
“Snowball”
“Be Stiff”
“Whip It”
“Don’t You Know”
“Going Under”
“Beautiful World”
“Pity You”
“Jerkin’ Back and Forth”
“Working In A Coal Mine”
“Peek A Boo”
“Shout”
“That’s Good”
“I Desire”
“Big Mess”
“Here To Go”
“Are You Experienced”
“Puppet Boy”
“Please Please”
“Turn Around”
“Freedom of Choice Theme (Live)”
“General Boy Visits Apocalypse Now”
“Jocko Homo”

At some point, we’ll play these episodes back-to-back, just to mess with you.

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.

That’s what’s on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer.   The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide will return with toys later on Friday. Check this blog for fresh content every single freakin’ day. I’m cool like that.

Today in The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide, we don’t have a theme. You know, we can’t have one every day.  Today we have toys for adults, toys for kids, music for everybody, art for the discerning and a little black book for the batchelor on your shopping list.  Here are five random cool gift ideas, based on stuff I told you about earlier this year here in PopCult.

Stevo’s Horses
$32.50 to $50 at Stevo’s Toys

I told you about these last September, and you can still get your hands on some of these high-quality reproductions of the Marx Thunderbolt Horse, in new colors, with, or without, the cool riding gear.

These are terrific 1/6 scale horses, perfect for any 12″ action figure (or fashion doll). You can order them HERE, and be sure to check out the rest of his site for other cool Western accesories for your 1/6 scale cowboys.

These would also make great gifts for the horse lover on your shopping list who wants a little equestrian reminder of their favorite animal to keep on their mantlepiece or display shelf. The horses are available in gray or dark brown, with custom, hand-painted details. The saddle and tack is available in white, red and brown.

To make these, Stevo uses the actual 50-plus-year-old molds for the original Marx Thunderbolt horse, the faithful steed of Johnny West. As folks of a certain age are well aware, this horse is compatible with GI Joe, Captain Action, Barbie and any 12″ action figure with the proper leg articulation. These are terrific 1/6 scale horses, perfect for any 12″ action figure (or fashion doll). You can order them HERE, and be sure to check out the rest of his site for other cool Western accesories for your 1/6 scale cowboys.

RAW 10 Series Two
Exclusive to Walmart and Walmart.com

McFarlane Toys has announced a second series of RAW 10 action figures, exclusive to Walmart. In July of 2020 I told you about the first series HERE, and they also made last year’s PopCult Gift Guide.

The new entires are Hoof and Terror-Don.  Clicking on their names will take you right to the page where you can order them.

I don’t know if these have shown up locally, so I’d suggest getting them from the website.

The RAW10 are truly a force to be reckoned with and nw we have these two new cool entries in this nifty original-equity toy line.

Recommended for kids and adult collectors, this line of action figures takes the concept of wild animals and combines with robotics to create some really cool-looking new monster figures.

Toy and Comics impressario, Todd McFarlane continues with this cool line of action figures based on ideas he introduced in his Spawn comics.

These are detailed enough to be great gifts for adult collectors, and sturdy enough to be cool playthings for the imaginative kids on your shopping list.

You can visit the RAW10Toys website to experience the RAW10 World and be on the lookout for more upcoming online RAW10 comics series coming soon.

Dark Matters
by The Stranglers
Available as Vinyl LP, CD or Download

I did not expect to be reviewing a new album by The Stranglers in 2021. I’ve been a fan of the band for over 40 years, and was very sad last year when their keyboardist, Dave Greenfield, died from Covid early in the pandemic. I was not aware that they’d been working on a new batch of songs since 2018, and it was a pleasant surprise when I got a pre-release notice from them earlier in the summer.

Dark Matters is the first Stranglers album since the retirement of their founding drummer, Jet Black, and it includes eight tracks with keyboards recorded by Greenfield before his death. Its actually their first full album since 2012.

The Stranglers are survivors of the original 1970s UK punk scene, and they survived by evolving. They always had prog-rock leanings due to the keyboard artistry of Greenfield, and and as the 80s progressed, they grew musically to the point where, at times, they sounded more like Pink Floyd than Pink Floyd did.

Musically, the album ranges from pure, classic Stranglers on the songs “Water,” “This Song,” If Something’s Gonna KIll Me (It Might As Well Be Love),” and “No Man’s Land.” That style melds smart lyrics with thumping basslines and catchy elements of pop music with a harder edge.

There is no “bum track” on the album, as every song is remarkable in its own way. “White Stallion” sounds like pure, vintage New Wave, with a bizarre auto-tuned vocal break that could almost be a contribution from the blue Diva in “The Fifth Element.”

LP and CD copies of Dark Matters include a bonus CD tribute to Greenfield, with 8 live recordings from the last seven years, including two songs from this album, recorded in 2019. The Download version has four bonus cuts, which are acoustive versions of songs from the album.

Dark Matters is an excellent album, a  great gift for any Stranglers fan, and well worth listening for anybody who wants to hear sophisticated and powerful music with roots in punk and prog-rock.

Queen of the Ring: Wrestling Drawings by Jaime Hernandez 1980-2020
by Jaime Hernandez
edited by Katie Skelly
Fantagraphics
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1683964452
$24.99

I have been a fan of Jaime Hernandez (and his brother, Gilbert) for well over 40 years. I first saw his spot illustrations in The Comics Journal, and I’ve been reading Love and Rockets since its first issue in 1982.

Queen of the Ring is a very different book, but it is spectacular in its own right.

Queen of the Ring is a collection of drawings of Women Wrestlers of the 1960s and 70s that Hernandez has done over the course of forty years. These drawings were done for his own amusement, and were not intended for publication. He drew them on copy paper, with cheap markers and colored pencil, and are a body of work that is more personal and more intimate than his comic book work.

Interspersed throughout this collection of drawings are Hernandez’s own words, taken from an interview (with the book’s editor, Katie Skelly), and these quotes, set alongside the drawings, give a real insight into the creative process of Jaime Hernandez.

Hernandez has always been a master of drawing the female form in a realistic and appealing manner, and he he does this throughout this book, showing the beauty, rage, glory, dispair and power of women who look like truck stop waitresses who could kick your ass.

Queen of the Ring is a gem of a book, a must-have for any fan of Love and Rockets, but also a great gift for art lovers and also fans of professional wrestling. You should be able to order it from any bookseller, using the ISBN code, or find it discounted at Amazon.

Bachelor Pad’s Little Black Book

We have plugged Bachelor Pad Magazine in the past. This digest-sized compendium of Burlesque, Tiki, Lounge and Cool Culture is still delivering four regular issues a year, along with numerous special editions, and now there’s a print-exclusve “Little Black Book.”

As their publisher, Java, explains…

We now have a collection of some of our favorite Bachelor Pad Gals and all their vital information! It’s the Bachelor Pad Magazine Little Black Book!

When we say “little” we aren’t kidding! This booklet is a whopping 4 inches wide, 5 inches tall and checks in at a pocket-straining 160 pages! Within those pages, we profile 75 Bachelor Pad Magazine pin-ups! We are featuring classic photo sets (both from our regular and Nightcap Editions) as well as tons of previously unpublished photos. Some models even took photos especially for this project! This is a must for any fan of Bachelor Pad Magazine!

This special edition has nudie-cutie images and is meant for sophisticated readers. Please allow three weeks for shipping. This issue is available ONLY IN PRINT.

You can order Bachelor Pad’s Little Black Book HERE, and you can also get the latest issue of Bachelor Pad Magazine HERE.

This is a great gift idea for fans of pinups and burlesque, and also for folks who love old-school “For Men Only” type semi-raunchy publications. It’s not for everyone, but chances are you may know somebody who’d get a real kick out of this Little Black Book.

Today in The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide we are going to offer up a selection of cool graphic tees for the person on your shopping list who likes to wear cool graphic tees. Of today’s selections, three come from Threadless, an artist-friendly print-on-demand site that makes very, very comfortable shirts (I own more than a few).  Some of the designs you’ll see below are available on items other than shirts (but not the first two) and they all come in a variety of sizes,  while the Threadless shirts also offer some different shirt color options, as well.

This is one of those days where the designs will speak more effectively than my words, so I’ll do my best to describe these puppies, but you can use your own eyes to decide if they make a good gift idea. Also, the last design is available in two styles, just for the heck of it.

The name of the shirt will also be the live link to order.

Kirby Galactic Black Shirt
from The Jack Kirby Museum

You’ll have to scroll down the page a bit to get to this beauty.  It’s Jack Kirby’s Galactic Head design, which I have on a framed poster, and it’s just a cool-looking painting by Jack Kirby, the architect of The Marvel Universe and the creator of The New Gods and Darkseid for DC Comics.

This cool design is available in sizes from small to 3XL and it’s a little pricey, but all proceeds go to the non-profit Jack Kirby Museum, so not only do you get to wear a really cool black T-shirt,  and show your support for The King of Comics, you also get to help out a good cause.

Perfect for any self-respecing comics fan who knows who really came up with the ideas for their favorite comics.

WKRP Turkey Drop Short-Sleeve Unisex T-Shirt
from Retropolis Tees

One of dozens of great retro pop culture tees at Retropolis, this shirt commemorates the memorable episode of the classic sitcom, WKRP In Cinncinnati where the hapless station manager has a great idea for a Thanksgiving Day promotion.

He hires a helicopter and drops live turkeys out of it to a waiting crowd below.

Chaos ensues, and the punchline is the classic quote from the defeated radio man…“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

This is a great idea for a shirt, and you can buy it in sizes ranging from extra-small to 3 XL.  And while you’re there, poke around the site for all kinds of other great designs.

Any fan of WKRP would love to get this as a gift.

THE GREAT WAVE OFF SOUND
Design by quilimo

I just sort of found this design on Threadless, but I couldn’t resist plugging this cool mash-up of The Great Wave off Kanagawa by the nineteenth-century Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai and a modern, audiophile vinyl turntable.

The shirt is available in a variety of colors in sizes ranging from small to 2XL, and, well…just look at it.

Is that cool, or what?

Perfect for the woodblock print-loving audiophile on your holiday shopping list.

TIKI & MOON No. 16
by Robert Jimenez

If you have a Tiki fan on your holiday shopping list, they’ll want this shirt.

Jimenez is a very talented artist who works in a cool lowbrow art/pop culture area, and when he’s not designing trading cards or painting pop culture parodies or fez-wearing monkeys, he’s an in-demand Tiki illustrator.

And this cool design should show you why.

The design is available on a very wide range of shirt colors, and in sizes ranging from small to 3XL.

While you’re looking at it, poke around his site for lots of other cool designs.

GI FAN
by Thomas Wheeler

This design by myfriend Thomas Wheeler celebrates a fandom near and dear to my heart, and is the perfect gift for any GI Joe collector.

And by any Joe Collector, I mean any. As a bonus pick today, just in case the person on your shopping list prefers the classic, 12″ GI Joes to the little Real American Hero guys, Thomas has come up with a variation, aimed at those of use who like our adventures a little bigger.

This is a great shirt to wear at toy conventions just to let people know what you’re looking for, so they don’t bother trying to sell you My Little Pony.

Both designs are available on shirts in a wide selection of colors, and in sizes ranging from small to 3 XL.

Some people wear their hobbies on their sleeves, but here’s a way for someone to wear their hobby on their chest.

Adults are allowed to play with toys now. Show it off and be proud.

Thomas has lots of other designs up at his new Threadless store, and I’ll probably drop another one or two here in The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide.

Today in The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide we’re going to recommend five comic books (or graphic novels) that are not just superhero comics. These are aimed at older readers, for the most part, and deal with topics that usually aren’t covered in mainstream comics. Two of them do have superhero ties, but these are recommended for the graphic novel fan on your shopping list who isn’t into capes.
You should be able to order these books from any bookseller, or just follow the link in the ISBN number to find them at  the evil empire, probably for a discount.

The Most Important Comic Book on Earth: Stories to Save the World
by various artists and writers
DK Publishing
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0744042825
$30.00

The Most Important Comic Book On Earth is a global collaboration for planetary change, bringing together a diverse team of 300 leading environmentalists, artists, authors, actors, filmmakers, musicians, and more to present over 120 stories to save the world.

Whether it’s inspirational tales from celebrity names such as Cara Delevingne and Andy Serkis, hilarious webcomics from War and Peas and Ricky Gervais, artworks by leading illustrators David Mack and Tula Lotay, calls to action from activists George Monbiot and Jane Goodall, or powerful stories by Brian Azzarello and Amy Chu, each of the comics in this anthology will support projects and organizations fighting to save the planet and Rewrite Extinction.

Among its 350-plus pages, you’ll find short comics written by Taika Waititi, Dame Judi Dench, Yoko Ono, Peter Gabriel, Lenny Henry and many more from a wide variety of fields, all expressing their concerns about the planet.

This is a great gift, appropriate for all ages, that will lay out how important environmental issues are.

Monsters
by Barry Windsor-Smith
Fantagraphics Books
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1683964155
$39.99

The story behind this book is fascinating. Originally pitched by Barry Windsor-Smith to Marvel as an alternate-universe origin story for The Hulk in the early 1980s, he never got a contract to work on the book, and was shocked, years later, to discover that the key points in his pitch had been “borrowed” by the regular writer for The Hulk and had been incorporated into the mainstream version of the character.

Burned by Marvel, Windsor-Smith spent 35 years reworking the story with original characters replacing the Kirby-Lee creations, and the end result is a 380-page epic graphic novel that raises the bar for the art of graphic storytelling. No longer a mere throwaway Hulk story, Monsters is an entirely new work that explores the themes of control and abuse in searing detail. We go to the publisher’s blurb…

The year is 1964. Bobby Bailey doesn’t realize he is about to fulfill his tragic destiny when he walks into a US Army recruitment office to join up. Close-mouthed, damaged, innocent, trying to forget a past and looking for a future, it turns out that Bailey is the perfect candidate for a secret U.S. government experimental program, an unholy continuation of a genetics program that was discovered in Nazi Germany nearly 20 years earlier in the waning days of World War II. Bailey’s only ally and protector, Sergeant McFarland, intervenes, which sets off a chain of cascading events that spin out of everyone’s control. As the titular monsters of the title multiply, becoming real and metaphorical, literal and ironic, the story reaches its emotional and moral reckoning.

Monsters is the legendary project Barry Windsor-Smith has been working on for over 35 years. A 380-page tour de force of visual storytelling, Monsters’ narrative canvas is both vast and deep: part familial drama, part political thriller, part metaphysical journey, it is an intimate portrait of individuals struggling to reclaim their lives and an epic political odyssey across two generations of American history. Trauma, fate, conscience, and redemption are just a few of the themes that intersect in the most ambitious graphic novel of Windsor-Smith’s career.

Monsters is rendered in Windsor-Smith’s impeccable pen-and-ink technique, the visual storytelling with its sensitivity to gesture and composition is the most sophisticated of the artist’s career. There are passages of heartbreaking tenderness, of excruciating pain, and devastating violence. It is surely one of the most intense graphic novels ever drawn.

Definitely not for children, Monsters is a mature work of great beauty and ugliness. Recommended for fans of intense entertainment.

Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles
by Mark Russell (Author), Mike Feehan (Illustrator)
DC Comics
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1401275211
$16.99

From the acclaimed author of Second Coming and Snelson, we have this amazingly bizarre reboot that takes the second-tier Hanna-Barbera character, Snagglepuss, and reimagines him as a Southern Gay Playwright dealing with the cultural climate of the 1950s.

Let’s go to the blurb…

Drama! Comedy! Tragedy! For the renowned Southern playwright called Snagglepuss, these are the ingredients that have made him a star of the New York stage and the glittering world that surrounds it. But the year is 1953, and behind the bright lights, darkness is brewing. Snagglepuss is gay… and his enemies are out to destroy him for it.

The idea of Snagglepuss as some kind of alternate world Tennessee Williams could just be cheap fodder for comedy in lesser hands, but Mark Russell takes that idea and springboards into a rich tapestry of social commentary, satire, absurdity and fun. Mike Feehan’s art is the perfect complement, and together that makes Exit Stage Left a wonderful piece of work.

Recommended for mature readers interested in fresh takes on LGBTQ issues.

Amor Y Cohetes: A Love and Rockets Book
by Gilbert Hernandez , Jaime Hernandez , Mario Hernandez
Fantagraphics
ISBN-13 : 978-1560979265
$19.99

This is a new edition of a Love and Rockets book that was originally published in 2008. One never-before-reprinted single-page comic strip has been added for this printing.

Amor y Cohetes is the seventh volume in the “Complete Love & Rockets” series of compact, affordable paperbacks. I recommend all volumes of this incredible work. They are some of the best comics ever made, period. Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez are masters of graphic storytelling, and Mario is no slouch, either. I’ve praised their work in this blog since before the first printing of this book, and they still produce some of the best comics in the world.

However, since this collects some of the lesser-known works from one of the most important and influential comics of the 1980s, we’re going to take advantage of the new printing and revisit these gems. Amor Y Cohetes: A Love and Rocket Book collects together in one convenient package all the non-Maggie and non-Palomar stories by all three Hernandez Brothers from that classic first, 50-issue Love & Rockets series—a dizzying array of styles and approaches that re-confirms these groundbreaking cartoonists’ place in the history of comics.

People sometimes forget that there is a third Hernandez brother, Mario, who though less prolific than his siblings, is still a powerful storyteller. Because he never launched a long-form series within Love and Rockets, like Gilbert’s Palomar tales or Jaime’s Mechanics universe, he sometimes gets the short shrift. This book of short stories by the trio shows how good all three brothers are.

I don’t think I really need to sell experienced readers on Love and Rockets. If you’ve read their other works, you know how great they are. This is a good introductory volume for new fans because the shorter stories will allow them to become acclimated to the Hernandez’s classic storytelling style without being intimidated by tons of backstory.

Recommended for anybody who loves great comics, and Love and Rockets fans who might now have these stories in their collection.

Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter: Coming of the Dragon!
by Dennis O’Neil, Ric Estrada, Wallace Wood and various
DC Comics
ISBN-13 : 978-1779508102
$49.99

This one is a bit of a cheat. While Richard Dragon is not a superhero, per se, he does hang out with them, and characters created in this series have turned up in The Suicide Squad, Young Justice and Batman. But this collection is pretty much capeless, being Kung-Fu adventure, rather than pure superheroics.

This collection of mid-1970s comics is a rare treat for yours truly. Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter: Coming of the Dragon! collects the entire run of a comic book that I did NOT regularly read or buy back in my early days of comic collecting. I think I only had three or four of the stories reprinted here before the volume was released.

This is remarkable because the book is largely the work of one of my favorite comic book writers, Dennis O’Neil, who passed away last year shortly before the publication of this book was announced. The art assignment was passed around to many diverse hands before landing with the overlooked and underappreciated Cuban master of comics art, Ric Estrada.

The story itself is a wild adventure yarn, with one foot planted firmly in the early-1970s Kung-Fu craze and the other in the world of gritty pulp novel series like Mack Bolan and The Destroyer. Richard Dragon is a teenaged thief who is taken in, trained in martial arts and put on the right track by O-Sensei. Later Dragon and his dojo buddy, Ben Turner, join an international crime-fighting and anti-espionage agency. Most of this is new to me, and it’s a real kick.

These stories are top-notch globe-trotting martial arts adventure, presented for a mid-1970s comic book reading audience. There is no explicit sex or language, but there’s plenty of martial arts action and espionage intrigue to keep the action fun and entertaining, and O’Neil was a master at character development and direction.

Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter: Coming of the Dragon! is a damned fine collection of martial-arts adventures comics. It’s a time-capsule of the Kung Fu craze of the 1970s and it has some excellent storytelling. That DC is still mining this series for movies, TV and cartoons is a testament to its timeless qualities. Perfect for the fan of Martial Arts who also enjoys comics.

It’s Tuesday on The AIR  so open your ears and say “aaahhhh”  because we have new stuff on the internet radio. Today we bring you new episodes of Radio Free Charleston and The Swing Shift. That’s two mostly-new programs totalling four hours of particularly neat-o keen internet radio!  You simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to the cool embedded player over at the top of the right column.

We have a  killer new Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.  This week we open with a loaded new hour of RFC goodness, and then we re-present a 2017 edition of Radio Free Charleston International that hasn’t been heard in four years.

The first hour of RFC is jam-packed with new independent music, most of it local, from the likes of Cassius at Best, Static Fur, Mediogres, Hello June and more. We also have a couple of great Chicago acts making their RFC debuts, The Thin Cherries and David Stowell.  Then our second and third hours present a two-hour mixtape of live recordings of cool music, running the gamut from Oingo Boingo, to The Dickies, To Kate Bush, The Beatles, Ultravox 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)…

RFC V5 070

hour one
Cassius At Best “Broadway”
The Thin Cherries “Trouble Lights”
Lost Decades “Chase Me”
Safetybelt “I Do This To Myself”
Joseph Hale “The Preacher”
Static Fur “Mosshaus”
Red Audio “Slo-Luv”
David Stowell “In Flight”
Morglbl “Brutal Romance (Live)”
Mediogres “Bad News For Spiders”
Hello June “Problem”

hour two
Oingo Boingo “Change”
The Stranglers “Toiler On The Sea”
The Police “Roxanne”
The Clash “Radio Clash”
John Entwhistle “905”
Joe Jackson “A Slow Song”
Reel Big Fish “The Kids Don’t Like It In The Pit”
Elvis Costello “I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea”
The Dickies “If Stuart Could Talk”

hour three
Ultravox “The Voice”
DEVO “Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA
Cheap Trick “Ain’t That A Shame”
Frank Zappa “Doreen”
Kate Bush “James And The Cold Gun”
The Beatles “Dig A Pony”
YES “Don’t Kill The Whales”
The Flaming Lips with Henry Rollins “Us And Them”
The Who “Love Reign O’er Me”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replaysWednesday 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 encore episode of RFC every weekday at 5 PM, and we bring you a marathon of the most recent shows 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 MIRRORBALL at 1 PM, and Ska Madness at 2 PM.

At 3 PM we have a brand-new episode of The Swing Shift. This week we bring you another Swing History show. This time we go back about a hundred years for a mixtape show featuring the prototypical Jazz/Swing of the 1920s. There are some real gems here, with music from legends, forgotten legends, near-legends and one-hit-wonders. This is when Dixieland and The Blues had a thing going on, and they named the baby “Swing.”

Check out the playlist…

The Swing Shift 121

Paul Whiteman “Charleston”
Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra “Sugar Foot Stomp”
Clarence Williams Jazz Kings “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home”
Louis Armstrong “Cornet Chop Suey”
Halfway House Orchestra “Pussy Cat Rag”
Cook’s Dreamland Orchestra “Hot Tamale Man”
Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra with Bix Beiderbecke “In My Merry Oldsmobile ”
Piron’s New Orleans “Kiss Me Sweet”
Kid Ory’s Sunshine Band “Ory’s Creole Trombone”
Ukelele Ike & His Hot Combination “Singin’ In The Rain”
Jelly Roll Morton “New Orleans Bump”
Johnny Dodd’s Black Bottom Stompers “Wild Man Blues”
Ted Weems “Piccolo Pete”
Harry Reser and His Six Jumping Jacks “Nagasaki”
Ben Bernie & His Orchestra “Crazy Rhythm”
New Orleans Wanderers “Perdido Street Blues”
Ambrose & His Orchestra “Singapore Sorrows”
Duke Ellington & His Washingtonians “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo”
Ted Lewis “Some of These Days”
Irving Aaronson & His Commanders “Let’s Misbehave”

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesdays at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 7 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.

Today in The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide we are going to run with the idea of suggesting early video gifts that can help get the Christmas grump on your shopping list embracing the holiday spirit.
These are all DVD or Blu Ray releases of classic and/or obscure Christmas shows. They may be available on streaming services or as digital downloads, but since those can’t be wrapped, I’m concentrating on physical releases.

All the links in the prices lead to Amazon, just to make life easier. I’m sure you can find these elsewhere if you don’t want to underwrite any more of Mr. Bezos’ space missions.

The Brian Setzer Orchestra
Christmas Rocks! LIVE
Blu-Ray
$15.99

Iconic guitarist, songwriter, vocalist and three-time Grammy award winner Brian Setzer and his 19-piece orchestra are featured in this special concert HD Blu-Ray.

Christmas Rocks! Live was filmed in Santa Barbara at the Granada Theatre and features timeless Christmas classics like, Rockin Around The Christmas Tree , Jingle Bells , and Here Comes Santa Claus as well as hits such as Stray Cat Strut , Jump, Jive An Wail and Rock This Town.

Track listing: Pennsylvania 6-5000; Rockin Around The Christmas Tree; Hoodoo Voodoo Doll; Stray Cat Strut Boogie Woogie Santa Claus; Gene & Eddie; Angels We Have Heard On High; Jump Jive An Wail; Here Comes Santa Claus; Wichita Lineman; Runnin Down A Dream; The Christmas Song; Rockabilly Boogie; Rocket In My Pocket; Fishnet Stockings; Rock This Town; Nutcracker Suite; Jingle Bells.

What better way to get into the Christmas spirit than by Swinging in with a hot Big Band?

Rankin Bass
The Original Christmas Specials Collection
DVD
$14.99

‘Tis the season to enjoy the timeless holiday classics in The Original Christmas Specials Collection featuring five unforgettable stories. Produced by Rankin/Bass, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town and The Little Drummer Boy feature iconic “Animagic” stop-motion animation and Frosty the Snowman and Cricket on the Hearth are traditionally animated.

Starring the voice talents of Fred Astaire, Jimmy Durante, Mickey Rooney, Danny Thomas, Burl Ives and many more, these favorites also feature some of the most beloved songs of the season and are sure to entertain audiences of all ages for generations to come.

There’s also lots of bonus content spread across these discs, including featurettes and extras: The Animagic World of Rankin/Bass; Restoring the Puppets of Rudolph; Reimagining Rudolph in 4D; Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Attraction Film; T.E.A.M. Rudolph and the Reindeer Games; Frosty’s Original Pencil Test; Commentary by Animation Historians Mark Evanier and Greg Ehrbar.

Here is your Christmas special nostalgia mega-fix, all in one package. Guaranteed to melt the coldest, Scrooge-like heart.

The Johnny Cash Christmas Specials 1976-1979
DVD
$39.65

For the country music fan (or any fan of the Man in Black) who needs to be jolted into the holiday spirit, this collection of Johnny Cash Christmas Specials is manna from heaven.

From 1976 to 1979, CBS ran a Johnny Cash Christmas special every year. This boxed set collects them all, and they are equal parts classic Country music, corny comedy, top-notch musicianship and totally bizzaro 1970s showbiz weirdness.

Joining Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, on these specials is a wild mix of guest stars: Andy Kaufman, Jerry Lee Lewis, Steve Martin, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Billy Graham, Tony Orlando, Kris Kristofferson and more.

Among the Christmas songs we also get a Sun Records reunion on one show, with Cash joined by Perkins, Orbison and Lewis, and in another show, Andy Kaufman unleashes the full force of his Elvis impersonation.

It’s a good way to shake someone out of their pre-holiday doldrums.

Pee-Wee’s Playhouse: Christmas Special
DVD
$5.99

If Johnny Cash didn’t warp a person’s sense of reality enough to get them in the holiday spirit, then you have to pull out the big guns, and page Pee Wee Herman!

This stocking-stuffer-priced gem is Pee-wee’s Christmas Special “As You’ve Never Seen It Before: Beautifully Restored, Remastered and in High Definition!”

Join the whole Playhouse gang for one of the wackiest specials ever! With laughs for the whole family, this unique, triple Emmy nominated special offers all the imagination and charm of Saturday morning’s most outrageous TV series, which became a cultural milestone when it aired from 1986-1991.

Pee-wee gets into the spirit of the season with lots of singing, dancing and other holiday fun with his Playhouse pals and more than a dozen celebrity guest stars, including Frankie Avalon, Charo, The Del Rubio Triplets, Annette Funicello, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Whoopi Goldberg, Magic Johnson, Grace Jones, k.d. lang, Little Richard, Joan Rivers, Dinah Shore and Oprah Winfrey.

Everything is going great for Pee-wee… until his Christmas wish list becomes so long that there won’t be enough presents for all the other kids in the world! When Santa Claus pleads for help, Pee-wee reluctantly learns a lesson about the true meaning of Christmas.

If Pee Wee doesn’t cure the pre-holiday blues, then your grumpy giftee might be beyond hope. You’ll have to resort to something out of left field.

The Honeymooners Specials: A Christmas Carol
DVD
$10.49

You may not have even known orremembered that this existed. I know I didn’t.

In 1977, Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows, Art Carney and Jane Kean reunited for the second of four hour-long specials representing the final performances of their classic Honeymooners characters.

Ralph enlists Alice, Ed and Trixie to perform with him on stage after he agrees to supervise and star in the annual office holiday fund-raiser for a charity chosen by his boss’ wife.

Ralph ends up rewriting and reimagining Charles Dickens’ dramatic classic A Christmas Carol with comedic results when Ed serves as the inexperienced director.

Gleason is Bob Cratchit, and Carney does double duty as both Scrooge and Tiny Tim.  Chances are, everyone in the room will stare at the televsion, unable to look away, transfixed by the bizarreness of the entire production.

The set also includes Trixie’s Honeymooners Memories featurette with Jane Kean, and The Honeymooners’ Women’s Lib skit from 1973.

The fact that Carney returned to do this bit of classic TV comedy, light-hearted bizarreness after wining an OSCAR for Best Actor shows how much fun he must have had playing Ed Norton.

Between those five videos, you ought to find something to prompt the Christmas and Holiday spirit in even the Scroogiest of people.

It occurs to me that in the 16-plus years that I’ve been posting my art here in PopCult, I’ve never done a still life of fruit. With my Myasthenia Gravis subsiding over the last few days, I decided to pull out a cheap canvas board and my acrylics, and take a shot at painting one. Using a few photos I took in a grocery store in Chicago a while back for reference, this is a collection of Jackfruit, Mangoes and Pineapples.

In case you’re wondering, those big scrotal-looking things are jackfruit. I have no idea what the hell you’re supposed to do with them.

Once scanned, I cropped the panting because my margins are still sloppy.

So, I’ve done one of those now.  Maybe next week I can go through a blue period.

If you want to see it a bit bigger, just click on it.

Later today we will be back with Day Eleven of The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide, and today we’re telling you about Christmas DVDs (and one Blu Ray).

Meanwhile, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a new episode of  Psychedelic Shack, followed at 3 PM by 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 at the top of the right-hand column of this blog.

Nigel Pye didn’t give me a full playlist for this week’s new show, but he tells me the first cut is by  late 60’s proto-proggers, The Syn.

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. Classic episodes can be heard Sunday at 9 AM as part of our Sunday Haversham Recording Institute collection.

Following that hour of Psychedelic wonderments, Herman Linte will bring us two hours of Focus, recorded live on their 50th anniversary tour.

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, we bring you eleven hours of Mel Larch with Curtain Call.

Above you see a brand-new video for Douglas John Imbrogno’s 2004 composition, “I Never Slept With Allen Ginsberg.” This remarkable song has a terrific backstory which you can read all about over at Doug’s excellent WESTVIRGINIAVILLE website (which you should be reading already anyway).

In short, the song is a fond rememberance of his time spent hanging out with the famed Beat Poet around a campfire at Cedar Lakes, in Ripley, West Virginia. Doug tells that story much better than I could, so follow that link up there and read the whole thing. It’s really good.

But there is a footnote to the story of this song. Back in 2006, when Doug was my editor at The Charleston Gazette, and had just greenlit the Radio Free Charleston video show, Doug was performing as half of a duo called “The Heydays,” with Paul Calicoat (of Route 60 Music and solo fame). Late in the year we had The Heydays come into LiveMix Studio to record a couple of songs for the show.  We used the first song, “Shady Grove” in November of that year. The second song got a more elaborate video treatment (though I was still learning to edit at the time) and showed up on episode 15 of RFC in February, 2007.

That song was a different version of “I Never Slept With Allen Ginsberg.” And yes, I know I spelled his name wrong in the titles.

While the version we had on RFC was great, it did not have Ammed Soloman’s amazing percussion, which lifts the song to new heights.

For the sake of completedness and comparison, below you see episode 15 of Radio Free Charleston, featuring music from The Appalachian Celtic Consort and The Heydays, plus our usual animation and mind-hurting weirdness.  At around the nine-and-a-half minute mark, you can see and hear a different take on Doug’s song.

From November, 2015 we have an episode of The RFC MINI SHOW, recorded the previous month at The Mountain State Pop Expo, starring three-fourths of the then-current line-up of HARRAH, performing an acoustic set on the main floor of a very active and loud pop culture convention.

Despite the very loud environment, we decided to bring you this special show as an artifact of the inagural Mountain State Pop Expo, which was a fundraiser for Children’s Home Society of West Virginia, a group that aids in the placement and adoption of foster children here in West Virginia. For the second year in a row, the Pop Expo did not happen due to the pandemic, so if you can spare a few bucks, hit up the CHS website. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more worthy charity.

Day Ten of The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide is devoted to games of the not-video variety. I’ll be including one or two links so you can order these online, but if you can find them locally, try to do that. We’ve got gift ideas for game-players for a wide range of ages and interests so let’s roll the dice…

El The Chicago Transit Adventure Board Game
$45 from Transit Tees
Also available from other retailers
Suitable for ages 13 and up. 2 – 8 players.

Welcome to Chicago! There’s lots to do in The Windy City, and you have a full itinerary. Make your way around the city using the famous elevated “El” trains to visit places of interest and return to the State/Lake station before anyone else.

Strategize your optimal route by utilizing trains and buses, but be prepared for detour. Keep an eye out for stations undergoing renovation, and be sure to carry enough Transit Tokens to pay for your fare! And of course, you’re not the only person riding the trains. Other travelers might just throw your plans for a Loop! Pack your bag, gather your friends, and set out on your Chicago Transit Adventure!

Contents:

1 20″ x 30″ Game Board Map of Chicago’s famous Elevated Train System
8 Painted and Screen Printed Wooden Train Pawns to match the 8 train lines
32 Screen Printed Wooden Transit Tokens
12 Fluorescent Acrylic Station Renovation Markers
67 Destination Cards with places to visit around Chicago
28 Condition Cards that will help or hinder your trip
2 Six-Sided Dice

Designed by Transit Tees in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. El The Chicago Transit Adventure Board Game would make a great gift for the person on your shopping list who loves The Windy City, or just likes the idea of having access to cool public transit.

The Blockbuster Game: The Movie Board Game for Adults and Teenagers…
Under $20 from many retailers
12 Years and Up for 4 or more players

The golden age of video rentals is back! Introducing a brand new fun family game for anyone that has ever seen a movie – and just like all great blockbusters, this one’s a double bill! This is a game for adults and teenagers alike, but for best results, you’ll want to split up into two mixed teams.

In round one, each team will choose one of their members to go head-to-head in a quick-fire buzzer battle. From ‘Famous trilogies to ‘Movies with a zombie in it’, these two players must think quick, shout out a movie and slap the buzzer to put pressure on their opponent. The first player to run out of ideas loses the round (and gives their opponents a serious advantage in round two). We like to call round two ‘Movie charades with a twist’.

The player that won the buzzer battle picks up six movie cards, gives the hardest three to their opponent and keeps the rest for themselves. When ready, they’ll get 30 seconds to get their team to shout out the movies by using three tricky techniques – acting out the film, making up a quote and describing them with just one word.

Get them right quick enough and you’ll have a chance to steal from your opponents. Take it too slow and they might get a chance to steal from you. It’s an all-out race to collect a film from every genre and be crowned the new Blockbuster big-shots.

With 200 classic movies, 60 category cards and a replica of a Blockbuster parking lot, you’ll want to clear a space on your top 10 family party games – this is one that’s sure to bring the entertainment home again and again. Requires two AA batteries (not included).

With The Blockbuster Game, you get…

260 cards, 1 electronic timer, 1 game board, 1 Blockbuster sign, instructions

A great gift for the movie-loving trivia game buff on your shopping list.

Top Trumps Match Game – DC Comics Originals
Under $20 from many online retailers
For ages 6 and up

This game is great fun for fans of DC Comics of all ages (it’s illustrated with beautiful JL Garcia-Lopez artwork), despite the unfortunate company name.

Join the DC heroes and villains as they battle to see who can get 5 in a row. With iconic characters like Superman, Batman and The Joker, there’s loads of cubes and lots of characters. Take it in turns to push through the cubes. The aim is to get 5 of the same DC character lined up horizontally, vertically or diagonally.

The game’s not over yet, can your opponent super Top Trump you in the final moment? If they match their Top Trumps card with the winning DC character, they WIN the game! This game is great for memory development and comes in a handy all in one unit that you can take anywhere – from Gotham City to Metropolis!

Be the first to match five of your favorite characters in a row – horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Can you match Superman or Batman before your opponent?

Can your opponent steal the game? Turn over the Top Trumps card to reveal if they can take the match and win the game.

Play with 15 of your favorite characters from Superman, Batman, Darksied and the Joker. Game is for 2 players.

Easy to set up and pack away, Top Trumps Match comes in a handy self-contained plastic case – play anytime, anywhere.

Ravensburger Horrified: Universal Monsters Strategy Board Game
Available online for under $25
For ages 10 and up.

This is the perfect gift for the Universal Monsters fan who also likes board games on your shopping list.

What’s your game plan when your village is attacked by The Mummy, Frankenstein, Dracula and other monsters? This Horrified Board Game is exactly that. You along with your team of heroes have to join forces to defeat them. But the victory doesn’t come easy. Every monster has its own set of strengths and you need to come up with a strategy. You can adjust the level of difficulty by going against a new team of monsters.

Horrifed comes with 1 game board, 7 sculpted miniatures, 75 cards, 3 dice, fabric bag, 17 paper movers and Bases, 6 placards and instructions.

Horrified is a cooperative board game for ages 10 and up where you defend the town against Frankenstein, Dracula, the bride of Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Mummy, the invisible Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. How cool is that?

Easy to understand instructions – high quality, easy-to-understand instructions make it simple to start playing right away.

With an estimated 60 minute play time, for 1-5 players, Horrified’s innovative style is easy-to-learn w/ varying levels of difficulty Facing the unique monsters requires different strategies, which creates a different experience every time.

And if Horrified is a hit with your giftee, early next year you can seek out the second edition, which replaces the Universal Monsters with America’s most famous Cryptids, including West Virginia’s own Mothman!

Rogue Art History: The Trivia Game
Around $25 from online retailers (This is a pre-order, due to be released November 23)
For ages 14-up.

Rogue Art History is a fun and easy-to-set-up game for ages 14 and up, where players answer trivia questions about art history and collect artwork along the way.

Be the first to collect five artworks and prove, officially, that you know your stuff. Players who answer trivia correctly exchange their Trivia Cards for Artwork Cards. Get enough Artwork Cards and you win the game!

Players can also use “Rogue Scholar” Cards to help them answer questions, protect their artwork from getting stolen, and sabotage other players. Trivia questions are multiple choice, and the difficulty level varies (ranging, for example, from “What body part did Van Gogh cut off?” to “How many pet chow chows did Georgia O’Keeffe own during her lifetime?”).

Funny, and at times playfully irreverent and a little absurd, this game dispels the myth that art and art history are only for stuffy intellectuals. It’s welcoming for all players, from those PhD holders to curious high schoolers just starting to learn about the classics. For four to six players.

Play Rogue Art History on its own or combined with the National Portrait Gallery set for more art and 96 more trivia questions. It’s due out the same day, and has the same rules.