Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 54 of 581)

This week we go back to March, 2015 (which was a very busy month for us here at PopCult) for an episode of The RFC MINI SHOW starring the band, Gypsy Rhythm. Recently the band has sort of mutated into the highly-acclaimed Unmanned, who have a killer debut album out now. Go buy it.

Check out the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
April 16, 2021

We have a ton of cool stuff to tell you about this week. You might’ve noticed that PopCult has been a bit skimpy of late. The reason is I had a paying gig that proved to be more challenging than expected, and had to take time away from blogging to take care of it.

On a related note, there was a glitch in the download of the files for this week’s new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, and I didn’t catch it until it was too late to get a replacement downloaded, re-encoded, uploaded and scheduled, so we’ll bring that one to you next week, and let Sydney get ahead on future episodes of our New Wave music showcase on The AIR. You can catch an encore of a recent episode Friday at 3 PM, at the website, or on the handy little player embedded at the top of the column on the right.

Now, onto the many cool things…

Cartoon Cartoons Returns

This one gives me flashbacks to my days writing Animated Discussions with Mel Larch for The Charleston Gazette. It was announced yesterday that Cartoon Network and WarnerMedia are reviving the Cartoon Cartoons program. Back in the mid-1990s this was a series of short cartoons made for Cartoon Network that were meant to work as pilots for potential animated series. They gathered up a bunch of then-unknown animators, and brought in a few veterans, and the project launched some modern animation classics like Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, Courage The Cowardly Dog and others.

Now the project is being revived, with plans to run the cartoons on Cartoon Network and on HBO Max. The new Cartoon Cartoons will be curated by a council of animation veterans who will sift through applications and decide which projects to greenlight.

Acording to Variety, the Cartoon Cartoons Creative Council will consist of a group of experienced, artist-driven producers, including: Looney Tunes Cartoons showrunner Pete Browngardt, We Bare Bears director and writer Manny Hernandez, Animaniacs series director Katie Rice, and Woman World graphic novelist Aminder Dhaliwal.

This could produce a whole new generation of talented animators and pump new life into cartoons for a new generation. I’m really looking forward to this.

Ultraman Flies Into Trading Cards

For his 55th anniversary, Ultraman, Japan’s Kaiju-fighting superhero, will debut in his first American trading card set, courtesy of our buddy Richard Parks and his RRParks card company.

This project is live on Kickstarter, and still has two weeks to run, which is pretty wild when you realize that they are already at more than FORTY TIMES their original funding goal.

I’m just going to quote liberally from Richard’s Kickstarter page here..

This first series covers ULTRA Q and ULTRAMAN from the 1960s. That’s the focus of this series. Later series will cover Ultra Seven, Return of Ultraman, Ultraman Ace, Ultraman Taro, Ultraman Leo and Ultraman 80.  And I have no doubt that later series will have a ‘call back’ to Ultraman and Ultra Q.

Ultraman Series One is being planned with TWO different packaging styles to satisfy as many different types of collectors as possible. There will be the traditional PACK style, which will come in a 36-pack box. There will also be a ‘tuck box’ (Deluxe Pack) style packaging where 8 tuck boxes are in a CASE. In both situations, there will be randomly inserted special cards … AND in both cases, collation will be designed so complete base and subsets are possible in a full box of packs OR a full box of tuck boxes.

Backers and collectors who have pledged on my previous Kickstarter campaigns (and this is my 30th Kickstarter — all previous ones were successfully funded and delivered) know that I always make it possible for backers to get MASTER SETS. Master Sets are ONLY ever available during a Kickstarter. So if you have ANY idea of collecting Ultraman Trading Cards, NOW would be the time to come aboard — not only will you get the biggest bang for your buck AND the largest possible collection but you won’t have to try and piece together a complete set later on.

This series will include:

67 Card Base Set covering ALL episodes of Ultra Q and Ultraman

90 Card KAIJU Puzzle Back Set featuring ALL the monsters and aliens for Ultra Q and Ultraman

45 Ultra Q and Ultraman Sketch Card Artist Gallery Promo Cards

18 Ultraman Anaglyph 3D cards (and yes, I include the 3D glasses in all boxes)

11 Limited Edition Macarie Portrait Cards of Ultra Q and Ultraman

12 Limited Edition Stoinich Portrait Cards of Ultra Q and Ultraman

9 Different Metal Box Toppers

9 Different FULL MOTION Lenticular Cards

10 different RETRO STYLE Ultraman ‘Opening Credits’ Stickers

Genuine ORIGINAL ART Sketch Cards by the hobby’s LEADING Sketch Card Artists

An official DIY Sketch Card Blank (so you can draw your own monster on the card

and become PART of the card series YOURSELF!

AUTOGRAPH CARDS! Yes, we were able to get THREE of the original cast members to do a limited number of autograph cards. Fuji, Hayata and Ultraman himself! MUCH appreciation goes to Tsuburaya and The Licensing Group who helped facilitate this!

Printing Plates! Yep, own a UNIQUE piece of trading card history — a unique, genuine printing plate used in the production of these cards.

39 BONUS mini cards to be clipped out, printed front and back right on the box.

Progressive Proofs — during the printing process, four different plates are used to result in FULL COLOR. But what about what cards look like without ALL the plates to produce full color? These unusual parallel cards are being planned for this series and will be available to Kickstarter backers.

How can any red-blooded American fan of Japanese hero Ultraman pass this up? This has been a big year for Ultraman, with two excellent mini-series from Marvel Comics and the beginning of a way-cool action figure line from MEGO. You have two weeks left to jump over to Kickstarter and get in on the Ultraman trading card action. Richard produces some of the most astounding card sets in the business, and they don’t often wind up on the secondary market. If you love Ultraman, you’ll want to get in on this.

I Am Not A Number. I’m An Action Figure!

This may be hard to believe, but there have never been officially-licensed action figures made of Patrick McGoohan’s classic Science Fiction/Spy epic, The Prisoner.  That’s about the change. Bleeding Cool reports that a Kickstarter campaign is about to launch that will see “Number Six” finally realized as a four-inch action figure.

I don’t know the relevant details yet, like the price of the figures involved, but even though this is not my favorite scale of action figure to collect, I am definitely interested. The Prisoner ranks near the top of my all-time major influences. You can find more information and photos at the Bleeding Cool link above.

And you know, with that, I’m going to call this PopCulteer a wrap. Check back for fresh content every day, and hopefully we’ll have more reviews and cool stuff here next week.

Okay, this is an outdoor show. I trust the organizers to enforce all the recommended COVID protocols, and it’s Mountain Stage, for God’s sake! How can I not tell my readers about this, even if I can’t go myself?

For more information on tickets and how to attend, visit the Mountain Stage website.  It’s going to be one heck of a show.

It seems like only yesterday that I was telling you about a new magazine devoted to vintage toys, and now Plaid Stallions has released the third issue of Toy Ventures. I’ve had mine for a few days but just did get the chance to crack it open, and it is an absolute treat.

The cover feature is about Action Man’s early 1980s space nemesis, Captain Zargon. This was a UK toy that I didn’t find out about until I was an adult, and it’s cool to get more details on this alien menace that’s fun for kids of all ages.

We are also treated to articles on Japanese Evel Knievel toys, Space: 1999 figures from Palitoy,  MEGO’s overseas partner, a comprehensive guide to the artwork used on MEGO superhero packaging, plus a heavily-illustrated guide to Lincoln International’s 1970s Monster figures. Rounding out the issue is an interview with John “Toyzilla” Marshall, a longtime writer who covered toys and pop culture and who was no small influence on yours truly.

Brian Heiler has done another amazing job on this issue, and you can order Toy Ventures #3, and find bundles of it with previous issues HERE, or you can snag it from eBay, if you are so inclined. While supplies last, a free iron-on transfer of Captain Zargon will be included at no extra charge! Hurry, becuase supplies are running low.

It is so great to have a new magazine devoted to vintage toys. I can’t wait until the next issue.

Your PopCulteer is neck-deep in paying work at the moment, so we’re presenting a special episode of RFC this week that isn’t too labor-intensive. 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.

This week I have repackaged three of the latter-day, one-hour episodes of Radio Free Charleston Volume Four into one three-hour powerhouse episode of RFC V5. These shows, which aired in August and October, 2019, all feature live recordings of bands that were made for the RFC video show between 2009 and 2012. They’ve been off the servers for well over a year, but if you want to be picky about it, there are video versions of these shows floating around YouTube, thanks to a brief experiment with posting the radio programs there.

With all of our other music specialty shows in reruns today, I wanted to give you something new-ish. Tune in at 10 AM and 10 PM for this collection of live, local music.

Hour one brings you audio taken from raw video of two bands, Ovada and Mother Nang. recorded live at The Empty Glass in Charleston, WV.

Ovada was recorded in May, 2009, while Mother Nang was recorded one year later, in May, 2010. This is raw audio taken from one camera angle that we shot for the RFC video show. These files were thought lost in a hard drive crash years ago, but we recentl;y discovered a treasure trove of them tucked away on a backup disc. Much of this music has not been heard since it was recorded.

The audio quality is a little rough, and I left in the between-song banter, to give you an idea of what it was like to actually be there.

Mother Nang, of course, is Spencer Elliott, Brian Young, Jay Lukens and Deron Sodaro, and while they don’t perform together regularly these days, they remain friends and a reunion is always possible.  Ovada, on the other hand was led by the late Joseph Hale. When we recorded them, Joseph as billing himself as “Joseph Hellmouth,” and he was backed up by our old friend John Radcliff, plus Joe Rita and Cliff Boyd. It’s cool to help keep Joseph’s music alive.

Hour two is the first half of a pair of episodes devoted to a 2012 concert, put on by Wood Boys Music. This hour goes back into our video vaults for the first of two hours that bring you highlights of the Tribute To The Troops II show, held at Saint Albans City Park back in the summer of 2012. Some of these songs were heard on a three-part series on the RFC video show, while others are being heard here for the first time. This week we bring you performances by HARRAH, Deck of Fools, The Under Social, Remains Unnamed, Candace Weaver, Breedlove,
Point of Jerus and Johnny Compton.

Hour three dives back into our video vaults for the second of two hours that bring you highlights of the Tribute To The Troops II benefit show.  Some of these songs were also heard on a three-part series on the RFC video show, while others are being heard here for the first time. This hour we bring you performances by Everpulse and Point of Jerus. For some reason we had audio recordings of two entire sets by these bands, so we gave them the last hour of our live music retrospective.

I did not take the time to go back and re-edit the announcing for the original shows, so there may be topical on nonsensible references. Just ignore most of what I say and enjoy the music…which, to be fair, is probably good advice for every episode of Radio Free Charleston.

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Thursday at 3 PM, Friday at 9 AM and 7 PM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, and the next Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR.

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.

We are changing things up with the Monday schedule on The AIR this week.  Psychedelic Shack, which has been sharing its Tuesday timeslot with NOISE BRIGADE for over a year now, returns to weekly status and moves to Monday as the lead-in to Prognosis. The Monday Marathon moves to a nighttime spot, and we’re switching stuff around all over the place. 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.

With our Haversham Recording Institute shows back in production in London,  we have decided to move Nigel Pye’s Psychedelic Shack to Monday at 2 PM, right before Herman Linte’s Prognosis.  The shows compliment each other well, and Nigel has even guest-hosted Prognosis in the past.

Starting today, We’ll have our usual replay of last Friday’s new Big Electric Cat at 7 AM. That will be followed a replay of MIRRORBALL at 9 AM, Curtain Call at 10 AM and Radio Free Charleston at 11 AM.

Then at 2 PM we debut a new episode of Nigel Pye’s Psychedelic Shack, bringing you the trippiest music on the planet. This showcase of psychedelc music moves to Mondays going forward. In the old Tuesday Timeslot, Steven Allen Adams’ NOISE BRIGADE will now alternate weeks with classic episodes of Dexter Checkers’ Ska Madness. Nigel has a pretty wild show for us this week, just look…

Psychedelic Shack 041

Dukes of Stratosphear “25 O’Clock”
Josefus “Dead Man”
T2 “No More White Horses”
Room “Cemetery Junction”
Fun Of It “Bluesy Death”
Redbone “Chant: 13th Hour”
Troyka “Early6 Morning:

Psychedelic Shack can now be heard every Monday at 2 PM, with a lot of replays throughout the week. We haven’t settled on exactly when, but we will keep you posted.

Stick around, because we have Herman Linte and Prognosis with an ALL NEW episode at 3 PM. This is a killer show, just check out the playlist…

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Steven Wilson “Eminent Sleaze”
Transatlantic “The World We Used To Know”
Guranfoe “Night’s First Light”
Evership “Isle of the Broken Trees”
John Frusciante “Pleasure Explanation”
Marc Almond “The Stars We Are”
Jethro Tull “Black Satin Dancer”
Liquid Tension Experiment “Key to the Imagination”
Simon Collins “I Will Be Waiting”
Tears For Fears “Power”
Panoply “Five Steps To Nowhere”
Touch “Swan Song”
Rick Wakeman “The Prisoner”
Pallas “Ark of Infinity”
Moana “Smoke That Mirrors”
Steve Hillage “Water Trip”

Due to the lockdown in the UK, the Haversham Recording Institute programs has been in rerun mode Since February, and it’s a treat to have them back..

You can hear Prognosis on The AIR Monday at 3 PM, with replays Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM, Thursday at Noon, Saturday at 10 AM and a double-shot of classic episodes Sunday at 2 PM.

And if you enjoyed The Monday Marathon, stick around because at 7 PM it kicks off with 12 full hours of Beatles Blast, to celebrate its new evening and overnight timeslot. The Haversham overnight marathon will now move to Sunday morning and afternoons.

Our art this week is a quick watercolor sketch, trying out some new paper. It’s about ten by ten inches, and I was basically just doodling to see how the paper worked with the paint. The piece itself is just a study in figure, form and composition, with some blotchy attempts at color gradients.  My fingers are working better again, and this is just part of my continual effort to relearn how to use them.

Click the image to see a larger version.

Look for an additional post in PopCult later this morning for news on our programming on The AIR.

Up above you see Radio Free Charleston 126, “Purple Batman shirt.” This episode features music from WhiteChapel District, the duo of Chad Foss and Sean Sydnor, and a trailer for “Zombie Babies,” Eamon Hardiman’s latest motion picture. I hosted this episode in front of Jeff Pierson’s East End mural.  This was our first show uploaded in Hi-Def, and it went live ten years ago today.

One of the pitfalls of getting older is the way that time seems to fly by faster. It seems like yesterday that I made the decision to take our little no-budget local music video show into HD, and now the cameras I bought for that purpose are considered antiques. You can read the original production notes HERE.

This week we go back to March, 2015, for an episode of The RFC MINI SHOW starring William Matheny, back before I got the memo that he prefers “William” to “Billy” (Sorry about that, William). After trying for years, we finally caught up with William at The Empty Glass, and you can read about how long that took in the original production notes.

The PopCulteer
April 9, 2021

Friday afternoon we offer up new episodes of MIRRORBALL and Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. The AIR is PopCult’s sister radio station. You can hear these shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player at the top right column of this blog.

At 2 PM, Mel Larch uncorks a new MIRRORBALL! The AIR’s showcase of classic Disco music presents a collection of the Disco hits of the Brothers Gibb, as Mel salutes the most unexpected hit machine of the Disco era, The Bee Gees. Just check the playlist for this bodacious bit of boogeymania…

MIRRORBALL 021

The Bee Gees
“Stayin’ Alive”
“If I Can’t Have You”
“Night Fever”
“Jive Talkin'”
“Tragedy”
“How Deep Is Your Love”
“Warm Ride”
“More Than A Woman”
“Wind of Change”
“Love You Inside Out”
“You Win Again”
“Grease” (with Frankie Valli)
“Emotion” (with Samantha Sang)
Nights On Broadway”
“You Should Be Dancing”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays Saturday at  Midnight and 9 PM, Sunday at 11 PM, Tuesday at 1 PM and Wednesday at 7 PM, exclusively on The AIR.

At 3 PM, Sydney Fileen graces us with the first new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat since the latest UK lockdown began a few months ago.  This time around, Sydney is so happy that she wants to dance, and that means we get the third Big Electric Cat mixtape of New Wave 12″ extended remixes. Peruse this here playlist for a preview…

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Men Without Hats “Safety Dance”
Scritti Politti “Wood Beez”
New Order “Blue Monday”
Nena “99 Red Balloons”
Heaven 17 “Temptation”
Dead Or Alive “You Spin Me Round”
Bananarama “Love In The First Degree”
Soft Cell “Torch”
Frankie Goes To Hollywood “Two Tribes”
Dollar “Hand Held In Black And White”
Duran Duran “The Reflex”
Howard Jones “New Song”
Propaganda “Duel”
Ultravox “Loves Great Adventure”
Yello “The Race”
Tears For Fears “Shout”
The Communards with Sarah Jane Morris “Don’t Leave Me This Way”
The Specials “Ghost Town”

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.

Details are not settled yet, but next week I plan to tweak the replay schedule on The AIR, so stay tuned for details on that.

That’s what’s on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back because we have a fresh post every day.