Author: rudy panucci (Page 12 of 34)

More than sixteen years after office politics killed Radio Free Charleston, my greatest creation has returned! You can go to this page, click on the little TV, and see the new video webcast of RFC.

Yes, it’s a video show, but we’re calling it “Radio Free Charleston.” I wanted to keep the name, even though technology has caught up to my original vision. RFC will bring you the best music, experimental film and video, and comedy from the Charleston area’s most daring performers and artists. It’ll all be wrapped up in a tight little ten-or-fifteen minute package. I’ll be hosting RFC from various locations around town.

The pilot episode features the alterna-bombastic rock of Whistlepunk and the comedy stylings of the No Pants Players. Coincidentally, I got to enjoy live performances by both last weekend. You can read up on Whistlepunk here, here, and here. I’ve written about the No Pants Players here and here. It was a kick having these two groups of talented folks on the first webcast of RFC. The No Pants Players will be bringing their improv comedy to future episodes on a regular basis, and Whistlepunk will return on future shows as well.

We’re already hard at work on more episodes of RFC, and have an exciting slate of musicians, comedy bits and short filmic fits of weirdness lined up. We’re also working on an amazing scoop for our second episode, which will be ready by the end of the month. So go check out the show, and let us know what you think. And check back here in PopCult for more tales and music from the archives of the original Radio Free Charleston. Later this week, we’ll bring you some vintage Go Van Gogh from 1989.

So go check it out, and feel free to use the comments to let me know what you think.

Animated Discussions
by Rudy Panucci and Melanie Larch

It’s a special, but short edition of Animated Discussions this week, as we note two animation revivals that are on the television horizon. Following the phoenix-like resurrection of Family Guy, two other recent brilliantly-executed animated TV shows are coming back, though one is still iffy. Family Guy, Futurama, and The Oblongs were all dropped by network television after poor ratings performances due to idiotic programming decisions. Since their respective demises they have found far greater success on Adult Swim and with DVD collections of their episodes.

Futurama, which was a major hit on FOX until they started shuffling it around the schedule for no reason, will return on Comedy Central in 2008. This series, which tells the story of a pizza delivery guy who was cryogenically frozen on New Year’s Eve 1999 and then thawed out one thousand years later, ran from 1999 to 2003 on FOX, but then found new life on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming block. Comedy Central managed to finagle the rights to the Futurama reruns (they move to their new home next year) and has gone one step further, and ordered 13 new episodes, which will air beginning in 2008. The original voice cast had already signed on for a series of direct-to-DVD movies, so it was no problem rounding them up for the new shows. What’s not clear is if the DVD movies will even happen now, or if they’ll just shift gears and start producing the new episodes of the TV show.

The Oblongs may also make a return. This is less certain, but there’s been a lot of buzz about the new Frankenstein Network, The CW (made up of body parts from the deceased WB and UPN netlets) considering bringing back The Oblongs based on the recent strong ratings that the series has earned on Adult Swim. This is still in the early talking stages, and there’s some question if they can still afford the cast, which includes Will Ferrell and Jean Smart. The Oblongs was a ultra-cool show, sporting a theme song by They Might Be Giants, and telling a tale of mutant lower-class valley folk that would make the Munsters flinch. It’d be great to see more episodes.

For this holiday edition of Cool Toy Of The Week we’re going to revisit a couple of previous cool toys that we’ve written about, since they’ve been updated as official and unofficial tie-ins to the highly-anticipated movie”Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”

First up, we have Mega Bloks, the folks who make PYRATES playsets. Their Pyrates toys must have caught the eye of somebody at Disney, because without much pre-release fanfare, Mega Bloks has released a slew of nifty playsets branded as “Pirates Of The Caribbean” toys. I wrote about Pyrates here, and the elements that made those toys cool are all present in the new movie tie-in toys. What’s even cooler is that they’ve managed to capture a decent likeness of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow on a tiny little two-inch action figure. If you like the movie, you may just love the toys. As with Pyrates, there are a variety of price points in the toy line, ranging from seven bucks to more than fifty dollars for the more involved ship playsets. This line is in most toy stores right now.

WizKids has also updated their “Pirates of the Spanish Main” constructible card game with a new expansion series that adds elements of the supernatural to the swashbuckling game play. You can read what I wrote about this cool game here. More details on “Pirates of Davy Jones’ Curse”can be found here. For this update to the game, in addition to the cool ships and forts you can build, WizKids has added SEA MONSTERS! Sea life doesn’t get much cooler than this. “Pirates of Davy Jones’ Curse” can be found at major retailers and hobby shops everywhere.

We kick off the holiday week with a digitally assaulted take on one of Charleston’s more striking landmarks. This is a poppity-art version of the Laidley Tower, rendered as a splash of color uncharacteristic for the monolithic steel-and-glass structure.

Click to enlarge


Special note: The “Cool Toy Of The Week” and “Animated Discussions” will make special appearances tomorrow, to celebrate the 4th of July!

The scene was loads of fun just a few hours ago at the Vandalia Lounge, as Whistlepunk tore through a rip-roaring set of killer original tunes and well-chosen alternative covers. It’s late, so I’m going to let the photos do most of the talking.

Whistlepunk is:

Spencer Elliott

Guitar/Vocals

Dan Jordan

Bass/Vocals

and Brian Young

Drums

You can hear a sample of Whistlepunk as last week’s Song Of The Week, and any day now, you’ll be able to see them on the pilot episode of Radio Free Charleston.

As an added treat, Sean Richardson, of The Sleeping Dons, joined the band for a classic song from his days as lead singer for Strawfyssh, one of the favorite bands of the original RFC era. You can catch The Sleeping Dons at the Vandalia Lounge for Happy Hour at the Vandalia Lounge every Wednesday in July. And you can hear a sample of their music here.

It was a great night for alternative music in Charleston. A late night, too. Time to go to bed.

I wrote about Whistlepunk a few weeks ago, when I caught their show at the Vandalia Lounge. This Saturday night, they return to the Hale Street hot spot with what promises to be another evening of bombastic acoustic alternative rock.

On top of that, Whistlepunk is also the first musical guest on the soon-to-premiere internet video show version of Radio Free Charleston! (The news about that was buried at the bottom of this post, in case you missed it.) To thank the guys for being on our first show, and to give you readers a sample of their sound, Whistlepunk provides our Song Of The Week, “Falling Down.”

If you go: The show starts Saturday evening at 10:30 at the Vandalia Lounge. There will be a minimal, but yet-to-be determined cover charge.

Saturday Morning, Mel and I took in the sights and sounds of FestivALL. We particularly enjoyed seeing the No Pants Players, Drew The Dramatic Fool, and the way cool catfish installation on Fife Street. The whole Art Fair atmosphere on Capitol Street was terrific.

The Bloggerazzi were out in full force. You can check out the Gazz photos at the Downtown WV blog and the WV Photo Blog, but there are also cool pics available from Scott Mitchell at his Entropy blog, On Location With Rick Lee, Jackie Lantern’s Saved By The Torso, and Dale Morton, the man who made the naked catfish which were decorated by local artists, has more shots of the fish at his cool blog.

Local blogger Oncee and Gazz Editor Doug Imbrogno both have screen grabs from the Taylor Books Gazzcam that show Mel’s bright orange hat in the lower left corner. I was standing to her left, just out of camera range. Oncee has been keeping a pretty comprehensive round-up of FestivALL coverage going over at his blog, and has also uploaded his own photos, which you can read about here.

In the afternoon, Mel had a surprise visit from a 60-pound Sulcata Tortoise that lumbered through her yard. It moved pretty fast for a Tortoise. Turns out that it belonged to a neighbor, and had escaped. I didn’t think it looked native. This thing was huge! We were afraid that it might get hit by a car, but then we figured that it might do more damage to any car that hit it than the car would to to it I entertained fleeting thoughts of taking it home and using it as a dinosaur for my GI Joes, but sanity prevailed. As of yesterday, the hefty beshelled reptile was back home with its family.

Later that night, it was off to a short film festival in the front yard of Steve and Amee Beckner’s house in Elkview. Steve was the main songwriter for Go Van Gogh, one of the most popular bands that I used to play on Radio Free Charleston many years ago, and he’s still writing tunes. Along with the cool live-action and animated shorts, we had a sneak preview of the new video version of Radio Free Charleston, which will debut online any day now here at The Gazz.com. Steve has posted a photo of the get-together on his blog, which you can see here. I’m way back at the top of the photo, sitting in front of WVSU Media Professor Steve Gilliland. Steve Beckner will be performing on a future episode of RFC, and next week, the song of the week will be a Go Van Gogh classic from the RFC archives.

Sunday, we had to forego the monsoon-drenched coolness at FestivALL to attend a couple of private events, a birthday party and a memorial service (talk about Yin and Yang), but it was still a fun day. Hopefully, for FestivALL next year the weather will be a bit more cooperative. My only complaint about FestivALL was that there was so much stuff going on that it was hard to take it all in. As far as complaints go, that’s not a bad one to have.

Today’s art is a digitally-assaulted photograph of The Summit, on Summers Street. Inspired by a visit to the Marx Toys Museum website, I tried to make it look like a late-1950s tin-litho and plastic Marx playset.

Click to Enlarge

Let me add my voice to the chorus of folks pimping FestivALL. To be honest, I skipped last year’s FestivALL–other commitments and all–but this year I’m really getting into the diversity of entertainment and arts offerings around town. I’m planning on spending a big chunk of Saturday taking in the sights and sounds of the best of Charleston’s arts community.

However, with so much cool stuff going on at the same time, some of the more interesting events seem to have gotten lost in the sauce, so to speak. So rather than blog about all the cool stuff that everyone else is covering, I thought I’d single out a couple of cool happenings that could use the spotlight.

I can’t understand why this hasn’t gotten more attention, but Saturday evening at 9PM at the Walker Theater in the Clay Center, Marshall University Theater is putting on a production of “Tomfoolery,” a musical revue based on the work of satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer. Anyone who ever listened to Dr. Demento knows the work of Lehrer (“Poisoning Pigeons In The Park” is a favorite). Melanie has been itching to do this show for years, so I’m familiar with it. I think tickets are ten bucks, and it’ll be well worth it. Lehrer’s songs are both intelligent and funny, and this could be a good way to cap off a fun day. Competition is fierce Saturday night, so maybe Marshall University Theater could reprise their performance in the future.

I’ve written about the No Pants Players several times here in PopCult. West Virginia’s only improv comedy troupe will be performing “street theater” at the Capitol Street Art Fair stage three times over the weekend: Saturday at 10 AM and 5 PM and Sunday at 2 PM. If you enjoy “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” you will love the No Pants Players.

Last night I got to take in the “preview” performance by Drew The Dramatic Fool, who will also be performing at the Capitol Street Fair Art Stage this weekend. He’ll be there Saturday at 11 AM and 2 PM and Sunday at 11 AM. He’ll also be hosting a clowning workshop Saturday at 4 PM at the WVSU Capitol Center Theater on Summers street. Drew put on a fantastic show of semi-pantomime comedy, and anyone who enjoys laughing out loud will want to catch one of his family-friendly performances this weekend. You can read more about the dramatic fool at the Gazz here. If you like Bill Irwin, you have to see Drew the Dramatic Fool. He’s a world-class visual comedian.

At the Gazz preview party last night, something else happened. Our esteemed Gazz editor, Doug Imbrogno, who co-hosted the evening with Mountain Stage’s Larry Groce, made an official announcement: Under the auspices of The Gazz.com, I will be reviving Radio Free Charleston as an internet video show! You may have noticed some of the “subtle as a cinderblock to the face” hints that I’ve been dropping lately. “Hmmm….”

I delivered the pilot yesterday, and hope to take RFC weekly by the end of July. We’re going to feature local music, weird short films, comedy from The No Pants Players, and more, all in a tight little ten-or-fifteen minute package. As an added deterrent…er…bonus, you get to see my ugly mug hosting the show. I’ll have more info on Monday, including details on how you can watch Radio Free Charleston, and maybe even a production diary with behind the scenes poop on how we filmed the pilot.

“Uh, we went over there and filmed some, and then they made us leave, so we had to go over there.” You know, real meaty insider stuff. Check back here at PopCult Monday, but first go enjoy FestivALL.

“Heroes Unite,” the 2006 Hasbro International GI Joe Collectors’ Convention happens next week in New Orleans. In honor of this cool gathering, our cool toy of the week is the special convention premium set that was created for the die-hard fans of GI Joe and the Adventure Team. This set features the 12″ tall GI Joe, with his recognizable face sporting fuzzy hair and a beard. “Fight For Survival: Polar Bear Attack” comes with an Adventure Team “Land Adventurer” with a new super-articulated body design. Included in the set is everything you need to have a harrowing arctic adventure: a dog sled; a team of three dogs; snowshoes; supply crates; a flag; mountaineering equipment; and a huge, articulated polar bear. The Land Adventurer comes fully-outfitted with arctic gear, including a parka with interchangeable flag patches. The set also includes a mini-comic that tells the story behind the adventure.

This is the kind of item that can inspire a mighty case of toy lust. It’s being produced in limited quantities, and will primarily be sold at the GI Joe convention from June 29 to July 2. I was lucky enough to lock in a non-attending package, so I’ll get mine in the mail after the convention. I believe the deadline for ordering the non-attending convention package has passed. If there are any sets left after the show, you’ll be able to order them here. The price is not for the faint of heart. GI Joe club members will pay $230, non-members $280, but if you’re a passionate collector, it’s not a bad deal. The level of detail is incredible, and the set was tailored to the adult collector. This is one of those annual indulgences that keep the hobby fun. I know that my office display table is going to be redone in an arctic theme.

Collectors of a later era, the folks who grew up with the smaller, 1980s, GI Joe, can get their hands on a set of fifteen figures in a great presentation box. You can read more about it here. Fans of the “Real American Hero” era get an additional treat if they show up–Sgt. Slaughter, legendary professional wrestler and one-time host of the GI Joe cartoon, will be at the show signing autographs and meeting the fans. If anyone happens to be headed to New Orleans next week, stop in at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, and maybe you’ll get hooked on a great hobby. And tell ’em I said “Hi.”