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What was planned to be three episodes continued to expand. This is the third episode of Radio Free Charleston devoted to FestivAll 2010, but it wasn’t the last. I had way more material than I realized, and the finished shows ran well into July, 2010 because editing took so long.

This installment of Radio Free Charleston –coming from from Charleston, West Virginia’s 2010 FestivAll– showcased music by The VooDoo Katz, Miss Behavin’, Mark Scarpelli, The Sweet Adelines and more, plus art from ArtWalk and The Capitol Street Art Fair.

This was also one of the shows with a weird aspect ratio because we were in the process of mutating from Standard Definition video to HD widescreen.

The PopCulteer
October 11, 2024

Okay, so I said I was going to have more photos from JoeLanta this week, but real world intrusions, combined with ongoing technical issues with the graphics here at PopCult mean that I have to bump those to next week..  However, we do have some radio shows to tell you about Friday on The AIR. This afternoon we serve up a new episode of MIRRORBALL and a classic episode of 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 found elsewhere on this page.

MIRRORBALL

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch salutes Prelude Records, one of the Top Disco labels on MIRRORBALL. On this week’s show Mel celebrates the life of Marvin Schlachter, who passed away last month. Schlachter was the man behind Prelude Records, and was a major force in music before that, when he discovered The Shirelles and Dionne Warwick as the president of Scepter Records in the 1960s.

With the aid of his house producer Patrick Adams and talent scout, François Kevorkian, Prelude developed a roster of top Disco acts like Musique, Vicki Sue Robinson, Inner Life, France Joli and more.

This week Mel flies her freak flag at half-mast, and bids farewell to one of the men behind the music machine that was Prelude Records.

Check out this very danceable playlist…

MIRRORBALL 107

Vicki Sue Robinson “Turn The Beat Around”
Inner Life “Good Life”
France Joli “Come To Me”
Peter Jacques Band “One Two Three”
Nick Straker Band “A Walk In The Park”
D-Train “You’re The One For Me”
LAX “Dancin’ At The Disco”
Macho “Mucho Macho”
Unlimited Touch “I Hear Music In The Streets”
Jocelyn Brown “Somebody Else’s Guy”
Musique “In The Bush”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays Sunday night at 11 PM and throughout the following week Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM plus there’s a mini-marathon that includes the latest episode Saturday nights at 9 PM

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat Gets Into The Jam

Also on The AIR  at 3 PM (EDT), Sydney Fileen graces us with an encore of a special mixtape-style new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. This time we go back to when Sydney devoted her entire program to The music of The Jam.

Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton and Rick Butler formed The Jam  in 1972 at Sheerwater Secondary School in Woking, Surrey. They released an amazing 18 consecutive top 40 singles in the United Kingdom, from their debut in 1977 to their break-up in December 1982, including four number one hits.

The band mixed Punk and New Wave with 1960s Beat Music, Soul and R&B, playing up their Mod Revivalist image and paying tribute to The Who, who were a major inspiration. The band also cited The Beatles and The Kinks as major influences, and up to their dissolution in 1982, evolved their sound with every release, adding instruments and more complex arrangements and creating more challenging pop music than many of their contemporaries.

We did not have a playlist for this week’s show. Sydney was barely able to finish it and transmit it to us before we had to upload it to our servers. But Sydney assured me that this week’s show is packed with the band’s major hits, choice album cuts and even a few rarities. When we first ran it last year, Jam fans were very happy with it.

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 it for this week’s PopCulteer, check back for all our regular feature, with fresh content every day and the missing photos from JoeLanta coming soon.

We have three big events going on locally this weekend, and lots of little events, so basically there’s lots of STUFF TO DO in Charleston and the rest of the Mountain State over the next few days so you can just read below and find out all about it.

With the temperatures finally falling a bit below the tropical level, outdoor festivals are winding down, but there will still be outdoor events, so I will continue to implore you to not be a dick and vape or smoke around other humans who may not share your addictions. Lots of folks get really sick when exposed to that garbage.

As I have been copying and pasting for some time now, this a good time to remind you that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything comprehensive, and if you feel strongly about me leaving anything out, feel free to mention it in the comments. And if you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future, contact me via Social Media at Facebook or Twitter.

FestivFall begins Friday, and runs through October 20.  You’ll see graphics for some events below, but you can find the full schedule HERE.

TsubasaCon is happening this weekend at The Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center. This huge celebration of Anime, Gaming and other cool stuff moved to Charleston from Huntington a few years ago, and is always a treat for the later generation of nerdy folks like me. We have a few related events listed below, but you can find the full details for the show HERE.

Funktafest happens Saturday at Ritter Park in Huntington, and you can see the poster for it right here…

There are several benefits in the works to help people who were in the path of the recent hurricanes in the South. Be aware that these benefit shows are out there, and that the organizers are too busy to get the information out to me in time for this post. Seek and give.

Live Music is on tap at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM.  This week’s shows are not yet announced. Think of it as “blind box” musical entertainment.

As  always, The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week  to tell you about. Thursday at 5:30 PM, Swingstein & Robin return with Hot Cub stylings for a good cause.  Later on Thursday, at Shayar & Krooshal Force inhabit the Glass.  Friday Tim Courts holds down the forts for Happy Hour. Sunday at 9 PM Widely Grown come down from New Jersey to mop the floors of the Glass with Americana.  Check the graphics dump below for more weekend events at The Empty Glass.

Please remember that the pandemic is still not entirely over yet. It’s a going concern with the ‘rona still lurking about all robust and reinvigorated and now with Tiny Time Capsules™. Plus there are nasty seasonal allergies, Jumping Goofball Billionaires, stray fly balls, folks looking for the Spirit Arbor Day store and other damned good reasons to be careful. Many people who have very good reasons are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding  while you’re out.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Here we go, roughly in order…

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This week Mel Larch celebrates 150 episodes of Curtain Call with a show devoted to the ten musicals that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama.

At 3 PM, Wednesday afternoon’s Curtain Call on The AIR follows an encore of a classic edition of Beatles Blast (which airs at 2PM).

Over the last 92 years only ten musicals have earned the coveted Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and to mark her 150th show, Mel tells you about each show, and brings you a sample of the music that made them so special.

We’re talking about recognition for people like George & Ira Gershwin, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Frank Loesser, Stephen Sondheim, Lin Manuel-Miranda and more.

In order, Mel breaks down the ten winners; Of Thee I Sing; South Pacific; Fiorello!; How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying; A Chorus Line; Sunday In The Park With George; RENT; Next To Normal; Hamilton and A Strange Loop. You’ll hear one or two tracks from each show, just to give you a taste of these award-winning gems.

Mel wants to thank all of her listeners who have made Curtain Call a success since its debut back in 2016.  She’s already working on episode 151, so be sure to check PopCult each week to see it pop up.

Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM, Friday at 10 AM, Saturday at 8 PM, Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 2 PM. A marathon of classic episodes can be heard Sunday morning beginning at 9 AM, and an all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight.

Tonight at 10 PM we bring you the comedic music of The Bonzo Dog Band on a classic episode  of The Comedy Vault. You can hear this replayed Saturday at 6 PM and next Monday at 8 PM.

Your humble blogger is back from vacation and that means we are back to what passes for normal. Tuesday is once again “New Show Day” on The AIR.  As such, we have new episodes of  Radio Free Charleston and The Swing Shift for you. To listen to The AIR, you simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay here, and  listen to the cool embedded player found elsewhere on this page.  

You can hear Radio Free Charleston Tuesdays at 10 AM and 10 PM, with boatloads of replays throughout the week.

This week RFC kicks off with two hours of our usual mix of local, independent and free-format music, and then our third hour presents a mixtape of Surf Rock.

We open with a new tune from Sgt. Van, who I just got to see about ten days ago at JoeLanta, and we continue with new music from Brian Diller, Matt Mullins & The Bringdowns, Emmaline, The Cure, Mega Ran, Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates and more.

We also have a track from Maxx McGathey, in advance of his upcoming album release show at The Constellation Chicago on October 11. His new album, Imaginary Eyes, is out now from Nudie Records. 

Our third hour is something I’ve been planning to do for some time, but just did get around to doing. It’s a mixtape of Surf Rock. We feature new Surf bands, classic bands and a few ringers who are surfing in disguise.

The links in the playlist will take you to the pages for the artists in this week’s show where possible…

RFC V5 197

hour one
Sgt. Van and The Highway Dogs “Flies On Mars”
Brian Diller “Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find”
Matt Mullins and The Bringdowns “Rust”
Emmaline ‘Indiana Skies”
Corduroy Brown “Watercolors”
The Cure “Alone”
Maxx McGathey “The Veil Is Thinnest”
Mega Ran “They Don’t Make Em Like They Used To”
Rat Ship “Heads & Houses”
Kanga  “Rehab”
David Synn “Purple Eclipse”
Brian Tyler “More Than Meets The Eye”
Pallas “The Executioner (rough mix)”

hour two
Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates “Manic (live)”
Alison Moyet “Such Small Ale”
Billy Strings “Stratosphere Blues/I Believe In You”
John Radcliff “We All Want To Shout”
John Lennon “Out The Blue (outtake)”
Ginger Wixx “Arcade”
Andy Prieboy“Anyone But You”
Mediogres “Diet of Worms”
Government Cheese “Just The Beginning of the Day”
Jordan Andrew Jefferson “Love You”
Bottle and Bride “Brighter”
Nixon Black “The Devil (live)”
The Settlement “Midnight Train”

hour three
Surf Rock Mixtape
The Surfrajettes “Easy As Pie”
Guitarmy of One “Sea Legs Diamond”
Test Subject 17 “Operation x5000”
The Wipeouters “Ravin’ Surf”
The Tentakills “Dog-Days”
The Shadows “Apache”
Gary Hoey “Shake & Stomp Pt II”
The Marketts “Out of Limits”
The Madeira “Witch Doctor”
The Routes  “Tour De France”
The Ventures “Walk, Don’t Run”
The Fellows “Riding Cossack”
The Humans “Pipeline”
The Esquires “Black Night”
The Challengers “K-39”
The Lively Ones “Surf Rider”
Dick Dale “Miserlou”
Duane Eddy & Ravi Shankar “The Trembler”
The Chantays “Crystal T”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Wednesday at 9 AM,  Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, Sunday at 8 PM and  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different classic episode of RFC every weekday at 5 PM, and we bring you a marathon all night long Saturday night/Sunday morning.

I’m also going to  embed a low-fi, mono version of this show right in this post, right here so you can listen on demand.

After RFC, stick around for encores of last week’s episodes of  MIRRORBALL at 1 PM and Curtain Call at 2 PM.

At 3 PM we offer up a new episode of The Swing Shift that pays tribute to Count Basie in what would have been his 120th birthday year. Tune in and listen to the genius of the keyboard at the top of his game.

Check out the playlist…

The Swing Shift 163

Count Basie 120th birthday salute
“One O’Clock Jump”
“Boogie Woogie”
“Swingin’ At The Daisy Chain”
“Topsy”
“Honeysuckle Rose”
“Roseland Shuffle”
“Boo Hoo”
“You Know It All, Smarty”
“The Glory of Love”
“Listen My Children and you Shall Hear”
“Basie Land”
“Singin’ In The Rain”
“Stompin’ And Jivin'”
“Volare”
“Oh Lonesome Me”
“Sassy”
“Blues For The Count and Oscar”
“Blee Blop Blues”
“I Got It Bad and that Ain’t Good”
“I Wanna Be Around (With Sinatra)”
“Fly Me To The Moon (With Sinatra)”

 You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 AM, Thursday at 9 AM,  Friday at 10 AM and 8 PM and Saturday afternoon, only on The AIR . You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursdays and Sundays.

Based on a few photos I took at Medieval Times in Atlanta (see yesterday’s video post), today you get a timed pastel crayon-on-illustration board piece.

The board was just under six inches by six inches, and I gave myself twenty minutes to do it, and to be honest, it came out way better than I expected it would. Laying down the black areas with a thick magic marker first probably helped.

I used some thick, gloopy older pastel crayons to get an Impasto look, and laid it on a sheet of acetate before I scanned it, so I don’t have to do an intense wash of the scanner bed (again). There was a little color-correction afterward to offset the yellow tint I tend to get from the acetate.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you encores of a classic episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM a recent edition of Herman Linte’s weekly showcase of the Progressive Rock of the past half-century, Prognosis.  You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player elsewhere on this page.

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. 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.

At 8 PM you can hear an hour of songs from the still alive Tom Lehrer on a classic episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we devote ten hours to the second five episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. We will be alternating between Prognosis and Sydney’s Big Electric Cat for the next several weeks, because we’re going to be pulling the early episodes of those shows from the server soon to make room for newer programs. After they’ve been offline for a year or so, we’ll bring them back into rotation but for now, you can hear them Monday evening into Tuesday morning, and then those episode will go on hiatus.

During my recent vacation to points South, I mentioned that I would be attending JoeLanta as a civilian. I took a few photos, more of which you will see over the next week, but I didn’t shoot any video, as I have at previous JoeLanta and ToyLanta conventions for more than a decade.

However, I did have my handy Kodak Zi8 with me. And it came in very handy indeed.

When we got to Atlanta (actually the suburb of Duluth/Lawrenceville), we stopped at the Sugarloaf Mills Mall and wandered around. While turning down one hallway, after the disappointment of discovering that one of the cool stores listed on the directory was no longer open, we stumbled across what looked like a castle, taking up quite a bit of space.

It was Medieval Times, a theme restaurant that has been mentioned or parodied many times in pop culture over the years. We didn’t even know there was one in Atlanta, let alone in the shopping mall we were visiting. They offer “dinner and a tournament,” which sounded a bit intriguing. When we got back to the hotel, we looked it up online and decided to go see what all the fuss was about.

It was a “What the hell, why not?” sort of decision.

So Saturday evening, after making our photo rounds of JoeLanta and doing some more shopping (It’s a big mall), we went to Medieval Times, and had loads of fun. And I took my little video camera with me and shot a few minutes worth of the action, which is what you see above, set to some music from Rick Wakeman’s The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of The Round Table (which I managed to misspell in the on-screen graphics at the end).

Because the whole idea of going to JoeLanta as a civilian was so that I wouldn’t be burdened with tons of video edit when I got home, I have to admit that this video was slapped together in twenty minutes while I was snacking on Goldfish crackers. It’s just my impressions of a fun time.

As for the whole Medieval Times experience, the show was terrific. There were no signs of animal cruelty (the show includes live horses and a falcon). The food was not horrible. Choices were very limited (available drinks were Pepsi, Sweet Tea or Water…with water being the only diet option). You are not given utensils unless you ask for them, and if you do ask for them, they are hilariously flexible, like prank items. The service was top-flight (and in-character), and they did offer a vegetarian option, in case you weren’t in the mood to eat half a chicken.

But the overall experience was a tremendous amount of fun. It was kid-friendly. There was lots of merchandise you could buy,including replica swords and also sparkly light-up weapons. The storyline was fun, pro-wrestling-level entertainment. And we’re still trying to figure out where they keep all the horses when the show isn’t going on.

I don’t know if we’ll make a repeat visit, but it was a lot of fun to go to at least once.

I can’t believe they had this giant facade, and behind it a huge arena,in side a mall. This is maybe one-fifth of the front.

Before the show, you could get photos hanging out with the King and the Queen.

The place was HUGE inside. This photo was taken as people were beginning to filter in.

There wasn’t a bad seat in the house.

It was a nice spectacle, with dinner, and a load of fun.

PS: We did get cardboard crowns to wear. There are photos. No, you can’t see them.

From June, 2010, this special FestivAll edition of Radio Free Charleston featured music From Brian and Nathan Diller, Evan Mack, Captain Crash and The Beauty Queen, Comparsa, and Alasha Al-Qudwah blended with art and animation from Joe Bolyard, Diane Martens, Leisha Angel, Kerry Bingham, and Frank and Rudy Panucci.

Over the next several weeks, expect more RFC at FestivAll right here in PopCult, as we look back at an incredible run of shows.

The PopCulteer
October 4, 2024

Okay, so I said I was going to JoeLanta this year as a civilian, and I did. I did not have a camera on me at the Friday early preview night and I did not shoot any video at the show.

But we did go back Saturday morning and I grabbed a few photos. Not a ton, but enough that I’m going to be spreading them out over the next week in a series of small photo essays.

The main reason for the smaller photo essays is that I’m still dealing with some technical issues with the graphics here at PopCult, and smaller photo essays are easier for me to wrangle into the blog.

The show itself was loads of fun. We saw some old friends and caught up and I did get several new additions to my already-oversized collection. The weather put quite a damper on attendance, understandably so. Several vendors and a few guests had to cancel at the last minute due to the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. But the show was still fun for those of us who were able to make it.

The entire trip down South for Mrs. PopCulteer and yours truly was fun, but a little scary. The path we took managed to keep us just out of the path of the Hurricane, but we had lots of gloomy, drizzly weather to drive through. We stopped overnight in Caryville, Tennessee, before heading to The Alabama Dish Outlet, and then to Senoia, Georgia, before heading to the show, just outside of Atlanta. We managed to have quite the blast and even did something totally unscheduled, which you will hear about later.

I’ll be posting more photos and other stuff from our trip over the next week, in addition to our regular PopCult features. But now, here’s the first batch of JoeLanta photos…

The Gas South Convention Center, JoeLanta’s New Home For 2024

There was a cool view from the panel room, above the vendor floor. They could have done a better job of directing people to it.

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Sometimes you just can’t come up with a clever headline, so you go with a cheesy rehash of a really dumb one from the previous month instead. Yet there’s still  lots of STUFF TO DO in Charleston and the rest of the Mountain State over the next few days, and your humble blogger might even take the opportunity to rewrite parts of the boilerplate for this feature.

With the temperatures falling a bit below the tropical level, outdoor festivals are winding down, but there will still be outdoor events, so I will continue to implore you to not be a dick and vape or smoke around other humans who may not share your addictions. Lots of folks get really sick when exposed to that garbage.

As I have been copying and pasting for some time now, this a good time to remind you that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything comprehensive, and if you feel strongly about me leaving anything out, feel free to mention it in the comments. And if you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future, contact me via Social Media at Facebook or Twitter.

There are several benefits in the works to help people who were in the path of the recent hurricane in the South. Be aware that these benefit shows are out there, and that the organizers are too busy to get the information out to me in time for this post. Seek and give.

Live Music is on tap at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM.  This week’s shows are not yet announced.

Saturday at 7 PM, Live At The Shop, on Ohio Avenue in Dunbar, presents a night of soulful music as Rick Perdue and Garden Park take the stage. This event promises to be a heartfelt celebration of music, blending unique sounds and styles. Tickets are available for $10.

As  always, The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week  to tell you about. Friday Tim Courts holds down the forts for Happy Hour. Check the graphics dump below for more weekend events at The Empty Glass.

Please remember that the pandemic is still not entirely over yet. It’s a going concern with the ‘rona still lurking about all robust and reinvigorated and now with Retsin™. Plus there are drought-fueled nasty seasonal allergies, Pumpkin Spice Zombies, Lizards wearing eyeliner, creepy paper and other damned good reasons to be careful. Many people who have very good reasons are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding  while you’re out.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Here we go, roughly in order…

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