Category: Uncategorized (Page 128 of 757)

It’s a new year and in this weekly feature that began almost a decade ago, we have finally managed to run all the way through our video episodes of Radio Free Charleston and The RFC MINI SHOW.

So, what better time than now to start it all over?

This time I’m going to try to run through them all in chronological order, save for the four remaining “lost” episodes, which someday may turn up on an unlabelled backup disc in my office. We are bringing you the first five episodes this week, that’s the pilot you see up above, and then we’ll drop one a week, in order, every Saturday here in PopCult.

RFC began life as a broadcast radio show in 1989 and 1990. Office politics killed the show, and a conservative radio industry kept me from bringing it back for years. Finally in 2006, with massive help from Brian Young and Douglas Imbrogno, the show was revived as a video program for The Gazz (at The Charleston Gazette) and then later on YouTube. Now we’re back on radio with The AIR, but it’s cool that RFC has been back from limbo now for longer than it was gone in the first place. Whether it’s video, The MINI SHOW or as the flagship program of The AIR, Radio Free Charleston has been a constant presence in Charleston since 2006.

In our July 2006 pilot, check out music from Whistlepunk, animation from my brother Frank, and comedy from The No Pants Players, as you watch the show that elicited the reaction, “What in the holy hell was that?” from the senior editorial staff at The Charleston Gazette.

Below you’ll find our second episode, “RVD Shirt” began the Radio Free Charleston tradition of naming the show after the shirt I was wearing.  Our second episode, from July 2006, presented music from Stephen Beckner and The Sleeping Dons. The Sleeping Dons were Sean Richardson, Jay Lukens and Deron Sodaro. We also had animation from Frank Panucci and a special sneak preview of the then-upcoming Batman movie, which eventually got this episode banned from YouTube.  So check out this embed from Vimeo…

RFC 002 "RVD Shirt" from Rudy Panucci on Vimeo.

From August, 2006, we find our third episode, “Mother Nang Shirt,” which was named after a shirt featuring the then-disbanded, since-reunited legendary band. RFC 3 was restored and remastered back in 2012. This early edition of RFC features a solo performance by Eduardo Canelon, of Duo Divertido and Comparsa fame, plus a vintage video from Charleston legends, Three Bodies.

Also in this show, is the first installment of “Pentagram Flowerbox” by Third Mind Incarnation and the short film, “The Alien Threat” by Frank Panucci.

Radio Free Charleston’s fourth episode “The Blue Guy Shirt,” featuring Raymond Wallace and Under The Radar was also originally posted in August, 2006, this was the very first time that RFC Big Shot (and now Mrs. RFC) Melanie Larch ran camera on the host segments. Since then, she’s shot the vast majority of the host segments for our shows. Both musical acts were recorded in the legendary LiveMix Studio, the home base for Radio Free Charleston back in our early video days.  Our animation is “Zachery Bop,” by Frank Panucci. Host segments were shot in Davis Park, downtown.

Our last video today, from September 8, 2006, is “The Beatles Shirt,” featuring Kevin Duffer, The Appalachian Celtic Consort, Pentagram Flowerbox, and cut-ins by IWA East Coast. This was the first show to bring you footage shot at The Empty Glass, albiet vintage footage shot back in 1990.

Next week we’ll go back to our normal one-show-per-week, chronological presentation.  Just so you know I’m planning ahead, this format will take us a bit more than four years, and when we get done, we’ll post all the episodes of The RFC MINI SHOW in order.

By the time we get done with that, I’ll be well past retirement age.

The PopCulteer
January 6, 2023

We have reached the first Friday of December, and this afternoon we offer up a special new episode of MIRRORBALL on The AIR. The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear this show on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

At 2 PM, Mel Larch uncorks a new MIRRORBALL! The AIR’s showcase of classic Disco music presents that most rare breed…a live, in concert, Disco album.

This week Mel brings you the in-concert highlights from Sylvester’s 1979 album, Living Proof.

Sylvester was the pioneering Gay icon Disco singer, with a soaring falsetto and a string of hits. He also discovered his backup singers, who dubbed themselves “Two Tons of Fun,” but later went on to fame as The Weather Girls. Sadly Sylvester passed away due to complications from HIV in 1988.

On MIRRORBALL this week, Mel presents Sylvester recorded live at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House on the day he was given the key to the city by then-mayor, Diane Feinstein. It’s a stunning artifact of live music performed in concert at the height of the Disco era.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 066

Sylvester, Live In Concert:

“Overture”
“Body Strong”
“Blackbird”
“Medley”
“Happiness”
“Lover Man”
“You Are My Friend”
“Dance (Disco Heat)”
“You Make Me Feel”

You can hear MIRRORBALL almost every Friday at 2 PM, with replays Saturday at 9 PM and Sunday at 11 PM exclusively on The AIR. Next week things will be a bit different because of our big December programming stunt!

And that’s all we have for this week’s PopCulteer. We could have written about Kevin McCarthy, Vince McMahon, The Doom Patrol, cauliflower crust pizza or any of a dozen other topics, but our plates are full this week, so you have to be content with our MIRRORBALL playlist.

But please do check back over the weekend for all our regular features.

The PopCult Bookshelf

The Charlton Companion
by Jon B. Cooke
TwoMorrows Publishing
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1605491110
$43.95

Longtime readers of PopCult know that your humble blogger is a big fan of Charlton Comics, the perennial “also-ran” comic book company that had bursts of creativity and innovation at various times in their history.

In this long-awaited book, Jon B. Cooke expands on his previous efforts, and with the help of many collaborators, puts forth the definitive account of that history. He covers the entire bizarre story of Charlton Publications, which was born out of a chance meeting in a county jail, and spent several decades as the nation’s only “all-in-one” magazine publisher, printer and distributor.

The Charlton Companion is an exhaustively-researched slice of manna from heaven for fans of Charlton Comics. In this book we learn how the company grew from publishing HIt Parader magazine to encompass a comic book line, hundreds of magazines and even their time as the original distributor of Hustler, before they finally shut down in 1992.

The focus is mainly on the comics, and this book has the full stories on the different eras, editors and creators that made Charlton, despite their lousy printing and distribution, one of the most interesting comic book companies around. While often derided for publishing substandard comics, the presence of Steve Ditko in their pages put the lie to that idea.

Among the revered comics pros who got their start at Charlton were Dick Giordano, Dennis O’Neal, Jim Aparo, Steve Skeates, Don Newton, Tom Sutton, John Byrne, Joe Staton, Mike Zeck and many others.

Charlton might have been considered a “farm-team,” but you can’t deny that a lot of hall-of-fame talent appeared in their pages. In this book we get lots of interviews and profiles with the different creators who worked for Charlton over the years.

The Charlton Companion also covers the magazine side of Charlton’s business, but the in-depth coverage is reserved for the comics. As the publisher’s blurb reveals:

Charlton produced a vast array of titles that span from the 1940s Golden Age to the Bronze Age of the ’70s in many genres, from Hot Rods to Haunted Love. The imprint experienced explosive bursts of creativity, most memorably the “Action Hero Line” edited by Dick Giordano in the 1960s, which featured the renowned talents of Steve Ditko and a stellar team of creators, as well as the unforgettable ’70s “Bullseye” era that spawned E-Man and Doomsday +1, all helmed by veteran masters and talented newcomers―and serving as a training ground for an entire generation of comics creators thriving in an environment of complete creative freedom.

From its beginnings with a handshake deal consummated in county jail, to the company’s accomplishments beyond comics, woven into this prose narrative are interviews with dozens of talented participants, including Giordano, Dennis O’Neil, Alex Toth, Sanho Kim, Tom Sutton, Pat Boyette, Nick Cuti, John Byrne, Mike Zeck, Joe Staton, Sam Glanzman, Neal Adams, Joe Gill, and even some Derby residents who recall working in the sprawling company plant. Though it gave up the ghost over three decades ago, Charlton’s influence continues today with its Action Heroes serving as inspiration for Alan Moore’s cross-media graphic novel hit, Watchmen.

While largely written by Cooke, The Charlton Companion also incorporates work by Chris Irving, who contributed greatly to the two issues of Cooke’s Comic Book Artist magazine from 2004 that had previously been the definitive word on Charlton; and also the late Michael Ambrose, the publisher of the dedicated fan magazine, Charlton Spotlight, who sadly passed away as this book was going to press. Frank Motler contributes an index of Charlton publications, as well. They even bring the book up to date with mentions of Charlton Spotlight and the Charlton Neo Comics.

The Charlton Companion is an invaluable resource for a previously-neglected area of comic book history. It’s also a fascinating look at publishing in the 20th century, and offers a glimpse of the immigrant business experience of the time. The story of Charlton is not only a huge part of American comic book history, but we also see how the company was connected to the likes of Betty Page, Larry Flynt, The Beatles, Heavy Metal Music, The Vatican and more.

The book is also profusely illustrated and wondefully laid out, which is pretty ironic, since Charlton was notorious for their low production values.  This book simply looks spectacular.

The Charlton Companion is a must-have for anybody with an interest in Charlton Comics, but the book is really recommended for anyone with an interest in pop culture, publishing, music or the changing face of comics in the Bronze Age. You can order The Charlton Companion directly from the publisher, or from any bookseller, by using the ISBN code.

Entering into the first full weekend of the new year, we have tons of stuff happening in and around Charleston to tell you about.  I don’t know if we’ll have any seventy degree temperature swings this weekend, but it is supposed to be unseasonably warm.

Live Music is back at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM. Friday it’s Steve Himes. Saturday Andrew Adkins serenades the crowd.

The Empty Glass has some great stuff through the week to tell you about.  From 9 PM to 11 PM Wednesday, Ginger Wix will be at the World Famous Empty Glass. Thursday from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM, Swingstein and Robin play fiddle and piano and sing swing and early jazz standards. Each week they donate their tips to a local nonprofit.  Friday from 5 PM to 8 PM Timmy “Courts and Friends hold down the fort at the Glass. Next week they’ll have an open mic Monday night, and Songwriter Showcase on Tuesday. Weekend shows are listed among the graphics below.

Saturday at 7:30 M at the WV Culture Center, Mary Hott and the Carpenter Ants will perform “Devil in the Hills.” This soulful Americana song cycle was inspired by recently discovered first-person accounts of life deep in West Virginia’s coalfields. For more information and tickets, go HERE.

Please remember that the pandemic is not over yet. 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.

If you’re up for going out, here are a few suggestions for the rest of this week, roughly in order.

We welcome our 2023 overlords this week on The AIR  as we premiere an all-local and partly-new episode of Radio Free Charleston! 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 elsewhere on this page.

We’ve created another new/old hybrid for you this week that you can hear at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday. The first hour is filled with new, local music. Hours two and three bring you a couple of our one-hour, all-local episodes of RFC Volume Four, from February 2017.

We open with just-released music from the Maestro, Chuck Biel. If you saw the latest video episode of Radio Free Charleston (it debuted Saturday and you can see it HERE) then you saw Chuck with one of his old projects, Doctor Curmudgeon. Chuck dropped me a message via FB to let me know that he had new music out, and we not only open the show with it, but I’m posting the video Chuck made for it right here…

And that nifty! You can see more of Chuck’s recent videos at his YouTube page.

Also in our first hour we have brand-new music from Zeroking, Byzantine, The Carpenter Ants, Blue Twisted Steel and making his RFC debut, Patrick Lawrence.

For our second and third hours I went back and dug up two episodes of Radio Free Charleston from February, 2016. These shows haven’t been heard for over five years, and I didn’t want to let them languish any longer. Note that hour two is all-instrumental. I don’t have current links for every artist after the first hour, but I’ll drop in a few.

Check out the playlist below to see all the goodies we have in store (live links will take you to the artist’s pages where possible)…

hour one
Chuck Biel “Xenoglossy”
The Carpenter Ants “Shakin’ Hands With Charlie Tee”
Patrick Lawrence “Dandelion Wine”
The Paranoid Style “Moveable Feast Blues”
Blue Twisted Steel “Austin”
Heavy Set Paw Paws “Girl With A Mandolin”
The Long Lost Somethins “Voyeur”
Zeroking “Back Off”
Byzantine “God Shame”
David Synn “The Island of Gorgo”
The Red Book “Inside/Outside”
The Company Stores “Fathers”

hour two
Chuck Biel “Thufir Hawat”
Scrap Iron Pickers “Iron Bucket”
Frank Panucci “A Call To Inaction”
Deni Bonet “BBC2”
A Flying Fortress “When In Rome”
Ryan Kennedy “Three Pieces by Franciso Tarrega”
Beat To Death “I Can’t Breathe”
The Fat N Sassy Band “Breathe”
David Synn “Harlequin’s Last Dance”
C2J2 “The Fallen”
The Panucci Brothers “Dancing Midget Spider-man Fantasia”

hour three
Speedsuit “Gwendoline”
Wren Allen Band “Portside”
Bon Air “Tell Me Why”
The New Relics “Good Night”
NRVS LVRS “2 Young 2 Know”
Ona “Tornado Rider”
Sasha Collete “Rock of Ages”
Tofujitsu “Mutants”
The Wild Rumpus “Columbus Stockade Blues”
Red Audio  “Money Tree”
Vinna Bee “Snowglobes of a Dustbowl”
American Minor “Buffalo Creek”
Anna Bo “Gone”
Bedowyn “Leave The Living For The Dead”
The Amazing Delores “Rats In My Trailer”

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,  and  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different 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.

Then at 1 PM we have MIRRORBALL, followed at 2 PM by Curtain Call. At 3 PM two great recent episodes of The Swing Shift arrive.

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 AM, Thursday at 9 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.

We kick off the new year with an abstract piece that’s really just me trying out a Christmas gift. Mrs. PopCulteer got me a set of Windsor and Newton inks, and since I haven’t worked with them in almost forty years, I decided to just limber up and mess around with them on paper for pens. That’s the resulting doodle you see above.

If you look close, you’ll see that I still have a long way to go in terms of brush control and ink consistency, but it still came out looking decent enough to use here for our first new piece of 2023.

Instead of scanning it, because the finished piece was too big, I took a quick photo. Once I had the image in the computer, I changed the background from white to very dark gray. This was just an exercise in pushing ink around on paper, but it didn’t suck too much, so here it is for public consumption.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Meanwhile, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a recent 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.

On Psychedelic Shack, Nigel Pye offers up an hour-long mixtape of Psychedelic Music that, on this show,  kicks off with  The Lickerish Quartet.

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.

On a classic Prognosis, Herman Linte presents his usual assortment of prog-rock classics mixed with new tracks, and he opened this romantic-themed show with music from Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

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.

Tonight at 9 PM we bring you an overnight marathon of MIRRORBALL, hosted by Mel Larch. We’ll kick this off with both parts of her tribute to Giorgio Moroder.

In honor of New Year’s Day, when hardly anybody reads this blog, tonight we bring you something you can really get your teeth into, a documentary on the 75th Anniversary of Bazooka Bubble Gum.

It’s not too long and it has Pulitzer-winner Art Spiegelman in it.

The short film is directed by Daniel Brea of the award-winning indie short American Hate and produced by Chris McKee, an award-winning producer of the HBO series, The Black List. And it’s a nice look at the history of the company, which was split in two last year, as they sold off their Topps Trading Card company, and all its trademarks, to Fanatics.

Now they’re just The Bazooka Candy Company, but they’re still sticking with it, and ruining teeth around the world.

We don’t have an RFC Flashback for you this week here in PopCult. Instead, what you see at the top of this post is “Ape Boy Shirt,” a new episode of the Radio Free Charleston video show for 2022.

It’s a bit of a procrastinator’s special, considering that it’s the first new video episode this year, and I’m dropping it on December 31, but hey, I wanted to keep my streak going, and we have now had at least one video RFC every year since 2006.

Because I spent a big chunk of the year dealing with complications from Myasthenia Gravis, I did not get out to shoot any new video. However, I have a stockpile of great video projects I’ve made over the years that never made it into an episode of the show, until now.

On top of those hidden gems, I decided at the last minute to use videocraft to make a video for David Synn’s song “The Island of Gorgo” last Wednesday, and I’m really happy with the way it came out. It’s our first video on this episode of RFC.

Our host segments were shot really quick at the new City Center at Slack Plaza in Charleston. It was actually the first time Mel and I have been able to check out the new space, and it’s really cool. Maybe in 2023 we can record some bands there. This show was shot and edited so quickly that you can even hear Mel say “Rolling” at one point because I was rushing the edit.

Our title shirt is “Ape Boy,” by Robert Jimenez. I’ve been plugging Robert’s trading cards and books and stuff for years, and something about this shirt just clicked with me. I think it might’ve been the ape wearing a fez and Big Boy-like coveralls. You can find this shirt and many other cool designs by Robert HERE.

After a brief appearance by The Potato Girl Singers, we jump right into the video for “The Island of Gorgo.” This is off of David’s lastest album, the very proggy “A New Dawn,” which you can purchase at Bandcamp.

The song is an instrumental prog-rock tour-de-force, with David trading keyboard licks with Jamie Skeen’s wild guitar. The video combines some psychedelic light show footage with scenes from the British Kaiju classic, Gorgo.

I think it came together pretty well.

Next up we went back to 2017 for the last video I shot before I had cataract surgery. Recorded live at The Blue Parrot, it’s Lee Harrah with Bad Blood, performing the Beatles classic, “Helter Skelter.” It’s a one-camera shoot, using camera audio, but the raw energy of the performance makes it worthwhile.

Following that, we have animation. In the grand tradition of Radio Free Charleston, it’s computer animation by my brother, Frank…depicting DEVO energy domes.

Following that we have what was previously a top-secret video I produced for Chuck Biel back in 2010. I produced two “bootleg” videos of Chuck’s band, Doctor Curmudgeon, which I posted in PopCult before the band’s official debut. This progressive metal trio included Chuck Biel, Vince Biel and Zack Shawkins, and I went to their secret lab and set up three cameras on tripods, with me running handheld, and came up with these videos.

In this episode of RFC, you get to see “From The Ridiculous To The Sublime,” which, if you pay close attention during the introduction, I totally forgot was the name of the song. So I made up the part about it being a secret. However, the part about Chuck’s secret music lab being bulldozed and replaced with a Starbucks…that part’s all true.

Playing us out in this edition of our video show we have The Sierra and Mo show, recorded live in Dunbar at what was then The Pour House (and is now The Bucket). Introducting this one, I misremembered the year we recorded it. This was actually filmed in 2011.

Now, of course, Sierra Ferrell is internationally recognized and is a Rounder Records recording artist. And she’ll still turn up performing in Dunbar, like she did a couple of weeks ago at The Shop.

And that is why we don’t have an RFC Flashback this week. We brought you a new show instead.

The PopCulteer
December 30, 2022

We have reached the last Friday of2022, and this afternoon on The AIR we offer up our last two new musical specialty shows of the year.  Mel Larch brings you the second part of her Giorgio Moroder tribute on a new episode of MIRRORBALL, While Syndey Fileen delivers a two-hour tribute to the late Terry Hall on 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.

At 2 PM, Mel Larch uncorks a new MIRRORBALL! The AIR’s showcase of classic Disco music presents a second collection songs produced and composed by Giorgio Moroder.

Moroder changed the landscape of Disco music with his sonic creations like Donna Summer’s hypnotic “I Feel Love.” Widely regarded as a founding father of disco and also an electronic music trailblazer, Moroder made his mark as an influential Italian producer, songwriter, performer and DJ.

Over the course of his career, Mr. Moroder has worked with some of the most famous names in music including Barbra Streisand, Elton John, Cher, Janet Jackson and David Bowie. He is heavily noted for being the key player in the Queen of Disco Donna Summer‘s rise to fame throughout the 1970s, collaborating with her on her biggest hits including “Love To Love You Baby,” “Hot Stuff” and “I Feel Love.” In 1997, Moroder and Summer won the Grammy Award for “Best Dance Recording” for the song “Carry On.”

Giorgio Moroder’s music charted success everywhere the disco craze touched down but he is also responsible for some of the most classic film scores to date including Scarface and Midnight Express, as well as timeless soundtrack numbers like Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” (Top Gun), Irene Cara’s “Flashdance,” Blondie’s “Call Me” (American Gigolo), as well as compositions on films such as The NeverEnding Story, Superman III, Rambo III and Beverly Hills Cop II. From these, Moroder has accumulated three Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, four Grammys and more than 100 gold and platinum records. Giorgio Moroder was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame in 2004.

We’ll hear more Disco classics created by Mororder and his Munich Machine cohorts, Pete Bellotte and Keith Forsey, and this is, as promised, the second MIRRORBALL devoted to this Disco icon.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 065

Speed Limit “The Disco Twist”
Donna Summer “Denver Dreams”
Chris Bennett “Disco Man”
Giorgio Moroder “Love Now, Hurt Later”
Madeline Kane “Playing For Time”
Munich Machine “Space Warrior”
Giorgio Mororder “Moroder Medley”
Melissa Manchester “Thief of Hearts”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays throughout the following week.

At 3 PM, on Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, Sydney Fileen graces us with the a tribute to Terry Hall, the former frontman for The Specials, Fun Boy Three and Colourfield, who died last week after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.  Hall joined the first incarnation of the Specials – then called the Automatics – shortly after the Coventry band formed in 1977, replacing vocalist Tim Strickland. After a stint as the Coventry Automatics, they became Special AKA, known as the Specials. The pioneering 2 Tone band rose thanks to the support of Joe Strummer, who invited them to support the Clash live, and of BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel.

Hall formed Fun Boy Three with his Specials bandmates Staple and Lynval Golding. They also enjoyed chart success for several years, collaborating twice with girl band Bananarama, on It Ain’t What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It) and Really Saying Something. Hall would also land a Top 10 single with Our Lips Are Sealed, a song he co-wrote with his then romantic partner,  Jane Wiedlin for her band the Go-Go’s.

Still in the New Wave era, Hall would form another band, the Colourfield, in 1984, which had a hit with Thinking of You. Syndey has assembled a tribute with music from all three of Hall’s New Wave era bands, and the show kicks off with The Specials performing live, at The Colchester Institute.

Here’s the full playlist for what you’ll hear on this week’s show…

BEC 099

The Specials

“Do The Dog”
“Monkey Man”
“Rat Race”
“Blank Expression”
“Concrete Jungle”
“Too Much Too Young”
“Guns of Navarone”
“Nite Klub”
“Gangsters”
“Longshot Kick The Bucket”
“A Message To You, Rudy”
“It’s Up To You”
“Doesn’t Make It Alright”
“(Dawning of A) New Era”
“Little Bitch”
“Enjoy Yourself”
“Hey Little Rich Girl”
“International Jet Set”
“Friday Night, Saturday Morning”
“Ghost Town”

Fun Boy Three
“Way On Down”
“The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum”
“It Ain’t What You Do” (with Bananarama”
“Our Lips Are Sealed”
“The More I See The Less I Believe”
“We’re Having All The Fun”
“Things We Do”

Colourfield “Running Away”
“Monkey In Winter” (with Sinead O’Connor)
“Confession”

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 new on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer and our next to last post for 2022.   Check back Saturday for a last-minute surprise, and we’ll head into the new year with all our regular features, and hopefully more book, comic, music, toy and DVD reviews.

This weekend is a big party occasion as New Year’s Eve falls on a Saturday night, when all the alky-hol aficianados can imbibe to their heart’s content without worrying about being hungover on a weekday. We have a ton of events from all over West Virginia to tell you about on Friday and Saturday, and there’s even an event Sunday for people who, for some bizarre reason, like to hike.

And we also have regular free events to tell you about.

Live Music is back at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM. Friday it’s Spencer Elliott with Christopher Vincent.

On Saturday Ronald & the Raygunz are at the beloved Charleston bookstore/art gallery/coffeehouse.

The Empty Glass has some great stuff through the week to tell you about. Thursday from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM, Swingstein and Robin play fiddle and piano and sing swing and early jazz standards. Each week they donate their tips to a local nonprofit.  Taking over at 9:30 PM Thursday, Four Chill brings the funk and smooth grooves. Friday from 5 PM to 8 PM Timmy “Courts and Friends hold down the fort at the Glass. Monday there will be an open mic night with loads of local talent.

Please remember that the pandemic is not over yet. 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.

If you’re up for going out into the year-ending madness, here are a few suggestions for the rest of this week, roughly in order.

FRIDAY

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