PopCult’s 20th Anniversary week continues with new episodes of our music specialty shows that debut on Wednesday afternoon, as The AIR brings you new episodes of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast, each of which celebrate a notable anniversary of a different sort.  You can tune in at the website, or just stay right here and  listen to the convenient embedded radio player lurking elsewhere on this page.

At 2 PM (EDT) Beatles Blast brings you an all-covers mixtape recreation of The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, which was released sixty years ago this fall.

Considered by many to be their best album, it’s one that I have avoided in the past because it concludes with what I feel is the band’s worst song, “Run For Your Life,” which is so mysognistic and threatening that years later, John Lennon apologized for writing it.

However, I managed to find a gender-flipped cover that somewhat redeems the stalkerish sentiments in the song. Since the alubm runs considerably less than an hour, you’ll get to hear more than one version of some tunes.

The rest of our hour presents artists employing a wild variety of musical styles tackling some of the Fab Four’s most beloved tunes.

Check out this playlist:

Beatles Blast 124

Black Heat “Drive My Car”
Parekh & Singh “Norwegian Wood”
Ernie Smith “You Won’t See Me”
Yellow Matter Custard “Nowhere Man” “Think For Yourself”
Blues Beatles “The Word”
Allan Holdsworth “Michelle”
Joe Val & The New England Bluegrass Boys “What Goes On”
Ronnie Von “Girl (Meu Bem)”
Ted Leo “I’m Looking Through You”
Bonnie Tyler “In My Life”
Ben Kweller “Wait”
Joe White “If I Needed Someone”
Nancy Sinatra “Run For Your Life”
Henrique Cazes “Girl”
Dion “Drive My Car”
The Hot Club of San Francisco “If I Needed Someone”
Ozzy Osbourne “In My Life”

Beatles Blast can be heard every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursday at 11 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday afternoon.

At 3 PM (EDT) on Curtain Call, for its fiftieth anniversary year, Mel Larch salutes the Tony and Pulitzer winning show, A Chorus Line.

Conceived by director and co-choreographer, Michael Bennett with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and a book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante, A Chorus Line set records for longevity that lasted decades.  With its stark realism and mature content, A Chorus Line was the first raw, honest and occasionally downbeat look at Show Business.

This Mel has assembled a collection of highlights from the musical, using the original Broadway Cast album, later revivals and maybe a surprise or two.

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 and Monday at 9 AM. A six-hour marathon of classic episodes can be heard Sunday evening starting at 6 PM, and an all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight.

Also on The AIR, Wednesday at 11 PM,  The Comedy Vault brings you an hour of something so surprising that, as I write this, I don’t even know what it is yet.

One of the things I absolutely hate about writing PopCult is obituaries for friends, or “death notices” for beloved businesses.

Sadly, that’s exactly what I have to do right in the middle of my anniversary week. American Sciene & Surplus, the folks with the funniest mail order catalog in history and a Mecca for cool and unusual surplus items has announced that they are closing up shop after 88 years and will not accept any orders after September 7.

You have less than two weeks to get your test tubes, rubber dinosaurs and gas masks at their website.

The goodish news is that two of the three physical locations will remain open after being sold to their management teams, but the mail order side could not overcome insurmountable odds brought on by the need to relocate after losing their warehouse.

They’d been running a GoFundMe campaign, but it wasn’t enough and yesterday they sent out the following email.

It is with a very heavy heart that we are writing to tell you that it’s time to say goodbye. The next two weeks, up until September 7th, will be your final chance to order from us at Sciplus.com and (888-724-7587), as we will be closing our mail order warehouse.

For nearly nine decades, this place has been so much more than a company to us. It has been a community built on discovery, invention, friendship, and shared passions. For the last few months, we have been struggling to keep our doors open. Thanks to all of you, we were able to hang on for a little while longer, but despite the incredible efforts of our team and your unrelenting love and support, our situation has not improved to the point where we can continue.

This will be the Jarvis Farewell Tour on www.Sciplus.com so before we go, please take advantage of the incredible daily deals coming your way. We still have a lot of stock left that we must move from the whs, and we want it to find good homes. Also, please be sure to use any gift certificates you have by September 7th, as they will no longer be valid for online redemption after that date. More notices about the closing to follow.

The Future of American Science & Surplus Stores: While we were unable to find a buyer for the Parkridge store, which will be closing towards end of September, we do have some good news. As part of our closing, we are working on keeping The Geneva and Milwaukee stores operating by selling the stores to remain open as employee-owned and operated locations. We are so excited for them to continue the legacy of American Science & Surplus and we will keep posted on that progress.

Thank You: From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. This company was founded over 88 years ago, and I have been lucky enough to be a part of it for 41 wonderful years. We will miss you and this place more than words can express. Thank you for letting us be a part of your lives.

It is a huge bummer as yet another little bit of joy in so many people’s lives is going away.Mel and I got to visit their Chicago/Geneva location back in 2017, and it’s one of the locations that will remain open, but we are going to sorely miss that catalog. I can’t remember how many times I included their website in The PopCult Gift Guide.

At least they left us with a surplus of good memories.

It was when I married Melanie Larch, eleven years ago, today.

Only a small number of people knew this was going to happen.  We snuck off to Chicago, and got married at 11 AM on stage at the legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Then we rode the L back to our hotel, got online at the hotel’s business center, and blew up the internet when we updated our statuses on Facebook.

I had written a week’s worth of PopCult in advance. On the day after the big event, this is what my loyal readers saw…

Just Married

Hey, y’know that top secret project I’ve been talking about all week?

Well, if all goes according to plan, by the time you read this, Melanie Larch and I will have become a married couple. And to think, it only took 24 years for us to tie the knot. With all our elder-care commitments fulfilled and no other obstacles in our path, we can finally be together.

The ceremony is to have taken place Tuesday morning on the Stage of the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. We wanted a quiet ceremony in a special place, and that fit the bill perfectly. Every PopCult post that has been published since last week was written on Wednesday, August 20. That’s why the tense is all wonky.

If you’re wondering why we decided to get married in Chicago, there are many reasons. First of all, I hate cermonies. I just can’t stand the pomp and circumstance and other related BS that fuels the Wedding Industrial Complex. I just want to be with the woman I love. I don’t want to go through the Spanish Inquisition.

On top of that, Melanie and I didn’t feel right getting married in a state that does not allow all of our friends the same right. I know it’s inevitable that marriage equality will come to the Mountain State, but we didn’t want to wait any longer.

Add to that the moronic law passed a couple of years ago that coerces people, even people who have been together more than two decades, into undergoing religious and/or psychological counseling before they can tie the knot, and it was clear that, as far as getting married goes, West Virginia is not open for our business.

We were planning to go to Chicago anyway, and Melanie holds Steppenwolf in very high regard, so I suggested she ask if we could get married there. She did. And they said yes. And we said “I Do.”

We’re hoping that none of our friends feel slighted that we did this out of town. In the event that anyone reading this really feels the need for us to have a huge reception with tons of guests, please, feel free to throw one for us. We’ll be there… as long as we don’t have to do any planning or pay for it.

_________________

Eleven years later there are no regrets, and I am the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.

I just wish I’d been paying more attention to how the anniversaries would fall. Our Wedding Anniversary is 13 days after my birthday, and two days before the anniversary of PopCult.

We probably should’ve gotten married a little earlier…like, maybe in 1990.

Both of The AIR Music Specialty programs will be brand-new Tuesday, which is once again “New Show Day” on The AIR.  Even in the midst of PopCult‘s 20th Anniversary week, 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 Radio Free Charleston kicks off with a new track from Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess, which is off their just-released new album (You can find it HERE), and after that sparkling new music, we jump back to the RFC Video Archives and bring you THREE HOURS (almost) of music originally recorded for Volume Two of Radio Free Charleston, which is more commonly known as “The Video Version of RFC.”

Probably half of these tracks were recorded at the late, lamented LiveMix Studio. Others were recorded at The Empty Glass, The Blue Parrot and various other local venues. We also have a few studio creations in the mix, but everything you hear in this program (after the first song) appeared originally in the first 76 video episodes of Radio Free Charleston, between 2006 and 2009. Hopefully this will cut through the hazy memories and show everyone how vital the music scene in Charleston is.

I tired to go for a wide variety of musical styles, and bring back some tunes that haven’t been heard on this incarnation of the radio show before.

Because so many of the artists in this week’s show do not currently have websites (and also because PopCult isn’t my only big anniversary this week)  there are no links in the playlists.

Check out this impressive playlist what’s got no links in it…

RFC V5 238

hour one
Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess “Chasing You”
Whistlepunk “Spy Song”
Stephen Beckner “Falling Star”
Sean Richardson, Jay Lukens, Deron Sodaro “Story of the Coyote People”
Raymond Wallace “Champagne Charlie”
Under The Radar “Me, The Boys and Jack”
Appalachian Celtic Consort “Johnny Jump Up/Monaghan’s Jig”
Two Watts of Power “World”
Professor Mike “Greater Good”
Martyranny’s Collective Pulse “Breathing Banshee”
The Concept “Guitar Pick In My Kool Aid”
John Radcliff “Something’s Gotta Give”
Ghosts of Now “Deathburn”
Whistlepunk 2.0 “Satellite”
Feast of Stephen “No Vaccination”
Doctor Senator “Jesus Fish”

hour two
Comparsa “La Buena Comparsa”
Seven Minutes ‘Til Midnight “Hey John, I did Imagine”
Go Van Gogh “Requiem For Pepperland”
The Synergy Collective “Looking For Heaven”
Blue Million “I’m Gonna Catch You”
Lady D “Go Higher”
Spurgie Hankins Band “Bullets and Fire”
Quick and Dirty “Jack Daniels and Razor Blades”
T.J. King “Good People”
Dog Soldier “A Christmas Song”
Casi Null “Blue Haze”
The Button Flies “Butch Bottom”
The Hellblinki Sextet “Bella Ciao”
Brain Trauma “Rock It”
The Underdog Blues Revue “What You Say”
Diablo Blues Band “The Price of a Broken Heart”

hour three
Mark Bates & The Vacancies “Michelle”
Elemental Devices “Spirit Molecule”
Punk Jazz “Little Star”
Tofujitsu “Clap On, Clap Off”
The Bible Beaters “Praise Jesus”
A Place of Solace “You Will”
WATT 4 “Empty”
The Scrap Iron Pickers “William S. Burroughs/Coal Bucket”
White Chapel District “How Heavy Is Thy Crown”
Ovada “Church of Paranoia”
The Limbs “Razor Game”
J Marinelli “Pilgrim’s Progress”
Option 22 “Soul song”

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 does not have a playlist because I need to get this post written before I head out for a brief Wedding Anniversary mini-adventure.

However, you lucky listeners will be treated to an hour of the amazing voice of Anita O’Day, an incredible vocalist and a strong-willed woman who butted heads with some of the top figures in Big Band Swing before establishing herself as a Jazz artiste in her own right.

 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.

You can expect more posts here in PopCult today, even though it’s my eleventh Wedding Anniversary. Apparently the gift for eleven years is “more work.”

As promised and/or threatened, here are twenty of my favorite pieces of art that I’ve created for PopCult over the last twenty years.  You will see a variety of styles and techniques and media. I have not yet, as an artist, decided to pick a lane and stay in it.

Keep in mind that these selections represent a little less than 2% of my output over the last two decades. If I had to pick them on another day, it’s possible I may choose twenty different pieces.

From August, 2019, this digital painting was my first attempt at imitating the work of Edward Hopper. I wanted to learn how he painted light and shadow so I could apply it to surrealist works. Someday I will take this to canvas.

A digitial abstract called “Krome.” Sometimes when you’re just messing around, you can come up with the coolest-looking stuff. This is from November, 2017.

This was a digital abstract that I called “Scape.” For reasons lost to me, I did endless variations on this thing. It’s here because it was created the day before I started PopCult.

Continue reading

First of all, yes, I’ve recycled the feature image from last year’s 19th anniversary post.

As I mentioned in today’s Monday Morning Art, this is a bit of a big week for PopCult.  Thursday marks twenty years since the start of this blog. The illustration at the right is my self-portrait that I supplied to Douglas Imbrogno way back in August, 2005, when I started this blog at The Charleston Gazette.

Doug asked me for a photo, but…and in retrospect, this is incredibly hilarious…I thought I might be able to keep photos of myself off the internet.

You can take a moment to howl at that thought. This was before I revived Radio Free Charleston as a video show and smeared my face all over PopCult like a toddler with poo.

This week I’m loading up the blog with some special content, including retrospective articles, brand-new reviews and at least a couple of fun photo essays.

Later today you can expect a “Monday Morning Art Gallery,” looking back at 20 of my favorite pieces that I’ve created over the years. Tomorrow we’ll have notes on our AIR programming, plus a history of Radio Free Charleston and a look back at the most important thing I’ve done in the last twenty years.

Wednesday you can expect STUFF TO DO, plus a toy review and notes on that day’s new programs on The AIR.

Thursday is our actual anniversary, so I’ll write about that. Extra posts that day will include a book review and a fun photo essay.

Friday brings another photo essay, and maybe a surprise or two.

The weird thing is, I still don’t feel like I’m old enough to be having a twentieth annivesary. Time flies when you’re having fun.

Thanks to everybody for reading PopCult all this time.

This is a bit of a big week for PopCult.  Thursday marks twenty years since the start of this blog. While i was regularly posting my art here for the first year, it wasn’t until a couple of months before our first anniversary that I decided to begin every week with a “Monday Morning Art” post.  Since the beginning of PopCult, I’ve published around a thousand works of art, some digital, some photography and much of it physical paintings or drawings.

This week I’m loading up the blog with some special content, including retrospective articles, brand-new reviews and at least a couple of fun photo essays.

This week’s art is a small Impressionistic “painting” of what I saw at The American Sign Museum in Cinncinnati. If you’re not familiar with this cool place, just be patient. I’m running a photo essay of a recent visit there on Friday.

This painting was me attempting to capture the sheer sensory overload and joyous emotion at seeing so much lovingly restored Americana in one place. This was done on heavy illustration board with some new brush pen/paint markers I’m experimenting with.

To see this week’s art bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday beginning at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a new episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM an also 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 elsewhere on this page.

We do not have full playlists for the shows, but Nigel will present an hour of Vanilla Fudge on Psychedelic Shack, while Herman devotes the entire show to King Crimson, performing live on Prognosis.

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 Fluffy stand-up comedy on a classic episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the final edition of Monday Marathon we bring you ten hours of  Mel Larch’s Curtain Call. Starting next week we are shaking up the schedule a little bit following a Labor Day Weekend marathon of Radio Free Charleston. After that, Monday’s will look different, but you can still enjoy The Sunday Marathon after that.

This week’s Sunday Evening Video is a repeat from just over four years ago. There is a fantastic new documentary on Netflix about the band, DEVO, who have been one of my favorite musical entities for nearly fifty years. Now all the spuds are finally realizing what I’ve known all along. You should go watch it right now to find out why I’ve been a Devangelist since 1978.  Here’s the entire text of what I wrote when I first posted this video in May, 2021…

Periodically, I like to run something here in PopCult to remind my readers that DEVO was right about everything, and that fact explains the sorry state of politics and human behavior in the world today. Here they are performing at Lollapalooza in 2003, doing songs from their first two albums. If only more people had done their duty then, for the future…

We are DEVO.

If you need some even more DEVO-y DEVO, check out this post.

From December, 2011, we have a psuedo-holiday episode of Radio Free Charleston. That’s episode 149, “Shredd’s Pizzeria Shirt,” at the top of this post, and it was an early Christmas present, that we loaded with special gifts for our loyal viewers.

We were proud to present a World Premiere music video by Sasha Colette, “Rock of Ages,” plus we had a music video by Huntington’s master of pop music, Jordan Andrew Jefferson, the RFC debut of a  then-new band, Trielement, and we dipped into our archives for a special Christmas tune performed by RFC‘s resident Diva, Melanie Larch and The Diablo Blues Band. We also had two trailers for special projects and we met Hasbro, in a vintage commercial.

You can find the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
August 22, 2025

We have a little more urgency than usual with today’s photo essay.  I’m still playing catch-up from an insanely busy summer, but today I’m going to tell you about an exhibit at The Cinncinnati Museum Center (located in the iconic Cinncinnati Union Terminal) that closes on Sept 1. So you’ll have to hurry if you want to see it.

Barbie™: A Cultural Icon takes visitors on a journey through the six-decade evolution and the making of a global phenomenon.  Mrs. PopCulteer and I saw it earlier this month on my pre-birthday fun trip to Cinncinnati.

This is a pretty epic history of Barbie that presents all the major moments and turning points as the first Fashion Doll made her way through the turbulent 1960s to today, with hair and hemlines changing, the culture diversifying and careers opening up from the classroom to the moon and beyond.

To be honest, we hadn’t even really planned to visit this exhibit. I just wanted to see the incredible Art Deco masterpiece that is The Cinncinnati Union Terminal. I wasn’t even sure if the exhibit would still be going on when we wedged our visit in between two other museum stops on the same day. It was a spur of the moment decision, but we are really glad we decided to go.

Let me quote from the exhibit’s official description:

More than a doll. A cultural icon.

Today, Barbie is the most diverse doll line in the world, inspiring girls to imagine everything they can become. A role model, a muse, a best friend – Barbie means something to everyone. Step back into your childhood and join us on this exhibition of a six-decade evolution, and the making of a global icon.

Barbie™: A Cultural Icon takes you from 1959 to present day, examining how pop culture and fashion trends have shaped this global phenomenon. The exhibition celebrates Barbie as a reflection of culture, featuring a priceless collection of over 300 artifacts from the 66-year history of Barbie, including the very first 1959 doll, an original Barbie™ Dreamhouse, behind the scenes prototypes, as well as some of the most infamous Barbie dolls throughout history. You’ll also find numerous photo ops throughout the exhibition for shareable moments.

Curated and toured by Illusion Projects Inc., curated by Karan Feder, in partnership with Mattel Inc.

This is a really amazing show that pretty much uses Barbie to cover the last seven decades of pop culture. We had a blast, and we were so impressed by The Cinncinnati Museum Center that we are planning a return trip…or three.

The photos here just scratch the surface of this expansive exhibit…

Why not start at the beginning? It’s the first Barbie!

And her loyal sidekick, Ken.

Continue reading