Category: Uncategorized (Page 72 of 757)

The PopCulteer
June 7, 2024

As promised, here’s the first big photo essay of our trip to WonderFest USA in Louisville last weekend.

Because of the limitations of this blog, I can only cram in about thirty photos in this one post, so today I’m going to show you some of the guests, some of the cool stuff from both dealer’s rooms, and several models that were on display in said dealer rooms. We made the trip down because Mrs. PopCulteer is still a huge fan of The Walking Dead, and that show’s makeup guru/producer, Greg Nicotero, was on hand and available for autographs. That’s him at the upper right of this post with Frank Dietz, who moderated his buddy Nicotero’s talk.

I also got to meet Danny Roebuck, whom I’ve traded online comments with a few times over the last twenty years or so. Danny is a noted character actor who has been in every Rob Zombie film (he was Grandpa Munster in the recent Munsters reboot) and has acted with such notable stars as Andy Griffith, Julia Louis Dreyfuss, Bruce Campbell and Grumpy Cat. Seriously, he’s been on so many TV shows that I can’t list them all here. Danny also, buried under extensive makeup, played one of the great monsters of the screen…Jay Leno.

Danny also made me go look at something in the dealer’s room that absolutely blew my mind. You’ll see it below.

I also got to see William Stout again. I’ve been a fan of his artwork since way back in his underground comic days, and among the SEVEN books he has in the works, is a compilation of all his underground comix, so that was really cool.

I’ll be including extensive captions with each photo, but I have to warn you…we’re not going to the model room today. On Sunday, I’m going to bring you a short video of the model room, along with about twenty photos. We might have more of those next week, along with a very special mini-photo essay devoted to a classic toy that was on display in one of the dealer rooms.

So  let us dive into the photos…

Mr Greg Nicotero. Insert your own “describing someone’s weiner” joke here.

Frank Dietz, writer, actor, animator and the moderator for his sometime collaborator, Nicotero.

I finally got to meet Danny Roebuck in the real world, and we hung out and talked for maybe half an hour, and as I was leaving the room, I realized that I hadn’t taken any pictures of him, so he obliged me with a thumbs-up before we left. He also sent me to look at the coolest thing in the world, which you will see below.

William Stout, the guy who drew the movie poster for “Rock N Roll High School,” did all the production designs for “Return of the Living Dead,” has published several books of dinosaur art, and is also one heck of a nice guy.

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As we pause to observe D Day and enjoy the last couple of weeks of Spring there is still plenty of STUFF TO DO in Charleston and all over the Mountain State and beyond, which we will get to right after a quick Kickstarter plug

We have a cool new Kickstarter Project from Robert Jiminez to tell you about today. For a few years now I’ve been telling you about his Fearsome Weirdos trading card sets, and now he’s taking his monstrous talents into the world of gaming, with Fearsome Weirdos: Gaming Ghouls.

Gaming Ghouls, the 6th Fearsome Weirdos set, is a parody trading card set featuring 8-Bit Beasts and Video Game Ghouls. The base set is made up of a Wrapper/Checklist card, 20 Characters, and 3 Decayed Arcade cards. The set also includes a lenticular card, a holographic sticker and 2 promo cards, all packaged in a nifty tuck box.

Also available as rewards and add-ons are sketch cards, original art and more (although the original is going fast). If you’re new to Fearsome Weirdos, all previous sets are available as add-ons as well.

The set is written and illustrated by Robert, with some writing assists by Paul Harris and Peter Zeis. Check out the cool trailer…

Fearsome Weirdos Theme Song by The Intoxicators! 8-Bit intro and end music by Fesliyan Studios. This set was fully-funded in about an hour, so you can be sure you’re going to get it, and it’s cool as hell, so you know you want it. Go Kick in now!

And now we return to our live events and stuff…

As I have been copying and pasting of late, 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. I ain’t omnipotent, y’know.

This week’s Live on the Levee features local legends The Spurgie Hankins Band opening for Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. The music begins at 6:30 PM.

Your PopCulteer is back from last weekend’s WonderFest USA in Louisville, and we had a great time. The plan is to bring you a huge photo essay this Friday, and a short video on Sunday, but for today, we’re going to go with ten or so randomly-chosen photos of the model kits on display.

At right you see a life-size model of the Robot Maria from the classic Fritz Lang film, Metropolis. She was tucked away in a corner of the model room. Nobody puts Robot Maria in a corner!

Friday you’ll get to see more photos of the models, but I also have a few shots of the dealer’s rooms, and I remembered to take a handful of photos of some of the guests.

I also plan to bring you a couple of shorter photo essays next week of some of the non-competition displays.

But for now, here’s a teensy-tiny teaser that doesn’t even scratch a cube chipped off of the tip of the iceberg…

This was a gigantic model kit of some kind of space monkey sumbitch.

A very cool, yet simple and effective diorama of The Walking Dead.

Okay, this is half of an amazingly intricate, detailed diorama based on the show, Fraser. Everything is reproduced to exact scale and every detail is perfect. It was really impressive, even to me, someone who really hates that show.

Three Zombie Nazis photobombed by Vampirella’s ass.

There’s a lot of cool stuff here, but that Metaluna Mutant really stands out.

A really nice tribute to Ray Harryhausen, the master of stop-motion animation. His daughter was one of the guests at WonderFest this year.

A table full of impressive model kits, with a generous helping of cheesecake in the middle. I’m a little suprised that the overly-sexualized Velma trope has managed to survive that awful cartoon on MAX.

A table full of primo Kaiju, at least one of which is really neat.

An impressive (and huge) sauropod. I’m not going to get more specific than that.

Finally we have an incredible paint job on a Torosaurus. I know I got this one right because, I didn’t realize it until I got home and looked at the photo, but I bought this same kit (unpainted). When I paint mine, I’m taking a different approach, but this looks freaking fantastic.

We have a cool new episode of RFC today on The AIR.   Radio Free Charleston, is two-thirds new/one-third classic this week.  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 tons of replays throughout the week.

We have two hours of new RFC this week, followed by a classic episode of RFC Volume 4 that hasn’t been heard in over six years. I’m very happen to open this show with a new track from Speedsuit, as I have been a huge fan of Stephen Beckner’s songwriting since I first met him at The Charleston Playhouse in 1989. Speedsuit has released another new tune that you can hear next week, or you can go over to Bandcamp at the link provided below, and buy it on Bandcamp Friday in a few days,  because that’s the day Bandcamp forgoes their cut and the band gets all the proceeds from their sales.

And that is true for all the artists listed below who have Bandcamp pages, so maybe save up and then splurge on June 7 instead of rushing right over like you normally do.

We also have new music from Frenchy & The Punk, Crowded House, Messer Chups Ginger Wixx and more this week.  We also have three tunes courtesy of our Chicago connection, August Forte, who turned us on to Well Tempered Madness, Saycouth and Jud & Lace, and you can follow the links below to learn more about them.

Our third hour, from almost exactly seven years ago,  is loaded with even more cool local and regional music, and it’s a wild time capsule of what was happening musically back then.

Oh, and if you’re a fan of the “mystery bonus tracks” at the very end of our three-hour show, you don’t want to miss this week’s. They are three precious gems, about which we shall not speak again.

Links in the artist’s names below will take you to a website (where available) where you can find our more about them and maybe buy their music. Check out the playlist.

RFC V5 179

hour one
Speedsuit “Hush”
Frenchy & The Punk “Like In A Dream”
Well Tempered Madness “Psycho”
Crowded House “Magic Piano”
Saycouth w/Freaks of Nashville “Pharoah”
Messer Chups “Sexploitation From Outer Space”
Hurl Brickbat “World of Fire”
Jud & Lace “Incarcerated One”
Galen and Paul “The Lighthouse Waltz”
Sierra Ferrell “Lighthouse”
Gyasi “Tongue Tied (live)”
John Bunkley “Hey Mr. DJ”
Tom Batchelor Band “Toe Truk”

hour two
Ginger Wixx “Arcade”
Daniel Glass Trio “Smoke On The Water”
The Settlement “Riff Destroyer”
Chuck Biel “Jam For Kagon Rez’
4 OHM MONO “The Death and Resurrection of a Salesman”
The Bob Thompson Band “Fly High”

hour three
Weedhaven Laughing Academy “2s & 5s & 3s”
Scarlet Revolt “No Quarter”
Pale Nova “In Your Direction”
Bon Air “Sometimes Hot But Always Broken”
The Smoky Room “No Escape”
Blue Million “Catch U”
Michael Cerveris “Evangeline”
Douglas Imbrogno/GarageCow “Godless Appalachian Haiku”
Ann Magnuson  “FOF”
Payback’s a Bitch “Cancer Stick”
Membrane Cell  “Frozen”

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 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 give you an encore of two recent episodes of The Swing Shift.

 You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 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 Thursday and Sunday evenings.

Real world art is back after going away for a month while I waited for a Myasthenia Gravis flare up to subside.  It ain’t much, but I drew with my own slightly-less-afflicted-at-the-moment hands.

It’s a pencil doodle of wintery branches, which I always think look pretty cool. Also, you really don’t need photo reference for them. This was started as a limbering-up exercise after not touching a pencil for a few weeks. As it progressed, I got happy enough with it to use it here. It took about four hours, spread over a couple of days.

It was drawn with my trusty Blackwing Palamino on slick paper. I did a little color-correction and cropping after scanning it, but there were no digital touch-ups.

It’s nice to be making physical art again.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you encores of 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.

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. You can hear two classic episodes of the show Sunday at 2 PM. All times listed are Eastern, so if you’re in another timezone, adjust accordingly.

At 8 PM you can hear an hour of Halloween novelty songs on a recent episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon We bring you ten hours of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. In fact, you’ll hear the first five episodes, from 2016. Next week we’ll do this with Prognosis. July marks the tenth anniversary of both shows on The AIR.

Daniel, My Brother from Daniel Roebuck on Vimeo.

I have to admit to slacking off a bit. I’ve run this video twice before in this spot, back in 2015 and 2021 (on Super Bowl Sunday both times). It’s a video about the really cool collection of Daniel Roebuck.  I’m running it again because I’m on my way back from WonderFest USA (photos and video next week), and Daniel was a guest. He was actually the replacement guest when Joe Dante had to bow out.

Daniel and I have been online friends for a couple of decades through various Captain Action and monster toy email groups and Facebook groups, and with any luck, by the time you read this I got to meet him in person and chat a bit. If his name seems familiar, there’s a reason. It’s always cool to meet folks in real life when you’ve known them online for years.

Daniel Roebuck is a big-time Hollywood actor who’s been in everything from Lost To The Grumpy Cat Movie, and he also played Jay Leno in the HBO Movie The Late Shift. He’s been in The Walking Dead webisodes, episodes of CSI and Weeds and in the movies The Devil’s Rejects and John Dies At The End, among dozens of other movie and television roles.  He was Grandpa Munster in Rob Zombie’s take on the beloved scary sitcom, and I think he may be in every movie Zombie directed.

He’s also a hell of a nice guy and a collector of really cool toys and monster movie memorabilia, and in this short and very funny film (which you can see above) we get to see a tiny part of his epic collection. Keep your eyes peeled for quick shots of GI Joe, Captain Action, Captain Lazer and way more cool things.

Next up in our mostly-chronological trip through the history of Radio Free Charleston is one of our most celebrated episodes, our Halloween 2009 show. This one is loaded with music from The Big Bad, Flare Baroshi, CYAC and more, and has a storyline and skits provided by members of The No Pants Players, Mark Wolfe, Amy Williams and Mel Larch.

You can find the original production notes HERE, and enjoy Halloween in June.

The PopCulteer
May 31, 2024

It’s fun time for internet radio programming this Friday as we offer up a classic episode of MIRRORBALL and a BRAND NEW edition 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 on this very page.

At 2 PM, Mel Larch goes back to September, 2022 for a classic episode of MIRRORBALL! The AIR’s showcase of classic Disco music presents a wild collection of classic Disco tracks from the golden era of people dancing in dark rooms on cocaine.

For one hour you can go back to the Golden Age of Disco, where the sideburns were long, the skirts were short and the dancing was endless.

Check out the playlist…

MB 058

Evelyn “Champagne” King “Love Come Down”
Earth Wind & Fire “Boogie Wonderland”
Eruption “One Way Ticket”
The Jacksons “Dancing Machine”
Teri DeSario “Aint Nothing Gonna Keep You From Me”
Jocelyn Brown “Somebody Else’s Guy”
El Debarge “Rhythm of the Night”
Average White Band “Let’s Go Round Again”
Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes “Don’t Leave Me This Way”
Gloria Gaynor “Reach Out I’ll Be There”
Yarbourough & Peoples “Don’t Stop The Music”
Boogie Box High “Jive Talkin'”
Bonnie Pointer “Heaven Must Have Sent You”
Luthor Vandross “Never Too Much”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays Saturday at  9 PM (kicking off a mini-marathon), Sunday at 11 PM, Monday at 9 AM, and Tuesday at 1 PM  exclusively on The AIR.

At 3 PM, it’s Big Electric Cat time as Sydney Fileen delivers a special mixtape edition of her show that pays tribute to  one Stuart Leslie Goddard…or as you may know him, Adam Ant.

Sydney brings you two hours of Antmusic, spanning from the pre-fame “Dirk Wears White Socks” days to the Burundi-beat hits with Adam & the Ants and his solo days with even more big hit tunes as seen on MTV (back when they played music videos).

You can travel back to a time when cultural appropriation was a fashion statement and folks pledged alliegence to an Insect Nation. Sydney brings you all the hits from 1978 to 1985, plus some great deep album cuts and a few dance mixes and rare recordings.

Check out the Playlist…

BEC 116
Adam Ant/Adam & The Ants

“Cartrouble Parts 1 & 2”
“Physical”
“Dirk Wears White Socks (live)”
“Whip In My Valise”
“Antmusic”
“Kings of the Wild Frontier”
“Los Rancheros”
“Killer In The Home”
“”Stand and Deliver”
“Ant Rap”
“Prince Charming”
“Scorpios”
“Friend or Foe”
“Desperate But Not Serious”
“Goody Two Shoes”
“Hello I Love You”
“A.N.T.S.”
“Saigon”
“Man Called Marco”
“Strip”
“Libertine”
“Puss ‘n’ Boots”
“Horse You Rode In On”
“Vive le Rock”
“Miss Thing”
“Scorpio Rising”
“Apollo 9”
“Doggy Style”
“Steve McQueen”
“Brand New Torso”
“Hampstead”

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 on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer.

Check PopCult for all our regular features, with fresh content every day.

We are heading into Pride Month, and yours truly and his lovely wife are heading to Louisville for WonderFest USA, but there is still plenty of STUFF TO DO in Charleston and all over the Mountain State and beyond as I angrily re-type this entire post because a WordPress glitch ate the completed first version.

As I have been copying and pasting of late, 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. I ain’t omnipotent, y’know.

There’s all kinds of Pride events this weekend, but not so many with nice graphics, so if that’s your gig, remember that Google is your friend. It’s also the beginning of outdoor festival and car show season, so be aware of those if they are what floats your boat.

This week’s Live on the Levee features our buddies, Rewind the Walkman, opening for a Bee Gees tribute band. If your PopCulteer weren’t headed down to see Greg Nicotero, William Stout, Daniel Roebuck and hundreds of cool model kits, we’d be there.

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As we zoom perilously close to the end of May, on Wednesday afternoon, and The AIR still manages to bring you great new episodes of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast that are both filled with great new cool stuff.  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 hour of Beatles covers presented mixtape-style, just to warmy the cockles of your Beatles…or something.

These are the classic Beatles tunes performed by everyone from Fats Domino to Emmylou Harris to Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, Otis Redding and more. It just shows how universal the music of the Fab Four is.

Check out the playlist…

Beatles Blast 111

Wet Wet Wet “With A Little Help From My Friends”
Fats Domino “Lady Madonna”
Joe Cocker “I’ll Cry Instead”
Deep Purple “Help”
Billy Preston “Blackbird”
Emmylous Harris “For No One”
The Nylons “This Boy”
Bryan Ferry “You Won’t See Me”
Esther Phillips “And I Love Him”
Mamas and The Papas “I Call Your Name”
Otis Redding “Day Tripper”
Frank Sinatra “Yesterday”
David Bowie “Across The Universe”
Brad Melhdau “She Said, She Said”
Mina “Oh Darling”
Leo Sayer “Strawberry Fields Forever”
Judy Collins “In My Life”
The Flamin’ Groovies “Please Please Me”
Cliff Bennnett And The Rebel Rousers “Got to Get You Into 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, Mel Larch serves up a slate of songs from  a bunch of different shows: two that closed in January; one that’s nominated for a Tony Award as a play instead of a musical; one that is on tour in the UK; ad one that’s only a concept album.

Two of the shows Mel profiles on this week’s show are what we went to see back in January when we went to New York. Gutenberg and Here We Are were both great, and we’re really glad we got to see them before their limited runs ended. Mel talks a bit about all the shows featured in this episode.

Check out the playlist…

Curtain Call 145

From Sterophonic “Drive”
From Gutenberg “Welcome to Gutenberg” “Schlimmer” “I Can’t Read” “Tomorrow Is Tonight”
From Here We Are “Cafe Everything” “Waiter’s Song” “The Road 2” “The Soldier’s Dream”
From Unfortunate-The Untold Story of Ursula The Sea Witch-The Musical Parody “Suckin’ On You” “Unfortunate” “Ask The Girl” “I’m That Witch”
From The Death of the Living Club “Brand New Day” “Letters” “Gotta Go Fast”

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 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 classic episode that celebrates Halloween, because, it is almost June, after all.