The PopCulteer
August 23, 2024

It’s the first episode after a seven-week hiatus, as Mel Larch returns with a brand-new MIRRORBALL! You can hear this and more cool music Friday on The AIR.

The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear our shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch devotes her hour of Disco to a random assortment of classic dance tracks from the golden age of Disco with a couple of pre-Disco Funk tracks mixed in, just to keep you on your toes. You’ll hear massive hits, deep album cuts and a few rare gems. Mel kicks off the show with a non-Kung Fu track from Carl Douglas.

It’s a tasty collection of Disco goodies, to kick off MIRRORBALL’s return from Summer vacation. Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 104

Carl Douglas “Run Back”
Bobby Marchan “Push The Button”
Donna Summer “Try Me, I Know We Can Make It”
Little Joe & The Latinaires “Funky Soul”
Love Unlimited Orchestra “Love’s Theme”
Thelma Houston “Don’t Leave Me This Way”
Kool & The Gang “Ladies Night”
Earth Wind & Fair “Let’s Groove”
Edwin Starr “Contact”

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 Saturday nights at 9 PM

At 3 PM, it’s encore time on the Big Electric Cat time as Sydney Fileen delivers a special edition of her show that celebrates the quirky legacy of Wall of Voodoo. This show originally aired on July 7, 2023.

That week Sydney presented a split mixtape, with the first hour devoted to Wall of Voodoo with Stan Ridgeway on lead vocals, and the second hour devoted to Wall of Voodoo with Andy Prieboy handling the microphone.

Originally consisting of Stan Ridgeway, Marc Moreland, Bruce Moreland, Chas T. Gray and Joe Nanini, Wall of Voodoo cultivated an underground following until their breakthrough hit, Mexican Radio, became an MTV staple in 1982, and the band performed in front of hundreds of thousands of people at the US Festival the following year…and then Ridgeway, Nanini and auxiliary keyboardist Bill Noland left the band.

In 1983, Bruce Moreland, who had left the band after their first album, returned, and the band recruited singer-keyboardist Andy Prieboy, who also became the band’s primary lyricist.

The band thrived for a short time with Prieboy fronting, then split up for good in 1988.  Ridgeway and Prieboy have both cultivated followings with their superb solo albums since leaving the band.

The band’s name came from a friend of Ridgeway’s, who on hearing him compare his records of keyboards and drum machines (gifted to him by none other than Daws Butler) to Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound,” counted with “it sounds more like a wall of voodoo.”  This was when Ridgeway was eking out a living composing scores for industrial films and porno.  It was an inauspicious beginning for a band that would become a mainstay of MTV with their biggest hit, “Mexican Radio” and play for hundreds of thousands of people at the 1983 US Festival.

Check out the playlist…

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat 105

Wall of Voodoo 1979-1983 with Stan Ridgeway
“Mexican Radio”
“Crack The Bell”
“Tomorrow”
“Two Minutes Till Lunch”
“Full of Tension”
“Spyworld”
“Me and My Dad”
“Ring of Fire”
“Animal Day”
“Red Light”
“They Don’t Want Me”
“Tse Tse Fly”
“Call Box”
“On Interstate 15”
“Good Times”
“Call of The West”
“Back In Flesh”

Wall of Voodoo 1984 to 1988 with Andy Prieboy
“Far Side of Crazy”
“Tragic Vaudeville”
“Big City”
“Chains of Luck”
“Wrong Way To Hollywood”
“When The Lights Go Out”
“Room With A View”
“Elvis Bought Dora A Cadillac”
“Blackboard Sky”
“Back In The Laundromat”
“Country of Man”
“Empty Room”
“This Business of Love”
“Do It Again”
“Mexican Radio (live)”

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.