The PopCulteer
December 29, 2023

Your PopCulteer is working on a secret project for this weekend, so this week’s PopCulteer column reverts to radio notes mode. We have a hot new episode of MIRRORBALL to tell you about, and a recent and terrific encore of an episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch devotes a full hour to intricately curated classics of the late Disco era, post-1980.  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.

Every song on this week’s show is making its MIRROBALL debut, which is getting really tricky to pull off as Mel prepares to hit her 100th episode sometime in the new year. The focus this week is on the big club hits from the very early 1980s, when Disco had hit it’s commercial peak, but still had more life in it than anybody seems to remember.

It’s a cool collection of dance classics from the end of the Golden Age of Disco, and it’s a great way to say “so long” to a less-than-stellar year.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 087

Zinc “This Is Where The Love Is”
First Love “Love Me Today”
Al Mason “Good Lovin'”
Heaven & Earth “You’re A Blessing”
Dolette McDonald “(Xtra) Special”
Game “Gotta Take Your Love”
Teodo’r “Love Message”
Grey & Hanks “You Fooled Me”
Salazar “Never Gonna Let You Go”
Johnny Mathis “Love Never Felt So Good”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays throughout the following week Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM and a mini-marathon Saturday nights at 9 PM

At 3 PM we bring you an encore of a two-hour salute to the Psychedelic New Wave band, The Teardrop Explodes on Sydney’s Big Electric Cat from July of this year.  This is a mixtape presentation of tracks from the much-beloved cult band which was the launching ground for one Julian Cope.

The Teardrop Explodes formed in Liverpool in 1978, taking their name from a caption in issue #77 of Daredevil, a Marvel comic book published earlier in the decade.

With vocals and lyrics by Julian Cope, who would go on to reach underground deity status following the break up of this band, The Teardrop Explodes also included David Balfe and Troy Tate, who would go on to become notable record producers.

In these two hours Sydney will play the hits, some deep album cuts and quite a few rarities and live tracks from the recently released The Teardrop Explodes boxed set, Culture Bunker.

Check out the playlist…

BEC 106
The Teardrop Explodes

“Reward”
“East of the Equater”
“Kilimanjaro”
“Sleeping Gas”
“Rachael Built A Steamboat”
“Brave Boys Keep Promises”
“The Culture Bunker”
“Tiny Children”
“Read It In The Books”
“Camera Camera”
“Bouncing Babies”
“Christ Vs. Warhol”
“Screaming secrets”
“Vox Clements In Deserto”
“You Disappear From View”
“Treason”
“Passionate Friend”
“Colours Fly Away”
“The Tunnel”
“Soft Enough For You”
“All I Am Is Loving You”
“Traison (C’est juste une histoire)”
“Suffocate”
“Count To Ten and Run For Cover”
“Terrorist”
“Pussyface”
“When I Dream”
“Strange House In The Snow”
“In-Psychlopaedia”
“World Shut Your Mouth (instrumental demo)”
“Ha Ha, I’m Drowning”

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. Classic episodes can be heard Sunday morning at 10 AM.

For New Year’s Eve this year, The AIR will play our usual overnight marathon of The Swing Shift, but rather than bring you our episodes in order, for this week we’ll cherry-pick the very best for youso you can dance into the new year in style. That begins Sunday at Midnight, immediately following an encore of today’s new MIRRORBALL!

That’s what’s new on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for our regular features every day, and have a safe and prosperous new year.