The PopCulteer
September 15, 2023

Your PopCulteer is busy finishing up a magazine assignement, so this week’s PopCulteer column runs the risk of seeming a bit light. Luckily, instead of writing a long essay that would take me away from those duties, My lovely wife has come to my rescue. Mel Larch returns Friday with a new episode of MIRRORBALL devoted to “Disco Mixes” of Disco tunes.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch devotes a full hour to extended mixes of classics of the Disco era.  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.

One of the most creative things to come out of the Disco-era club scene was the extended 12″ Disco Mix of songs, so that the folks enjoying the joyful noise could stay on the dance floor just a little longer, and the DJ’s could have more time between spinning the records.

This week we are going to bring you Disco Mixes of Disco Classics. It’s Disco squared on a full hour that goes twelve inches to heaven on this epic and eminently danceble music specialty program. Mel will likely revisit this topic soon.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 082

D-Train “You’re The One For Me”
The Crusaders featuring Randy Crawford “Street Life”
Gloria Gaynor “I Will Survive”
Real Thing “Can You Feel The Force”
Shalamar “Uptown Festival Medley”
Anita Ward “Ring My Bell”
Chic “Everybody Dance”

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 the seventh episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat from August, 2016.  This is an early episode of the show that presents Sydney Fileen’s backward glance at the brave new tomorrow that never really came.

This was when Sydney was just beginning to mine the rich vein of New Wave Music that she’s still bringing you today.

Rather than just post a link, here’s the playlist for this one…

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat 007

Ultravox  “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes”
Souixsie and the Banshees  “Hong Kong Garden”
Gleaming Spires  “Art Together”
Comateens  “Overseas”
Video Sex  “Mojo Mama”
The GoGos  “You Can’t Walk In Your Sleep (If You Can’t Sleep)”
Stan Ridgeway  “The Big Heat”
The Living Daylights  “Sugar Days”
T-4-2  “Outside Your Window”
Talk Talk  “Talk Talk”
The Flirts  “Danger”
Robert Marlow  “Calling All Destroyers”
A Flock Of Seagulls  “Messages”
Split Enz  “Six Months In A Leaky Boat”
UK Viva  “Radio Saviour”
Lene Lovich  “New Toy”
The Fallout Club  “Wonderlust”
Re-Flex  “Keep In Touch”
OMD  “Secret”
DEVO  “Planet Earth”
Naked Eyes  “Emotion in Motion”
Small Affairs  “Back To China”
Sherrie Actor  “Forbidden Fruit”
Ian Dury and The Blockheads  “Reasons To Be Cheerful Pt. 3”
The Stranglers  “No More Heroes”
The Damned  “Neat, Neat, Neat”
Tenpole Tudor  “Swords of a Thousand Men”
Jona Lewie “You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties”
The Slits  “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”
Background and close music is Giorgio Morodor’s  “Chase”

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. Two classic episodes can also be heard every Sunday, starting at 10 AM.

And that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back every day for fresh content. Things may be back to normal next week.