Sometimes in life, sudden trips to Chicago happen.

I’m not saying that’s what’s going on here, but for the next eight days, we are going to treat you to marathons of The AIR‘s music specialty programming. Beginning at 7 AM Monday, you will be able to immerse yourself in a solid day, that’s twenty-four hours, of one particular program.

You’ll be able to come to PopCult every day to see which show gets the honors that day. We will have full days devoted to Prognosis, Radio Free Charleston, Curtain Call, The Swing Shift, Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, MIRRORBALL, Beatles Blast and Psychedelic Shack.

Keep in mind that this is purely a way to introduce new listeners to all of our programming, and not just a cheap stunt to give me a way to take a week off for a trip without forcing myself to post fresh content to the blog from the road.

However, there is a chance that you might be seeing some additional posts to PopCult over the next week. I mean, I’ve got photos from WonderFest and there’s cool stuff in Chicago.

This week we bring you an encore of a cool video we first ran back in November, 2023.

It’s a wonderfully eerie song that she performed at her Surruralism show, and she talked about it when we were both on Josh Gaffin’s Afternoon Show on Status Quo back then. She’d been working down to the wire to get it out in time for All Hallow’s Eve, and she just did manage to sneak it in. We originally shared it here a few days later.

“Ghost Cat” has a cool, spooky, timeless quality that transcends Halloween and celebrates the long legacy of Appalachian Mystic Weirdness. So you can watch it any time you want.

And the reason I’m posting it again now is because, just last Wednesday I got to see Ann perform this song live, with backing from the Carpenter Ants, at the FestivALL kickoff event, Three Things. It was a great evening with Ann and the other speakers, and it was cool to catch up with her afterward to talk a little about Pepperland, Alfred Jarry and underground comix.

And to be slightly coy, I did shoot video of the performanance and it may wind up on this year’s video edition of RFC, but I’m not making any promises because I haven’t been able to check out the quality as I write this. Besides, there’s that cool semi-animated video above that you can all enjoy now.

Now that youv’e see it, visit Ann’s Store for cool Ghost Cat stickers and patches (and lots of other cool things) and then hit up her Bandcamp page and download the song as well as her other albums.

We are in the midst of a run of The RFC Flashback that goes back to the most ambitious series of episodes in Radio Free Charleston history.  In June, 2011 I decided to try and do something sort of crazy. I’d managed to crank out Radio Free Charleston on a weekly basis before, which was no mean feat since the show was basically produced by me alone, with camera help from my now-wife Mel Larch and occasional help from other friends. For FestivALL 2011, I managed to produce eight episodes of Radio Free Charleston in under two weeks.

With this show we dive into the second week of Radio Free Charleston‘s ridiculously extensive coverage of FestivALL 2011. The video you see up there is Radio Free Charleston 137, Part Five of our FestivALL 2011 coverage. This episode takes music recorded at the Derick Kirk Memorial Concert and combines it with dance recorded all over town during FestivALL. Our music performed live at Capitol Roasters is provided by the Velvet Nomads, Comparsa, and The Voodoo Katz.

Our featured dancers included the Capitol High School Dance Company, Mandy Petry, Brian Roller, Kevin Pauley, and Jeff Bukovinsky of the No Pants Players, Jenna Brooke Swanson and Raqs Shakti, Professor Danger (left), Kathleen Coffee, the Trillium Performance Art Company (above), and Some Guy In Davis Park.

This whole show was blast to edit. This show was a bit of a departure from our normal format, but we were cranking out so much video that I changed things up just to keep it interesting. We have three more weeks of our FestivALL 2011 shows in our chronological presentation of our video show, but FestivALL 2025 is going on NOW.  If you’re in town, follow that link to a schedule and get out and enjoy. The kickoff last Wednesday was loads of fun.

The PopCulteer
MAY 30, 2025

New episodes of our Music Specialty Shows make you feel alive on The AIR Friday afternoon as Mel Larch’s MIRRORBALL and Sydney Fileen’s Sydney’s Big Electric Cat  both return with new episodes.  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, we have a new episode of MIRRORBALL where Mel Larch once again presents a selection of the best and brightest of the classic Disco era. This time she brings the platform shoes to the dancefloor with extended mixes of some of the biggest hits of the Disco Era.

Don’t believe us? Check out the playlist. It’s got filled to the rim with Disco…

MIRRORBALL 116

Evelyn Champagne King “Shame”
The S.O.S. Band “Take Your Time (Do It Right)”
Michael Zager Band “Let’s All Chant”
Vicki Sue Robinson “Turn The Beat Around”
Lou Rawls “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine”
Chic “Good Times”
Anita Ward “Ring My Bell”
First Choice “The Player”

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 that includes the latest episode Saturday nights at 9 PM

At 3 PM, it’s Big Electric Cat time as Sydney Fileen delivers a special NEW mixtape edition of her show that pays tribute to The Alarm.  This episode was in the planning stages when The Alarm’s frontman passed away in April, after battling blood cancer for three decades. Sydney decided to stick with her plans, but turn the show into a tribute.  It’s loaded with great New Wave era songs from a band that deserved more attention that they got.

Check out this killer playlist…

BEC 128
The Alarm

“Sixty-Eight Guns”
“Declaration”
“Marching On”
“Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke”
“Shout To The Devil”
“Blaze of Glory”
“What Kind of Hell”
“The Chant Has Just Begun”
“Absolute Reality”
“Knife Edge”
“Strength”
“Dawn Chorus”
“Spirit of 76”
“The Stand”
“Father To Son”
“The Day The Ravens Left The Tower”
“Rain In The Summertime”
“Newtown Jericho”
“Hallowed Ground”
“Rescue Me”
“Permanence In Change”
“Eye of the Hurricane”
“Devolution Workin’ Man’s Blues”
“Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (live)”
“Live Covers Medley”

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, even if I sneak out of the state and hop a train for two separate trips in the next week.

The newly-slimmed-down FestivALL happens this weekend, and you can find the schedule for it HERE. Meanwhile, here’s a few other cool things you can can find this weekend if you’re looking for STUFF TO DO in and around Charleston, West Virginia.

As always, you should remember 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. Also, if you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future, contact me via Social Media at Facebook, BlueSky , Spoutible, Instagram or Twitter.  I dont charge for this, so you might as well send me something if you have an event to promote. Note that some links look like they shouldn’t work because they have lines through them, but that’s just a WordPress glitch, so click on them anyway. They should still work.

We are also very happy to remind you that Cristen Michael has created an interactive calendar that is way more comprehensive than this list of STUFF TO DO, and you can find it HERE. Just click on the day and the event and you’ll be whisked away to a page with more details about loads of area events.

You can find live music in and around town every night of the week. You just have to know where to look.

Most Fridays and Saturdays you can find live music at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM. This weekend they have no performers listed, so they might be skipping the weekend due to FestivALL.

You can find live music every night at The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe. Mondays feature open mic night. The first Tuesday of every month sees the legendary Spurgie Hankins Band perform. There’s both Happy Hour music and local or touring bands on Thursday and Friday, and live bands Saturday nights. On Sundays when there’s a new Mountain Stage, musicians from the legendary WV Public Radio show migrate to The Glass for the Post-Mountain Stage jam. I hear that last week’s jam was epic.

Live at The Shop in Dunbar hosts local and touring bands on most weekends, and is a nice break away from the downtown bar scene.

Louie’s, at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort, regularly brings in local bands on weekends.

In Huntington, local institution, The Loud (formerly The V Club), brings in great touring and local acts three or four nights a week.

The Wandering Wind Meadery holds several events each week, from live piano karaoke to bands to comedy to burlesque.

The multitude of breweries and distilleries that have popped up in Charleston of late bring in live musical acts as well. I tend to miss a lot of these because, being a non-drinker, they fly under my radar.

Clendenin Brewing Co is a microbrewery with 4 themed lodging rooms in a 1920s bank building on Main St Clendenin, WV. They’ve been host a lot of musical acts lately.

Roger Rablais hosts Songwriter’s stage at different venues around the area, often at 813 Penn, next door to Fret ‘n’ Fiddle in Saint Albans and also at The Empty Glass many Tuesday evenings. You might also find cool musical events at Route 60 Music in Barboursville and Folklore Music Exchange in Charleston.

To hear music in an alcohol-free enviroment, see what’s happening at Pumzi’s, on Charleston’s West Side.This Saturday at 7:30 PM you can hear Three’s Company Groove and Huntington Blues Society at this fun new venue.

You can also visit Coal River Coffee in Saint Albans for live music in an alcohol-free environment. This Friday at 7 PM  Coal River Coffee features Minor SwingI am looking to expand this list, so please contact me through the social media sites above if you know about more alcohol-free performance venues. The Huntington Music Collective has recently started hosting all ages shows at Event Horizon.

For cutting-edge independent art films, downstairs from Taylor Books you’ll find the Floralee Hark Cohen Cinema by WVIFF. Each week they program several amazing movies in their intimate viewing room that you aren’t likely to see anywhere else.

Please remember that viral illlnesses are still a going concern and many people who have very good reasons are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding  while you’re out. And if you’re at an outdoor event, please remember that it’s awfully inconsiderate to smoke or vape around people who become ill when exposed to that stuff.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Here we go, roughly in order, it’s graphics for local events that I was able to scrounge up online, which was tricky because I’m still using a VPN now, and Facebook thinks I’m in London, England and shows me events happening in Trafalgar Square…

Continue reading

On Wednesday The AIR brings you great new episodes of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast that are bright and shiny and have that new car smell.  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 is something we haven’t done for a while…it’s just a regular episode of the show.

That means it’s a mix of new and classic Beatle-related tracks, plus some choice covers.

We open with the newly-released duet by Paul McCartney and Barbra Streisand, performing McCartney’s song, “My Valentine.

After that we bring you some hard rock covers, a set of solo tracks more offbeat covers, including a track by Novo Combo, off their reunion CD that was released last year.

There is one thing about this episode that’s a bit unusual, though. We don’t include any songs by The Beatles, proper.

Check out the playlist…

Beatles Blast 121

Barbra Streisand and Paul McCartney “My Valentine”
The Flamin’ Groovies “Revolution”
Eddie & The Hot Rods “I’m Down”
The Members “Day Tripper”
Wings “Spin it On”
John Lennon “Gimme Some Truth”
George Harrison “Brainwashed”
Ringo Starr “Look Up”
Rockestra “Rockestra Theme (Extended)”
Paul Weller “Sexy Sadie”
Andrew Gold “Dr. Robert”
Dread Zepplin “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight”
Siouxsie & The Banshees “Blue Jay Way (live)”
Novo Combo “And I Love Her”

Beatles Blast can be heard every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursday at 11 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday afternoon, with a mini-marathon of classic episodes Sunday afternoons.

At 3 PM (EDT) on Curtain Call, Mel Larch presents a mixtape salute to Charles Strouse, the legendary Broadway composer who passed away at the age of 96 on May 15.

Strouse won seven Tony Awards in his life, and among his works are some of the most famous shows in musical theater history. Were talking about shows like Bye, Bye Birdie, Annie, Applause, Golden Boy and It’s a Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s Superman, among many others.

Strouse also wrote for movies and composed many memorable TV themes over the years.

Mel brings you a wide-ranging collection of his most famous compositions in a special mixtape presentation.

Check out this hit-laden playlist…

Curtain Call 157

“Those Were The Days” performed by Charles Strouse
“It’s A Hard Knock Life” from Annie
“Once Upon A Time” from All American
“Applause” from Applause
“A Lot of Living To Do” from Bye Bye Birdie
“You’ve Got Possibilities” from It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s Superman
“When Things Were Rotten” performed by Charles Strouse
“The Telephone Hour” from Bye Bye Birdie
“Night Song” from Golden Boy
“What A Country” from All American
“Easy Street” from Annie
“Blame It On The Summer Night” from Rags
“Mad” from Dance A Little Closer
“Put On A Happy Face” from Bye Bye Birdie
“The Critic” from Six
“Welcome To The Theatre” from Applause
“Work of Art” from Minsky’s
“Is There Anything Better Than Dancing” from Nick and Nora
“It’s Fun To Think” from All American
“Who’s That Girl” from Applause
“Tomorrow” from Annie

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, Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM. A marathon of classic episodes can be heard Sunday morning and afternoon starting at 9 AM, 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 a brand-new episode whose contents remain a mystery as we write this.

In case you missed the news yesterday, this week all of The AIR Musical Specialty programs will be brand-new. That means that…Tuesday is once again “New Show Day” on The AIR.  As such, 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.

Now, this week your humble blogger/radio host had a ton of work pop up that had to be dealt with immediately, so I had to cut corners to get a new show to you this week.

And I didn’t want to skip this week because we have a special programming event next week that will preclude us doing a new RFC then. So things will be back to normal the week after next.

Back to this week’s show, we open with new music from Sparks, and then our first hour is a mixtape that includes new music from Corduroy Brown, Skunk Anansie, Messer Chups, Monsoon, The Heavy Editors, Morcheeba and more.

Our second and third hours go back to an episode of Radio Free Charleston Volume Three, from May, 2015, back when we were on Voices of Appalachia/New Appalachian Radio. I picked this ten-year-old edition of the show because the first hour is just loaded with great local music, while the next hour brings you an assortment of music from Pere Ubu, the band fronted by Dave Thomas…who just passed away a few weeks ago.

So it’s sort of timely and respectful, in addition to being just a wee bit slapdash.

We don’t have links this week. They will return in two weeks so you can track down the artists. In the meantime, feel free to Google them.

RFC V5 226

hour one
Sparks “Hit Me, Baby”
Corduroy Brown “Doin’ My Best (Rodburn Hollow Sessions)”
Skunk Anansie “An Artist Is An Artist”
Rupesh Cartell “Hands of Glass”
Ghoulbox “Necrokiss”
Messer Chups “Souvenir of the Witch”
The Settlement “Riff Destroyer (live)”
Monsoon “Crack Our Codes”
The Heavy Editors “Human Nature”
Dinosaur Burps “Sophisticated Robe”
Morcheeba “Bleeding Out”
Marc Ribot “Death of a Narcissist”
Dark Entities “Undertow”

hour two
J Marinelli “Stop Paying Attention”
J Marinelli “Saturn of Clarksburg”
Dina Hornbaker “At Bay”
Brian Young “Swingin’ Man”
Whistlepunk “Spy Song”
Close The Hatch “Skull and Bird”
Trielement “Noodle Soup”
Timothy Price “Kashmir”

Charlie West All Stars-Veteran’s Benefit CD Band

“Walk This Way”
“Champagne and Reefer”
“Runnin’ Down A Dream”
“Barracuda”

John Lancaster “Jeruselum Syndrome”

hour three
Pere Ubu

“Waiting For Mary”
“49 Guitars and One Girl”
“Dark”
“Ubu Dance Party”
“Breath (Don’t Let’s Talk About Tomorrow”
“Rhapsody In Pink”
“Sentimental Journey”
“The Waltz”
“My Theory of Spontaneous Simultude”
“Love, Love, Love”

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 collects some of the greatest hits of Artie Shaw, the thinking man’s bandleader. This show was assembled so quickly that I didn’t not have time to prepare a playlist. Thanks to the same sudden workload, all I can say is that it’s all Artie Shaw, and all the hits are here.

And it Swings, big time.

 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.

This week’s art is something I found in my old phone. It’s a digital doodle, done in Samsung Notes, and I’m pretty sure I did this while sitting outside the Ohio Statehouse while waiting to go see “To Kill A Mockingbird” a a theater across the street in June, 2023.

This was a rare instance of me having a stylus handy and actually being able to draw something useful on the phone. I probably tweaked the colors a bit after dumping it into the computer, but I’m not sure.

If I can ever figure out where Notes is on the new phone, I may do more work like this…if I remember to carry a stylus.

Of course, it’s probably easier to just take a picture.

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.

The problem is, we don’t have playlists for either show. Nigel Pye tells me that Psychedelic Shack is one of his favorite episodes ever, but he didn’t give me a hint of what to expect in it. Herman Linte didn’t have a playlist, but he promises a show filled with the music of the band, Focus, from the 1970s 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 stand up from Patton Oswalt on last week’s episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon we bring you ten hours of progressive rock recorded live in concert on Prognosis. 

Next weekend is the weekend after Memorial Day, and that means that it’s time for WonderFest USA in Louisville. Mr. and Mrs PopCulteer are planning to attend for the second year in a row, and to get ready we’re going to re-share last years video, plus videos from 2021 and 2015. It’ll be fun to check out (and photograph) all the cool model kit builds, and it’ll be cool to see William Stout and Greg Nicotero again and we also have a book or two we want to buy from Anthony Taylor.

There will be panels devoted to Jaws, Star Trek, Lost in Space and more.  It’s loads of fun for Monster kids of all ages, and it’s just a four-hour drive down I-64 from Charleston.

You can read  more about this year’s show HERE, and check out our videos above and below.

We are in the midst of a run of The RFC Flashback that goes back to the most ambitious series of episodes in Radio Free Charleston history.  In June, 2011 I decided to try and do something sort of crazy. I’d managed to crank out Radio Free Charleston on a weekly basis before, which was no mean feat since the show was basically produced by me alone, with camera help from my now-wife Mel Larch and occasional help from other friends. For FestivALL 2011, I managed to produce eight episodes of Radio Free Charleston in under two weeks.

Part four of Radio Free Charleston‘s FestivALL 2011 coverage combines The East End Main Street Streetworks Art Auction with The Music Works/Songwriternight.com Songwriter Invitational. You’ll see plenty of the Streetworks brick art, plus MC Ted Brightwell (right), along with music from Sierra Ferrell, Don Baker, John Radcliff and John Lilly.

This was our fourth show in four days. After this we took four days off so we could record events during the second weekend of FestivALL, which we posted the following week. You’ll see the first of those shows in this space next week.

Also next weekend, FestivAll 2025 happens in Charleston, and it’s shrunk back down to one weekend and currently lacks an executive director, so I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to enjoy it.