Like I said last week,  West Virginia’s pandemic map is no longer completely red, so even though I’m not ready to go out to shows yet, that doesn’t mean you can’t. In fact, we’re going to start off with a plug for a show that I would definitely go see, if I weren’t still being cautious due to my auto-immune disorder. Just before this all hit, two years ago almost exactly, the Radio Free Charleston cameras went to Sam’s Uptown Cafe to shoot video of our old friends, The Swivel Rockers.  You can see one of the songs from that night HERE. Friday night, you can go see them in person for yourselves…

As always, please do what you can to remain safe and alive. Get vaccinated and/or wear a mask, or better yet, do both. Don’t be reckless. Refrain from putting your tongue up strangers noses and if you find yourself in a mosh pit, for God’s sake, wear a condom.

Here are some other cool things happening in our local area this weekend. Be smart and support the local scene as much as you are comfortable doing.

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

Heavy Metal, the cult-favorite adult animated feature, comes to 4K Blu-ray on April 19th (Amazon is promising it in March). The film it will come housed in a great-looking Steelbook package, and also included in the release will be Heavy Metal 2000, the sequel, which is making its debut on Blu-ray as well. The less said about that, the better.

Presented in 4K and under the supervision of the late Ivan Reitman, it will also feature a Dolby Atmos track featuring new soundscapes under the direction of Reitman. All sorts of special features are going to be included as well.

I’m not entirely sure what “new soundscapes” means, but it might indicate that they weren’t able to clear the rights to all the music used in the original film.

I have to admit to having mixed feelings about HEAVY METAL. Most of my friends love the movie, and most of them first saw it on HBO in the 1980s and weren’t familiar with the magazine when they were first exposed to the film.

I was a big fan of the magazine and considered the film to be a major disappointment when I saw it during its original theatrical release.

I went in expecting a faithful adaptation of some of my favorite stories from the comic magazine, and what I got was a mixed bag of beautifully-animated segments, horribly-animated sequences, bad adaptations with failed attempts at humor inserted, and two long segments of the movie that were ripped off of stories by the legendary Jean Giraud, better known as Moebius, without attibution.

The animation was farmed out to studios all over the world after the producers had been turned down by Nelvana Ltd, who were working on their first feature film, Rock & Rule (a much better animated feature, by the way). Some of the studios turned out spectacular first-rate work, others produced work that was more than adequate for the time, but some segments were cranked out by slapped-together crews of first-time animators, reportedly hired at Canadian comic conventions.

HEAVY METAL is really a mixed bag. I probably would remember it far more fondly had I not read the source material (credited and uncredited) first. I though the Den segment was an abomination. I’ve been a fan of the late Richard Corben since I was eight years old, and I was hoping that he would’ve been hired to oversee the animation for this adaptation of his story.

Corben had made some experimental films with limited animation based on Den in the 1960s (I posted one HERE last year), and it would have been a dream come true to see what it would look like had he been given a budget to work with. Instead, his segment was handed off to the comic convention recruits, and re-written by the guys who wrote Meatballs and Stripes. Even though I was a fan of John Candy, who voiced the main character, I despised this part of the movie.

Aside from that mess and the fact that two segments rip off the work of Moebius (and also Dan O’Bannon in one case), the rest of the film has aged better than I would’ve thought.

Bernie Wrightson’s Captain Sternn was faithfully adapted and looked exactly like Wrightson’s art. This short segment seems to be the consensus favorite among fans of the movie, and deservedly so.

Angus McKie’s So Beautiful & So Dangerous, again, looked very much like the original story, and was very close to a small part of the comic, despite the insertion of a lot of Cheech & Chong style drug humor that was not originally there.

The voice work has some surprises. John Candy, who sort of helped murder the Den segment, turns up in other segments, as do his SCTV cohorts Harold Ramis, Eugene Levy and Joe Flaherty. There are also a lot of voices from the Heavy Metal/National Lampoon circle of contributors, like Douglas Kenney, John Vernon (Dean Wormer in Animal House), Rodger Bumpass (now famous as Squidward) and Alice Playten.

A lot of notable comic artists worked on HEAVY METAL behind the scenes.  Neal Adams redesigned some of the characters from So Beautiful & So Dangerous, while Howard Chaykin immortalized DEVO in animation with his designs of the band for their cameo in the Taarna sequence.

The soundtrack was one of those Irving Azoff compilations that didn’t make a lot of sense, but was jam-packed with different artists. Where else could you find an album called “Heavy Metal” that had songs by members of The Eagles, Stevie Nicks, DEVO, Donald Fagan and Journey? To its credit, it also had Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick and a pre-Van Halen Sammy Hagar.

So there’s a lot of cool stuff here, if you don’t mind gatuitous cartoon nudity and ignore what they did to Den. I’ll probably grab this for the collection when it comes out.

Here’s the pertinent data from the press release:

Based on the fantastical illustrated magazine HEAVY METAL, producer Ivan Reitman enlists the help of some of Hollywood’s animation masters to create the otherworldly tale of a glowing green orb from outer space that spreads destruction throughout the galaxy. Only when encountered by its one true enemy, to whom it is inexplicably drawn, will goodness prevail throughout the universe. Richly and lavishly drawn, the vignettes of the orb’s dark victories include the character voices of John Candy, Harold Ramis and a pounding soundtrack by Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick, Devo, Donald Fagen, Don Felder, Grand Funk Railroad, Sammy Hagar, Journey, Nazareth, Stevie Nicks, Riggs, and Trust. Highly imaginative and full of surprising special effects, HEAVY METAL set the standard for alternative contemporary animation. An intoxicating experience not to be missed!

Here is the list of special features and specs for the release:

HEAVY METAL 4K ULTRA HD DISC

Feature presented in 4K resolution with Dolby Vision, reviewed and approved by Ivan Reitman
New 2022 Dolby Atmos soundtrack – a brand-new immersive experience utilizing enhanced sound effects and much more, supervised by producer Ivan Reitman!
Also includes the 2022 mix in 5.1, and the original 1981 theatrical Dolby Stereo audio
Special Feature:
NEW: Heavy Metal: A Look Back – an all-new retrospective featuring re­flections from producer Ivan Reitman, famous fans Kevin Smith, Norman Reedus, and more!

HEAVY METAL BLU-RAY DISC™

Feature presented in High Definition with 5.1 audio
Special Features:
Original Feature-Length Rough Cut with Optional Commentary by Carl Macek
Imagining Heavy Metal Documentary
Deleted Scene
Alternate Framing Story with Commentary

HEAVY METAL 2000 BLU-RAY DISC™

Feature presented in High Definition (newly remastered), with 5.1 audio
Special Features:
Julie Strain: Super Goddess
Voice Talent
Animation Tests
Animatic Comparisons
4K UHD Feature Picture: 2160p Ultra High Definition, 1.85:1
4K UHD Feature Audio: English Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Compatible) | English 5.1 DTS-HD MA | English Stereo Surround DTS-HD MA

Tuesday on The AIR  your blogger and radio show host once again dives into the vast RFC Archives and comes up with a “new” patchwork edition of Radio Free Charleston. Real-life intrusions and just a general amount of over-workedness combined to cause me to throw in the towel on bringing you a new show this week.

This week I decided to go back to April, 2019, and stitch together three consecutive episodes of Radio Free Charleston Volume 4, which happen to be loaded with great music. To hear all this cool local music you simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to the cool embedded player over at the top of the right column.

At 10 AM and 10 PM you can hear this all-local compilation of RFC volume 4, episodes 105, 106 and 107. These are killer shows so you can still get your recommended daily amount of local music!

The first hour is a deep dive into our archives, with stuff you may not hear anyplace else. Hour two is a metal extravaganza with even more tracks that are exclusive to The AIR. Hour three is loaded with some then-new releases from notable area bands, and even that hour has a couple of tracks that you won’t hear on any other radio station.

These shows haven’t been heard in almost three years, so I thought it was a good idea to bring them back and plop them into the RFC V5 rotation. I do apologize for not having live links for the bands in the playlist this week. Time constraints and fatigue (laziness) prevented it.

Check out the playlist:

RFC V5 080

hour one
Rasta Rafiki “Perspective of Love”
Todd Burge “I’m Going Down”
The Big Bad “Nobody Makes It Out Of Here Alive (Live 2009)”
Time And Distance “That Girl”
Crazy Jane “Silver”
Terra Firma Ensemble “Brambles and Briars”
The Liquid Canvas “Spirit Molecule”
Io & The Ions “There’s A Light”
Science of the Mind “Suffer”
HARRAH “CODA (Gotta Get Out)”

hour two
Byzantine “Verses of Violence”
John Lancaster “A Penchant For Hell on Earth”
Bobaflex “A Real Sadness”
Karma To Burn “Thirty Eight”
Out of Nowhere “Take It Back”
Trielement “Accidental Chaos”
Zeroking “Black Friday”
CHUM “Six Feet of Earth”
Ghosts of Now “Deathburn”

hour three
Fletcher’s Grove “Straight To The Moon”
Cast of Theatre WV’s Paradise Park “No Money Down”
Beggars Clan “We Sleep”
Wolfgang Parker “The Father, The Son”
Beneath “Worst Eastern”
Rasta Rafiki “Nature of the Game”
Bad Keys of the Mountain “I’m Gone”
Todd Burge “Rapid Fire”
Karen Allen “Without Us”
Prank Monkey “My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama”
The Big Bad “Cold As A Ghost”
Sheldon Vance “Turn It Back Around”
Go Van Gogh “I Am The Walrus”

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 3 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 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 MIRRORBALL at 1 PM, and Ska Madness at 2 PM. At 3 PM we have two recent episodes of The Swing Shift.

The PopCult Toybox

We have our first images of the new toys from World of EPI based on The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder that I told you about last week. Better yet, these are already available from Target online and will be in stores soon.

The first in a series of The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder fashion dolls and mini figures is available from Target now, ahead of the release of Disney+’s highly anticipated animated series. Designed and manufactured by The World of EPI, the leading manufacturer behind authentic multicultural dolls, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder fashion dolls and figures exemplify the distinct characteristics of each character and celebrate diversity, self-love and empowerment.

Returning to television more than 20 years after it first hit Disney Channel, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder follows the adventures and misadventures of newly 14-year-old Penny Proud and her Proud Family as they navigate modern life with hilarity and heart. The series debuts February 23, 2022 on Disney+.

Always cute and forever proud, Penny Proud is wearing her signature outfit, a faux suede skirt, knit blouse and sweater, and sneakers, inspired by the animated series. The 10″ fashion doll, with 11 points of articulation, offers bendability and flexibility, allowing Penny to strike fierce poses. Featuring long beautiful black hair, styled in two twisted pigtails and a tendril on top, kids can also wash and restyle it for hours of play. Suitable for ages 3 and up.

The Penny Proud & Crew Mini Figure set includes Penny, Dijonay, LaCienega, Maya and Zoey. Fully sculpted with expressive poses, each character is dressed in a molded outfit and shoes inspired by their outfits from the animated series The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. The five-piece set is packaged in a reusable box that doubles as Penny’s bedroom (seen below), so kids can hang for hours of fun playing with the crew.

The figures are up to five inches tall and perfectly capure the way they look on the cartoon. Also suitable for ages 3 and up, available at Target now.

Click the images for a closer look, and stay tuned to PopCult for detailed reviews as soon as we have our hands on these cool toys.

This week’s art is an expressionistic view of Broadway, in Manhattan, inspired by a trip to The Big Apple we took in the Autum of 2018. We had a killer hotel room, right in the heart of Times Square, and the views were spectacular. This acrylic on Paper for Pens piece is based on fuzzy memories of what it was like to look down at the street from 23 floors up, to see a fleet of taxis standing out with their bright yellow against the gray pavement. I put in some advertising signs and the sign for the M&M store for added color.

And because I was craving M&Ms.

This piece was then was photographed with my phone and a ring light because I didn’t want to smudge the paint in my scanner. There was some cropping and color-correction done once I got it into the computer.

If you want to see this painting larger, just click on it.

Meanwhile, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a recent episode of  Psychedelic Shack, followed at 3 PM by 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 at the top of the right-hand column of this blog.

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. Classic episodes can be heard Sunday at 9 AM as part of our Sunday Haversham Recording Institute collection.

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.

Our Monday Marathon, beginning at 8 PM, brings you eleven hours of  random stuff from our AIR archives. You might here music, talk shows, comedy, live concerts…nobody knows, because it’s random!

Tonight we feature an embedded playlist of videos from our friend, Scott Helland, also known as Guitarmy of One (and also known as “The Punk” from Frenchy and The Punk).  Scott has been cranking out really cool videos for his latest album, The Spy Detective Collective, since its release a bit over  year ago. The latest one, “Detectives and Dragonets,” debuted just a few days ago, and it’s the first video you’ll see up above this text.

Quoting liberally from Scott’s website here…

On the latest album, The Spy Detective Collective, Guitarmy of One looks to the crime and intrigue shows of the ‘60s and ‘70s for inspiration as well as for dashes of melodic and cultural source material. Guitarist Scott Helland traces his love of instrumental music all the way back to his childhood immersion in The Rockford Files, The Man from Uncle, I Spy, and others. In the tight-lipped, complex, and solitary characters celebrated in those shows, Helland finds an analog for his own go-it-alone forays into stylish post-punk guitar composition.

In a bit of coded intrigue, Guitarmy of One’s song titles all contain the word ‘one’ buried in them. Some songs are dedicated to singular heroes of the genre: the ominous riffage of “Perry Mason Exoneration” and the moody, Eastern-Euro tinged spy rock of “Emma Bella Citronella,” an homage to Emma Peel of The Avengers. Other songs conflate multiple titles and characters, leaving a referential riddle for the listener: the shimmering, tuneful “Overtones of Hercule and Holmes,” the brash and driving album opener, “I Spy the Prisoner.”

I’ve been playing tracks from The Spy Detective Collective on Radio Free Charleston since its release, but I thought it’d be cool to take a look at the exquistely nifty videos that accompany some of those wild surf-inflected spy tunes.  There are seven videos in all, and I’ve set them to play one after the other here in this post. You’ll even get to spy Frenchy in a few, hiding beneath some impressive wigs.

To get your own copy of The Spy Detective Collective, plus cool Guitarmy of One merchandise, visit his website, HERE.

From November, 2009, this episode of Radio Free Charleston, “Adamfest VI Shirt” features music from The Limbs, The Buttonflies and WATT 4, plus animation from Frank Panucci, and a short video showing off the photography of Clayton Spangler.

You can read the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
February 18, 2022

We have a very special treat for fans of New Wave Music on The AIR Friday.  It’s a great new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat for you, courtesy of Sydney Fileen. As you probably now by now, The AIR is PopCult‘s sister internet station, and you can listen to it without even leaving the blog. It’s cool, it’s free and we don’t pester you for money. All we ask is that you listen and enjoy.

Following an encore of last week’s bonus edition of MIRRORBALL at 2 PM, Friday brings a brand-new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat to The AIR. The AIR is PopCult’s sister radio station. You can hear these shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player at the top right column of this blog if you’re reading on a desktop.

At 3 PM, Sydney Fileen graces us with a very special show that’s loaded with pure ear candy, as Sydney describes it.  It’s a killer mix of killer hooks as Sydney brings you hits, deep cuts and obscure rarities. Each tune is a potential earworm for somebody.

Just check out the playlist to see for yourself…

BEC 086

Thomas Dolby “Europa and the Pirate Twins”
Romeo Void “Myself To Myself”
INXS “Stay Young”
Orchestral Manouvers In The Dark “Romance of the Telescope”
Bow Wow Wow “Why Are Babies So Wise”
Simple Minds “Theme For Great Cities”
DEVO “Working In A Coal Mine”
Modern English “Black Houses”
Siouxsie & The Banshees “Into The Light”
Aztec Camera “Lost Outside The Tunnel”
Heaven 17 “We’re Going To Live”
Talk Talk “Mirror Man”
Marthat & The Muffins “This Is The Ice Age”
Gang of Four “Paralyzed”
Wall of Voodoo “Crack The Bell”
Killing Joke “Butcher”
The Cars “Shake It Up”
The Eurythmics “Take Me To Your Heart”
Public Image Limited “Flowers of Romance”
B-Movie “Rememberance Day”
Magazine “The Honeymoon Killers”
Au Pairs “Love Song”
The Cure “All Cats Are Grey”
Fun Boy Three “The Lunatics”
Icicle Works “When Winter Lasted Forever”
UB40 “One In Ten”
The Beat “Too Nice To Talk To”
Human League “The Things That Dreams Are Made Of”
The B 52s “Give Me Back My Man”
Duran Duran “Girls On Film”
The Ramones “It’s Not My Place”
New Order “Chosen Time”
Lene Lovich “New Toy”

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat is produced at Haversham Recording Institute in London, and can be heard every Friday at 3 PM, with replays 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.   I decided to jettison a couple of other topics for this week’s column because, to paraphrase Rowan Atkinson, “When the wind comes, it will be strong enough to blow down the awning.”  Still, check this blog for fresh content every day. I may be busy and distracted, but at least I’m stubborn enough to keep doing this.

Okay, I’ve given this feature a few months off while Omicron was out and about, but West Virginia’s pandemic map is no longer completely red, so even though I’m not ready to go out to shows yet, that doesn’t mean you can’t

As always, please do what you can to remain safe and alive. Get vaccinated and/or wear a mask, or better yet, do both. Don’t be reckless. Refrain from putting your tongue up strangers noses and if you find yourself in a mosh pit, for God’s sake, wear a condom.

Here are some great shows happening in our local area this weekend. Be smart and support the local scene as much as you are comfortable doing.

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

Wednesday afternoon The AIR brings you brand-new episodes of Beatles Blast and Curtain Call!  You can tune in at the website, or if you’re on a laptop or desktop, you could just stay on this page, and  listen to the convenient embedded radio player lurking over in the right-hand column of this blog.

At 2 PM,  we serve up a mixtape collection of obscure Paul McCartney B-sides, ranging from the 1970s to the 1990s. These are gems of songs that, for whatever reason, did not make it onto an album, instead winding up on the B-sides of singles or 12″ singles. Some of my favorite songs by Paul from this era were consigned to B-side infamy.

Check out the playlist…

Beatles Blast 081
McCartney’s B Sides

“Ode To A Koala Bear”
“No More Lonely Nights (Dance Mix)”
“My Carnival”
“Tough On A Tightrope (remix)”
“Back On My Feet”
“Flying To My Home”
“Ou Est Le Soleil?”
“C Moon”
“B-Side To Seaside”
“I’m Partial To Your Abracadabra”
“Party Party”
“On The Wings Of A Nightengale”
“Incredible Thing”

Beatles Blast can be heard every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday afternoon.

At 3 PM on Curtain Call, Mel Larch dishes up a mixtape of her own. It’s “Showstoppers With A Twist” as Mel brings you…different versions of classic tunes from musical theater.  Some of these are from solo albums, some are from revivals, some are from concerts, and Mel even brings you famous musical numbers performed in Spanish and Yiddish, and in rock and jazz. She starts out with a couple of tunes from Hamilton, performed by the Workshop Cast.

See what other surprises Mel has in store…

Curtain Call 110
Showstoppers With A Twist

“My Shot” Hamilton (Workshop Cast)
“You’ll Be Back” Hamilton (Workshop Cast)
“Anything Goes” by Elaine Page
“I Dreamed A Dream” Patti Lupone”
“Merrily We Roll Along” Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC
“Nice Work If You Can Get It” Dick Van Dyke”
“Children Will Listen” Susan Egan
“A Little Priest” Michael Cervaris and Patti Lupone
“Some Enchanted Evening/All I Do Is Dream of You” Kyle Taylor Parker
“Suddenly Seymour” Tammy Blanchard and Jonathan Groff
“If I Were A Rich Man” from Fiddler On The Roof in Yiddish
“The Greatest Show” Panic At The Disco
“Pretty Women” Terry Vosbein & The Knoxville Jazz Orchestra
“There’s No Business Like Show Business (reprise)” Bernadette Peters
“Todo Se Tine De Rosa (Everything’s Coming Up Roses)” Kika Edgar

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 six-hour 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.