It’s Milestone Time Wednesday afternoon The AIR brings you a very special brand-new episode of  Curtain Call!  You can tune in at the website, or or 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 3 PM on Curtain Call, Mel Larch celebrtes both the fifth anniversary of Curtain Call on The AIR, as well as the 100th episode of her showcase of the best of musical theatre. To mark this special occasion, Mel is going to bring you a sampling of the best of each decade of the last century, with the 2000s getting a bonus song and an opening number that dates back to 1904!

You will hear songs composed by George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Schwartz, Lin Manuel Miranda and more, and the singers include Ella Fitzgerald, Elaine Page, Bernadette Peters, Joel Grey, Nathan Lane and more.  Mel didn’t go with the Original Cast recordings for every track, opting for a mix of original performancs, revival casts and interpretations from the world’s greatest singers. Mel chose one song to represent each decade in which it debuted.

This is not supposed to be a definitive list of the absolute best, but rather a sampling of the cream of the crop of the many entertaining shows that have brought joy to millions over the last hundred years.

It was a challenge trying to cram over a hundred years of musical theatre into one hour, but Mel pulled it off. She does plan to go back and revisit each decade in future editions of Curtain Call. For now, check out this playlist:

 Curtain Call 100

“Give My Regards to Broadway” Al Jolson
1920’s: “Oh, Lady, Be Good” from Lady Be Good, 1924 (George and Ira Gershwin) Buck and Bubble
1930’s:”The Lady Is a Tramp” from Babes in Arms 1937 (Rodgers and Hart) Ella Fitzgerald
1940’s: “There’s No Business Like Show Business” from Annie Get Your Gun 1946 (Irving Berlin)  Bernadette Peters and Tom Wopat
1950’s : “Getting To Know You” from The King and I  1957 (Rodgers and Hammerstein)Elaine Page
1960’s: “Hair” (Title song) 1967 (Gerome Ragni James Rado)
1970’s: “What I Did For Love” from A Chorus Line ( 1975 Marvin Hamlisch)
1980’s: “The Phantom of the Opera” (title song) 1986 (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Hart/Stilgoe)
1990’s: :La Vie Boheme” from RENT 1996 (Jonathan Larson)
2000s: “Where Did We Go Right?”  from The Producers (2001 Mel Brooks) Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick
“Wonderful” from Wicked 2003 (Stephen Scharwtz) Idina Menzel, Joel Grey
2010s: “My Shot” from Hamilton 2015 (Lin-Manuel Miranda)

Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM and 9 PM, and Saturday at 8 PM. 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.

Tuesday on The AIR we deliver a brand-new episode of The Swing Shift.  In order to hear this new hour of Suh-Wing, you simply have to move your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to that copascetic little embedded radio player at the top of the right column of this blog.

First off, at 1 PM we have a replay of the pride episode of  MIRRORBALL, wherein Mel Larch makes long to dance the inclusive Disco way for one full hour! Then at 2 PM an encore of Steven Allen Adams’ NOISE BRIGADE makes you want to jump in the mosh pit, the Ska/Punk way for the next hour.

At 3 PM a new hour of The Swing Shift drives home the dance theme by presenting a mixtape show where we shut up and dance…mostly. I do introduce the show, and Eddie Nichols sings one line at the end of the Royal Crown Revue tune, but otherwise the show is all instrumental. Check out this powerful playlist…

The Swing Shift 114

Benny Goodman “Let’s Dance”
Artie Shaw “The Grabtown Grapple”
Brian Setzer Orchestra “Mr. Jazzer Goes Surfin'”
Tyler Pedersen “The Dig”
Glenn Miller “Tuxedo Junction”
Django Reinhardt “Oh, Lady Be Good”
Paolo Tomelieri “Esquire Bounce”
Jack’s Cats “King of The Singapore Sling”
Hot Sugar Band “Swing 41”
Lester Young “Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid”
Quincy Jones “Boogie Stop Shuffle”
Royal Crown Revue “Be Bop For Boo”
Swing Rocket “Soul Station”
Charlie Barnett “Cherokee”
Gene Krupa/Roy Eldridge “Swing Is Here”
Teddy Wilson “Liza”
Tommy Dorsey “Opus One”
Jim Parrot, Don Stiernberg “I’ll Remember April”

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 AM and 6 PM, Thursday at 2 PM and Saturday afternoon, only on The AIR. You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursday and Sunday evenings.

Tuesday on The AIR  we deliver a completely brand-new episode of Radio Free Charleston. It’s three hours of music that lets you support the local scene and indulge your strange musical desires. You simply have to move 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.

We have a new Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.  This week we celebrate fifteen years of the RFC video show by bringing you the music from the just-posted fifteenth anniversary episode of Radio Free Charleston (Volume Two-the video show). We also bring you the music from our ninth anniversary show, from back in 2015, and we have tons of music from folks who you might not have realized have new albums out. We open the show with a newly-remastered song from John Radcliff.

This new episode caps off a four-day-plus marathon of Radio Free Charleston that was part of our low-key anniversary conglomerate celebration. The AIR turns five years old this week, but in truth really launched back in 2014 as Voices of Appalachia. It’s been five years since we changed the name to The AIR, and took ownership of the station as the internet radio arm of PopCult.  It’s been a long, strange trip, but we’re still having fun.

Check out the playlist to see all the goodies we bring you this week…

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John Radcliff “Stupid Mind”
The Madison 2 “Indian Summer”
Spurgy Hankins Band “True Love”
The Swivel Rockers “Lost Without Your Love”
David Synn “Muse”
The Paris Project “Sugar”
Volt 9000 “A Glitch In Time”
The Company Stores “Rollin'”
Tape Age “Hangman”
Close The Hatch “Skull and Burn”
Speedsuit “Hold Me Up, Lay Me Down”

hour two
James Townsend “Talking Former White Nationalist Reactionary Blues”
Joan Armatrading “Consequences”
Styx “Crash of the Crown”
Dennis DeYoung “St. Quarantine”
Garbage “The Creeps”
Naked Eyes “Coming Up For Air”
Danny Elfman “Happy”
mediogres “Extra Dirt”
Dweezil Zappa and Keith Emerson “Run Like Hell”
The Kronos Quartet “Act III”
Toyah “Tiger Tiger”
All Torches Lit “Strangelove”
The Madison 2 “Say It Ain’t So”

hour three
Mind Garage “Paint It Black”
The Mumps “Scream and Scream Again”
Liz Phair “Bad Kitty”
Boldly Go “Fell In Love On Qo’nos”
Jay Parade “FPLGP”
The Slits “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”
Unmanned “Stick In The Mud”
Crowded House “To The Island”
Chrissie Hynde “In The Summertime”
Jim Lange “Call Me Tonight”
Rose Garden “Here’s Today”
Paula Cole “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”
Matt Berry “Blues Inside Me”
Paul Weller “White Horses”

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 7 PM, plus Saturday afternoon, and again at Midnight, and then one more replay Monday at 11 AM.

As is now the norm, 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.

We will have details on the rest of Tuesday’s programming on The AIR later.

This week’s art is a digital painting that is the last image you see in the video for David Synn’s tune, “Muse.” The video debuted yesterday as part of the latest video episode of Radio Free Charleston, and you can see the video by itself right here…

I took David’s piano piece from his latest release, Legacy, and inspired by the title, tried to capture some of the ways an artist looks at his model, or his “muse,” at it were. This is a digital painting based on the last model we see in the video. You can purchase David’s music at his Bandcamp page, and keep watching PopCult, because I have another one in the works.  Today’s piece is a simple, tasteful, nude.

If you want to see it bigger, just click on the image.

Meanwhile, Monday at on The AIR, we continue with our marathon of Radio Free Charleston. This runs until Tuesday afteroon, and wraps up with a brand-new episode that debuts Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM.  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.

July 4, 2006, the video version of Radio Free Charleston made its official debut at The Gazz.com. Now, fifteen years later, we have a brand-new edition of our local music showcase!

Eight days ago as your PopCulteer and his lovely wife were heading to Madison, WV for our first music video shoot in 16 months, I realized that the fifteenth anniversary of the RFC video show was this year…on the Fourth of July, no less. I hadn’t done an anniversary episode of the video show since 2015, the year before my diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis that caused me to cut back on the video stuff. So with a week to put a show together, I kicked into high gear and started trying to figure out what I could put in the show.

The two bands we filmed last week were in, as was the music video I’d been quietly working on for a couple of months. Then I dove into the vaults for some never-edited video of performances from 2008, and got some table scraps of animation from my brother, Frank Panucci, and I had the bulk of a show. All I had to do was head out and shoot host segments and then edit the show while my neighborhood sounded like a warzone, and here we are, just over forty minutes of local music and animation, featuring The Madison 2, Spurgy Hankins Band, David Synn, The Swivel Rockers and The Paris Project. Plus animation from Frank,  and editing by yours truly. The end result was Radio Free Charleston V2 218, “West Virginia Shirt.”

Host segments were shot on the roof of Charleston’s Quarrier Street Parking Building, which, while deserted, was not as quiet as we had imagined. Loud trucks, motorcycles, church bells and helicopters kept this from being a one-take show, which is why we have some jump cuts while I’m talking. I’m out of practice with this stuff.  Our namesake shirt for this episode come from Kin Ship Goods.  It’s actually called “Life On Mars” but I didn’t know that until I went to get the link.

Before we get into the music, there’s time for some senseless violence, courtesy of Frank.

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This week we go back to June, 2015, for an RFC MINI SHOW starring The Seude Brothers that was recorded almost four years earlier.

The Suede Brothers are a Rust Belt Rock trio out of beautiful Cleveland, Ohio. The Forest City three spread the good word across the Midwest and to the American South. To promote their appearance as part of Mission Coalition in September, 2011, we featured the band and their “Coos Bay Boogie” video on episode 144 of Radio Free Charlesston, but we didn’t do much with the Mission Coalition footage we had…until the summer of 2015.

The PopCulteer
July 2, 2021

Your PopCulteer is working on a treat for you all this weekend that may or may not happen. Because of that, I didn’t have time to compose a nice prose essay or put together a collection of fine photographs for you this week.

However, I will remind you that you can tune in to The AIR for a four-day marathon of Radio Free Charleston that starts Friday at 7 AM.  It runs until Tuesday and will wrap up with a new episode of RFC Volume 5.

I will also remind you about this week’s fun toy mystery that I posted here Wednesday, which was solved within an hour thanks to the hive mind of the internet (and Mark Hegeman,  who comprises quite a bit of the toy knowledge of that hive mind).

While you’re remembering all that stuff, and I’m trying to come up with a surprise thirteen years in the making, check out some stuff you can do in and around Charleston this holiday weekend. There is way, way more stuff than this going on, but these events were put on by folks who were industrious enough to make my job easy by creating easily-swiped graphics with all the important info. So go check this out, or find something else, but only go out if you are fully vaccinated. This mess ain’t over yet, folks.

That is our quick and easy PopCulteer this week. Your PopCulteer is not slacking. He’s trying to pull off a surprise treat for all of you. Check back with PopCult every day for fresh content, and you may just find out what it is.

Starting Friday, July 2 at 7 AM we will begin a four-day marathon of Radio Free Charleston Volume 5, on The AIR .  You can celebrate America and RFC at the same time!

At the beginning of 2020, I changed the format of Radio Free Charleston, combining the one-hour, local-focus RFC with the two-hour, not local RFC International into a three-hour weekly show that brings you local music mixed in with the coolest music I can find from all over the world.

This marathon will run from Friday at 7 AM until Tuesday at 1 PM. It will culminate with a brand-new episode. Fans of local music can tune in and hear their local favorites played alongside brand-new music from the world’s best bands from a variety of different genre. We’re even going to pre-empt the Sunday Midnight marathon of The Swing Shift for this.

This is part of us celebrating The Fourth of July weekend, and part of it is celebrating fifteen years since Radio Free Charleston made its triumphant return as a web-based video show (that video show is “volume two”). It’s also five years since we re-launched The AIR in its current format, as a free-form internet radio station adjunct to PopCult. So pick your party. We’re having a marathon!

If all goes according to plan, we might even have an additional surprise this weekend to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the RFC video show.  As part of this marathon, some of the episodes of RFC V5 we had to bump off the server last summer will be brought back so you can hear them once again.

Tune in at The AIR website, or on the embedded player in the right column of PopCult, you know…over there near the top of the page.

The PopCult Toybox

UPDATE: The Mystery has been solved, less than an hour after this was posted. Read the answer at the bottom of this post!

Usually here in PopCult, I’m the person telling you all about cool toys and figures and things, and I usually have all the details needed to enlighten you.

This time, I’m the one needing enlightened. I need your help identifying this figure I found on a recent trip. I have been researching this for weeks, and while I came up with a few leads, none of them have panned out.

Let me tell you how this mystery guy showed up in my collection: On the way back from WonderFest early in June, we stopped at the Peddler’s Mall in Winchester, Kentucky. Peddler’s Mall is a small chain of antique malls that have proven to be rich hunting grounds for vintage toys, comics and trading cards. While speed-shopping through the place (Mrs. PopCulteer was in the car, enjoying the air conditioning), I found this guy in one of the booths.

I was intrigued, but probably picked him and put him back three or four times before I decided that he was too interesting to pass up at $8.99.

Due to the construction type, material and sculpting quality, I would say he probably dates back to the late 1950s/early 1960s.

The tag around his neck identified him as “Decades Vintage, Vintage Plastic Toy.”

Not a lot to work with there.

My first thought was that he might be a Marx Toy, but the figure has no markings at all, anywhere.

Let me describe him as objectively as possible: The figure appears to be 1/8 or 1/9 scale in size. It is a seated figure of a middle-aged man, dressed in what appears to be mid-century casual attire, with a suit jacket, no tie and his shirt unbuttoned.  His pants are cuffed. His shoes are slip-on loafers. In his seated position, his feet are pointed down, indicating that he was seated in a taller chair, or a rocking chair, or possibly bleachers or as a passenger in a vehicle.  He is not posed as though he is driving. One hand is raised slightly off his leg, while the other rests on his other thigh. He is seated in a casual manner, with one leg arched outward.

The figure is molded in a dark tan/light brown styrene plastic.

He is hollow, with two-piece (front and back) construction. The Sculpting quality is quite good, on par with a Marx sculpt, but the assembly is rather sloppy, with gaps in the seams and sloppy glue application.

The detail on the sculpting goes to great lengths to depict fabric textures, but the figure is completely smooth on his rear end and the backs of his legs, indicating that he was meant to be paired with a seat of some kind, possibly a sofa or a rocking chair.

His two-piece construction reminded me of a Hartland figure, but those figures are considerably smaller, more crudely sculpted, and are usually painted.

This guy shows no sign of ever having been painted. The pigment used on him is very close to what Marx used on a few solid plastic figures, and the quality of sculpting is on par with Marx, but the complete absence of any manufacturer marks tells me it isn’t a Marx figure, or at least not a Marx figure that was made for sale to the general public.

I have not been able to identify the face. I think he bears a slight resemblance to the actor, Robert Young, the star of the sitcom, Father Knows Best and the medical drama, Marcus Welby, M.D., but the figure is not dressed the way either of those characters would have been depicted in merchandising at the times they were on the air.

He may very well be another celebrity of the day, or he could be a politician, preacher,coach or retired athlete, or historical figure. However, the lack of a tie is a curious omission if that last one were the case.

At the Marx Toy Convention I showed a photo of him around, and nobody recognized him. Mark Hegeman, who knows way more about vintage toys that I do was stumped, but suggested he might be part of a model kit. Aurora made a model kit of President Kennedy in a rocking chair, but Mark looked him up on Google, and the Aurora figural kits had many more pieces and were molded in different-colored plastic, plus this guy doesn’t look like Kennedy. However, there is a possibility that he might be a refugee from another company’s model kit. I haven’t ruled it out.

In fact, I haven’t ruled out a lot yet.

He could be an advertising figure that was attached to a store display. He might have been part of a large-scale dollhouse playset. It’s possible that this was a very small-scale production for a private display, possibly to sell furniture or something.  He could also be a passenger in a remote-control car or plane. He might be an historical figure of some sort, possibly part of a set that came seated on a display. He might even be a miniature version of a statue of a famous author, separated from his base.

He does not show signs of being permanently attached to any base.

So I am stumped. I’m including plenty of pictures here, and you can click on them for a larger version. If you can help me solve the mystery, please leave a comment. I’d really like to know who he is.

More photos after the jump…

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Tuesday on The AIR  we deliver a partly brand-new episode of Radio Free Charleston. It’s three hours of music that lets you support the local scene and indulge your strange musical desires. You simply have to move 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.

We have a newish Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.  This week we open with a new track from The Lost Decades, and bring you one all-new hour of RFC, and one encore of the very first episode of RFC International. Life, technical issues and laziness have kept us from doing a new RFC in five weeks, so getting this one done on time was a pretty neat accomplishment.  We do manage to bring you some killer new and vintage local and independent music in our first hour, plus some really great stuff in hours two and three.

After the first hour of RFC, stick around because the second hour revives The first RFC International, from 2016, which hasn’t been heard by human ears in almost five years.

Check out the playlist to see all the goodies we bring you this week…

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Lost Decades “Crushed At Dawn”
The Madison 2 “Small Town (live)”
The Madison 2 “Chains (live)”
The Swivel Rockers “Sweet Little 16 (live)”
The Swivel Rockers “She Loves My Automobile (live)”
Danny Elfman “Everybody Loves You”
Garbage with John Doe and Exene “Destroying Angels”
The Residents “The Aging Musician”
Matt Berry “The Blue Elephant”
All Torches Lit “Vagabond”
mediogres “Morning Delight”
Mark Beckner Group “Odessa”
Sierra Ferrall “In Dreams”

hour two (RFC International #1)
The Beatles and Led Zepplin “Helter Skelter”
The Beetlevanias “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
The Rutles “Shangra La”
Chemical Beats “Welcome To The Black Parade”
Todd Rundgren “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
The Beatnix “Stairway To Heaven”
Be Bop Deluxe “Surreal Estate”
Kerry Livgren “Mask of the Great Deceiver”
The Buggles “Vermillion Sands”
Nightwish “The Heart Asks Pleasure First”

hour three
Ian Dury and the Blockheads “Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll”
Madness “One Step Beyond”
Lene Lovich “Lucky Number”
DEVO “Jocko Homo”
ELP “Benny The Bouncer
Franz Ferdinand/Sparks “Dictator’s Son”
David Bowie “Blackstar”
Transvision Vamp “Velveteen”
Jellyfish “Brighter Day”
Split Enz “Bullet Brain and Cactus Head”
Hazel O’Connor “Writing on the Wall”
Kate Bush “Suspended in Gaffa”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with a replay Thursday at 3 PM. This Friday we’re going to begin an RFC Marathon that will run all weekend long. I’ll tell you about that in a day or two.

As is now the norm, 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.

The Swing Shift will return with a new episode next week.