We have a very special video episode of Radio Free Charleston premiering today. That’s it floating above this text.

Last summer, the Charleston music scene lost a true pioneer. Lynne Sandy passed away after being in frail health for many years, but her legacy lives on. From her start as a folksinger to her time in Stubby Dill and her legendary stint as the frontwoman for Charleston’s original punk/new wave band, The Defectors, Lynne left a mark on the music scene that cannot be denied.

In the coming months I’ll be working on a documentary about Lynne. We’ll be talking to her musical cohorts and folks who knew her later in life through her activism and other pursuits. The foundation of that documentary will be a video of a performance by The Defectors, at the Criel Mound in South Charleston, on June 16, 1983.

The video was shot by Dana Grooms, and we are in the process of restoring the audio and video for the upcoming documentary.

This episode of Radio Free Charleston brings you a preview. We have three of the songs from that performance, along with a music video created using footage from this show with a studio demo of one of their original songs. Next week I’ll be sharing a more elaborately…”defective”…version of that video.

In this show you will see The Defectors perform the songs “16,” “Homosapien” and “To Hell with Poverty.” The line up here is: Lynne Sandy on vocals and keyboards; John “Sham Voodoo” Estep on Guitar and vocals; The Maestro, Chuck Biel on bass; and David Fields on drums.

When the footage came to light, it was a bit of a no-brainer to include some of it in this year’s video RFC as a tribute to Lynne. I want to thank my friend, Sham Voodoo, AKA, John Estep, for hooking me up with this footage, and Dana Grooms for shooting it way back when. We will be working on further restoration and including interviews in the upcoming documentary.

I will tell you more about that project in the New Year. For the folks keeping track of such things, this show, episode 221 of Radio Free Charleston Volume Two (the video series) is “RFC Jacket (for Lynne)” Host segments were shot at the Criel Mound in South Charleston, mostly around where the stage used to be when this concert was recorded.

It was a bit disorienting because sometime between 1983 and now, Cubert Smith’s sculpture, Burial Attendants, was relocated from the Southwest corner of Staunton Park (which includes the Mound) to the Northeast corner. The stage was expanded and moved and most of the businesses you see in the background are no longer operating. It took some research and memory-jogging to remember where everything was.

Also disorienting was the background noise from MacCorkle Avenue and Seventh Avenue while we were shooting our host segments. If it seems like there are way more jump cuts than usual in this episode, it’s only because there are way more jump cuts than usual in this episode.

After the three songs from the show, we bring you a music video I created for the Defectors’ song “Hesitation.” The performance on the copy of the video I have is bedevilled by digital glitches, drop outs and time skips, but I also have the studio demo of the song, so I leaned into the defects, and made a purposefully glitchy video for the song. I made two versions of the video, and you’ll see the more conservative one in this show. The “super defective” version will debut later this week. It was too distracting to roll the credits over it.

This is all to pay tribute to Lynne Sandy. As a bonus, tune in to this week’s internet radio episode of Radio Free Charleston for an audio-only tune from the Mound show. As another bonus, check out the photos below, taken by Bob Rosier just a few weeks after this show…

RFC 115 "Frank Sinatra Shirt" from Rudy Panucci on Vimeo.

This week we time-travel back to December, 2010, for a pre-winter edition of Radio Free Charleston filled with great music.

This episode features a wide variety of music: a Metal classic by HARRAH, a Progressive-Alternative jolt from Linfinity, an operatic waltz from Hellblinki set to animation, Blues from Crossroads and a great rocked-up ballad from The Nanker Phelge.

Host segments were shot in Davis Park in Charleston on a bitterly cold day. Our namesake shirt featured Frank Sinatra.  You can find the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
December 27, 2024

Despite not being the best of years due to many friends exiting this world, a few beloved institutions ending, and some personal struggles with illness, the PopCult household managed to have a wonderful Christmas.  We heard from friends around the world, visited with family and got each other tons of cool stuff.

And today we’re going to share some of that cool stuff with you.

To be clear, I’m only sharing photos. You can’t actually have our stuff. I mean, we just got it. That would really suck for us, you know.

But since folks do ask, set amongst the backdrop of our Disco Christmas Tree, here’s what Mel and I got each other for Christmas in no particular order.  It’s not everything, but you shouldn’t be so freaking nosey during the holidays, so here’s what you can see…

In case you didn’t know…I collect toys. The HESS Truck has been a tradition for us for over ten years now. And the Super Powers figures, which just turned up locally a week ago, were in my stocking.

One of my big gifts from Mel was the Super Deluxe Reissue Boxed Set of George Harrison’s “Living In The Material World” Can’t wait to dig into this.

Mel also got me some Max Fleischer goodies, some DVDs and a button-up shirt with designs from “Swing You Sinners.”

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a Monster Kid. Direct from their appearances in The 2024 PopCult Gift Guide, here’s the Lincoln Monsters repros, and the Cotswold Collectibles 12″ Wolfman. I love these guys.

A MINI UNBOXING

Because I was too lazy to do a video, here’s a photo essay unboxing of another of my big gifts, The Svengoolie 45th Anniversary Collector’s Box…

Also from The Gift Guide, it’s the cool Svengoolie Collector’s box. Let’s look at it and see what’s inside.

First we go around the full-color collector’s box. Here we see the Sven Squad. The actual box is in focus. This picture, not so much.

This side has The Goolie Bunch.

And here is Svengoolie himself, recreating the cover of “Trout Mask Replica.”

Wonders await us inside…

A limited edition set of figures, plus an enamal pin, a compact and portable rubber chicken and a pen that you can pretend you stole from Svengoole’s Bank (“I have a bank?”)

A cool travel mug with a straw and a Top Hat straw topper!

Socks, a Mark Spears collectible card and an air freshener, so you can smell like Svengoolie. Or you could just wear the socks for a month.

And the kicker (along with a cool cloth patch), a new pressing of “The Svengoolie Stomp” by Freddie “Boom Boom” Cannon.

Mel’s Haul

You know, this is not just a one-way thing. I also get Mel lots of cool stuff for Christmas…

Chicago-centric gifts included the new McFarlane Blues Brothers statuettes and the Chicago Shuffle card game (and booster pack) from Transit Tees.

There’s a lot to take in here: Ultimate action figures of Patrick Star and Squidward; weird Asian SpongeBob trading cards; plush Sinclair Dino and TRU Geoffry; plus a bunch of candy from her stockings.

An autographed copy of Frank Conniff’s new book, along with some strange SpongeBob candy.

I always get Mel a “Big Box” of something each year, and this year it was a big box of The Police (with Police Squad thrown in just as a bit of misdirection). The biggest part of this was the deluxe 4 LP reissue of “Synchronicity” but Mel already moved that (and the colored vinyl reissues of Thompson Twins and Thomas Dolby LPs) to where our vinyl lives, and I was too lazy to go photograph them. Also, a full box of Lights of Broadway trading cards is on top of this stack.

And that’s a look at our Christmas gifts to each other. We do have one more gift for you…actually from a friend in the UK.  It’s time for new radio…

Look Ahead To Looking Back Forty Years

We do have some radio shows to tell you about Friday on The AIR. This afternoon we serve up a classic episode of MIRRORBALL and a brand-new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat! 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.

MIRRORBALL

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch brings you a classic Disco tribute as MIRRORBALL pays tribute to Donna Summer for the second time.

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

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat Visits 1985

Also on The AIR  at 3 PM (EDT), Sydney Fileen graces us with a brand-new special mixtape-style  episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. This time Sydney looks ahead five days to when we can look back forty years at the year, 1985.

1985 is considered a “past its peak” year for New Wave Music. MTV was starting to replace New Wave with Hair Metal and Mainstream Pop, and was also beginning to dabble in the episodic long-form programming that would eventually run the “Music” out of “Music Television.”  Despite this, New Wave was still going strong with iconic hits by Kate Bush, A ha, Thompson Twins and more, as well as innovative new musical groups that would never get the chance to break into the mainstream.

In this episode of Big Electric Cat, Sydney Fileen lets you immerse yourself in the cutting edge music of just about forty years ago.  It’s a pretty wild ride.

Check out the playlist…

BEC 123-1985

Kate Bush “The Big Sky (Meteorological Mix)”
The Smiths “Barbarism Begins At Home”
Men Without Hats “Modern(e) Dancing”
INXS “What You Need”
Big Audio Dynamite “Sudden Impact”
Wall of Voodoo “Big City”
Toyah “I’ll Serve You Well”
Winston Tong “Big Brother”
Models “Preacher From The Black Lagoon”
Go West “S.O.S.”
The Clash “This Is England”
Jane Wiedlin “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
Gleaming Spires “Harm”
Age of Mirrors “Juliet’s Dancing”
Adam Ant “Vive le Rock”
Baltimora “Tarzan Boy”
A Flock of Seagulls “Who’s That Girl (She’s Got It)”
Howard Jones “Things Can Only Get Better”
A Ha “Take On Me”
Thompson Twins “Emperor’s Clothes”
Tears For Fears “Head Over Heels”
The Toy Dolls “Commercial Break”
Eurythmics “Would I Lie To You”
Dead or Alive “You spin me round (Like a record)”
The Coupe De Villes “She Has Friends In LA”
New Order “Love Vigilantes”

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.

A special AIR Note: Some folks have contacted me to let me know that there were technical issues with this week’s new episode of Radio Free Charleston.  Because of that, we’re running a bonus replay Friday at 5 PM, immediately after Sydney’s Big Electric Cat.  You can also hear RFC at its usual replay times, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, Sunday at 8 PM, and Monday at 11 AM.

That’s what’s on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer.

Check PopCult for all our regular features, with fresh content every day, even during the holiday season.

It’s the day after Christmas, and that means I’m actually sitting at the computer early in the evening of Christmas Day, and I’d like to get through this quick so I can go back to Christmassing things up with my lovely wife, Mel. Basically, I ought to be bringing you a list of STUFF TO DO between Christmas and New Year’s Day, next week.

Now, the cynical among you might think, “Well, since he’s writing this on Christmas Day, Rudy will probably just do a half-assed list of events.”

And you’d be correct.  We shall forego our usual boilerplates and running gags and just run a handful of graphics for events in and around Charleston, West by God Virginia, that I found on the Facebook, beginning with a very special one that’s happening Thursday night, and which your humble blogger will make a serious attempt to attend…

Continue reading

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and whatever good tidings fill your bill from PopCult and the Larch-Panucci household.

2024 has been a year best left on the trash heap of history.  We began the year writing obituaries for good people, and we ended it writing obituaries for good people. I’d really like to take a year off from doing that.  We’ll try to stay positive while running our traditional holiday greeting…

“I hope that everybody can find some peace and well-being on this special day, and that the new year brings us all new happiness, joy, good health, and justice for the Democracy.”

Lord knows we can all use all of those things.

As is our tradition on Christmas Day, we bring you Melanie Larch singing “Ave Maria” from the very first Christmas episode of Radio Free Charleston.

Let’s follow that up with the 2014 Christmas treat that saw Melanie backed by the late and much-loved and missed, Mark Scarpelli…

And we’ll continue with Mel’s 2009 Christmas song with Diablo Blues Band…

Let’s go back to Chicago, in 2019, for one more…

Wishing you and yours the best-

Rudy Panucci and Melanie Larch

For the first time since 1989, there is a NEW, full-length episode of Radio Free Charleston debuting on Christmas Eve!

Tuesday is always “New Show Day” on The AIR.  As such, we have a new episode of  Radio Free Charleston for you, buried among all of our special Christmas programming. 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.

This week RFC kicks off with a brand-new song from Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess, and in the rest of our three-hour show we’ll treat you to new tracks from Shining Glass, Dinosaur Burps (with a Charlie Brown Superstar remix), Mikey Jupp, William Matheny, Brian Diller, Garbage, SPACE FREQ, The Polkamaniacs, Tony Levin, The Surfrajettes, Heavy Hitters Band, The Slamdanistas and Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates.

We’re all over the map this week, jumping from Rock to Hip Hop to Glam Rock to country, Prog Rock, Alternative, Jam, Surf, Soul, Avante-Garde and more. We mix local artists with indie artists, musical legends and obscure cult musicians, and the result is…typical Radio Free Charleston. There’s even a really nice mystery bonus track at the end of the show.

Think of it as a novel way to spend your Christmas Eve.

The links in the playlist will take you to the pages for the artists in this week’s show where possible…

RFC V5 207

hour one
Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess “Invisible”
Shining Glass “Two Birds”
Dinosaur Burps  “Driftwood (CBS Mix)”
Wizzard “Rock ‘N’ Roll Winter”
Mickey Jupp “Honky Tonic”
William Matheny “Bird of Youth”
Brian Diller “Elegy For William”
Matt Berry featuring Kitty Luv “I Gotta Limit”
Steve Harley “2000 Years From Now”
Poppy “The Cave”
Teddy Kumpel and Nome Sane “Material Girl”
Ann Magnuson “Ghost Cat”
Garbage “Because The Night”

hour two
SPACE FREQ “Strut”
The Polkamaniacs “Southside Pittsburgh, PA”
Tony Levin “Bungie Bass”
The Surfrajettes “Toasted Western”
The Heavy Hitters Band “Tequila In A To-Go Box Part 3”
Chuck Biel “First One Out”
The Cure “A Fragile Thing (RS24 Remix)”
John Cale “Adalucia”
Ginger Wixx  “The Girl and the Bear”
The Residents “ENOugh”
Frenchy & The Punk “Mr. Scorpion”

hour three
The Slamdanistas “Santa’s In A Punk Band Now”
Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates “Curtain”
Steve Hillage “Frame by Frame”
Astrodot“The Victor”
David Friesen “One Last Time”
The Settlement “The Lift”
Jon Anderson “Still A Friend”
Clownhole “Old Man Jumping A Fence”
No Doubt “Tragic Kingdom”
City Boy “The Blind Leading The Blind”
Save Ferris “Goodbye”

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, even during out holiday programming blitz.

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.

Elsewhere on The AIR, we are bringing you a few days of holiday programming.  You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player elsewhere on this page.

Aside from special holiday editions of our music specialty shows, we also have three-hour blocks of random Christmas songs as well as some audio drama, with classics like “A Christmas Carol” and “Dragnet.”

Trust me, it’s Christmassy.

This holiday bonanza will be interrupted by our regularly-scheduled NEW episode of Radio Free Charleston, which will air at its regular time all week long. Our Christmas shows will run until midnight, Thursday.

This week’s art is a quick acrylic painting designed to look Christmassy without me putting too much effort into it.

Basically, I had a lot of green and white paint handy, and improvised some holly or ivy or something.

I could’ve done something clever, or detailed, or Hopperesque, but it’s the weekend before Christmas and I didn’t have a lot of time to make art. I couldn’t even wait for it to dry to scan it, so this is a photo of the painting taken with the new phone, hence the flash artifacts.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday beginning at 7 AM on The AIR, we bring you a few days of holiday programming.  You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player elsewhere on this page.

Aside from special holiday editions of our music specialty shows, we also have three-hour blocks of random Christmas songs as well as some audio drama, with classics like “A Christmas Carol” and “Dragnet.”

Trust me, it’s Christmassy.

This holiday bonanza will be interrupted by our regularly-scheduled NEW episode of Radio Free Charleston, which will air at its regular time all week long. Our Christmas show will run until midnight, Thursday.

This year I made three (and a half) holiday videos for readers of this blog.

My main motivation was to give you some fresh video content to watch while I was in Chicago earlier this month.  Then I made a really short video to go with our Christmas Tree photo essay last Friday.

Since we are just three days out from the big day, how about I collect all four videos in this post, for your enjoyment, and for the whole concept of “less work for me.”

Our first video is a return visit to Sir Troy’s Toy Kingdom, in Canton, Ohio, with music by Clownhole…

Next up, we have our look at Charleston’s Light The Night light show at Go Mart Park.  The music on this one is Mel Larch and Mark Scarpelli taking on a Vince Guaraldi classic…

Our last big video is a not-safe-for-work video travelogue, wherein your humble blogger wanders through the Spirit Christmas Store in Erie, Pennsylvania for about fifteen minutes, making snarky comments (many of them off-color) while shakily shooting video of the massive holiday retail overload. This one is longer, and not safe for work, school, or virginal ears…

And for the heck of it, here’s another look at PopCult’s Disco Christmas Tree!  Merry Christmas, folks!

And since you made it this far, it’s only fair to reward you with the news that Christmas programming will begin running on The AIR Sunday at 7 AM until Thursday night, with interruptions for The Swing Shift Marathon and Tuesday’s new Radio Free Charleston. You can hear these shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

RFC 114 "Flash Photography Shirt" from Rudy Panucci on Vimeo.

From November, 2010, we bring you Radio Free Charleston 114, “Flash Photography Shirt.”  The wide-ranging music on this show comes from Andrea Anderson, The Dad Horse Experience, and Shayla Leftridge. That would be punk alt-banjo music, German Gutter-Gospel and Showtunes.

For reasons I can’t remember, this episode is in standard definition, and has a 4:3 aspect ratio. I had switched to widescreen several episodes earlier, so I have no explanation why it’s like that.

Our animation is Frank Panucci’s very first animated film, about Evel Knievel.  We also have some Super Fancy Dancing. You can find the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
December 20, 2024

It’s Christmastime, and I have not yet posted photos of this year’s PopCult Christmas Tree (which is largely the work of my beautiful wife, Mel Larch).  Allow me to correct that today, and not only with photos, but with a very short video AND, a brand-new Christmas episode of Mel’s classic Disco showcase, MIRRORBALL.

And as you’ll see, it all ties into itself nicely.

First, let’s show you the photos of the tree. For the past several years, we have done a pop culture tree, with a polyglot of ornaments representing everything from Batman to SpongeBob to the City of Chicago to GI Joe and tons more.  To be honest, we have enough ornaments (but not enough room) for five or six trees.

But this year we wanted to do something different.  We don’t want to fall into tree ennui. We decided to do a theme.

And since Mel loves Disco and mirrorballs (and even has a Disco music shown on The AIR called MIRRORBALL–see below) AND since mirrorballs are having a moment and you can find them everywhere this year for real cheap…it was a bit of a no-brainer.

We have a Disco Christmas Tree, complete with Santa holding a mirrorball and Keith Haring hanging out in the middle of it all.

Photos alone won’t do it justice, so after the pics, there’s a video. After that, we’ll tell you about this afternoon’s new episode of MIRRORBALL.

Using the flash to take photos does not show off how some of the mirrorballs are illuminated in different colors, but this is here for reference. The video shows them in their full glory.

Not using the flash presents a whole different set of issues, particularly when your hands are shaky

Another flash shot, this one from a weird angle that makes it look like there’s a huge blank spot that isn’t really there.

It wouldn’t be a cool Disco Christmas Tree without Keith Haring in its midst.

Disco Santa is doing pretty well his own damn self.

Finding this tree topper really made it a no-brainer to go all-out Disco with the tree.

One last look at the tree

We have other Christmas stuff too, you know. Here’s Mel’s holiday plush

…and here’s everything from Santa to Braxie to SpongeBob and the Defenders of Bulletman, all together in the holiday spirit.

Our last photo is the end table that I decorated, complete with DC Christmas figures, holiday Frankenstein and Creature, the Blue Garloo, the poor Christmas Tree Chicken from Spirit Christmas and of course, the Metaluna Mutant. Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like The Metaluna Mutant… and a Weinermobile.

With the photos out of the way, here’s the video…

Today’s Soundtrack

Friday on The AIR. This afternoon we serve up a special new episode of MIRRORBALL and a classic episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat! 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.

MIRRORBALL

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch  gets you dancing into the Christmas spirit with a new, holiday-themed, episode of MIRRORBALL.

You’ll hear Disco takes on holiday classics from Snowflake, Jack Ashford, Montreal Feat. Raymond Berthiaume, The Universal Robot Band, Raindolls and The Village People.

It’s an hour of music to get you shaking your booty around the Christmas Tree, and holly jolly might not be the only vibe it stirs up.

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

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat Splits The Enz

Also on The AIR  at 3 PM (EDT), Sydney Fileen delivers a special encore mixtape edition of her show that pays tribute to New Zealand’s greatest musical export, Split Enz.

Sydney focuses on the New Wave career of the band, which was formed in the early 1970s, originally as a progressive rock/art rock band. In 1977 after three semi-successful albums but no major hit, there were several line-up changes. That year Phil Judd departed the band and was replaced by Tim Finn’s brother, Neil, who was only sixteen years old at the tme.

With a newly-energized line-up and the addition of Neil’s vocals and songwriting, the band headed into a new direction and became a worldwide New Wave phenomenon. Sydney brings you a msitape of the music Split Enz made from 1978 to 1984, before continuing line-up changes led to the band morphing into Crowded House. For the bulk of this show’s songs, Split Enz consisted of Time and Neil, the Finn Brothers, plus Eddie Raynor, Nigel Griggs and Noel Crombie & Phil Hester.  It’s the best of Split Enz from 1978’s Frenzy album to 1984’s Conflicting Emotions.

Check out this killer playlist…

BEC 117

Split Enz
“I See Red”
“Mind Over Matter”
“I Got You”
“Shark Attack”
“What’s The Matter With You”
“Missing Person”
“Poor Boy”
“How Can I Resist Her”
“Things”
“Hard Act To Follow”
“One Step Ahead”
“Walking Through The Ruins”
“History Never Repeats”
“I Don’t Want To Dance”
“Clumsy”
“Iris”
“Six Months In A Leaky Boat”
“Dirty Creatures”
“Hello Sandy Allen”
“Never Ceases To Amaze Me”
“Small World”
“Lost For Words”
“Make Sense of It”
“Bullet Brain and Cactus Head”
“I Wake Up Every Night”
“Message To My Girl”
“No Mischief”
“Conflicting Emotions”
“Breakin’ My Back”
“One Mouth Is Fed”
“The Lost Cat”
“Ninnie Knees Up”
“Double Happy”

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 what’s on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer.

Check PopCult for all our regular features, with fresh content every day, even during the holiday season.