From October 2009, this week’s flashback brings you a show loaded with great music from Shindig and Joseph Hale, some prehistoric animation and the big reveal of who won the Great Guitar Giveaway from Route 60 Music. Our host segments were shot at Route 60 Music in Barboursville, and those segments were shot by none other than Flare Baroshi, who you will see performing in next week’s flashback.

We recorded Shindig at the Labelle, in South Charleston, and the late Mr. Hale was recorded at Taylor Books in Charleston.

For the full story on this show, check out the restored production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
May 24, 2024

Because there’s so much STUFF TO DO with the unofficial first weekend of Summer, we split our weekly feature into two parts. It’s also standing in as this week’s PopCulteer because your humble blogger has had the kind of week that deserves to wind up with a little slacking off.

You can find part one HERE.  The plan was to cover Thursday and Friday in the first part, then do Saturday and Sunday in the second. However, after we put yesterday’s post to bed, more Friday events came to our attention. You’ll find graphics for those below.

Let’s hit the boilerplate because there is so much STUFF TO DO in Charleston and all over the Mountain State and beyond this weekend that we needed to do a two-parter, the second part of which you are reading.

Live Music is on tap at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM.  Saturday Tim Browning, with the Unwanted Saints, plays at Charleston’s beloved coffee shop/bookstore/art gallery.

One of the big events this weekend is The Vandalia Gathering, which we have a graphic about below. You’ll also find a graphic for Friday’s first Live on the Levee of the season.

Please remember that the pandemic is still not entirely over yet. It’s a going concern with the ‘rona still lurking about. And now there are nasty seasonal allergies, hyper-intelligent bees with a mean streak, alien butt-freaks gearing up for probing season, ultra-high readings on the hypocrisy meter and other damned good reasons to be careful. 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.

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

And now, roughly in order, here’s more STUFF TO DO for Memorial Day Weekend…

That is a whole lot of STUFF TO DO and that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for our regular features every day.

Because of a whole bunch of stuff going on this holiday weekend, we’re splitting up STUFF TO DO and running it over two days. Today we’ll run events that begin on Thrsday or Friday. Tomorrow we’ll cover the rest of the weekend. There is so much STUFF TO DO in Charleston and all over the Mountain State and beyond this weekend that we need to do a two-parter.

Live Music is on tap at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM.  Friday it’s Nolan Collins.

The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week  to tell you about.  Thursday at 5:30 PM the Helping Hour with Swingstein & guest, Stefan Cotter make the world a better place with music for the benefit of the Kanawha-Charleston Animal Shelter. Thursday at 9 PM, Chris Harris takes the stage at The Empty Glass. Friday, Tim Courts plays during happy hour. You can read about their Friday night show below. Sunday night Christopher Carter, from Hurl Brickbat, performs a solo show at 10 PM.

Please remember that the pandemic is still not entirely over yet. It’s a going concern with the ‘rona still lurking about. And now there are nasty seasonal allergies, very grumpy car salesmen, sneks on which you don’t want to step, a strong urge to say “I told you so” and other damned good reasons to be careful. 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.

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

And now, roughly in order, here’s STUFF TO DO for Thursday and Friday…

You know that new regular feature here in PopCult where I dig back into the archives and present a vintage post because I’m buried under other deadlines?

Well, today I’ve got a particularly timely one for you. James Vernon Brown, AKA The Liquid Canvas, has been performing most Wednesday nights at The Empty Glass. In fact, he’s scheduled for tonight and next Wednesday at 9 PM.  Well, 12 years ago today, I debuted a special episode of The Radio Free Charleston video show, where I basically turned the show over to James.  Here it is, complete with the original production notes (lightly edited)…

RFC 158

JVB, himself

Radio Free Charleston‘s 158th episode, “The Liquid Canvas,” is devoted to the work of Charleston filmmaker, musician, and artist James Vernon Brown. I first met James back in 2007, when we recorded the band Doctor Senator. James was playing bass and had also made several cool short films and music videos featuring the band.

James ended up leaving Doctor Senator and, at a jam session at The Blue Parrot one night, I heard him play guitar for the first time and was blown away with his David Gilmore meets Jimi Hendrix six-string pyrotechnics. I remember going up to him after hearing him play and asking “why the hell were you wasting your time playing bass?”

Continue reading

Tuesday is still “New Show Day” on The AIR.  As such, we have a new episode of  Radio Free Charleston 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.

This week’s Radio Free Charleston has more than an hour of new music, plus a ten-year-old local concert and a vintage episode of RFC Volume Four from 2017.

A little more than our first hour is our usual collection of cool local, independent and brand-new music. We open with brand new music from Ginger Wixx, who made her RFC debut just last week and has been lighting up the local music scene for a couple of years. Her debut EP hit all the major streaming services a couple of weeks ago. We also have brand-new music from Buni Muni, St. Vincent, John Bunkley, Oliver Wakeman, The Anchoress and more. Plus we have a few tunes from the recently-released “Live on Mountain Stage Outlaws & Outliers” collection.

Our second hour, after a timely song dedication from The Settlement, is live music from Farnsworth, who have been threatening to unleash new music with cryptic posts on their social media for a few years now. Our third hour is a time capsule of local music circa 2017.

The links in the playlist will take you to the pages where you can learn more about each artist and buy their music or find out where to see them (where available)…

RFC V5 177

hour one
Ginger Wixx “The Girl and The Bear”
Buni Muni “Caitlin Clark”
St. Vincent “Slow Disco”
Novelty Island “Thinkin’ Things/ Road Signs”
Massing “Do The Right Thing (Rejuiced)”
John Bunkley “Dirt In My Hair”
Rasta Rafiki “Calypso Too”
Nixon Black “The Beautiful Ones”
Nektar “Marvelous Moses”
Novo Comb “Don’t Do That”
The Anchoress “Wicked Game”
Oliver Wakeman “The View From Here”
Wilco “Space Oddity”
Tyler Childers “Going Home”
Sierra Ferrell “I’d Do It Again”

hour two
The Settlement “Snake Farm”

Farnsworth Live
“20 Days”
“Already Written”
“The Timber Bears His Name”
“Roll Me Up”
“Underwater”
“For You”
“No Friend To Man”
“Call On My Phone”
“Cinnamon Girl”
“Let’s Play Nice”
“Everything Must Go”

hour three
Red Audio “Money Tree”
The Company Stores “Homesick”
Sheldon Vance “Say What I Want To Say”
Ona “I Will Wait”
Farnsworth “Already Written”
Pale Nova “Nothing Is Easy”
Payback’s a Bitch “Whoa Nelly”
Kerry Hughes “My Brain is Next On The Chopping Block”
Speedsuit “Handful of Pills”
Radarhill and Nick Weckman “Trading Scarabs for Oil”
Crazy Jane “Ride”
Jack Grifftith “The Way She Moves”
Out of Nowhere “Take It Back”

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,  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  couple of recent episodes of The Swing Shift, which will return with more new episodes soon.

 You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 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 Thursday and Sunday evenings.

We continue our month of digital abstracts. As I mentioned in previous weeks, with my Myasthenia Gravis flaring up, I am retreating from producing physical art for the time being. I will be filling this space for the month of May with digital abstracts, rather than try to finish some of my existing sketches and studies while I have impaired hands.

This week’s piece is another exercise in distorting refracted and reflected images and playing with color compostion.  I recylced elements of my pieces from the previous two weeks and combined it with a slightly surreal sky. I’m still trying to figure out what the next installment of this series will be, but you’ll find out next week in this space.

With any luck my fingers will come back to life in time for me to bring you some real world art in June.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you encores of a recent episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM 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 elsewhere on this page.

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. You can hear two classic episodes of the show Sunday at 2 PM. All times listed are Eastern, so if you’re in another timezone, adjust accordingly.

At 8 PM you can hear an hour of standup from Patton Oswalt on a recent episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM for the Monday Marathon We bring you nine hours of Radio Free Charleston, with an hour of  Live and Local music tossed in as a bonus. You’ll get to hear the first three episodes of 2024, so you can relive those halcyon days of four months or so ago.

Two old friends of PopCult, Kevin Pauley and Dave Humpreys, have started a new YouTube series where they talk about action figures, with extensive reviews. Heck, Kevin was on the first video episode of Radio Free Charleston eighteen years ago.

As they say in their description, “(This is) The official channel of The Plastic Multiverse, where we talk toys from all dimensions! If you love toy photography or just collecting action figures, this is the place for YOU!” This first episode features an in-depth look at a…dubiously-licensed action figure of Count Duckula.

And since I know a large segment of PopCult readers are toy collectors, I figured it’d be a good idea to share the premiere edition of there show with you.  You can subscribe at the end of the video, or go HERE and bookmark the page to keep up with their new episodes.

And guys, if you ever need a guest to talk about figures from an earlier generation…you know how to get in touch.

From September, 2009, we have the 83rd episode of Radio Free Charleston. In this episode you’ll find then-new music by Mother Nang as well as footage from a Tuesday Open Mic at Sam’s Uptown Cafe by James Vernon Brown, Sierra Ferrell and Patrick Stephens. We also have a Plant Ro Duction Mini Movie. This restored episode had been offline for close to a decade before I managed to re-upload it in 2022.

This is one of the earliest videos that was posted featuring Chareston’s own Sierra Ferrell, who has gone on to great acclaim, signed to Rounder Records and touring all over the world. Over the last couple of years Sierra’s become the crown princess of traditional country music. It’s a kick, going back to this old video (even before Sierra’s stint with 600 lbs of Sin) to hear her and James doing a Citizen Cope tune.

This show also has a plug for our Great Guitar Giveaway, a contest (now long over with) that we did in conjunction with Route 60 Music.

Headlining the show is Mother Nang, old friends of mine, seen here in a psychedelic video for their song “The Painter.” We recorded this at the much-missed LiveMix Studio, where I got to direct using LiveMix’s Video Toaster. I handled the post-production and inserted the painterly psychedelica back here at Stately Radio Free Charleston Manor.

You can find the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
May 17, 2024

It’s the first episode after the big milestone, as Mel Larch returns with a brand-new MIRRORBALL! You can hear this and more cool music Friday on The AIR.

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, Mel Larch devotes her hour of Disco to a random assortment of classic dance tracks from the golden age of Disco. This time around she focuses on some of the lesser-known Disco hits, although we do have one mega-hit ringer, Amii Stewart’s “Knock On Wood” appears in a rare club mix.

You’ll also hear Cookie Monster, from his days binging on cookies while hanging out at Paradise Garage.

It’s a tasty collection of Disco goodies, to kick off MIRRORBALL”s second hundred episodes. Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 101

Rokotto “Boogie On Up”
Montreal Sound “Music”
Amii Stewart “Knock On Wood”
Black Star “Black Star”
Brenda Harris “Freakin’ Freak”
Cookie Monster & The Girls “C Is For Cookie (Larry Levan Mix)”
Grace Jones “That’s The Trouble”
Morning, Noon & Night “Bite Your Granny”
Patrick Adams & Phreek “Everybody Loves A Good Thing”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays throughout the following week Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM and a mini-marathon Saturday nights at 9 PM

At 3 PM, it’s encore time on the Big Electric Cat time as Sydney Fileen delivers a special mixtape edition of her show that presents a time capsule of the year 1980, one of the key years in the history of New Wave Music. This show originally aired in September, 2022.

Over the course of two hours you will hear such artists as The Police, Gary Numan, The Beat, Talking Heads, The B 52s, DEVO and more, all with music released in 1980. 1980 was the year when we vowed to whip it, at least once in a lifetime.

This is musical history at its most fun, so check out this playlist…

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat 096

1980

Ultravox “Vienna”
Jim Carroll Band “People Who Died.”
Siouxsie & The Banshees “Paradise Place”
DEVO “Whip It”
Talking Heads “Once In A Lifetime”
Kate Bush “Violin”
Joe Jackson “Mad At You”
Gary Numan “I Dream of Wires”
Lene Lovich “The Night”
Units “Warm Moving Bodies”
The B 52s “The Devil’s In My Car”
The Cars “Gimme Some Slack”
The Beat (English) “Twist and Crawl”
The Clash “Somebody Got Murdered”
Adam and The Ants “Dog Eat Dog”
The Buggles “Kid Dynamo”
Martha and The Muffins “Echo Beach”
Spizz Energy “Where’s Captain Kirk”
Oingo Boingo “I’m So Bad”
Mi-Sex “A Loser”
The Plasmatics “I Want You Baby”
The Ramones “Do You Remember Rock’n’Roll Radio”
The Pretenders “Tattooed Love Boys”
Quincy “Roamin’ Catholic”
Split Enz “What’s The Matter With You”
Elvis Costello “5 Gears In Reverse”
Berlin “City Lights”
The Vapors “Spring Collection”
Toyah “Vision”
Models “Two People Per Square Kilometer”
Joy Division “Isolation”
Echo and The Bunnymen “Stars are Stars”

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. Classic episodes can be heard Sunday morning at 10 AM.

That’s what’s new on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for our regular features every day.

The PopCult Comix Bookshelf

Blessed Be
by Rick Altergott
Fantagraphics
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1683967781
$24.99

Blessed Be is the first long-from work by cartoonist Rick Altergott, and it’s an absolute gem.  The story stars Doofus, the short, chubby loser with a page-boy haircut and straw boater who was originally featured in short gag back-up comic strips in magazines like HATE and Eightball back in the 1990s.

Originally Blessed Be was serialized in black-and-white in the anthology comic, Raisin Pie, which Altergott split with his wife, cartoonist Ariel Bordreaux, but the story was left unfinished. Since the last issue of Raisin Pie was published in 2007, Altergott has extensively re-written and re-drawn and colored the much-expanded story, and the result is an incredible comic book story, with distinctly adult themes. He’s also incorporated some of the work he did for VICE in recent years, too.

The result is a 150+ page story that grabs you and makes you want to finish it in one sitting.

While Doofus and his dim-witted sidekick, Henry Hotchkiss are the stars of the story, the real main character is the fictional seaside town of Flowertown USA and its mix of bizarre characters and people who are struggling to be normal. There’s lots of drugs, sex and violence involved, and even more biting satire and social commentary. Blessed Be manages to occupy a space somewhere between Archie Comics and the worlds of Charles Bukowski, Todd Solondz and Timothy Leary, with a nod to crime stories and slapstick comedy along the way.

He’s populated Flowertown with a surreal collection of characters: Naked net fishermen who dominate the beach and speak in their own unidentifiable language; A secret society that pulls the strings of power in the town…and has as their secret a most unexpected characteristic; A teen drug-dealer, hellbent on revenge; Denizens and patrons of “Big Disgusting Burger Inc.”; Someone who leaves Chick Tracts all over town; and of course, Doofus and Henry.

Altergott’s art is an almagam of some very impressive influences.  He manages to maintain his own style, while showing nods to Mad Magazine‘s iconic artists like Jack Davis, Mort Drucker and Wally Wood. His storytelling, layout and pacing are terrific and the coloring on this work is spectacular.

The story is filled with nudity, both male and female, and adult themes and drug use. The violence is not gory, but as placed in the story it’s shocking. While the art might make you think that this is simply a light-hearted comedy, it’s actually a pretty intense drama and definitely not for children or for pearl-clutchers of any age.

Having said this, I think I enjoyed Blessed Be more than any new work I’ve read so far this year.

Let’s quote from the publisher’s blurb…

Altergott’s farcical earnest cast of smalltown bums, outlaws, hippies, bikers, and babes — with names like Father John Beggarweed, Stink Hair Stu, Rubberneck Nelson, Muttonchop O’Rourke, et. al. — intertwine in a web of crime and mystery involving satanic ritual, religious tracts curiously popping up around town, naked fishermen, and psychedelic drugs, driving the narrative to ever-greater depths of hilarity (even though none of his characters are in on the jokes). Blessed Be reads like an R-rated Mad magazine parody of Our Town written by John Waters and drawn by Mort Drucker and Wally Wood. Altergott both skewers and celebrates an eerie realm of ’70s men’s magazines and small-town conservatism. A cult favorite since the 1990s amongst intellectuals and philistines alike for his impeccably crafted brand of lowbrow humor, cartoonist Rick Altergott has never crafted a full-length graphic novel — until now.

Blessed Be can be ordered from any bookseller using the ISBN code above, or you can purchase it directly from the publisher.