Today The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide looks at books about The Beatles.

In the wake of the release of “Now and Then,” which is proclaimed to be the last Beatles song, the fab four are once again topping the charts, and interest in the band is at a new peak.

Today we have two brand-new books, and one new edition of a previous Gift Guide entry that has bonus material in it now.

For the best gifts for the Beatles fan in your life, read the news today and in the end you’ll take a magical mystery tour to some cool gift ideas…

Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans
by Kenneth Womack
Dey Street Books
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0063248526
$50 (discounted at Amazon)

I have been wanting to read a book like this since I first found out who Mal Evans was, over forty years ago. Living The Beatles Legend is the first full-length biography of Mal Evans, the Beatles’ beloved friend, confidant, and roadie.

Malcolm Evans, the Beatles’ long-time roadie, personal assistant, and devoted friend, was an invaluable member of the band’s inner circle. A towering figure in horn-rimmed glasses, Evans loomed large in the Beatles’ story, contributing at times as a performer and sometime lyricist, while struggling mightily to protect his beloved “boys.” He was there for the whole of the group’s remarkable, unparalleled story: from the Shea Stadium triumph through the creation of the timeless cover art for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the famous Let It Be rooftop concert.

Leaving a stable job as telecommunications engineer to serve as road manager for this fledgling band, Mal was the odd man out from the start—older, married with children, and without any music business experience. And yet he threw himself headlong into their world, traveling across the globe and making himself indispensable.

In the years after the Beatles’ disbandment, Big Mal continued in their employ as each embarked upon solo careers. By 1974, he was determined to make his name as a songwriter and record producer, setting off for a new life in Los Angeles, where he penned his memoirs. But in January 1976, on the verge of sharing his book with the world, Evans’s story came to a tragic end during a domestic standoff with the LAPD.

For Beatles devotes, Mal’s life and untimely death have always been shrouded in mystery. For decades, his diaries, manuscripts, and vast collection of memorabilia was missing, seemingly lost forever…until now.

Working with full access to Mal’s unpublished archives and having conducted hundreds of new interviews, Beatles’ scholar and author Kenneth Womack affords readers with a full telling of Mal’s unknown story at the heart of the Beatles’ legend. Lavishly illustrated with unseen photos and ephemera from Mal’s archives, Living the Beatles’ Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans is the missing puzzle piece in the Fab Four’s incredible story.

This is a goldmine for Beatles fans. Evans was so important in the lives of The Beatles that, when when Peter Jackson developed the audio “demixing” program that was used on The Beatles Get Back and more recently on “Now and Then,” he named it “Mal,” in Evans’ honor.

This book offers new insight into one of the hidden heroes of The Beatles story.  Available from any bookseller by using the ISBN code.

The Beatles Please Please Me to With The Beatles (Beatles Album Series)
by Bruce Spizer
498 Productions, LLC
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8986319063
$39.98 (discounted at Amazon)

The Beatles Please Please Me to With The Beatles is the latest installment in Bruce Spizer’s Beatles Album Series, covering the first two albums recorded by the Beatles.

I just discovered Spizer’s incredible work a couple of years ago, and I became an instant fan. I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to books about The Beatles, and unless it’s a book by Mark Lewisohn I tend to pick up a new Beatles book, flip through it and find a dozen mistakes. That’s not the case with Bruce Spizer, whose books are meticulously researched, and who presents the material like an updated and vastly expanded version of The Beatles, An Illustrated Record, one of the most fun books about The Beatles every written (back in the 70s).

Please Please Me and With The Beatles, along with their associated singles, introduced the Beatles first to England and then to several countries across the world, including Canada and the United States. Although often overlooked due to the excellence of the group’ s later albums, these early albums contain the exciting songs that fueled Beatlemania.

These albums showcased the songwriting talents of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, as well as incredible cover versions of songs from the group’ s stage show. Had the Beatles not evolved and matured, the group would still be well respected for the quality of the recordings on these two albums.

In addition to the usual chapters on the British, American and Canadian perspectives, the book contains chapters on the Decca audition and the EMI artists test session. There are also chapters on the recording sessions and album covers, as well as on the news, music and films of the era to place these albums in their proper context. It is a 9″ x 9″ hardcover book to match the other books in Bruce Spizer’s Beatles Album Series. It is 272 pages long and contains over 290 color and original black and white images.

Honestly, I’m hooked on these books, and I’m hoping that once he completes his series of Beatles albums, that he moves on to cover their solo years. Available from any bookseller by using the ISBN code.

The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present (Paperback)
by Paul McCartney
Liveright
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1324094098
$30 (discounted at Amazon)

I recommended this book in The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide, and normally wouldn’t bother suggesting it again now that it’s in paperback, but…something new has been added!

Sir Paul has updated the book with the full accounts of the creation of seven additional songs. I guess now that he’s really a “paperback writer” he wanted to give the fans a little extra.

The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present celebrates the creative life and the musical genius of Paul McCartney through his most meaningful songs.

From his early Liverpool days, through the historic decade of The Beatles, to Wings and his long solo career, The Lyrics pairs the definitive texts of dozens of Paul McCartney’s songs with first-person commentaries on his life and music. These commentaries reveal how the songs came to be and the people who inspired them: his devoted parents, Mary and Jim; his songwriting partner, John Lennon; his “Golden Earth Girl,” Linda Eastman; his wife, Nancy McCartney; and even Queen Elizabeth, among many others. Here are the origins of “Let It Be,” “Lovely Rita,” “Yesterday,” and “Mull of Kintyre,” as well as McCartney’s literary influences, including Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, and Alan Durband, his high-school English teacher.

With images from McCartney’s personal archives―handwritten texts, paintings, and photographs, hundreds previously unseen―The Lyrics, spanning sixty-four years, becomes the definitive literary and visual record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

Finally in paperback and featuring seven new song commentaries, the #1 New York Times bestseller celebrates the creative life and unparalleled musical genius of Paul McCartney at a lower price, in a physical format that’s easier to handle than the deluxe hardcover edition.  This handsomely designed volume pairs the definitive texts of over 160 songs with first-person commentaries on McCartney’s life, revealing the diverse circumstances in which songs were written; how they ultimately came to be; and the remarkable, yet often delightfully ordinary, people and places that inspired them.

This is a great gift for any die-hard fan who passed on the pricey hardcover edition, or just anybody who’s interested in the art of songwriting.

Writing The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide and working on other top-secret projects has caught up with your PopCulteer, so Tuesday on The AIR  your blogger and radio show host slacks off during this holiday week and delivers special encore presentation (that means a rerun from 2021) of a holiday patchwork edition of Radio Free Charleston.  I’ll explain below, but to listen to the warmed-up treats we have, 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 a compliation special that combines the 2019 Radio Free Charleston International Thanksgiving Special, which is 90 minutes of yours truly and his lovely wife, Mel Larch, playing music and joking around…and then the rest of this show contains the 2019 Paul And Spike’s Too Grumpy Critics Thanksgiving Special, which is half an hour of holiday humor, and the final hour of this show is The Relax Radio Show, created and hosted by George Daughtery, the beloved and much-missed, Earl of Elkview.

Now, this doesn’t mean you won’t get any new RFC this week. On Friday, several times through the day, we will premiere The 2023 Radio Free Charleston Christmas Extravaganza, hosted by yours truly and his lovely wife, Mel Larch. This show will open with a huge surprise that will thrill and delight Charleston music fans

That one-hour show premieres Friday, and then will be incorporated into RFC V5 154 the following week. We also plan to wear this thing out over the next month or so.

But before that, we have another holiday to get out of the way.

Check out the playlist for the first 90 minutes of the show…

The Aquabats “Showtime”
The Blues Brothers “Sweet Home Chicago”
Book of Mormon “Making Things Up Again”
The Beatles “Free As A Bird”
Kate Bush “All We Ever Look For”
The Beautiful South “From Under The Covers”
The Bad Shepherds “Making Room For Nigel”
DEVO “Huboon Stomp”
The Aquabats “Playdough (Live)”
Mike Batt/Roger Daltry “The Pig Must Die”
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies “Yankee Pride”
Andy Partridge/Robyn Hitchcock “Planet England”
Andrea True Connection “More More More”
Cats “Invitation To The Jellicle Ball”
YES “Don’t Kill The Whales”
The Tubes “White Punks On Dope”
MST3K “Gamera Song”

This is followed by Paul and Spike’sToo Grumpy Critics Thanksgiving Special and The Relax Radio Show, a one-hour program created by The Earl and his friend, Buddy Griffith.

This special will air in the regular RFC timeslots this week, and then Friday check PopCult for the air times for The 2023 Radio Free Charleston Christmas Extravaganza.

You can hear this week’s special episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Thursday at 3 PM,  Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, and next  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can 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 Curtain Call at 2 PM. At 3 PM we have two recent episodes of The Swing Shift.

The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide returns later Tuesday, with Beatles Books.

Today in The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide, we’re carrying over our retailer recommendations from Sunday to tell you about three local bookstores.

One is a treasure trove of incredible used books. Another specializes in a specific genre, and the third is a Charleston institution.

All of these are great places to find the perfect gift for any literate person on your holiday shopping list.

And…even if they aren’t that literate, there are a variety of picture books available.

Appalachian Books. A Moveable Feast Bookstore
808 B Street. Upper Saint Albans, WV

This wonderfully eclectic bookstore opened earlier this year, and it is the long-standing dream of beloved Charleston musician and librarian, Charlie Tee, realized by his widow, Lynn Rousseau.

When the store opened in August, Lynn told WOWK, “During COVID quarantine, our dream was to open a small bookstore, and he would make little baked goods, and I would run the store. Then, he died of COVID [on] Dec. 18, 2021, I miss him very much. He was my rock and my backbone.”

Appalachian Books–A Moveable Feast Bookstore is the kind of place that bibliophiles dream about.

There are books for everybody. You’ll find novels, art books, hobby books, loads of cookbooks, and there’s a huge section of children’s books, a particular favorite of Charlie’s. It’s a wonderful way to keep the memory of such a sweet, sweet man alive.

The space is really cool. It’s a cozy little bookstore, plunked down right in the middle of a cool, industrial-looking setting.The lighting is great and there are places to sit to rest if the book-shopping overwhelms you. Plus you get the bonus of great conversation with Lynn, who will hunt down any book that you can’t find in the store.

The store is not hard to find.  It’s located one block South of Main Street in Saint Albans, snugly nestled on the second floor of the buildig that houses Teays Physical Therapy, on the corner of Kanawha Terrace and B Street.  There is ample parking right across the street.

Be prepared to spend plenty of time looking through Lynn’s stock of books. There are new books arriving daily, in any genre you can imagine, and it will take multiple visits for you to see everything. I recommend following the Appalachian Books Facebook page to keep up with the new arrivals and special discounts and events (like the one seen below).

Plot Twist Books
209 D Street, South Charleston, WV

Meanwhile in South Charleston, on D Street to be exact, we have another new bookstore. Plot Twist Books is an independent bookstore located in South Charleston, West Virginia. They offer a curated selection of new and used books and bookish gifts, with a heavy accent on mystery. But they have all sorts of great books from which you can choose.

From their website:

Our new books are priced according to the publisher’s cover price. Used books are generally priced as follows:

Hardback: $7 | Paperback $5 | Mass Market PB $3 | Children’s $1-3

We are a donation-only store, and we offer a discount coupon in exchange for donations. We accept donations of good, quality books that are in solid condition. Acceptable genres include general fiction, non-fiction, classics, recent releases (past 5 years), bio/memoir, kids/teen/YA, sci-fi/fantasy, poetry, short stories, horror, graphic novels and coffee table books.

We are not interested in vintage romance novels, mass market writers (e.g. Patterson, Grisham), encyclopedias, textbooks, outdated technology books, and other items in poor condition.

Co-owned by Matt Browning and Brian Mann, Plot Twist Books is a welcome addition to the literary scene in the region. You want to check out their website, and their Facebook page to keep up with author signings and other special events.

Taylor Books
226 Capitol St, Charleston, WV

Taylor Books is a bit of a landmark in Charleston now. Founded years ago by Ann Saville, and currently in new and very capable hands, this combination bookstore, art gallery and coffee shop has become a destination on Capitol Street, drawing fans from around the world.

Since it’s so hard to write about something new about a place as well-known as Taylor Books, I’m just going to swipe from their website:

Since our grand opening in 1995, Taylor Books has become a Charleston institution and a favorite landmark for locals and visitors a like. Featuring a café serving a vast variety of  coffees, home baked muffins, scones, cookies, cakes and other goodies, wine, free Wi-Fi, live music every weekend, author events, a fine art gallery featuring local, regional and national artists, board games, a full schedule of classes in our two art studios, rich architectural character, free book club membership, fast special order service, an abundant selection of unique cards and gifts, thousands of books from all genres, including an unsurpassed selection of regional works, and a friendly, attentive staff.  Hope to see you soon!

If you’re in Downtown Charleston, you can’t go wrong by doing some holiday shopping at Taylor Books. Follow them on Facebook to keep up with new events.

Most of the books I recommend in The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide can be ordered through Taylor Books or Plot Twist Books, simply by using the ISBN number. Lynn might be able to track them down, too.

This week’s painting is really just a small acrylic doodle on black illustration board that is just an attempt at quickly rendering the female form on a day when my fingers weren’t cooperating due to MG. I got the basic shape, lighting and composition down, but ran out of steam when it came to rendering fine details, so I just left it a bit absract. To be honest, the star of the painting is that little glint of light bouncing off her knee.

This one took about forty minutes, half of which was quickly mixing colors.

It’s way looser and semi-abstract than a lot of my recent work, but that’s mainly due to me not spending a lot of time on it.

As I warned you last week, you can probably expect a few more quick ‘n’ sloppy pieces over the next few weeks.

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.

At 8 PM you can hear an hour of the stand-up of Lewis Black on last week’s episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM the Monday Marathon presents ten hours of classic New Wave Music on Sydney’s Big Electric Cat.

Be sure to check back later Monday morning for the next installment of The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide.

Having decided to extend The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide, we no longer find ourselves in the homestretch, so we can settle into this year’s format, and recommend three online retailers from which you can choose a bounty of cool gifts for the loved ones on your shopping list.

Monday we’ll be focusing on three local Brick and Mortar Bookstores.

This is almost a flashback day, as we have recommended all of these fine folks before, but they still offer cool and distinctive stuff, so why not share their links again?

While these are all online retailers, rest assured that none of them are Amazon, so you won’t be putting money into the pockets of any wanton billionaires (unlike 90% of my other gift suggestions). However, I will vouch for their prompt shipping so you can be sure to get your gifts in before the holiday.

Cotswold Collectibles

Costwold Collectibles is a dedicated website where you can get just about everything you need to to recruit and outfight your Army of fighting forces in 1/6 Scale.

Full disclosure: I’m friends with the folks who work here. Who wouldn’t be? I buy tons of their GI Joe-compatible figures, toys and equipment every year. Cotswold Collectibles carries a great assortment of vintage GI Joe and Action Man items, ranging from the 1960s to the revival toys in the 1990s and beyond, and they also make their own Elite Brigade items that bring back the glory days of The Adventure Team and also veer into the military side of things. I mean, I’ve known the owner for over thirty years.

This is pretty much the coolest action figure shopping site on the planet. It’s a clearing house for all things 1/6 scale, but they’ve also branched out into 1/12 scale and MEGO-sized figures and accesories, and they carry a wide variety of stuff to suit any budget.

Cotswold Collectibles also carries the World Peacekeepers line of 12″ military figures that used to turn up every holiday season at Big Lots. These fully-articulated, high-detail figures are now available from Cotswold, who are also carrying some of the extensive vehicle and diorama sets, which haven’t been sold in the US for over fifteen years. On top of that, they have incredible small-batch custom offerings from Huxter Industries, Artlab Designs and more.

If you want to find high-quality photos of their most recent offerings, check out their website and their Facebook Page.

In recent years Cotswold Collectibles has also reached out to import terrific new 1/6 scale items from Spain, Brazil and France and they also offer a great selection of products from Dragon Models, Sideshow Toys, Hot Toys, Threezero and many other top 1/6 high-end companies. If you have a collector of the original 12-inch GI Joe action figure on your holiday shopping list, you need to shop at Cotswold Collectibles.

Archie McPhee

Archie McPhee is another online retailer that produces a hilarious catalog. This is their fortieth anniversary, and they are as weird as ever. That’s  a good thing.

Originally a surplus novelty house, back in the 1980s, Archie McPhee quicky exhausted their supply of weird stuff, so they had to start making their own. You find products created for Archie McPhee under their “Accoutrements” label all over the place now, but if you want to go to the source, visit their website for a wide selection of things like rubber horse heads, super librarian action figures, Goth Cats, chicken-flavored candy canes and stuff like that. It’s fun, and perfect for the person on your holiday shopping list with a healthy sense of the absurd.

Among the silly stuff you can get there is a line of pull-back racers…but they aren’t cars. You can get racing babies, grim reapers, tardigrades, possom and rubber chickens.

In fact, Rubber Chickens are their spirit animal, and Archie McPhee offers a huge variety in all sizes, shapes and forms, along with ANCILLIARY RUBBER CHICKEN MERCHANDISE!

Other great new items include the Itty Bitty Line of minature bizarre things, meditating animal figures, the world’s largest selection of finger puppets and this year’s feature item, The Bigfoot Basecamp playset. I should probably point out that the Itty Bitty Bigfoot and Itty Bitty Aliens would be right at home on a HO Scale train layout, and many other Itty Bitty items would work as props for action figures.

This is seriously one of the most fun websites, filled with tons of goofy, silly and wacky things that you can spring on your loved ones this Christmas. We have never needed a laugh more than we have with an election year and all it’s depressing atmosphere looming, and Archie McPhee is there to give you a big one.

A laugh, that is. Although you can also find a Giant Rubber Chicken there.

American Science & Surplus

American Science & Surplus has been around for decades and publishes one of the most entertaining catalogs on the face of the Earth. I’ve mentioned them here in PopCult before, and Mrs. PopCulteer and I have even made the pilgrimmage to their store in Chicago.  They sell surplus items that include electronic components, gadgets, tools, toys, military pouches, cooking supplies, art supplies, pop culture oddities, educational materials and anything else they can get their hands on, cheap.

This is a great place to find gifts for the science enthusiast on your shopping list.

They sell all kinds of motors and lights that can be used for home robotics. They also have military suplus gear that can be repurposed into all sorts of things. And where else can you find a three-foot-long test tube, listed in their catalog as “Test Tooooooooooobe?”

Your PopCulteer and his lovely wife made a pilgrammage to their store in Chicago a few years ago, and it was a life-changing experience. Not everybody can run up to the Windy City, but their website is the next-best thing, in terms of finding offbeat, unusual, extremely useful stuff that you didn’t know you needed.

The American Science & Surplus website is the first stop for gag gifts, or “different” ideas for the “different” people on your holiday shopping list. Seriously, they have tons of cool stuff. Just go look at their site.

Mark Scarpelli and Dan Kehde’s rock opera, MARY,a Charleston tradition, opens this coming Friday. This year they’re going to be doing an unplugged version of the show, semi-staged, to better take advantage of the intimate performance space at the Elk City Playhouse.

To get you in the mood for this production by Charleston Youth Arts Company, you can sample a Radio Free Charleston playlist of clips from previous  productions in the video at the top of this post. This year MARY happens at the Elk City Playhouse at 218 W Washington St, Charleston, on the city’s historic West Side.

I’m going to quote from CYAC’s press releases for the rest of this post, but if you haven’t seen MARY: A Rock Opera, you really should…

Mark Scarpelli and Dan Kehde’s seasonal opus, MARY, has been performed every Christmas season for the past 27 years!  The story of Mary, the future mother of Jesus, over the nine months prior to the birth, MARY provides a timeless score and poignant lyrics to the most famous story of all time.

Coming out of the pandemic, we’ve been reevaluating how CYAC fits into the world around us. This extends to reimagining how we stage MARY. We want the songs to take center stage and let the energy of the music guide the storytelling process. This means minimal costuming and staging, allowing the cast to have more fun with the songs and characters. We’re calling this new concept “Mary: Unplugged!”

Picture this: 30 people gathered around your living room, singing the music of MARY. That’s the kind of intimate, engaging experience we’re aiming for this year.

It’s worth mentioning that this is the second production of MARY since the passing of composer Mark Scarpelli in 2022. There’s a legacy here, and we are determined to honor his memory in the best way possible, by continuing to share his music with the world.

Seating is limited, so we suggest you purchase tickets ahead of time HERE.

Yu might want to keep in mind that MARY is a wonderful experience that can make for a very nice early Christmas present for the theatre-lover on your shopping list.

Today in The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide, since it’s one of our “flashback” days, and since I promised that T Shirts would be involved, I’m going to toss you a bit of a curve and remind you of three artist friends of the blog who sell their designs on T Shirts, but also on prints, mugs and a variety of other cool items. There are even books involved.

Two of our artists are local to the Charleston area, and the third is an old friend from my comic book days whom I actually haven’t seen in person since 1987.

All of them do really cool art that not only looks great on your wall, but also on your chest!

Without any further ado, let’s remind you of some of the artists whose work we’ve told you about…and would still make great gifts.

Seriously, the works of these artists all make fine gifts for the sophisticated lover of great works on your shopping list.

HepCatz Design
by Brenda Pinnell

Brenda Pinnell is an accomplished graphic designer who has branched off and become an entrepreneur with her creations, HepCatz, including the main Hepcat, Mr. Fluffy Butt. Hepcatz promises “Cool Cats, Swell Design,” and I can verify that this is a case of truth in advertising. Her cat cartoons are cute, funny, clever and…well…swell.

Like your humble blogger, Brenda is a fellow refugee from Charleston Newspapers.

Hepcatz brings us clever and hilarious cartoons featuring Brenda’s cast of feline interlopers having their way with the world at large. And you can find them on all kinds of HepCatz swag.

You can find HepCatz stuff at Tamarack and at the HepCatz Store, where you can find all of Brenda’s HeptCatz merchandise, including notecards, T-shirts, mugs, holiday cards, artwork and more. You can also buy HepCatz gear this weekend at her booth at the Capital City Art & Craft Show at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.

Follow Brenda on Instagram to see more of her art and where you can buy it.

Glen Brogan

This is not Glen’s first time in The PopCult Gift Guide, but he’s still such a damn good artist that you’ll want to see what he has to share. At his page you can find links to prints and T Shirts featuring his art. His prints are top-notch and sold through Hero’s Complex Gallery.  T-Shirts and other apparel can be found at his TeePublic Shop.

Glen Brogan is the type of artist that makes his fellow artists want to give up and pack it in. His art is so good that it’s hard to imagine anybody topping it. With a sleek style and a strong appreciation of the coolest elements of pop culture, Glen has made a name for himself with exhibits in New York and Los Angeles and work commissioned by Disney, King Features Syndicate, Marvel Comics and more. His first ook will be published in conjuction with his next exhibit at HGCArt in Los Angeles.

In addition to his prints and shirts, you might want to track down The Haunted Mansion Little Golden Book, which Glen illustrated in 2021. He’s recently done book signings at Taylor Books and the Mountain State Pop Expo, It’s now available in a larger size, too.  You might want to follow Glen on Instagram to see what he’s up to next.

MItch O’Connell

Mitch is an old friend that I haven’t seen in person for a long time, but we keep up via social media, and he’s got tons of great art items available.

It’s hard to pigeon-hole Mitch O’Connell’s work. He’s run the gamut from low-brow to high-brow, and has been right at home no matter what he does. He is a man who straddles many brows. You’ve seen his work on covers for Newsweek, and illustrations for Rolling Stone, Playboy, The Village Voice and dozens of other magazines. He’s done clip art that’s been used around the world. O’Connell has drawn CD covers for Supersuckers, Less Than Jake, the Malamondos and tons of other groups. Plus he’s done flyers for Burlesque Shows, movie festivals, bands, theatrical productions and roller derby.

Mitch’s Threadless Shop has dozens of cool designs, including his recreations of the monster shirts from a classic episode of Leave it To Beaver. You can even get them in grayscale now, just like they were on TV back in the day.

Mitch also has an Etsy shop where you can buy limited edition prints, stickers, his books and other goodies.

And while you’re at it, follow him on Instagram too, so you can see his new projects and the stuff he finds at flea markets.

From October, 2008, this episode of Radio Free Charleston features alternative rock from Ten Carp Lie, a jam-band tune from Corporate Orange, yet another promo clip for the then-new Scarpelli/Kehde musical “Jack The Ripper,” plus the short film, “Charleston Speed Run #1,″ and a sneak peek at the documentary “Weird, Wonderful: The Braxton County Monster,” which made it’s debut at the RFC Halloween Party October 25, 2008, at the La Belle Theater.

We were hitting a pretty solid stride back then, leading into the 2008 Halloween specials. You can read the original production notes HERE.

Today is one of those days where we don’t really have a unifying theme in The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide.

The one thread that ties our three recommendations together is that they’re really, really cool.

Our selections today include the first album in seven years from a beloved Ska/Pop band, a new collectible figure based on a classic vintage toys and a selection of some of the coolest T Shirts you’ll ever find (in advance of tomorrow’s all-shirt-related Flashback picks).

After beating my magazine deadline this week, I have decided to extend The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide until November 30, rather than end it next Wednesday and then do bonus selections next month. This makes life less complicated for everybody.

And now, on with the coolness…

Theatre of the Absurd presents C’est La Vie
by Madness
Available on CD, Vinyl and Download from Amazon.
Also for sale anywhere cool music is sold

The thirteenth album by beloved UK Ska pioneers, Madness, finds the band in top form after seven years out of the studio. With 14 full-length songs (and several brief, surreal interludes), the band has delivered a quasi-concept album that address the absurdity of live in a post-pandemic world.

Decades ago Madness mutated from their Ska roots into something more along the lines of a New Wave reincarnation of The Kinks at their best, and that continues on Theatre of the Absurd presents C’est La Vie as the once-Nutty Boys, now Nutty Old Men, rail against lockdowns, masking, child-trafficking and more, all in a satirical tone, tongue in cheek and entertaining as hell.

The band describes the recording as “the perfect antidote to the chaos of the past few years.” With six of the seven original members, the band has somehow managed to remain in form and sound as good as they ever did.

Theatre of the Absurd presents C’est La Vie  is released today, and should be available where ever records are sold.

It’s a perfect gift for fans of Madness, New Wave Music or very British pop concept albums.

The Great Garloo Action Figure
by The Nacelle Company
$19.99 plus tax and shipping

The Great Garloo was one of the giant wired-remote control animatronic monster toys made by Marx in the1960s.

So striking was his design that six decades after he graced toystore shelves, people still recognize him.

Now Nacelle has updated his design a bit, and after a successful run as a ReAction figure, they’ve unleashed a 3″ tall Garloo on the world, complete with packaging that replicates the original Marx toy.

As they say, “A 60’s Monster toy icon THE GREAT GARLOO is back and ready to reign over your toy collection, as a vibrant, original sculpted collectible.”

Not-so-big anymore, green, and with a face only a mother or a Monster Kid could love, Garloo can’t wait to infiltrate your home and use it as his base to take over the world.

Collectors should be warned that Garloo does bear an uncanny resemblance to Pete Davidson. This is a nice item for Marx Toy Collectors, vintage toy and monster fans, or just anybody with an affinity for the Garlooesque.

Available directly from The Nacelle Company.

The Zerostreet Threadless Shop
featuring wearable art by Robert Jimenez
Visit The Store HERE

Okay, this is almost a Flashback pick, but Robert’s added so many cool designs lately, and tomorrow’s T-Shirt Flashback entry is pretty crowded, so I wanted to include it here with other random coolness.

Robert’s Threadless Shop is loaded with over 150 cool designs, all created by Robert. You’ll see everything from Tiki-influenced designs to some of his Fearsome Weirdos monsters to a few Wacky Packages-style parodies and lots of pop-culture references. Where else are you going to find a T-shirt featuring the edible seaweed that Milton Berle was trying to sell in It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?

Oh, and there’s lots of monkeys and/or apes in the mix.

Jimenez is a very talented artist who works in a cool lowbrow art/pop culture area, and when he’s not designing trading cards or painting pop culture parodies or fez-wearing monkeys, he’s an in-demand Tiki illustrator.

His designs are available on a very wide range of shirt colors, and in sizes ranging from small to 3XL. Threadess is good about this. Their shirts are very high-quality and comfortable. You can browse the designs and order them HERE.

There’s a very good chance that you’ll find a cool design or five for the T-shirt wearing person on your shopping list. We will have another item by Robert in the Gift Guide later in November.

The PopCulteer
November 17, 2023

STUFF TO DO

We have a short list of suggestions this week as many people are gearing up for Thanksgiving week.  Your PopCulteer has made the decision to extend The 2023 PopCult Gift Guide to November 30. I had a pressing magazine deadline, but I’m happy to report that I met it head-on, and after a Kaiju-like battle I have vanquished it, and following that I realized that I’d rather finish off the Gift Guide this month, instead of doing a “bonus week” in December.    Next week, instead of ending on Wednesday, we’ll keep the gift ideas coming going for eight more days. For now, let’s look at that STUFF TO DO.

As I have been doing of late, this a good time to remind you that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything comprehensive, and if you feel strongly about me leaving anything out, feel free to mention it in the comments.

Live Music is back at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM.  Friday Matt Thomas, takes the stage. Saturday Minor Swing performs at the beloved bookstore/cafe/art gallery.

The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe has some great stuff this week  to tell you about.  Friday Tim Courts plays during happy hour.  Sunday at 9:30 PM, Christopher Carter from Hurl Brickbat puts on a solo show.  We have graphics below for the rest of the weekend shows at The Glass.

Next Tuesday there is a really cool event at The Alban Arts Center, and admission is just a toy donation. It’s a screening of NitroWolfy105’s stop-motion animated films, and you can read more about it in our final graphic this week.

Please remember that the pandemic is not over yet. It’s still a going concern with the ‘rona surging again. And now there are seasonal allergies, the flu, little clones of George Santos lying all over the place, suspended college football coaches, big-eyed beans from Venus 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. Sometimes I think they just do it to mess with me.

If you’re up for going out, here are a few suggestions for the weekend, roughly in order, after the jump…

Continue reading