WINGS is the ultimate anthology of the band that defined the sound of the 1970s.

A lovingly curated time capsule of imagery and music personally overseen by Paul McCartney, WINGS includes 32 timeless international hits including ‘Band on the Run’, ‘Live and Let Die’, ‘Jet’ and ‘Let ‘Em In’ – songs that still feature in his live shows to this day.

The WINGS collection was designed by Paul and Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell of Hipgnosis.

The expanded booklet also includes an introduction by Paul plus extensive album-by-album notes on the iconic artwork written by Po, with additional editorial by Pete Paphides and showcases original portraits of the band by Humphrey Ocean.

It’s available as a very affordable 2 CD set with a poster.

If you want to upgrade a little, you can go for the hardback slipcase that includes the 3LP 180g vinyl collection, also designed by Paul and Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell of Hipgnosis. with an expanded book that also includes an introduction by Paul plus extensive album-by-album notes on the iconic artwork written by Po, with additional editorial by Pete Paphides and showcases original portraits of the band by Humphrey Ocean.

There’s also a limited edition 3 LP set that’s presented in a die-cut hardback slipcase that includes 2 posters and a sticker sheet. It ususally runs about twenty bucks more than the regular 3 LP set.

It’s basically a really nice “greatest hits” package, with cool graphics and some historial notes. Quite pleasant for people who might’ve dismissed the band at the time.

Today’s first entry in The 2025 PopCult Gift Guide is Zuru Toys’ Mini Brands Fill The Fridge.  I reviewed this back in August, but I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to include it in this year’s Gift Guide because they sell out so fast. Finally, over the last few days, I’ve seen them locally at retail, and some online retailers have gotten them back in stock. The cool retro fridge will set you back about twenty bucks when you find them, and they will make a terrific gift for the child or adult minaturist on your holiday shopping list.

The Fill Your Fridge capsules make great stocking stuffers, at under eight bucks each, when you can find ’em.

It had been a while since I’d written about Zuru Toys’ popular Mini Brands here in the blog, but they continue to be one of the most successful items in the toy department, with a huge and loyal following among kids and adult collectors.

They’ve expanded their line of tiny brand-name replicas of consumer products into nostalgia, with their Retro line, retailer-specific lines for KFC, Disney and Ulta, plus they’ve introduced Mini Brands of books, home furnishings and other themes.  They’ve also released a line of Mini Brand Create sets, that allow kids to make their own clay miniatures of food and other items that can be cured with UV light to hold their shape permanently.

Their latest expansion is the Fill The Fridge series, which is anchored by a very cool looking tiny refrigerator.  Not only is this real metal fridge, with a terrific  Mid-Century design, a nifty miniature in its own right, but it also serves a function with its interior light, which can be switched to UV so that kids and hobbyists can safely cure their Create minis without risking exposure to the UV light.

In UV mode, the light stays on when the fridge is closed. In regular light mode, it only  lights up when the fridge is opened.

It’s not only a functional tool, but it’s also a great way to display your collection of Mini Brands.

Accompanying this fridge is a new line of Mini Brands called, natually, Fill The Fridge. This line is exclusive devoted to products that you’d keep in the fridge or freezer, and it includes a lot of stuff that hasn’t been seen before in previous Mini Brand assortments, like fresh meat and produce, and those again are going to be welcomed heavily by dioramists and dollhouse curators.

Oh…and people who play with their large-scale GI Joes and Barbies, too.  They’ll eat up this stuff. This fridge will be right at home in any Dream House or Adventure Team Headquarters, and it’s even workable with MEGO sized figures.

It’s a high-quality toy and collectible, with solid construction and a cool retro design. The only drawback is the demand.  It’s only been in the last few days that I’ve seen these at retail locally. I’ve found plenty of the empty display boxes, but the fridges have been selling extremely quickly. If you see one, grab it.

Available where toys are sold, if you’re lucky.

Today on The AIR, rather than bringing you a new episode of Radio Free Charleston, we are bringing you a special encore of two episodes of Radio Free Charleston Volume Four.

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.

Because your humble blogger was out of town on Monday, when he usually records the show, the decision was made to slot a rerun into this week’s timeslot.

To make it special, and because they were still floating around on The AIR’s server, we are bringing you the first episode of RFC Volume 4, from 2016, and the last episode of RFC Volume 4, from 2019. This was back when the show was all-local. The first episode was two hours, while we had shrunk it to one hour by the time we got to the end of the run.

Of course,  five weeks after the final edition of Volume 4, we relaunched RFC as Volume 5, expanded it to three hours, and combined it with RFC International. 

What you’ll hear today, from January, 2016 is

RFCv4001

Jordan Andrew Jefferson “White Light”
The Smoky Room “Pie Chart”
No Rain “Don’t Come Around”
Jack Griffith “Everything It Takes”
Dina “Pies”
The Laser Beams “Eden By The Fire Escape”
Sheldon Vance “Don’t Walk Away”
Miss Mousie and The Rigamarole “Dumpsters and Divebars”
Neil Zaza “Take On Me”
Under Surveillance “Rachel”
The Nanker Phelge “Meerkat and Wombat”
Trielement “Ultra Violet”
The Company Stores “Pocket Change”
Wolfgang Parker “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head”
Superfetch “Suck My D*ck ISIS”
Mark Wolfe “Gypsy Rant”
The Heydays “Shady Grove”
Bud Carroll “Mistaken Identity”
Out of Nowhere “Rise Above”
Tape Age “Worst Night Of My Life”
J Marinelli “The Great Negation”
Joe Vallina “Humble Days”
Renaissance “So Blase”
Stark Raven “It Never Goes Away”
Clownhole “Old Man Jumping A Fence”
Under The Radar “All Along The Watchtower”
Bobaflex “Pray To The Devil”
Syphter “No Laughing Matter”

And from November, 2019 we have an episode that acted as the “Local Music” entry in that year’s PopCult Gift Guide, featuring double shots of tunes by Beggars Clan, Emmalea Deal, David Synn, Fletcher’s Grove, The Big Bad and Time And Distance.

RFC will return with a new episode next week, and The 2025 PopCult Gift Guide will continue later today.

Today’s second pick in The 2025 PopCult Gift Guide is a big-ticket item, and also kicks off a week of our second entries of the day being music-based suggestions.

Perfect for the Beatles fan, or the John & Yoko fan on your holiday shopping list, we have the Power To The People: Live at the One To One Concert Super Deluxe Boxed set.

Starring John & Yoko and The Elephants Memory Band, with cameos by Frank Zappa, Eric Clapton, Keith Moon and more, today I am recommending the 9 CD/3 Blu ray version of this boxed set, which is available in other configurations, albeit with much less material included.

On August 30, 1972, John Lennon & Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band with Elephant’s Memory and guests headlined 2 historic ONE TO ONE concerts at Madison Square Garden, NYC. These benefit shows played to a combined audience of 40K people and helped raise over $1.5 million to support children with disabilities. They were his only full-length concerts after leaving the Beatles and the last shows John & Yoko performed together.

In 1986, highlights of the two concerts were condensed into one LP and released as John Lennon: Live In NYC. The sound quality was iffy on that release, and fans have been wanting to hear the entire concerts ever since.

Now, produced by Sean Ono Lennon, both concerts have been completely remixed and re-engineered by Paul Hicks and Sam Gannon, using new HD multitrack transfers by Rob Stevens with mixes mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road. There has been some tinkering with autotune on the vocals, but if you know John Lennon, then you know he would absolutely approve of this.

The concerts are presented separately as `afternoon,’ `evening’ and `hybrid’ shows on 3 HD Audio Blu-ray discs in HD Stereo, 5.1 Surround & Dolby Atmos.

This Super Deluxe edition also includes a 204-page book, newsprint poster, 2 postcards, 2 sticker sheets, 2 replica tickets, VIP backstage pass & VIP after-show invitation.

And yet, that’s not the main attraction for the John Lennon completist.

For the last several years, under the direction of Sean Ono Lennon, the Lennon estate has been releasing super deluxe, remixed and remasterd boxed sets of all of Lennon’s solo albums. However, one set that had been announced and was scheduled for release was pulled at the last minute.

Some Time In New York City by John & Yoko, with Elephant’s Memory Band and a bonus disc of live recordings is not the favorite John Lennon release of many fans. It is his most overtly political album. He alternates tracks with Yoko for the first time. The original production and recording left a lot to be desired.

Worst of all, the lead single, and most famous track from the album, includes the “N word.”

While it was a bold, crass and effective political statement when it was originally released in 1972, today it was just too cringeworthy and offensive to be released by a major label. The possibility of it being embraced by the very racist and mysogynistic institutions that it criticized made it simply too radioactive in the current political climate.

That meant that all the work done on that album, with “Ultimate” mixes, elemental mixes demos and more, went on the shelf.

The reason this boxed set is a whopping nine CDs is because it includes everything that was produced for the Sometime In New York City boxed set, minus the one very offensive song.

It’s a decent compromise, and it will shine new light on an album that has some great music hidden under the iffy production and political posturing. And that’s why the Power To The People Super Deluxe Edition includes 9 CDs, 103 tracks, lots of extra goodies, and is a must-have for the Beatles and John Lennon completist

Available where ever deluxe boxed sets are sold, Power To The People: Live at the One To One Concert will set you back more than a $220 dollars.

The first pick today in The 2025 PopCult Gift Guide is a really cool recreation of a rare 1970s action figure, available in two cool versions.

Gargon The King of the Terrons
Part of the Astro Command/Adventure Command line
$49.99 to 74.99
available from  Vintage Toys and Trains and White Elephant Toyz.

I did a full photo-review of these figures back in August. This is the perfect gift for collectors of vintage toys, space toys and Super Joe, but they’ll also appeal to collectors of new toys who don’t often get to see something this wild.  He towers over 1/12 scale figures, which makes him a pretty impressive and opposing alien menace.

A couple of years ago when Steve Stovall (of VT&T and Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo fame) and Jason from White Elephant Toyz teamed up to realize Steve’s longtime dream of reviving the late 1970s Super Joe action figure, the idea of it being successful enough for them to revive his arch enemy, Gor: The King of the Terrons, was just a pipe dream.

However, the Super Joe Unlimited revival was successful enough to not only bring down the wrath of Hasbro, causing them to change the name to Adventure Command and Astro Command, but also to invest in the considerable tooling required to make a new incarnation of King Gor.

Like the Adventure Command figures, the newly-rechristened “Gargon” is not an exact reproduction. The construction is vastly superior, he’s a bit bigger, and he lacks the light-up function that won’t be missed by many. I think he has a couple of added points of articulation at the wrists, too.

Gargon is available in the same shade of green as the original Gor, but he’s also been made in a very limited Glow-In-The-Dark version, with accessories that glow as well.  The Glow version costs more, but hey, he glows, and that’s pretty cool in and of itself.

This could figure would look right at home on a shelf filled with collectible vinyl monster toys. These are a godsend for collectors of the original Super Joe toy line, but they are so freaking cool that, even for someone like me who grew up before that line hit, they are well worth collecting on their own. I’m not going out on a limb to say that Adventure Command is a huge improvement over the Super Joe line, which may be the most fragile action figure line in history.  These new figures are built like a tank.

You can order Gargon at White Elephant Toyz or get one from Steve’s eBay store.

To be honest, this is just a glorified doodle. It’s a big one, but when I started, I had no idea what it was going to be.

And…I’m still not quite sure. This started out as a me goofing around with straight edges, protracters, flexible curves and pencils, and then when I started using pastel crayons on it about a week after I tossed it on top of the slush pile, it sort of came to life.

What kind of life is something I haven’t quite figured out. I basically just used the oil pastel crayons that I hadn’t worn down yet, and decided to futz around with it for a few days.

It actually reminds me of some of my older digital abstracts, only it’s not digital. It might look like AI art to some folks (heaven forbid—I don’t mess around with that stuff), but it’s all just me.

That didn’t stop me from using a pun as the name, though.

If you want to see this image larger, click HERE.

Later today we continue The 2025 PopCult Gift Guide.

Meanwhile, over in radioland, Monday beginning at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a classic episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM we do the same with 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.

Tonight at 9 PM we bring you our newish Monday night line-up featuring two hours each of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast, plus six hours overnight with an assortment of our programming from Haversham Recording Institute: tonight is’s live concerts from Joe Jackson Peter Gabriel and the Cure on Sydney’s Big Electric Cat and Prognosis.

This week we have a great new music video from one of our  Radio Free Charleston favorites.

Above you see Frenchy & The Punk  with “Not Under Your Spell.”

If that seems familiar, This was the fir I played this week on the Radio Free Charleston radio show, over on The AIR.

It’s really cool, and I wanted to keep you fine folks up to date with what they’re doing.  Follow that link above to go where you can buy their music and buy tons of it.

This week we travel back to early June, 2012, for a special preview edition of Radio Free Charleston for FestivALL 2012. This bonus-length, forty-five minutes how includes music from John Lilly, Buddy Black, The Demon Beat, QiET, Sasha Colette, Comparsa and Brian Diller.

We also have a trailer for David Smith’s film, Ladybeard, and lots of footage from previous FestivALLs, including bellydancing and other cool stuff. Host segments were shot all over town, in places where FestivALL stuff would be happening later.

Next week in this space we’ll bring you the first of our two extra-long episodes devoted to FestivALL 2012.

Anthony Taylor (disclosure time: Anthony is a friend) is a keen observer of pop culture and genre fiction and for this entry in The 2025 PopCult Gift Guide I’m going to revisit a couple of his books that I reviewed in this blog earlier this year, plus one additional volume.

These are great gift ideas for fans of pop culture, as well as people who love the art and craft of comic books, toy making and model kits.

Aurora Plastic Models Catalogs: Volume 1 – The 1960’s
compiled by Anthony Taylor
APT Publishing
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8312227680
Paperback $35.99
Hardback $64.99

Aurora Plastic Models Catalogs: Volume 2 – The 1970’s
compiled by Anthony Taylor
APT Publishing
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8312227680
Paperback $35.99
Hardback $64.99
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8309355167

These two volumes are the perfect gift for fans of Aurora Model kits as well as purveyors of pop culture of a certain golden era.

Model building was a huge, mainstream hobby from the 1950s into the 1970s, and is still a popular pastime today. One of the most creative companies making these assemble-it-yourself kits was Aurora Plastics.  In each of these books, after a brief intro by Anthony Taylor, you get over 320 pages of pure gold–ten years worth of retailer sales catalogs from Aurora from the 1960s and 1970s.

These catalogs were available in most hobby shops so kids (and adults) could make wishlists and see the full product line. The catalogs are reproduced in full color, close to their original size, and they trace the evolution of the hobby over the course of the 1960s. The early years see the catalogs dominated by airplanes and cars, with just a few historical figures in the mix.

As the years progress, we see a virtual explosion of pop culture topics, as Aurora’s selection reflects the passions of the day, from the space program to James Bond and spies, to superheroes, Batmania, hit TV shows and movies and even “original equity” creations designed to cash in on the burgeoning counter culture.

And we can’t leave out the monsters. “Monster Kids” loved model kits, and one of the major forces driving the hobby was the Universal Monsters, with additional kits featuring Godzilla, literary horror and other scary subjects. At one point they even combined the monsters with hot rods. The package art shown here is incredible and the product descriptions priceless.

Both volumes of Aurora Plastic Models Catalogs make perfect gifts for any model kit collector, and will be of great interest to anybody interested in pop culture from the 1960s and 1970d, and one of the most creative ways to ever play with toys…building models.

You can order these books from Amazon, through Anthony Taylor’s website, or from most booksellers by using the ISNB code.

The Art of George Wilson
by Anthony Taylor (Author), Daniel Herman (Editor), George Wilson (Artist)
Hermes Press
ISBN: 978-1-61345-288-2
$75.00

The Art of George Wilson is an absolutely gorgeous hardcover coffee-table book that collects and celebrates one of the most widely-distributed artists of the 20th century, who sadly did the vast majority of his work anonymously. It’s a great gift for comic book fans as well as folks who appreciate commercial art and gauche painting.

Anthony Taylor has managed to uncover the life story of a very private man who would probably be extremely pleased, and equally perplexed to be getting so much recognition. Along with Taylor’s great bio, the book includes the only known interview with Wilson.

Taylor even relates a secret from his past that Wilson couldn’t talk about during most of his lifetime. This book is an invaluable and long overdue recognition of a man who was part of the lives of millions of kids who never knew his name. It’s a missing piece of comic book history.

Let me quote the book’s PR blurb:

What made many of the great adventure comics of the 1960s so attractive were their fantastic painted covers by artist George Wilson. Unlike other comic book covers of the era, Wilson’s covers harkened back to the era of pulp magazines and were spectacularly eye-catching. He turned in efforts for literally hundreds of comics titles including: Classics Illustrated, The Twilight Zone, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Dr.Solar, Magnus Robot Fighter, Turok, Son of Stone and Star Trek, to name but a few.

This new art book focuses on over 300 examples of his cover art and features numerous examples of Wilson’s artwork scanned from the originals together with many of the book covers he created including his extensive run on Avon’s The Phantom (as well as his work on the Gold Key version).

The reason Wilson is so deserving of the accolades is that his work is just so damned impressive. There is a long standing snobbery in the world of fine art that looks down on commercial artists. Despite the Pop Art movement of the 1960s, even today we find resistance to the idea of commercial illustrators and comic book artists being considered alongside the artists who play the gallery game.

Unless, of course, those artists had their work traced by Roy Lichtenstein.

Seeing so much of Wilson’s work in one place, most of it free of the text and trade dress that obscured it on comic book covers, reveals that Wilson was a technically brilliant painter, working mainly in gauche, who had a mastery of light and shadow in a league with Edward Hopper, mixed with a sense of drama and fantasy that rivals the best of the surrealists.

The Art of George Wilson is relevatory for art lovers, and is a nostalgic treat for those of us who grew up seeing those spectacular comic book covers that captured our imagination…and made us wonder who painted them. Also of note is a great introduction by contemporary artist, Joe Jusko that really illustrates the influence that Wilson had on a generation of artists, most of whom never knew his name.

The Art of George Wilson can be ordered directly from Hermes Press. You may be able to order it through your favorite bookseller by using the ISBN code.

Svengoolie® T-Shirt
by MeTV Limited
From $19.95 + $6.95 shipping and handling (plus sales tax where applicable)

The perfect gift for any fan of the famed horror host, Svengoolie, this is the classic Sven shirt, as seen on celebrities like Mark Hamill, Michael McKean and Annette O’Toole, as well as thousands of nobodies.

This exclusive, glow-in-the-dark t-shirt celebrating America’s favorite horror host turns any ordinary Svengoolie fan into an “Official Chicken Thrower.” Featuring print on the front and back—the “Chicken Thrower” insignia—this ghastly garment is a sure way to show your allegiance to the Sven-nation in style!

Might I also suggest an appropriate rubber chicken pairing, from the fine aged rubber chicken cellars of Archie McPhee?

This shirt is available in sizes ranging from Small to 5X, so you ought to be able to cover the die-hard Svengoolie fan on your holiday shopping list. It’s a great shirt to wear anywhere, and in the spirit of the season, some would even say it glows!

Order it from MeTV, and poke around their website for dozens of other cool pop culture items. Beware of highly-flammable imitations and remember, NO PERSONAL CHECKS!