The PopCulteer
February 16, 2024

We have a hot new episode of MIRRORBALL to tell you about, and a very special encore episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, both being broadcast Friday afternoon 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 club hits of 1978, as MIRRORBALL spins the hits of the dancefloor from right when the underground scene was surfacing and getting national notice.

This show is filled with regional and club favorites that didn’t quite light up the national charts, but which influenced dance music for the next few years.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 091

Amant ‘Hazy Shades of Love’
Bill Summers “Straight To The Bank”
C.K.B. “Superman”
Gene Chandler “Get Down”
Dee D Jackson “Meteor Man”
Gibson Brothers “Cuba”
Karen Young “Hot Shot”
Terry Scott “Funky Music”
Miquel Brown “Symphony of Love”

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 we bring you an encore of an early episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, which originally aired on February 3, 2017.

Sydney Fileen presented two hours of terrific New Wave-era music in this classic episode. There may even be a subtle theme to this show, inspired by then-recent electoral tragedies that are still reverberating around the globe.

Check out the playlist…

BEC 017

The Clash  “Know Your rights”
M  “Official Secrets”
Elvis Costello  “Two Little Hitlers”
Theatre of Hate  “Do You Believe in the Westworld”
The Plugz  “Mindless Contentment”
Hazel O’Connor  “Big Brother”
The The  “The Beaten Generation”
New Model Army  “No Rest”
Joe Jackson  “Right And Wrong”
Laibach  “Sympathy For The Devil”
The Sex Pistols  “Holiday In The Sun”
Stiff Little Fingers  “Guilty As Sin”
Talking Heads  “Burning Down The House”
Boomtown Rats  “Banana Republic”
DEVO  “Freedom of Choice”
Depeche Mode  “People Are People”
Spear of Destiny  “Never Take Me Alive”
Kate Bush  “Army Dreamers”
The Buggles  “Living In The Plastic Age”
The Beat  “Whine and Grind/Stand Down Margaret”
The Specials  “Racist Friend”
Gang of Four  “To Hell With Poverty”
The Stranglers  “No More Heroes”
Funboy Three “The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum”
Tom Robinson Band  “Up Against The Wall”
The Vapors  “Cold War”
The Dead Kennedys  “Kill The Poor”
The Dickies  “Paranoid”
The Police  “When The World Is Running Down”

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