The PopCulteer
July 3, 2020

We are still adjusting to this not-so-brave new world of the pandemic. Yours truly, being immunocompromised, is playing it safe, staying at home as much as possible, and trying to come up with interesting things for you to read about in this blog. Next week look for more reviews of books, toys and music, but I’m still on the fence about plugging local shows.

On one hand, it’s what I do to support the local scene. On the other…I think the country has made a mad rush (emphasis on “mad”) to reopen way too soon, and I don’t really feel that I can, in good conscience, recommend anybody attend any event in person.  I love telling my readers about the cool things they can get into locally, but I don’t relish the idea of sending people headlong to their death. So if it seems like I’m not covering as much “Stuff To Do” as usual, it’s because I choose to err on the side of caution.

However, one fun activity you can do today is to listen to a slate of new and/or pertinent episodes of our programming on The AIR.

We offer up our fifth edition of MIRRORBALL  Friday afternoon on The AIR. and that’s followed by two special All-American epsodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. Later tonight you can hear Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks with The 2000 Year Old Man on a new Comedy Vault.  You can hear all these shows on The AIR website, or just click on this embedded radio player…

At 2 PM we present an AIR Music Special, the fifth edition of MIRRORBALL, hosted by Mel Larch. Our unexpected hit seems to have settled into a bi-weekly groove, and this week’s grooves celebrates our weekend holiday with a look at the ultra-patriotic year of 1976, when Disco ruled the world and people weren’t so embarrassed by the president that they pretended to be Canadian.

Check out this masteful playlist of tunes from the year of the Bicentennial…

MIRRORBALL 005

Washington Jamb Band “Bicentennial Muscle”
Kool & The Gang “Open Sesame”
Diana Ross “Love Hangover”
The Trammps “Disco Party”
Ritchie Family “The Best Disco In Town”
Salsoul Orchestra “Chicago Bus Stop (Ooh I Love It)”
Johnnie Taylor “Disco Lady”
Silver Connection “Get Up and Boogie”
KC & The Sunshine Band “(Shake Shake Shake) Shake Your Booty”
Wild Cherry “Play That Funky Music”
Vicki Sue Robinson “Turn The Beat Around”
Tavares “Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel”
The Masqueraders “The Bicentennial”

You can tune in at 2 PM and hear the latest edition of MIRRORBALL. The plan is to drop a new episode roughly every other Friday afternoon, until Mel gets tired of doing it, or people stop listening. Later today, it will go up in the Podcast section of The AIR website, so you can listen on demand.  MIRRORBALL will also be replayed Friday night at 11 PM, Saturday at 5 PM, Sunday at 11 PM and Tuesday at 1 PM. We’ll probably sneak in a few more airings during the week.

At 3 PM, We bring you an encore of a recent All-American mixtape episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. This show from April focussed on American New Wave music, and it’s a pretty killer line-up…

The Cars “My Best Friend’s Girl”
The Ramones “Blitzkrieg Bop”
Mink Deville and Cabretta “Venus of Avenue D”
Missing Persons “Waiting For A Million Years”
Peter Ivers “Even Steven Foster”
Tom Tom Club “Genius Of Love”
The Dickies “Nights In White Satin”
The Dead Kennedys “Holiday In Cambodia”
Romeo Void “Never For Ever”
Johnathan Richman and The Modern Lovers “Roadrunner”
R.E.M. “Radio Free Europe (Live)”
Red Hot Chili Peppers “True Men Don’t Kill Coyotes”
Wall of Voodoo “Call Of The West”
Berlin “The Metro (extended mix)”
Talking Heads “Psycho Killer”
DEVO “Gut Feeling/(Slap Your Mammy)”
Television “Marquee Moon”
Cyndi Lauper “Money Changes Everything”
Tommy Tutone “Jenny (867-5309)”
The B 52s “Rock Lobster”
Sparks “Achoo”
Moon Martin “Bad Case Of Lovin’ You”
Jane Weidlin “I Will Wait For You”
The Humans “I Live In The City”
Marshall Crenshaw “Someday Someway”
Blondie “One Way Or Another”

This is followed at 5 PM by an encore of another episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat from 2017, with the same theme, as you can see on this playlist…

The Go Gos “We Got The Beat”
Talking Heads “Burning Down The House”
DEVO “Whip It”
Oingo Boingo “Weird Science”
The Ramones “Pet Cemetary”
The Toasters “Recriminations”
Wall of Voodoo “Far Side of Crazy”
Pere Ubu “Birdies”
Pell Mell “Cinnecitta”
The B 52s “Cake”
Red Hot Chili Peppers “American Ghost Dance”
Moon and Frank Zappa “Valley Girl”
The Tubes “She’s A Beauty”
The Cars “Let’s Go”
The Motels “Suddenly Last Summer”
The Bangles “Walk Like An Egyptian”
Utopia “Hammer In My Heart”
Kid Creole & The Coconuts “Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy”
The Flirts “We Just Want To Dance”
Divine “Shake It Up”
The Dickies “Stukas Over Disneyland”
Agent Orange “Bloodstains”
The Plasmatics “Butcher Baby”
Black Flag “Southern Rise”
The Dead Kennedys “Kill The Poor”
Redd Kross “Linda Blair 1984”
The Units “Tight Fit”

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, Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM and Thursday at Noon, exclusively on The AIR.  You can also hear select episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat as part of the overnight Haversham Recording Institute marathon that starts every Monday at 11 PM.

At 10 PM Friday, you can hear a special new episode of The Comedy Vault. This time we pay tribute to the late Carl Reiner, who passed away at the age of 98 earlier this week. We bring you an hour of Reiner with his friend, Mel Brooks, and their creation, The 2000 Year Old Man.

You can hear this show at the podcast tab at The AIR, and it will be replayed Saturday at 7 AM and 7 PM, Monday at 2 PM, Tuesday at 6 PM and Wednesday at 11 PM.

And that is our patriotic line up for The AIR, and our PopCulteer this week. Have a safe holiday and check back every day for fresh content.