The new Radio Free Charleston, episode six, "Chris Hero Shirt," will go online in a matter of hours. Until then, sate your RFC addiction by repeatedly watching the trailer above. Then go buy RFC merchandise at our store, and sign up to be a friend at our mySpace page.
Dip-ta, dip-ta...yahooo!
The new RFC should be online tomorrow. We wrapped it on Tuesday and I delivered it yesterday between changing flat tires on my car. You can see a snippet of Professor Mike's performance in the new GazzTV show, "What's Going On." Show number six cranks up the hyperactivitization level a bit as we bring you our loudest band yet, the aforementioned Professor Mike, and the mysterious 
musical cabal known as Two Watts Of Power, who also give us our song of the week in the post below this one. Episode Six is titled "Chris Hero Shirt," named after the shirt I'm wearing in the show (The shows are named after my shirts, you may have caught on to that by now). Chris Hero is the reigning Heavyweight Champion of IWA East Coast, and it's a really cool shirt.
Professor Mike came into the LiveMix Studio last week, and we bring you the exciting results. They perform an electrifying version of their own song, "Greater Good." It was a blast meeting the guys, and we'll probably be seeing them again on RFC real soon. They were certainly one of the loudest bands we've had on the show, and I was really knocked out by their sound. If they ever didn't win a battle of the bands, it must have been rigged. Professor Mike is at the Sound Factory Friday night, and Mel and I will be zipping over to see them after we catch "The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" at the Labelle. 
One of the featured bands on the next episode of Radio Free Charleston will be Two Watts Of Power, a collective of three artists who collaborate over the internet. Until recently none of them have met face-to-face, and two of them still haven't met the third member.
Friday night there will be a ONE NIGHT ONLY performance of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) " at the Labelle Theater on D Street in South Charleston. Tickets are ten bucks for adults and seven dollars for students. The show stars Kevin Pauley, Jason Dunbar, and Duncan Stokes from the No Pants Players, and just played to rave reviews a couple of weeks ago at Camp Washington Carver.
It's been a long, long time since I sat and actually drew anything using real paper, so Sunday, as I watched my Steelers lose another game, I pulled out some cheap paper and a Bic Permanent marker and started doodling. Satisfied with the results, I scanned it and colored it in the computer. Now, for your enjoyment or ridicule, here's Warmask. If you're crazy enough to want it on a shirt or something, click here. Other PopCult stuff can be found here.
I finally got around to starting a RADIO FREE CHARLESTON MYSPACE PAGE, so if any of you want to be my "friend" (God, that sounds so much like something Casper the freakin' Friendly Ghost would say) click the link and add me. You won't really get much in the way of bonus material, since I post all the behind-the-scenes production notes here at PopCult, but you will get to have that nifty icon over there showing up in your "friends" list.
Me First and the Gimme Gimme's specialize in doing punk covers of inappropriate songs. They've skewered singer/songwriters, R&B, Broadway show tunes, and 60s pop. Now they're setting their sites on country music. "Me First and the Gimme Gimme's Love Their Country" is due out October 17th, but the fine folks at Fat Wreck Chords have posted a teaser, the Gimme's cover of the Dixie Chick's "Goodbye Earl. "
I should have known this would happen. Every time I cave in to an indulgence it quickly becomes an obsession and then an addiction. Now I'm hurtin'...bad. Longtime readers of this blog know of my dependence on Spinach. Not just any spinach, but pre-packaged, washed, and currently-unavailable fresh baby spinach. It's been a week now since I've had my leafy green fix. Thus far, the E Coli break out is one of those unexplainable phenomena, like the way the Sears store in the Charleston Town Center always stocks Cleveland Browns merchandise to the exclusion of all other teams during football season. I'm pretty sure it's a Republican plot to steal the upcoming midterm elections.
This week's art is an image that I've used before, but never quite in this form. It's a digitally-assaulted photograph called "Riverbank." This was taken from a window in the Union Building about a year ago. In previous incarnations it's been used to illustrate a rant and a song of the week. Here it is newly-recropped and altered. Anyone interested in owning this image can click here. Primo former examples of Monday Morning Art can be found here.
The end sequence of Episode Five of Radio Free Charleston (go here to catch up on them) features the widely-acclaimed dancing skills of the internationally-renown master terpsichorean known as "Dancing Midget Spider-man."
Thanks to a link at Bubblegum Fink, I discovered a cool blog called Waffle Whiffer Zone. It's dedicated to the packaging and premiums from kid's food items from the 60s and 70s. Lately he's written about Pizza Hut Pete, a long-forgotten mascot for the pizza chain, and Big Yella, the mascot of Kellogg's Sugar Corn Pops. This blog is a gold mine for fans of cereal and fast food from the golden age of mascots. He had me at Baron Von Redberry. I loved Baron Von Redberry. It wasn't exactly because of the taste. This was basically Frankenberry with different shapes. I've just always been a fan of the Fokker Triplane.
Saturday September 16, IWA East Coast, West Virginia's premiere hardcore wrestling federation(as seen on Radio Free Charleston) will hold TWO tournaments at the South Charleston Community Center. At 2 PM, the Zero G Tournament kicks off with the following high-flying match-ups in the opening bracket:
The No Pants Players return to the LaBelle Theater in South Charleston this Friday And Saturday. The family-friendly improv shows begin at 8 PM, and are guaranteed to be a treat for all in attendance. The No Pants Players are West Virginia's Only Improv Comedy Troupe. The group's comedy styling is very similar to the popular television show "Whose Line is it Anyway" The fast-paced nature of their performances forces every member of the troupe to completely rely upon the abilities, and most importantly, the instincts of their fellow players
Back in April, I posted a different version of this digitally assaulted photograph. This week I'm giving you a more bold, graphic version, with the aspect ratio changed and a new color scheme. This is also called "Tracks East," but it's a different take.
Another departure for this show is the inclusion of footage shot on location at the Empty Glass back in 1990. Normally, we don't like to use location recordings on the show, but this is a special case. Kevin Duffer, who is featured in this archival recording, passed away in 2003. Kevin was one of the few musicians from the old Radio Free Charleston days that I kept in touch with while I was semi-reclusive, caring for my mother for much of the last decade. He was always positive and told me that, eventually I'd find some way to bring Radio Free Charleston back, and then he'd come on the show and perform. It was a bit of a bummer that Kevin didn't live to see the show return.
On a less somber note, The Appalachian Celtic Consort also appears on the show. I ran into Pat Weigand by chance at the book signing for Pavanne Pettigrew's "One More Breath" which I wrote about here. Being the nosy sort I am, I overheard Patrick talking about his band, and I quickly butted in and gave him one of the famous Radio Free Charleston business cards. A few emails later, and RFC had our first Celtic band all miked up and ready to go at the LiveMix Recording Studio. Microphone placement was an adventure, with six acoustic instruments plus voices to record. Pat, Mark, Dewey, Neil, Mark and Dave gave us three virtuoso performances, two of which we're saving for future episodes of Radio Free Charleston. We feature the Consort as our Song Of The Week, so go down there and follow the links to their website so you can buy their CDs and catch their upcoming shows.
Episode Five also features a new installment of Pentagram Flowerbox. This time we see the dark lord of Hell having trouble keeping the cat prints off his Prius.
aerial assaults. The evening show sees the Masters Of Pain hardcore tournament, featuring an international line-up of the toughest men on the planet, who will come together in a bloodbath of hard-hitting, bone-crushing action to determine who is the craziest, meanest, toughest S.O.B. around.
Our SOTW today is a preview of episode five of Radio Free Charleston. One of our guests is The Appalachian Celtic Consort, who blend traditional Irish and Scottish music with Appalachian instrumentation. On the show they treat us to their arrangement of "Johnny Jump Up/Monaghan's Jig." As a teaser, we're bringing you their arrangement of "Gary Owen/Brian Boru." Just lick on the link to give it a listen, then visit their website for information on their CDs and upcoming performances by this talented group.
We've got a big week coming up for area wrestling fans. First up, tomorrow night at WVSU, you can see Professor Danger, Danny Boyd himself, in action as AWA-Apex presents "September To Dismember". Melanie and I wrote a preview of the event for the Gazz, which you can read here. I also chime in with my personal observations about Danny's quest for honor in the ring, here. The illustrations accompanying this post are photographs by Lisa Bragg that I digitally-assaulted. The top photo is Danny, in a bad way during a match. The bottom picture is Danny applying an arm bar to Flex, who will also be in action Friday night. Late word is that Beautiful Bobby Eaton of the Midnight Express will be at the event Friday, despite having minor surgery earlier this week. It's going to be an interesting night.
We kick off the shortened by Labor Day week with another in my series of digital abstract landscape painting variants, "Scape number 10", which you can see at the right. As usual click to enlarge.
Richmond Virginia punks Strike Anywhere unleash a powerful new album, Dead FM, featuring high-energy politically-active melodic power punk next week. Veterans of the Warped Tour, Strike Anywhere formed in 1999, and still features their original line-up. You can check out the video for the title track from Dead FM on MySpace, but if you want to preview their music, just click on the song titles below.
