The Color Purple, Godmode Brodway And A Plea

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That's Radio Free Charleston 157, "The Mighty Thor Shirt," you see up there in the box above this text. This week we are bringing you three songs from the newest production by the Charleston Light Opera Guild, plus we have some new music from Godmode Broadway, and a heartfelt plea from The Tom McGees. Host segments were shot around The Charleston Civic Center.

The Charleston Civic Center Little Theater is the site of the Charleston Light Opera Guild production of the musical version of "The Color Purple." The beloved novel by Alice Walker was turned into a Broadway musical a few years ago by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, with a book by Marsha Norman, and it is the spring offering from Charleston's Light Opera Guild, opening May 4.

Monday Morning Art: Wave Sign Detour

Today's art is derived from my preliminary design for my East End Main Street Streetworks design, which I will be telling you about in the coming weeks. My final design has some elements of this in it, but it's still not quite there. Click the image to see it larger.

In the meantime, get ready for Radio Free Charleston 157, "The Mighty Thor Shirt," with music from The Charleston Light Opera Guild production, "The Color Purple," and Godmode Broadway, plus a heartfelt plea from The Tom McGees. It will be posted here in PopCult later this evening.

Playing Godot, Rock For All Ages And Dancing With The Dead

The PopCulteer
April 27, 2012

Wherein your PopCulteer makes his stage debut...

That's right. This Sunday yours truly trods the boards in the title role of the Alban Arts Center production of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting For Godot." This role is so demanding that a different local performer will tackle it every night. It's an honor to share "Godot" with such area theater veterans as Ryan Hardiman, Timothy Mace and Kennie Bass.

To be honest, it's pretty daunting. Godot permeates every moment of the play, and his entrance is one of the most anticipated in the history of the theatre. I want to thank director, Tara Phares Pauley, for taking a chance on me, and I hope I do a good job. I also want to thank my supporting actors, Adam Bryan as Estragon and Kevin Pauley as Vladimir, for backing me up so well. The cast is rounded out by Chris Baker, John Halstead and Kyle Casto.

Monday Morning Art: An Orb

Today's art is some sort of mystical orb. Actually it's an aborted attempt at my entry in this year's StreetWorks art project for East End Main Street. Click to see it bigger.

Sunday Evening Video: Kenneth Brian Band "Something Better"

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Our video tonight is "Something Better" by The Kenneth Brian Band.  This is the Official Video in HD. Shot live on location at The Jinx in Savannah Georgia. Directed by Joshua Black Wilkins.

Next Saturday, April 28 at 10 PM, The Kenneth Brian Band (featuring Charleston native Travis Stephens) returns to The Empty Glass for the first time since releasing the critically acclaimed album, Welcome To Alabama,"  bringing their trademark high energy Country/Rock in the form of a barn-burning live show! "Welcome To Alabama" has been praised as "a Southern Rock Tour de Force" and shot to #2 on the European Americana Charts! Also, this is Roadblock's birthday party, so it's gonna be a wild night! Be sure to pick up a copy of the new album while you're there!

April ArtWalk Alive!

The PopCulteer
April 20, 2012

It's time for another ArtWalk photo essay. We had near-perfect weather yesterday evening, and a wonderful turnout for all the galleries. On the right you see Robert Royce, K.D. Lett and Jesse Tidquist preparing for an evening that melded art and dance at The Charleston Ballet.

Other cool openings last night included Ian Bode's "The Passenger" arriving at Romano Associates, Allied Artists at The Purple Moon, Emily Roles and Sue Chase's “Friends Among the Hills” at Art Emporium and White Oak Photography and Deborah Herndon at The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation.

Good News Mountaineer Garage Gallery featured art from students at Mountaineer Montessori School at last night's ArtWalk.The fourth, fifth and six grade art students at Mountaineer Montessori School have spent the last two months creating woodblock prints, drawings, mosaics, paintings and sculpture depicting the tragic deaths of miners at the historic Hawks Nest Tunnel. Despite the sick jokes that popped into my head

[caption id="attachment_7919" align="alignleft" width="220" caption="A genius promotion for 'Picasso""][/caption]

about this being "children's depictions of death," this was actually a very powerful exhibit, and it showed off some some amazing young talent.

There were also some "Wild and Crazy" folks accompanying Einstein around ArtWalk last night promoting the "Picasso at the Lapine Agile" scavanger hunt, which was shining the spotlight on Charleston Stage Company's upcoming production of the Steve Martin play. "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" opens May 10 at the WVSU Capitol Center Theater.

Enough with the words. Here are the pictures...

Funkadelic Zombie Ska Madness On RFC 156

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Radio Free Charleston 156, "Warning Trioxin Shirt," is posted above for your enjoyment. This week we have music from The Renfields and The Tom McGees, plus we have a terrific short docu-drama by Stephen Schmidt. But first, we have some corrections to do.

I'm pleading allergy-induced dementia for this. First, the Tom McGees' song that I call "Be Smart" in the show, and "Be Strong" in the credits, is actually called "Enemy Spy Plane Inbound." I know, it's an easy mistake to make. Compounding the errors, I announce that The Tom McGees are playing the Porkchopp3D Trailer Release Party April 26 at The Empty Glass, when in fact it is our other musical guest, The Renfields, who are going to be playing that show. Aside from the two huge mistakes in the scripting process, I was really happy with the host segments, which were shot outside of Kanawha Players Theater, the location of this weekend's Zombie Prom.

The reason we have The Renfields, or at least three-fifths of them, on the show this week is that their leader, Vincent Renfield, is the Master of Ceremonies for The Kanawha Players Zombie Prom, which takes place at KP, on April 21. It's going to be a fun night of Zombie goodness, with dancing, contests, Zombie Prom photos by Mike Winland Studios, and special guests, RJ Haddy from the SyFy series "Face Off" and Jeremy Ambler from The Walking Dead. It's going to be lots of fun...people are just dying to go!

Monday Morning Art: Beach Blanket Bloodbath

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Last night's edition of Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School in Charleston presented nice beach scenes with just a little murder thrown in. Click the images to see them larger.  There's more after the jump.

Sunday Evening Video: The Tom McGees

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Charleston's punk/ska princes play us out of the end credits of tomorrow's episode of Radio Free Charleston, but tonight you get a sneak peek, without the credits rolling over the footage. Thus, the band performs their song,, "Be Strong," live at The Blue Parrot.

Saturday, April 21, you can catch The Tom McGees at The Empty Glass for the Zombie Prom after party, hosted by the Heart of Appalachia Roller Derby folks.  Sharing the bill that night will be Foz Rotten with Charlie Ant Eaterr, plus Hellbound Honky Tonk. On April 26, On May 4 it's time for The Tom McGees to raise money for themselves, to finish their debut album, "This Just In." Which you can also support at IndieGogo.

So there.

Support The Local Scene

The PopCulteer
April 13, 2012

Support The Local Scene

You've heard me say it a million times: "Support the local scene." But what exactly does that mean? Folks, I'm not just talking about music. Charleston has an arts community. We have an overabundance of creative people working in music, art, film, theater, and even in areas that get overlooked, like the culinary arts, and athletic exhibitions.

This week your PopCulteer tells you how you can support the local scene right now!

Sasha Colette and Farnsworth

Tonight, Charleston-area favorite, Kentucky's Sasha Colette (seen above) and The Mgnolia's, with Charleston's own Farnsworth in support, play at The Sound Factory, on Kanawha Boulevard, starting at 10 PM. Admission is a mere five bucks.

The Amorous, Godmode Broadway, DualCore and Stark Charleston Embiggen RFC 155

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Above you see Radio Free Charleston 155, "Love Robot Shirt," featuring music is from The Amorous, Godmode Broadway and Dual Core, plus the return of Stark Charleston. Host segments were shot in the parking lot of the WV Division of Tourism in South Charleston. Our title shirt is a TeeFury design by artist, Rebekie B.

Our first musical guest on this week's show is Clarksburg's The Amorous. An indie-pop band with spiritual leanings, they will be recording their first full-length album this summer. You can catch them next weekend in Wilmington and Bellbrook Ohio, and at the end of the month they're doing a three-night stand at The Horizon's Church in Lost Creek WV. We recorded the band live during Charcon last year, and assembled this video using audio enhanced with a studio recording.

Monday Morning Art: Beetle Or Spaceship?

For some reason, this post did not go up as scheduled, and I didn't notice until late Monday. This is being post-dated so that it doesn't knock the production notes for RFC 155 off the top spot of the blog.

It's a digital painting. Click to see it bigger. And watch RFC 155, too.

Captain Action's Triumphant Return

The PopCulteer
April 6, 2012

This week your PopCulteer is going to return to his roots a bit. Back in the late 1990s I wrote a monthly action figure column for Toy Trader Magazine. It was a load of fun, and from what I'm told, it was pretty influential. Ii would present the latest toy industry news, rag on cheesy knockoffs and present detailed reviews of the latest action figures

When Toy Trader was bought up and shut down by Toy Shop (we were eating into their circulation, but their parent company had deeper pockets), I continued to write for Mastercollector.com for a while, but eventually I moved on to other assignments (like PopCult and Radio Free Charleston).

However, I never left the hobby. I still collect toys, in particular 1/6 scale action figures. As long-time readers of PopCult know, one of my favorites is Captain Action. Originally released in the 1960s, Captain Action was a cool crime-fighter with a great gimmick--he could change into other characters such as Superman, Batman, Spider-man, Captain America and others (uniform sets sold separately).

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Back in the first month of PopCult, I wrote about Captain Action, and my role as a cheerleader for the short-lived 1999 revival. More recently, I've written about the good Captain's return to comic books, his stint as an 8-inch-tall MEGO-style action figure, and his pending return as a full-sized 1/6 scale hero, complete with cool uniform sets.

Now I've got my hands on the first releases in this revived line. These are the basic sets that are just now showing up at Toys R Us. More deluxe sets are on sale in comic book stores and hobby shops, and we'll list some mail-order sources for you at the end of this piece. This week PopCult is going to play with toys.

Monday Morning Art: Roi #1

Today's Art is a digital painting of a royal ceremonial mask or something. It just sort of happened organically while I was messing around on the computer. Click it to see it bigger.

Also, don't miss RFC 154, posted over the weekend. It presents a look at a lost piece of West Virginia film history.

James Bond In West Virginia On RFC 154

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"Adventure Comics Shirt" is a special episode of Radio Free Charleston, dedicated to presenting once-thought-lost scenes from The Lower West Virginia Contemporary Light Opera Stage Players film production of the James Bond film, "Coalfinger." All prints of this film were destroyed after MGM,  EON Productions  and the Ian Fleming estate won a permanent injunction against the tiny, Southern West Virginia theater company Luckily, a few scenes were preserved in filmmaker Johnny Rock's long-supressed documentary on the making of "Coalfinger."

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