PopCult

FANATOMY

2007-02-12T18:16:00.000-08:00

Clownhole

2007-01-06T08:59:00.000-08:00

New Radio Free Charleston

2006-11-14T19:00:00.000-08:00

Trailer RFC number nine

Check here for more details.

Go See This Show

2006-11-09T06:38:00.000-08:00

Monday Morning Art: The Capitol

2006-11-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

Last week I used a digitally-assaulted photograph of the capitol building to illustrate the Blogger meet-up at Capitol Roasters (which was much fun and I'll be blogging about it later today). I like that photo, which was taken out the back window of a moving car that I was driving, so I played around with it some more, and came up with today's art. "Capitol" is a stark rendering of the capitol building in purple, black and white.

Click the picture to enlarge, the title to look at the T shirts.

WV Blogger Meet Ups

2006-11-02T20:00:00.000-08:00

Area bloggers will be getting together twice in the next week to gather and share our top-secret plans for world domination...and exchange recipes. Both Meetings are at Capitol Roasters, on the corner of Quarrier and Summers streets in Charleston.

The first meeting is Saturday November 4 at 2 PM. We'll be getting together to meet each other and talk about all the huge money we make from our blogging plantations. Anyone who writes (or reads) a West Virginia-based blog is welcome to stop by. It's an informal thing, cooked up over at the West Virginia Blogger's Board.

Election Day, Charleston Area Bloggers, another informal group, will meet at Capitol Roasters from 7 Am to 9 AM. This will be the first CAB meeting for several months, and again anybody is welcome to come by. If you don't have a blog when you get there, you may have one when you leave. It's happened before.

I plan to be at both meetings. It's a perk of being a freelancer. Plus, I love the Italian Creams at Capitol Roasters.

Another Halloween Treat

2006-10-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

Just a quickie: The Mostly Ghostly Music Sharing Blaaahhhggg!!! brings you rare music from monster movie soundtracks and other spooky audio treats all year long. You can head over now and download the musical score to the original "King Kong," the audio storybook for "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," and the original 1938 radio broadcast of "War Of The Worlds," among other way-cool scary gems.

Happy Halloween, now scroll down this page and follow the links to the Radio Free Charleston Halloween special!

The Comic Book/Soap Opera Connection

2006-10-31T07:30:00.000-08:00

Neither side likes to admit it, but comic books and soap operas are a lot alike. Both tell melodramatic stories and use elements that require quite a bit of suspension of disbelief. Both have rabid fans who follow the stories closely and call "foul" quickly when something violates established continuity. And both genres are treated with no small level of disrespect by the mainstream press. So it's about time that soap operas and comic books team up. Tomorrow, November 1, long-running CBS soap, Guiding Light, crosses over with Marvel Comics. An 8-page insert started running in Marvel's comics last week, and tomorrow on the show, one of the soap's characters gets super powers. Harley Cooper, a cop, and a mother of two, gets electrocuted, and gains several new abilities, which she uses to fight crime, for at least the one episode.

This is a bit of a bizarre development, and somewhat surreal for the tiny population of people who both, watch Guiding Light, and read comics. Reaction has been mixed. Heidi MacDonald has a good sampling of mainstream reaction here. CBS has a preview of the episode up here. You can also see the trailer here (scroll down). Word is that her powers go away by the end of the episode, but they're being a bit coy about whether or not they may return someday. I'm in that tiny population that follows both GL and comic books, so I'll just sit back and watch.

UPDATE: Comic Book Resources has a behind-the-scenes look at the show here. However, they do list the wrong timeslot. In most of the country, the episode airs today at 3 PM.

Cool Toy Of The Week: Winchies

2006-10-31T07:15:00.000-08:00

I've written about April Winchell before. She's a talented voice artist, actress, and daughter of the late Paul Winchell, who was a ventriloquist (Jerry Mahoney), voice artist (Tigger), and inventor of an artificial heart valve. Of late, April has taken up sewing, and she's been selling her creations, "Winchies," on eBay, with the proceeds going to charity. Her latest batch, inspired by Madonna's recent adoptorial misadventures, are "African Orphan Winchies," complete with Kente cloth, a Kabbalah bracelet and adoption papers. A portion of the proceeds will go to Toys For Tots. You can read April's explanation at her blog, and check out the auctions right here. It's a cool little artifact, spoofing a current event, and some of the money goes to charity. Can't top that.

Production Notes RFC Halloween

2006-10-30T20:00:00.000-08:00

Episode Eight of Radio Free Charleston, the conclusion of our two-part Halloween special is in the books. You can see it here. Be sure to check out the first part of the Halloween special here. I was killed in the first half, and you can see me revived in the second half. So sit back and read the detailed production notes, as promised.

We brought back Professor Mike, who had first appeared on episode six, to kick off the Halloween festivities with their song "Poolshark." The Mikes just put on a great show Saturday Night with Ten Carp Lie at the Blue Parrot Halloween Party. Their performance was directed by Brian Young, and taped at LiveMix Studio (the area's only DVD showcase production facility for bands).

Tim Nichols, late of The Todd Who Project, is the driving force behind BetaJesus and Pentagram Flowerbox. You can expect more of his irreverent humor aided by a crack crew of animators and collaborators on future episodes of RFC. Timmy seems to be the breakout star of Pentragram Flowerbox, so don't be shocked if we see a lot more of him as well.

The Pistol Whippers have one of the most fanatic followings of any band in town, but even their most die-hard fans must have been shocked to hear them UNPLUGGED! Guy Parker and Dirt Reynolds came in to do an acoustic number when our schedule prevented us from getting the full band. We will have the entire lineup of the Pistol Whippers on a future show. Also, the song they perform is called "Nothingville." In the show, we called it "The Clock Is Ticking," because when we gave them a clipboard and told them to write down the song title, they gave us an entire page of jokes and "thank you'" for our end credits, but forgot to give us the song title. So we had to guess. We guessed wrong.

Clownhole was a legendary new-wave band of the late 1980s, fronted by John "Sham Voodoo" Estep, who had previously been in the even more legendary group, The Defectors. I wrote about trying to track Sham down a few weeks ago, when I featured him (and me) performing the song of the week. Since then, I was able to contact him, and got his blessing to have Clownhole's massive hit, "Heads On Fire" remixed by my brother Frank, who also created a video for the song. This has been so well received that I pulled the song out of the show and uploaded it to YouTube. You can watch it at the end of this post.

I have written many times about my notoriously camera-shy significant other, Melanie Larch, who is well-known among area theater and symphony aficionados. I was able to coax Mel on-camera with the plum role of my "Fairy Ghostmother," who brings me back to life at the end of the episode. Mel's actually been the voice behind the RFC Jingle since episode two, but you can finally see her on-screen, albeit in a white fright-wig. Yes, it's the same wig I wore in last week's Local Music Report.

So there you have it. Our big epic production that wore everyone out as we delivered the two-most intensively-produced episodes of RFC within eight days of each other. I hope you enjoyed them. We will have Professor Mike and episode seven's The Concept back on future shows, and we hope to bring you the entire line-up of The Pistol Whippers very soon. Whistlepunk will also be back on RFC, and you can expect more Pentagram Flowerbox. The big news that I've saved for last, we are in the very early stages of arranging for at least a partial reunion of Clownhole, sometime before the end of the year. Stay tuned to PopCult for more details. And check out the video below.

Monday Morning Art Halloween Art And Music

2006-10-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

We're revisiting last year's Halloween week event with a new version of a familiar digitally-assaulted photograph, "Apocalypse On The River REDUX." New colors and aspect ratio lend a new look to this vision of South Charleston bursting into flames, as seen from the Union Building.

You may also remember that last year I brought you a week's worth of Halloween music, composed by yours truly. I've been writing orchestral music for some time, but most of it sounds like the soundtrack to bad horror movies, so it was appropriate. If you'd like the check out the music from last year, and see if you can guess which pieces I used to score the Radio Free Charleston Halloween specials, follow the following links: Day One-"Oooh Scary"; Day Two-"Robot Leprechauns With LEGOs"; Day Three-"The Raven Watches"; Day Four-"Native Drums"; Day Five-"Ten Ten"; and the bonus day, which was art and music called "Apocalypse On The River." And it was that piece of art that I recycled into our Monday Morning Art this week. See, it all comes full circle.

Click the pic to enlarge. Click the title to laugh at my efforts to sell shirts with this art.

Sneak Peek: RFC Halloween part two

2006-10-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

RFC Show 8 Trailer

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Go watch it now: Radio Free Charleston episode EIGHT!

Production notes coming this weekend. Stay tuned....

A Halloween Without Pants

2006-10-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

Friday Night at the LaBelle Theater in South Charleston, The No Pants Players present SCARETACULAR, an evening of improve comedy with a few prepared sketches thrown in as extra treats. The show kicks off at 10 PM, which means we can expect a more adult than usual performance. Costumes are welcome. Admission is a mere five bucks. Check it out, it's sure to be scarily hilarious! Ghoulish delights will abound.

If you go: The No Pants Players present SCARETACULAR. Friday October 27, from 10 PM to Midnight at the LaBelle Theater in South Charleston. Admission is five dollars.

Song Of The Week: Professor Mike

2006-10-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

Our SOTW this week is Professor Mike doing a cover of 311's "Beautiful Disaster," recorded at LiveMix Studio when Professor Mike came in to record their performance for episode six of Radio Free Charleston. They're also going to be on part two of the Radio Free Charleston Halloween special, which will be online no later than Monday, October 30. On that show, you can also look forward to seeing a special unplugged performance from Guy Parker and Dirt Reynolds, half of The Pistol Whippers and a newly-created video for a 2006 remix of a song by legendary new wave band, Clownhole.

Speaking of Halloween, there are three big holiday-themed shows featuring the musical guests from our Halloween special taking place this Saturday, October 28. First up, The Concept, fresh from headlining the first half of our Halloween special, performs with Last Standing at an all ages show at The Alpine Theater in Ripley, beginning at 8 PM.

Meanwhile, Professor Mike will be playing with Ten Carp Lie at the Blue Parrot Halloween Party here in Charleston, starting at 10 PM. While across town, also at 10 PM, at the Empty Glass, it's the Seventh Annual Halloween Hootenanny, hosted by The Pistol Whippers.

If I were still alive, I'd be burning up all the gas in my car driving between all three shows, but if you watched the first half of the Radio Free Charleston Halloween special, you'd have seen that I met a rather grisly demise. That's led to some production delays in the second half of the Halloween special, but we'll still get it to you before Halloween proper. Look for it by Monday here at the The Gazz.com.

In case you're wondering how I'm writing all this if I'm dead....I always write a couple of week's worth of posts, just in case I'm tossed off a fire escape by an angry ghost. If you haven't seen the first half of the Radio Free Charleston Halloween special, go watch it now! And remember....

Monday Morning Art: Virginia Street Revisited

2006-10-23T03:00:00.000-07:00

We kick off this week with a fresh take on the first digitally-assaulted photograph that was posted here at PopCult. Virginia Street Revisited is a differently-colored take on Virginia Street, blocked into a new aspect ratio. It's brighter and less ominous than the original version.

As always, click the image to enlarge, and click the title if you'd like to buy this image. You still have time to be the first!

It's Halloween! Production notes for the first of our two-part Radio Free Charleston Halloween Special!

2006-10-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

We've got quite the Halloween treat for you, as we present the first half of our Halloween special. I'm not going to go into great detail about the host segments this time, except to say that I start out evil, and end up dead. We're still working out how to shoot around that "dead" part for the second half of the RFC Halloween special. Suffice to say, fans of the ghoulish will not want to miss this stranger-than-usual episode of Radio Free Charleston.

The music is top-notch! We have our first returning band, Whistlepunk, with the holiday-appropriate "Vampire Love Song." You can read more about Whistlepunk here, here, and here, and visit their MySpace page, here.

Our other musical guest is The Concept, one of Charleston's most energetic new bands. I found out about these guys by reading Nick2's Localmusic blog here at theGazz.com. Nick was raving about how good these guys are, and when I followed the link to their MySpace page, I found that I agreed. Then I started pestering them to come on the show, and they did. It's very short notice, but you can catch The Concept tonight at The MonkeyBar in Huntington, and Saturday at Dave's Den in Red House.

We also have public service announcements, animation (including a new Pentagram Flowerbox) and a fleeting glimpse of Captain Action! You can watch the first half of the Radio Free Charleston Halloween special (official name: "DEVO Shirt") by clicking here. Then go back and watch all the other episodes at the GazzTV page.

Here's a quick preview:

Radio Free Charleston Show 7 Trailer

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Monday Morning Art: Extremely Assaulted Photograph

2006-10-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week, we kick off the week with an example of what can happen when the digitally-assaulted photographic process goes a little overboard.

Looking at the picture, you probably can't tell that it was ever even a photograph. If you did, you probably think it's a close-up of germs or something, taken under a microscope. It isn't. The picture at the right? "It's A Tree." I took the original photo in my front yard.

Click the title if your taste is impaired enough to want to buy it. Or look here for more.

Click to enlarge.

Song Of The Week: Early Goth for an early Halloween

2006-10-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

In honor of Friday The 13th, which falls in the Halloweeny month of October this year, our SOTW is a bit of prehistoric Goth from a Liverpool band called "Modern Eon." Modern Eon were contemporaries of OMD and Echo and the Bunnymen, but they never quite caught on as big as those now-obscure 80s bands did.

"Watching The Dancers" is a dark, moody, yet poppy number that typifies much of the music that would go on to inspire a couple of generations of disaffected youth to shop at Hot Topic. It's from their only album, 1981's "Fiction Tales." Modern Eon disbanded in 1982. The only notable work by a former member of the band is keyboard player Bob Wakelin's career as an artist for Marvel Comics and computer game maker Ocean Software. It's too bad, since these guys were pretty much near the top of the heap when it came to this type of downbeat-yet-not-too-depressing new wave music.

KP Makes Some "Noise"

2006-10-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend Kanawha Players presents the comedic play-within- a-play-within-a- local-production, "Noises Off." "Noises Off" begins with a troop of has-been or never-were actors on their frantic, final rehearsal of the classic farce, "Nothing On." As the melee of actors stumble through their lines, they are tossed about by a whirlwind of calamities - from missing contact lenses and misplaced sardines to philandering lovers and a lethally-swinging axe.

Terry Terpening will appear as Dotty Otley, the forgotten starlet; Greg Morris as Lloyd Dallas, the beleaguered director; Brian Roller as Garry Lejune, the empty-headed leading man; Jamie Dunbar as Brooke Ashton, the ditsy blonde sexpot; Joe Miller as Frederick Fellows, the nervous wreck; Kate Woestman-Anderson as Belinda Blair, the busybody ray of sunshine; Sarah Rohan as Poppy Norton-Taylor, the charming, sweet, hapless assistant stage manager; Jeff Bukovinsky as Tim Allgood, the sleep-deprived stage manager; and Joe Romagnoli as Selsdon Mowbray, the bit deaf/ bit tipsy Shakespearean never-has-been. Jeff Haught directs.

Roller, Dunbar and Bukovinsky are all members of The No Pants Players, well-known to regular readers of PopCult as West Virginia's only improv comedy troupe. The entire cast is up to the challenge of pulling off this hilarious farce.

IF YOU GO: "Noises Off" plays at the Charleston Civic Center Little Theater on October 13 -14 and 20-21, 2006. Tickets are $16 for adults, $10 for students 18 and under. Call 343-PLAY for more details.

Radio Free Charleston News

2006-10-09T07:30:00.000-07:00

Reaction to episode six of Radio Free Charleston has been nearly universal in praise of our latest humble little video webcast. It seems the Professor Mike fans are really happy with the way we presented their fave band on the show. Reaction to The No Pants Players and Two Watts Of Power has also been great, and we even have some GI Joe collectors enjoying the show.

Later this week, we're bringing Charleston's hottest punk band, the Concept, into LiveMix Studio to record their song for the main event of our first Halloween episode, and we're also bringing in the legendary Pistol Whippers, who'll headline the second Halloween episode. You heard right! We're doing TWO Halloween episodes of RFC, and they'll be jam-packed with eerie goodness!

If you are so inclined, be sure to zoom by our mySpace page and add RFC as your own close, personal internet friend. And head on over to the Gazz TV page and watch all our shows over and over until we get the next episode done. If all goes according to plan, the Halloween shows will pop up online within one week of each other, with the first part hitting within ten days.

Oh, and if you like the nifty "Official Seal" of Radio Free Charleston, as seen above, you can head on over to Says It.com and make an official seal of your own!

Monday Morning Art: Even More Scape

2006-10-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

This is Scape Number Eleven, yet another in the series of abstract landscapes-come-digital design by yers truly. This version features a more limited palette, just yellow and black, perhaps a subconscious tribute to my alma mater, WVSU. By this point in the digitally-assaulting process, the image has gone from being a splash of color intended to evoke feelings of nature to a loud, electric jolt. If it were not the eleventh in the Scape series, it could be called "Scape 2: Electric Boogaloo." Still, it might look good on a black T-Shirt.

click to enlarge

Song Of The Week:

2006-10-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

Sean Lennon has an astounding new album out. "Friendly Fire" was released on October 3, and it's a concept album about how his girlfriend (Bijou Phillips) left him for his best friend, who then died in an accident before the two friends could reconcile. It's a stunning, emotionally gut-wrenching work, and our SOTW this week not on that CD. "Idea" is an instrumental that hints at the tender melodies that Lennon uses on "Friendly Fire."

For a better teaser for the CD, you can go to Lennon's mySpace page and listen to "Dead Meat", which recreates the ugly confrontation between the lovers with a strikingly beautiful tune.

Lennon's birthday is October 9, and coincidentally, he shares that birthday with his late father. Also coincidentally, he turns 31, which is roughly the age his father was when he recorded "Imagine." The younger Lennon bears a slight vocal resemblance to his father, but it's not as pronounced as his older half-brother, Julian. "Friendly Fire" comes with a DVD with short films for each of the tracks on the album. You can read more about Sean Lennon and his new CD at his website.

Cool Toy Of The Week: Lil' Sideshow Playsets

2006-10-06T16:45:00.000-07:00

The latest bit of twisted coolness from Archie McPhee is their new series of Sideshow Playsets, featuring the Bearded Lady, the Strongman, Frog Girl & Lobster Boy, and the World's Tallest Man & World's Smallest Man. Recreate the long-ago days when a traveling carnival meant more than riding on unsafe rides, eating dangerous food, and having the scary one-eyed guy who runs the Tilt-a-Whirl hit on your girlfriend. You can have your own carnival right on your desktop, without feeling guilty about exploiting the sorrows of real, unfortunate examples of humanity.

To be honest, these little pseudo-action figures don't really do much. They're minimally posable, if at all, and the sculpting is somewhat less than state-of-the-art, but still, the concept is so twisted that it overwhelms the absent craftsmanship.

Each playset comes with a small plastic stage and a small square vinyl banner featuring an old-time sideshow banner. The figures are around four inches tall, give or take a few inches for various horizontally-affected characters. You can order them from Archie McPhee, which is a must-visit website for those of us who like to indulge in off-kilter gift-giving. Be warned, that at fourteen bucks a pop, these strange little hunks of plastic are ridiculously overpriced, but doesn't it make you sleep better at night knowing that these cool toys exist?

Well, if not that, then isn't it handy to know where you can get a really repulsive gift to give someone who's way too polite to act horrified when they open the package?

10-4 Birthday Wishes!

2006-10-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

75 years ago today, one of our most famous detectives, Dick Tracy, made his debut on the comics page of the Chicago Tribune. The creation of Chester Gould, at one point Dick Tracy was one of the most-read comic strips in the country, inspiring memorable parodies like Bob Clampett's "Duck Twacy" Daffy Duck cartoon and Fearless Fosdick, who became a recurring character in Al Capp's "Lil' Abner" comic strip. Tracy himself starred in a radio show, movie series, and cartoon show.

Dick Tracy holds up remarkably well. Gould's bizarre villains and great detective stories rank among the most entertaining comic strip stories ever told. A new series of books that present the complete adventures of Dick Tracy--printing every strip in order, from day one, is coming out from IDW Publishing. The first volume is due out in a couple of weeks, and it can be pre-ordered here. I've been a fan of Dick Tracy literally as long as I can remember. This series of strip collections is long overdue.

You can still follow the adventures of Dick Tracy every day. Dick Locher is currently writing and drawing the adventures of America's foremost detective, keeping him current by having him deal with computer crimes, terrorists and pedophile Republican Congressmen (okay, I made that last one up). If you aren't lucky enough to have a newspaper that still carries his strip, you can read it here. Personally, I have never forgiven Garfield for replacing Dick Tracy in the Gazette back in 1978. I've been volunteering my services as a comics page editor ever since, to no avail.

Another long-running comic strip has been paying tribute to Tracy for the past couple of weeks. Dick Tracy was driving through Gasoline Alley, when he stopped to solve a crime. Below you'll find Gasoline Alley cartoonist Jim Scancarelli's tribute strip from today.

October fourth is also the birthday of somebody else important--my kid sister. Happy Birthday Diana, I'm working on your cake right now!

Our Long National Nightmare Is Over!

2006-10-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

The Month That Was.

2006-10-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

September seemed to fly by in about five minutes. There was so much stuff going on that I didn't have time to write any proper recaps. So now, in convenient capsule form, here's September in Review:

September 2--My Brother's birthday(celebrated a couple of days early). I cooked dinner, pizza, Italian monster salad, and birthday cake (lemon with chocolate icing). A good time was had by all.

September 7--Mel and I had the cover story on The Gazz, about Danny Boyd's wrestling show at WVSU.

September 8--Danny Boyd and AWA Apex present "September To Dismember" at the Davis Fine Arts Auditorium at WVSU. It was an incredible night of old-school wrestling. Danny and his partner, Death Falcon, captured the AWA Apex tag-team titles. Also, episode five of Radio Free Charleston, featuring Kevin Duffer and the Appalachian Celtic Consort goes online at GazzTV.

September 9--Mel and I attended a reception for my buddy Eric Pardue's exhibit at the Frankenberger Art Gallery at the University Of Charleston. Eric does these great mixed media collages that capture frozen stream of consciousness moments with a great balance of humor and a wonderful subdued palette. And the Frankenberger Gallery is a terrific space. It was my first time seeing it.

September 14--Fresh bagged spinach is pulled off of grocery store shelves. Our long national nightmare begins.

September 15--Opening night of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra's new season. Mel and I had front-row seats to see virtuoso pianist Yakov Kasman perform Prokofiev. The symphony also treated us to Beethoven and Brahms. It was a great night, and we ran into Sean Richardson, from The Sleeping Dons, there.

September 16--IWA East Coast's day of two tournaments. An amazing day, with the Zero G high-flyers tourney in the afternoon--TNA star Sonjay Dutt captured the Zero G cup--and the Masters of Pain tourney in the evening. "Crazy Monkey" Jun Kasai won the Masters Of Pain cup, and the tournament itself lived up to its billing, with each match featuring an extreme gimmick. You can buy the DVDs of both shows here, but let me warn you about one thing: animal lovers might want to skip the first match. It was a hardcore masterpiece, and it featured one spot that will become legend, and will be talked about for years. The squeamish among you might want to look away from the screen.

Those poor lobsters!

September 21--We taped Professor Mike at LiveMix Studios for episode six of Radio Free Charleston. It was an incredible night and they are an amazing band. We'll probably have them back for one of our Halloween specials.

September 23--Mel and I went to see Jackass Number Two. It was gut-bustingly funny, but less so than the first movie. Seemed to be an awfully gay movie, though, not that there's anything wrong with that.

September 25--My Z debuted on Suddenlink, a few days ahead of schedule. Needs more local programming.

September 28--Season debut of Smallville on The CW. Just in time to wash the taste of "Superman Returns" away. This is the real Superman.

September 29--"The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (abridged)" at the Labelle Theater in South Charleston. Everyman Players put on an extremely entertaining evening at one of our favorite local venues. After the show, we ran over to The Sound Factory to catch Professor Mike. We had to call it an early night and take off before the Mikes took the stage, but we were quite impressed with the show that A Place Of Solace put on. Earlier in the day, episode six of RFC, with Professor Mike and Two Watts Of Power goes online at GazzTV.

September 30--The reason we had to leave the show early was that we had a wedding to attend the next day. Area wrestler Atrocity tied the knot with his lovely bride, and we ended the month on a romantic note. Later that night, the new season of Saturday Night Live debuted. Dane Cook continues to impress me by managing to be the complete antithesis of funny. I've laughed more at funerals.

October will be spent napping.

Monday Morning Art: Warmask Two

2006-10-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

We have a new Warmask kicking off the week this morning. It's another computer-colored Sharpie doodle from last week. "Warmask Two" is a bit Tiki-ish, yet also somewhat bulldogesque.

Anyone interested in owning overpriced shirts and trinkets bearing this image can click here. Other examples of Monday Morning Art can be found here.

As always, click to enlarge.

Radio Free Charleston Trailer

2006-09-28T22:25:00.000-07:00

UPDATED: Episode Six of Radio Free Charleston is online NOW! Follow this link.

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!

Radio Free Charleston Production Notes: Episode Six

2006-09-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

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.

We've also got a movie trailer featuring The No Pants Players. I shot their footage back in June or July, but there were so many technical issues (on my end) that it took until now to work out the bugs and edit the piece that you see on the show. The RFC "Yahoo" guy joins the troupe, unofficially and against their will, for one brief cameo. The NPP will be appearing at the Labelle Theater with their Halloween show later this month, but Friday night three members of the troupe will be onstage at the Labelle performing Shakespeare of a sort.

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.

LiveMix Studio is our production facility and in the coming weeks I'll be writing more about Charleston's coolest Audio/Video production house. It's time for the boys to take a bow. We'll be doing a photo essay here in PopCult, and a behind-the-scenes video may even turn up somewhere.

GI Joe returns to Radio Free Charleston in this episode, too. You can almost see an Action Marine sitting astride Bob Dobbs' head in the background of Professor Mike's performance. You can also check out an Adventure Team Astronaut menacing The Red Baron. Toys are fun. Oh, and I can now let the cat out of the bag--the GI Joe Adventure Team Land Adventurer with Kung Fu Grip, as seen in episode five of RFC, will be available exclusively from Hot Topic this November.

Be sure to check out our MySpace page, and go ahead and sign up to be our friend. Also, watch the news, because if I ever find the guy who designed the Blogger.com interface, I'm going after him with a bludgeoning oar. If you happened to read this post before 9 PM Thursday, you may notice that the second half of it has been completely re-written. Guess why.

Song Of The Week: Two Watts Of Power

2006-09-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Our SOTW is Pandora's Box, by Two Watts Of Power. You can check out more music and video by these guys at their website, here. Their music can best be described as electronic montage, with synthesizer, guitar and drums blended with found vocals from a variety of sources.

The new Radio Free Charleston will be available here at theGazz.com tomorrow, and later today I'll have detailed production notes. In addition to Two Watts Of Power, we'll also have Professor Mike , the No Pants Players, and more! Professor Mike will be appearing live at the Sound Factory Friday night, and next week, our SOTW will be their cover of 311's "Beautiful Disaster."

Check back later today for the production notes.

Shakespeare At The Labelle

2006-09-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

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.

"The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" is exactly what it says it is: 37 of the most legendary plays in English history performed in 97 minutes. The show was the longest running comedy in London during its run and, according to the N.Y. Times, is "full of gung-ho vitality."

From two men performing all of the major characters of "Romeo and Juliet," to "Titus Andronicus" done as a cooking show, to "Othello" being done as a rap, the show is full of energy and runs at a breakneck pace. It concludes with "Hamlet," which is done normal, fast, faster and backwards!

Tara Phares-Pauley directs for Everyman Players. The show stars Jason Dunbar, Kevin Pauley and Duncan Stokes, all of the No-Pants Players comedy troupe. Everyman Players is a non-profit group that brings theater programs and workshops to area schools for little to no money. This show is a fundraiser for the group to continue this mission here in the Kanawha Valley and abroad. This comedy will only be performed for one night, so be sure to make plans to attend.

If you go: "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" starts at 8 PM, Friday September 29 at the Labelle Theater in South Charleston. Tickets are $10, or $7 for students.

Monday Morning Art: Warmask

2006-09-25T06:45:00.000-07:00

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.

click to enlarge

Update: I noticed after the fact, that this is the 300th post in PopCult! Oh boy, quantity!

Star Trek and the Holy Grail

2006-09-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

Mark Evanier posted this on his blog this morning, and it was so funny I had to steal it and share it with you. Just watch it. It's work safe.

Radio Free Charleston News

2006-09-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

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.

In other RFC news, we're deep in production of episode six. We have taping sessions scheduled for tonight and Monday, with the goal of delivering the show next week. We're also doing preliminary work on the Halloween episode(s). More on that, later. Keep checking back here for more info on Radio Free Charleston, and if you're interested in performing or contributing to the show, drop me an email here.

Song Of The Week: Punk Goodbye Earl

2006-09-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

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. "

The Gimmes have a lot in common with the Dixie Chicks. Just as the Chicks have become pariahs in some parts of the country for stating the obvious about the president, the Gimmes are now persona non-grata in Pittsburgh, due to some questionable booking by the folks at PNC Park.

WITHDRAWAL!

2006-09-20T06:10:00.000-07:00

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.

But all the conspiracy theories in the world won't get me a bowl of my favorite veggie. I mean, where the HELL am I supposed to get my folic acid? Vitamins are NOT an option!

So I'm going to have to go slumming. You'll see me in the seedy neighborhoods looking for the house that has Popeye's shoes tied together and slung over the power lines out front. I'm not proud, but I needs my spinach! I know, they'll give me the first bowl for free. Then they start charging. I don't care, I'm already hooked! I'd even buy a bag if it had a sticker that read "Now With 50% More E Coli!"

I've come to the conclusion that anything I decide to eat will eventually be declared unhealthy.

Cool "Toys" of the Week

2006-09-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week, instead of picking a cool current toy, I'm going to bring you a short film called "Toys". This film, made by Grant Munro in 1966 for the National Film Board of Canada, starts out showing kids looking at a window display at a toy store during Christmas time. It seems innocent enough, and you can see all sorts of great vintage toys. But when they get to the GI Joes, the Joes spring to life, and start acting out violent real war scenarios via stop-motion animation. Now, at the time, the Vietnam War was raging, and this was supposed to be a striking anti-war message. Nowadays it stands as an example of some of the coolest vintage GI Joe animation ever made! Some of the toys shown here are worth more than some automobiles, if you can find them. So whether you prefer the anti-war message, or the cool animated GI Joe action, check out "Toys."

Monday Morning Art: Riverbank

2006-09-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

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.

As always, click to enlarge.

Freakies

2006-09-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

In response to my post on Baron Von Redberry, Noise Reducer asked "What next, Freakies?"

Okay then....Freakies.

Link courtesy of Bubblegum Fink.

Song Of The Week: Midget Spider-man Dance Party

2006-09-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

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."

We were thrilled that he agreed to be on the show, and even more excited that he chose to dance to a piece of original music composed and performed by my brother Frank and me. Our SOTW is that piece of music, presented uncut, it's "Dancing Midget Spider-man Fantasia."

A Healthy Part Of This Complete Breakfast

2006-09-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

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.

My sister preferred Sir Grapefellow. Me, I never much cared for grape cereal. Evidently, not too many other people do, either. If they did, there'd be all kinds of grape-flavored cereals. And don't even talk to me about Grape-Nuts. They're about as grape-flavored as Apple Jacks are apple-flavored.

The Day Of Double Damage!

2006-09-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

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:

M-Dogg 20 will face Ruckus; Lotus will take on Chuck Taylor; El Drunko, with Crowza and Woody Numbers, will meet Omega; and TNA star Sonjay Dutt will wrestle Zac Vincent. The finals of the Zero G Tourney will feature the two toughest competitors in a ladder match.

Then, at 7 PM, the Masters Of Pain Invitational kicks off, featuring hardcore lunatics from around the world, competing in a series of twisted contests. Each match will feature a different gimmick, including a bed of nails match, an electrified light tube match, a barefoot thumbtack match, and more beastly match-ups that could make Dr. Mengele wince. The first four matches in this bloodbath of a tournament are the following:

A No Rope Barbed Wire/Mystery Pit match will see Big Japan Star "The Crazy Monkey" Jun Kasai face off against "Mr. Insanity" Toby Klein; The first-ever "Fantastic Four Match" pairs up IWA EC Icon Mad Man Pondo against "The Deranged One" Coke Haine; In the oddly-named "Garden Of Eden" match, Brain Damage takes on Corporal Robinson: and a crowd-pleasing "Fans Bring The Weapons Match" sees 2 Tuff Tony take on JC Bailey.

These tournaments are a huge deal for IWA East Coast. They're treating this as their "Wrestlemania." It'll be interesting to see if local fans have the stamina to sit through a full day of intense wrestling action. The ranks of the local fans will be swelled somewhat by visitors from around the world, as IWA EC reports ticket sales to fans who are coming from Germany, Japan, and California.

There are a variety of ticket prices that cover package deals or tickets to the individual shows. But tickets will now have to be purchased at the door. For more information, check the IWA East Coast website.

No Pants Weekend!

2006-09-13T20:30:00.000-07:00

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

IF YOU GO: The No Pants Players perform Friday September 15 and Saturday September 16 at 8 PM. Tickets are $5.00. For more ticket information call 1-877-467-7689 .

Annoying TV

2006-09-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

You've all seen the commercial

"Head On, apply directly to the forehead!
Head On, apply directly to the forehead!
Head On, apply directly to the forehead!"

Widely proclaimed to be the most annoying television ad in history (no mean feat, mind you).

Thank God they don't make a hemorroid cream.

Monday Morning Art: Tracks East Revisited

2006-09-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Our experiment with Cafepress is still ongoing. Visit the Monday Morning Art Store for your chance to buy this design on a variety of T-shirts and cheesy items. We've lowered prices and added some new products, so you should check it out to see if you want to buy anything with this design, or just make fun of me for thinking anyone would want to do that. You can check out the PopCult and Radio Free Charleston Shop, too.

Radio Free Charleston Production Notes: Episode Five

2006-09-08T10:00:00.000-07:00

Episode Five of Radio Free Charleston, featuring Kevin Duffer, The Appalachian Celtic Consort, Pentagram Flowerbox, and cut-ins by IWA East Coast, is online now. We had lots of adventures producing this show, which is a departure in many ways from our normal format. It's our longest show so far, by five minutes, and we're trying several new things. Without any further ado, let's go behind the scenes.

The host segments were shot by Melanie Larch on Labor Day in South Charleston. Mel was just hired to sing the role of Mercedes in the upcoming production of the opera "Carmen" by the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra. Yes, it's Bizet in the hizz-ouse. What other internet video shows can say they have famous opera singers running camera? I don't know if it shows, but I was not quite at 100% during production of the new RFC. I've been fighting a food-allergy problem for a couple of weeks, and I think it's a bit obvious.

On top of that, my wardrobe for the show didn't exactly work out like I thought it would. I was going for a semi-military revolutionary look. In reality, I seem to look more like some sort of demented Radar O'Reilly from "M.A.S.H." The shoot itself went fairly smoothly, except for some unfortunate background noise from traffic and crickets. Usually, there aren't many out-takes from the host segments--I'm a bit of a one-take guy-- but for this show there were several times when I had to stop doing my introductions to curse the crickets, who seemed to be attempting to do backing vocals. Also of note for this show: GI Joe makes a cameo appearance! We shot in front of the South Charleston Community Center and on top of the famous Mound! If I seem to be a bit subdued for the show, there are reasons.

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.

At the right, you can see a photo I took of Kev the last time I saw him, about a week before he passed away. 2003 was a lousy year, on many levels, not the least of which was the loss of my good toy-hunting buddy. I always felt that Kevin didn't get the exposure that his songwriting deserved. However, a few weeks ago I was digging through my archives and I found an old VHS tape labeled "Kevin and some Fysshes at the Glass". It was footage I'd shot at a bachelor party at the Empty Glass in 1990. Kevin played, backed by Todd, Joe, and Keith from Strawfyssh. The video was painfully dark, and I didn't think I would be able to use any of it on the show. Back in those days I had this humongous camcorder. It had a great light unit, but if you turned the light on, it would suck the battery dry in ten minutes. As I watched the tape, memories of the night I shot it came flooding back to me. I remembered that Kevin asked me to come out and record him because he had a new song that he was really proud of. It's called "Harder Days" on the video tape box, but I wouldn't be surprised if that title changed a few times over the years. This was the first time that he performed the song in front of an audience, and it was still a work in progress. When he started to play that song, I turned on the light. For the duration of that song, the video was good enough to use on the show. The audio and video are not quite up to our usual high standards for RFC, but this is the only chance I'll have to play Kevin's music on the show, and I thought that makes up for the technical shortcomings. It's a little self-indulgent of me to put my friend on the show, but Kevin was important to the history of Radio Free Charleston, and his music deserved a wider audience. I hope you enjoy his song despite the dodgy video and audio.

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.

Another cool departure is our special guests, Kevin "Pimpdragon" Pauley and Frank Manhattan, the voices of IWA East Coast. They storm onto the show to bring us all the details about the upcoming wrestling tournament on September 16. In the afternoon, area grappling gourmands will be treated to the Zero G high-flyer tournament, featuring acrobatic 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.

I'm not going to go into great detail about the way the show ends. Let's just say that the people who have seen it keep tossing around David Lynch's name. The end credit music is a collaboration between me and my brother Frank. I recorded some absolutely horrid guitar licks, and then Frank managed to edit them into something that sounds musical. It was quite a feat.

We're going to take some extra time to recover before episode six, so you can look for it the week of September 25. Hope you enjoy the show. Meanwhile, go check out the newly-revised Radio Free Charleston Store, now with improved designs and lower prices!

Song Of The Week: Celtic Artistry

2006-09-07T07:20:00.000-07:00

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.

Barring any technical setbacks, the new episode of Radio Free Charleston, clocking in at nearly seventeen minutes, will be posted later today. Check back for production notes and a remembrance of our other musical guest, the late Kevin Duffer.

Wrestling With Locals

2006-09-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Next week, IWA East Coast gives us not one, but TWO world-class tournaments at the South Charleston Community Center. Later today, episode five of Radio Free Charleston will be online. It's our biggest episode ever, and the voices of IWA East Coast, Kevin "Pimpdragon" Pauley and Frank Manhattan join us with previews of both tournaments, the Zero G high-flyer tourney, and the Masters Of Pain Invitational. We'll get two flavors of professional wrestling: high-flying action in the afternoon, and sheer brutality in the evening. Kevin and Frank will tell you more about the event on RFC, and I'll be blogging about the show all next week.

Monday Morning Art: More of the Scape series

2006-09-04T06:14:00.000-07:00

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.

We're also continuing our experiment to see if there's any demand for my digital art in wearable or framed print form. So if you like the design, and want to buy it on a shirt or some other knick-knack, go to the Monday Morning Art Cafepress page, and do some shopping. Remember, this design will only be available for one week, then it'll be displaced by the next Monday Morning Art. If you're in the mood to spend money on this stuff, be sure to check the PopCult Store and Radio Free Charleston shop, too.

Songs Of The Week: Strike Anywhere

2006-09-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

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.

"Instinct" seems to be a letter to their fans, whose grass roots support has been key to the band's success. It's a fine slab of hot punk, with a deceptively mellow opening before they unleash the bombast.

"Prisoner Echoes" is an intense political commentary that is not really work safe, but it is pretty strong stuff, reminiscent of Green Day's "American Idiot."

Strike Anywhere's new album is available from Fat Wreck Chords and you can read their bio and check their latest tour dates here.

PopCult Is One Year Old!

2006-08-28T07:10:00.000-07:00

To celebrate, I'm going to revisit a few memorable posts from the last year, and tell you about the new PopCult and Radio Free Charleston CafePress stores, but for now, Let's go all the way back to the very first post. You can see it right here.

Not much, was it? But at least it was mildly amusing, and that should count for something. I'm shooting for ten posts today, just to see how much of a strain I can put on the Blogger interface. Cut yourself a piece of virtual cake (it's orange cake with milk chocolate icing), pull up a chair and enjoy!

By happy coincidence, PopCult shares it's birthday with comics legend Jack Kirby! You can read about Jack Kirby Day at Mark Evanier's blog.

Thanks for sticking around this long. If you're looking for the link to the latest episode of Radio Free Charleston, you can find it here. It's been a kick, the way this blog has evolved over the last year. Who would have thought that after spending ten years making a point of not having any photos of myself on the internet, I'd be hosting an internet video show? Let's dive into the self-indulgent semi-nostalgia.

The Rejected Radio Free Charleston Shirt

2006-08-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed, if you've been watching Radio Free Charleston, that in each episode I wear a different T-shirt, and that shirt is then the source for the episode's name. I've got the wardrobe for the first dozen or so shows lined up already, but there was one shirt that I rejected. You can see it below.

This shirt dates back to 1989, when I was working for WVNS Radio, and preparing to launch the original incarnation of Radio Free Charleston. I was not an enthusiastic supporter of the Sternwheel Regatta--working in Charleston, but living elsewhere, and having to reroute my commute for two weeks was about as appealing then as the user fee is today. Sadly, being an employee of the radio station that was sponsoring some of the events meant that I had to put in a token appearance, even though I always avoided the Regatta like the plague. I just don't care for crowds, and the choice of musical acts is rarely to my tastes. Plus, I think the whole idea of Charleston being a "river town" is more than a little contrived.

So I had this shirt made up, and wore it to the station events. Oddly enough, it was the hit of the party! Even city officials were so burned out on the Regatta by the time it actually got underway that they felt pretty much the same way. Ironically, I had a great time at the Regatta that year. I got to meet and hang out with Cheap Trick, and watched most of their concert from the roof of the covered driveway at the Charleston House Holiday Inn. I don't think I've been back to the Regatta since--quit while you're ahead, I guess.

As for why this shirt was rejected from the current Radio Free Charleston video podcast, well, it wasn't a matter of taste--it was a matter of timing. I had planned to wear this for episode five, but now the production schedule has slid somewhat, and episode five won't be posted for your enjoyment until after this year's Sternwheelless Regatta is over. So I present this shirt here, for your amusement, and will find a new one to wear on the next show.

Smoldering Rants UPDATED!

2006-08-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

Last December, I coughed up RANT WEEK, a series of posts that addressed the burning issues of the day, from smoking, to Tom McGee, to the befowlment of the naughty bits of an equestrian statue. Nine months later, let's see what's going on with these controversial subjects.

Day One: The Riverfront. The controversial plan to bulldoze Kanawha Boulevard into the river and plant trees or something has seemingly stalled. The only thing new on this front is the grudging acceptance of the powers that be that large numbers of people still like and use the Boulevard. Nothing much has happened, and that's a good thing.

Day Two: Smoking. Following a landmark report from the Surgeon General about the effects of second-hand smoke, the Kanawha County Board of Health has begun making noise about expanding the ban on smoking to all indoor public places, including bars and restaurants. Not only does this make me extremely happy, but you can't beat the entertainment value of smokers trying to play the victim after years of them inflicting their addictive poison on the rest of us. Their whiny cries of persecution is music to my ears. After years of being told to "suck it up," when I was forced to be around tobacco smoke, I love watching the tobacco addicts squirm. Hey guys, my right to breathe supersedes your right to indulge in your dirty, dirty addiction. It has been fun watching the same Restaurant owner/pro-smoking advocate go crying to the media about how the smoking ban has ruined his business. Hey fella, I tried eating at your restaurant once, the reason your business is down is because, now that you're smoke-free, people can actually taste that crap you try to pass off as food.

Day Three: WHCP's Newscast. It wasn't pretty. The newscast bit the dust in a very public way back in February, and the station changed their call letters. No word on if Mark Hunt has put together another newscast for the local market. You can read about the ugly end here.

Day Four: Vandalism! Somebody defiled the most delicate part of the Davis Square horsey statue, placing a sticker on its privates. I wrote about this last year. IT'S STILL THERE! SEE! Shouldn't there be some user fee money left over to pry this sticker off of the equine unmentionables?

Bonus Rant: Metro Gubmint. The user fee was upheld by a court-ordered vote wherein a tiny percentage of Charleston citizens voted to tax people who live outside the city. And the sensible dream of a Metro Goverment that would combine Charleston with the rest of Kanawha County scoots that much farther out of reach. When it comes time for the citizens of Kanawha County to vote to merge with Charleston, the politicians will learn just how long people's memories can be.

Plastic Man's Failed Pilot

2006-08-28T07:06:00.000-07:00

Animated Discussions
by Rudy Panucci and Melanie Larch

You may remember Plastic Man from the wretched Ruby-Spears animated cartoon of the 1980s, but the character is actually one of the greatest comic-book creations of all time. Created by the genius, Jack Cole, Plastic Man has been celebrated in a book by Pulitzer-prize winner Art Speigelman, and stars in a series of DC Comics Archives which sell quite well despite their fiffty-dollar price tag.

Heidi MacD0nald has an embedded movie clip in her blog, The Beat, so you can see how close we came to getting a top-notch Plastic Man cartoon that was worthy of the history of the comic book. You can see it here. Heidi's blog is one of our everyday stops, and is an invaluable source of comics industry information.

Cartoon Network passed on this show, another in a long line of moronic decisions that CN has made concerning cartoons based on properties owned by their sister company, DC Comics. The show was developed by Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob Squarepants, and was designed and storyboarded by Stephen DeStefano, who drew Popeye on the Spinach package that Rudy wrote about here.

PopCult's Top Ten Or So

2006-08-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick rundown, complete with links and in no particular order, to ten or so of the more memorable posts from the last year of PopCult.

In May, we had Andy Prieboy Week, where I wrote about one of my favorite musician/composer/novelists. I also told you about the Beatles Bootlegs Podcast.

Also in May, and then again in June, I turned evil.

Back in February, Mark Evanier linked to my rant about the decline of Radio Shack, as it deteriorated from nerd Mecca to cell phone Hell. To update things, the Dunbar Radio Shack, where I had been shopping since it opened 35 years ago, was one of the stores closed in the company-wide purge. I couldn't even manage to feel sad, since the service there had been so poor for so long.

Also in February, David Williams of the Gazette wrote a review of the Symphony Pops concert that I disagreed with mightily, so I wrote a review of his review. I stand by my criticism that his piece was poorly written. In the comments, Williams tried to rebut one point by claiming that I didn't understand that he was providing context with one of his irrelevant asides. He even seems to compare himself to Hector Berlioz at one point. Sadly, it's just proof that Mr. Williams still cannot tell the difference between context and pointless trivia.

In January, I attempted to listen to Howard Stern's new satellite radio show. It wasn't pretty.

Last December, I knocked myself out, writing 9,000 words of a Holiday Gift Guide in one week. You can read highlights here, here, and here.

Back in November, Melanie and I wrote about our old pal, John K. the creator of Ren and Stimpy. Since this post, John has started his own blog, and the unreleased episodes of the Ren and Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon have been released on DVD. He's currently working on the animated title sequence for the upcoming Tenacious D movie.

In October of last year, I presented a week of my own creepy musical compositions, since Halloween is the only time of year that people can stand to hear my low-rent horror movie score noodling. Two of the more listenable examples are here, and here.

Earlier in that month, I wrote about my new favorite movie theater. And I put TiVo in its place!

Not a bad batch of posts for my first year blogging. Now I have to see if I can top them in the next twelve months.

Updating the Sketchy Bio

2006-08-28T07:04:00.000-07:00

Early in the run of this blog, I posted a sketchy bio as a way to introduce myself. You can read it here. In the intervening twelve months, there have been a couple of major changes. First of all, my mother passed away in April. I had been taking care of her for the previous eight-and-a-half years following a stroke that left her bedridden. She had been the center of my life for the better part of the last decade. It's been quite an adjustment, since I'd basically put my career on hold to take care of both my parents some fifteen years ago, and suddenly I was faced with the exciting and yet terrifying prospect of re-entering the workplace, but I'm holding up pretty well. It's still strange coming home to an empty house, but I'm getting used to it.

The second big change involves something I wrote in my bio, lo those many months ago: "I may tee off on comic books, toys, movies, animation, health care, food, television, or anything else that strikes my fancy. I'll also share some of the artwork, photography, and music that I've been working on these last few years. Maybe along the way I can reconnect with some of my old Radio Free Charleston co-conspirators."

"Reconnect with some of my old Radio Free Charleston co-conspirators".....Check! When I started writing PopCult, I had no idea that it really would lead to me being able to revive my long-lost and beloved radio show. Now we're in production of episode five of the new video version of the show, I'm working with some of my best friends from the old days, and I'm happier than I've been in a long time.

So keep reading PopCult, maybe even buy some of the cheesy crap in my Cafepress Stores. You might enjoy the ride.

Local Photography Blogs

2006-08-28T07:03:00.000-07:00

One of the cool things about writing PopCult was that I got to seek out and link to other cool local blogs. Blogging is particularly well suited to photography, as you can see here at theGazz.com with the DowntownWV and West Virginia Photo blogs. Here's five great local photography blogs.

On Location With Rick Lee features the work of world-class photog Rick Lee, who may be the most prolific photo blogger in town. He posts a wide variety of images, from his professional work, to his intriguing "produce blogging" shots taken in local grocery stores and tons of other amazing artworks.

Plaedaddy is Stephen Beckner, award-winning photographer and a fine musician and songwriter. Steve's work is pretty cutting-edge, and is really innovative.

Entropy showcases work by Scott Mitchell. Scott's got a great eye for nature and architecture, and always puts a smile on my face.

Through The Lens brings us the work of MShane, from Shane Evans Photography. He does terrific landscapes and great portraits, but like all the photo bloggers listed here, he's not confined to any one genre.

Amanda Miller Photography, by the artist of the same name, brings us an array of wonderful photos, including high-speed shots, tinted photos, and interesting still life. I wish she'd update more often.

So go check these photoblog links out, and if you know of any other cool local photoblogs, leave a comment, or email me at popcult@charter.net.

The Radio Free Charleston Store

2006-08-28T07:01:00.000-07:00

As with the PopCult and Monday Morning Art stores that I mentioned below, I have opened up a Radio Free Charleston Store, so you can go over and buy shirts with the RFC logo on them. If you want to proudly show your support for RFC by parading around like a human billboard, feel free to click on over and buy multiples of of the fine T-shirts featuring the show logo and my cartoon visage. Hey, if we sell enough of these, we'll be able to buy good microphones to use for the host segments!

Monday Morning Art: The Cursed Air Conditioning Unit

2006-08-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

That's the beast of Capitol Street....the world's loudest air conditioning unit, as heard in the background of the host segments of episode four of Radio Free Charleston. It's the source of the oppressive hum that permeates Davis Square all summer long. I had no choice but to immortalize the monster, and then digitally-assault the photograph. As always, click to enlarge.

Starting this week, I'm experimenting with something new. Since I've been doing the Monday Morning Art thing for a while now, I decided to see if anybody would want to buy any of this stuff. So I've opened a few shops over at CafePress. Each week, in the Monday Morning Art store, you will be able to purchase T-shirts, prints, and other cheesy merchandise featuring that week's Monday Morning Art. The products will only be available for one week, and then they'll be replaced by the next week's art. I've also opened a PopCult Shop, featuring some of the previous pieces of artwork that I've posted here over the last year. If you have more money than taste, rush on over and buy my stuff.

Cool Toy Of The Week: Captain Action

2006-08-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

In observance of our anniversary week here at PopCult, our pick for Cool Toy Of The Week is one of my favorites from my childhood. In fact, I wrote about Captain Action and his nemesis, Dr. Evil, last year right here and here. The reason I'm picking Captain Action again is because Robby Reed, over at Dial "B" For Blog, is in the midst of a six-part series of articles on the good Captain, and I can just link to it, and let him do all the work. Read the first installment here, the second here, and then check back to his blog every day for the next four parts!

Radio Free Charleston Production Notes: Episode Four

2006-08-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

Episode Four of Radio Free Charleston, featuring Raymond Wallace and Under The Radar, is now online. It's another 12-minute dip into the local music scene with great music, cool animation, and weird little bits of ephemera. You can see it here.

Raymond Wallace is the first musical guest, and you can read more about him and check out his Songs Of The Week here. We brought him into the studio and put a guitar in his hands and let the cameras roll. He'd barely touched a guitar for two years, and it's a kick seeing him playing again after all he's been through.

Our animated short this week is "Zachery Bop," an experimental CGI piece that my brother Frank made on primitive coal-fueled computers over ten years ago. Frank also composed the music on an electric abacus.

Under The Radar gave us our SOTW just yesterday, and they tear up the LiveMix studio with "Me, The Boys And Jack," a rock 'n' roll song about the exploits of the crew of the PT 109 during World War Two. Be sure to give a listen to their take on Gershwin's "Summertime," while you're digging their music.

The shirt I'm wearing in this show features The Blue Guy, AKA The Blue Meanie of WWE/ECW fame. Meanie performed at the IWA East Coast show in June, and I snapped up one of his shirts to wear on the show. That's me and Meanie at the IWA EC after show party, in a photo by Daniel Boyd. If you want one of these shirts for yourself, you can check out Meanie's post here, for details on how to order one.

Song Of The Week: Summertime Under The Radar

2006-08-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

Our SOTW this week is another preview of the next episode of Radio Free Charleston. Last week we brought you a tune by Raymond Wallace, and this week we bring you a song from our other musical guest from episode four, Under The Radar. UTR is ace Gazette reporter Rusty Marks on guitar and vocals, Bill Robinson on bass, and Mark Lanham on drums. Rusty is someone that I was trying to get on the old radio incarnation of RFC back in the day, but the show got canned before he could get me a tape. On the show Under The Radar will be performing an original tune, "Me, The Boys And Jack," but for our song of the week, we bring you their rockin' rendition of Gershwin's "Summertime."

With any luck, the next episode of RFC will be posted as early as tomorrow. After I write this, I'm off to edit the show, and then tonight we'll be taping a band for episode five. Tomorrow look for production notes on the show four, so you can learn all the backstage dirt on our little internet TV-type show.

New Local Horror Movie in Production

2006-08-23T06:30:00.000-07:00

Rebecca, over in her Carpe You Some Diem blog notes that a new local horror movie is being made in and around Spencer. "Pretty Girls Make Graves" tells the story of an eccentric wealthy businessman who lives a solitary life until he meets his true love, and then they have a run in with a sinister tattoo artist who marks them with an ancient mystical symbol which sends them spiraling down a path marked with deciet, greed, and murder. Check out the website for more information on the movie, which is scheduled to premiere at the Robey Theater in Spencer on Halloween. We'll have more details in the coming weeks.

Dubya Rocks Like U2

2006-08-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

Click the screen above and you'll be treated to our Fearless Leader, singing U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday," spliced and diced into existence by RX at PartyParty.com. Looks like GWB may have a new career ahead of him. Heck, maybe if we're lucky, he'll quit his job and go on tour!

Only if he takes Dick Cheney with him as a backup dancer, though. If you want to make your own version of the Preznit crooning, go check out the George W Bush Public Domain Audio Archive for tons of clips that can be rejiggered and manipulated so that he'll say anything you want. It's the same thing that Mr. Bush does to the Constitution!

MondayMorning Art: Building Details

2006-08-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

Let's jump into this week with a study in detail. At the left, you will find a digitally-assaulted photograph of the metal design work on the outside of the Stone And Thomas building on Lee Street. I did this last February, and if you're interested, you can study the progression of how I assault these photos here.

You'll notice that most of the time I go a few stages beyond the piece I decide to share. You have to make a few wrong turns before you find the right way to go. click to enlarge

Song Of The Week: Harvest Moon

2006-08-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

This week's SOTW is a sneak preview of the next Radio Free Charleston. One of our guests will be my good friend Raymond Wallace, late of The Leon Waters Blues Band, dragged in from his sickbed and forced to play his guitar for the first time in a long time. Raymond's been living the blues for the last couple of years with a variety of heath and housing issues, and after our recording session, he told me that he felt like he was coming back to life after being a dead man. It was great to see Raymond playing again, after all that he's been through.

Raymond recorded three songs for us, and our SOTW is one that won't be on the next show. "Shine On Harvest Moon," performed in Raymond's Leon Redbone-influenced style, will make you feel like you're hanging out in a New Orleans whorehouse, circa 1910. Leon Redbone is one of Raymond's heroes, as you'll see on the show, and he draws a lot of inspiration from him and other legendary bluesmen like Muddy Waters.

As a bonus, You can listen to Raymond playing "Variations On Kotke," Raymond's take on a piece he heard Leo Kotke play on Mountain Stage. This tune was recorded with Raymond playing my cheap 12-string, on the very computer that I use to write this blog. My guitar never sounded better. The next episode of RFC, featuring Raymond and Under The Radar, should be posted here at theGazz.com next week.

Animated Links

2006-08-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

Animated Discussions
by Rudy Panucci and Melanie Larch

It's link week in Animated Discussions, as we slack off and let other people do the work for a change.

Heidi MacDonald, at the Beat, tells us about the new Adult Swim import from Japan, Shin Chan the adventures of a rude five-year-old boy, and how it will probably rock because Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer are writing the English scripts for the series.

Mark Evanier posts an embedded YouTube compilation of Quisp and Quake commercials made by Jay Ward (Bullwinkle) in the 1960s. Not only is this cool because of the animation and the background info Mark provides, but also because Quisp is the food of the Gods--the finest cereal ever crafted by human or alien.

Toonzone interviews Mark about the episodes of Superman: The Animated Series that he wrote, notably the tributes to legendary comics creator Jack Kirby.

Miles Thompson, an animator and designer who's worked on countless of our favorite TV cartoons dating back to 2 Stupid Dogs has a way-cool art blog.

Meanwhile, Donovan Cook, creator of 2 Stupid Dogs, is currently working on an animated feature, Space Chimps, due out in a year or two. His last major project was Mickey, Donald and Goofy as The Three Musketeers, which you can read about here.

Cool Toy Of The Week: Power Team Combat Engineer

2006-08-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't exactly made a secret of the fact that I collect GI Joe action figures. I'm talking about the 12" tall guys, like we had back when I was a kid (and also for the last ten years or so). Hasbro recently decided to take GI Joe into new territory, with a new size and the storylines and characters familiar to fans of the small GI Joes from the 1980s. So history repeated, and in 2005, just like back in 1976, the 12" tall GI Joe was "retired." The official GI Joe Collectors Club is still making extremely cool limited editions of the big guys, but unless you luck into some leftovers hidden on the shelves, you won't be seeing the big GI Joes in stores.

However, GI Joe has always inspired a healthy group of fellow travelers, compatible toys made by competing companies. One of the best of these is the Power Team Elite World Peacekeepers line of 12" action figures made by M & C Toy Centre. You can find Power Team figures at Big Lots, Kay Bee Toy Stores, and in the JC Penney Christmas catalog. Unlike the 12" GI Joe, Power Team is still going strong! They have a ton of new product coming out and they put a tremendous amount of effort into their design and play value. Their current body design sports some of the most realistic articulation of any 12" action figure, and is able to imitate nearly the full range of motion of the human body.

Our "cool toy" this week is the Power Team Elite World Peacekeepers Combat Engineer, which includes one fully-articulated figure, with interchangeable hands, and a huge assortment of cool 1/6 scale diorama pieces, including a garbage can, barrel, extending ladder, chainsaw, "wood" planks, a crate and a tool kit. The tool kit includes scale tools like a hammer, screwdriver, wrenches, pliers, facemask, axe, shovel, circuit tester, and eye protection. One of the major attractions of the Power Team line is that it provides such a wide variety of cool accessories in the proper scale for hobbyists who build dioramas. This set is a gold mine with tons of potential for that purpose.

Best of all, this set has been spotted in Big Lots just last week. So if you're a GI Joe collector who's depressed over the lack of cool Joe stuff in retail stores, look in the direction of Power Team. They're still holding down the 1/6 scale fort.

Monday Morning Art: Branches

2006-08-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

We kick off the new week, rested and refreshed after some birthday weekend slacking, with a digitally-assaulted photograph from last winter. This is a shot of barren tree branches, which has been a recurring motif in my work for over twenty years. I like the way they look. As always, click to enlarge. Later today I'll be catching up on my weekend off, with Cool Toy and Animation posts.

I wasn't slacking the entire weekend. Friday night Mel and I split our time between the Open mic night at the Unity Church and the CD launch party for Holy Cow at Capitol Roasters. I was out recruiting bands for future episodes of RFC, and found quite a few talented area musicians. We were particularly impressed by Holy Cow, whose new CD can be found at Budget Tapes and Records in Kanawha City and Fret & Fiddle in St. Albans. (and at CD Baby, online).

Your Chance For Pirate Booty And A Cool Book!

2006-08-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday evening at Taylor Books author Pavanne Pettigrew will be signing copies of her new book, "One More Breath," a fast-paced pirate adventure. But there's more to this book signing than just a nifty book. Attendees will also be given a key--one of a thousand--of which, five can open the lock on a Treasure Chest at the Headline Books booth at the West Virginia Book Festival at the Charleston Civic Center, October 21-22 This is a fun promotion, and a great attention-getter for "One More Breath," the first novel from Headline's new fiction imprint, Publisher's Page.

A native West Virginian, Pettigrew has lived in the Charleston area for the past twenty years, having moved to the capital city to pursue a career as a professional musician and university music instructor. She was also the classical music critic for The Charleston Gazette for a number of years. Since 1990, after receiving her Master of Science degree and making a career shift, she has been an environmental geologist in hydrologic and groundwater protection for mining.

A childhood experience with a band of Gypsies established a lifelong fascination with the Roma that is manifest in nearly every piece of fiction she writes, as is an obsession with pirates and the romance of the tall ships that is almost as long-standing. She is currently working on her next novel.

My own fascination with Pirates has been well-documented in this blog, and I'm looking forward to reading the well-reviewed "One More Breath." Pettigrew will be signing copies of her book at Taylor Books, 226 Capitol Street in Charleston, at 6:00 PM Saturday August 12. You can also pick up one of the 1,000 Keys To The Treasure Chest at the same time.

Song Of The Week: Three Bodies

2006-08-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

This week's SOTW is "Three Bodies" by the band of the same name. The Bodies were one of the top bands on the radio version of Radio Free Charleston, and this song is the third from the batch of four songs that I co-produced with the band and Spencer Elliott back in the summer of 1990. I"m told that this song is based on something that really happened to lead singer, Kris Cormandy. The photo on the left is a publicity shot that I did for the band around the same time. I shot in black and white, and colorized it just a few minutes ago. From top to bottom you see Kris Cormandy, Brian Young, and Brian Lucas. This photo was shot in our state capitol building, back when you could take a camera in there without being gang-tackled by a half-dozen security guards.

I picked this song this week because the latest episode of the BRAND SPANKIN' NEW video version of Radio Free Charleston is online, and features a vintage video of Three Bodies performing "Shingles and Tar." That was already a song of the week back in March, so this time I'll give you the band's "theme song."

Be sure to check out the latest RFC, which also features Eduardo Canelon, Pentagram Flowerbox, and The Alien Threat. Plus there's goofy dancing. Go to the Gazz TV page and explore.

Radio Free Charleston Production Diary: Episode Three

2006-08-07T09:00:00.000-07:00

The third episode of Radio Free Charleston is finished, and may be posted later this afternoon. This is a bit of a departure show for us. First of all, my host segments were shot against a green screen. I'll tell you more about that later. We also feature our first music video by a local band, and the first chapter of "Pentagram Flowerbox," a recurring cartoon by Third Mind Incarnation about Satan living in a trailer park.

We have a wonderful musical guest, Eduardo Canelon, who ran off to host a music camp before we had a chance to find out what the piece of music he performed was called. Evidently, this music camp is being held somewhere with no cell phone coverage. I'll update you on Eduardo's music as soon as he gets back. He's the mastermind behind Latin Music WV and we'll be telling you more about that in PopCult in the coming weeks. Eduardo is also the leader of Comparsa, an eight-piece Latin band that will appear on a future episode of RFC. He treats us to a very cool, laid-back Spanish number, performed on the Radio Free Charleston studio fire escape.

Our other musical guest is Three Bodies--no mean feat, since they haven't performed together in over fifteen years. "Shingles And Tar" is a vintage music video, which was hastily assembled in the summer of 1990, the day before it was due to be shown at a film festival. I got a call from Brian Young, and headed down to an editing bay at West Virginia State College with a handful of tapes of stock footage. We combined the stock footage with a short film Brian had made starring Kris Cormandy, the lead singer of Three Bodies, and wound up with a decent little music video. As the night wore on, and the deadline loomed, we slacked off and ended the video with what may be a world record for the most nuclear explosions ever used in a rock music video.

For reasons of copyright and ox-mistreatment, this video was re-edited last Friday. Brian hasn't seen this version as I write this. Hope he's not mad. Since we were dealing with fifteen-year-old videotape, and a short production window for RFC, there is one glitch in the show. At the very beginning of "Shingles And Tar", the audio is a little warbly. You can find an MP3 of the song here, which is all clean and neat and warble-free.

We wrap up the show with a public service announcement of great importance.

After we finished the show, we noticed that an unintentional theme had emerged. The show seems to be a bit hot. Perhaps subconsciously influenced by the record heat we've had in the valley of late, this episode of Radio Free Charleston has a recurring flame motif. In fact, the heat is the reason we used a green screen, instead of shooting on location. We actually shot the host segments twice. The first time, we had audio problems that were insurmountable. This was actually a good thing, because I was experimenting with my "look" for the show, and the particular combination of facial hair and old fedora that I tried for the first shoot imbued me with a look not unlike that of a fat Jed Clampett.

So we rescheduled the host segments for two days later. When faced with the prospect then of shooting on a rooftop in 104 degree weather at two in the afternoon, my resistance to the idea of using the green screen melted away, and we absconded to the secret RFC studio. I prefer shooting on location, but I think the show looks all right this time. In many ways, this is our hottest show yet! We've got fiery Latin balladeering, a neighbor from Hell, lots of nuclear explosions, and an oppressive heat which we defiantly flip off by shooting in an air-conditioned studio. Watch for episode three of Radio Free Charleston later today at the Gazz TV page.

Monday Morning Edible Art

2006-08-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week's art is not a digitally-assaulted photograph, or a painting, or a sketch. It's a cake. To be exact, it's a two-layer sheet cake, with one orange layer and one lemon layer, chocolate icing on the sides, cherry icing in between, and vanilla on top, and a swirlly-tasty design! I made my own birthday cake, about 360 days ago. It looked interesting, but it tasted fantastic! I'll be doing something less ambitious this weekend.

click to enlarge, right-click to taste (if your computer is equipped with the special tasting hardware)

Songs Of The Week: Sham VooDoo does The Beatles

2006-08-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

It's another dip into the Radio Free Charleston archives this week, as we revisit the April 1990 "Beatles For Easter" show, which featured songs about the Fab Four, as well as cover versions of Beatles tunes by international and local artists. For some reason this week, I've been desperate to hear good cover versions of Beatles' tunes. I have another reason for posting these songs this week, since these are in-studio performances by one of my best friends, John "Sham Voodoo" Estep, late of legendary Charleston bands The Defectors and Clownhole. I've lost touch with Sham--the last I'd heard he was living in Columbus. If anybody knows how I can contact my old buddy--and the co-host of the Beatles tribute episode of RFC, please let me know by leaving a comment below.

We have two songs this week. One really good one, and one that is tainted by my singing. First, the good one: "Cold Turkey" was John Lennon's harrowing primal scream epic about withdrawing from heroin. This is performed by Sham solo, with just his fender, recorded live in the Radio Free Charleston studio. Despite my prompting, heard at the end, Sham did not do the primal scream finale of the song.

The other song is unfortunately marred by my attempted singing. This was at Sham's prompting , and because Stephen Beckner went to sleep instead of coming to the studio at 2 AM to join Sham on the show. This was a medley of Beatle songs, with a few solo tunes added in the mix. I've edited out a few gaffes to try and make it more listenable--I would start laughing when one of us forgot the lyrics, and Sham would get the giggles if I accidentally hit the right note, so it had to be tightened up in order not to be completely awful--aside from that, this is largely as it went out over the air, live at 3:45 AM, on RFC. Most of the transitions between songs are exactly as they were on the original show--and they hold up pretty well considering that it was past 3:30 AM, Sham and I had never rehearsed, and I had no idea what song was coming next.

This medley also includes my infamous Reggae rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine." This was a staple at the jam nights at the old Charleston Playhouse. "Reggae Imagine" was born out of my suggestion that somebody could have a huge hit if the covered "Imagine" with a light Reggae touch. In the drunken spirit of playfulness that inhabited the Playhouse, this got turned into a full-blown hardcore Reggae version, complete with Rastafarian references and "I and I" talk.

Near the end of this medley, which is really only recommended for the most masochistic of Beatle fans, Gary Price and Tom Medvick of the Swivel Rockers wandered into the studio and can be heard, along with Sue Gaines, joining in at the very end. So if you really want to torture yourself, take a listen to "Stars On RFC". And again, apologies for my singing.

IWA Returns Wednesday Night

2006-08-01T06:55:00.000-07:00

IWA East Coast returns to the South Charleston Community Center tomorrow night with "The Evil That Men Do", a bit of midsummer wrestling with a Shakespearian bent. The big news is the IWA EC debut of "The King Of Old School," Steve Corino. Corino's coming to town to take on Ironton's Trik Nasty, and IWA EC favorite.

For bloody spectacle, IWA is serving up three matches, each promising to be more brutal than the previous one. First up, the intense Bull Pain will be taking on Brain Damage. At the last IWA EC show Brain Damage competed in a "Cheese Grater on a pole" match. Bull Pain was last seen at an IWA EC show painting the walls with Ian Rotten's blood. To top the Bull Pain/Brain Damage match, J.C. Bailey and Toby "Mr. Insanity" Klein will face off in a match to see who can staple the most dollar bills to the other's body.

But even that match pales in comparison to the main event. "Baka Gaijen." the team of Mad Man Pondo and 2 Tuff Tony, will seek revenge against the Hane Brothers in West Virginia's first 200 Light Tube Death Match! 200 fluorescent light tubes will be inside the ring. Mayhem will ensue. This will be one of the most memorable matches in IWA East Coast history, so fans of extreme violence will want to be there. Eye protection and closed-toe shoes are recommended.

Also on the card: Indy high-flyer Ricochet takes on Ashland's Juggulator. "Omega" Aaron Draven faces Chuck Taylor. We'll also get to see Tracy Smothers, Warpig and Dr. Max Graves, Crowza and Woody Numbers. Plus, as usual, we can expect a few surprises.

If you go: The show takes place on August 2. Bell time is 7:00 PM at the South Charleston Community Center, 601 Jefferson Road, in South Charleston. Tickets are $15 for ringside, and $10 for general admission.

Monday Morning Art: The Forgotten Series

2006-07-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

We kick off the week, after some hard fought Blogger-twisting, with "Scape Number One", the first of the series which I've been subjecting you to since last year here in PopCult.

This is a digital design of an abstract landscape--bold, yet meaningless, like all half-good art. From August 2005.

click to enlarge

Last Week In Charleston

2006-07-31T05:30:00.000-07:00

We've had an interesting seven days here in Charleston, so while Blogger is having one of its "no, you can't post an image" snits, let's review:

Last Monday, I delivered episode two of Radio Free Charleston and it went online here at the Gazz. I'm very proud of this show, and I'm hard at work on episode three. Kudos to Steve Beckner and The Sleeping Dons for treating us to fantastic music, and thanks to Frank and Brian for their animated bits. Special thanks to my mole at Warners for getting me the sneak peek at the new Batman trailer.

Tuesday was a quiet day, except for me discovering a slow leak in the shutoff valve to my water main.

Wednesday some rich jerk ate an expensive dinner in South Hills, yet it somehow was deemed newsworthy. You can read an insider's take here, courtesy of Hippie Killer. I suppose that, if the wait staff had died of heat exposure while trapped in the bus without air conditioning, it would have been an act of aggression, like the suicides in Gitmo.

More importantly on Wednesday, I got to have dinner with Mel at Graziano's downtown, then checked out The Sleeping Dons at the Vandalia, where they valiantly struggled to perform in a room full of jabbering lawyers. The band was great. The lawyers, not so great.

On Thursday, this week's Toy Of The Week arrived from Hong Kong. You'll have to wait until later in the week to see what it was. It is cool, though. Friday was spent waylaid by a toothache.

Over the weekend, something....different happened. I have been actively scouting bands to appear on Radio Free Charleston. For only the second time since I've been going to listen to bands (over the last twenty years), I had to excuse myself and take off without meeting the band and offering words of encouragement. They were just so bad. I'm not going to name them, in the unlikely event that it was just a bad night, but man, I don't think I'll be giving them a second chance unless I'm forced to at gunpoint. I had to come home and crank up some vintage Beatles just to get the awful noise out of my head.

Ending on a happier note: I also got to babysit my nearly-five-month-old nephew, Willy, and pulled out an old radio broadcast of Radio Free Charleston, from which I will harvest this week's Song Of The Week. Also cool this weekend, but sadly not online, Rusty Marks had a fantastic article in the Sunday Gazette-Mail about the Marx Toy Museum in Moundsville. Any fan of vintage toys owes it to themselves to seek this out. Rusty always does a wonderful job, and it was great reading about this cool local attraction. I've been meaning to go since the museum opened five years ago, but I don't make it up that way very often. Rusty's article makes me want to plan a special trip.

So it was an interesting week, from the debut of RFC episode two, to a visit from our puppet-in-chief, to bad music, to babytime and a neat article on Marx Toys. It's amazing how interesting your week can seem when you're killing time waiting for Blogger to allow you to post your Monday Morning Art.

Disney Goes Krogering

2006-07-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

Animated Discussions
by Rudy Panucci and Melanie Larch

According to a report in the latest issue of Brandweek, Disney is partnering with Kroger to introduce more than 100 Walt Disney branded "healthful" food items. This will be a Kroger-only "private label" brand, so it's quite a marketing coup our local dominant grocery chain. This new Disney food label will be pitched as a healthy alternative to junk foods, and will include water, low-sugar juice, yogurt, meat, cheese, bread, pasta, soup, veggies, and portion-controlled ice cream treats.

Disney characters appearing on the packages include Woody and Buzz Lightyear from "Toy Story," Dash from "The Incredibles," Mike Wazowski from "Monsters Inc," Tigger, Winnie The Pooh, and Mickey Mouse. This is the first time that Disney has partnered with a food retailer for an entire line of products. Essentially, Disney's kid's line will become Kroger's fourth in-house "private label" brand. It comes at a time when Disney is allowing their relationship with McDonalds to come to an end, signaling that perhaps they're concerned with the possibility of Disney being found "guilty by association" when it comes to parent's rising concern over the effect of junk food on their kids.

Disney's healthy kids food items should start turning up soon, if they haven't already, so that they can be in place for the back-to-school push. It'll be interesting to see if this is just a cynical marketing push, or if Disney is serious about using their vast animated character library to try and influence kids to eat better. This effort goes beyond ineffective public service announcements, and actually tries to make healthier food products more enticing to children.

Cool Toy Of The Week: Hot Wheels Silhouette

2006-07-27T06:30:00.000-07:00

We're going retro for this week's cool toy. This is not something you can run out and buy, but it is relevant. Our cool toy this week is Bill Cushenberg's SILHOUETTE, one of the neat-looking cars from the 1960s heyday of custom car design. I wrote about The Batmobile from this era, here. The reason I picked the Silhouette is because, aside from having been made into Hot Wheels and Model kits in years past, it was also the inspiration for the car in "Ribbon Driving," the animated short by my brother Frank, which appears in the latest episode of Radio Free Charleston. See, it's all synergistic and stuff.

Read more about RFC here.

Song Of The Week: God Save The Internet

2006-07-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week's SOTW is by The Broadband, an all-star, all-woman supergroup made up of Jill Sobule, Kay Hanley, and Michelle Lewis. "God Save The Internet" is a lovely plea for Net Neutrality, about which you should be seriously concerned. Go read up on it NOW!

Click on the song title, or follow the link to The Broadband to hear the song. Click on the rest of the links to learn more about the artists and the cause. This is a vital matter of free speech, and the danger of it being wiped out by greedy corporations and evil politicians. If you are an artist or musician, or enjoy the work of artists or musicians, you owe it to yourself to become educated on how this issue, which isn't getting nearly enough attention, can affect you.

This could be an historical turning point. I try not to get too serious here in PopCult, but this is really a big deal that every person who believes in the First Amendment should make a primary concern.

Behind The Scenes At Radio Free Charleston

2006-07-25T10:30:00.000-07:00

The second episode of Radio Free Charleston is now online, over at the GAZZ TV page. Check it out and enjoy! Here are some behind the scenes tidbits about the show to enhance your viewing pleasure:

The shirt I'm wearing is an ECW shirt, featuring Rob Van Dam. I got this at the ECW show in Huntington on July 2. Later that night after leaving the show, Van Dam, at the time both the WWE and ECW Heavyweight champion, was pulled over at a speed trap in Hanging Rock, Ohio and was busted for possession of a certain illicit smokable herb popular with jazz musicians, or so I've heard. Wearing the shirt wasn't necessarily a show of support. I just liked the way it looked.

Stephen Beckner's song, "Falling Star" was the Song Of The Week last week here at PopCult. Stephen has only made a limited number of his "Apples" CD. If you're interested in getting one, drop him an email. Meanwhile, check out his Myspace page and his cool photography blog. We gotta work on getting Stephen to play out more. As a member of Go Van Gogh, he was a titan of the old radio incarnation of RFC.

The Sleeping Dons, quite popular among the commentators on this blog, do not yet have a web presence. If you want to contact them, drop me a line at radiofreechas@charter.net and I'll get the message to them. Check out their Song of the Week here. On RFC they perform a brand-new tune about Native Americans playing baseball, "Story Of the Coyote People."

Look for more music from Stephen Beckner, The Sleeping Dons, and Whistlepunk (from our pilot) on future editions of RFC.

Of course, there's more than music to Radio Free Charleston (named after my long-departed revolutionary radio show, but with video this time, in case you came in late). We also have animation from my brother Frank and my RFC compatriot, Brian Young. The big treat this episode is the debut of the leaked trailer for the next Batman movie. We're really excited about that.

So episode two of RADIO FREE CHARLESTON is ready for viewing. We're hard at work on the third episode, which may be ready remarkably fast. Honest. Let us know what you think of the show.

Monday Morning Art: Shameless Self Promotion

2006-07-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

We kick off this week with a digitally-assaulted self portrait frame grab from episode two of RADIO FREE CHARLESTON, which should go online later today. Sure, it's cheesy and egocentric, but I never said I wasn't cheesy and egocentric. After the show goes up, I'll be posting more background information on the bands and short films, as well as other production tidbits.

Click to enlarge

PopCult note: The Cool Toy Of The Week has been delayed while I wait for it to arrive from Hong Kong. Be patient.

The Animation Glut Continues

2006-07-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

Animated Discussions
by Rudy Panucci and Melanie Larch

Earlier this year, we wrote about the glut of animated features stampeding into theatres and at the moment, we're in the thick of that stampede. It's been quite a mixed bag--the ultra low budget "Hoodwinked" exceeded box office expectations in January; Disney's "The Wild" came and went with its only achievement being the footnote that, adjusted for inflation, it's the worst-performing Disney animated feature of all time; "Ice Age 2" is considered a minor disappointment, but still topped the $150 million mark. Disney/Pixar's "Cars" is humming along nicely and has already passed the $220 million mark in box office earnings. Most other animated films released this year sank like a stone, making barely a ripple at the boxoffice.

Which brings us to this week's entry, "Monster House", which brought in $23 million, good enough for second place at the box office this weekend. This haunted house story employs the same motion capture technology (and producers) used on "The Polar Express", but instead of going for creepy photo realistic character designs, a more cartoony approach was used. By all accounts, the film is much more entertaining than its plodding, padded, Christmas-time predecessor. One other element that possibly contributes to the success of this movie is that the characters are human. It seems like half the computer animated features that have come out this year starred talking animals who all seem to share the same bland sense of design.

Next week, the competition for the family audience heats up further with the release of Warner Brothers "The Ant Bully", produced by Tom Hanks and featuring character designs that look remarkably similar to Dreamworks 1998 cartoon "Antz." This movie tells the story of a sadistic young bully who burns ants with a magnifying glass, then finds himself shrunk down to their size. This film comes out of the studio that gave us "Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius." We don't know how well this one will fare, with "Monster House" going strong and "Cars" still in the top ten.

The first week of August, things get ridiculous. Nickelodeon Films releases "Barnyard", featuring even more talking animals, this time brought to life by some different members of the crew that did "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius". We can't imagine what these studios were thinking, releasing three computer animated family films on three consecutive weeks. It will be a real test of the family film market as the studios scramble to get their kid flicks in theatres before school starts. It'll be a shock if "The Barnyard" manages to draw more than $20 million total at the box office.

One other problem with the glut of animated feature films coming out this year is that so many of them look alike. Computer animation is no longer cutting edge. It's become a cliche'. That's why Disney/Pixar's John Lasseter has very quietly re-started Disney's traditional animation unit. Apparently, going back to old style animation is going to be the only way to get noticed in the future.

Radio Free Charleston Preview

2006-07-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

Episode Two of Radio Free Charleston, featuring Stephen Beckner and The Sleeping Dons will be ready for viewing on Monday. Editing delays and technical hijinks kept us from finishing it in time for this week. However, you can check out a brief trailer below. Enjoy!

Song Of The Week: Falling Star

2006-07-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

The latest SOTW is a treat from Stephen Beckner. "Falling Star" is the studio version of the song Stephen sings on the next Radio Free Charleston (which we are working on furiously).

This is a track from Stephen's new home-made CD, Apples. For information on how to get a copy, contact Stephen Beckner here. You can check out Stephen's photography on his blog here.

You can listen to a couple of songs from Stephen's old band, Go Van Gogh, here.

More No Pants Action

2006-07-20T05:58:00.000-07:00

The No Pants Players are back in action at the Labelle Theater at the South Charleston Museum on D Street this weekend.

For a great evening of family-friendly improv comedy, with audience participation and prizes involved, get yourself down to see the state's only improv comedy troupe. The shows start at 8 PM Friday and Saturday nights. Admission is a mere five bucks, and the NPP will also have T-shirts available for the proud pants-free fan.

If you go: Admission is five dollars. The shows start at 8 PM Friday and Saturday at the LaBelle Theater, 311 D Street. South Charleston

Vampires Of The Evening

2006-07-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday night at the Empty Glass, area aficionados of fine cinema will be treated to a screening of Vampire Whores From Outer Space, a locally-produced epic by Eamon Hardman. As he describes it, "A group of idiots band together to defeat vampiric alien prostitutes. Raunchy sci-fi/horror/comedy/exploitation that should offend everyone at least once. " I hear it's like a Merchant-Ivory film, only with vampire space prostitutes and a bit of gore. The soundtrack includes tunes by The Pistol Whippers, Lords Of The Highway, and Pinky.

After the movie, you can stick around and catch a performance by Noizebox with special guest, the Scalliwags. Watch the film close and you'll see spaceships provided by my brother Frank. One of those actually made a cameo in the first episode of Radio Free Charleston.

If you go: The movie starts around 10:30 PM at the Empty Glass 410 Elizabeth St. in Charleston. There's a $6 cover charge, which includes the movie and the bands.

Monday Morning Art: Red Bridge

2006-07-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

More colorplay leads off the week, as I take a shot of the Dunbar bridge, colorize it, and set it against a yellow background. It didn't really take enough work to call it "digitally-assaulted," so let's just say it's "digitally-manipulated."

Free Previews Of Cutting Edge Animation

2006-07-16T08:45:00.000-07:00

Animated Discussions
by Rudy Panucci and Melanie Larch

Thanks to the magic of the internets, fans of cutting edge animation can get free sneak peeks at two cool new projects.

IGN is offering the first 24 minutes of Richard Linklatter's adaptation of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly. We actually didn't care much for Linklatter's previous foray into the world of rotoscoped animation, Waking Life. It was basically a sub-par arthouse flick with animated effects that served no real purpose. A Scanner Darkly is different, and suggests that Linklatter may have just been getting his feet wet with Waking Life in order to prepare himself for this project. A Scanner Darkly is a futuristic tale of drug interdiction and intrigue from the creator of Blade Runner. You can check out the first big chunk of this movie, which is currently in limited release, right here.

Mike Mignola, the cartoonist/creator of Hellboy, has a new project coming to the cable channel, Sci Fi. The Amazing Screw On Head is described as "an animated comedy" by Sci Fi. Based his 2002 comic book, it's a send up of Steampunk and Lovecraftian horror. This series tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's top spy, a bodyless head who is a master of disguise! You can watch the first episode of The Amazing Screw On Head here.

Cool Toy Of The Week: The Batmobile, you know THE REAL BATMOBILE

2006-07-15T08:15:00.000-07:00

Short entry this week, because our cool toy is not official yet, rumors have been circulating for a couple of weeks, but reliable sources tell me that Mattel has coughed up enough money to end the feud between DC Comics and master car designer George Barris, and has secured the master toy license to produce the famous Batmobile from the 1960's Batman TV show. This car has been in legal limbo for years, as it was ruled that Barris owned the design, but not the name or the bat-insignia. There haven't been any legally-licensed toys of this most famous version of the Caped Crusaders car for over twenty years.

Now we'll finally get the full gamut--Hot Wheels, 1/18 scale desktop toys, remote-control versions and maybe (though this is a pipe dream) a version scaled for Barbie that we can steal and use for Captain Action! And it'll be the real Batmobile, not that ugly thing from the 1989 movie that looked like a Goth sex toy, or the 'roided up SUV from Batman Begins. This is the real deal--the coolest car ever built!

It won't be a done deal until the official announcement is made, reportedly at the San Diego Comic Con next weekend, but things are looking good for fans of the coolest car in the world. This is a big deal for us aging nerds, trust me. The Batmobile ROCKS!

You can read about the second coolest car in the world here.

Radio Free Charleston Production Diary--Show Two

2006-07-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

We are hard at work on the second episode of Radio Free Charleston. Last night, at the LiveMix studio, we recorded Steve Beckner and The Sleeping Dons. They'll be the musical guests on the next RFC. We're also working on a major Hollywood scoop, and of course we'll have all the unexpected visual treats designed to amaze and confuse you that you've come to know and love. If all goes according to schedule, the next episode of Radio Free Charleston will be coming your way next week!

We're also lining up guests for future shows. If you have a band, play solo music, or have some experimental films or short animated bits that you'd like us to consider, drop me a line at radiofreechas@charter.net. We're out to prove that the Mountain State is more than just country music and friends of minerals.

Song Of The Week: Wall Of Voodoo

2006-07-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, we had "Andy Prieboy Week" here at PopCult. This included the SOTW, a review of the book he'd co-written, bonus reviews, and an explanation of who he is. To remind you, he is the former lead singer of Wall Of Voodoo. But he wasn't the first lead singer for that band. Originally, Stan Ridgeway was the frontman for Wall Of Voodoo, and it was Ridgeway who sang on their biggest hit, "Mexican Radio."

Since we paid so much attention to Prieboy, it's only fair that we give equal time to Ridgeway, so our song of the week is "Call Of The West," the title cut of a Wall Of Voodoo album, and a great example of their cinematic sound that blended Morricone with New Wave. This one is a Ridgeway tour-de-force.

And the reason we made this the SOTW this week is that next Tuesday, a reformed Wall Of Voodoo will open for Cyndi Lauper at a concert in Orange County. Nobody knows exactly who will be in this incarnation of the band, since two of the original four members are dead, one member who had been fired is complaining loudly that he wasn't contacted, and none of the other members of the band are talking.

However, in an exciting development over the last week, a photo was posted on a Wall Of Voodoo message board that showed Stan Ridgeway, shoulder-to-shoulder with Andy Prieboy. The two have never performed together, and in fact, Ridgeway hasn't performed much Wall Of Voodoo music since he left the band, so this may indicate a special union that would allow fans to hear song from the complete history of the band. It's only speculation at this point. All we know for sure is that Wall Of Voodoo, with Ridgeway included, will be performing next week. But all indications are that it might be a combination of both incarnations of the band. It would be like when David Lee Roth toured with Sammy Hagar, only with good music.

Disguise and Destruction in Nitro

2006-07-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

I had a wild time in Nitro Saturday, as I took in my first XMCW wrestling show. It was lot of fun, seeing some of the up-and-coming area wrestling talents work their magic in front an enthusiastic crowd, but the evening ended on a shocking, perhaps even disturbing note.

But first, the show itself was a trip. This was my first time seeing most of these folks in action and I was impressed at the level of athleticism and theatrics on display. Local boys like Smokey C and Max Rock showed real star quality, while The Unholy made a tremendous fire-breathing entrance, before his three-way match with Wes Lynch and Eric Steel. I was excited to see Death Falcon, since I'd been hearing about him for some time, but he factored into one really weird turn during the evening. It was a fun show, and I'll probably be going back, but during one of the night's main events, something bizarre and unexpected happened.

The Kid, a miniscule, but vicious fellow, was facing Alan Lynch, the XMCW champ. However, he was not alone. He had Death Falcon in his corner. It was a particularly brutal match, with plastic tubs filled with barbwire coming into play, and Death Falcon getting in more than a few shots on the outnumbered champ. At one point, Lynch was on his back outside the ring when an elderly gentleman who had been at ringside in a wheelchair all evening rose shakily from his chair, and tried to help Lynch to his feet. It seemed like a touching, uniquely West Virginian moment, until the old guy (who looked like a Civil War Veteran) started beating on Lynch and then delivered a snap suplex. The now three-on-one beating continued back in the ring, where the "old guy" removed his disguise to reveal that he was, in fact, Danny Boyd--West Virginia filmmaker, author, and photographer.
Now, I've known Danny for over twenty years. And I knew about his fascination with professional wrestling. It even led him to become a professional wrestler a couple of years ago. His flirtation with professional wrestling was covered in a documentary film last year. But we all thought Danny was done with this. He left XMCW fifteen months ago. He made a hero's exit. He left as a good guy. It was a bit of a shock to see him return to the ring--now that he's pushing fifty--in such an underhanded way. It's almost like the world of professional wrestling has changed him. He's gone over to the dark side. I know Danny's friends are worried about him. I just don't know where this will lead. It was a strange ending to a fun evening.

Photo credit: Susan Lively

Monday Morning Art: Drew Redux

2006-07-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

For our weekly art blog this time we're going back a couple of weeks to FestivALL, where Drew The Dramatic Fool was peforming on Capitol Street. I caught a few moments of his act on video, and this is the resulting digitally-assaulted frame grab.

It's another exercise in color composition and image manipulation.

Click to enlarge.

The Writer's Best Friend

2006-07-07T02:35:00.000-07:00

Two years ago, when I was hunkered down in my office bunker working on a particularly grueling deadline, I had a steady stream of folks knocking on my front door in a two-hour period. There were two kids selling fundraising crap, a seedy-looking guy asking if I wanted my lawn mowed, a hippy chick selling candles and incense, a Jehovah's Witness, two ladies from a Baptist Church from Nitro (poaching potential parishioners from the Baptist Church two blocks away, I guess), and a young lady selling magazine subscriptions for Jesus who seemed frightened by the rabbit in my yard (the young lady, that is, Jesus fears no rabbits, or so I'm told).

"Does the bunny bite?" she asked me, her voice quivering. Unfortunately, I didn't think the vicious attack bunny would scare off any other unwanted visitors, and the constant interruptions were driving me nuts, so I did something drastic. I composed a little note and posted it on my front door. I haven't been bothered since.

Who know those people could read? The bit about not changing our beliefs because a stranger comes to our door was lifted from Mark Evanier, who writes a blog that I visit every day right here. Mark cracked me up yesterday with this suduko post. The solution is here.

Two years of peace, all because of one little piece of paper taped inside my screen door. Sometimes curmudgeonliness pays off.

Hypothetical Legal Question

2006-07-07T02:30:00.000-07:00

I was just wondering, if a court ever ruled that contracts or release forms signed under the influence of drugs or alcohol were null and void, due to the incapacity and impairment of the person signing, would that mean that the Girls Gone Wild people would have to go out of business?

Songs Of The Week: Go Van Gogh

2006-07-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

We're taking another deep dip back into the Radio Free Charleston archives this week--all the way back to 1989. Go Van Gogh was the most-requested local band on my old radio show. Made up of two sets of brothers, all four members of the band were capable of singing lead, and they also wrote their own material, which includes some of the finest rock songs the Charleston area has produced. In addition to a rabid local following, the boys would often pop into the RFC studio late at night, as seen above. The composite photo depicts (L to R): Johnny Rock, Tim Rock, and Stephen Beckner. Mark, Steve's brother, didn't make it to the studio that night. This week's main SOTW is "Shut Up, I Love You," written by Stephen Beckner. It was easily the most-requested song during the eight months that Radio Free Charleston was on the air. This recording is a demo of the song, I believe, from late 1989. Steve sings lead on this tune.

As a bonus this week, PopCult also brings you Go Van Gogh performing The Beatles' "I Am The Walrus." This is one of my favorite Beatle songs, and this recording was captured live, at the Charleston Playhouse, with Mark Beckner on lead vocals. It was recorded especially for the old radio show.

Stephen Beckner is currently living in Elkview and racking up photography awards by the armful. You can check out his blog here. He's also still writing songs, and will be on a future episode of the new Radio Free Charleston video podcast. Mark Beckner is living in Nashville, and performing and writing songs with his band, Hitchcock Circus. The Rock brothers are still here in Charleston and they're cooking up a new musical project. As soon as more details emerge, I'll tell you about it here in PopCult.

Reminder: The Sleeping Dons

2006-07-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

I don't want to kick up another firestorm in the comments section or anything, but since we featured The Sleeping Dons performing our song of the week a couple of weeks ago, I figured some of you might want to go see them in person.

The Sleeping Dons, Sean Richardson (left), Jay Lukens and Deron Sodaro will be performing during happy hour (7:00 PM to 8:00 PM) at The Vandalia Lounge every Wednesday in July, starting tonight. I'll be there to check out one of the most charismatic bands in Charleston, and you might want to go hear the guys, too.

Correction: The start time for the happy hour sets by The Sleeping Dons is 5:30 PM, not 7:00. They're still playing until 8:00 PM. Sorry about that guys, your second set sounded great tonight!

RADIO FREE CHARLESTON IS BACK!

2006-07-04T09:00:00.001-07:00

More than sixteen years after office politics killed Radio Free Charleston, my greatest creation has returned! You can go to this page, click on the little TV, and see the new video webcast of RFC.

Yes, it's a video show, but we're calling it "Radio Free Charleston." I wanted to keep the name, even though technology has caught up to my original vision. RFC will bring you the best music, experimental film and video, and comedy from the Charleston area's most daring performers and artists. It'll all be wrapped up in a tight little ten-or-fifteen minute package. I'll be hosting RFC from various locations around town.

The pilot episode features the alterna-bombastic rock of Whistlepunk and the comedy stylings of the No Pants Players. Coincidentally, I got to enjoy live performances by both last weekend. You can read up on Whistlepunk here, here, and here. I've written about the No Pants Players here and here. It was a kick having these two groups of talented folks on the first webcast of RFC. The No Pants Players will be bringing their improv comedy to future episodes on a regular basis, and Whistlepunk will return on future shows as well.

We're already hard at work on more episodes of RFC, and have an exciting slate of musicians, comedy bits and short filmic fits of weirdness lined up. We're also working on an amazing scoop for our second episode, which will be ready by the end of the month. So go check out the show, and let us know what you think. And check back here in PopCult for more tales and music from the archives of the original Radio Free Charleston. Later this week, we'll bring you some vintage Go Van Gogh from 1989.

So go check it out, and feel free to use the comments to let me know what you think.

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