RFC pdouction notes

Episode 15 of Radio Free Charleston, "Black and White," is online now! This episode features an epic-length Pentagram Flowerbox, plus music from The Appalachian Celtic Consort and The Heydays. Both our musical guests return with original compositions after performing traditional songs on their first RFC appearance. This episode has a nice acoustic feel, except for the satanic rituals, explosions and drug use. Both performances were recorded at LiveMix Studio. I host the show from Downtown Charleston.


"Timmy's Problem" is a very special episode of Pentagram Flowerbox. We gave you a teaser in episode 14 of RFC, but now you get the full story! Little Timmy has started sneaking into Satan's camper to smoke drugs! This is causing all sorts of headaches for the Lord of Darkness, who really doesn't want to attract the attention of the police. If you want sneak peeks of what's coming from Pentagram Flowerbox and want to see their material before we get our hands on it, check out their website.

The Appalachian Celtic Consort appeared on episode five of Radio Free Charleston when they performed "Johnny Jump Up and Monaghan Jig. They came into the studio last summer and recorded a few songs for us. We feared that we had lost their additional performances in a catastrophic hard-drive crash in September, but months of effort allowed us to recover their performance of "Dear Lady," which tells the tale of a vampire. In the crash, we lost two of the four camera angles, but we persevered with two cameras and some extra video FX love, creating what we hope looks like a living painting of this talented band of musicians. Be sure to check out the ACC website for more information on how to buy their CDs and a list of their upcoming shows.

The Heydays were on episode ten of Radio Free Charleston when Douglas Imbrogno and Paul Calicoat treated us to a rendition of "Shady Grove." This time around they bring us Doug's original song "I Never Slept With Alan Ginsberg." The video for this song is an experimental clip that layers on video effects in an attempt to emulate animation. Astute readers will note that Douglas Imbrogno is also the editor of TheGazz.com.

Production Notes for Episode 15 of RFC

Episode 15 of Radio Free Charleston, "Black and White," is online now! This episode features an epic-length Pentagram Flowerbox, plus music from The Appalachian Celtic Consort and The Heydays. Both our musical guests return with original compositions after performing traditional songs on their first RFC appearance. This episode has a nice acoustic feel, except for the satanic rituals, explosions and drug use. Both performances were recorded at LiveMix Studio. I host the show from Downtown Charleston.

Monday Morning Art: The Ramp

This week's art, another in my pretentious "Pop Art Charleston" series, is a view of the South Side Bridge ramp over Kanawha Boulevard.

As always, click the photo for a larger view. And go here for the Monday Morning Art Store, and here for the PopCult store. You still have time to be the first customer!

Song and Video of the Week: “Writing’s Hard”

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Here's a special bonus RFC song.  Just about 27 hours before this message is being posted, we recorded Parkersburg singer/songwriter John Radcliff at LiveMix Studio for episode 16 of Radio Free Charleston.  Some of you old-timers may remember John's amazing guitar work with The Swivel Rockers, Feast of Stephen and The Mad Scientist Club.   About six years ago, he started writing and singing his own material, and I was blown away by the quality of his tunesmithery.

Coming Attractions

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 Look for the full episode at Gazztv Monday, and detailed production notes right here in PopCult.

If you're a fan of the Original Captain Marvel, known by his magic word "Shazam" to most folks, then this is the best of times and the worst of times. We will ignore the god-awful "grim and gritty" re-imagining of the Shazam family of characters currently being inflicted by my least-favorite comic book writer, Judd Winnick (of MTV's "The Real World." He was the guy that made you like Puck in season three). Aside from that abomination, there are very cool things afoot with my favorite super-hero, The Big Red Cheese.

Jeff Smith, the cartoonist behind the amazing "Bone" comic books, is producing a four-issue mini-series that takes the Shazam characters back to their roots and re-tells a classic adventure in "Shazam: The Monster Society Of Evil." This series restores the sense of wonder and light-hearted adventure that was the hallmark of the Captain Marvel stories of the 1940s, when he starred in the best-selling comic book of all time, with sales of six million copies every three weeks. The series even has a secret message in each issue that has to be decoded at the DC Comics Website.

Smith is updating the Captain Marvel story, with Billy Batson, the child who utters the magic word "Shazam" in order to become Captain Marvel, aged at about eight years old. We get to see the beginnings of the character, and his "Marvel Family" sidekicks, and we get a fresh take on the Monster Society Of Evil, which was an epic serial that ran for 25 chapters over two years from 1942 to 1944. This is good stuff. Smith's style is cartoony, but serves the story well, much like the artwork of Captain Marvel's main artist, C.C. Beck.
The first issue of "Shazam: The Monster Society Of Evil" went on sale a few weeks ago. Issue two is due out next week.

Aside from this very cool mini-series, DC Direct has announced that they will be releasing a collection of Shazam action figures this fall, with 3-D depictions not only of Captain Marvel, but also of Captain Marvel Jr., Mary Marvel, Billy Batson, his enemy Dr. Sivana, and even Hoppy The Marvel Bunny. Yes, "Hoppy The Marvel Bunny." I said the original series was light-hearted, remember?

If you are an obsessive fan of the Original Marvel Family and the entire Shazam mythos, then you need to zip on over to the Marvel Family Web, which is where I swiped the images for this post. Bookmark that site, and you'll keep up to date with all the info on Captain Marvel. Plus you can poke around the site for tons of great historical data on the days when comic books were fun.

If you're a fan of the Original Captain Marvel, known by his magic word "Shazam" to most folks, then this is the best of times and the worst of times. We will ignore the god-awful "grim and gritty" re-imagining of the Shazam family of characters currently being inflicted by my least-favorite comic book writer, Judd Winnick (of MTV's "The Real World." He was the guy that made you like Puck in season three). Aside from that abomination, there are very cool things afoot with my favorite super-hero, The Big Red Cheese.

Jeff Smith, the cartoonist behind the amazing "Bone" comic books, is producing a four-issue mini-series that takes the Shazam characters back to their roots and re-tells a classic adventure in "Shazam: The Monster Society Of Evil." This series restores the sense of wonder and light-hearted adventure that was the hallmark of the Captain Marvel stories of the 1940s, when he starred in the best-selling comic book of all time, with sales of six million copies every three weeks. The series even has a secret message in each issue that has to be decoded at the DC Comics Website.

Smith is updating the Captain Marvel story, with Billy Batson, the child who utters the magic word "Shazam" in order to become Captain Marvel, aged at about eight years old. We get to see the beginnings of the character, and his "Marvel Family" sidekicks, and we get a fresh take on the Monster Society Of Evil, which was an epic serial that ran for 25 chapters over two years from 1942 to 1944. This is good stuff. Smith's style is cartoony, but serves the story well, much like the artwork of Captain Marvel's main artist, C.C. Beck.
The first issue of "Shazam: The Monster Society Of Evil" went on sale a few weeks ago. Issue two is due out next week.

Aside from this very cool mini-series, DC Direct has announced that they will be releasing a collection of Shazam action figures this fall, with 3-D depictions not only of Captain Marvel, but also of Captain Marvel Jr., Mary Marvel, Billy Batson, his enemy Dr. Sivana, and even Hoppy The Marvel Bunny. Yes, "Hoppy The Marvel Bunny." I said the original series was light-hearted, remember?

If you are an obsessive fan of the Original Marvel Family and the entire Shazam mythos, then you need to zip on over to the Marvel Family Web, which is where I swiped the images for this post. Bookmark that site, and you'll keep up to date with all the info on Captain Marvel. Plus you can poke around the site for tons of great historical data on the days when comic books were fun.

Cool Thing Of The Week: SHAZAM!

If you're a fan of the Original Captain Marvel, known by his magic word "Shazam" to most folks, then this is the best of times and the worst of times. We will ignore the god-awful "grim and gritty" re-imagining of the Shazam family of characters currently being inflicted by my least-favorite comic book writer, Judd Winnick (of MTV's "The Real World." He was the guy that made you like Puck in season three). Aside from that abomination, there are very cool things afoot with my favorite super-hero, The Big Red Cheese.

Jeff Smith, the cartoonist behind the amazing "Bone" comic books, is producing a four-issue mini-series that takes the Shazam characters back to their roots and re-tells a classic adventure in "Shazam: The Monster Society Of Evil." This series restores the sense of wonder and light-hearted adventure that was the hallmark of the Captain Marvel stories of the 1940s, when he starred in the best-selling comic book of all time, with sales of six million copies every three weeks. The series even has a secret message in each issue that has to be decoded at the DC Comics Website.

Counting The Days….

...until the first opera/musical based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith is announced.   You know there's got to be a dozen or so ironic pop culture mavens out there cranking out a quickie cash-in job, disguised as a hip, irreverent social commentary.

Monday Morning Art: The Building Looks Back

Last week our Monday Morning Art was a digitally-assaulted photograph of The Union Building, taken from Capitol Street.  This week we turn the tables with a digitally-assaulted photograph of Capitol Street, taken from The Union Building.  If you look about a fourth of the way up from the bottom, just left of center, that's where I was standing when I took last week's photo.  It was not the only time I've been just left of center. 

As always, click the photo for a larger view. And go here for the Monday Morning Art Store, and here for the PopCult store. You still have time to be the first customer!

When I was a kid, my favorite action figure was Captain Action. He was a GI Joe-sized toy figure that could be dressed as other superheroes like Superman, Spider-man, Batman, Green Hornet, Captain America, and many others. Our cool thing of the week this week is an upcoming reproduction of the hard-to-find Aurora Model Kit of the Captain, which you can read about here.

Captain Action left a huge impression on me when he debuted forty years ago. I've written about him here, here, and here, and he's popped up on episodes seven and fourteen of Radio Free Charleston, and episode ten was called "Captain Action Shirt." So you can see, I'm a big fan. Joe Ahearn is the current keeper of the Captain's flame, and you can check out the Captain Action Enterprises website to see what other cool Cap products are on the way. You can get your own Captain Action Shirt here.

This model kit is being released to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the original release of the kit. It's an accurate reproduction, but it also comes with an alternate head and base, which are improvements over the original. Kit-builders will have a choice. They can make the kit exactly as it was in 1967, or they can build an improved version. Or they can buy two and make one of each. The model kits will retail for $30 to $35 each, which is quite reasonable for a limited edition of 1,000 kits. Comparable "garage kits" often sell for more than a hundred dollars, due to the high costs associated with a short production run.

This project is a joint effort between Captain Action Enterprises, and Moebius Models, a new company dedicated to preserving the legacy of the orginal, legendary Aurora Model company, which made the coolest model kits of the 1960s and 70s. Other cool upcoming releases from Moebius include Dr. Jeckyl as Mr. Hyde and the legendary Tom Daniel car, Rommel's Rod. This is a cool mission that will shine the warm sunlamp of nostalgia on the arthritic joints of many of us children of the 1960s.

Cool Thing Of The Week: Captain Action Model

 



When I was a kid, my favorite action figure was Captain Action. He was a GI Joe-sized toy figure that could be dressed as other superheroes like Superman, Spider-man, Batman, Green Hornet, Captain America, and many others. Our cool thing of the week this week is an upcoming reproduction of the hard-to-find Aurora Model Kit of the Captain, which you can read about here.

Pre-Valentine’s Day Massacre

It was one week before Valentine's Day, and I have to say, no matter how many strange things you've lived through, nothing can quite prepare you for the sight of your girlfriend being handcuffed to a professional wrestler. 

That's my Valentine, Melanie Larch on the right, handcuffed to IWA East Coast Mega-star, Crowza at last week's "A Need To Bleed" event in South Charleston.  Mel's a noted area singer (She'll be featured in the West Virginia Symphony Orhcestra's  production of "Carmen" in May, and you can see her singing "Ave Maria" on episode 11 of Radio Free Charleston, and at this link).  She has no previous professional wrestling experience, at least not as a participant.  One of the things I enjoy most about IWA East Coast shows is the surreal nature that they tend to take on.   Thanks to IWA East Coast and Nick Gatens for the photos. 

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Monday Morning Art: The Capitol

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

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.