PopCult Rudy Panucci on Pop Culture

The VooDoo Katz, The Synergy Collective, Spurgie Hankins, Art and more on Sunday at the Blue Parrot

February 29, 2008 by Rudy Panucci
It's Dem VooDoo Katz!Starting 3 p.m. Sunday, March 2 at the Blue Parrot, 14 1/2 Capitol St., some of the area’s leading bands are featured, along with a silent art auction, in a benefit show. The Voodoo Katz (seen right), the Tom Batchelor Band, Shelter In Place, the Spurgie Hankins Band, Synergy Collective and others performers will take the stage and play into the evening.

You’ve seen The Katz and The Collective on recent episodes of Radio Free Charleston, and if all goes according to plan, we’ll be recording The Spurgie Hankins Band Sunday for inclusion in a future episode.

The show is a benefit for former Charleston Newspapers employee Emily Gunter-Haynes. Sponsored by the Lambda Iota Honor Society, the event is raising funds to offer financial assistance in the treatment of nonepileptic seizures and myasthenia gravis. You must be 21 to enter. Call 342-2583.

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RFC Notes: The Sojourner’s Show, part two

February 27, 2008 by Rudy Panucci

Karen Allen, Sean Richardson, Ric Cochran, John Lilly, Mark Davis(seated),Brandon Hughes ,Rich Allen, Lacy Dix
Part two of the Sojourner’s Benefit Concert special edition of Radio Free Charleston is online now! This episode features music from The Synergy Collective and an all-star line-up of the evening’s guests that includes John Lilly, Sean Richardson, Karen Allen, Rich Allen, Mark Davis, Ric Cochran and Brandon and Lacy from The Synergy Collective. You’ll also hear from Margaret Taylor, director of the YWCA Sojourner’s Shelter, and Ric Cochran of V100, who organized the concert.

As with last week’s episode, we put the animation and mind-hurting weirdness on hold for a good cause. Don’t fret, the next episode will see a return to Radio Free Charleston’s trademark demented humor and fast-paced insanity.

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Turbulent Sky: Monday Morning Art

February 25, 2008 by Rudy Panucci
Turbulent Sky

The week is off to an artistic start with one more selection from the art that I have donated to the Emily Gunter-Haynes Benefit concert/art auction, which will be held this Sunday at The Blue Parrot, starting at 3 PM.  In addition to art by me and also some real artists, there will be music from The Synergy Collective, The VooDoo Katz and Spurgie Hankins Band, along with many others.  The day kicks off at 3 PM, and runs until whenever.  That’s Sunday March 2, at the Blue Parrot on Capitol Street in Charleston.

This piece is called “Turbulent Sky” for some reason.  It’s a digital painting, and there’s not much else to say about it.  Just look at it. 

As always, you can click the image to see a larger version.  And you can also buy this image in the newly revamped Monday Morning Art Store.  Any proceeds from the sale of this image will be donated to Emily and Jeff, so spend freely, people.  You can also follow these links to see my efforts in the PopCult store and the Radio Free Charleston store. Follow the jump for a look at alternate versions of this piece.

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Looking Through The Wires

February 18, 2008 by Rudy Panucci
Looking Through The Wires

Our Monday Morning Art this week is another digital painting from a series I am doing for the benefit concert/art auction for Emily Gunter-Haynes, which is coming up March 2 at the Blue Parrot.  I’ll have more details as the day approaches.  This will be the first time that any of my art has been auctioned (that I know of) since 1990, so I hope these digital paintings are able to bring in a few extra bucks to help out Emily and Jeff as they struggle against a debilitating health issue.  The painting is “Looking Through The Wires.”  It’s a combination of several techniques, all done using the same trusty computer that I use to edit Radio Free Charleston. I’d like to think that some people may consider it rather nifty-looking.

As always, you can click the image to see a larger version.  And you can also buy this image in the newly revamped Monday Morning Art Store.  Any proceeds from the sale of this image will be donated to Emily and Jeff, so spend freely, people.  You can also follow these links to see my efforts in the PopCult store and the Radio Free Charleston store. Follow the jump for a look at alternate versions of this piece.

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RFC 35: The Sojourner’s Benefit Concert Show

February 13, 2008 by Rudy Panucci
Sean and Karen and Mark and Deron and Jerry. Actually, it's Jerry and Deron and Mark (way in the back) and Sean and Karen.

A very special episode of Radio Free Charleston is online now. On January 25, Ric Cochran and Friends staged a concert at the La Belle Theater in South Charleston to raise awareness and money for the Sojourner’s Shelter for Homeless Women & Families, a program of the Charleston YWCA. It’s a great cause and it was a great night. This was the night of the infamous “blue haze” that scooted across the county, and despite that, a large crowd turned out to hear music from Ric Cochran and his many friends. I had planned to be on hand to record Rich Allen for the show, but I wound up recording most of the night, and decided to turn it into two episodes of Radio Free Charleston. There was just so much great music, and it’s for such a good cause that I figured it was worth using RFC to help raise awareness, instead of doing our usual confusing Avant-garde goofiness.

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Monday Morning Art: Things Flying Over Other Things

February 11, 2008 by Rudy Panucci
Things Flying Over Other Things

We put the boot to the beginning of a new week with a digital painting by your’s truly, “Things Flying Over Other Things.”  The title is fairly self-explanatory.  This may wind up as part of a series of digital paintings of mine that will be auctioned off as part of a benefit in a few weeks.  I’ll keep you posted on that that as the date approaches. 

As always, you can click the image to see a larger version.  And you can also buy this image in the newly revamped Monday Morning Art Store.  You still have a chance to be one of the first ten customers of the store!  You can also follow these links to see my efforts in the PopCult store and the Radio Free Charleston store. Follow the jump for an earlier version.

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Coffee House Shows In Two Cities

February 8, 2008 by Rudy Panucci

Caffeine addicts in both Charleston and Huntington will get extra treats with their java tonight as Radio Free Charleston vets perform at Capitol Roasters in Charleston and The Java Joint in Huntington.

Here in the Capitol City, Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen From Mars, who appeared as “Aurora” on episode 22 of RFC take the performance area at Capitol Roasters starting at 8PM.  Joining RFC’s cutest couple will be Joe Slack, who appeared on episode 25 of RFC.  This has been a big week for some of our youngest guests, as they landed an article in the Metro section of the Newspaper, and their new song, “Letters,” was featured as the “Song Of The Day” over in the Soundcheck blog, here at TheGazz.com.

If you find yourself fifty miles or so West, you might want to head to the Java Joint to hear Seven Minutes Till Midnight. This band lit up episodes 26 and 28 of RFC, and have one of the most exciting sounds in town.  Their show also starts at 8 PM, down there in the Sea of Green that is H-town.

Follow the jump for videos from Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen From Mars, and Seven Minutes Till Midnight.

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Photo Essay: IWA East Coast “A Need To Bleed”

by Rudy Panucci
Mad Man Pondo, outside of the ring.

24 hours removed from an incredible night of wrestling, your loyal PopCultster has uploaded a batch of photos depicting highlights from the evening. Presented for your enjoyment, the PopCult-eye-view of IWA East Coast’s “A Need To Bleed 2008.” Above, you see IWA East Coast’s main man, Mad Man Pondo, moments after being tossed out of the ring during his “No rope barbed wire match.” More pics following the jump:

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A Need To Bleed 2008

February 5, 2008 by Rudy Panucci

Wednesday Night At the South Charleston Community Center, check out West Virginia’s wildest wrestling federation:

The lord blesses those who seek out hardcore wrestling

For the full card, follow the jump.

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Monday Morning Arts

February 4, 2008 by Rudy Panucci

This week in PopCult we’re revisiting a couple of my favorite digitally-assaulted photographs of Charleston from the past couple of years.  The big one above is a shot, looking up, at the Huntington Bank building taken from Hale Street.  I enhanced the color and played with the brightness and contrast bringing out details that weren’t immediately apparent in the original photo. This shot first shared the Monday Morning Art spot back in June 2006.

At the right you see my take on the State Capitol building, with a purple sky and loads of contrast-pushing.  I really like the way this one looks.  I first used it as Monday Morning Art back in November 2006.  I thought I’d give the clamoring masses yet another chance to buy this design on a T Shirt.

Both of these images are available in the Monday Morning Art Store, which is split between them this week.  Also, these images are going up without the PopCult logo this time, just to see if that makes any difference in the non-existent sales. 

As always, you can click the images to see a larger version.  And you can also buy this image in the newly revamped Monday Morning Art Store.  You still have a chance to be one of the first ten customers of the store!  This week the store is offering two different images, so there’s twice as much stuff for you not to order.  You can also follow these links to see my efforts in the PopCult store and the Radio Free Charleston store.

As a new adjunct to our weekly dose of Monday Morning Art, I’m going to start doing a weekend wrap up, following the jump.  This way we can look back at the cool things that I wrote about last weekend without clogging up the blog with loads of extra posts.

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