The PopCulteer
January 29, 2016

We are very excited here at PopCult central. Next week, we jump back into the internet radio game with OnTheAiRadio… Appalachian Independent Radio. You can keep up with the latest news on AIRadio at their Facebook page.

You may remember that in late 2014 I started doing Radio Free Charleston as a weekly, two-hour audio program, to compliment the two video shows that I currently produce that focus on local music. I did this show for Voices of Appalachia, and you may also remember that last summer we started having technical issues with the stream, and I continued RFC volume Three (the official name of the radio show/podcast) as a podcast. After 39 episodes, I put the show on hold.

Voices of Appalachia was having major technical issues and it was decided that it would be easier to replace VOA with an all-new entity that would combine the best programming from Voices of Appalachia with some terrific and exciting new shows and free ourselves from the requirement to only focus on programming with an Appalachian origin.

Appalachian Independent Radio (AKA The AIR) will still have a healthy dose of local and regional news, views and music. We are based in Charleston, West Virginia, after all, but we will also be bringing in independent music from all around the world, and our programming will reflect the boldest, uncensored views and new music that you’ll hear locally. We plan to take our Charleston point of view and bring it to an international audience.

That means that returning programs like Radio Free Charleston, Empty Glass Records Presents and Lynn Browder’s Autism discussion show will be augmented by new programs from the same creators as well as fresh new voices and viewpoints.  Other hosts making the leap from VOA include Jerry Brooks and Lee Hale. You can expect to hear new shows from Chase Henderson and Terry Bartley, Lynn Rousseau, Tim Hoover, Marcus Oglesby, Elaine Abdalla, Dick Findlay and more.

Many of the new shows will debut next week, while others will be added to the schedule over the course of the next month.

Lynn Browder, in addition to her Autism show, will be interviewing comedians and curating new independent music. She’s been working very hard to line up new music and help coordinate some of the new show hosts. Eric Meadows remains the man behind the curtain, keeping things running smoothly behind the scenes while lining up cool new remote broadcasts.

From The Empty Glass and Jason “Roadblock” Robinson comes a new show, “Six Degrees of Separation,” that will feature Roadblock and Tim Dorsey conducting an in-depth two-hour interview with a local artist. This program debuts Monday evening at 9 PM with Travis Stephens of The Kenneth Brian Band. Empty Glass Records Presents will return at 8 PM Tuesday, bringing you great music recorded at Charleston’s legendary music venue, and Sunday nights will be filled with a ive broadcast from The Empty Glass.

And now we get to what I am arrogantly referring to as “The Radio Free Charleston Suite of Programs.” In addition to the returning Radio Free Charleston, your PopCulteer will be producing three new shows. The General Substances contributions to AIRadio will be:

Radio Free Charleston–RFC volume 4 will be very much like volume 3, only we are making a few changes. Our theme hours in the second hour will not be in every episode. Recent changes in the rules and regulations of internet radio licenses means that we can no longer feature a single artist for an entire hour, so when we do a theme hour, it will topical, and not devoted to a single musical entity. For this same reason, this new version of Radio Free Charleston will not be archived. You’ll have to listen to it live, Tuesdays at 10 AM and 10 PM, with a late-night Saturday replay at 2 AM. We will post the playlist here in PopCult every week so you can play along at home. The show will continue to focus on local and regional music.

On The Road With Mel–Mrs. PopCulteer, Mel Larch, hosts a weekly program filled with travel tips, ideas for new places to visit and tons and tons of information on how to best plan a trip for maximum enjoyment. The idea for this show sprang from the fact that Mel is such a fantastic trip planner that people keep asking her for advice. We decided that a fun way to combine her meticulous planning and her love of travel with her willingness to share her experiences was to do a radio show. You can go On The Road With Mel Wednesdays at 1 PM, with a replay the same time on Saturdays.

Word Association with Lee and Rudy–If you heard the final episode of The ShockaCon Horror Show Podcast, then you heard the seed that bloomed into this program. Lee Harrah, of course, is one of the top singers in town, a pop culture expert and a boisterous personality in addition to being one of my best friends. I am also a pop culture expert and together the two of us are capable of jabbering incessantly about almost any topic for a half-hour or so. Plus we have a lot of fun doing it. We had so much fun doing our “hard sell” on The ShockaCon Horror Show that we decided to try a weekly program.

Our gimmick is the third member of our cast, Luigi. Luigi is a kitchen timer shaped like an Italian chef. You may hear him ticking in the background. Right before the beginning of each show we set Luigi, and when we get to the end of our allotted time, he goes off and the show’s over. Our other gimmick is that Lee never knows in advance what our topic will be. Sometimes I don’t pick it until I’m setting Luigi. It’s a fun, fast-paced half our where we talk about anything from toys to television, music, movies,comic books, unexplained phenomena, and anything else that may come up. You can hear Word Association with Lee and Rudy starting next Friday at 8 PM, with a replay Sunday night at 9 PM.

Radio Free Charleston International–Since we now have the freedom to play music from anywhere in the world, that is exactly what I’m going to do. RFC International will be two hours of me playing my favorite music ever. If you think that means that you’re going to hear The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Kate Bush, DEVO and YES, well…you’re right. I’m also going to play my favorite obscure music and stuff by cult bands that you may have never heard. Basically, this show will be what the original Radio Free Charleston was way back in 1989, a peek into my record collection.

This is another show that will not be archived, so you’ll have to tune in Thursdays at midnight or late Saturday nights at 4 AM to hear me go nuts playing deep cuts, B-sides, extended mixes and side-long progressive epics. My musical tastes run the gamut from Beatlesque pop to punk to progressive rock to electronica to swing to ska and beyond. You won’t know what to expect (unless you read the playlist, which will be posted here in PopCult Thursday evenings) but you can be sure that you’ll get some of the wildest musical segues you’ll ever hear. I’m the guy that played Frank Sinatra back-to-back with The Sex Pistols, and made it work.

You can listen in on the test feed now at OntheAIRadio.com, and get ready for an explosion of coolness starting Monday.

That’s it for The PopCulteer this week. Stuff To Do will return next week and all of our regular features will be here over the weekend.