The PopCulteer
September 13, 2019

It occurs to me that I have been a bit lazy when it comes to self-promotion and the inter-linkings of PopCult, The AIR and Radio Free Charleston and all the various social media pages thereof.

I know that the RSS feed here at The Gazette-Mail can be beyond a little wonky, and that can make it hard for those of you who wish, for some reason, to linger upon my every word to get notifications of all the various and sundry PopCult posts.

So this week we’re going to give you links so you can find the various PopCult-related social media links that might help you keep up with the goings-on in this here blog.

First of all, as you probably already know, I’m Rudy Panucci, your faithful PopCulteer who brings you random news, reviews, essays, art, video, pictures and other crap that has to do with the loosely-defined catagory of stuff known as “Pop Culture.”

You are welcome to send me a friend request on Facebook. Understand that Facebook is my personal page, and in addition to links to every PopCult post, you will also be subjected to posts where I complain about telemarketers, tell tales of how loud my neighborhood can be when I’m trying to record voice-overs (seriously, last week I started to record The Swing Shift and an Osprey flew over my house and hovered for about fifteen minutes), the occasional post about the news or politics, and fart jokes.

Also, please note that I will look at your page before I accept your request, and if it’s nothing but political memes…well, life’s too short for me to put up with that.

If you prefer your PopCult news in short, Twitter-sized bites, I also maintain a Twitter account as Rudy Panucci. You can follow me and find links to every PopCult post that I remember to Tweet. Of late, that’s been all of them.

Lately I have dipped my toe into the world of Instagram. I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but at some point I’ll probably start posting old Monday Morning Art pieces from the last fourteen years, so if you dig that kind of stuff, follow me on Instagram.  I also post links to all the PopCult posts here.

You can also head over to the brand-new PopCult Facebook page, where you won’t find a blasted thing for another week or so. They just asked me if I wanted the page, so I figured I’d better snap it up before somebody else did. I’ll put it in the social media rotation as soon as I have the time to finish setting up the page.

We also have Facebook pages for Radio Free Charleston, as well as The AIR, our sister internet radio station (recently dubbed “THE cool radio station in Charleston” by Ann Magnuson).

You can also find Facebook pages for some of the specific shows on The AIR, like Radio Free Charleston International, Word Association, and On The Road with Mel.

We also have a special NEW LINK for you. That is the web address for ThePopCultBlog.  Currently, it will bring you right back here. It’s sort of our backup plan. See, PopCult has been hosted by The Charleston Gazette and later the Gazette-Mail since day one. We have a great relationship. They sort of leave me alone, and I try not to make waves. It works, and PopCult has thousands of readers most days who seem to like it.

But, in the event that The Gazette-Mail has to cut us loose (things are tough in the newspaper industry these days) we have a plan that will allow us to take our archives and move to a new server, with the new URL that is linked above.

That’s not going to happen any time soon that I know of. Things at the moment of the doryest of hunky, but as your PopCulteer has learned repeatedly in his life, it never hurts to have a “Plan B.”

Anyway, if you would be so kind as to follow PopCult, its author, or its favorite features on the social medium of your choice, it’ll make it easier to alert everyone of any such transition, should one occur sometime in the future. Plus it’ll make me feel less like I’m doing all this in a vacuum.

New New Wave On Sydney’s Big Electric Cat

Check out what’s on The AIR, as Friday sees a brand-new, post-milestone episode of  Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. Sydney Fileen presents two more hours of brand-new New Wave Music. You can listen at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

Friday at 3 PM you will get your second two-hour dose of crunchy New Wave goodness with a modern twist. This week Sydney picks up the theme that she started a couple of weeks ago on her 50th show for The AIR.  If you caught that episode you know that Sydney Fileen assembled two hours of music by the top New Wave artists, made in the 21st Century. Well, there was way more new music by classic New Wave artists, and this week Sydney presents a second helping, with two MORE hours of New Wave Music in the 21st Century.

Every tune you hear this week was released after the year 2000, just like in episode 50.. The playlist below lets you know which year each song was released. In the show Sydney breaks format a bit and tells you a little bit about each artist and how they’re still making vital and important music.

Just check out this epic playlist that Sydney has curated for you…

BEC 051

Elvis Costello and The Imposters “Mr. And Mrs. Hush” (2018)
Blondie “Love Level” (2017)
“Glen Matlock “I Couldn’t Give A Damn” (2018)
Garland Jeffires “Streetwise” (2011)
The Stranglers “Relentless” (2006)
Hugh Cornwell “Delightful Nightmare” (2008)
Hazel O’Connor “Good Morning Heartache” (2017)
Adam Ant “Punkyounggirl” (2013)
Suicidal Tendancies “Ain’t Messin’ Around” (2018)
The Damned “Daily Liar” (2018)
OMD “Metroland” (2013)
The Go Gos “Stuck In My Car (2001)
Paul Weller “Satellite Kid” (2017)
Killing Joke “New Jeruselem” (2015)
Dexys “I’m Always Going To Love You” (2012)
a-ha “Giving Up The Ghost” (2015)
Cyndi Lauper “Mother Earth” (2010)
The B 52s “Eyes Wide Open” (2008)
Bad Manners “Shape I’m In” (2013)
The English Beat with Dave Wakeling “Every Time You Told Me” (2018)
Annie Lennox “Mood Indigo” (2014″
Ultravox “Brilliant” (2012)

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat is produced at Haversham Recording Institute in London, and can be heard every Friday at 3 PM, with replays Saturday afternoon, Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM and Thursday at Noon, exclusively on The AIR. Every Wednesday at 1 AM, we bring you three classic episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, just so you can be all New Wave-y overnight.

Next week, because our friends at Haversham Recording Institute are buried under work providing support for international news agencies who are covering the collapse of the empire, we’ll bring you both two-part 50th episodes of Prognosis, on Monday, and Sydney’s Big Electric Cat, next Friday.

That is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for all our regular features, plus coverage of The Queen City Beautiful Doll Club show at EnterTrainment Junction, which happens this Saturday, in Cinncinnati.