Friday at 3 PM on The AIR we present the first new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat in over three months. Sydney Fileen has been chomping at the bit to get back to music (and away from Brexit, Royal Family Shenanigans, various Elections and crises and all the other messes in the UK). The Haversham Recording Institute folks have been swamped for a prolonged period with paying work, and from what they tell me, they welcome the breather that comes with being quarantined.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

On Friday’s new Big Electric Cat, Sydney Fileen wanted to burst back onto The AIR with a show that had no theme or heavy message, and just spent two hours basking in the glory of New Wave Music.

Or so I was told. Ms. Fileen is known to have a bit of a wicked sense of humor, and while she barely acknowledges the Coronavirus outbreak during the show, if you study the playlist below, you might detect some kind of underlying message…

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The Specials “Ghost Town”
Echo and the Bunnymen “The Disease”
Depeche Mode “Shake The Disease”
Platinum Blonde “Video Disease”
Siouxsie and the Banshees “Sick Child”
The Ramones “You Sound Like You’re Sick”
The Users “Sick of You”
UK Subs “Virus”
Killing Joke “I Am The Virus”
The Thompson Twins “Doctor, Doctor”
DEVO “Swelling Itching Brain”
Robert Williams and Hugh Cornwell “Rhythmic Itch”
The The “Infected”
The Misfits “Cough Cool”
Oingo Boingo “Private Life”
The Clash “Inoculated City”
Little Nell “Fever”
Models “Cold Fever”
Split Enz “Log Cabin Fever”
Moon Martin “Five Days of Fever”
Motorhead “White Line Fever”
Spizz Energi “Jungle Fever”
Parade Ground “When The Fever Stops”
Ultravox “I Remember (Death In The Afternoon)”
The Stranglers “Death and Night and Blood”
Strange Boutique “A Happy Death”
Joy Division “Transmission”
Kate Bush “Breathing”
The Fall “Mr. Pharmacist”
Klark Kent “Strange Things Happen”

Maybe I’m just imagining it, but it seems to me that Sydney might have had a little dark fun compiling the music for this week’s program. Just to be on the safe side, I’m pre-empting the scheduled classic episode of Big Electric Cat that follows her show at 5 PM, and replacing it with her two-hour salute to The Cure.

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.  You can also hear select episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat as part of the overnight Haversham Recording Institute marathon that starts every Monday at 11 PM.

Look for a new PopCulteer later this afternoon.