I was lucky enough to get to attend an exclusive musical debut last Friday. Chuck Biel’s new band, Doctor Curmudgeon, featuring Vince Biel, Zack Shawkins and Chuck Bielski, invited a small group of Charleston’s enlightened musical afficianados to listen in on their latest musical experiement.You can see some of this concentrated musical energy in the video clip at the top of this post.
It was a stunning debut. Doctor Curmudgeon unleashed a progressive metal onslaught complete with complex baselines, insane time signatures and guitar solos that could probably be classified as controlled substances.
Even though the room was kept dark to preserve the cutting edge atmosphere, I whipped out the handy Zi8 and recorded most of the show. From that, comes the above clip, for the tune, “My Demon Math Metal Tune Just Ate Your Artsy-Folksy Americana Song…Sorry” The video is very dark. You can’t really see the pole-mounted power drill that Chuck uses on his guitar during the solos.
The music was so fantastic that I just had to share it ASAP. In the future, we will have the band on Radio Free Charleston in all their fully-lit glory. In next friday’s PopCulteer I’ll have a more detailed review of last Friday’s show, with more video. In the meantime, check their website for more samples of this awesome music1
This week’s PopCulteer is a rant. It’s not a calm opinion piece, or a well-researched hard news story. This is, hopefully, a semi-articulate hissy fit.
Parking in downtown Charleston sucks. There is no better way to say it.
There aren’t enough handy places to park. The parking meters are stingy with their time. The Meter Maids are overly agressive. It’s almost like the city doesn’t want to be bothered with us puny humans.
There is so much cool stuff downtown, but it’s becoming more and more of a hassle to get to it. I don’t know how Charleston expects to attract new businesses when established businesses are seeing their customers driven away by a lack of decent parking. Read the rest of this entry »
We kick off this week with a digital painting that revisits FestivAll, from last June. Specifically, this is a shot of the crowd dancing to The VooDoo Katz at the Live On The Levee show where we recorded the band for Radio Free Charleston.I decided to go a little Fauvist on the image.
You can see the band’s performance on RFC 104, and keep reading PopCult for news of their next live shows. Click the image to see it larger.
An entire generation has grown up with the internet as a major presence in their lives. That means that the time is ripe for INTERNET NOSTALGIA! Below you will find a series of video clips of such classic internet fads as The Numa Numa Guy, Salad Fingers, The Hampster Dance, Banana Phone, Diet Coke and Mentos, Xiao Xiao, Domo, The Star Wars Kid, Dramatic Chipmunk and kicking it off, The Creepy Dancing Baby animation….
Five years ago, the very first post went up in PopCult. The first couple of
weeks were just test messages, little goofy posts, but in early September, The Gazz Online officially announced PopCult, and we’ve been here ever since. I think we may be the longest-running blog here at The Charleston Gazette.
There have been a lot of cool things that have happened to this blog over the last five years, and today we’re going to get all introspective and look back, and update, some of the mre notorious stories from the last half-decade. We’ll look at some controversies, some triumphs, some weirdness, and the occasional trainwreck.
The last five years have seen some cool regular features pop up here in PopCult, like the return of Radio Free Charleston, Sunday Evening Videos, Monday Morning Art and The PopCulteer.
After the jump, you’ll get to see the highlights of this still-unterminated experimental foray into the internets courtesy of The Charleston Gazette and your PopCulteer, Rudy Panucci. Read the rest of this entry »
At the head of this post you see the latest episode of Radio Free Charleston. This is our third “show without words,” where we showcase instrumental music and films and animation without dialogue.
Our music this time comes from David Synn and D.T. Stephenson, who coincidentally teamed up to form the band after they agreed to became part of this show. You can look for thier new join project, Frequency Down, playing at local venues soon, and on RFC in the future. We also have RFC faves, Blue Million, ripping through an instrumental blues jam during a sound check at Bruno’s last May.
Our animation comes courtesy of Frank Panucci and we also feature the oldest surviving Plant Ro Duction Mini Movie. We also get a quick, photographic tour of LiveMix Studio, our longtime production partner.
Host segments are presented in the style of a comic book. This way I was able to not speak on this episode. This little experiment in graphics worked pretty well, except for one intro where the lettering might have been too small. We’ll correct that below.
Today’s bit of artwork is a digitally-assaulted photograph of my RFC 100 co-host, and imaginary daughter, Chelsea Cook. If you’ve been reading regularly, you may remember that I’ve posted some of my artistic takes on Chelsea before here in PopCult. We’re currently at work on a special project for the RFC Halloween show.
This piece is based on a photo swiped from Chelsea’s Facebook page, and it was basically just me messing around with an image and some filters while I was waiting on a phone call. It’s a digital doodle, I guess. The final product came out looking cool enough for me to use here. Click it to see a larger version.
The Empty Glass is the cornerstone of Charleston’s music scene. Beloved by all (except for the occasional pyromaniacal internet crank), The Glass has been the site of many an amazing musical experience. The video you see at the head of this post is a collection of clips from Radio Free Charleston that were recorded at The Empty Glass.
Below, you will find a widget for the Kickstarter page to help fund Empty Glass Records, a new record label which will capture some of these one-of-a-kind live performances and make them available for music lovers everywhere. The Glass is trying to raise enough cash to purchase some additional equipment that will allow them to upgrade the recording capabilities of the bar.
In the past, The Empty Glass has been the location for recordings by Unknown Hinson, Big Jack Johnson, Zach Deputy and more. There are several cool incentives for donating, including free CDs, VIP cards and recording sessions. This is not charity–you get a pretty good bang for your buck, if you love live music or frequent the Empty Glass.
After the jump, we have more videos from the Glass, including an entire episode of Radio Free Charleston devoted to the old days of The Empty Glass.
The Nanker Phelge, who made their big debut on Radio Free Charleston 100 back in May, have been briinging their melodious and harmonious powerful pop to The Empty Glass every Wednesday in August. You have one more chance to catch Stephen and Mark Beckner, Casi Null and Dave Roberts, next Wednesday night, around 10:30 PM. At the right, you Stephen Beckner taking the photo you see below, and after the jump, you’ll see even more photos of the band, and of the Beckner Brother’s former Go Van Gogh cohort Johnny Rock, who joined the PopCulteer for last Wednesday’s show. In addition, you’ll get to see video of the band from last Wednesday and then check out our big monthly ArtWalk photo essay and a message about Zombie Babies.
"Old Lions" Johnny Rock, Mark Beckner and your PopCulteer, photo by Stephen Beckner
Today’s art is a digital painting over a heavily-manipulated photo of a nude model. I used basic oil painting techniques to take a mirrored and squashed image, and transform it into something different. It’s an exercise in surrealism.
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