Radio Free Charleston’s seventy-fourth episode, “RFC Trax shirt” is online now! This show features music from Morgantown’s own, J Marinelli and Slate Dump, plus special announcements from Mad Man Pondo and Tofujitsu, as well as a Plant Ro Duction Mini Movie.

We also continue the First Great Guitar Giveaway with Route 60 Music, which will kick off just as soon as we iron out the last technical bugs. As soon as we get the contest page working, the contest will run for one full month. Keep checking PopCult for updates. We’re working on it as fast as we can. Thanks for your patience. This is our first contest, and we’re learning as we go.

Host segments and our end credit bed were shot last Saturday in Davis Park, during the “Art On A Stick” sale and open stage. You’ll hear RFC’s old buddy, Jerry Fugate, singing and playing Mandolin as we show you some of the sights of the day.

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Today we flash back to September 2007 with our “Back To School” episode. In this show, our host is knocked out and replaced by the then-twelve-years-old Cadence Young, who presents a short film by Audrey and Mia Beckner, music from Whistlepunk and Sean Richardson, and “Digitally Assaulted Charleston No. 1,” an animated short by Rudy Panucci. People have told me that the video for Sean’s “World Gone Mad,” which was a single shot with no edits or audio sweetening, recorded in the lobby at LiveMix Studios in one take, is one of the most compelling performances we’ve had on the show.

Musically, this show captures a moment in the evolution of two beloved Charleston bands. Whistlepunk, having added Karen Allen, is shown as a four-piece band. Soon after this show, Sean Richardson, our other musical guest, joined the band. Since this time, Sean and Karen have split off to form Tofujitsu, while Whistlepunk is back to their three-piece format. Both bands are going strong, and played a pre-Valentine’s show together at LiveMix Studios (from where this show originates), along with Audrey and Mia’s dad, Stephen Beckner. You’ve seen performances from that night on recent episodes of RFC.

Tofujitsu is planning a CD release show at Capitol Roasters on July 11. One week later they’ll be at The Empty Glass with Columbus’s Melty Melty and Scott Depot’s The Universes. You can read the original production notes here.

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Today’s late upload of our classic Radio Free Charleston is “Flaming Skull Shirt,” our twenty-fifth episode, and an example of kismet. Next week our seventy-fifth episode hits. That’s also our third anniversary. This show is being re-posted during FestivAll, and the end crredits feature Melanie Larch’s footage from FestivAll 2007. Plus the music played over the end credits is the song “The Trax” by Thre Bodies, which co-incidentally was the inspiration for the design on the shirt I’m wearing in RFC 74, which was just posted earlier today.

The music in this one is a LiveMix performance by Joe Slack, and a vintage Danny-Boyd-directed video by The amazing Delores. You’ll also get to see the movie trailer for “Brokeback Coalmine” and our animation, which is a preview of Frank Panucci’s “Repurkussionz.” Original production notes are here.

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Our twenty-fourth episode, from August 2007, saw me going hatless, much to the distress of passers-by. Our music was from two cool young bands, InFormation and Seven Minutes Til Midnight. Since this episode originally aired, Seven Minutes Til Midnight have split up, with their bass player, Roy, winding up in InFormation. Plans are afoot to bring InFormation back to RFC, along with new projects from the other members of SMTM.

We also feature the heavily-bleeped classic, “Cooking With The Atrocity,” and more cool animation from Frank. Original production notes can be found here.

“Oh God. Is he still doing those?”

Click the image to enlarge.

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Radio Free Charleston’s 23rd episode was a major departure. Delayed more than a month from its intended debut due to the death of my aunt, this episode featured the reunion of The Feast Of Stephen, who hadn’t played together in 14 years when we managed to corral them all in the studio on May 12, 2007. It was a magic night as Bob Miller, Joey Fabulous, John Radcliff, Dan Jordan, Tommy Medvick and Fred Tyler came together to play music for the sheer joy of it. The energy at LiveMix Studio that night was amazing, and I still rank this show among my best work. This was a four-camera shoot, with Jerry Fugate joining me on handheld, in addition to our two stationary cameras. Melanie was busy with tech week for the WVSO production of “Carmen.”

There is one fact about that night about which I am a bit ashamed. I still have five or six songs that the band recorded that night. It’s been more than two years, and I haven’t had time to mix the audio or edit the video for them. The good news is that there will be a sequel…someday.

You can read the original July 2007 production notes here.

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Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen (billed then as “Aurora”), plus Voices of Anatole are the musical guests for Radio Free Charleston’s 22nd episode, “Shark Boy Shirt,’ which also includes Frank Panucci’s animated short, “No Running,” and The No Pants Players eating a Watermelon. This was supposed to be the second of four weekly shows, back in June, 2007, but that run was interrupted by a death in the family, and it was over a month before episode 23 hit.

This early in the run, going weekly for a month was a big deal. Since this time, we’ve become old pros, and have done 8-episode runs without a break a couple of times. You can read the original production notes here.

Also of note: from here on in, the archive shows should appear exactly as they were when originally posted.

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Radio Free Charleston’s 21st episode, “Yellow Submarine Shirt,” was hosted from Kanawha Boulevard at 2:30 AM a little more than two years ago. This show featured returning musical guests Under The Radar and The Ghosts Of Now, plus vintage beer animation and a cool film by Sean Richardson and Alon Kutchinsky. You can read the original production notes here, and remember to check back for another classic episode of RFC every day in June, right here in PopCult. And don’t miss our latest new show, which you can read about here.

The PopCulteer
June 19, 2009

Unmitigated Gall

Okay, I know I’m probably the last person in the blogosphere to chime in on this, but here’s my take on the whole Sarah Palin/David Letterman dust-up. Palin over-reacted, exaggerated, blew the entire situation out of proportion, and then milked it for more publicity than it deserved. In the process, she put on display the one key flaw of the current modus operandi of the purveyors of Right-Wing Politics.

She firmly believes that two wrongs make a right.

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The nineteenth episode of Radio Free Charleston, “Ian Rotten Shirt,” from May 2007, with music from Go Van Gogh and The Ghosts Of Now, plus new animation replacing Pentagram Flowerbox, and a further excision of something even less pleasant, is today’s classic RFC. Read the production notes here. Look for episode 20 in tomorrow’s PopCulteer column, and be sure to watch this week’s NEW episode, because it’s just so damned good!