It’s finally here…..the fiftieth episode of RADIO FREE CHARLESTON! We pulled out all the stops for this one. Our musical guests are The Late, Great Master of the Hunch, Hasil Adkins (courtesy of the award-winning documentary “My Blue Star“) and The Concept, who debut their new guitarist, Brian Flowers, on this show.

We also have a wild short film from Scott Elkins, starring RFC’s official Barista Chelsea Cook. Frank Panucci brings us a sneak peek at some test footage from his long-gestating feature film, “Repurkussionz.” And we have some cameo appearances by the star of “Repurkussionz,” Mad Man Pondo, along with Survivor’s Jonny Fairply and Unknown Hinson.

Kevin Pauley from IWA East Coast, The No Pants Players and The American Heart Association takes umbrage at one of our end-credit gags from episode 59. Wrapping it all up, RFC Big Shot and Resident Diva Melanie Larch is shown singing the National Anthem at Appalachian Power Park over the end credits.

What can I say about Hasil Adkins that hasn’t already been said? The man was a legend, a Boone County behemoth, a one-man-rockabilly machine. I was lucky enough to meet him a few times, and he paid me an amazing compliment, “Rudy, you’re ’bout the only Radio fella I never wanted to pull a gun on!” When I got the chance to showcase the Haze on RFC, I knew I had to save him for a special episode.

Ron Smith is putting together an incredible documentary, “My Blue Star: The Life and Hunchin’ Good Times of Hasil Adkins.” You can check out the myspace page for the documentary and don’t be surprised if it shows up at a festival here in Charleston. I’m on the case!

When I knew that I had Hasil Adkins for RFC 50, I knew that I had to get someone cooler than me to introduce him. Unkonwn Hinson is cooler than me by a factor of 50 or 100, so it was great that he agreed to do the honors. I’m hoping we can get Unknown himself as a musical guest on a future show. {EDIT from the future: We had no idea that Stuart was going to go off the rails like he did, but suffice to say, while we aren’t editing him out of our old shows, Unknown Hinson will never appear on RFC or in PopCult again}

Scott Elkins is a local filmmaker who brings us “The Trashy Adventures Of Kitty Killton.” I hope this is just the first of many contributions from Scott, who’s working in the early John Waters/David Lynch style of mind-hurting weirdness.

Kitty is played by Chelsea Cook, who has been the official Barista of Radio Free Charleston since last year. You’ve also seen her on the show a couple of times introducing animation and at some point we hope to coax a song or two out of her.

Scott is working on a longer-form Kitty movie, “Kill Kitty” that I’ll be telling you about in the future here in PopCult.

The Concept, in addition to being my adopted nephews, are the hottest punk band in Charleston. Just last Friday (August 15) they got 33% punkier with the addition of new guitarist Brian Flowers. The RFC cameras were on hand at The Empty Glass and we captured the band doing their new song “Ye To The Tenth Degree.” Watch closely and you can see how Brian rocks so hard that he nearly puts an eye out.

We previously featured The Concept on episodes seven and 13 of RFC (coming soon to the RFC TV Archive) and we will have them back on the show again in the future. It was a real treat having one of our most popular bands come back for episode 50.

Our animation this time is a series of test shots from my brother Frank’s feature-film, “Repurkussionz.” These shots are an attempt to produce the movie with more of a 2D cartoon feel instead of the 3D ultra-realistic look that Frank had been planning. The 3D version has been taking a very long time to complete. Frank’s still not sure if he’s going to go the 2D route but I thought it looked rather nifty seeing Mad Man Pondo and Desiree Ferrari in cartoon form.

This being our fiftieth show, I wanted to include some cool cameo appearances. Jonny Fairplay, of Survivor fame, was in town, and I was able to get him to do a quick bit on tape. He tried to weasel out of it by saying that his grandmother had died, but I wasn’t buying it.

Mad Man Pondo also graced us with a tender message. We snagged him outside of The Empty Glass following a performance by Brain Trauma (coming soon to RFC, btw). At some point Pondo’s “Celebrity Run In” will become a regular part of the show, just as soon as we get our schedules together.

Kevin Pauley from IWA East Coast and The No Pants Players stopped by to congratulate us on episode 50 and he also decided to respond to the “Marshall Sucks” joke that somehow wound up in the credits for episode 49.

Finally, we have Melanie Larch, who serenaded us with “Ave Maria” way back in episode 11. Mel sang the National Anthem before a Power Game a few weeks back, and now you get to hear it. That was the night I got the awful meal at the Power Alley Grill!

That’s it for the fiftieth episode of Radio Free Charleston. We’ll be back in two weeks with the first of our second fifty episodes.