Three Bodies at The Empty Glass in 1990

Three Bodies at The Empty Glass in 1990

It’s hard to believe it, but The RFC MINI SHOW, our humble little spin-off designed to fill the weeks between full-length episodes of Radio Free Charleston, has reached its fiftieth episode!

Originally the plan was to end The MINI SHOW with episode fifty, but as time progressed, it became apparent that there was simply too much great music in Charleston to simply let this show go away. I don’t think I ever officially mentioned this, but on The RFC MINI SHOW we don’t repeat any of the musical artists. We might have musicians on solo and later as part of a group, but each episode of the show features an act that hasn’t been on yet. We’ve got a long list of folks that haven’t turned up on The RFC MINI SHOW yet, so expect us to stick around for the long term.

To observe our little milestone we decided to mine the rich RFC Archives and bring you footage shot at The Empty Glass twenty-five years ago. Thre Bodies was one of the top bands of the first RFC era, and we captured them doing a soundcheck at The Glass in the fall of 1990. They perform the songs “Gardens of Hope” and “Shingles and Tar,” which they later recorded at SoundTracs studio in South Charleston with the production team of Spencer Elliott and Rudy Panucci. Here you get to hear the songs in their raw form.

Back in the day, The Empty Glass was laid out in quite a different manner than it is now. The stage was in the front of the bar where the soundboard is now. The kitchen was behind a wall where the stage is now. It’s pretty weird watching this footage if you’re familiar with The Empty Glass as it is now.

Anyway, we hope you enjoy this look back at the Charleston Music Scene, as Radio Free Charleston continues to look forward, too.