Month: December 2007 (Page 3 of 3)

Getting us over the hump in RFC Video Week is one of the most popular tunes we’ve had on Radio Free Charleston, Whistlepunk with “Satellite.” 

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Whistlepunk has been on Radio Free Charleston five times, with three slightly different line-ups.  Continue reading

A few weeks ago I wrote about the stunning revelation that Bridget Lancaster (then Sapp, seen right, on the set of her new cooking show), the second jingle singer for Radio Free Charleston, and one of my running buddies back in the day, had gone on to become a major television celebrity on “America’s Test Kitchen” on PBS.  Well, it just so happens that the same week that Brian Young and Kris Cormandy called in from Key West was the first week that I used jingles and comedy bits that Bridget and I had recorded for the show.

We called these “liners” but they were essentially just short bursts of absurdity designed to amuse and confuse the casual listener who may have tuned into RFC in the middle of the night in some sort of inebriated state. The more twisted, the better.  As you’ll hear, I also had a habit of using these liners to return fire to a few rival DJ’s in town who made the mistake of bad-mouthing me. I got away with murder on that show.

On the night that Bridget came in to record the new jingles for the show, we took the opportunity to clown around in the studio a bit, and came up with about an hour’s worth of material that I later whittled down into bit-sized pieces, much the way they take a majestic Redwood tree and turn it into toothpicks.  You’ll hear Bridget and me doing our old Jewish couple routine and a bit of our “Hey Doll” shtick that we used to do to annoy people at the Charleston Playhouse.  You’ll also get to hear Bridget speak the words that she always wanted to while working in retail.

Bridget isn’t just content co-hosting America’s Test Kitchen, editing several related magazines, and being the best cooking writer in the world, no, let’s go to the press release to see what’s next from my old compatriot:

“America’s Test Kitchen is the most-watched cooking show on public television, attracting 3 million viewers per week. The 8th season of America’s Test Kitchen starts in January 2008. The same folks behind America’s Test Kitchen are also cooking up a brand-new show, America’s Test Kitchen: Cook’s Country, which is filmed in a Vermont farmhouse and relies on the practical, no-nonsense food that has made Cook’s Country magazine so successful. The show features 13 episodes that were taped in Vermont from September 21 to October 5, 2007. It will air on public television stations beginning in July 2008. America’s Test Kitchen: Cook’s Country is hosted by Christopher Kimball, Bridget Lancaster, and Julia Collin-Davison. There are new testing segments with Adam Ried and a live audience tasting in each tasting segment led by Jack Bishop. Each episode gets the test kitchen detail — taking recipes from disaster to foolproof — that viewers rely on and expect from America’s Test Kitchen.”

Wow, and I knew her back when she was happy just to say “hell” on the air. We had a lot of fun on the old show.

You’ll hear much more on that on Thursday, when I bring you big chunks of our visit with some of The Swivels.  Tomorrow you’ll get to hear the gloriously inept drumming of your humble blogger, as the tapes were rolling the very first time I ever sat behind a drum kit.

All of this contrived nostalgia is somehow supposed to convince you all to come out and go nuts over the big Radio Free Charleston retrospective this Saturday at the La Belle Theater.  Look, there’s even a photo up there of me on the night of the first radio broadcast of RFC, back when I had hair. Scroll around this blog for details on our big night.

Another loverly clip that you can see on THE BIG SCREEN this Saturday night at the La Belle is “Guitar Pick In My Kool Aid” by The Concept, Mike Withrow, Dave Cantrell, and Ross Anderson. 

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One of the area’s hottest punk bands, The Concept put on a hugely fun show and if you get a chance, you ought to go see them. You can see them at Desoto’s in Beckley Thursday night, and if for some reason you find yourself in Huntington and unable to catch the RFC retrospective at the La Belle this Saturday, you can go hear The Concept at Marley’s Doghouse, where you can request that they not only play the songs they performed on Radio Free Charleston, but the songs that every other band played on the show as well.  They won’t play them, but you can request them.  Continue reading

We’re going back to March 1990 this week for a series of interlinked audio clips from the original Radio Free Charleston radio show. Once you get the chance to hear all of them, they’ll make perfect sense, really. This exercise in nostalgia is designed to provoke my readers to come out in huge numbers for our big night at the La Belle Theater this Saturday, Dec. 1. I’m still not clear on how posting clips from the old radio version of the show will convince people to come out to a retrospective of stuff from the video version, but it’s been a blast sifting through these old tapes, so I’m not complaining.

Three Bodies (above right) was one of the most popular Charleston-area bands during the original Radio Free Charleston era of 1989-90. Kris Comandy, Brian Lucas and current RFC Big Shot Brian Young made up this dynamic trio who had a sound not unlike that of Nirvana, who made it huge a couple of years later. During Spring Break 1990, Comandy and Young made the trek to Key West, Florida, which that set into motion a series of events that culminated in the clips I’m bringing you here in PopCult today.

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Each day this week we’re going to bring you a preview of Saturday night’s big Radio Free Charleston retrospective. Today, it’s RFC Big Shot Melanie Larch, with “Ave Maria” from last year’s Christmas episode.

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This video was shot one year and one day ago on the fifth-floor fire escape outside LiveMix Studio.  That’s the Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral that you see in the background.  Melanie performed Schubert’s “Ave Maria” acapella.  The top-secret identity of the person who arranged this version of the classic will be revealed Saturday night in the end credits of our “Best of” compilation.  Continue reading

Our art this week is the flyer for RADIO FREE CHARLESTON NIGHT AT THE LA BELLE THEATER!  All week long in PopCult we’re going to celebrate and hype out the wazoo our big-screen retrospective that you can see Saturday Night, December 8, at the Historic La Belle Theater, located at 311 D Street, South Charleston.   Every day this week you can expect a video clip preview of the big night, and we’ll also be delving deep back into the archives to bring you vintage audio clips from a memorable edition of the radio incarnation of RFC.   Kicking off this week of intensive navel-gazing, we bring you AN ADVERTISEMENT, pretending to be art. 

 As always, you can click the image to see a larger version.  And, even though it’s only a flyer for Saturday’s big RFC night,  you can also buy this image in the newly revamped Monday Morning Art Store.  Rather than just offer this image, there are still a few of our more popular images from the last year available at the store, for your holiday consideration.  You still have a chance to be one of the first five customers!  You can also follow these links to see my efforts in the PopCult store and the Radio Free Charleston store.